the capital town of Shetland, situated in the island called the Mainland, in W. Long. 1. 30. N. Lat. 61. 20. It contains about 300 families, with abundance of good houses, and as fashionable people as are to be seen in any town in Scotland of its bulk. At the north end of the town there is a regular fort, which was built at the charge of the government in the reign of King Charles II.; who, in the time of his first war with the Dutch, sent over a garrison consisting of 300 men under the command of one colonel William Sinclair a native of Zetland, and one Mr Milne architect, for Lerwick, building the said fort, with 20 or 30 cannons to plant upon it for protection of the country. There was a house built within the fort sufficient to lodge 100 men. The garrison stood here three years; the charge of which, with the building the fort, is said to have flooded the king 28,000 pounds sterling. When the garrison removed, they carried off the cannon from the fort; and in the next war with the Dutch, two or three years after the garrison removed, a Dutch frigate came into Brafay Sound, and burnt the house in the fort and several others the belt in the town. Lerwick has no freedoms nor privileges, but is governed by a bailie upon the same footing with the other bailies in the country. There is a church in it, and one minister, of the Presbyterian establishment. He has for stipend 500 marks paid him out of the bishop's rents of Orkney, 300 marks by the town of Lerwick, and the tythes of Gulberwick about 200 marks; making in all 1000 marks Scots yearly, with a free house and garden. Lerwick chiefly subsists by the resort of foreigners to it; so when that fails it must decline, as indeed it has done for several years past, having been very little frequented by foreigners, and thereby become very poor. Several projects have been talked of, and written upon, which might have been very beneficial to Lerwick, if Zetland had they taken place; as that of the British Zetland, merchants carrying goods from Muscovy and Sweden, P. 7- designed for the plantations in America, that must be entered in Britain, having them entered at Lerwick, which would save a great deal of time and charges to these merchants; also the Greenland and Herring Fishery companies of Britain proposed Lerwick as a most commodious port for lodging their stores in, and for repacking their herrings, melting their oil, and thence exporting the same to foreign markets. The grand objection to these settlements is, that Lerwick is an open unfortified place; and in case of a war, the merchant ships and goods would be exposed to the enemy: for removing of which difficulty, it has been observed, that would government before a small garrison upon it of only 100 men and about 20 pieces of cannon, and be at a small charge in repairing the old fort, and erecting a small battery or two more, these measures might be sufficient to secure the place against any ordinary effort the enemy might make against it; and Lerwick being thus fortified, all British ships coming from the East or West Indies, could come safely there in time of war, and lie secure until carried thence by convoy, or otherwise as the proprietors should direct; and thus Lerwick might become more advantageous to the trade of Great Britain than Gibraltar or Port Mahon, and that for one-tenth part of the charge of either of those places.