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272 CARR'S TRAVELS ROUND THE BALTIC. avenues, gates, and streets, I should pronounce it to be a very beautiful, extensive, and wealthy city. It has a small surrounding territory, and is at present independent; but strong fears may be entertained that, following the example of Dantzig, its sovereignty is nearly at a close, and that it will speedily be incorporated with Hanoverian France.

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TOUR THROUGH HOLLAND,

IN

AND ALONG THE RIGHT AND LEFT

BANKS OF THE RHINE,

IN 1806.

BY SIR JOHN CARR.

N company with two highly esteemed friends, I proceeded to Gravesend: upon the road, we were charmed by occasional views of the majestic Thames, formed by a rich setting sun into the appearance of an inverted sky, decorated by ships more supported over than upon its bosom, and a vast expanse of richly cultivated land, fading in the mist of a far distant horizon.

At Gravesend we paid six guineas a-piece to a Dutch captain, and a little favourable breeze springing up, we proceeded on board with a large party, composed of specimens of the human race from various parts of the globe-proceeding, through the indulgence of the government of Holland, to their various destinations on the Continent. The moment we stepped on board we found we were victims to the most infamous imposition. Six guineas for a birth in a vessel which Noah, in the first rudiments of his art, would have made a thousand times more commodious! Figure to yourself about forty persons stowed in a Dutch galliot of about one hundred tons burden, deeply laden with a cargo of chalk, &c.; a hold near the bows covered with straw for the accommodation of thirty-six of the passengers; a low miserable cabin four feet high on the deck, which formed the honeymoon-bower of a young Swiss and a pretty English

girl just married and a little hole astern, which, furished with a couple of tickings crammed with Dutch peas instead of feathers, constituted the vestibule, drawing-room, and chamber, for me and one of my companions.

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Hoping for a speedy termination to our marine miseries, we set sail, and slowly creeped down the Thames, by the aid of a scanty breeze, which, dying before we had advanced two miles, left us as a legacy to the tardy tides. Indeed, we almost tided it over to Holland, in the achievement of which we were six long days and nights; but then the days were serene and warm, and the nights were adorned by a brilliant moon, and the blue vault of heaven was spangled over with stars.

After a passage, during which our patience was put to a severe trial, we discovered Schouwen, and soon after the island of Goree, where the windy began to freshen, and just before we made the mouth of the Maas, we met and hailed a fine large fishing smack, the captain of which our commander endeavoured to prevail upon, by the usual and generally successful application of a little money, to smuggle us into the Briel: after a long consultation, the captain and crew of the smack, not considering that all was fish that came to their net, refused to take charge of us, and to our no very pleasant sensations, instead of standing out to sea, tacked and returned to the Briel under full press of canvass.、 A low slimy shore, surmounted bỳ green flags and a few scanty dziers, announced our voyage to be at its close.

In consequence of the tide being always very rapid when going out, and the wind again falling, we came to an anchor in the mouth of the Maas. One of the first objects that saluted our eyes, in this state, was the telegraph, which was in a state of uncommon activity, and the glasses of its official attendants often came in direct opposition with ours. The balls flew up and down with wonderful rapidity for nearly an

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hour after we anchored, and sufficiently explained the motive which induced the captain of the smack to return to port. The signification of the word Briel, in Dutch, is spectacle, which is supposed to have given its name to this place, on account of the extensive view which its buildings command of the surrounding country. This town is celebrated for having given birth to the illustrious warrior, admiral Cornelius Van Tromp

In the dead of night, and in a deep fog, a fishing boat dropped alongside, the master of which told us that the last vessel which had arrived from England had been confiscated, and all the passengers made prisoners, and after this exordium offered to conduct us in safety past the guard-ship if we would give him two guineas a-piece, and, to secure our transit, he proposed shutting us all down in his cabin, under hatchways, for that night and the whole of the next day, and then dropping past the guard-ship in the evening; during all which time we must have sat chin to knee, and have been infinitely worse accom modated than a cargo of African slaves. As we had a mortal aversion from being introduced into the kingdom in this furtive manner, we persisted in refusing to quit our vessel, to the no little mortification of our captain, who having safely deposited our passagemoney in a large tin box, was very anxious to get rid of us in any manner. I believe personal apprehensions induced him to weigh the anchor early next morning, and to bear away for Maaslandsleys, on the other side of the Maas, where, after the captain had satisfied the commodore commanding the guard-ships there, to whom he was well known, that we all came from Varel, a little neutral town to the eastward of the Weser, a fast-sailing fishing-boat was provided to take us up to Rotterdam, a distance of twenty-five miles, at half-a-guinea a head.

Gladly, we bade adieu to our miserable ark, and, about six o'clock in the evening, embarked upon the

Merwe river, a noble branch of the Maas, the breadth of which is about a mile, lessening but in a little degree as it reaches Rotterdam. The water of this river is rather foul. Its shores are beautifully lined with villages, farm-houses, and avenues of trees. A botani cal gentleman informed me, that the eryngium campestre, field eryngo, so very rare in England, grows in great profusion, and wild, on either side of the river, and in most other parts of Holland.

When the night advanced, the floating lanthorns of the fishermen had a pleasing and romantic effect, as we glided along with a fine breeze; and a row of lamps running parallel with a canal supplied by the Merwe, announced our passing Scheidam, so celebrated throughout Holland for its distilleries of geneva, of which we were informed there were three hundred before Holland submitted to the arms of France.

When the French troops entered Holland as victors, this beautiful river, in a season remarkably rigorous, formed a compact road of ice for the infantry, cavalry, and artillery of the invaders. Dreadful as the winter was, the French were in want of the most necessary articles of clothing; even whole battalions were destitute of shoes and stockings, and sentinels frequently did duty with no other covering than a tattered blanket, and the fragment of a pair of breeches, which time and service had reduced by instalments to little more than a few shreds: yet they did not fepine.

In the faces of our crew, and the scenery on each side of us, before dusk-fall, we saw those studies to which the exquisite works of the Dutch school have familiarized every person of taste. About twelve o'clock we arrived at the boom, or barrier for shipping, at Rotterdam.

At length we got on shore, and after much difficulty and perambulation discovered a comfortable hotel in the suburbs; the gates of the city being always shuts and the boom closed, at eleven o'clock.

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