PORTLAND, (Dorset) a peninsula opposite to Weymouth, was formerly an island; but is now joined, as it were to the continent, by that shelf of sand, called Chesil-Bank, and yet is still called an island. It suffered very much heretofore from the Danes. Edward the confessor, to shew his repentance that he had accused his mother Emma wrongfully, of incontinency with the Bp. of Winchester, gave the whole of it and its revenues to that cathedral; which was possessed thereof, till the R. of Edw. I. when Gilbert de Clare, E. of Hartford and Glocester, gave other lands to the Ch. in exchange for it; thro' whose heirs it came to the crown. In 1632 it first gave title of E. to the Westons, as it did in the R. of Will. III. to the Bentincks, a Dutch family, who in the late R. were advanced to the dignity of Ds. of Portland. It has plenty of corn, and good pasture for sheep; but for want of fewel, they burn dried ox and cow-dung. In Leland's time, who makes it 10 m. in com. at the utmost extent, tho' others make it not 8, it had about 80 houses; and he says that by the ruins, there had been as many more. It has one Ch. which is on the E. side of it. At Chesil in this island grows the English sea-tree Mallow; and among the seaweeds here is found a sort of shrub, not unlike coral. It is called Isis's- Hair, and has no leaves; and when cut, turns black, hard, and brittle. The entrance to it, which is called Portland-Race, because the sea runs strong here, by reason of the 2 tides setting in from the English and French shores, is defended by that, called Portland-Castle, built by Hen. VIII. and another more lately built, called Sandford-Castle, on the opposite shore. The inh. are for most part stone-cutters, for here are many quarries of that excellent white free-stone, reckoned the most durable and handsome, for building of Chs. and adorning houses. The whose peninsula indeed is little more than one continued rock of free-stone; and the land here is so high, that it has a prospect in clear weather, of above half over the channel to France, tho' here it is very broad. The road is safe for shipping; but the sea off of this island, and especially to the W. of it, is counted the most dangerous part of the British-Channel; and therefore at the 2 points of the island, there are 2 light-houses. They ferry over the Chesil-Bank, from hence to the main land, with a boat and rope, the water being not above half a stone's throw over. Portland is thought worthy of a governor, who is generally a nobleman.