GREENWICH, a town of the county of Kent, in England, pleasantly situated on the bank of the Thames,
Thames, about five miles east from London. Here was formerly a royal palace, built by Humphry Duke of Gloucester, enlarged by Henry VII. and completed by Henry VIII. The latter often chose this town for his place of residence; as did also the Queens Mary and Elizabeth, who were born in it. This palace, however, is now pulled down; and what goes by the name of palace at present, serves for apartments for the governor of the hospital, and the ranger of the park. This park was walled and planted by Charles II. and hath a hill in the middle, whence there is a noble prospect of London, the Thames, and shipping; also a Royal Observatory, furnished with a complete set of astronomical observations. This observatory in the latest English maps is accounted the place of the first meridian; and the degrees of longitude, either east or west, are accounted from it. But the most remarkable building about Greenwich, is the hospital for superannuated and disabled seamen, and likewise for their widows and children. It is a very noble structure; the wing next London being part of the palace which King Charles II. intended to have erected for himself, and which cost him 36,000 pounds; being finely adorned with all the decorations of painting, sculpture, and architecture. About 2000 old disabled seamen are maintained in it. The nurses, who must be seamen's widows, have ten pounds a-year, and such as attend the infirmary, two shillings a-week more. Besides private benefactions, to the amount of about £60,000, the parliament, in the year 1732, settled upon this hospital the earl of Derwentwater's estate, to the value of £6000 per annum. The hall of the hospital is finely painted by Sir James Thornhill. All strangers who see it, pay twopence each; and this income is applied to the support of the mathematical school for the sons of sailors. For the better support of this hospital, every seaman in the royal navy, and in the merchant service, pays sixpence a-month, stopped out of their pay, and delivered in at the six-penny receiver's office in Tower-hill.—On this account, a seaman, who can produce an authentic certificate of his being disabled, and rendered unfit for service, by defending any ship belonging to his Majesty's British subjects, or in taking any ship from the enemy, may be admitted into this hospital, and receive the same benefit from it as if he had been in his Majesty's immediate service. Besides the seamen and widows above-mentioned, about 100 boys, the sons of seamen, are bred up for the service of the royal navy; but there are no out-pensioners as at Chelsea. Each of the mariners has a weekly allowance of bread, beef, mutton, pease, cheese, butter, and beer, and one shilling a-week tobacco-money. The tobacco-money of the boatswains is two shillings and sixpence a-week each, that of their mates one shilling and sixpence, and that of the other officers in proportion to their rank. Each common pensioner also, once in two years, has a suit of blue clothes, a hat, three pair of stockings, two pair of shoes, five neck-cloths, three shirts, and two night-caps. The principal officers of the house, are a governor, lieutenant-governor, treasurer, three captains, six lieutenants, two chaplains, a physician, and surgeon, a clerk of the cheque, and an auditor, who have handsome salaries. The profits of the market belong to this hospital,
whose governors have the direction of it. The first hospital founded by an English Protestant, was at Greenwich, in 1560, by one Mr Lambard, (author of a book called the Perambulation of Kent), for twenty poor.