In this document commentary a small passage from Daniel Defoe's 'A Tour Through England and Wales', which was written between 1724 and 1727 is examined. It is taken from 'Letter 1, Part 2: Harwich and Suffolk'. This passage is evaluated in the larger context of the work from which it comes, and in so doing it will also be necessary to comment on the genre and style of writing. Placing Defoe's work into its historical context is also undertaken by making historiographical comments and by examining the passage within the contexts of similar writings by other authors such as Camden, Hentzner & Young.
Defoe's 'A Tour Through England and Wales' comprises three volumes, with each volume consisting of a number of letters. Each letter generally covers Defoe's travel notes on a particular area; thus 'Letter 3, Part 3', covers Exeter and the River Esk; 'Letter 2, Part 1, begins in Greenwich. Moreover, although the title of Defoe's work mentions only England and Wales, Scotland is also covered in his third volume. The extract examined in this commentary is part two of the first letter in the first volume, and deals with the towns of Harwich & Ipswich. The subtitle of the work as a whole describes it as having been "divided into circuits or journeys", and this description highlights the way in which Defoe has structured the work. Defoe was a writer in a number of different genres, which included journalism and fiction. Green notes that he had previously worked as a "journalist, most notably in The Review, which he edited, and largely wrote, from 1704 to 1713". Defoe was also well known as a novelist, with his most famous works including - 'Robinson Crusoe' (1719), 'The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe' (1719) and 'Moll Flanders' (1722), each having been written in a period of five to eight years before the 'Tour'. Leask also notes the significance of travelogues in the work of Defoe (and Camden, Deering et al.) in that "the enduring popular success of fictional travelogues such as Defoe's 'Robinson Crusoe' or Swift's 'Gulliver's Travels', and at the bottom end of the market, the chapbooks' mingling of romance with popular exoticism, ensures that travel writing permeated all levels of eighteenth - and nineteenth-century literary culture".
Defoe had also been politically active, particularly during his early career, and had shown a clear and sustained interest in the social structures of England and Wales. Novak suggests that the various positions that Defoe had held in his career up to the point of writing the 'Tour' put him in a particularly unique position, in that "Defoe was writing about the social and economic state of England in the 'Tour', and as spy, tradesman, projector, and self-proclaimed expert on world geography, he was the ideal person to comment on the state of Britain during this period".
A significant aspect of Defoe's writing within the 'Tour' is its cartographical context. Parks suggests how the 'Tour' as a whole is made up of circuits that (in the written length of their descriptions), match the geographical space that Defoe is assigning to them; in that "within Defoe's narrative the percentage of space taken up by the description of a town is the same as the percentage the town itself takes up in the actual geographic space encompassed by the circuit he travels". Parks describes this as a form of 'thematic cartography' from which the writing of Defoe and others became influential in determining nineteenth-century trade routes. In furthering this point, Rogers also notes the importance that Defoe places on "charting limits, extent, dimensions", as an example of the thematic and spatial cartography of Defoe's work. In this way it can be suggested that the structure of the letters, each describing particular circuits, highlights the way in which Defoe prescribes limits and measurements in defining particular circuits of travel.
Within the extract from the Harwich and Ipswich letter with which this commentary is concerned, it is possible to view distinct aspects of Defoe's attention to detail in terms of attempting to define distances and sizes accurately. The passage begins by clearly stating the distance (twelve miles) between Harwich and Ipswich, and by doing so Defoe immediately places his description within a particular geographical context that is defined by the distance travelled by water between the two places. As already noted, the social and economic situation of England and Wales was of great interest to Defoe in this work, and most specifically with reference to the places that he described. Thus it can be noted that Defoe makes reference at the beginning of the passage to the positive state of the town of Ipswich in the past, particularly with regards to shipping and mercantile trade, as well as the sound financial position of those merchants. For example, he notes that such merchants "had large families, who liv'd plentifully, and in very good houses in the town". This is shown in part to highlight the extent to which Defoe describes Ipswich as a town that has fallen into decay, certainly relative to how it had been in 1668, on the occasion of his first visit. From Defoe's description both micro- and macro- elements can be seen, and whilst more of an emphasis appears to have been given to the general issues of economy and trade, this is balanced by his giving precise detail to the larger points that he makes. Thus within the passage it can be noted that from originally seeing upwards of one hundred ships in 1668, by 1724 "were now scarce 40 sail of good colliers that belonged to the whole town".
Defoe devotes a notable proportion of his letter to listing the size and numbers of shipping in the Ipswich area, both in the past and in the present, in order to emphasise the decay, "if I must allow it to be call'd a decay" that he notes. Defoe does not however merely list perceived facts; he also suggests a number of reasons for the relative decline (which today seems a more appropriate word to use than decay), that he has seen in Ipswich and in doing so may be seen to be making a wider point about the UK economic position. The main two reasons that he advances as to why this is the case are: the use of Dutch flyboats by merchants from London and Yarmouth, and the growth of London itself as a port. The latter, Defoe also suggests, effectively draws in trade and therefore away from local towns and ports around it. This emphasis on sea trade and Ipswich's position as a port in relation to other ports, highlights Defoe's interest in the social and economic aspects of England and Wales. As a result of this it can be suggested that when Defoe describes such places as Ipswich, he does not do so in narrow terms, but instead attempts to do so in the wider context of the social and economic issues that are relevant in that particular region, as well as Defoe's own interests. This aspect of Defoe's work is noted in G.D.H Cole's introduction to a 1928 edition of Volume 1 which suggests that,
"for Defoe's book, though it served as a guide-book, was a good deal besides. He put into it not merely the usual descriptions of historic places and buildings, seats of the noblemen and gentlemen who were the unquestioned political rulers of the England of his day, picturesque scenes and anecdotes after the fashion of the times, and travellers' information of the approved sort, but also the things that interested him, and seemed to him significant of the great social transition he saw proceeding around him".
Therefore, for Defoe, the 'Tour' was not just a social and economic snapshot of the time, or a purely geographical description of the locations on his journey. Rather Defoe was attempting to document something of the changes that were being experienced by the nation as a whole, and his descriptions of places such as Ipswich and Harwich play a part in illustrating that wider purpose of his work. Thus in Defoe's example of the decay or decline of Ipswich, Defoe is additionally describing the rise of London as a port, and the changing nature of mercantile trade more generally. This makes Defoe's work also useful as a primary resource for modern day historians as it provides information and descriptions of how Britain was in the decades leading up to the radical change of the Industrial Revolution. As a result it can be argued therefore that
"Defoe's 'Tour' is to be read, then, to-day above all for the light which it throws on the economic and social condition of England half a century or so before the coming of the Industrial Revolution. In the shadow of that great series of changes, the England that went before is apt to appear static and unchanging".
As Rogers notes, understanding Defoe in the 'Tour' is not found merely in seeing the writings as an objective description of society and trade, for it also comes from understanding Defoe's own views and how they are represented. Rogers suggests that Defoe "wanted to see Scotland properly integrated into the Union [and that] he saw Britain as evolving into a great world power, not just by military strength but by economic expansion". Therefore, one context in which Defoe's Tour may be read is as a form of public relations, in promoting a particular view of Britain, as it had been, as it was, and as Defoe felt, that it should be. The historian can also consider to what extent this may be seen as prophetic of how things turned out, with the growth of the British Empire and the growth of Britain as a world trade power during the Industrial Revolution. Indeed, the same could also be said of Defoe's depiction of London and how, as a city, it came to dominate not only England as a port but was also the imperial capital. Such a view can also be considered in the context of Park's earlier noted observation, that such writing as Defoe's had an influence on subsequent trade routes.
Defoe was by no means the only travel writer of his time (or previously), and it was not uncommon for travel writers to refer to, build on, and reuse the earlier work of other writers. It is known that Defoe had a considerable library of travel writing in his possession, because it has been commented that
"when Defoe died twelve years after writing Crusoe's story, his private library was sold at public auction. The auctioneer's bill of sale cites volume after volume of travel books. Some of them could well have provided events and details that Defoe included in his novel".
Indeed, Defoe himself shows his own awareness in the 'Tour' of the writing of others; by for instance noting the differences of the writing and observational styles of two nameless gentlemen and also by his commenting on the "mistakes" in the writings of Camden. That Defoe was aware of (and used) the travel works of others is also evidenced by the fact that Parks observes much of Defoe's topographical descriptions are in actual fact 'lifted' from those of Camden in 1586.
However, despite the existence of such similarities, there are also significant contrasts between the travel writings of Defoe and Camden. It may be noted, for instance, that whilst there is a strong social and economic emphasis to Defoe's 'Tour', this approach is lacking in Camden's writing; with the latter also making a greater emphasis on the history of the places about which Camden writes, going back in many cases to Roman times. In this way, Camden can be seen to have written far more in the style of a traditional antiquarian historian such as Deering rather than as a contemporary traveler and commentator. The differences in approach taken can also be illustrated by reference to Hentzner's description of England, for it, whilst originating from a similar period to that of Camden (1612 & 1607 respectively), focuses on a very brief political and ecclesiastical history, and then a focus on key crops and trade items. Defoe was, of course, not the only writer to adopt a less formal historical approach than that favoured by Camden and Hentzner and thus it may be noted that the work of Arthur Young in 1784 follows a similar travelogue approach to that of Defoe's and in so doing focuses even more on the quantities of crops and such like, and financial matters as part of his journey, believing those matters to be of particular interest to his readers, rather than the antiquated pedigree of cities recorded by Camden and Hentzner.
Through understanding and analysing the context of the passage, and determining what other historical sources, primary and secondary, may be called upon to expand the content of the extract, begin with recognising this genre and any limitations that may come with it; it can be concluded that in broad terms Defoe's work fits into the genre of travelogue. As has been noted, Defoe had an agenda to address in his writing, focused on the existing social and economic situation, and a particular interest in nationalism and the union. This should by no means draw us away from Defoe's work but instead inform us, and encourage us to seek out other sources. In terms of Ipswich and Harwich, this may involve contemporary writers and other sources to those of Defoe, but also perhaps official documents of the time that show the levels of trade, perhaps comparing trade between 1668 (Defoe's first visit) and 1724, the writing of the first volume of the 'Tour'. Defoe's piece however, is in itself a valuable and useful document in terms of understanding the England and Wales of the time, how they had come to be how they were, and the ways and extent to which things were changing.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Defoe D., A Tour Through England and Wales: Volume One, (JM Dent & Sons, London, 1928)
Defoe D., A Tour Through England and Wales: Volume Two, (JM Dent & Sons, London, 1928)
Green M., Dreams of Adventure: Deeds of Empire, (Routledge, Oxon, 1980)
Deering C., History of Nottingham, (1751).
Leask N., Curiosity and the Aesthetics of Travel Writing: 1770-1840, (OUP, Oxford, 2002)
Novak M.E., Daniel Defoe: Master of Fictions: His Life and Ideas, (OUP, Oxford, 2001)
Severin T., In Search of Robinson Crusoe, (Basic Books, New York, 2002)
Parks C., 'A True Survey of the Ground: Defoe's 'Tour' and the Rise of Thematic Cartography', Philological Quarterly, Vol. 74, No. 4, (University of Iowa, 1995)
Rogers P., 'Defoe's Tour and the Identity of Britain', in J. Richetti (ed.) Cambridge Companion to Daniel Defoe, (CUP, Cambridge, 2009) pp.102-120
WEB SOURCES
Vision of Britain, Defoe D., Letter 1, part 2: Harwich & Suffolk. Available at: http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/text/chap_page.jsp?t_id=Defoe&c_id=3. Last accessed 24/10/2010
Vision of Britain, Camden W., Essex and Suffolk. Available at: http://visionofbritain.org.uk/text/chap_page.jsp?t_id=Camden&c_id=16. Last Accessed 24/10/2010
Vision of Britain, Hentzner P., A Short Description of England. Available at: http://visionofbritain.org.uk/text/chap_page.jsp?t_id=Hentzner&c_id=6. Last Accessed 24/10/2010
Vision of Britain, Young A., 1784 Tour of Suffolk. Available at: http://visionofbritain.org.uk/text/chap_page.jsp?t_id=Young&c_id=2. Last Accessed 24/10/2010
