1601 J. Wheeler Treat. Commerce 62 Merchants Aduenturers both know, and regard the essentiall parts, grounds and pillers of Traffike, &..do quietlier, better, and certainlier obserue & Maintaine them, the Customers of the out-ports..do their office.

1642 Ordin. Parl. conc. Tonnage & Poundage 13 As well of the City of London as the Out-ports.

1686 S. Pepys Mem. Royal Navy (1906) 39 The Shipwrights of this Kingdom (even in our Out-Ports, as well as in the River of Thames) have been for many years past, driven to resort to supplys from Abroad.

1722 D. Defoe Jrnl. Plague Year 250 While the Plague continued so violent in London, the out Ports, as they are call'd, enjoy'd a very great Trade.

1731 Gentleman's Mag. 1 84 Alexander Gould, Esq...made inspector of the out-port collectors accounts.

1823 J. F. Cooper Pioneers I. v. 63 With the exception of one or two outports in France, and an occasional visit to Portsmouth, Plymouth, and Deal, he had in reality seen no more of mankind..than if he had been riding a donkey in one of his native mines.

1884 Manch. Examiner 16 Oct. 5/3 Reprehensible practices employed both in London and in the outports.

1953 Econ. Hist. Rev. 6 200 The industrial towns like Birmingham constitute one group of provincial cities; the outports are another.

1999 William & Mary Q. 56 74 After 1713, merchants from the English outports..began to compete vigorously with London factors in these areas.

1810 R. Steele Tour Part of Atlantic 94 Some few years since, four or five [‘native Indians’] were discovered in a wigwam, by persons who were on the search for them, from an out-port.

1820 in C. R. Fay Life & Labour in Newfoundland (1956) viii. 138 Almost every fifth fisherman is what is termed a ‘Planter’, particularly in the outports of the Island.

1865 Islander (Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island) 10 Feb. 3/1 In the outports there has been little work except what was afforded by means of the Road Grant of 1st Session.

1907 J. G. Millais Newfoundland p. xv I have tried to enter into the life of the true Newfoundlander—the man of the outports.

1978 Globe & Mail (Toronto) 14 Jan. 8/2 Trudeau's Government..killed a subsidy that keeps a useful ferry service going between the..Vancouver supply area and the tiny outports of the northern coast.

1993 Newfoundland Herald 13 Mar. 13/3 For me it evoked, not a dilapidated Georgian fishing lodge, but a seedy outport bed-and-breakfast.

1935 J. A. Fraser Spain & W. Country x. 108 It was from Seville and its little out-port Sanlucar de Barrameda..that nearly all the early Spanish voyages of discovery went forth.

1952 F. W. Morgan Ports & Harbours 76 In order to prevent a loss of trade the port undertakes the development of an ‘outport’ nearer the sea, which can attract the larger vessels.

1999 Citizen (Gloucester) (Electronic ed.) 16 July The experts are proposing that Gloucester's outport at Sharpness becomes the county's rubbish capital.