A Tour Through the Batavian Republic

Front matter

A

TOUR

THROUGH THE

Letter I

TOUR

THROUGH THE

BATAVIAN REPUBLIC

LETTER I.

Capture of the Author on the coast of Yorkshire, by a French privateer. − Character of the prize-master and his crew: their ignorance of navigation. The Dutch pilot: his advice. − Arrival off the Briel. − Politeness and hospitality of the Dutch commodore. − Account of the Briel. − The tree of liberty. − The face of the country.

Briel, October, 1800.

F the intelligence of our capture has not already reached your town, you will be greatly surprised at receiving a letter from this place, when you expected us safe arrived in London. Scarcely twelve hours of favourable wind had wafted us from your port, when we perceived, at about the distance of two miles, a French corsair, in the act of capturing an English vessel. The sight, you may believe, alarmed us, who were unfurnished with any means of defence, and could not hope to escape by flight from a vessel built for purposes of swiftness and fight. At this time there were perhaps thirty ships in sight, any of, which it was in the corsair's power to capture; and I indulged the hope that in his selection of a prize, we might have the good fortune not to be the object of his choice. Appearances for some time flattered this hope: there was a brig near us, which carried more external marks of opulence about her than we bore, and it was this vessel, rather than ours, which the Frenchman chased. There was something in this state of suspense and uncertainty peculiarly distressing: as we might hope to escape, every one, I believe, thought himself privileged to represent the evils of capture in the worst possible light; whereas, the moment it became inevitable we should be taken, with such facility does the human mind accommodate itself to circumstances, every person became endowed with a large portion of sullen resignation, which answered all the purposes of fortitude, and is indeed, in men of ordinary habits of thinking, a substitute quality for that virtue.

Poor —— felt almost nothing for herself; but her sympathy was deeply excited for Captain ——, whose share of the vessel, purchased by the accumulations of many years of industrious frugality, was uninsured. His was the loss of property which it had been the labour of his life to obtain; it was a little store for the winter of his days, to provide for the wants of existence, when age and infirmities demand the quiets of indolent ease. The crew also claimed a large tribute of her sorrow: each eagerly told his history, and received his share of pity. They were all of them men who maintained large families by their industry; and I was pleased to find, that the concern which they felt for the distresses which their wives and children would suffer from their absence, in this season of awful scarcity, was unspeakably superior to any feeling of a personal consideration. I can love with all the partial affection of friendship the rudest of Nature's sons, when I perceive in him those delicate charities of affiance, which bind the individual to his family; and I consider those acts of public virtue which are founded upon violations of parental and private affection, as criminal offences against the holiest laws of nature.

Our flag was struck on the firing of a musket, the only gun I ever heard (as the sailors term it) fired in anger, the sound of which yet tingles in my ear; and a boat from the corsair immediately took possession of our vessel. The captain and crew, with the little baggage which they were allowed to take away with them, were then carried on board the Frenchman; and it was in contemplation that the passengers, consisting of three females and myself, should follow them; but as I was persuaded we should be exposed to much inconvenience and distress on board a vessel that was crowded with men, and devoid of accommodations, and I had an opportunity of remonstrating with the captain of the republican on the subject, I prevailed on him, though not without difficulty, to permit us to remain in the prize. I now learned that the name of the corsair was The Chasseur, Captain Blackman, of Dunkirk, and that her depredations on the English coast had been uncommonly successful.

The whole business of our capture was over in little more than half an hour, and with unspeakable soreness and oppression of heart, I saw the vessel steer from the English coast. The high lands of Yorkshire, towering in the clouds, were in sight, and with eager eyes I gazed on them till they appeared to sink in the water. What, under other circumstances, would have been a spectacle which I should have admired, chilled my soul. There is something congenial to an ardent mind in whatever displays the spirit of adventure and courage. On former occasions my departure from land, and rushing on the broad bosom of the deep, have filled me with sublime and solemn emotions: the receding hills, the vast expanse of water, which the vessel proudly ploughed, have seemed to me a scene of triumph — the triumph of man over an hostile element. But now I was torn from my connections, my home, and my country; and in the power of men whose character it has been to aggravate the infelicities of war. Though I gained in all the finer feelings of the heart, I lost something of the independence of manhood, by having for the companion of my misfortune that person with whose pleasures and sorrows mine are so intimately blended, that I feel the evil with tenfold weight in which she participates. Alone, if I could not have been a hero, I could have been a stoic, but there was not a fear which she suggested, such is the electricity of affection, and the blind respect we pay to the feelings of those we love, that I did not view with horror which almost amounted to the torture of real suffering.

The Frenchmen who had charge of the vessel, consisted of a prize-master and three sailors. I have rarely seen persons of worse countenances: I enquired, and found they were all natives of Dunkirk, and had never been at Paris, or I should have conceived they had been active in some of those scenes which, in the early stages of the revolution, outraged humanity, and disgraced that city. But that character of features which alarmed me, might easily be attributed to local circumstances. Dunkirk is the resort of desperadoes and outlaws from various nations, who in peace subsist by carrying on a contraband trade with England, in war by capturing vessels; and the occupations of smuggling and privateering being invariably attended with a very considerable degree of danger, and often with little concern for the claims of humanity, the persons so engaged acquire a cast of countenance, which I cannot otherwise distinguish than by saying, it partakes of the assassin and the robber.

Neither the countenance, however, of my prize-master, nor his sailors, gave me half the alarm that I felt at the discovery of their utter ignorance of navigation, and the art of managing a ship. The evening was stormy, and at midnight it blew a severe gale of wind, with a rough dangerous sea. The terms which I should use, were I describing our situation to a naval person, would be unintelligible to you; nor indeed can I boast of much facility in displaying my nautical knowledge. I shall therefore shorten my detail by simply observing, that for thirty hours the vessel was in the last degree of danger, merely through the unskilfulness and ignorance of the Frenchman. We were within two leagues of the coast of Holland, and in six fathoms of water, before they thought of heaving the lead, nor would it then have occurred to them as a thing that was necessary, had I not succeeded in persuading them they were not far from land. Such an instance of stupidity rarely occurs, on a shore so proverbially dangerous as the coast of Holland where innumerable shoals, lurking under water, long before the land is visible, threaten with destruction the incautious mariner.

Cleanliness, I believe, is not a virtue for which the sailors of any nation are to be commended, there is generally something about them to offend more than one sense, and no class of men are less attentive to personal delicacy. Our Frenchmen were the most disgusting as well as the most ignorant of their profession……

The Dutch pilot who came on board, at the mouth of the Maese, gave me at first no very favourable idea of the reception we would meet with in his country. A fishing vessel belonging to him had been destroyed the preceding year by the fleet under admiral Mitchel, and his son was a prisoner in England. He was offended at an orange-coloured shawl, which —— unfortunately wore, and he represented himself and his countrymen as the bitterest enemies of the English name. This conversation passed, it is proper to inform you, in the presence of the prize-master. The pilot had indeed suffered by the English, and his son was a prisoner; but his animosity against our nation was of the mildest kind, it was the cordiality of friendship, compared with the aversion which he expressed to the French. Speaking of the ignorance of the prize-master and his crew, he assured me that our danger had been infinitely greater than I suspected; many vessels had lately been lost near where the Frenchmen ventured without any of the usual precautions of navigation. He spoke good English, and was of great service to us by pointing out the measures necessary to be taken to preserve our property from the rapacity of the republican sailors.

We came to anchor off Briel (or the Briel, as it is called, though for what reason I know not) in the afternoon, and were immediately visited by boats from the shore and guard-ships. I was informed we should not be permitted to land, till an order for that purpose had been received from the government; but I immediately waited on the Dutch commodore, and on representing to him how ill we were accommodated, he promised to take us on board his own ship the next day. I obtained also from him a guard for the security of our persons and property, and he politely sent us such refreshments as he judged would be most agreeable to us, after the fatigues of our passage, and the indisposition which persons generally feel from the sea, who are unaccustomed to the motion of the waves.

My Frenchmen were extremely indignant that we should he thus under the protection of the Batavian government, for they considered us in some sort as exclusively their property, and had, after the fashion of their rulers, determined to levy on us a contribution either in specie or apparel. But the presence of two robust Hollanders defeated their intentions, and their resentment was confined to idle menaces and impotent threats. It is the custom of private vessels of war, of other nations as well as the French, to pillage the passengers who are so unfortunate as to fall into their hands; but complaints of this kind would be less frequently made, were the persons so taken to apply immediately for protection to the constituted authorities of the place whither they are carried: men who have obtained a certain rank and character in life, are rarely disposed to permit open violations of justice, however they may be inclined to connive at private injuries to the rights of individuals.

We are now with commodore ——, prisoners of war, till passports arrive from the Hague, either remanding us to our own country, or granting us permission to see whatever is most remarkable in the Batavian republic. Since the fortune of war has conducted me hither, and it is little probable that business, necessity, or pleasure, should ever lead me again to this part of the continent of Europe, I am resolved, if I can obtain permission, to profit by the occasion, and make the tour of the United Provinces. I say the United Provinces, because the Batavian republic has not yet obtained a place in our maps and gazetters; and to the one I associate something that is great and heroic, whereas the other conveys to my mind no favourable ideas. I shall therefore probably when I meet with objects which please me, speak of them as belonging to the United Provinces, or the contrary as belonging to the Batavian republic. I have no disinclination to admit that the, latter appellation is the most classical; but I am sorry that name should be abolished, which was bestowed on this country by those heroes who most vigorously defended their liberties against the gigantic forces of the Spanish monarchy, and established a wise and salutary system of freedom, which became the admiration of surrounding nations.

By the indulgence of commodore —— we have been on shore about two hours at the Briel. It is a fortified place, but of inconsiderable strength. Since the English expedition last year, they have repaired the ramparts, and constructed new batteries. I ought to mention that a chain of fortifications extends from the mouth of the Maese to this town, which would render it extremely difficult and dangerous for an enemy to effect a landing, and signal posts, beacons, and telegraphs, are thickly scattered over the country, so that an alarm would instantly be given and widely circulated, on the appearance of an hostile fleet.

Near the great church stands the tree of liberty, surmounted with a huge tin hat, which is decorated with the tricoloured ribbon. Various emblematic figures, painted more wretchedly than the hopes and angels on the sign-boards of our hedge ale-houses, are attached to the branches; and long scrolls of Dutch verses, to the merits of which I am not competent to speak. But, alas! the tree is withered and dead. I should imitate the folly of the persons who planted and ridiculously nicknamed the tree, were I to say more than I believe that few trees, of a certain age and growth, survive transplantation, and that the death of this tree was nothing more than the natural consequence of its removal. I congratulate myself that I do not belong to a nation which can be amused with such insipidities.

The face of the country, the appearance of the people, and what I have seen of their houses, are quite as different as I expected to find them, from what I have seen in England or abroad. The country exhibits a wonderful display of the mighty effects which human industry is capable of achieving. It is an extensive territory, rich in agriculture, and crowded with cities, rescued by the vast efforts of man from the dominion of the sea. From the deck of the vessel, on board of which I write this letter, the prospect of cultivated and pasture lands, of towns and villages, extends, far as the eye can reach, uninterrupted by the least inequalities of ground; and the ship floats on a vast mass of water, some feet above the meadows, were numerous flocks are grazing. I ought to inform you, that I speak of what is the appearance of the country when the tide is at its height; but at low water I am told the sea is near above a foot higher than the level of the earth, so that dykes of an astonishing magnitude and solidity are necessary to preserve them from the most dreadful inundations.

Letter II

LETTER II.

Civility of the Dutch Commodore: Singular learning of his chief Officer. — A Batavian patriot: his suspicions and rudeness. — Dutch tardiness. — The unpleasantness of detention. — The great influence of the French in Holland.

October, 1800.

SHOULD speak of our accommodations on board the commodore, which indeed are elegant and convenient, had not his politeness and incessant attention to our wants paramount claims on my notice. He omits nothing to render our stay with him agreeable, and has entirely succeeded in making us forget whatever is unpleasant, in idea or reality, in being brought hither against our inclination, and detained as prisoners. The captain of another ship of war, a veteran of approved courage, whose countenance is full of expressions of honesty and philanthropy, is equally assiduous to contribute to our pleasures; and as they both speak either English or French with considerable fluency, we find no difficulty in communicating our ideas. They are both men of good information, and well read in English and French literature. But I shall pass over their mental acquirements, which are truly respectable, to introduce you to one of the most extraordinary persons I ever met with, the first officer of the commodore's ship. A learned sailor seems to border upon the marvellous, but nearly the whole of this man's life was spent at sea, and the extent of his reading is such as is rarely obtained by those who pass their lives in the tranquil cultivation of letters. I have not often seen a man better acquainted with ancient authors than he is; but for his intimate knowledge of the whole circle of modern literature he stands unrivalled. I was not able to name an English author of reputation with whose works he was not critically acquainted. He had read the most difficult of our poets with an attention which could not have been bestowed on them, had he not been sensible of their beauties; and his intimacy with the novels of Smollet and Fielding, shewed the great progress he had made towards conquering the difficulties of our language. His acquaintance with French literature had not debauched his taste; his veneration for Shakspeare was unweakened by the flimsy cavils of Voltaire, and he readily assigned the palm of heroic excellence to the illustrious Milton. My knowledge of German letters is confined to the authors whom I have read through the medium of translation, and with these, and others whose names have not reached me, he is familiar; but this ought not to excite much surprise, as the Dutch language has a great affinity to the German, and the literary poverty of his own country probably first led him to cultivate the learning of a people whose manners and genius approximate to those of his own nation. I feel some diffidence in praising his acquirements in French and Italian literature, because the narrow compass of my own knowledge leads me to distrust my judgment; but he discoursed without caution or vanity on all the authors in either language which I had read, and displayed an extent of reading, which, but for the simplicity and openness of his character, I should have been induced to suspect.

Yet with this variety of reading, and most singular powers of memory, his conversation is dull, I had almost said unprofitable. He has retained every thing which he has read, but digested not one particle: he has collected most amply, but made no arrangement of his stores. His mind seems like a vast repository of furniture, where the elegancies of the drawing-room and the necessaries of the kitchen are promiscuously crowded together; every thing is there which can minister to your wants, or contribute to your pleasures, but all is in disorder and confusion. The principal fault of this person is, that he is utterly unacquainted with his own powers; and to this I attribute his almost total want of imagination and arrangement. I, as it were, obliged him to converse with me, and he is fond of speaking English, or the laudable pride of superior attainments would not lead him to display his acquisitions.

Yesterday a party from the shore dined with the commodore in compliment to us, and in the evening we had a little concert. Our harmony, however, had near been interrupted by a Dutch colonel, a furious patriot, who was enraged to the last degree of indignation, that the commodore should heap civilities on the bitter foes of the Batavian republic. Every Englishman was a dangerous person; and those very circumstances which precluded suspicion, ought to awaken the most vigilant caution. If we were not actually spies, situation and opportunity might make us; and he did me the honour to insinuate, that the more than common share of curiosity and observation which I appeased to possess, alarmed him greatly. The illiberality of this person was not confined to the insinuations which I have already mentioned; or virulent abuse of the English nation through the medium of French and Dutch ballads, but he attempted to wound us where the means of defence were less in our power — by drawing a conclusion destructive of female character, from the circumstance that I wore mourning, when —— was dressed in colours. —— I am heartly vexed to say, because it implies a censure on persons whom I really value and respect, that the ridiculous fears and violent prejudices of this Batavian have done us some disservice. I have learnt that he is a person of authority in the Briel — one of the municipality; and that kind of difficulty has occurred to prevent us from taking the walk on shore this morning which we proposed, that I shall not ask the same favour again.

The post is arrived which we thought would bring us passports from the Hague; but, a pest on Dutch tardiness, which under every form of government I believe will remain the same, we are disappointed. This mortification is the more distressing, as it is altogether dubious whether it will be determined that we must return by the first conveyance to England, or permission will be granted us to view the republic. The former would be extremely unpleasant to me, as there are many places in the United Provinces which I have an eager curiosity to see; but principally because I am anxious to obtain complete information respecting the present state of the country, and the influence which the conquest of the French has had on the character of the people. I have heard complaints that the former government was arbitrary, and perhaps they were well founded; but the present I suspect is both oppressive and arbitrary, and without energy or dignity. I am desirous to see what are the effects of French principles on a nation so sober and phlegmatic as the Dutch have always been represented; whether those theories of liberty which pleased me when a youth, and which I still most fervently admire, are, when reduced to practice, as delightful and invaluable as an ardent and unsuspicious mind conceived them to be.

There is something in confinement, call it detention, or by a milder term, which I revolt at; and I think that confinement on ship-board is worse than in a prison or a lazaretto, though I do not speak from personal experience. I never knew a person of sentiment and delicacy who could endure a ship, unless indeed they have been early habituated to a seafaring life, and in a like manner reconciled to its disgusting circumstances, as custom leads us to admire, those tastes which the unsophisticated palate cannot tolerate.

Our friendly commodore has been at Helvoetsluys, to confer with the admiral, his commanding officer, respecting us, and we are offered a cartel to return immediately to England; but we cannot go on shore until permission is obtained from the higher authorities. It is told me, that application to the French minister at the Hague, as we were captured by a privateer of his nation, would be the readiest method to procure passports, but I should submit with pleasure to the mortification of a longer detention than it is probable we shall have, rather than wound, in the slightest degree, the feelings of those under whose generous protection we are. The exercise of few of the prerogatives which belong to an independent nation is permitted to the Dutch; and I believe we should immediately be released, were it not apprehended that such a measure might be offensive to the persons employed by the French government in Holland. I mean no censure here on the character of M. Simonville the French ambassador, who is represented to me as a person of the greatest liberality and candour, and an utter stranger to arrogance or prejudice; but the persons to whom I allude are the inferior servants of the French republic — men tainted with too many of the vices of the revolution.

Letter III

LETTER III.

End of the Author's detention through the means of General Chorié. — Impoverished state of Maaslandsluys. — Road to Delft. — The artillery of General Chorié's Brigade. — Character of the General. — The environs of Rotterdam. — Statehouse of that city. — George the Second.

Rotterdam, Oct. 1800.

HEN I concluded my last letter, I did not imagine we would be so speedily released from our honourable confinement, and that impression, perhaps, threw a tincture of peevishness into what I wrote; I feel the consciousness, however, of this so slightly, that I deem no other apology necessary, than to say, that the man whose compositions, delineating situation and character, are not affected by present circumstances and personal sensibility, is a writer whose acquaintance I am little disposed to cultivate.

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.