A Tour Through the Batavian Republic/Letter III
LETTER III.
Our detention would probably have been protracted a week or longer, had not General Chorié, who commands the French troops in Rotterdam and the isles of Goree and Vorn, learnt our situation at the Briel, and interested himself to be useful to us. We travelled in his voiture from the Briel to Rotterdam, and he has charged himself to obtain for us whatever passports are necessary.
At Maaslandsluys, formerly a fishing town of great opulence, I observed the most distressing symptoms of impoverishment and decay. The harbour was crowded with fishing vessels, no longer employed, and many of them unserviceable through neglect, or the absolute inability of their owners to keep them in repair, which in peace collected the wealth of the ocean, and made half the nations of Europe tributary to the industry of Holland. The quay was covered with long grass, and a melancholy assemblage of beggars importuned us for relief, wherever we walked. Many of the best houses of the town were uninhabited, and it was with difficulty that we procured post-horses to carry us to Delft: we were delayed near two hours, and should probably have had a longer detention, but a French general is a person of too great consequence in Holland to tolerate the accidents which happen with impunity to ordinary travellers, and his remonstrances had due influence with the innkeeper.
The road from Maaslandsluys to Delft is by the side of a canal, through a country well cultivated and fertile. The extinction of their commerce has perhaps turned the attention of the Dutch to agricultural pursuits: and war, by increasing the price of every article of human sustenance, encourages and rewards their diligence: but they have fallen into an error, which is at this moment too prevalent in England — of employing their land rather in feeding cattle than raising corn. Their farms, too, are larger than I could have wished to have seen them, and none of those smiling cottages appear, which beautify the English landscape. Their farm-houses are neat and substantial dwellings, and the persons who inhabit them, an honest and respectable looking race of beings, not at all deserving the appellation of boors, in the sense to which we apply it. But I much doubt whether, in the whole circle of the United Provinces, any thing is to be found, either belonging to the peasants or their habitations, which approximates in the least to rural elegance, or that bewitching simplicity of taste which mocks the progress of false refinement.
We passed through Delft at a time which afforded us an opportunity of seeing the flying artillery attached to General Chorié's brigade. The appearance of the men and horses was wretched in the extreme, but Chorié assured me their discipline was excellent; and they had, the preceding year, when the English invaded Holland, rendered very important services to the republic. They had also gathered laurels in Germany. But their squalid countenances and tattered clothing furnished me rather with the idea of scarecrows than soldiers. Their artillery, however, was formidable: twelve long brass field-pieces, carrying shot of six pounds weight, or a proportionate quantity of musket-balls, were capable, in the hands of so expert artillerymen as the French are universally allowed to be, of doing prodigious execution in the close ranks of an enemy. The successes of the French in Germany and Italy are pretty confidently attributed to the vast superiority of their artillery; but, though they have brought that branch of military science to a high degree of perfection, I am persuaded they are less indebted to it for their victories, than to the superior numbers which they have always brought into the field, and the extraordinary genius of their military leaders.
Chorié is a lively Frenchman from Languedoc, though I should rather have supposed from Gascony, who has seen much service in various quarters of the globe, and is firmly attached to the revolution. I know not how to reconcile the assiduous attention which he pays us, and the many civilities we receive at his hands, with the rooted animosity which he bears to the English nation. We are a people against whom he could wage eternal war. Yet there are many individuals of our nation, for whom he either entertains a personal esteem, or values for the reputation which they enjoy by the united suffrages of Europe. He would have apologised to me for a sentiment which I was shocked at, by transferring his odium from the nation to the government; (the practice of the Jacobins and revolutionary committees); but I admire the constitution of my country, and the legal, wise, and salutary government which emanates from it, too cordially to be flattered by the sophistry which persuades me to separate myself from the constitutionally-established government of my country; and however I may dislike corrupt and feeble administrations, my attachment to the constitution of my country remains unimpaired.
From Delft to Rotterdam the road is agreeably diversified with neat villages, and a variety of country seats and houses of retirement in the truest Dutch taste. It is, like the road from Maaslandsluys to Delft, on the dyke of the canal, so that the carelessness of the driver might throw his carriage into the water, or precipitate it into the fields, which in some places are between five and six feet below the level of the road. This I believe never happens, but the apparent danger is sufficient to excite the anxiety of timorous travellers; and the badness of the road, which is made without gravel and abounds in deep ruts, keeps alive their fears.
At a distance, Rotterdam appears a well-built and extensive city, and the approach to it displays the opulence and industry of its inhabitants. The number of mills, principally for sawing timber, in the suburbs, is prodigious; but few of them were at work, though the weather was extremely favourable, and some were in a state so ruinous, that they must have long been unemployed. The sawing-mills are inventions of the greatest utility, both for abridging the labour of man, and performing work with the neatest accuracy. They are lofty and somewhat agreeable erections, the mill generally rising from the top of a substantial building two or three stories high, and of a sufficient altitude to give its necessary rotundity a light and airy appearance. Some of them are painted in a whimsical taste, and others adorned with grotesque figures, according to the fancy or wealth of their respective proprietors.
We are lodged at present at General Chorié's head-quarters, formerly the Statehouse, at present the Central-bureau, where the French commander resides, and the municipality of Rotterdam hold their sittings. It is a spacious, solid, but ill-constructed building. As an Englishman, it possesses a secret recommendation to me, which I should be sorry not to mention. It was the occasional residence of George the Second, when he visited his Hanoverian dominions, and has been dignified by the presence of other of our princes of the blood. Time, the impartial analyser of reputations, has set his seal on the character of George the Second. We may praise him, without the suspicion of venality; or censure, uninfluenced by the prejudices of party. He was a sovereign endowed with many princely virtues: — he was brave in the field, prudent in the cabinet, frugal of the public revenue, and jealous of the national honour. During his long reign, justice was administered with impartial equity in his courts; nor did the prerogatives of the sovereign ever interfere with the rights of the subject. His attachment to his German possession has been censured by those who repined at the prosperity which the nation enjoyed under his government; but this attachment was the natural result of early association and partiality: and I admire, rather than reproach, the monarch for blending with the exercise of his high authority the feelings and sympathies of a man. The chamber we slept in, was formerly called Koning Kamer, or the King's chamber; but this appellation being incompatible with republican simplicity, it is no longer distinguished from the other apartments of the house.
Since our arrival here, we have undergone a slight examination, pro forma, before the French consul of the place, General Chorié, and the Batavian commissary; and passports have been granted us, with equal readiness and politeness, for three decades, which will afford us a sufficient time to see whatever is most remarkable in the United Provinces. We quit General Chorié's quarters tomorrow, to lodge at the Swine's Hoof, a respectable inn in the great market-place, where the consul has obligingly hired apartments for us. It is necessary, I am informed, in this country, if you intend to reside for any length of time in a place, to make a previous agreement with the innkeeper for the price which you must pay for your apartments; for otherwise he will be inclined to charge you at an exorbitant rate, and as no redress can be obtained, their demands must be paid without abatement.