The Surgeon's Apprentice - John Biggins

dismay among the assembled collier captains who all fell to
wailing and lamenting in a manner most pitiable to behold,
fairly rending their garments and pouring dust on their
heads after the manner of the ancient Jews. ey all swore
most vehemently and as one man that if San Lucar were to
be our aim, why then surely we were all undone, because it
was a most villainous haven and in no way convenient as an
anchorage for so great a eet; that it was shallow, and the
river mouth full of treacherous sand-bars which shifted
from day to day; and was likewise exposed to any gale of
wind from the south-west so that ships lying there would
have no shelter from the seas and with their anchors
dragging in the sandy bottom, would infallibly be cast
ashore and lost: that in short, if Viscount Wimbledon had
asked them to nominate the very worst haven that might be
found upon all the coasts of Europe, then they would have
been unanimous in choosing San Lucar; and if he
commanded them to anchor therein then he was no better
than a heathen Tartar and they would all surely be drowned
and their wives left widows and their children orphans. And
so on and so forth, so that you would have thought from
their wailing that San Lucar was the very mouth of hell or
that Sir Edward was commanding them to stick their heads
into a lion’s jaws.
When they had quietened somewhat Sir Edward
enquired how it was that they knew all this? And they told
him that they were well acquainted with that port because
the London sea-coal trade being slack in the summer
months, they had been accustomed each year between May
5