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OCR
COMMERCE 133 run to the opposite coast, or across the dreaded Bay of Biscay to Bordeaux. The Thames being thus a great highway, whether inland or away to the continent, it was jealously guarded by the citizens from a very early period, and the " Conservancy ” IS an ancient institution, until a recent period exclusively in the hands of the corporation, but taken from them in part by an Act of Parliament passed in 1857 for no adequate reason, beyond that spirit of fussi NOS, 66 AND 67 CORNHILL ness which now and then agitates our : ! legislators. This Conservancy dates beyond what is called "legal memory, or the reign of Richard I. Its jurisdiction extended to the Nore, or New Weir, a fishing-place at the mouth of the Medway, which we find first mentioned in the will of one Eadmer Anhzende, who left it to Rochester. It was with this Eadmer that Gundulf, the great Bishop of Rochester, lodged in London while he was superintending the building of the ae — APOTHECARIES HALL, WATER LANE, BLACKFRIARS
