◊ 1755 - An account of Charlotte Clark's visit to Pill - 'With the necessary utensils from the Pasty Cooks' shop and the friendly assistance of some of our good friends we took leave and set out for a little place called Pill, a sort of harbour for ships five miles this side of Bristol. The place itself is not unpleasant, if it were inhabited by any other kind of people than the savages whom infest it, and are only in outward form distinguished from beasts of prey.

To be short the villainies of these wretches are so heinous and uncivilised a nature they render the place so unlike any other part of the habitable world, that I can only compare it to the Anti Chamber of that Abode we are admonished to avoid in the next life by leading a good one here.

A boy of eight or ten years of age is so well versed in the most beastly discourse and the most dreadful sin of blasphemy and swearing as any drunken reprobate of 30 and he who drinks hardest and excells most in these terrible qualifications stands next in his fathers' favour.

There are some few that don't belong to the boats that are reasonable creatures and I am amazed that they can patiently bear to reside where there are such a numerous set of cannibals, - a name thus justly deserved, for I believe there are some among them who would not scrupple to make a meal of their fellow creatures.' [666]