LETTER V.
The pride of the English is remarked all over the globe, even to a proverb! But pride is a word of such dubious meaning, so undefined in its sense, and strained to such various imports, that you shall hear it violently execrated by one, and warmly applauded by another——this denouncing it as a sin of the first magnitude, and that maintaining it to be the most vigilant guardian of human virtue. Those differences in opinion arise not from any defect in the intellects of either, but from each viewing the subject in that one point in which it first strikes his eye, or best suits his taste, his feeling, or his prejudices. I have no doubt, however, but a full consideration of the subject would shew, that pride, as it is called, is only good or bad as the object from which it arises is mean or magnificent, culpable or meritorious. That noble pride which stimulates to extraordinary acts of generosity and magnanimity, such as, in many instances, has distinguished, above all others, the Nobility of Spain, exacts the homage and admiration of Mankind: But I fear very much that our English pride is of another growth, and smells too rankly of that overstrained commercial spirit which makes the basis of the present grandeur of Great Britain, but which, in my humble judgment, raises only to debase her——by slow, subtle degrees, poisons the national principle, enslaves the once bold spirit of the People, detracts from their real solid felicity, and, by confounding the idea of national wealth with that of national prosperity, leads it in rapid strides to its downfall. In short, we are approaching, I fear, with daily accelerated steps, to the disposition and sordid habits of the Dutch, of whom Doctor Goldsmith so very pertinently and truly speaks, when he says,
“Ev’n Liberty itself is barter’d here!”
Without leading your mind through a maze of disquisition on this subject, which might fatigue with abstruseness and prolixity, I will bring you back to the point from which the matter started, and content myself with remarking, that the pride of the English, speaking of it as a part of the national character, is the meanest of all pride. The inflation of bloated, overgrown wealth, an overweening affection for money, an idolatrous worship of gain, have absolutely confounded the general intellect, and warped the judgment of the many to that excess, that, in estimating men or things, they refer always to “what is he worth?” or, “what will it fetch?” This sordid habit of thinking was finely hit off by a keen fellow, the native of a neighbouring Kingdom, who, for many years, carried on business in London, and failed:——Sitting one day in a coffee-house in the City, where some wealthy Citizens were discussing a subject not entirely unconnected with cash concerns, one of them observing him rather attentive to their conversation, turned to him, and said, “What is your opinion, Sir, of the matter?”—“’s blood, Sir!” returned he, peevishly, “what opinion can a man have in this Country, who has not a guinea in his pocket?”
Under the influence of all the various caprices inspired by this unhappy purse-pride, I am sorry to say our Countrymen do, when they go abroad, so play the fool, that they are universally flattered and despised, pillaged and laughed at, by all persons with whom they have any dealing. In France, Mi Lor Anglois is, or at least was, to have fix times as great a profusion of every thing as any other person, and pay three hundred per cent. more for it; and the worst of it was, that a Mi Lor was found so conducive to their interest, that they would not, if they could help it, suffer any Englishman to go without a title——nay, would sometimes, with kindly compulsion, force him to accept of it, whether he would or not: but if an Englishman be, above all others, the object of imposition in foreign countries, certainly none pillage him so unmercifully as his own Countrymen who are settled there. In all the places through which I have travelled, I have had occasion to remark (and the remark has been amply verified by every Gentleman I have ever conversed with on the subject), that the most extravagant houses of entertainment are those kept by Englishmen. At Ostend, as well as other places, it was so: therefore, as economy, when it does not trespass upon the bounds of genteel liberality, is the best security for happiness and respect, I advise you, whenever you shall have occasion to visit the Continent, in the first place to avoid all appearance of the purse-proud ostentation of John Bull; and, in the next place, to avoid all English houses of entertainment.
It is a singular circumstance, and belongs, I should suppose, peculiarly to Ostend, that the charity-children of the town are permitted to come on board the vessels arrived, to beg of the passengers, one day in the week.
Before I bid adieu to Ostend, I must remark one heavy disadvantage under which it labours——the want of fresh water; all they use being brought from Bruges. In going from Ostend to Bruges, a traveller has it in his choice to go by land, or water——If by land, he gets a good voiture for about ten shillings of our money; the road is about fourteen or fifteen miles——If by water (the mode which I adopted, as by far the cheapest and the pleasantest), he travels in a vessel pretty much resembling our Lord Mayor’s barge, sometimes called a trackschuyt, but often la barque[la barque], or barke: it is, in truth, fitted up in a style of great neatness, if not elegance; stored with a large stock of provisions and refreshments of all kinds, and of superior quality, for the accommodation of the passengers; and has, particularly, a very handsome private room between decks, for the company to retire to, in order to drink tea, coffee, &c. &c. or play at cards. In this comfortable, I might say, delightful vehicle, as perfectly at ease as lying on a couch in the best room in London, are passengers drawn by two horses, at the rate of about four miles an hour, for about ten pence, the same length of way that it would cost ten shillings to be jumbled in a voiture over a rough paved road.
The country between Ostend and Bruges is very level, and of course destitute of those charms to a mind of taste, which abound in countries tossed by the hand of Nature into hill, dale, mountain and valley: the whole face of it, however, is, or at least then was, in so high a state of cultivation, and so deeply enriched by the hands of art and industry, aided by the natural fertility of the soil, that its appearance, though far from striking or delightful, was by no means unpleasant; and on approaching the town of Bruges, we passed between two rows of trees, beautiful, shady, and of lofty size—forming, with the surrounding objects, a scene, which, if not romantic, was at least picturesque.
In passing through Countries groaning beneath the despotic scourge of unlimited Monarchy, where subsidies are raised, and taxes laid on ad libitum——where guilty distrust and suspicion, with the eyes of a lynx and the fangs of a harpy, stand sentinels at every gate, to scrutinize the harmless passenger, awake him to the clanks of his fetters, and awe him into compliance, a free-born Briton feels a cold horror creep through his whole frame: his soul recoils at the gloomily ferocious and insolently strict examination, with which a sentinel, at the entry of a town, stops, investigates, demands a passport; and, in short, puts him, pro tempore, in a state of durance, with all its hideous formalities and appendages, its gates, its bars, its armed ruffians, its formal professions of laws, and its utter violation of reason and of justice. Entering the town of Bruges, we were stopped by a sentinel, who, with all the saucy, swaggering air of authority, of a slave in office, demanded to know, whether we had any contraband goods? whether we were in any military capacity? whence we came? and whither we were going? with a variety of other interrogatories, to my mind equally impertinent and detestable, but which seemed to make no greater impression on the good Flemings themselves, than demanding the toll at a turnpike-gate would make on an English waggoner.
Talking over this subject, since that time, with a Gentleman who is well acquainted with all those places, he informed me, that in the war between the Emperor and the States General, some French officers, travelling through Flanders to join Count Maillebois, were stopped at the gate of Bruges, and, by order of the Emperor, sent to his army, turned into the ranks, and obliged to do duty as common soldiers.—Here, my dear Frederick, was an act, not only despotic in itself, but aggravated by circumstances of collateral profligacy, of such enormous magnitude as bids defiance to all power of amplification, and leaves eloquence hopeless of describing it with greater force than it derives from a simple narration of the fact: on the one hand, the inroad upon the just personal rights of the individual; on the other, the rights of a Nation violated. Some men in England, judging from their own constitutional security, may disbelieve the fact: but let them consider, that the Marquis de la Fayette, an alien, taken upon neutral ground, is now, even now, held in illegal, unjust thraldom and persecution——let them, I say, remember this, and let their incredulity cease.
Bless your stars, my dear boy, that you were born in a Country where such outrages as these can never be perpetrated by any, and will never be approved of but by a few.