About four in the morning, we set out for Kingston [_Rhode Island_]
(for so was the town called) with a French doctor in our company. He
and the post put on very furiously, so that I could not keep up with
them, only as now and then they’d stop till they see me. This road was
poorly furnished with accommodations for travelers, so that we were
forced to ride 22 miles by the post’s account, but nearer thirty by
mine, before we could bait [_feed_] so much as our horses, which I
exceedingly complained of. But the post encouraged me by saying we
should be well accommodated anon at Mr. Devil’s, a few miles further.
But I questioned whether we ought to go to the devil to be helped out
of affliction. However, like the rest of [_the_] deluded souls that
post to the infernal den, we made all possible speed to this devil’s
habitation, where, alighting in full assurance of good accommodation,
we were going in. But meeting his two daughters, as I supposed twins,
they so nearly resembled each other, both in features and habit, and
looked as old as the devil himself and quite as ugly, we desired
entertainment but could hardly get a word out of ’em, till with our
importunity [_urging_], telling them our necessity, etc., they called
the old sophister, who was as sparing of his words as his daughters
had been, and no, or none, was the reply he made us to our demands. He
differed only in this from the old fellow in t’other country: he let
us depart....
Thus leaving this habitation of cruelty, we went forward, and arriving
at an ordinary [_inn_] about two mile further, found tolerable
accommodation. But our hostess, being a pretty full-mouthed old
creature, entertained our fellow traveler, the French doctor, with
innumerable complaints of her bodily infirmities and whispered to him
so loud that all the house had as full a hearing as he, which was very
diverting to the company (of which there was a great many), as one
might see by their sneering. But poor weary I slipped out to enter my
mind in my journal, and left my great landlady with her talkative
guests to themselves....