Wonders from the Deep, or a true and exact Account, and Discription of the Monstrous Whale, lately taken near Colchester, &.
WHen the Breath of Omnipotency gave by his Divine word a being to the universe as he beautified the Chambers of the Firmament, with glittering Stars, the Earth with Beasts, Herbs, and Flowers, so he also endued the Waters with a prolifick quallity, and Stocks the Sea with such a Strange Variety of its own preductions, that 'tis affirmed by some of the Learned, that the Land cannot boast any sort of Animal, but the Ocean can show somewhat Analogous or resemblant.
But amongst all the wonders of the Deep, that which most Summons our Admiration, Is the Whale, that floating Castle, or Natural ship, of so vast a Bulk as would make an Ignorant martinet mistake it for an Island; True it is these Princes of the Watry Realm, but I know not what kind of instinct, delight cheifly to keep their Court near the North-Pole, and rarely Wonder far from the Artick Circle; very seldome, scarce once in diverse Ages have one of them been known in our Seas, whence some superstitious People would make it a Prodigy, but since neighther Scripture nor Phylosophy, Reason nor Sense Countenance such a Conceit, I must (with their pardon) call all their pretended Experiences, Dotages of Melancholy, and abuses, Non causa Pro causâ, no more to be heeded than the Salts falling or a Hares Crossing out of the way, and the like reverend observations of my Grannum; but waving this, perhaps to some disrelishing discourse that our Brittish Channel has lately been honoured with one of these stranger guests, for on Thursday the 19. of this Instant April, between Tuese [...] and VVotton, two small places about four miles from each other in the County of Essex, and about a dozen or fourteen miles from Colchester, the winds having blown hard for several days before, A VVhale was brought in with the Tide, but being got into a kind of Narrow Creek when the Water fell, he could not get out again, but remained there upon the shallows, beating himself all that Ebb and till the next full Sea, but had before so weakned and disabled himself that he could not then neither get off, in this time being just on the shore he was seen by divers Country people with no small Admiration, having never before seen a Creature of so vast a Bulk, [Page 4] on the second day it was alive, being driven near a Rock or at least a stony Bank, the violence of its Agitation and striving in short time Kill'd it, and prevented the Tryumph, some Fishermen thereabout promised themselves, who immagined no less Glory by murthering of it, then St. George did by the destruction of the Dragon.
After it was dead the Tyde being out, the Dimensions of it were taken, and tis Certainly found to be in length two and forty foot, and in Bigness evry way answerable, with fastning Ropes to it, and with several Teems the Country-men hald it to shore, where it now remains the grand wonder and discourse of all those parts, People comming every day to see it in multitudes as if they were going to a Market or Fair.
Near twenty Years ago about the same place was discovered and taken an Extroardinary Fish, not only for its bigness but also its shape, which was so prodigious and unusual that none though never so much accustomed to the Seas, could tell its name or remember to have seen the like.
Those that would see a discription of this wonderful Creature called a Whale and its nature, may find it incomparably drawn by a Divine pencill in the one and fortieth Chapter of Job. under the Name of Leviathan, to which I refer the pious Reader and their with conclude with this Relation, of the truth whereof if any be dissatisfied, the Colchester Carriers at the Kings Arms in Leaden-Hall-street, and the Cross-Keys in Gracious street, can and will be ready fully to inform them.