Extract from a letter from John Chamberlain to Dudley Carleton, 27 September 1607 (catalogue ref: SP 14/28 f.108).
The letter contained a range of news and in this section a ‘flying boat’ is described.
Transcript
…the greatest news of this country is of an ingenious fellow that in Berkshire sailed or went over a high steeple [church] in a boat all of his own making, and without other help then himself in her, conveyed her above twenty miles by land over hills and dales to the river and so down to London…