The Admiralty Office is so near the India Company’s Warehouse, that I am tempted to give you some Account of a House which contains such a Treasure. ’Tis a very great Structure of several Stories, distributed into divers Chambers, or Rooms, where there is a prodigious Quantity of all manner of Spices, of which the most common Sorts lie in Heaps as Corn does in our Granaries. There are also a great many other Things of Value; and in a Word, every Thing, be it ever so precious, that comes from the Indies. After I had walked about an Hour in this Warehouse, I was, as it were, embalmed with the Odour of all the different Spices, which made my Head ake exceedingly, or else I should have thought myself metamorphosed into a Mummy; but jesting apart, I fancy that were a Carcase to be deposited in this House, it would be free from Corruption. The India Company is properly a Republick, within the Republic itself. It arms, disarms, raises and disbands Officers and Soldiers, without being accomptable to the State. It maintains
a Governor in the Indies, who lives there with more Pomp and Grandeur than his Masters do here. As a Neapolitan Lady at Madrid wish’d Philip IV. that he might one Day be Viceroy of Naples, so it might be said to a Director of the East-India Company, I wish you may be one Day Governor of Batavia.
I don’t give you an Account of the Houses of Correction, nor of the Hospitals, of which here are a great Number well founded, and well maintained, because I have an extraordinary Antipathy to Prisons, and dread the very Name of an Hospital, to which however I perceive that I am making great Strides; but it will be Time enough for me to give you an Account of those Mansions, when I have fixed my Quarters there. A Description of a Synagogue would not, I believe, be material to you; therefore I shall only acquaint you, that here are two, one for the Portuguese Jews, which is very fine, the other for the German Jews. They are both Jews alike, but differ in their Taste and Sentiments. The Portuguese Jews are the handsomest of the two, for they shave their Beards, and some of them are very genteel. I was shew’d one the other Day, who was a smart young Fellow, and might, have cut a Figure among the Petits-Maîtres. I was told, that he had been educated in our Religion, and that he seemed to be fond of it; but being at Paris, in the Retinue of M. ***, Ambassador of ***, he ran away from that Minister’s Service, and came to Amsterdam, where he turned as staunch a Jew as if he had never heard the Name of Jesus Christ.
Near the Jews Quarter there is the Garden of Simples. I am not Botanist enough to tell you what Plants it contains; but have been assured, that ’tis one of the finest in Europe for foreign
Plants, which, considering the great Trade that is carried on by the Dutch, is not improbable.
When I have told you, that the public Walk, which they call The Plantation, is near this Garden, and that it consists of several fine Rows of Trees, one of which is cut out in the Shape of a Fan, I shall think that I have not omitted giving you the minutest of my Remarks on the Inside of Amsterdam.
The Suburbs of this great City, in which ’tis said there are about five hundred thousand Souls (as many as are in Naples) are extremely populous. There are above eight hundred Windmills continually at Work, in grinding Corn, or sawing of Timber. On the other Side of the Harbour, there are several Villages, of which Sardam is the most considerable, not only for its Size, in which it surpasses many Towns, but for the Wealth of its Inhabitants, who are called Peasants, and pretend to be nothing else, tho’ I can’t imagine why; for they trade and make a Figure here upon the Exchange, like the most substantial Merchants, and don’t apply themselves to Agriculture. I have been told, that there are above a thousand Windmills at Sardam, always employed in sawing of Timber; which would have been a rare Field for Don Quixot to have display’d his Valour. That Neatness of which the Dutch are so fond, is cultivated to the greatest Nicety in this Village; and the Amsterdammers themselves cannot but own and admire it.
The Peasants of Sardam dress more like the Citizens of Amsterdam than those of the other Villages in these Parts do, whose Apparel is of a very extraordinary Fashion. They wear monstrous large Trowsers, wide enough to make some People a whole Suit. Under this Trowser there is another Pair of Breeches, and perhaps a third,
or else a Pair of Drawers; and to the two Pair of Breeches which are in Sight, they have solid Plate Buttons bigger than a Crown piece, They also wear four or five Waistcoats, one over the other, which are set so thick with silver Buttons that they perfectly touch one another. Over all this Cloathing they have a dark-colour’d Surtout or Doublet, which keeps them extremely tight downward, and therefore all their Waistcoats ride up, so that they seem to have Breasts like Women. Their Shoes are Seamen-like, or, with Reverence be it spoken, such as are now worn by the French Petits Maitres. They have also silver Buckles, but so large that they are fitter for the Harness of Horses than for Shoes. I assure you, that if the Romans had been dressed like these Peasants, the Carthaginians would have taken a richer Booty in silver Buttons than they did at the Battle of Cannæ, when they took that Heap of Roman Rings. The Women also wear a small Equipage of Gold and Silver. They have gold Ear-pendants, a Bodkin of the same which fastens their Caps, Chains about their Necks, in Form of Pearl Necklaces, great Rings, and in all this there’s no Expence grudged.
The Sardamers are so very much wedded to their ancient Habit, that a Father once refused to own his Son, because having been for some Years in France, he came to wait on him upon the Exchange of Amsterdam, in a Suit of Cloaths bedawb’d with gold Lace. Young Calf, which was the Peasant’s Name, arriving at Amsterdam about Change-Time, went thither, supposing he should find his Father there, in which he was not mistaken, and he ran to embrace him; but the Father pushing him away, ask’d him what he wanted, and told him that he did not think he had the Honour to be known to him, and that probably he was mistaken in his Man. The Son’s calling him Father,