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Transcriber’s Note:
This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects.
Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_.
The few footnotes have been moved to follow the paragraphs in which they
are referenced.
In general, spelling has not been ‘corrected’, given the date of
publication (1795). On occasion, though, more obvious errors (transposed
or inverted letters, missing characters, and in one case apparently
spuriously odd characters) have been corrected. See the note at the end
of the text for more detail.
Following the Table of Contents, there is an Errata section, which
includes (by page and line) asking the reader to apply simple changes to
the text. These have been made here.
Other minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected.
Again, see the note.
A
JOURNEY OVER LAND
TO
INDIA,
PARTLY
BY A ROUTE NEVER GONE BEFORE BY ANY EUROPEAN,
By DONALD CAMPBELL, of Barbreck, Esq.
WHO FORMERLY COMMANDED A REGIMENT OF CAVALRY IN THE SERVICE OF
HIS HIGHNESS THE NABOB OF THE CARNATIC.
---------------------------------------------------------
_IN A SERIES OF LETTERS TO HIS SON._
-------------------------------------------
COMPREHENDING
HIS SHIPWRECK AND IMPRISONMENT WITH HYDER ALLI,
AND
HIS SUBSEQUENT NEGOCIATIONS AND TRANSACTIONS IN
THE EAST.
-------------------------------------------
—————“HEU QUIBUS ILLE
JACTATUS FATIS.”
-------------------------------------------
LONDON,
PRINTED FOR CULLEN AND COMPANY, NO. 54, PALL-MALL.
---
1795.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ADVERTISEMENT.
The Events related in the following Pages, naturally became a
frequent subject of conversation with my Children and my Friends. They
felt so much satisfaction at the accounts which I gave them, that they
repeatedly urged me to commit the whole to paper; and their affectionate
partiality induced them to suppose, that the Narrative would be, not
only agreeable to them, but interesting to the Public. In complying with
their solicitations, I am far from being confident that the success of
my efforts will justify their hopes: I trust, however, that too much
will not be expected, in regard to literary composition, from a person
whose life has been principally devoted to the duties of a Soldier and
the service of his Country——and that a scrupulous adherence to Truth
will compensate for many blemishes in style and arrangement.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS.
---------------------------------------------------------
PART I.
-------------------------------------------
LETTER I. Page 1.
Introductory.
LETTER II. Page 5.
Ridiculous Effects of Ignorance, exemplified in a whimsical Story of two
Dublin Aldermen.
LETTER III. Page 10.
Author’s Motives for going to India. Melancholy Presentiments. Caution
against Superstition. Journey to Margate. Packet. Consoled by
meeting General LOCKHART on board. Lands at Ostend.
LETTER IV. Page 15.
Short Account of the Netherlands. Conduct of the Belgians. Ostend
described. Wonderful Effects of LIBERTY on the Human Mind,
exemplified in the Defence of Ostend against the Spaniards.
LETTER V. Page 20.
Caution against using Houses of Entertainment on the Continent kept by
Englishmen. Description of the Barques. Arrives at Bruges. Gross Act
of Despotism in the Emperor. Imprisonment of LA FAYETTE.
LETTER VI. Page 27.
Description of Bruges. Reflections on the Rise and Decay of Empires.
Chief Grandeur of the Cities of Christendom, consisted in Buildings,
the Works of Monkish Imposture and Sensuality. Superstition a
powerful Engine.
LETTER VII. Page 33.
Opulence of the Bishop of Bruges; Cathedral. Church of Notre Dame.
Vestments of THOMAS A BECKET. Extraordinary Picture. Monastery of
the Dunes. The Mortification of that Order. A curious Relic.
LETTER VIII. Page 40.
Passage to Ghent. Cheapness of Travelling. Description of Ghent
Cathedral. Monastery of St. Pierre. CHARITY of the Clergy.
LETTER IX. Page 47.
Description of two brazen Images, erected in Commemoration of an
extraordinary Act of Filial Virtue. Journey from Ghent through Alost
to Brussels.
LETTER X. Page 52.
General Review of Austrian Flanders.
LETTER XI. Page 58.
Short Description of Brussels. Royal Library. Arsenal. Armour of
Montezuma. The Enormities committed under the Pretext of
Christianity, by far greater than those committed by the French in
the Frenzy of Emancipation.
LETTER XII. Page 65.
Brussels continued. Churches, Chapels, Toys, Images and Pictures. A
Host, or Wafer, which was stabbed by a Jew, and bled profusely. Inns
excellent and cheap.
LETTER XIII. Page 72.
General Remarks on the People of the Netherlands. Account of the Emperor
JOSEPH the Second. Anecdote of that Monarch. His Inauguration at
Brussels. Burning of the Town-House. Contrasted Conduct of the
Belgians to JOSEPH on his Arrival, and after his Departure. The
detestable Effects of Aristocracy.
LETTER XIV. Page 82.
Liege. Constitution of the German Empire. Tolerant Disposition of JOSEPH
the Second, occasions a Visit from His Holiness the Pope, who
returns to Rome in Disappointment. Situation of the present Emperor.
Reflections on the Conduct of Russia and Prussia to Poland.
LETTER XV. Page 90.
Luxury of the Bishop of Liege. Reflections on the Inconsistency of the
Professions and Practice of Churchmen, particularly the _Nolo
Episcopari_, which Bishops swear at their Instalment. Advantages of
the Study of the Law in all Countries. Liege, the Paradise of
Priests. Sir JOHN MANDEVILLE’s Tomb.
LETTER XVI. Page 96.
Aix-la-Chapelle. A bit of Earth in a Golden Casket. Consecration of the
Cathedral, by an Emperor, a Pope, and three hundred and sixty-five
Bishops. Their valuable Presents to that Church.
LETTER XVII. Page 102.
Juliers. Reflections on Religious Persecution. Cologne. Church of St.
Ursula. Bones of eleven thousand Virgin Martyrs. Church of St.
Gerion. Nine hundred Heads of Moorish Cavaliers. Reflections on the
Establishment of Clergy, and the Superiority of that of Scotland.
LETTER XVIII. Page 109.
Cologne continued. Strange Ambition of Families to be thought
Descendants of the Romans. Story of Lord ANSON and a Greek Pilot.
Bonne. Bridge of Cæsar. Coblentz. Mentz. Frankfort.
LETTER XIX. Page 115.
Frankfort described. Golden Bull. Augsburgh. Manufactory of
Watch-Chains, &c. Happy State of Society arising from the tolerant
Disposition of the Inhabitants.
LETTER XX. Page 121.
Augsburgh continued. Adventure in the Convent of Carmelites. A good
Friar.
LETTER XXI. Page 128.
Tyrol Country. Story of Genii leading the Emperor MAXIMILIAN astray.
Innspruck.
LETTER XXII. Page 134.
Tyrolese. Innspruck. Riches of the Franciscan Church there. One Mass in
it sufficient to deliver a Soul from Purgatory. Hall. Curiosities at
the Royal Palace of Ombras. Brisen. Valley of Bolsano. Trent.
LETTER XXIII. Page 140.
Description of the Bishopric of Trent. Obvious Difference between
Germany and Italy. Contrast between the Characters of the Germans
and Italians. Council of Trent. Tower for drowning Adulterers.
Bassano. Venice.
LETTER XXIV. Page 146.
General Description of Venice, and Reflections on the Venetians.
LETTER XXV. Page 154.
Concubinage more systematically countenanced in Venice than London.
Trieste. Loss of Servant and Interpreter. Sail for Alexandria.
Zante.
LETTER XXVI. Page 160.
Adventure at the Island of Zante. Alexandria. The Plague, and an
Incursion of the Arabs. Pompey’s Pillar, Cleopatra’s Obelisk, &c.
Island of Cyprus. Latichea. Aleppo.
---------------------------------------------------------
PART II.
-------------------------------------------
LETTER XXVII. Page 1.
Description of Aleppo.
LETTER XXVIII. Page 10.
Short Account of the Turkish Constitution and Government.
LETTER XXIX. Page 19.
Account of Turkish Constitution and Government continued. Moral
Character of the Turks.
LETTER XXX. Page 25.
Prejudices of Christian Writers, and their Misrepresentations of the
Turkish Morals and Religion. Vindication of the latter.
LETTER XXXI. Page 33.
Vindication of the Turks continued. Description of a Caravan, Page 40.
Account of Ceremonies used by Pilgrims at Mecca, Page 48.
LETTER XXXII. Page 51.
Aleppo continued. Frequent Broils in the Streets.
LETTER XXXIII. Page 59.
Aleppo continued. Coffee-houses. Story-tellers.
LETTER XXXIV. Page 66.
Aleppo continued. Puppet-shews. Raraghuze, or Punch, his Freedom of
Speech and Satire.
LETTER XXXV. Page 74.
Disagreeable Adventure, which occasions a sudden Departure from Aleppo.
LETTER XXXVI. Page 83.
A Plan of Travelling settled. Tartar Guide. Departure from Aleppo.
LETTER XXXVII. Page 92.
Description of Tartar Guide. His Conduct. Arrival at Diarbeker. Padan
Aram of Moses. Scripture Ground. Reflections. Description of the
City of Diarbeker. Whimsical Incident occasioned by Laughing. Oddity
of the Tartar.
LETTER XXXIX. Page 107.
Strange Traits in the Tartar’s Character. Buys Women, ties them up in
Sacks, and carries them 50 Miles. Reflections on the Slave Trade.
Apostrophe to the Champion of the oppressed Africans.
LETTER XL. Page 115.
Extravagant Conduct of the Tartar, which he afterwards explains
satisfactorily. Extraordinary Incident and Address of the Tartar, in
the Case of Santons.
LETTER XLI. Page 123.
Explanation of the Affair by the Santons. Bigotry. Reflections.
LETTER XLII. Page 130.
Arrives at Mosul. Description thereof. A Story-teller. A Puppet-shew.
The Tartar forced to yield to Laughter, which he so much condemned.
Set out for Bagdad. Callenders—their artful Practices.
---------------------------------------------------------
PART. III.
-------------------------------------------
LETTER XLIII. Page 1.
Arrives at Bagdad. Whimsical Conduct of the Guide. Character of the
Turks. Short Account of Bagdad. Effects of Opinion. Ruins of
Babylon. Leaves Bagdad. Attacked by Robbers on the Tigris.
LETTER XLIV. Page 11.
Arrives at Bassora. Account of that City. Leaves it, and arrives at
Busheer. More Disappointments. Bombay. Goa. Gloomy Presentiments on
leaving Goa. A Storm.
LETTER XLV. Page 19.
Shipwreck.
LETTER XLVI. Page 25.
The same.
LETTER XLVII. Page 31.
Made Prisoner by some of HYDER ALLI’S Troops. Humanity of a Lascar.
Hardships. Meets a Friend. Mr. HALL.
LETTER XLVIII. Page 38.
Mr. HALL’s Misery aggravated by the Loss of a Miniature which hung at
his Bosom. Sent under a Guard up the Country.
LETTER XLIX. Page 45.
Arrives at Hydernagur, the Capital of the Province of Bidanore. Brought
before the Jemadar. Committed to Prison.
LETTER L. Page 55.
History of HYAT SAHIB. Called upon to enter into the Service of HYDER,
and offered a Command. Peremptorily refuses. Another Prisoner, a
Native. Court of Justice. Tortures and Exactions. Mr. HALL declining
fast.
LETTER LI. Page 63.
Mr. HALL’s affecting Story.
LETTER LII. Page 70.
Pressed to enter into the Service of HYDER ALLI. Refusal. Threatened to
be hanged. Actually suspended, but let down again. Still persists in
a Refusal, and determined to undergo any Death rather than enter.
Projects a Plan to excite a Revolt, and escape.
LETTER LIII. Page 77.
Project to escape defeated. Laid in Irons. Intolerable Hardships. Death
of Mr. HALL.
LETTER LIV. Page 83.
Melancholy Situation. Cruelty. Released from Prison. Account of HYDER,
and East Indian Politics in general.
LETTER LV. Page 88.
East Indian Politics continued.
LETTER LVI. Page 96.
Account of HYDER, and Indian Politics continued. General MATHEWS’s
Descent on the Malabar Coast. Mounts the Ghauts. Approaches towards
Hydernagur. Author’s Delight at getting into the open Air. Delivered
by an unexpected Encounter from his Guards.
LETTER LVII. Page 103.
Returns to the Fort, and proposes to the Jemadar to give it up to the
English. Proceeds to the English Camp.
LETTER LVIII. Page 110.
Meeting with General MATHEWS. Returns to the Fort with a Cowl. Delivers
it to the Jemadar. Leads General MATHEWS into the Fort, and brings
him into the Presence of the Jemadar. English Flag hoisted.
Vindication of General MATHEWS from the Charge of Peculation.
LETTER LIX. Page 118.
Sets off for Bengal. Cundapore. Unable to proceed. Letter from General
MATHEWS. Proceeds in an open Boat for Anjengo. Stopped by Sickness
at Mangalore. Tellicherry. Anjengo. Travancore. Dancing Girls.
Palamcotah. Madura. Revolt of ISIF CAWN.
LETTER LX. Page 132.
Trichinopoly. Tanjore. Burning of Gentoo Women with the Bodies of their
Husbands. Negapatnam.
LETTER LXI. Page 149.
Leaves Negapatnam. Taken by a French Frigate. Horrible Reflections.
SUFFREIN. Character of TIPPOO SAHIB. Escape. Arrives at Madras.
LETTER LXII. Page 149.
Passage to Bengal. Negociation for HYAT SAHIB. Mr. HASTINGS. Sir JOHN
MACPHERSON. Hear from MACAULEY, Sir JOHN’s Secretary, of the Servant
I lost at Trieste. Jagranaut Pagoda. Vizagapatnam.
LETTER LXIII. Page 167.
Masulipatam. Arrives at Madras. Determines to proceed on HYAT’s Business
to Bombay. Reaches Palamcotah. Takes sick. Recovering, crawls to
Anjengo, and thence to Bombay. Resolves to return again to Madras.
Adventure with a young Lady. Surat. China. Bath. Conclusion.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_ERRATA._
PART I.
P. L.
9. 2. For _shroud_, read _shrewd_.
24. 2. For _le berque_, read _la barque_.
30. 3. For _conquerous_, read _conquerors_.
40. 1. For _berque_, read _barque_.
41. 15. For _berque_, read _barque_.
138. 18. For _I_, read _It_.
147. 14. For _prospect_, read _appearance_.
156. 18. For _Sucz_, read _Suez_.
162. 15. For _reget_, read _regret_.
165. 15. For _exporium_, read _emporium_.
PART III.
P. L.
16. 18. For _snow_, read _storm_.
18. 7. For _ports_, read _parts_.
21. 10. For _rolling_, read _bailing_.
24. 4. After _to_, insert _be_.
30. 2. For _I_, read _It_.
71. 17. For _conscience_, read
_convenience_.
90. 3. For _or_, read _for_.
108. 24. For _one_, read _ten_.
122. 1. For _shewed_, read _shewn_.
129. 19. For _Troop_, read _Company_.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A
JOURNEY TO INDIA, &c.
---------------------------------------------------------
PART I.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A
JOURNEY TO INDIA, &c.
---------------------------------------------------------
LETTER I.
-------------------------------------------
MY DEAR FREDERICK,
The tenderness of a fond father’s heart admonishes me, that I
should but poorly requite the affectionate solicitude you have so often
expressed, to become acquainted with the particulars of my journey over
land to India, if I any longer withheld from you an account of that
singular and eventful period of my life. I confess to you, my dear boy,
that often when I have endeavoured to amuse you with the leading
incidents and extraordinary vicissitudes of fortune which chequered the
whole of that series of adventures, and observed the eager attention
with which, young though you were, you listened to the recital, the
tender sensibility you disclosed at some passages, and the earnest
desire you expressed that “I should the whole relate,” I have felt an
almost irresistible impulse to indulge you with an accurate and faithful
narrative, and have more than once sat down at my bureau for the
purpose: but sober and deliberate reflection suggested that it was too
soon, and that, by complying with your desire at such a very early
period of your life, I should but render the great end that I proposed
by it abortive, frustrate the instruction which I meant to convey, and
impress the mere incident on your memory, while the moral deducible from
it must necessarily evaporate, and leave no trace, or rather excite no
idea, in a mind not sufficiently matured for the conception of abstract
principles, or prepared by practice for the deduction of moral
inferences.
I am aware that there are many people, who, contemplating only the
number of your days, would consider my undertaking this arduous task,
and offering it to your reflection, even now, premature: but this is a
subject on which I have so long and so deliberately dwelt, which I have
discussed with so much care, and examined with such impartiality, that I
think I may be acquitted of vanity, though I say I am competent to form
a judgment on it. The result of that judgment is, that I am determined
to indulge you without further delay; and I trust that you will not, on
your part, render it an empty indulgence, but, on the contrary, by
turning every circumstance to its best use, by converting every feeling
which these pages may excite in your heart into matter of serious
reflection, and by making every event (as it happens to deserve) an
example to promote either emulation on the one hand, or circumspection
and caution on the other, justify me in that opinion of you on which I
found this determination.
I remember, that when, at an early age, I entered upon that stage of
classical education at which you are now, at an earlier age, arrived——I
mean, the Æneid——I was not only captivated with the beautiful story of
the Hero, in the second Book, but drew certain inferences from parts of
it, which I shall never forget, and which afterwards served to give a
direction to the growth of my sentiments on occasions of a similar
nature: above all, the filial piety of Æneas made a deep impression on
my mind, and, by imperceptibly exciting an emulation in my bosom,
augmented considerably the natural warmth of my affection and respect
for my father. It is under the recollection of this sensation, and a
firm persuasion that your heart is fully as susceptible of every tender
impression, and your understanding as fit for the reception of useful
history, as mine was then, that I overlook your extreme youth, and write
to you as though you were an adult. If there be a thing on earth of
which I can boast a perfect knowledge, it is my FREDERICK’s heart: it
has been the object of my uninterrupted study almost since it was first
capable of manifesting a sensation; and, if I am not very much mistaken
in it indeed, the lively interest he feels in the occurrences of his
father’s life, is the result, not of idle curiosity, but unbounded
filial affection. Such an amiable motive shall not be disappointed in
its end; and while I discharge the duty of a parent in gratifying it, I
shall be encouraged and sustained under my labours by the sanguine
expectation, that he will derive from my exertions the most solid
advantages in his future progress through life. As those advantages are
expected also to extend to my dear boy JOHN, whose tender years
disqualify him from making the same immediate reflections on the various
subjects as they occur, my FREDERICK will perceive that it becomes his
duty, not only as a good son, but as an affectionate brother, to assist
and enforce them upon his mind, to explain to him the difficulties, and
furnish him with his reasonings and inferences on them, so as that they
may make, as nearly as possible, equal impressions on the heart and
understanding of both.
“Felix quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum:”
And though few have the felicity to be warned by other men’s misfortunes
or faults, because they seldom make deep impressions on their feelings,
I am convinced that my sufferings and errors, as they will interest my
FREDERICK’s heart, and gratify his curiosity, cannot fail to enlarge his
understanding, and improve his conduct.
I am my dear FREDERICK’s, _&c._
D. C.
---------------------------------------------------------
LETTER II.
-------------------------------------------
Having, in compliance with your reiterated solicitations,
determined to give you a narrative of my journey to the East Indies, and
the singular turns of fortune which befel me there, I think it
necessary, on reflection, to prepare you still further for the reception
of it, by proposing certain terms to be fulfilled on your part; and as,
in my last, I told you that I expected you, and, with your assistance,
your brother, to turn my relation to a more useful account than the
gratification of mere idle curiosity, by letting the moral deducible
from my errors and misfortunes strike deep and take root in your
mind——so there are other things, which, though not so extremely
important, are too weighty to be neglected; to which I desire to direct
your attention.
I believe you must have already perceived, that the wellbeing of
yourself and your brother is my first——I might, perhaps, without
trespassing much upon truth, say, my only object in life; that, to the
care of your education, and the cultivation of your mind, I exclusively
devote my time and my thoughts; and that, to insure your future
happiness, I would sacrifice every thing I have a right to dispose of,
and risk even life itself. The time, I trust, is not far distant, when
your brother will be as well qualified to understand this as you are
now——when both will feel alike the important duty it enforces on
you——and when your only emulation will be, who shall produce the most
luxuriant harvest to reward the labours I have taken——to reward
yourselves.
In order, therefore, on my part, to give every thing I do a tendency to
the great object of my wishes, and induce you, on your’s, to contribute
your share to it, I shall give you, as I proceed in my narrative, a
topographical description of the various Countries through which I shall
have occasion to conduct you, and, as concisely as may be, an account of
their manners, policy, and municipal institutions, so far as I have been
able to collect them; which I hope will serve to awaken in you a thirst
for those indispensable parts of polite education, Geography and
History. I expect that you will carefully attend to those sciences, and
that you will not suffer yourself, as you read my Letters, to be carried
away by the rapid stream of idle curiosity from incident to incident,
without time or disposition for reflection: you must take excursions, as
you go along, from my Letters to your Geographical Grammar and your
Maps——and, when necessary, call in the aid of your Tutor, in order to
compare my observations with those of others on the same places, and by
those means to acquire as determinate an idea as possible of their local
situation, laws, and comparative advantages, whether of Nature or Art.
You will thus enable yourself hereafter to consider how Society is
influenced, and why some Communities are better directed than others.
Here I must observe to you, that as Geography is a science to which
rational conversation, as supported by Gentlemen of breeding and
education, most frequently refers, the least ignorance of it is
continually liable to detection, and, when detected, subjects a man to
the most mortifying ridicule and contempt.
The ingenious GEORGE ALEXANDER STEEVENS has, in his celebrated Lecture
upon Heads, given a most ludicrous instance of this species of
ignorance, in the character of a Citizen, who, censuring the incapacity
of Ministers, proposes to carry on the War on a new plan of his own. The
plan is, to put the Troops in cork jackets——send them, thus equipped, to
sea——and _land them in the Mediterranean_: When his companion asks him
where that place lies, he calls him _fool_, and informs him that the
Mediterranean is the Capital of Constantinople. Thus, my dear son, has
this satirist ridiculed ignorance in pretenders to education; and thus
will every one be ridiculous who betrays a deficiency in this very
indispensable ingredient in forming the character of a Gentleman. But a
story which I heard from a person of strict veracity, will serve more
strongly to shew you the shame attendant on ignorance of those things
which, from our rank, we are supposed to know; and as the fear of shame
never fails to operate powerfully on a generous mind, I am sure it will
serve to alarm you into industry, and application to your studies.
During the late American War, about that period when the KING of FRANCE
was, so fatally for himself, though perhaps in the end it may prove
fortunate for the interests of Mankind, manifesting an intention to
interfere and join the Americans, a worthy Alderman in Dublin, reading
the newspaper, observed a paragraph, intimating, that in consequence of
British cruisers having stopped some French vessels at sea, and searched
them, France had taken _umbrage_! The sagacious Alderman, more patriotic
than learned, took the alarm, and proceeded, with the paper in his hand,
directly to a brother of the Board, and, with unfeigned sorrow, deplored
the loss his Country had sustained, in having a place of such
consequence as UMBRAGE ravished from it!——desiring, of all things, to be
informed in what part of the world _Umbrage_ lay. To this the other,
after a torrent of invective against Ministers, and condolence with his
afflicted friend, answered that he was utterly unable to tell him, but
that he had often heard it mentioned, and of course conceived it to be a
place of great importance; at the same time proposing that they should
go to a neighbouring Bookseller, who, as he dealt in Books, must
necessarily know every thing, in order to have this gordian knot untied.
They accordingly went; and having propounded the question, “what part of
the globe _Umbrage_ lay in?” the Bookseller took a Gazetteer, and,
having searched it diligently, declared that he could not find it, and
said he was almost sure there was no such place in existence. To this
the two Aldermen, with a contemptuous sneer, answered by triumphantly
reading the paragraph out of the newspaper. The Bookseller, who was a
shrewd fellow, and, like most of his Countrymen, delighted in a jest,
gravely replied, that the Gazetteer being an old edition, he could not
answer for it, but that he supposed _Umbrage_ lay somewhere on the coast
of America. With this the wise Magistrates returned home, partly
satisfied: but what words can express their chagrin when they found
their error——that the unlucky Bookseller had spread the story over the
City——that the newspapers were filled with satirical squibs upon
it——nay, that a caracature print of themselves leading the City-watch to
the _retaking of Umbrage_, was stuck up in every shop——and finally, that
they could scarcely (albeit Aldermen) walk the streets, without having
the populace sneer at them about the _taking_ of _Umbrage_!
Thus, my child, will every one be more or less ridiculous who appears
obviously ignorant of those things which, from the rank he holds in
life, he should be expected to know, or to the knowledge of which vanity
or petulance may tempt him to pretend.
I am sure I need not say more to you on this subject; for I think you
love me too well to disappoint me in the first wish of my heart, and I
believe you have too much manly pride to suffer so degrading a defect as
indolence to expose you hereafter to animadversion or contempt.
Remember, that as nothing in this life, however trivial or worthless, is
to be procured without labour——so, above all others, the weighty and
invaluable treasures of erudition are only to be acquired by exertions
vigorously made and unremittingly continued.
“Quid munus Reipublicæ majus aut melius afferre possumus quam si
juventutem bene erudiamus.”——Thus said the matchless TULLY. If, then,
the education of youth interests so very deeply a State, can it less
powerfully interest him who stands in the two-fold connection of a
Citizen and Parent? It is the lively anxiety of my mind, on this point,
that obliges me to procrastinate the commencement of my narrative to
another Letter, and induces me to entreat that you will, in the mean
time, give this the consideration it deserves, and prepare your mind to
follow its instructions.
---------------------------------------------------------
LETTER III.
-------------------------------------------
A variety of unpropitious circumstances gave rise to my journey to
the East Indies, while domestic calamity marked my departure, and, at
the very outset, gave me a foretaste of those miseries which Fate had
reserved to let fall upon me in the sequel. The channels from which I
drew the means of supporting my family in that style which their rank
and connections obliged them to maintain, were clogged by a coincidence
of events as unlucky as unexpected: the War in India had interrupted the
regular remittance of my property from thence: a severe shock which
unbounded generosity and beneficence had given to the affairs of my
father, rendered him incapable of maintaining his usual punctuality in
the payment of the income he had assigned me; and, to crown the whole, I
had been deprived, by death, of two lovely children (your brother and
sister), whom I loved not less than I have since loved you and your
brother.
It was under the pressure of those accumulated afflictions, aggravated
by the goading thought of leaving my family for such a length of time as
must necessarily elapse before I could again see them, that I set out
for India in the month of May, in the year 1781, with a heart
overwhelmed with woe, and too surely predictive of misfortunes.
From the gloomy cave of depression in which my mind was sunk, I looked
forward, to seek, in the future, a gleam of comfort——but in vain: not a
ray appeared——Melancholy had thrown her sombre shadow on the whole. Even
present affliction yielded up a share of my heart to an unaccountable
dismal presentiment of future ill; and the disasters and disappointments
I had passed, were lost and forgotten in ominous forebodings and
instinctive presages of those that were to come.
Of all the weaknesses to which the human mind is subject, superstition
is that against which I would have you guard with the utmost vigilance.
It is the most incurable canker of the mind. Under its unrelenting
dominion, happiness withers, the understanding becomes obscured, and
every principle of joy is blasted. For this reason I wish to account for
those presages, by referring them to their true physical causes, in
order thereby to prevent your young mind from receiving, from what I
have written, any injurious impression, or superstitious idea of
_presentiment_, as it is fashionably denominated.
If the mind of Man be examined, it will be found naturally prone to the
contemplation of the future——its flights from hope to hope, or fear to
fear, leading it insensibly from objects present and in possession, to
those remote and in expectation——from positive good to suppositious
better, or from actual melancholy to imaginary misfortune. In these
cases, the mind never fails to see the prospect in colours derived from
the medium through which it is viewed and exaggerated by the magnifying
power of fancy. Thus my mind, labouring under all the uneasiness I have
described, saw every thing through the gloomy medium of melancholy, and,
looking forward, foreboded nothing but misfortune: accident afterwards
fulfilled those forebodings; but accident, nay, the most trifling change
of circumstances, might possibly have so totally changed the face of my
subsequent progress, that good fortune, instead of misadventure, might
have been my lot, and so all my foreboding been as illusory and fallible
as all such phantoms of the imagination really are. Thus I argue
now——and I am sure I argue truly; but if reason be not timely called in,
and made, as it were, an habitual inmate, it avails but little against
the overbearing force of superstition, who, when she once gets
possession of the mind, holds her seat with unrelenting tenacity, and,
calling in a whole host of horrors, with despair at their head, to her
aid, entrenches herself behind their formidable powers, and bids
defiance to the assaults of reason.
Thus it fared with me——Under the dominion of gloomy presentiment, I left
London; and my journey down to Margate, where I was to take shipping,
was, as SHAKSPEARE emphatically says, “a phantasm, or a hideous
dream——and my little state of Man suffered, as it were, the nature of an
insurrection:”——the chaos within me forbade even the approach of
discriminate reflection; and I found myself on board the Packet, bound
to Ostend, without having a single trace left upon my mind, of the
intermediate stages and incidents, that happened since I had left
London.
It has been observed——and I wish you always to carry it in memory, as
one of the best consolations under affliction——that human sufferings,
like all other things, find their vital principle exhausted, and their
extinction accelerated, by overgrowth; and that, at the moment when Man
thinks himself most miserable, a benignant Providence is preparing
relief, in some form or other, for him. So it, in some sort, happened
with me; for I was fortunate enough to find in the Packet a
fellow-passenger, whose valuable conversation and agreeable manners
beguiled me insensibly of the gloomy contemplation in which I was
absorbed, and afforded my tortured mind a temporary suspension of pain.
This Gentleman was General LOCKHART: he was going to Brussels, to pay
his court to the Emperor JOSEPH the Second, who was then shortly
expected in the Low Countries, in order to go through the ceremonies of
his Inauguration. As Brussels lay in my way, I was flattered with the
hopes of having for a companion a Gentleman at once so pleasing in his
manners and respectable in his character, and was much comforted when I
found him as much disposed as myself to an agreement to travel the whole
of the way thither together. Thus, though far, very far from a state of
ease, I was, when landing at Ostend, at least less miserable than at my
coming on board the Packet.
As this Letter is already spun to a length too great to admit of any
material part of the description I am now to give you of Ostend, and the
Country to which it belongs, I think it better to postpone it to my
next, which I mean to devote entirely to that subject, and thereby avoid
the confusion that arises from mixing two subjects in the same Letter,
or breaking off the thread of one in order to make way for the other.
Adieu, my dear boy!——Forget not your brother JOHN. That you may both be
good and happy, is all the wish now left to, &c.
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LETTER IV.
-------------------------------------------
That Country to which I am now to call your attention——I mean, the
Netherlands——is marked by a greater number of political changes, and
harrassed by a more continued train of military operations, than perhaps
any Country in the records of Modern History. It may truly be called the
Cockpit Royal of Europe, on which Tyrants, as ambition, avarice, pride,
caprice, or malignity, prompted them, pitted thousands, and hundreds of
thousands, of their fellow-creatures, to cut each other’s throats about
some point, frivolous as regarding themselves, unimportant to Mankind,
and only tending to gratify a diabolical lust for dominion: Yet, under
all these disadvantages, (such are the natural qualities of this
Country), it has, till lately, been in a tolerably flourishing state;
and would, under good government and proper protection, equal any part
of Europe for richness.
Flanders, Brabant, and the Country now called the United Netherlands,
were in general known by the name of Netherlands, Low Countries, or
Païs-bas, from their situation, as it is supposed, in respect of
Germany. Anciently, they formed a part of Belgic Gaul, of which you may
remember to have read an account in the Commentaries of JULIUS CÆSAR,
who describes the inhabitants as the most valiant of all the Gallic
Nations——“Horum omnium Belgæ sunt fortissimi.” They afterwards were
subject to petty Princes, and made part of the German Empire; and, in
the sixteenth century, became subject to CHARLES the Fifth of the House
of Austria; but, being oppressed beyond endurance by his son, PHILIP the
Second of Spain, (that blind and furious bigot), they openly
revolted——flew to arms to assert their freedom; and, after a struggle as
glorious in effect as virtuous in principle——after performing prodigies
of valour, and exhibiting examples of fortitude, to which none but men
fighting in the Godlike Cause of LIBERTY are competent——led on by the
wisdom and valour of the PRINCE of ORANGE, and assisted by the SOVEREIGN
of GREAT BRITAIN——they at length so far succeeded, that those now called
the United Netherlands, entered into a solemn league, and forced the
gloomy Tyrant to acknowledge their independence. But that part to which
I am now particularly to allude, continued annexed to the House of
Austria. In 1787, they revolted, and made a temporary struggle to
disengage themselves from the dominion of the EMPEROR; but, owing to
some cabals among themselves, and the temperate conduct of that Prince,
they again returned to their allegiance, and were rewarded with a
general amnesty. In 1792, they were over-run by the French Army under
General DUMOURIER——opened their arms to those Republicans, and were
rewarded for it by oppression, tyranny, and injustice. The French,
however, were driven back out of the Country; and, wonderful to relate,
they again received their old Master, the EMPEROR, with strong
demonstrations of joy, and manifested their loyalty and attachment to
him by every expression that abject hypocrisy could suggest.
“O! how unlike their Belgic Sires of old!”
Here, could I stop with strict justice, I would——But, behold! the French
again came; again they opened their gates to receive them; and again
they were, with tenfold fury and rapacity, pillaged, oppressed, and
insulted; and at the very time I am writing this, the Guillotine is
doing its office——enforcing the payment of the most exorbitant and
enormous contributions, and compelling, it is said, one hundred thousand
of the ill-fated inhabitants to take the field, as soldiers of the
Republic.
Human opinion is so chequered and uncertain, that two very honest men
may in certain cases act in direct contradiction and hostility to each
other, with the very best intentions——He, therefore, must have but a
cold heart, and a contracted understanding, who cannot forgive the man
that acts in such cases erroneously, when he acts from the exact
dictates of his opinion, and upon the principle which he has
conscientiously adopted: but when a whole People are seen whisking about
with every gust of fortune, and making a new principle for every new
point of convenience, we must despise them even when they happen to act
right, and can scarcely afford them so much as pity in their calamities.
The Austrian Netherlands are now in that state; and, without presuming
to say in which of their tergiversations they were right, I will venture
to pronounce that they deserve punishment, and I believe they are in
hands very likely to give them their due.
To return——Ostend is a sea-port of Austrian Flanders, and is situated in
the Liberty of Bruges. It was, at one time, the strongest town in
Flanders: but a double ditch and ramparts, which constituted its
strength, are now destroyed; and in the place where the former stood,
docks, or rather basons, extremely capacious and commodious, are formed,
for the reception of shipping. The ground about the town is very low and
marshy, and cut into a number of fine canals——into some of which, ships
of the largest size may enter——and in one of which, vessels of great
burthen may ride, even close to Bruges. The harbour here is so
fortunately circumstanced, that it was once thought, by Engineers,
entirely secure from a blockade; and its pristine strength can in no way
be so well described, as by a relation of the defence it made in the
four first years of the seventeenth century——though, near the close of
the sixteenth, it was no better than an insignificant fishing town. It
held out against the Spaniards for three years, two months and sixteen
days. Eighty thousand men lost their lives before it, while fifty
thousand were killed or died within. It at last surrendered, but on good
terms; and not for want of men or provisions, but for want of ground to
stand on, which the enemy took from them, at an amazing loss, step by
step, till they had not room left for men to defend it. Three hundred
thousand cannon-balls, of thirty pounds weight each, were fired against
it; and the besieged often filled up the breaches made in their ramparts
with heaps of dead bodies.
Such, my dear boy, are the miracles that men, animated with the
all-subduing spirit of Liberty, can perform——Liberty! that immediate
jewel of the soul——that first moving principle of all the animal
creation——which, with equal power, influences the bird to beat the cage
with its wings, and the lion to tear the bars of his imprisonment——the
infant to spring from the tender confinement of its nurse, and the lean
and shrivelled pantaloon to crawl abroad, and fly the warmth and repose
of his wholesome chamber——Liberty! which, for centuries enthralled by
artifice and fraud, or lulled into a slumber by the witching spirit of
Priest-craft, now rises like a giant refreshed with wine——in its great
efforts for emancipation, destroys and overturns systems——but, when
finding no resistance, and matured by time, will, I sincerely hope, sink
appeased into a generous calm, and become the blessing, the guardian and
protector of Mankind!
It is your good fortune, my dear children, to be born at a time when
Liberty seems to be well understood in your own Country, and is
universally the prevalent passion of men. It is almost needless,
therefore, for me to exhort you to make it the groundwork of your
political morality: but let me remind you to guard, above all, against
the despotism of certain Tyrants, to whom many of the greatest advocates
for Liberty are strangely apt to submit——I mean, your passions. Of all
other Tyrants, they are the most subtle, the most bewitching, the most
overbearing, and, what is worse, the most cruel. Beneath the domination
of other Despots, tranquillity may alleviate the weight of your chains,
and soften oppression; but when once you become the slave of your
passions, your peace is for ever fled, and you live and die in unabating
misery.
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LETTER V.
-------------------------------------------
The pride of the English is remarked all over the globe, even to a
proverb! But pride is a word of such dubious meaning, so undefined in
its sense, and strained to such various imports, that you shall hear it
violently execrated by one, and warmly applauded by another——this
denouncing it as a sin of the first magnitude, and that maintaining it
to be the most vigilant guardian of human virtue. Those differences in
opinion arise not from any defect in the intellects of either, but from
each viewing the subject in that one point in which it first strikes his
eye, or best suits his taste, his feeling, or his prejudices. I have no
doubt, however, but a full consideration of the subject would shew, that
pride, as it is called, is only good or bad as the object from which it
arises is mean or magnificent, culpable or meritorious. That noble pride
which stimulates to extraordinary acts of generosity and magnanimity,
such as, in many instances, has distinguished, above all others, the
Nobility of Spain, exacts the homage and admiration of Mankind: But I
fear very much that our English pride is of another growth, and smells
too rankly of that overstrained commercial spirit which makes the basis
of the present grandeur of Great Britain, but which, in my humble
judgment, raises only to debase her——by slow, subtle degrees, poisons
the national principle, enslaves the once bold spirit of the People,
detracts from their real solid felicity, and, by confounding the idea of
national wealth with that of national prosperity, leads it in rapid
strides to its downfall. In short, we are approaching, I fear, with
daily accelerated steps, to the disposition and sordid habits of the
Dutch, of whom Doctor GOLDSMITH so very pertinently and truly speaks,
when he says,
“Ev’n Liberty itself is barter’d here!”
Without leading your mind through a maze of disquisition on this
subject, which might fatigue with abstruseness and prolixity, I will
bring you back to the point from which the matter started, and content
myself with remarking, that the pride of the English, speaking of it as
a part of the national character, is the meanest of all pride. The
inflation of bloated, overgrown wealth, an overweening affection for
money, an idolatrous worship of gain, have absolutely confounded the
general intellect, and warped the judgment of the many to that excess,
that, in estimating men or things, they refer always to “what is he
worth?” or, “what will it fetch?” This sordid habit of thinking was
finely hit off by a keen fellow, the native of a neighbouring Kingdom,
who, for many years, carried on business in London, and failed:——Sitting
one day in a coffee-house in the City, where some wealthy Citizens were
discussing a subject not entirely unconnected with cash concerns, one of
them observing him rather attentive to their conversation, turned to
him, and said, “What is your opinion, Sir, of the matter?”—“’s blood,
Sir!” returned he, peevishly, “what opinion can a man have in this
Country, who has not a guinea in his pocket?”
Under the influence of all the various caprices inspired by this unhappy
purse-pride, I am sorry to say our Countrymen do, when they go abroad,
so play the fool, that they are universally flattered and despised,
pillaged and laughed at, by all persons with whom they have any dealing.
In France, Mi Lor Anglois is, or at least was, to have fix times as
great a profusion of every thing as any other person, and pay three
hundred per cent. more for it; and the worst of it was, that a Mi Lor
was found so conducive to their interest, that they would not, if they
could help it, suffer any Englishman to go without a title——nay, would
sometimes, with kindly compulsion, force him to accept of it, whether he
would or not: but if an Englishman be, above all others, the object of
imposition in foreign countries, certainly none pillage him so
unmercifully as his own Countrymen who are settled there. In all the
places through which I have travelled, I have had occasion to remark
(and the remark has been amply verified by every Gentleman I have ever
conversed with on the subject), that the most extravagant houses of
entertainment are those kept by Englishmen. At Ostend, as well as other
places, it was so: therefore, as economy, when it does not trespass upon
the bounds of genteel liberality, is the best security for happiness and
respect, I advise you, whenever you shall have occasion to visit the
Continent, in the first place to avoid all appearance of the purse-proud
ostentation of John Bull; and, in the next place, to avoid all English
houses of entertainment.
It is a singular circumstance, and belongs, I should suppose, peculiarly
to Ostend, that the charity-children of the town are permitted to come
on board the vessels arrived, to beg of the passengers, one day in the
week.
Before I bid adieu to Ostend, I must remark one heavy disadvantage under
which it labours——the want of fresh water; all they use being brought
from Bruges. In going from Ostend to Bruges, a traveller has it in his
choice to go by land, or water——If by land, he gets a good voiture for
about ten shillings of our money; the road is about fourteen or fifteen
miles——If by water (the mode which I adopted, as by far the cheapest and
the pleasantest), he travels in a vessel pretty much resembling our Lord
Mayor’s barge, sometimes called a trackschuyt, but often la barque, or
barke: it is, in truth, fitted up in a style of great neatness, if not
elegance; stored with a large stock of provisions and refreshments of
all kinds, and of superior quality, for the accommodation of the
passengers; and has, particularly, a very handsome private room between
decks, for the company to retire to, in order to drink tea, coffee, &c.
&c. or play at cards. In this comfortable, I might say, delightful
vehicle, as perfectly at ease as lying on a couch in the best room in
London, are passengers drawn by two horses, at the rate of about four
miles an hour, for about ten pence, the same length of way that it would
cost ten shillings to be jumbled in a voiture over a rough paved road.
The country between Ostend and Bruges is very level, and of course
destitute of those charms to a mind of taste, which abound in countries
tossed by the hand of Nature into hill, dale, mountain and valley: the
whole face of it, however, is, or at least then was, in so high a state
of cultivation, and so deeply enriched by the hands of art and industry,
aided by the natural fertility of the soil, that its appearance, though
far from striking or delightful, was by no means unpleasant; and on
approaching the town of Bruges, we passed between two rows of trees,
beautiful, shady, and of lofty size—forming, with the surrounding
objects, a scene, which, if not romantic, was at least picturesque.
In passing through Countries groaning beneath the despotic scourge of
unlimited Monarchy, where subsidies are raised, and taxes laid on _ad
libitum_——where guilty distrust and suspicion, with the eyes of a lynx
and the fangs of a harpy, stand sentinels at every gate, to scrutinize
the harmless passenger, awake him to the clanks of his fetters, and awe
him into compliance, a free-born Briton feels a cold horror creep
through his whole frame: his soul recoils at the gloomily ferocious and
insolently strict examination, with which a sentinel, at the entry of a
town, stops, investigates, demands a passport; and, in short, puts him,
_pro tempore_, in a state of durance, with all its hideous formalities
and appendages, its gates, its bars, its armed ruffians, its formal
professions of laws, and its utter violation of reason and of justice.
Entering the town of Bruges, we were stopped by a sentinel, who, with
all the saucy, swaggering air of authority, of a slave in office,
demanded to know, whether we had any contraband goods? whether we were
in any military capacity? whence we came? and whither we were going?
with a variety of other interrogatories, to my mind equally impertinent
and detestable, but which seemed to make no greater impression on the
good Flemings themselves, than demanding the toll at a turnpike-gate
would make on an English waggoner.
Talking over this subject, since that time, with a Gentleman who is well
acquainted with all those places, he informed me, that in the war
between the Emperor and the States General, some French officers,
travelling through Flanders to join Count MAILLEBOIS, were stopped at
the gate of Bruges, and, by order of the Emperor, sent to his army,
turned into the ranks, and obliged to do duty as common soldiers.—Here,
my dear FREDERICK, was an act, not only despotic in itself, but
aggravated by circumstances of collateral profligacy, of such enormous
magnitude as bids defiance to all power of amplification, and leaves
eloquence hopeless of describing it with greater force than it derives
from a simple narration of the fact: on the one hand, the inroad upon
the just personal rights of the individual; on the other, the rights of
a Nation violated. Some men in England, judging from their own
constitutional security, may disbelieve the fact: but let them consider,
that the Marquis de la FAYETTE, an alien, taken upon neutral ground, is
now, even now, held in illegal, unjust thraldom and persecution——let
them, I say, remember this, and let their incredulity cease.
Bless your stars, my dear boy, that you were born in a Country where
such outrages as these can never be perpetrated by any, and will never
be approved of _but by a few_.
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LETTER VI.
-------------------------------------------
In my last, I carried you past a ferocious, impertinent sentinel,
into the town of Bruges; and now, having got you there, I must
endeavour, from the loose materials I have been able to collect, to give
you a short description of it.
I had heard much of Bruges, its grandeur and its opulence; you will
guess my surprise then, when, on entering it, I found nothing but an
old-fashioned, ill-built, irregular town; the streets, in general,
narrow and dirty, and most of the houses strongly expressive of poverty
and squalid wretchedness: yet this was anciently a most flourishing
city. Did the difference between the town at this time, and its state as
it is represented of old, consist only in its external appearance, we
might readily account for that, in the great improvements made by the
Moderns in the art of house-building; but its present inferiority goes
deeper, and is the result of departed commerce——commerce, that
fluctuating will-with-a-wisp, that leads States in hot pursuit after it,
to entrap them ultimately into mires and precipices, and which, when
caught, stays till it extinguishes the spirit of Freedom in a Nation,
refines its People into feeble slaves, and there leaves them to poverty
and contempt.
Perhaps there is no subject that affords an ampler field for a
speculative mind to expatiate upon, than the various, and, I may say,
incongruous revolutions which have chequered the progress of human
society from the first records of History down to the present time. It
is indeed a speculation which not only tends to improve the
understanding, by calling in experience to correct the illusions of
theory, but is highly instructive in a moral point of view, by pointing
out the instability of the very best strictures of human wisdom, and
teaching us how little reliance is to be placed upon human casualties,
or earthly contingencies. Look to Greece, once, the fountain-head of
Arts, Eloquence, and Learning, and the mother of Freedom——her Poets, her
Legislators, her Soldiers, and her Patriots, even to this day considered
the brightest examples of earthly glory!——see her now sunk in slavery,
ignorance, sloth, and imbecillity, below any petty Nation of Europe.
Look to Rome—in her turn, the queen of Arms and Arts, the land of
Liberty, the nurse of Heroes—the stage on which inflexible Patriots,
accomplished Philosophers, and a free People, acted for centuries a
drama that elevated Man almost above his nature!——see her now reduced to
the last stage of contemptibility——even below it, to ridicule and
laughter——swayed by the most contemptible imposture, and sunk into the
most despicable enslavement, both of person and opinion——the offices of
her glorious Senate performed by a kind of heteroclite being, an
hermaphroditical imposter, who, deducing his right from the very dregs
and offscourings of superstition and fanaticism, and aided by a set of
disciples worthy of such a master, rules the People, not with the
terrors of the Tarpeian rock, nor yet with that which to a Roman bosom
was more terrible, banishment——but with the horrors of _eternal
damnation_!——see her valiant, vigorous Soldiery converted into a band of
feeble fidlers and music-masters, and the clangor of her arms into
shrill concerts of squeaking castratoes; those places where her CICERO
poured forth eloquence divine, and pointed out the paths that led to
true morality——where her BRUTUS and her CATO marshalled the forces of
Freedom, and raised the arm of Justice against Tyrants, over-run by a
knavish host of ignorant, beggarly, bald-pated Friars, vomiting, to a
crowd of gaping bigots, torrents of fanatical bombast, of miracles never
performed, of Gods made of wood or copper, and of Saints, that, like
themselves, lived by imposture and deception!——see her triumphs and
military trophies changed into processions of Priests singing psalms
round wafers and wooden crucifixes; and that code of Philosophy and
Religion, which operated so effectually upon the morals of her People
that there was none among them found so desperate or so base as to break
an oath, exchanged for the Roman Catholic branch of the Christian
Faith——for dispensations for incest, indulgences for murder, fines for
fornication, and an exclusive patent for adultery in their priesthood.
Then look to England!——see her, who once stooped beneath the yoke of
Rome, whose Chief, CARACTACUS, was carried there in chains to grace his
conquerors triumphs, while herself was made the meanest of the Roman
Provinces, now holding the balance of the world, the unrivalled mistress
of Arms, Arts, Commerce——every thing.
It was in this irresistible mutation of things, that Bruges sunk from
the high state of a most flourishing city, where there are still (unless
the French have destroyed them) to be seen the remains of seventeen
palaces, anciently the residences of Consuls of different Nations, each
of which had distinct houses, magnificently built and furnished, with
warehouses for their merchandises: and such was the power and wealth of
the Citizens in those days, that it is an indubitable fact, they kept
their Sovereign, the Archduke MAXIMILIAN, prisoner, affronted his
servants, and abused his officers; nor would they release him until he
took an oath to preserve inviolate the laws of the State. Even so late
as the time I was there, Bruges had some trade——indeed as good a foreign
trade as most cities in Flanders. The people seemed cheerful and happy,
and the markets were tolerably supplied.
Several fine canals run in a variety of directions from Bruges: by one
of them, boats can go, in the course of a summer’s day, to Ostend,
Nieuport, Furnes, and Dunkirk; and vessels of four hundred tuns can
float in the bason of this town. Another canal leads to Ghent, another
to Damme, and another to Sluys. The water of those canals is stagnant,
without the least motion; yet they can, in half an hour, be all emptied,
and fresh water brought in, by means of their well-contrived sluices.
This water, however, is never used for drinking, or even for culinary
purposes; a better sort being conveyed through the town by pipes from
the two rivers Lys and Scheldt, as in London; for which, as there, every
house pays a certain tax.
Although the trade of this city has, like that of all the Low Countries,
been gradually declining, and daily sucked into the vortices of British
and Dutch commerce, there were, till the French entered it, many rich
Merchants there, who met every day at noon in the great market-place, to
communicate and transact business, which was chiefly done in the Flemish
language, hardly any one in it speaking French; a circumstance that by
this time is much altered——for they have been already made, if not to
speak French, at least to sing _Ca-ira_, and dance to the tune of it
too, to some purpose.
The once-famed grandeur of this city consisted chiefly, like that of all
grand places in the dark periods of Popery, of the gloomy piles, the
ostentatious frippery and unwieldy masses of wealth, accumulated by a
long series of Monkish imposture——of Gothic structures, of enormous size
and sable aspect, filled with dreary cells, calculated to strike the
souls of the ignorant and enthusiastic with holy horror, to inspire awe
of the places, and veneration for the persons who dared to inhabit them,
and, by enfeebling the reason with the mixed operations of horror,
wonder and reverence, to fit the credulous for the reception of every
imposition, however gross in conception, or bungled in execution. Those
are the things which constituted the greatness and splendor of the
cities of Ancient Christendom; to those has the sturdiest human vigour
and intellect been forced to bend the knees: they were built to endure
the outrages of time; and will stand, I am sure, long, long after their
power shall have been annihilated.
What a powerful engine has superstition been, in the cunning management
of Priests! How lamentable it is to think, that not only all who
believed, but all who had good sense enough not to believe, should, for
so many centuries, have been kept in prostrate submission to the will
and dominion of an old man in Rome!——My blushes for the folly and
supineness of Mankind, however, are lost in a warm glow of transport at
the present irradiation of the human mind; and though I can scarcely
think with patience of that glorious, Godlike being, HENRY the Second of
England, being obliged by the Pope to lash himself naked at the tomb of
that saucy, wicked Priest, THOMAS A BECKET, I felicitate myself with the
reflection, that the Pope is now the most contemptible Sovereign in
Europe, and that the Papal authority, which was once the terror and the
scourge of the earth, is now not only not recognised, but seldom thought
of, and, when thought of, only serves to excite laughter or disgust.
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LETTER VII.
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The town of Bruges, although the streets be, as I have already
described them, so mean, narrow, dirty and irregular in general,
contains, nevertheless, some few streets that are tolerable, and a few
squares also that are far from contemptible.——I should think it,
nevertheless, not worth another letter of description, were it not that
the Churches, and Church-curiosities, demand our attention; for you will
observe, that in all rich Popish Countries, every Church is a holy
toy-shop, or rather a museum, where pictures, statues, gold cups, silver
candlesticks, diamond crucifixes, and gods, of various sorts and
dimensions, are hoarded up, in honour of the Supreme Being. This city
having been for centuries the See of a Bishop, who is Suffragan to the
Archbishop of Mechlin, and at the same time Hereditary Chancellor of
Flanders, it is not to be wondered at, if ecclesiastical industry should
have amassed some of those little trinkets which constitute the chief or
only value of their Church. The mitre of this place conveys to the head
that wears it a diocese containing six cities, from the names of which
you will be able to form some small judgment of the opulence of one poor
son of abstinence and mortification.——Those cities are, in the first
place, Bruges itself, then Ostend, Sluys, Damme, Middleburgh in
Flanders, and Oudenberch——not to mention one hundred and thirty-three
boroughs and villages; and if you could compute the number of inferior
Clergy with which the streets and highways are filled, you would be
thunder-struck. There, and in all those Popish Countries, they may be
seen, with grotesque habits and bald pates, buzzing up and down like
bees, in swarms, (a precious hive!)——and, with the most vehement
protestations of voluntary poverty in their mouths, and eyes uplifted to
Heaven, scrambling for the good things of the earth with the eagerness
of a pack of hounds, and the rapacity of a whole roll of lawyers! With
loaded thighs (I might say, loaded arms too, for they have large pockets
even in their sleeves, for the concealment of moveables), they return to
the great hive, where, contrary to the law of bees, the drone lives in
idle state, and he plunders them: contrary, too, to the habits of those
useful insects, they banish the queen-bee, and suffer no female to
approach their cells, but keep them in contiguous hives, where, under
cover of the night, they visit them, and fulfil in private that which
they deny in public——the great command of Providence.
The first building in nominal rank, though by no means the first in
value, is the great Cathedral, which has at least bulk, antiquity and
gloominess enough to recommend it to the Faithful. It is by no means
unfurnished within, though not in so remarkable a manner as to induce me
to fill a Letter with it. In a word, it is an old Popish Cathedral, and
cannot be supposed wanting in wealth: at the time I write, it has been
standing no less a time than nine hundred and twenty-nine years, having
been built in the year 865.
The next that occurs to me, as worthy of notice, is the Church of Notre
Dame, or that dedicated to _our Lady_ the Virgin MARY. This is really a
beautiful structure of the kind——indeed magnificent. Its steeple is
beyond conception stupendous, being so very high as to be seen at sea
off Ostend, although it is not elevated in the smallest degree by any
rise in the ground; for, so very flat is the whole intermediate country,
that I believe it would puzzle a skilful leveller to find two feet
elevation from high-water-mark at Ostend up to this city. The contents
of this Church are correspondent to its external appearance——being
enriched and beautified with a vast variety of sacerdotal trinkets, and
fine tombs and monuments. As to the former, the vestments of that same
THOMAS A BECKET whom I mentioned in my last, make a part of the
curiosities deposited in this Church: this furious and inflexible
impostor was Archbishop of Canterbury; and his struggles to enslave both
the King and People of England, and make them tributary to the Pope,
have canonized him, and obtained the very honourable depot I mention for
his vestments. To do justice, however, to the spirit and sagacity of the
Holy Fathers who have so long taken the pains to preserve them, it must
be commemorated, that they are, or at least were set with diamonds, and
other precious stones! Probably, among the many Priests who have, in so
many centuries, had the custody of those divine relics, some one, more
sagacious than the rest, might conceive, that, to lie in a Church, and
be seen by the all-believing eyes of the Faithful, a little coloured
glass was just as good as any precious stone, and wisely have converted
the originals to some better purpose. If so, it will be some consolation
to Holy Mother Church to reflect, that she has bilked the
_Sans-culottes_, who certainly have got possession of Saint THOMAS A
BECKET’S sacerdotal petticoats; and, if they have been sound enough to
stand the cutting, have, by this time, converted them into comfortable
campaigning breeches. O monstrous! wicked! abominable!——that the Royal
MARY, sister to the great Emperor CHARLES the Fifth, should, so long ago
as the Reformation, have bought at an immense price, and deposited in
the treasury of the Church of _our Lady_ the blessed Virgin MARY, the
vestments of a Saint, only to make breeches, in the year 1794, for a
French soldier! The time has been, that the bare suggestion of such
sacrilege would have turned the brain of half the people of Christendom:
but those things are now better managed.
Of the tombs in this Church, I shall only mention two, as distinguished
from the rest by their costliness, magnificence and antiquity. They are
made of copper, well guilt. One of them is the tomb of MARY, heiress to
the Ducal House of Burgundy; and the other, that of CHARLES (commonly
called _the Hardy_), Duke of Burgundy, her father.
In Bruges there were four great Abbeys, and an amazing number of
Convents and Nunneries. The buildings, I presume, yet stand; but there
is little doubt that their contents, of every kind, have been, before
this, put _in requisition_, and each part of them, of course, applied to
its natural use.
The Church once belonging to the Jesuits, is built in a noble style of
architecture: and that of the Dominicans has not only its external
merits, but its internal value; for, besides the usual super-abundance
of rich chalices, &c. it possesses some very great curiosities——
As, first, a very curious, highly wrought pulpit——beautiful in itself,
but remarkable for the top being supported by wood, cut out, in the most
natural, deceptive manner, in the form of ropes, and which beguile the
spectator the more into a belief of its reality, because it answers the
purposes of ropes.
Secondly, a picture——and so extraordinary a picture! Before I describe
it, I must apprise you that your faith must be almost as great as that
of a Spanish Christian to believe me——to believe that the human
intellect ever sunk so low as, in the first instance, to conceive, and,
in the next, to harbour and admire, such a piece. But I mistake——it has
its merit; it is a curiosity——the Demon of Satire himself could not wish
for a greater.
This picture, then, is the representation of a Marriage!——but of whom?
why, truly, of JESUS CHRIST with Saint CATHARINE of Sienna. Observe the
congruity——Saint CATHARINE of Sienna lived many centuries after the
translation of JESUS CHRIST to Heaven, where he is to sit, you know,
till he comes to judge the quick and the dead!——But who marries them? In
truth, Saint DOMINIC, the patron of this Church! The Virgin MARY joins
their hands——that is not amiss——But, to crown the whole, King DAVID
himself, who died so long before CHRIST was born, plays the harp at the
wedding!
My dear FREDERICK, I shall take it as no small instance of your dutiful
opinion of me to believe, that such a picture existed, and made part of
the holy paraphernalia of a Temple consecrated to the worship of the
Divinity: but I assure you it is a fact; and as I have never given you
reason to suspect my veracity, I expect you to believe me in this
instance, improbable though it seems: for such a farrago of absurdities,
such a jumble of incongruities, impossibilities, bulls and anachronisms,
never yet were compressed, by the human imagination, into the same
narrow compass.
I protract this Letter beyond my usual length, on purpose to conclude my
account of Bruges, and get once more upon the road.
The Monastery of the Carthusians, another Order of Friars, is of amazing
size, covering an extent of ground not much less than a mile in
circumference. The Carmelites, another Order, have a Church here, in
which there is raised a beautiful monument, to the memory of HENRY
JERMYN, Lord Dover, a Peer of England——But the Monastery called the
Dunes, a sect of the Order of Saint BARNARD, is by far the noblest in
the whole city: the cloisters and gardens are capacious and handsome;
the apartment of the Abbot is magnificent and stately, and those of the
Monks themselves unusually neat. Those poor mortified penitents,
secluded from the pomps, the vanities and enjoyments of life, and their
thoughts, no doubt, resting alone on hereafter, keep, nevertheless, a
sumptuous table, spread with every luxury of the season——have their
country-seats, where they go a-hunting, or to refresh themselves, and
actually keep their own coaches.
Among the Nunneries there are two English: one of Augustinian Nuns, who
are all ladies of quality, and who entertain strangers at the grate with
sweetmeats and wine; the other, called the Pelicans, is of a very strict
Order, and wear a coarse dress.
To conclude——In the Chapel of Saint BASIL is said to be kept, in perfect
preservation, the blood which JOSEPH of Aremethea wiped off with a
sponge from the dead body of CHRIST. _Finis coronat opus._
I fancy you have, by this time, had as much of miracles as you can well
digest: I therefore leave you to reflect upon them, and improve.
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LETTER VIII.
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As I was going to the barque, at Bruges, to take my departure for
Ghent, the next town in my route, I was surprised to see a number of
officious, busy, poor fellows, crowding round my effects, and seizing
them——some my trunk, some my portmanteau, &c. I believe two or three to
each: but my astonishment partly subsided when I was told that they were
porters, who plied on the canal, and about the city, for subsistence,
and only came to have the _honour_ of carrying my baggage down to the
vessel. Noting their eagerness, I could not help smiling. I know there
are those, and I have heard of such, who would bluster at them: but my
mirth at the bustling importance which the poor fellows affected, soon
sunk into serious concern; I said within myself, “Alas, how hard must be
your lot indeed!” and my imagination was in an instant back again in
London, where a porter often makes you pay for a job, not in money only,
but in patience also, and where the surliness of independence scowls
upon his brow as he does your work. Every one of my men demanded a
remuneration for his labour: one man could have easily done the work of
five——-but I resolved not to send them away discontented: he is but a
sordid churl that would; and I paid them to their full satisfaction.
Here, my dear FREDERICK, let me offer you (since it occurs) my parental
advice on this point——from the practice of which you will gain more
solid felicity than you can possibly be aware of now: never weigh
scrupulously the value of the work of the Poor; rather exceed than fall
short of rewarding it: it is a very, very small thing, that will put
them in good humour with you and with themselves, and relax the hard
furrows of labour into the soft smile of gratitude——a smile which, to a
heart of sensibility such as your’s, will, of itself, ten-thousand-fold
repay you, even though the frequent practice of it should abridge you of
a few of those things called pleasures, or detract a little from the
weight of your purse.
Being again seated in my barque, I set off for Ghent, a city lying at a
distance of twenty-four miles from Bruges. I must here remark to you,
that the company one meets in those vessels is not always of the first
rank; it is generally of a mixed, motley kind: but to a man who carries
along with him, through his travels, a love for his fellow-creatures,
and a desire to see men, and their customs and manners, it is both
pleasant and eligible——at least I thought it so, and enjoyed it. There
were those amongst us who spoke rather loftily on that subject: I said
nothing; but it brought to my mind a reflection I have often had
occasion to concur in, viz. that a fastidious usurpation of dignity
(happily denominated _stateliness_) is the never-failing mark of an
upstart or a blockhead. The man of true dignity, self-erect and strong,
needs not have recourse, for support, to the comparative wretchedness of
his fellow-creature, or plume himself upon spurious superiority. You
will understand me, however! When I say, “the man of true dignity,” I am
far, very far, from meaning a lord, a squire, a banker, or a general
officer——I mean a man of intrinsic worth——homo emunctæ naris——one who,
in every station into which chance may throw him, feels firm in the
consciousness of right——who can see and cherish merit, though enveloped
and concealed behind a shabby suit of clothes——and who scorns the
blown-up fool of fortune, that, without sense or sentiment, without
virtue, wisdom or courage, presumes to call himself great, merely
because he possesses a few acres of earth which he had neither the
industry nor merit to earn, or because his great-great-great-grandfather
purchased a title by perfidy to his Country, the plunder of his
fellow-citizens, or the slaughter of mankind.
Although the face of that part of the Country through which we are now
passing, like that of the preceding stage from Ostend to Bruges, wants
diversity, it has its charms, and would be particularly delightful in
the eye of an English farmer; for it is covered with the thickest
verdure on each side of the canal, and the banks are decorated all along
by rows of stately trees, while the fields in the back ground are
cultivated to the highest degree of perfection, and bear the aspect of
producing the most abundant harvest.
You will be able to form a judgment of the trifling expence of
travelling in this Country, from my expences in this stage of
twenty-four miles. I had an excellent dinner for about fifteen pence of
our money; my passage cost me but sixteen more, amounting in all to two
shillings and seven pence: compare that with travelling in England,
where one cannot rise up from an indifferent dinner, in an Inn, under
five shillings at the least, and you must be astonished at the
disproportion.
Ghent is the capital of Flanders, and is to be reckoned among the
largest cities of Europe, as it covers a space of ground of not less
than seven miles in circumference; but there is not above one half of
that occupied with buildings, the greater part being thrown into fields,
gardens, orchards, and pleasure-grounds. Situated on four navigable
rivers, and intersected into no fewer than twenty-six islands by a
number of canals, which afford an easy, cheap and expeditious carriage
for weighty merchandise, it may be considered, in point of local
advantages for commerce, superior to most cities in Europe; while those
islands are again united by about a hundred bridges, some great and some
small, which contribute much to the beauty of the city.
To a man accustomed to mould his thoughts by what he sees in Great
Britain, the strong fortifications that surround almost all towns on the
Continent convey the most disagreeable sensations——reminding him of the
first misery of Mankind, War!——denoting, alas! too truly, the
disposition of Man to violate the rights of his fellow-creatures, and
manifesting the tyrannous abuse of power. On me, though trained and
accustomed to military habits, this “dreadful note of preparation” had
an unpleasing effect; for, though born, bred and habituated to the life
of the Soldier, I find the feelings of the Citizen and the Man claim a
paramount right to my heart.
Ghent was once extremely well fortified, and calculated, by nature as
well as by art, to repel encroachment. It had a very strong castle,
walls and ditches; and now, though not otherwise strong, the country
may, by shutting up the sluices, be, for above a mile round, laid in a
very short time under water. It was formerly so populous and powerful,
that it declared war more than once against its Sovereign, and raised
amazing armies. In the year 1587, it suffered dreadfully from all the
ravages of famine, under which a number not less than three thousand of
its inhabitants perished in one week.
This town is distinguished by the nativity of two celebrated characters:
one was the famous JOHN of Gaunt, son of King EDWARD the Third of
England; the other, the Emperor CHARLES the Fifth, who was born there in
the year 1500.
It was in this city that the Confederation of the States, well known
under the title of the Pacification of Ghent, which united the Provinces
in the most lasting union of interest and laws, was held: this union was
chiefly owing to the vigorous, unremitted efforts of WILLIAM the First,
Prince of Orange, to whose valour and virtue may be attributed the
independence of the United States.
In this city there were computed to be fifty companies of Tradesmen,
among whom were manufactured a variety of very curious and rich cloths,
stuffs, and silks: it is certain, that the woollen manufacture
flourished here before it had made the smallest progress in England,
whose wool they then bought. There was also a good branch of linen
manufacture here, and a pretty brisk corn trade, for which it was
locally well calculated. You will observe, once for all, that in
speaking of this Country, I generally use the past tense; for, at
present, they are utterly undone.
Ghent was the See of a Bishop, who, like the Bishop of Bruges, was
Suffragan to the Archbishop of Mechlin. Thus, in most Christian
Countries, are the intellects, the consciences, and the cash too, of the
People, shut up and hid from the light, by Priest within Dean, and Dean
within Bishop——like a ring in the hand of a conjurer, box within
box——till at last they are enveloped in the great receptacle of all
deception, the capacious pocket of the Archbishop. Let not sceptered
Tyrants, their legions, their scaffolds, and their swords, bear all the
infamy of the slavery of Mankind! Opinion, opinion, under the management
of fraud and imposture, is the engine that forges their
fetters!!——JANSENIUS, from whom the Jansenists took their name, was the
first Bishop of this place; and the late Bishop, I think, may be
reckoned the last.
The Municipal Government of this city is correct, and well calculated to
secure internal peace and order. The chief magistrate is the High
Bailiff; subordinate to whom are Burgomasters, Echivins, and
Counsellors.
Ghent is not deficient in stately edifices; and, true to their system,
the Holy Fathers of the Church have their share, which, in old Popish
Countries, is at least nineteen twentieths. In the middle of the town is
a high tower, called Belfort tower; from whence there is a delightful
prospect over the whole city and its environs. Monasteries and Churches,
there, are without number; besides hospitals and market-places: that
called Friday’s market, is the largest of all, and is adorned with a
statue of CHARLES the Fifth, in his imperial robes. The Stadthouse is a
magnificent structure——So is the Cathedral, under which the Reverend
Fathers have built a subterraneous Church. What deeds are those which
shun the light! Why those Holy Patriarchs have such a desire for burying
themselves, and working like moles under ground, they themselves best
know, and I think it is not difficult for others to conjecture.
This Cathedral, however, is well worth attention, on account of some
capital pictures it contains. The marble of the Church is remarkably
fine, and the altar-piece splendid beyond all possible description; and,
indeed, in all the others, there are paintings, eminent for their own
excellence, and for the celebrity of the masters who painted them.
In the Monastery of St. PIERRE, there is a grand library, filled with
books in all languages; but it is chiefly remarkable for the superlative
beauty of its ceiling, one half of which was painted by RUBENS.
Thus you may perceive, my dear FREDERICK, the charity of the
Clergy!——how, in pure pity for the sins of Mankind, and in paternal care
of their souls, they exact from the Laity some atonement for their
crimes, and constrain them at least to repent——and, with unparalleled
magnanimity, take upon themselves the vices, the gluttony, the avarice,
and the sensuality, of which they are so careful to purge their
fellow-creatures!
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LETTER IX.
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Having given you a general outline of the city of Ghent, I shall
now proceed to give you an account of one of the most excellent, and
certainly the most interesting, of all the curiosities in that place. It
is indeed of a sort so immediately correspondent to the most exalted
sensations of humanity, and so perfectly in unison with the most
exquisitely sensible chords of the feeling heart, that I resolved to
rescue it from the common lumber of the place, and give it to you in a
fresh Letter, when the ideas excited by my former might have faded away,
and left your mind more clear for the reception of such refined
impressions.
On one of the many bridges in Ghent stand two large brazen images of a
father and son, who obtained this distinguished mark of the admiration
of their fellow-citizens by the following incidents:
Both the father and the son were, for some offence against the State,
condemned to die. Some favourable circumstances appearing on the side of
the son, he was granted a remission of his share of the sentence, upon
certain provisions——in short, he was offered a pardon, on the most cruel
and barbarous condition that ever entered into the mind of even Monkish
barbarity, namely, that he would become the executioner of his father!
He at first resolutely refused to preserve his life by means so fatal
and detestable: This is not to be wondered at; for I hope, for the
honour of our nature, that there are but few, very few sons, who would
not have spurned, with abhorrence, life sustained on conditions so
horrid, so unnatural. The son, though long inflexible, was at length
overcome by the tears and entreaties of a fond father, who represented
to him, that, at all events, his (the father’s) life was forfeited, and
that it would be the greatest possible consolation to him, at his last
moments, to think, that in his death he was the instrument of his son’s
preservation. The youth consented to adopt the horrible means of
recovering his life and liberty: he lifted the axe; but, as it was about
to fall, his arm sunk nerveless, and the axe dropped from his hand! Had
he as many lives as hairs, he would have yielded them all, one after the
other, rather than again even conceive, much less perpetrate, such an
act. Life, liberty, every thing, vanished before the dearer interests of
filial affection: he fell upon his father’s neck, and, embracing him,
triumphantly exclaimed, “My father, my father! we will die together!”
and then called for another executioner to fulfil the sentence of the
law.
Hard must be their hearts indeed, bereft of every sentiment of virtue,
every sensation of humanity, who could stand insensible spectators of
such a scene——A sudden peal of involuntary applauses, mixed with groans
and sighs, rent the air. The execution was suspended; and on a simple
representation of the transaction, both were pardoned: high rewards and
honours were conferred on the son; and finally, those two admirable
brazen images were raised, to commemorate a transaction so honourable to
human nature, and transmit it for the instruction and emulation of
posterity. The statue represents the son in the very act of letting fall
the axe.
Lay this to your mind, my dear FREDERICK: talk over it to your brother;
indulge all the charming sympathetic sensations it communicates: never
let a mistaken shame, or a false idea (which some endeavour to impress)
that it is unmanly to melt at the tale of woe, and sympathize with, our
fellow-creatures, stop the current of your sensibility——no! Be assured,
that, on the contrary, it is the true criterion of manhood and valour to
feel; and that the more sympathetic and sensible the heart is, the more
nearly it is allied to the Divinity.
I am now on the point of conducting you out of Austrian Flanders——One
town only, and that comparatively a small one, lying between Us and
Brabant: the name of this town is Alost, or, as the Flemings spell it,
Aelst.
From Ghent to Brussels (the next great stage in my way), I found, to my
regret, that there was no conveyance by water: I therefore was obliged
to go in a voiture, and stopt at Alost, as an intermediate stage; and
mathematically intermediate it is——for it lies at equal distance from
Ghent and Brussels, being exactly fifteen miles from each.
This is a small, but exceeding neat town, situated on the river Dender;
and being a remarkably great thoroughfare, accommodations of every kind
are tolerably good in it. It would be idle to suppose, that Catholic
zeal had left so many souls unprotected and undisciplined, where there
were so many bodies capable of drudgery to pay for it. In truth, there
has been as ample provision made for the town of Alost in the way of
sacerdotal business, as for any other town in the Netherlands——regard
being had to its bulk; for there were several Convents of Friars, and of
course several of Nuns: besides, there was a Jesuit’s College of some
note. How they all fare by this time, it is difficult for me to
determine.
The Church of Saint MARTIN could boast of some excellent pictures,
particularly a most capital piece, “_La Peste_,” by RUBENS.
In a Convent inhabited by a set of Monks, denominated Gulielmite, I saw
the tomb of THIERRY MARTIN, who first brought the art of Printing from
Germany to that place. His name and fame are transmitted to us by an
epitaph upon his tomb, written by his friend, the ingenious ERASMUS.
This tomb of THIERRY MARTIN stands a monument, not only of his merit,
but of the short-sightedness and folly even of Monks. Alas, silly men!
they little knew, that when they granted THIERRY MARTIN the honours of
the Convent, they were harbouring, in their hallowed ground, one of
their greatest enemies, and commemorating the man who was contributing
to the overthrow of their sacred Order: for the art of Printing,
wherever it reached, illuminated the human mind, and first kindled up
that light, before which Priestcraft, and all its pious impostures, like
evil spectres, have vanished. To the art of Printing is human society
indebted for many of the advantages which it possesses beyond the brute
or savage tribes——for the perfection of arts, the extension of science,
the general enlargement of the mind, and, above all, for the
emancipation of person and property from the shackles of despotism, and
of the human intellect from the fetters of blindness and ignorance with
which sacerdotal fraud had chained it for centuries to the earth.
The territory of this City is of pretty large extent, and is called a
County, having, in ancient times, had Counts of its own; and the whole
of it is extremely fruitful in pasture, corn, hops, flax, and most other
productions of those climes.
I made but a very short stay at Alost, when I proceeded on to Brussels;
and, having thus brought you through that part of the Netherlands called
Austrian Flanders, I think I ought to give you a general account of the
Country at large, as I have hitherto confined myself merely to the
cities and towns of it; but as this Letter is already of a length that
will not allow of any great addition, I shall postpone my intended
description to my next.
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LETTER X.
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Were Mankind to be guided by moderation, reason, and justice——were
there no lust for territory in particular States——no ambition or desire
in Kings for an undue enlargement of their power——no unjustifiable
infractions attempted by one State or Potentate upon the peace and
possession of another——no Armies to carry desolation and plunder through
the world, nor Churchmen more mild, but not more moderate, to drain them
with their subtle deceptions——were the husbandman, the fisherman, the
manufacturer, and the labourer, permitted to make, by their industry,
the best use of the soil on which chance or nature had planted them, and
to lift the fruits of their labour to their own lips——no people were
more happy than the inhabitants of Austrian Flanders.
This Country is bounded, to the North, by the Scheldt; to the
North-west, by the Northern Sea; to the South, and South-west, By
Artois, one of the finest Provinces of France; and to the East, by
Brabant. Its greatest length is seventy-five miles; and its greatest
breadth, fifty-five. The air is good; but it is said to be better, in
proportion as it recedes from the sea. The Winters are sometimes long
and severe, and the Summers sometimes wet and sultry; yet, in general,
the climate is agreeable. The soil is in most parts fertile, and in some
to a degree equal to that of any part of Europe. It is chiefly famous
for its pasturage; in consequence of which, great numbers of black
cattle, horses and sheep, are bred in it, and immense quantities of
butter and cheese made. It is, besides, abundantly productive of all
sorts of culinary vegetables——fruit in great quantities——corn and flax,
which last is not only raised in great plenty, but is celebrated for the
fineness and strength of its staple. It is true, that in some parts they
have not corn sufficient for the inhabitants; but this is well
recompensed by other productions, with the redundance of which they
purchase the superfluous grain of their neighbours——for, where the
inhabitants do follow tillage, the produce is unequalled, and the
superfluity must of course be great.
The superior fecundity of the sheep of this Country is very remarkable,
and difficult, perhaps, to be accounted for——a ewe here bringing forth
constantly three lambs at a birth, sometimes four, sometimes five, and
some have been known to produce as many as six and seven——no small
instance of the prodigality of Nature in providing for this spot.
At some distance from the sea-coast, the face of the Country is
decorated with a profusion of wood, fitted either for timber or for
fuel; and towards the coast, where Nature has been rather niggard of
that blessing, the inhabitants substitute, in its stead, for fuel, a
kind of turf, which they find at the depth of four or five feet from the
surface of the earth, and which makes a fire, not only cheerful,
pleasant and hot, but remarkably wholesome, being free from the
destructive sulphureous and bituminous vapour attendant upon coal.
Perhaps no part of the world is better supplied than this Province with
all sorts of fish, as well those of sea as fresh water: fowl and venison
were extremely plenty and reasonable; and a great deal of excellent beer
was brewed in it. It is washed by several rivers, four of which are
noble streams, namely, the Scheldt, the Lys, the Scarpe, and the Dender;
and there are several canals, the chief of which is that between Bruges
and Ghent.
Thus, in whatever way it be considered, Nature seems to have made ample
provision for the happiness of the People: how far they are so, you
shall hear when I come to give a general view of the Netherlands——that
which is applicable to Austrian Flanders being equally so to all the
other parts of the Netherlands, excepting those under the dominion of
the Republic of the United States.
The States of this Country, according to the Constitution it once
possessed, consists of the Clergy, the Nobility, and the Commoners. The
Clergy were the Bishops and Abbots: the Nobility was composed of certain
families holding hereditary Offices or Baronies, to which that privilege
was annexed; and the Commoners were made up of the Burgomasters,
Pensioners and Deputies of the Cities and Districts. But the only
religion professed or tolerated in this Country, was the Roman Catholic.
Of the People of Austrian Flanders, a celebrated Author gives the
following account, which I transcribe for your use, the rather as my
stay there was too short to enable me to make any material observations
on them, or their manners.——
“With respect to the persons and characters of the inhabitants,” says
he, “they are, generally speaking, lusty, fat, and clumsy——very
industrious, both in cultivating their lands, and in their trades and
manufactures——lovers of Liberty, and enemies to Slavery——and not
defective in good sense or judgment, though they have not so lively an
imagination as some other Nations. Their women are fair, handsome
enough, and honest by their natural constitution, as well as from a
principle of virtue: as they cannot pretend to wit and repartee, they do
not make themselves ridiculous by the nauseous affectation of them. Both
sexes are great lovers of public diversions; and every city, town, and
village, have their kermisses, or fairs, in which all sorts of shews are
exhibited.”
Many arts which now enrich other Nations, and the importance of which
has excited contests and struggles of the most serious kind in the
political world, were invented or improved in that Country. Weaving, in
general, though not invented, was greatly improved; and the art of
forming figures of all sorts in linen was first invented there. To the
Flemings we are also indebted for the arts of curing herrings, dying
cloths and stuffs, and oil-colours. But those arts, and the
manufactures, have gradually slid away from them, and left but a small
share behind, when compared with their former flourishing state: they
have flown to a Land of Liberty and Security, where hostile feet never
tread, where Slavery corrupteth not, where War devoureth not, nor
Priests nor Despots break in and steal. Nevertheless, silk, cotton and
woollen stuffs, brocades, camblets, tapestry, linen, and lace, are still
manufactured here to some small extent.
This Province had Counts of its own, from the ninth century up to the
year 1369, when it was made over, by marriage (like a a farm of cattle)
to the Dukes of Burgundy; and afterwards, again, was by them made over,
in like way of marriage, to the House of Austria. In 1667, France seized
the Southern part; and the States General obtained the Northern, partly
by the Treaty of Munster, and partly by the Barrier Treaty of 1715.
To reckon upon the natural endowments of this Country, one would suppose
that it should be a terrestrial paradise: yet such is the wickedness of
Man, and the outrageous spirit of Power, that it is almost the last
Country in Europe in which I would have property, and fix a permanent
residence. Just now, while I am writing, I have before me an account,
that the French, to whom they opened their gates, have plundered them to
the last atom of their moveable possessions; and that the property of
the unfortunate people is now in waggons, on its way to Paris.
Once more, my boy, I say, bless your GOD, that planted you in a Country
cheered by the voice of Freedom, defended by British Valour, and, what
is of more consequence, surrounded by the Ocean.
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LETTER XI.
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Having conducted you through that part of the Netherlands called
Austrian Flanders, we are now to direct our attention to that called
Austrian Brabant, of which part, as well as of the Netherlands in
general, Brussels, where I arrived the same day I left Ghent, is the
capital, giving its name to a quarter or territory that surrounds it.
In all parts of the Netherlands through which I travelled, I could not
help admiring the uniform decorations of the roads, rivers, and canals,
with rows of lofty trees, which form a most agreeable shade from the
Summer’s burning sun, and yet do not obstruct any great extent of
prospect, the Country is so extremely flat. And one thing I remarked,
and which certainly seems at first view extraordinary, is, that in the
great extent of Country through which we have hitherto passed, from
Ostend to Brussels, being sixty-eight miles, I scarce saw one Nobleman
or Gentleman’s seat——nothing above the house of a husbandman, a curate,
or some person of small fortune: and yet the Country is extremely rich;
and I saw many spots, as I went along, charming beyond description, and
such as would tempt, I should think, a man of taste and opulence to
settle in them. This must appear unaccountable to those who do not
recollect, that in a Country subject like this to the ravaging
incursions of contending armies, fortified towns are considered as the
most pleasing, because the most secure retreats of opulence.
As I approached the city of Brussels, I was struck with a mixed
sensation of surprise and delight at the appearance it made——none that I
had ever seen being comparable to it, and not one in Europe, by the
account of travellers, being in that respect superior to it, Naples and
Genoa only excepted: like them, however, it, when entered, falls far
short of the expectation raised by its external appearance, being all
composed of hills and hollows, which not only fatigue, but render the
appearance of the streets, though well built, contemptible and mean.
Brussels stands on the beautiful little river Senne, on the brow of a
hill. The city is about seven miles in circumference, has seven gates,
with extensive suburbs, and is encompassed with a double wall made of
brick, and ditches; but its size is too great for strength, as a face of
defence of such extent could not possibly hold out a long siege——a great
and insuperable defect in such a country as I have described.