That the bad effects of the desertion of the Ouse and Nene from their ancient outfall at Wisbeach, soon became very grievous to that town and the adjacent country, appears by the frequent complaints made, and laws enacted for their relief. Some of those laws were made in the reign of Henry VI, and measures were taken, it seems, in consequence of them, for the relief and benefit of the sufferers. The most important and beneficial of all those measures appears to be that adopted toward the latter part of the 15th century under the direction of bishop _Morton_. {18} “That prelate finding (says Atkins) that beside its being a very chargeable course to his people of the hundred of Wisbeach, once in four or five years to dyke this river, and that notwithstanding this dyking of the river, the outfall below to the seaward nevertheless decayed; and finding that without a great head of fresh waters, to scour both the river and the outfall, all would be lost, took a part of _Hercules’ labour_ upon him, and strove to bring in great abundance of fresh waters, by divers courses, out of the Fens, to maintain this channel: viz. the rivers Nene and Welland from _Southea_, and the river of the great cross, or Plantwater, from the united branches of Nene and Ouse, descending by _Benwick_.” But the bishop’s principal undertaking seems to have been the cut of 14 miles, from Peterborough to Guyhorn, by which a large portion of the Nene was brought down to Wisbeach, and proved of up small benefit to that town and harbour, as well as to the drainage of the country. This cut has transmitted the bishop’s name deservedly and honourably to posterity; it being ever since known and distinguished under the denomination of _Morton’s Leam_. Happy had it been for the world, if all those of his order had deserved so well of their neighbours and of their country. {19}