It was, in fact, the early silting up of this haven that led to the utter obliteration of the original old town dependent upon it. When the tide no longer flowed up to its ancient quays and wharves, their use, of course, vanished, and they eventually disappeared. In those long-departed days the Castle cliffs and a long reef of rocks extended a considerable distance out to sea, and formed the natural protection for this inlet; but in the course of centuries the sea made such inroads that the protection at last disappeared, and the shingle, in its easterly march, instead of being kept out in the Channel and on its course, found entrance, and steadily, and by no means slowly, cut off the haven from the outer waters. Thus was the chief port of the famous Cinque Ports finally ruined by the then irresistible forces of nature. Already, in 1205, it had suffered political ruin; for, as the chief port in the intercourse between England and Normandy, its trade became extinct on the severance of the Dukedom of Normandy and the Kingdom of England, in the reign of King John. Five years before even that event the port was far gone to decay, for it could furnish but six of the twenty-one ships that in its prime formed its contribution to the nation’s defence. Apparently the inhabitants of the Hastings that bordered this haven early realised its inevitable doom; and those of the neighbouring New Burgh—the Old Town of our time—did not shift for themselves, to form a harbour, until the reign of Queen Elizabeth. And even then they were reduced to “sending round the hat” for contributions and donations from more prosperous places. Pity the sorrows of a poor old port! They were led to this course by the destruction of their old wooden pier; but it was not until seventeen years had passed that sufficient funds had been accumulated and a beginning was made in the spring of 1595. Even so, fate dealt hardly with the place; for although the new pier was built “all of huge rocks, artificially pyled, edge-long, one close by another,” so that it was considered highly permanent, it needed only the first storm of the following winter to overthrow it. Something daunted by this mischance, but not beaten, the Hastings people built the pier anew, and of a different construction, with “tymbor braces and barres, crosse dogges, and suchlike up to the top: bowtyfull to behold,” and much else in that quaint way. Woe, woe! This much-admired work had not stood a year when, like the earlier, it was washed completely away. It happened on “All saints’ daie, 1597,” when “appeared the mighty force of God, who, with the finger of his hand, at one greate and exceeding high spring tyde, with a south-east wynd, overthrew this huge worke in lesse than an hower, to the greate terrour and abashment of all beholders.”