Note 48 — THEN AND NOW.

The duration of the Channel passage depended of course upon the wind. Prince Charles and Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, sailed at six in the morning and arrived at two in the afternoon. Sometimes the passage occupied twelve hours, sometimes twenty-four. A fresh favourable breeze made the journey a comparatively rapid one. There is a quaint entry touching this passage in Dr. Ed. Browne’s Journal (1663–4). “April 6. Betimes in the morning, wee set sayle for Calais in the packet boat; wee gave five shillings a piece for our passage and having a fair winde, wee got in four houres’ time, into Calais roade, from whence a shallop fetch’d us to shoare. At our entryng of the port wee pay’d threepence a piece for our heads; they searched my portmantle at the gate and the custom house, for which I was to pay 5 sols.”