Aspects of Kentish Local History

   We left our inn at Rochester betwixt three and four this afternoon, and as we come out towards Chatham there is, on the left hand side of the street, a kind of hospital with an inscription on the front, signifying that it was founded by one Watts (and is now called Watts's Hospital), and that in it all travellers in want, excepting they be contagiously diseased, rogues or proctors, [—solicitors] may be entertained at bed and board for one night, and have a groat given them the next morning. The reason of his excepting all proctors from any share of his charity was this:— When he thought himself a dying man he sent for a proctor, whom he entrusted to make his last will and testament; but it seems Master Watts recovered that fit of sickness, and upon looking over his will some time after, he found that the honest proctor in whom he had confided had made provision for himself by securing to himself the executorship. Upon this he immediately got a new will made, and in it excluded all of this fraternity from ever having any benefit of this his benefaction. He bequeathed this charity in the year 1579, to be given after his wife's decease, who married again another husband; and there is another inscription upon this front, above the former, which signifies that with his (her second husband's) assistance, she assured everything to the use designed in 1586.
   On the same side of the street, a little further, is a new 

building, a kind of school, erected by Sir Joseph Williamson, Bart., in 1707, for teaching of mathematics: I suppose principally for the service of the Navy.
   We could not conveniently see the stores at Chatham (which if I were writing seriously to posterity, and not keeping a diary for my own amusement, I would make some apology for), and so we left Rochester passing through part of Chatham betwixt three and four o'clock that afternoon. I do not remember to have seen any gentlemen's houses of any note as we passed the great road for Faversham, nor to have seen any gentlemen, excepting it were two of my own countrymen, whom we overtook driving some Welsh cattle from Bartholomew Fair, who were highly delighted as well as myself with my addressing them in their own language, though I dare say they were much better pleased with my Lord's taking notice of them in plain English after he had observed our conversation, and bidding them take up a piece of white money which he threw to them to drink their friend's health, which I presume they did very heartily in the first tavern they got to. I think there was nothing came in our way but adventures of this low kind.
   The heat and dustiness of the season made us take notice of a fellow who was attending horses loaded with pears for some