Taken from HUNT'S YACHTING MAGAZINE – January 1859
PAGLESHAM!—Where is Paglesham ? Well, now, we had the same difficulty you have. After searching the Map of England from John O'Groat's House to the Land's End, Paglesham was nowhere visible. We turned the map upside down with no better result. A bright idea flashed across our brain. The postman shall find it out for us ! A letter shall be dispatched to the secretary—an answer most probably will be the result. The idea succeeded ! and the village of Paglesham was revealed in all its splendour! O ! happy country ! O ! happy yachtsman ! whose government sends to the most remote places, on this our globe, for your instruction and pleasure.
This quiet and unpretending place, where so many jolly noses and so many sparkling black eyes are found in the opposite sexes, is really and truly within three hours of the metropolis, and is situated on a branch of the Crouch, a pretty little river about ten miles to the back of South End, and which river was proposed to be turned into a common sewer, into which all the refuse of London was to be sent by the Eastern Counties line—no engineer with a proper love for his oysters, could have contemplated such a sacrifice, for at the mouth, or near it, of this stream lies the town of Burnham where these delicious bivalves most do congregate.
If you go in your yacht, you must take the first turning to the left, as they say in Piccadilly, after leaving Southend.—No! that is not a carriage way you must knock about near the Whittaker, a few miles further on, and to strive with all your energies to find the opening of the river. If there be continual fog, the probability is that you will find it after some weeks waiting, if fine weather, you will probably do so in a day or two, unless you run on a bank where you may lie till the next spiing tide. But if you get a pilot out of one of the oystermen—hey ! presto! You are in in a crack, and not a little amused at your previous apparent stupidity. A few miles brings you to Paglesham, which consists of one inn and two or three shops, and a few yachtsmen's houses, scattered here and there, embosomed in verdure. If you go by land, you place your body carefully in a Southend train, at which place having arrived, you find yourself surrounded by a host of broughams, and shandry dans.
Seeing the band from London about to proceed, no doubt, to the Regatta, consisting of three performers, all in gold bands and buttons, you intimate to them your desire to accompany them, to which they kindly consent, as it lessens their expenses. You then proceed and are overtaken by the most tremendous storm of lightning, thunder, and rain, that ever befel any water party before, and although you feel the dew drops stealing down your neck and into your boots from the cracked roof, still the band perpetrate so many capital jokes, and their tales are so comic, that you cannot help laughing till your eyes water also. After an hour's drive through a country which you think may be most beautiful if you could only see it, you arrive just as the sun is emerging from a mass of ink that would supply all the compositors in the world for the next twelve months. "Here is the correct card of the races, Sir; just agoing to begin "—and there sure enough, upon a stream, the width of the river at Woolwich, were the favorites anchored.
The Haidee, a new 8-tonner, built by Hatcher, was in a line with the Gem, of 9 tons, built by Harvey, and the Mayfly, of 5 tons. There is the Rosalind of 11 tons, and the Don Juan belonging to the Messrs. Frederick .and James Wiseman, besides other vessels belonging to the oyster dredging fraternity, all wholesome vessels of their classes respectively. The guns explode—away they go with a light air which gradually expands into a topsail breeze. One by one the Haidee creeps by the vessels ahead, and is never caught—winning by about twenty minutes in a three hours' match. The Gem seemed a likely boat, long, slim, and delicate, with a well-cut suit of sails, and having on board the conqueror of a hundred fights, Mr. Harvey, of Wivenhoe. She is passed in turning by the dredgers, by the Rosalind and the Don Juan, and only escaped being third by a smart breeze springing up, which makes her run to great advantage. It is a smart contest between the Don Juan and the Rosalind, and we are rather glad when the former wins the second prize, having been run down lately in the eyes of the Paglesham.
Oh! what delights for the body greeted the fainting yachtsman at the houses of the esteemed Wisemans and their friends in the neighbourhood: — the finest of hams, the most recherche tongues, the most delicious corn beef, and the most delicate fowls waited his expectant grasp ; while in the adjoining apartments sat the ladies of my love, " the cynosures of neighbouring eyes." And the tents of Paglesham ! redolent of polkas and pale ale, of schottishe and champagne, of bright lights and brandy pawny, of dances in numerable, 'till the sun again, envious of the bright charms of the houris within, dispelled the reluctant groups. How many cheeks were pressed, how many hands were squeezed on the return to the homesteads of Paglesham, memory fails to record to the intrusive vulgar.
