Years Journey through France and Part of Spain | Page 5

are always passing, and many honest
men are often led into grievous and dangerous situations by such
inconsiderate connections; nay, the best, and wisest men, are the most
liable to be off their guard, and therefore you will excuse my pointing it
out to you.
I could indeed relate some alarming consequences, nay, some fatal ones,
which have befallen men of honour and character in this country, from
such unguarded connections; and such as they would not have been
drawn into, on the other side of the "invidious Streight." When an
Englishman leaves his own country, and is got no further from it than
to this town, he looks back upon it with an eye of partial affection; no
wonder then, if he feels more disposed to be kind to a countryman and
a stranger he may meet in this.--I do not think it would be difficult to
point out, what degree of intimacy would arise between two men who
knew but little of each other, according to the part of the world they
were to meet in.--I remember the time, when I only knew your person,
and coveted your acquaintance; at that time we lived in the same town,
knew each other's general character, but passed without speaking, or
even the compliment of the hat; yet had we met in London, we should
certainly have taken some civil notice of each other: had the interview
been at York, it is five to one but it would have produced a
conversation: at Edinburgh, or Dublin, we should have dined, or gone
to the play together: but if we had met at Barbadoes, I should have been
invited to spend a month at your PENN, and experienced many of those
marks of hospitality, friendship, and generosity, I have found from the
Creoles in general. When you get upon the French coast, the packet
brings to, and is soon boarded by a French boat, to carry the passengers
on shore; this passage is much longer than it appears to be, is always
disagreeable, and sometimes dangerous; and the landing, if the water be
very low, intolerable: in this case, never mind the advice of the Captain;
his advice is, and must be regulated by his own and his owner's interest,

more than your convenience; therefore stay on board till there is water
enough to sail up to the town, and be landed by a plank laid from the
packet to the shore, and do not suffer any body to persuade you to go
into a boat, or to be put on shore, by any other method, tho' the
_packet-men_ and the Frenchmen unite to persuade you so to do,
because they are mutually benefited by putting you to more expence,
and the latter are entertained with seeing your cloaths dirted, or the
ladies frighted. If most of the packet-boats are in Calais harbour, your
Captain will use every argument in his power to persuade you to go on
shore, in the French boat, because he will, in that case, return directly to
Dover, and thereby save eight-and-twenty shillings port duty. When we
came over, I prevailed upon a large company to stay on board till there
was water enough to sail into the harbour: it is not in the power of the
Captain to deceive you as to that matter, because there is a red flag
hoisted gradually higher and higher, as the water flows into the harbour,
at a little fort which stands upon stilts near the entrance of it. When you
are got on shore, go directly to _Dessein_'s; and be in no trouble about
your baggage, horses, or coach; the former will be all carried, by men
appointed for that purpose, safely to the Custom-house, and the latter
wheeled up to your Hotel, where you will sit down more quietly, and
be entertained more decently, than at Dover.

LETTER IV.
RHEIMS, in Champagne.
Little or nothing occurred to me worth remarking to you on my journey
hither, but that the province of Artois is a fine corn country, and that the
French farmers seem to understand that business perfectly well. I was
surprised to find, near _St. Omer_'s, large plantations of tobacco, which
had all the vigour and healthy appearance of that which I have seen
grow in poor America. On my way here, (like the countryman in
London, in gazing about) I missed my road; but a civil, and, in
appearance, a substantial farmer, conducted us half a league over the
fields, and marked out the course to get into it again, without returning
directly back, a circumstance I much hate, though perhaps it might have

been the shorter way. However, before I gained the high road, I
stumbled upon a private one, which led us into a little