What are we to think of our woollen manufacturers in England, when suing for their wool-bill, of infamous memory, bringing one Thomas Wilkinson from Dunkirk quay, to the bar of the English House of Lords to swear that wool passes from Dunkirk without entry, duty, or any thing being required, at double custom-houses, for a check on each other, where they examine even a cloak-bag. On such evidence, did our legislature, in the true shop-keeping spirit, pass an act of fines, pains, and penalties against all the wool-growers of England. Walk to Rossendal1 near the town, where Mons. le Brun has an improvement on the Dunes, which he very obligingly shewed me. Between the

town and that place are a great number of neat little houses, built with each its garden, and one or two fields inclosed of most wretched blowing dune sand, naturally as white as snow, but improved by industry. The magic of PROPERTY turns sand to gold.-18 miles.

2

The 8th. Leave Dunkirk, where the Concierge, a good inn, as indeed I have found all in Flanders. Pass Gravelline, which, to my unlearned eyes, seems the strongest place I have yet seen, at least the works above ground are more numerous than at any other. Ditches, ramparts, and drawbridges without end. This is a part of the art military I like it implies defence, and leaving rascality to neighbours. If Gengischan or Tamerlane had met with such places as Gravelline or Lisle in their way, where would their conquests and extirpations of the human race have been?-Reach Calais. And here ends a journey which has given me a great deal of pleasure, and more information than I should have expected in a kingdom not so well cultivated as our own. It has been the first of my foreign travels; and has with me confirmed the idea, that to know our own country well, we must see something of others. Nations figure by comparison; and those ought to be esteemed the benefactors of the human race, who have most established public prosperity on the basis of private happiness. To ascertain how far this has been the case with the French, has been one material object of my tour. It is an enquiry of great range, and no trifling complexity; but a

single excursion is too little to trust to. I must come again and again before I venture conclusions.-25 miles.

Wait at Desseins three days for a wind (the duke and dutchess of Gloucester are in the same inn and situation) and for a pacquet. A captain behaved shabbily: deceived me, and was hired by a family that would admit nobody but themselves :-I did not ask what nation this family was of.—Dover-London-Bradfield;—and have more pleasure in giving my little girl a French doll, than in viewing Versailles.

1788.

THE `HE long journey I had last year taken in France, suggested a variety of reflections on the agriculture, and on the sources and progress of national prosperity in that kingdom; in spite of myself, these ideas fermented in my mind; and while I was drawing conclusions relative to the political state of that great country, in every circumstance connected with its husbandry. I found, at each moment of my reflection, the importance of making as regular a survey of the whole as was possible for a traveller to effect. Thus instigated, I determined to attempt finishing what I had fortunately enough begun.

JULY 30. Left Bradfield; and arrived at Calais.—161 miles.

AUGUST 5. The next day I took the road to St. Omers.1 Pass the bridge Sans Pareil, which serves a double purpose, passing two streams at once; but it has been praised beyond its merit, and cost more than it was worth. St. Omers contains little deserving notice; and if I could direct the legislatures of England and Ireland, should contain still less-why are catholics to emigrate in order to be ill educated abroad, instead of being allowed institutions that would educate them well at home? The country is seen to advantage from St. Bertin's steeple.--25 miles.

3

The 7th. The canal of St. Omers is carried up a hill by a series of sluices. To Aire,” and Lilliers, and Bethune,* towns well known in military story.-25 miles.

The 8th. The country now a champaign, one changes; from Bethune to Arras an admirable gravel road. At the last town there is nothing but the great and rich abbey of Var, which they would not shew me― -it was not the right day—or some frivolous excuse. The cathedral is nothing. -17 miles.

1 (Pas de Calais.)

Lillers (Pas de Calais).

Arras (Pas de Calais).

2 Aire-sur-la-Lys (Pas de Calais).

4 Béthune (Pas de Calais).

Ancient Benedictine abbey of St. Vaast, now appropriated to the bishop's palace, seminary, museum, and public library.

The 9th. Market-day; coming out of the town I met at least an hundred asses, some loaded with a bag, others a sack, but all apparently with a trifling burthen, and swarms of men and women. This is called a market, being plentifully supplied; but a great proportion of all the labour of a country is idle in the midst of harvest, to supply a town which in England would be fed by of the people: whenever this swarm of triflers buz in a market, I take a minute and vicious division of the soil for granted. Here my only companion de voyage, the English mare that carries me, discloses by her eye a secret not the most agreeable, that she is going rapidly blind. She is mooneyed; but our fool of a Bury farrier assured me I was safe for above a twelvemonth. It must be confessed this is one of those agreeable situations which not many will believe a man would put himself into. Ma foy! this is a piece of my good luck ;-the journey at best is but a drudgery, that others are paid for performing on a good horse, and I pay myself for doing it on a blind one;-I shall feel this inconvenience perhaps at the expence of my neck.-20 miles.

1

The 10th. To Amiens. Mr. Fox slept here last night, and it was amusing to hear the conversation at the table d'hôte; they wondered that so great a man should not travel in a greater style :-I asked what was his style? Monsieur and Madame were in an English post-chaise, and the fille and valet de chambre in a cabriolet, with a French courier to have horses ready. What would they have? but a style both of comfort and amusement? A plague on a blind mare!—But I have worked through life; and he

TALKS.

3

The 11th. By Poix to Aumale; enter Normandy.25 miles.

The 12th.

From thence to Newchatel, by far the finest country since Calais. Pass many villas of Rouen merchants.-40 miles.

1 (Somme.)

2 Passed on the railway from Rouen to Amiens (Seine Inférieure).

3 Aumale, the ancient Albemarle (Seine Inférieure).

4 Neufchâtel, anciently a fortress (Seine Inférieure).

1

The 13th. They are right to have country villas-to get out of this great ugly, stinking, close, and ill built town, which is full of nothing but dirt and industry. What a picture of new buildings does a flourishing manufacturing town in England exhibit! The choir of the cathedral is surrounded by a most magnificent railing of solid brass. They shew the monument of Rollo, the first duke of Normandy, and of his son; of William Longsword; also those of Richard Coeur de Lion; his brother Henry; the Duke of Bedford, regent of France; of their own King Henry V.; of the Cardinal d'Amboise, minister of Louis XII. The altar-piece is an adoration of the shepherds, by Philip of Champagne. Rouen 1 is dearer than Paris, and therefore it is necessary for the pockets of the people that their bellies should be wholesomely pinched. At the table d'hôte, at the hotel pomme du pin we sat down, sixteen, to the following dinner, a soup, about 3lb. of bouilli, one fowl, one duck, a small fricassee of chicken, rote of veal, of about 2lb. and two other small plates with a sallad: the price 45. and 20. more for a pint of wine; at an ordinary of 20d. a head in England there would be a piece of meat which would, literally speaking, outweigh this whole dinner! The ducks were swept clean so quickly, that I moved from table without half a dinner. Such table d'hôtes are among the cheap things of France! Of all sombre and triste meetings a French table d'hôte is foremost; for eight minutes a dead silence, and as to the politeness of addressing a conversation to a foreigner, he will look for it in vain. Not a single word has any where been said to me unless to answer some question: Rouen not singular in this. The parliament-house here is shut up, and its members exiled a month past to their country seats, because they would not register the edict for a new land-tax. I enquired much into the common sentiments of the people, and found that the King personally from having been here, is more popular than the parliament, to whom they attribute the general dearness of every thing. Called on Mons.

1 (Seine Inférieure.) A very different impression is now made on the traveller by the French Manchester, one of the handsomest provincial towns in France. It is odd that so many-sided an observer should have halted at Rouen without a souvenir of Jeanne d'Arc.