ΤΟ THEIR EXCELLENCIES GENERAL GEORGE DON, Late Lieutenant Governor, and Commander in Chief, of the Island; AND LIEUTENANT GENERAL SIR TOMKYNS HILGROVE TURNER, The present Lieutenant Governor and Commander in Chief; THIS ACCOUNT OF THE ISLAND OF JERSEY IS, BY THEIR PERMISSION, RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, BY THE AUTHOR. Jersey, March, 1816. PREFACE. AT a time when regions, distantly situated, and unconnected with Great Britain, either by political or commercial affinity, are thought worthy of appearing in print, it seems natural to hope, that an island, in the vicinity of England, so long and so PECULIARLY attached to it as JERSEY, will be considered as entitled to still greater attention. JERSEY, though an ancient appendage to the English crown, has hitherto been comparatively but little known. Extensive in foreign commerce, its mercantile connexion with the mother country is confined to a few ports in Great Britain and Ireland. It is now become a considerable military depot, and its former defences have recently been greatly strengthened and increased. JERSEY, considered abstractedly, appears to be a very minute and uninteresting portion of the widely extended British empire; and were its importance to be estimated by this rule, a particular account of it would be a presumptuous claim to public notice: but if we turn our eyes from so contracted a medium, and view it with a proper reference to its locality, the small speck dilates,—and the apparently insignificant spot assumes an imposing attitude on the European theatre. This island might indeed demand respect, as part of a PECULIAR and venerable heir loom of the English crown; but even this UNIQUE and honourable claim to regard, is strengthened by the advantages acquired by Great Britain from its situation. It is a rampart,—an advanced post,-a frontier;-and, in these several relations, it has withstood various fierce assaults, and humbled the pride of many a celebrated warriour. Placed within the very jaws of a mighty, à frequent, an inveterate, and, sometimes, an insidious foe, it has constantly kept on the alert; has nobly resisted the force, and indignantly spurned the seductive promises, of a powerful neighbour, to whom possession of the islands in this quarter would prove an inestimable acquisition. : JERSEY is likewise highly valuable as a nursery for seamen its mariners are generally employed in voyages of no long duration, and are therefore always, as it were, at hand, ready on any emergency. It is considered in war time as a proper military depot; and it is then extremely useful in harrassing the opposite coast, when France happens to be the enemy with whom we contend. In a commercial light JERSEY is eminently useful, as a regular market for various articles of British manufac ture: these it is enabled to purchase for the consumption of its inhabitants, and for its foreign demands, not only by the produce of its soil, but also by its foreign commerce, the profits of which it pours into the lap of Britain. JERSEY, though in extent but a very small portion of the empire, yet is the only part of its European possessions or domains that has for ages maintained an intimate and almost daily intercourse with the neigh bouring continent in times of peace, and where a foreign language has always been, and still is, the vernacular tongue, being constantly employed in the pulpit, at the bar, and in all public documents:-it follows, necessarily, that the modes and habits of the natives, speaking generally, must, in several respects, differ from our own: they cannot therefore fail to excite inquiry; and it has been the author's study to have this natural and laudable spirit duly gratified. JERSEY exhibits, in its edifices for public worship, that style of Norman architecture, which prevailed from the commencement of the twelfth century to the middle of the fourteenth. Most of those structures, if not all of them, have received considerable additions, and undergone various alterations; yet the original form is still visible. Chapels, evidently anteriour to the present churches, still remain, as lasting monuments of simplicity in design, and solidity in construction. The intended object of publication was, to produce a series of original designs, drawn expressly for the proposed work, comprising picturesque and romantic prospects in Jersey, together with near views of several public buildings, both ancient and modern; all in highly finished engravings: and to render the plates still more interesting, they were to be accompanied with appropriate descriptions; and a copious introduction was also to be prefixed. Such was the intention;—but in the course of collecting materials for this purpose, they accumulated so much beyond the author's expectation, and he received so many valuable communications from different friends, that he was induced to extend his plan, * Manx is not properly a foreign but a local language; nor is it in so general use in the Isle of Man, as French is in Jersey. B |