their dire effects, are felt, methinks, with a ftronger horror, from having obferved fimilar outrages in other quarters of the agitated globe. Unhappy Holland! while one party were attempting to destroy thee and themfelves by fire and sword, rapine and flaughter, the other were wreaking vengeance against thy beft, faireft, and moft innocent poffeffions-upon thy wives and children.

While one fide, I fay, my friend, were thus outraging all order, decency, and compaffion, the other manifefted no lefs fury. The party of the Stadtholder, and that of the patriots were alike infected with the poifon of the times. It reached the bofoms even of the gentler fex: as an inftance of which, pardon me, if I make your nature recoil, even as mine did on the day my flowing eyes bore teftimony to it. A party of patriots had taken, and killed, in the town of Bois-le-duc, one of the Prince's adherents, who had been active in the caufe of the Stadtholder. His defeat was, therefore, a kind of triumph; a groupe of people foon gathered round the body, yet ftruggling betwixt life and death. Amongst the reft, were two women, who had been fetching water from the public fountains. One of thefe no fooner understood the caufe of the mob collecting, than fhe poured out about two thirds of the water from her pail, which fhe placed under

under the wounds of the murdered citizen, whofe blood was thus mingled with the water; when, pledging the furrounding populace, fhe exclaimed, as fhe drank, with more than favage fury," May rivers of this flow through the streets till our enemies are vanquished!" And to fuch a pitch of enthusiasm was this carried, that, as one more example, I must inform you, another patriot quarrelled with the beautiful rainbow, and fhot at it, because the orange mingled in its hues this was nearly as mad and irreverent as the dreffing up the figure of the Virgin Mary with a red bonnet, and writing under the crofs of our Saviour, "The man Jefus, the cidevant Redeemer of the world."

an

All comments of the moralift, my friend, are loft; and all effufions of the peaceful lover of mankind abforbed on occafions like thefe: for breaches of this 'fort in nations, like old and incurable wounds, though they are often fkinned over, conceal unfubdued venom, which gathers ftrength and virulence, and then again breaks out. Private families, we know, may, after "fome imminent and deadly breach,” reunite from policy, or principle, or from fome reliques of affection: but even this is a patchedup accommodation; and after and after a violent open rupture, whether in empires, or the little domestic commonwealths that form them, the

whole

whole hiftory of mankind forms few examples where the parties have fincerely forgiven one another. Many months after the Prince's party had been reinftated in its privileges, and the patriot faction not only yielded to authority, but appeared to have forgot its animofity, I had but too many illuftrations of this remark. On the breaking out of the rebellion in other countries, I again heard the voice of fedition, and the more than murmurs of difaffection in various parts of thefe difunited states. Sacred be the love of rational liberty! But the fever of freedom is a wild-fire that is more defolating than any other contagion: that of Conftantinople is not fo fuddenly imbibed, nor does it travel with unimpaired venom fo far or so fast, It is a peft that feizes diftant nations, and strikes with the rapidity and the force of lightning. Even when Holland feemed to have got the better of this political plague, its poifons were undermining her conftitution, and like thofe fires which are burning in the bowels of the earth, unfeen, are inwardly confuming its entrails, and making their way to the furface. I was in Holland when he was precifely in this fituation, prepared for her fecond fhock, and waiting only for the fignal of her ex-patriated fire-brands (the banished Dutch patriots then forming a part of the French army), to give the

explosion.

explosion. Breda was taken, Gorcum was inundated, and the cannonade of Williamstadt thundered to the very fea, and prepared the patriots of the provinces for the reception of their exiled friends.

In my way to Helvoetfluice, in order to embark for England, every countenance I looked into carried the marks of fear, loyalty, ambi tion, or revolt. Notwithstanding the cautious jealoufy natural to power, and all the vigilance of the magiftrates, little knots of people were to be observed gathered together, in corners of the streets, and in bye-places where it was thought the eye of authority would not penetrate. My wandering fteps, which fo often led me into unfrequented places, and thereby, as you have feen, made me tread upon many a fecret, led me to the haunts of these Dutch malcontents. They are always to be feen in that earnest and ear-approaching whifper, which fo often betrays its treafons; the fore-finger extended, the button caught at, and held faft, or fhook moft rebelliously; the mouth of the fpeaker contracted, so as to fend forth only the unbetraying voice of confpiracy, and that of the hearer on the contrary opened to its width, to fwallow the treafon; while the eyes of the party communicating, like a pair of fentinels, ordered

to

to defend the door of the lips, feemed to keep double watch, left, as Shakspeare says,

"The babbling goffips of the air
"Should prate of their where-about !"

Artizans, burgomasters, priests, and peasants thus infidiously, or fearfully, affembled, either to express their apprehenfion, their hope, or their defpair, were to be detected in these communities; and had not the whole country been threatened with a very serious calamity, these scenes would not have been unamufing to an Author who delights

"To catch the living manners as they rife."

It is not unentertaining to see the little fhifts. which perfons, engaged in fecret conversations of any kind, make to prevent being difcovered: the immediate change they make on the first view of an intruder-the fudden alteration from an awful to a careless air as the faid intruder approaches; the tones varied from almost in. distinct whispers, and portentous greetings, to louder accents; now walking on, now stopping a little, as if engaged in ordinary conversation, the subject of which, while you have an eye on them, is changed as often as their pofitions. took notice, while I paused at Helvoetsluice, that as their friends on the other fide of the

I

water,

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