My reflections now led me to consider from what source originate such multitudes of beggars in France, and after weighing the subject every way maturely, I concluded it must be owing to the government under which they lived, being at this time swayed by a king, with his swarms of nobles, farmers general,* and other royal leeches, who are continually preying upon and devouring the hard earnings of the people.

O my country! how happy a lot has Providence placed her in. Thank God, there are no royal leeches there, and I sincerely pray to him that we may never have any; nor any of those beggarly outcasts of society, of whom I have attempted to give the reader a faint description. No, my countrymen, remember this (nor does it require the spirit of prophecy to predict), that whenever the first class, to wit, nobles, and royal leeches, are established in the United States, beggary, with all its horrors and torments, will be the unhappy portion of the greater part of those citizens and their families, who are now considered as good livers, but according to some the lower class of people in that happy country. May God of his infinite mercy avert such a judgment, should be the hearty prayer of every good citizen of the United States.

This I believe to be a fact, that those whom we call poor people in America, know nothing, absolutely nothing of poverty, such as the beggars in France experience. Any traveller must have a heart harder than adamant who can refuse to give them a small pittance of such riches as Providence has placed in his hands. To see hundreds of aged, halt and maimed, of our fellow creatures begging for charity, would, methinks melt, if possible, the heart of a stone. To see them crawling out of their caves like four footed

*The great collectors of the royal taxes, with whom the government was in the habit of contracting for large sums of money, and which they used to advance to the government, and then tax the people as they pleased, without being accountable to any one, even if the people were oppressed ever so much.

beasts, and cry charity. (Mon cher Monsieur, je prie au bon Dieu pour vous) my dear Sir, I will pray to God for you. The little naked children, fifty, and sometimes seventy in a drove, running and following after people in carriages, on horseback, &c., for miles, making a most hideous noise, would move the most obdurate heart to pity them in such a manner as to induce a few pence to be given to these real objects of charity.

But to return; the city of Caen is a very large populous one; very handsomely built, and in my opinion but little inferior to the city of Paris, for beauty and magnificence. It is true, there are here no palaces, but the buildings in general are more elegant, the streets much handsomer, and the city is more pleasantly situated in many respects. It lies about nine miles south of the English channel, in lat. 49.10 N. West, long. 30 minutes. The taxes in this place are enormously high, as well as in other parts of Normandy, occasioned, as I was informed, by a rebellion which took place in the province a great many years ago. They are obliged to pay the king a higher duty on wine than it costs them when they purchase it; and there is but a small chance of introducing this or any other article here without paying the duties even in the way of smuggling them. They are obliged to buy salt for their own consumption at a very high rate of the officers of the crown (who are monopolizers of it) and on which there is a duty of three sous per quart, and every family are obliged to buy so much annually, whether they want it or not, according to the respective number which each family consists of. If any one is detected in having a quantity of salt water in his or her house, which can be proved to have been taken out of the sea, the person in whose custody it is found is liable to pay a fine of twenty-five guineas to the king. Should the person after conviction not be liable to pay that sum, he or she is imprisoned for one year, unless a bondsman is procured to be answerable for said

fine in a reasonable time, to be approved of by the king's officers. Upon the whole, there is nothing in this province but what is taxed either by the crown, the nobles (who have large estates in the province) or the royal leeches. I was told by an English gentleman residing there, and who had been an inhabitant of the place for upwards of twenty years, that this province alone paid to the officers of the crown one hundred million of livres annually (which is over four millions sterling) and this in peace, and double that sum in time of war. From Caen (where there are the handsomest women in France) I set out in the public stage for a place called Enfleur,* where I arrived safe in about six hours, and where I was obliged to wait about two hours for the current to slack, as it runs almost as rapid in this river between this place and Havre de Grace, as in Hell Gate in America. This little town of Enfleur is celebrated for producing from their bakehouses the whitest and best bread of any other place in the whole kingdom. At four in that afternoon I crossed over the river to Havre de Grace in a kind of flat bottomed boat with one sail to her; I observed, however, that the people or boatmen, who undertook the management of her, did not understand their business so well as they ought. This is a very large town, and a seaport, very delightfully situated on the English channel, at the mouth of the river Seine. It lies in lat. 49.20 long. 10 West. It has no harbour, but vessels trading here, as well as ships of war, may enter that bason, which is very large, but this must be done at high water, and when the current of the river does not run away (which current is the most rapid that I ever knew in any other whatever). It was low water when I crossed it, and consequently there was scarcely any motion of the current observable. About an hour after there was a large galliot, being (as was supposed) too late in regard to the tide, made an attempt to gain

* Honfleur.

the bason, the wind at the same time blowing fresh and favourable for her; when she had got abreast of the bason, the people on board of her lowered down her sails, and endeavoured with a boat to carry a line on shore at the quay, in which they did not succeed, as the current had by this time got to running very rapidly, which swept her away with it. The people in the boat reached the galliot and let go an anchor, which did not check her an instant; the current at length forced her up the river about three leagues, when she struck upon a shoal, and in a few moments after went to pieces, and every soul on board perished.

I was told by some of the people in this place, that they never had seen or heard of any vessel attempting to enter the bason when the current was at its greatest swiftness, but what had been forced by the current upon some of the shoals (which the river abounds. with) and lost, both vessel and crew; so great is the rapidity of the tide.

The town is very well built, the streets exceeding handsome, and it is strongly fortified. The public walks a little distance from the town are the most beautiful in every respect I ever saw. The country seats which surround the town are admirably fine, and most delightfully pleasing to the eye of the beholder. I shall not attempt any further description of this place at this time, my stay being only about three hours. After which I continued my journey, and the next place which I came to of any considerable note was Calais, in the province of Picardy. It lies in lat. 51.6. long. about 29. E., twenty-two miles S.E. by S. of Dover (in England). Between these two ports is the narrowest place between France and England, on the British Channel.

Calais is a pretty large town, and well fortified; the buildings mostly of Gothic construction, and a great many of them much destroyed with age, and torn to pieces. They have here a fine

bason, but the entrance into it is very narrow and difficult, owing to a bar that lies directly across the entrance or mouth of it. No vessels of more than a hundred tons burthen can come over the bar at high water, and even at spring tides. They have here a number of packet boats, which ply between this and Dover in time of peace, for the accommodation of the nobility and gentry, who generally pass this way from London to Paris, or from Paris to London, as being the nearest route between those cities.

After tarrying at Calais long enough to take some refreshment, and to have the horses shifted, I set off for Dunkirk, where I arrived in eight hours, and was soon after employed in assisting in fitting for sea the Eclipse cutter. Her officers and crew, when ready for sea, consisted of one hundred and ten, and carried 18 six pounders, French pieces. We were ready to sail by the middle of November, when the cutter was warped into the roads of Dunkirk, and all her crew immediately sent on board. On the night of the 20th of November Captain Anthon went on shore, and left directions with me to take good care of the cutter, keep a good lookout, and to have a particular eye to everything on board. About 12 o'clock at night there came on a most violent gale of wind from the N.N.W. and which blew directly on shore, and caused a very bad sea. We had at the time a pilot on board, who soon gave it as his opinion that it would not do to lie much longer where we then lay. He therefore directed the mainsail to be balance reefed, and the storm jib and foresail ready for hoisting at a moment's warning. Very soon after this the cutter brought home her norther-most anchor, and about 2 A.M. she dragged both her anchors, and kept on driving towards the shore. We now hoisted up the balance mainsail, slipt both cables, hoisted up the storm jib and storm foresail, and tried to gain an offing; it being now about half flood, so that we could not enter Dunkirk pier. In this distress, finding it impossible to get