WONDERS From the Deep OR A True and Exact Account and Description OF THE Monstrous Whale, Lately taken near COLECHESTER, Being two and forty Foot in Length, and of Bigness Proportionable.  
With the manner of its coming, and being Killed on Thursday the 9th. of April.  
Being so rare and strange a sight that multitudes of People from all parts daily go to see it as thick as to a Market or Fair.   depiction of fish 
London Printed for E. W. in the Year 1677.   

Wonders from the Deep, or a true and exact Account, and Description of the Monstrous Whale, lately taken near Colchester, &.  
WHen the Breath of Omnipotency gave by his Divine word a being to the universe as he beautified the Chambers of the Firmament, with glittering Stars, the Earth with Beasts, Herbs, and Flowers, so he also endued the Waters with a prolific quality, and Stocks the Sea with such a Strange Variety of its own preductions, that 'tis affirmed by some of the Learned, that the Land cannot boast any sort of Animal, but the Ocean can show somewhat Analogous or resemblant.  
But amongst all the wonders of the Deep, that which most Summons our Admiration, Is the Whale, that floating Castle, or Natural ship, of so vast a Bulk as would make an Ignorant martinet mistake it for an Island; True it is these Princes of the Watery Realm, but I know not what kind of instinct, delight chiefly to keep their Court near the North-Pole, and rarely Wonder far from the Arctic Circle; very seldom, scarce once in divers Ages have one of them been known in our Seas, whence some superstitious People would make it a Prodigy, but since neighther Scripture nor Philosophy, Reason nor Sense Countenance such a Conceit, I must (with their pardon) call all their pretended Experiences, Dotages of Melancholy, and abuses, Non causa Pro causâ, no more to be heeded than the Salts falling or a Hares Crossing out of the way, and the like reverend observations of my Grannum; but waving this, perhaps to some disrelishing discourse that our British Channel has lately been honoured with one of these stranger guests, for on Thursday the 19 of this Instant April, between Tuese● and Wotton, two small places about four miles from each other in the County of Essex, and about a dozen or fourteen miles from Colchester, the winds having blown hard for several days before, A Whale was brought in with the Tide, but being got into a kind of Narrow Creek when the Water fell, he could not get out again, but remained there upon the shallows, beating himself all that Ebb and till the next full Sea, but had before so weakened and disabled himself that he could not then neither get off, in this time being just on the shore he was seen by divers Country people with no small Admiration, having never before seen a Creature of so vast a Bulk, on the second day it was alive, being driven near a Rock or at least a stony Bank, the violence of its Agitation and striving in short time Killed it, and prevented the Triumph, some Fishermen thereabout promised themselves, who imagined no less Glory by murdering of it, then St. George did by the destruction of the Dragon.  
After it was dead the Tide being out, the Dimensions of it were taken, and 'tis Certainly found to be in length two and forty foot, and in Bigness every way answerable, with fastening Ropes to it, and with several Teems the Countrymen hauled it to shore, where it now remains the grand wonder and discourse of all those parts, People coming every day to see it in multitudes as if they were going to a Market or Fair.  
Near twenty Years ago about the same place was discovered and taken an Extroardinary Fish, not only for its bigness but also its shape, which was so prodigious and unusual that none though never so much accustomed to the Seas, could tell its name or remember to have seen the like.  
Those that would see a description of this wonderful Creature called a Whale and its nature, may find it incomparably drawn by a Divine pencil in the one and fortieth Chapter of Job. under the Name of Leviathan, to which I refer the pious Reader and their with conclude with this Relation, of the truth whereof if any be dissatisfied, the Colchester Carriers at the King's Arms in Leaden-Hall-street, and the Cross-Keys in Gracious street, can and will be ready fully to inform them.  
FINIS.