Men went in first and got 41 Notches; the Surrey Men 71. At the Second Hands the Kentish Men got 53, and the Surrey Men had but 23 to get, which they acquired with Ease, and had two wickets to spare. A great deal of Money was won and lost upon the occasion; but the Game was so skilfully and justly play'd on each Side that the very Losers went away satisfy'd. During the game three Soldiers apprehended a Kentish Man for Desertion; but the populace hearing of the Matter, Join'd and rescu'd the Deserter out of their Hands, and after a severe Discipline, let them go about their Business.
On Monday Se'night the Surrey Men in their turn are to wait upon the Kentish Men at Cocks Heath, near Maidstone, and to play them a second game on the same Conditions.In 1746 Kent again played All England. This is the first cricket-match of which the full score has been preserved, Kent winning by one wicket. We are told in a mock heroic poem of that period—
"Fierce Kent, ambitious of the first applause,
Against the World combin'd asserts her cause;
Gay Sussex sometimes triumphs o'er the Field,
And fruitful Surrey cannot brook to yield."
Lord John Philip Sackville, playing for Kent in the above match, was father of the third Duke of Dorset, afterwards so keen a supporter of the game. He resided at Knowle Park, Sevenoaks, and he gave the famous old ground known as the Vine, by a deed of trust, for the use of cricketers for ever. A capital representation of this celebrated ground, depicting a match at Sevenoaks in 1780, may be seen facing page 304 of Mr Philip Norman's charming 'Annals of the West Kent Cricket Club, 1812-1896,' issued this year. It was owing to the Duke of Dorset, and to such sportsmen of position and territorial influence, that the game became so popular in Kent. Cricketers were part and parcel of their retainers, or employed by them in some capacity. Such another was Sir Horace Mann, a great patron of the game, who undoubtedly imported James Aylward, the Hambledon batsman, into Kent, and employed him as a bailiff; but John Nyren suggests that he was a much better player than a bailiff. Then a Mr Amherst probably secured another man in Crawte, of Alresford. Mr Amherst was the gentleman who arranged all the Kent matches, just the same as Mr W. S. Norton, of Town Mailing, did fifty years later, before there was any duly constituted county club.
The "Lion of Kent" subsequently was Mr Alfred Mynn. He was born at Twisden Lodge, Goudhurst, January 19, 1807. For a long period he assisted Kent Mr Mynn was also a great
