A
TOUR THROUGH HOLLAND,
ALONG THE RIGHT AND LEFT
BANKS OF THE RHINE,
TO THE SOUTH OF
GERMANY,
IN
THE SUMMER AND AUTUMN OF
1806.
Pergit et hostiles (tanta est fiducia) ripas
Inconitatus adit.
CLAUDIAN.
BY SIR JOHN CARR,
OF THE HONOURABLE SOCIETY OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE, AUTHOR OF THE STRANGER
IN IRELAND; A NORTHERN SUMMER, OR A TOUR ROUND THE BALTIC.
PHILADELPHIA:
Printed for C. and A. Conrad and Co., Samuel F. Bradford, Byrch and
Small, and James Humphreys, Philadelphia: Andrews and Cummings, Boston:
Peter A. Mesier, New-York, and Edmond Morford, Charleston.
FRY AND KAMMERER, PRINTERS.
1807.
TO HIS GRACE
JOHN, DUKE OF BEDFORD.
MY LORD,
If the name of your Grace had been rendered illustrious solely by those
distinguished Patriots from whom you derived it, my pride could not fail
of being eminently gratified by being permitted to dedicate to you the
following pages: but other, and infinitely more impressive and
honourable emotions are awakened, when I reflect, that in the present
descendant of the House of Russel are displayed that patriotic fervor,
that lofty spirit of political independence, and that ardent zeal in the
great cause of humanity, which distinguished so many of its branches in
the annals of this great country. Indeed, my Lord, it is a felicity to
be able to attest, from experience, and now to record, the pretensions
of your Grace to the gratitude of your country and the love of mankind.
To the wisdom of your administration was committed a great and
important, but a much neglected portion of the United Empire. You became
the ruler of a country long oppressed, wickedly calumniated, and still
bleeding from many a wound. Soon after the elevation of your Grace to
this august situation, public symptoms appeared which called for
sagacity and energy of no ordinary nature. Instead of listening, in the
sunshine of vice-regal magnificence, to the vague reports of the idle,
the ignorant, or the mischievous, you penetrated into the wild recesses
of that distracted country, reputed to contain the hot-bed of
insurrection; you personally contemplated the character of the poor,
suffering Irish peasant, in all its rough but affecting simplicity; you
beheld a fellow-being possessed of affections easily to be won by
tenderness, of a vivid imagination, and quick and ardent susceptibility,
clothed in rags, and living in common with the beast of the field, in a
state of penury and wretchedness, unknown to the miserable and oppressed
of any other region. To see, to feel, and to meditate relief were all
simultaneous in the mind of your Grace. When some partial excesses at
length broke out, when the violent and the intolerant clamorously
demanded the terrible inflictions of military law, you firmly, wisely,
and most humanely resolved upon surrendering up the guilty to the laws
of their country, without delivering over their unoffending vicinage to
the savage dominion of the bullet and the bayonet. The noble experiment
answered, and your Grace lost no portion of your popularity, in the very
spot where dire necessity compelled you to offer up victims to justice.
Your conduct on that occasion, even in the absence of every other
laudable event of your life, is sufficient to sweeten it to its latest
period.
A great and unexpected political change rendered the administration of
your Grace too brief to execute the enlightened and salutary plans which
you had conceived for the amelioration of Ireland; but it was of
sufficient duration to afford opportunities of displaying those
qualities of the head and of the heart, which will endear your memory to
that unhappy country for ever, and you have left to it the benefits of a
brilliant example.
That your illustrious successor may adopt the same clemency and wisdom
which your Grace so efficaciously exhibited; and that he may complete
the measures which extraordinary political events prevented your Grace
from perfecting, is the cordial prayer of him who is an enthusiastic
well-wisher to Ireland, and who, with great respect, has the honour to
subscribe himself,
My Lord, your Grace’s
Most obliged obedient servant,
JOHN CARR.
2, Garden-Court, Temple.
18th May, 1807.
TO THE READER.
I am indebted for some interesting anecdotes of the most eminent
Painters of the Dutch and Flemish School to the authors of the Abrégé de
la Vie des Peintres, to Pilkington’s Dictionary of Painters, and to the
elegant and witty D’Israeli.
I had no companion with me during the greater part of the Tour described
in the following pages, which was taken amidst many untoward and
embarrassing circumstances, the melancholy effects of war, and which,
for that reason, will, I hope, be favoured with the indulgent candour of
my friends and of the Public.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
A Confession: the war: an adoption: confidence in fortune sometimes
necessary: hateful character of a spy: a motive for travelling: a
moral: anecdote of a royal description: miseries of a Dutch
galliot: Calvin and Servetus: religion and a rope’s end: Dutch
anecdote of fortitude: anecdote of a Newfoundland dog: appearance
of Holland from the sea: its coast: a dilemma: the Maas river:
anecdote of Napoleon: of a Dutch woman: a disaster: Rotterdam
described: leaning houses 1