finding the place deserted. (Stowe.) In 1380, ere the town could well have been rebuilt (only we must recollect that the majority of the houses were as easily run up, and as unsubstantial, as the quaint wooden storehouses of the fishermen on our beach,) Hastings was burnt again -- for the fourth time in 40 years. It is probable that the sea defences had been so irretrievably damaged, on the occasion of the first capture, that the townsmen had been unable effectually to renew them , and thus became an easy prey to the foe, whenever they chose to make an attack ; and the sea being once allowed to force its way through the breaches in the ramparts, would , in an inconceivably short time, complete their ruin : indeed, its power would be incredible to any one who has not actually witnessed its effects -- with which we on the coast are only too familiar[1].
On a stormy night, last January , the sea burst through a weak point in our parade wall, and in the morning the huge disjointed fragments of fifty feet of masonry lay scattered on the beach .
It was useless to rebuild the burnt town on a site which had become uninhabitable ; and the inhabitants compelled to quit the lower part of St. Michael's, and the neighbouring parishes, migrated into the " New Burg " of Domes day, hitherto a small suburb on the Bourne, but which thus became the nucleus of a new Hastings, endowed with all the privileges of the old one: just as New Romney succeeded Old Romney.
- ↑ On one occasion which some of our inhabitants well recollect, a great storm washed away the road communicating between Hastings and St. Leonards; when the carriage of our Queen , then Princess Victoria , was dragged by the enthusiastic townsmen over the White Rock.
