Prot. I shall be ready to acknowledge their respects upon any occasion.
Wh. The like respects were testified to your Highness in Germany, especially by the town of Hamburg; where I endeavoured, in your Highness’s name, to confirm the privileges of the English merchants, who, with your Resident there, showed much kindness to me and my company.
Prot. I shall heartily thank them for it. Is the Court of Sweden gallant, and full of resort to it?
Wh. They are extreme gallant for their clothes; and for company, most of the nobility and the civil and military officers make their constant residence where the Court is, and many repair thither on all occasions.
Prot. Is their administration of justice speedy? and have they many law-suits?
Wh. They have justice in a speedier way than with us, but more arbitrary, and fewer causes, in regard that the boors dare not contend with their lords; and they have but few contracts, because they have but little trade; and there is small use of conveyances or questions of titles, because the law distributes every man’s estate after his death among his children, which they cannot alter, and therefore have the fewer contentions.
Prot. That is like our gavelkind.
Wh. It is the same thing; and in many particulars of our laws, in cases of private right, and of the public Government, especially in their Parliaments, there is a strange resemblance between their law and ours.
Prot. Perhaps ours might some of them be brought from thence.
Wh. Doubtless they were, when the Goths and Saxons, and those northern people, planted themselves here.