Amsterdam, 15 September, 1780.
My dear Portia,--I wish you to write me by every opportunity to this
place as well as to France. It seems as if I never should get any more
letters from America. I have sent you some things by Captain Davis, but
he has no arms, and I fear they will be lost by capture. I sent things
by the _Alliance_.
The country where I am is the greatest curiosity in the world. This
nation is not known anywhere, not even by its neighbors. The Dutch
language is spoken by none but themselves. Therefore they converse with
nobody, and nobody converses with them. The English are a great nation,
and they despise the Dutch because they are smaller. The French are a
greater nation still, and therefore they despise the Dutch because they
are still smaller in comparison to them. But I doubt much whether there
is any nation of Europe more estimable than the Dutch in proportion.
Their industry and economy ought to be examples to the world. They have
less ambition, I mean that of conquest and military glory, than their
neighbors, but I don't perceive that they have more avarice. And they
carry learning and arts, I think, to greater extent. The collections of
curiosities, public and private, are innumerable.
I am told that Mr. Searle is arrived at Brest; but I have learned
nothing from him as yet, nor do I know his destination. The French and
Spanish fleets have made a sweep of sixty upon the English East India
and West India fleets. This must have great effects. We are all well.
Don't expect peace. The English have not yet forgotten the acquisition
of Charleston, for which they are making the most childish exultations.
The new Parliament will give ministry a run. Mark my words, you will
have no peace but what you give yourselves by destroying, root and
branch, all the British force in America. The English cannot bear the
thought that France should dictate the terms of peace, as they call it.
They say they must make a dishonorable peace now, a shameful peace, a
degrading peace. This is worse than death to them, and thus they will
go on, until they are forced to sue for a peace still more shameful and
humiliating.