A tour through Holland

The public shall be my confessor.—In the summer of last year, whilst the larger portion of the civilized world was anxiously awaiting the result of our sincere negotiations for a peace, which, alas! the crafty ministers of Napoleon, never intended should be other than mere “romans politiques,” the desire of contemplating a country, and a race of people to me entirely new, induced me to trespass upon their shore.

I resolved upon visiting Holland, although in a state of reluctant war with my own country, of a war which yet permitted to her commerce a few stolen embraces with that of England, which forced many a pursy Dutchman to lament the separation, and in the narcotic atmosphere of his consoling pipe, to wish for better times. In gratifying my wishes, I was guilty of assuming a character respected in every country, as well for its being most wisely and profitably at peace with all the world, as for its integrity and enterprize: I became an American, and by an act of temporary adoption, fixed upon Baltimore in North America as the place of my nativity. A fortunate correspondence in the personal description, except a slight variation, not easily discoverable, relating to my face and age, enabled a friend of mine, a legitimate American, to accommodate me with his passport, which after all I might as well have left behind me, so kindly are the Hollanders disposed towards us.

I was promised by my friend a full description of the principal places in Baltimore, and of the adjacent country, that I might pass unsuspected through a cross examination, should any be attempted: the description never arrived, or arrived too late, and I ascended my chaise, as ignorant of Baltimore as of the Peruvian Potosi, trusting to that good chance which has often favoured me, and under the guidance of which

The stratagem, if not perfectly blameless, was at least intended to be an inoffensive one; I had no hopes of a peace, and consequently none of seeing Holland in a more regular mode. I went not to investigate the nakedness of the land, and by availing myself of its confidence to penetrate the military depots, the docks and arsenals of a country not in amity with my own.

I abhor the character of a spy, moving in friendly garb, however useful his treachery may be to his employers. My imposition extended no farther than to enable me to make a picturesque tour through an almost aqueous kingdom, to view its natives in their ordinary habits, to glide upon their liquid roads, to saunter in their green avenues and flourishing gardens, and trace the wonderful results of that daring and indefatigable ingenuity, which has raised the permanent habitation of man in the ocean, and made successful inroads upon the physical order of the universe.

But though the deception gave no pang to my conscience, yet, harmless as it was, (and let me mention it as a moral lesson) it did not escape the lash of many a petty inconvenience. Often have I been pestered upon the supposition of my being an American merchant, with interrogations as to the number of partners I had, how many clerks I kept, and the many other perplexing queries of minds at once devoted to commerce, and curiosity: nor did I escape dilemmas infinitely more perilous.

Having thus in all candour confessed my offence, if such it ought in justice to be called, and which has also met with its due proportion of chastisement, I trust I shall receive absolution from my reader, and in that hope I shall now proceed to my narrative.

I intended to have availed myself, as I wish I had done on former occasions, of the indulgence usually allowed to tours given in the shape of epistolary correspondence, the ease and familiarity of which render the tourist less formal, and the critic more indulgent; but the war presented an obstacle to the adoption of a plan which would have been more congenial to my mind, and to the nature of the remarks I have to offer.

In 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.

Of the country which I was quitting, and of that to which I was proceeding, our Charles the Second, a monarch of whom Sir Richard Bulstrode justly says, that had he loved business as well as he understood it, he would have been the greatest prince in Europe, observed, “that the former was the most comfortable climate to live under, he had ever experienced; as there were more days in the year, and more hours in the day, that a man could take exercise out of doors in it, than in any country he had ever known. That during his exile he had seen many countries, of which none pleased him so much as the Flemings, who were the most honest and true-hearted people he had ever met with; and added very prophetically to me, to whom he addressed these remarks, I am weary of travelling, I am resolved to go abroad no more; but when I am dead and gone, I know not what my brother will do, I am much afraid that when he comes to the throne he will be obliged to travel again.” A prediction fatally realized by the wicked folly of the royal object of it.

At Gravesend we paid six guineas apiece 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 berth 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 burthen, 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 honey-moon bower of a young Swiss and a pretty English girl just married; and a little hole astern which, furnished 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.

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.

Our captain and his crew exhibited twice a day that attention to their devotions, which is still so characteristic of their country, in spite of every hostile attack and insidious intrigue of France, in the most vulgar, impious, and savage era of her bloody revolution. The breakfast of every morning, and the supper of every evening, were consecrated by a long shrill anthem, and still longer prayer. The cook was the chaplain, and the kitchen, a hole of about eight feet by five, the chapel. The spirit of Calvin, if it be not offered up to the manes of Servetus, must have smiled with satisfaction at the motley group, surrounding a pot of boiled peas and pork, and enveloped in a deep fog of steam and smoke, thus offering up their homage in the language, and according to the rites of that merciless reformer.

The piety of the commander was carried to an extreme length. One morning we were disturbed by a great noise: the captain had compelled his son, a sprightly lad of about nine years old, to read the Dutch Testament for three days together, and with scarcely any cessation; in consequence of which the young disciple became restive, and whilst his father’s back was turned committed the apostles to the deep, for which he received a tolerable proportion of castigation. Fifty times a day were we annoyed by our pious commander vociferating to his child,

I restored our captain, who spoke English very well, to good humour, by relating to him an anecdote of the activity and cool philosophy of a Dutch sailor belonging to the fleet under the command of the celebrated Van Tromp, who immortalized himself by his naval victories over the Spaniards in 1639, but submitted to the superior skill and prowess of the British fleet under the command of the sturdy patriotic Blake. At the time when the hostile fleets were laying very near each other, after a severe engagement, to refit, a British and Dutch sailor endeavoured to rival each other by their activity in ascending and descending the rigging of their respective ships; at last the English sailor astonished his competitor by standing with his heels in the air upon the truck head of the main top gallant mast; the Dutchman endeavoured to do the same, but in the attempt fell upon the deck, from which, with great anguish and difficulty, he raised himself a little, and exclaiming to the Englishman, “dere mynheer can you do dat,” expired upon the spot. The Dutch are very fond of dogs. Our captain had a bitch and two puppies on board of a very peculiar breed, for which he expressed great attachment, and he was one day not a little amused at my telling him that at the commencement of the gallant action which took place between the Nymph and Cleopatra in the last war, there was a large Newfoundland dog on board the former vessel, which, as soon as the firing began, ran from below deck in spite of every exertion of the men to keep him down, and climbing up into the main chains, there kept up a continual barking, and exhibited the most violent rage during the whole of the engagement. When the Cleopatra struck he was amongst the foremost to board her, and walked up and down her decks as if he participated in the glory of the victory obtained by the English.

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 wind 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 which 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 by green flags and a few scanty oziers announced our voyage to be at its close, and we entered the river of a country which our Hudibrastic Butler thus peevishly describes:

The Duke of Alva, with more whimsicality and less bitterness, observed, “that the Dutch were the nearest neighbours to hell of any people on the earth, for they dwelt the lowest.”

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 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 I before mentioned, admiral Cornelius Van Tromp.

In the dead of the night, and in a deep fog, a fishing boat dropped along side, 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 apiece: 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 accommodated than a cargo of African slaves. As we had an 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 passage money 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 botanical 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 lanterns 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 Schiedam, so celebrated throughout Holland for its distilleries of geneva, of which we were informed there were three hundred before the Dutch 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 centinels 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 repine.

In a milder climate, after the French took possession of Bologna, a soldier, whose coat was nearly in the predicament of his military countryman’s breeches before mentioned, came up to Bonaparte, and begged that he would order him a new one, to which his general, who had none to give him, very shrewdly replied, “my good fellow, that will not do, it will hinder your wounds from being seen.”

When the French troops entered Rotterdam, they were quartered on the inhabitants, whose good opinion, I was well informed, they soon conciliated by their quiet conduct and orderly deportment. I afterwards received the same character of the French troops in other parts of Holland, from those with whom, I am convinced, they were not very welcome visitors, on account of the contributions which they levied.

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, and here a luckless accident had nearly befallen me. The luggage of the passengers was deposited in small holds nearly the length of the vessel, covered over with loose boards: the night was dark, and as by the light of a solitary lamp we were endeavouring to get at our luggage, a fat Dutchman’s wife sprung out of the cabin, in which she had been concealed during our expedition up the river, who thinking that we were molesting some of her bonnet boxes, in the unguarded violence of her approach, slipped into one of the holds, the boards of which had been inadvertently left open by the Swiss bridegroom before mentioned, in an irritable struggle to obtain his luggage; the oaths and howlings of the poor lady brought out her husband, a man whom we had remarked for the unpleasantness of his physiognomy and deportment during the voyage, and as I stood nearest to his prostrate wife in the act of assisting her, he charged me with having maliciously occasioned her suffering, and threatened repeatedly to call the watchmen of the city and send me and my companions to prison.

It was a long time before I could allay the storm, and dulcify the temper of this man, which, considering my situation, required some little forbearance and management of feeling. 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 shut, and the boom closed at eleven o’clock.

Our hotel lay at the bottom of a most beautiful avenue of trees, running parallel with the river opposite to the ferry. Our landlord was very civil, and all his servants spoke French. In the principal apartment was a print of Napoleon in his coronation robes: I afterwards observed similiar prints in many other houses in the city.

Many of the principal merchants of Rotterdam have country-houses in these delightful suburbs. I walked along a line of them, and beheld for the first time a specimen of the taste of the Dutch in rural scenery: the gardens, upon a level with the river, and divided from it by a high raised road, appeared to have been all designed by a mathematician; but still their neatness and luxuriance left a pleasing impression on the mind. Upon every gate, or house, a motto indicative of the mind of the owner, or of the character of the place, presented itself, of which the following are specimens:

Vreede is myn Lust Haf

Peace is my garden.

Lust en rust

Hope and repose.

Na by Bruten

Almost out of town.

Ziet op u minder

Look upon those beneath you.

N. B. This was inscribed upon a large house that commanded some little cottages.

Wel te vreeda

Very content, &c. &c.

These inscriptions are seldom used but by opulent tradesmen; amongst the higher classes they are considered to be a little tinctured with vulgarity, though, as I found, they sometimes indulge in them: the villas of the latter are frequently known by names corresponding with those which are applied to the country residences of the superior families in England.

In the morning our luggage was inspected by the proper officers, who gave us very little trouble, and were content with a trifling douceur. The entrance to the city, towards the river, through the principal gate, called De Nieuwe Hoofds Poort, a structure infinitely more elegant than another barrier of this city, called De Oude Hoofds Poort, is very handsome.

The immediate transition from the tranquillity of the country to the busy hum of men was very striking: the canals, with their numerous draw-bridges, as we proceeded to our city hotel, the Mareschal de Turenne, were lined with vessels of all sorts and sizes; and notwithstanding the war, every one appeared to be engaged in some active pursuit or another.

Before hostilities began, it was no uncommon circumstance to see between three and four hundred merchant ships, from England alone, lying in these canals and in the Maas; by which a vast commerce is carried on with the greatest facility and economy, from the centre to the extremities of the kingdom; and as they communicate with the Rhine and other large rivers, all the productions of the earth are conveyed at little expense to many parts of the continent, in a period of tranquillity.

The number of beautiful streets adorned, as is the case throughout Holland, with noble rows of trees, is a spectacle at once novel and beautiful. The trees act as a fan to the houses in hot weather, and their leaves are said to inhale whatever mephitic air may arise from such of the canals as are stagnant, and to breathe it out again with refreshing purity.

In a sick chamber, fresh flowers are now thought salubrious, although, in no very distant time, they were regarded by the faculty as extremely noxious.

The city derives its name from the adjoining river Rotte, which unites with the Merwe, and from the neighbourhood of both to the sea, renders the situation of this town very eligible for trade, commerce, and navigation. The pleasure-boats of some of the merchants, which we saw moored opposite to their houses, appeared to be very clumsy, and constructed only for smoking or napping in: they were broad, high at the head and stern, admitted only of one rower, and had a heavy cabin with moveable glass windows towards the stern.

One of the first appearances which impress a foreigner on his arrival in Holland is that of the houses, which, built of very small bricks, very lofty, and filled with large windows, lean forward as they ascend; to such a rage has this unaccountable passion for avoiding an upright been carried, that I am sure many of them must be two or three yards out of the perpendicular: nothing can be more whimsical than the corner houses of most of the streets. If these houses had not the appearance of being perfectly stable, from the freshness of their outsides, and from their presenting no fissures, a stranger would be induced from apprehension of personal safety, to prefer paddling his way in the very centre of their canals, to walking in the streets. No scene can at first be more novel and interesting than that which Rotterdam presents; masts of ships, enlivened by gay streamers; beautiful stately trees and lofty leaning houses appear mingled together, and at one view he sees before him the characteristic features of the country, the city, and the sea.