I have made every necessary preparation for this journey: In the
first place, I have an accurate map of England in my pocket; besides
an excellent book of the roads, which Mr. Pointer, the English
merchant to whom I am recommended, has lent me. The title is "A new
and accurate description of all the direct and principal cross roads
in Great Britain." This book, I hope, will be of great service to
me in my ramblings.
I was for a long time undecided which way I should go, whether to
the Isle of Wight, to Portsmouth, or to Derbyshire, which is famous
for its natural curiosities, and also for its romantic situation.
At length I have determined on Derbyshire.
During my absence I leave my trunk at Mr. Mulhausen's (one of Mr.
Pointer's senior partners), that I may not be at the needless
expense of paying for my lodging without making use of it. This Mr.
Pointer lived long in Germany, and is politely partial to us and our
language, and speaks it well. He is a well-bred and singularly
obliging man; and one who possesses a vast fund of information, and
a good taste. I cannot but feel myself happy in having obtained a
recommendation to so accomplished a man. I got it from Messrs.
Persent and Dorner, to whom I had the honour to be recommended by
Mr. Von Taubenheim, Privy Counsellor at Berlin. These
recommendations have been of infinite use to me.
I propose to go to-day as far as Richmond; for which place a stage
sets out about two o'clock from some inn, not far from the new
church in the Strand. Four guineas, some linen, my English book of
the roads, and a map and pocket-book, together with Milton's
Paradise Lost, which I must put in my pocket, compose the whole of
my equipage; and I hope to walk very lightly with it. But it now
strikes half-past one, and of course it is time for me to be at the
stage. Farewell! I will write to you again from Richmond.
CHAPTER VIII.
Richmond, 21st June, 1782.
Yesterday afternoon I had the luxury for the first time of being
driven in an English stage. These coaches are, at least in the eyes
of a foreigner, quite elegant, lined in the inside; and with two
seats large enough to accommodate six persons; but it must be owned,
when the carriage is full, the company are rather crowded.
At the White Hart from whence the coach sets out, there was, at
first only an elderly lady who got in; but as we drove along, it was
soon filled, and mostly by ladies, there being only one more
gentleman and myself. The conversation of the ladies among
themselves, who appeared to be a little acquainted with each other,
seemed to me to be but very insipid and tiresome. All I could do
was, I drew out my book of the roads, and marked the way we were
going.
Before you well know that you are out of London you are already in
Kensington and Hammersmith; because there are all the way houses on
both sides, after you are out of the city; just as you may remember
the case is with us when you drive from Berlin to Schoneberg;
although in point of prospect, houses and streets, the difference,
no doubt, is prodigious.
It was a fine day, and there were various delightful prospects on
both sides, on which the eye would willingly have dwelt longer, had
not our coach rolled on past them, so provokingly quick. It
appeared somewhat singular to me, when at a few miles from London, I
saw at a distance a beautiful white house; and perceived on the high
road, on which we were driving, a direction post, on which were
written these words: "that great white house at a distance is a
boarding-school!"
The man who was with us in the coach pointed out to us the country
seats of the lords and great people by which we passed; and
entertained us with all kind of stories of robberies which had been
committed on travellers, hereabouts; so that the ladies at last
began to be rather afraid; on which he began to stand up for the
superior honour of the English robbers, when compared with the
French: the former he said robbed only, the latter both robbed and
murdered.
Notwithstanding this there are in England another species of
villains, who also murder, and that oftentimes for the merest
trifle, of which they rob the person murdered. These are called
footpads, and are the lowest class of English rogues; amongst whom
in general there reigns something like some regard to character.
The highest order of thieves are the pickpockets or cutpurses, whom
you find everywhere; and sometimes even in the best companies. They
are generally well and handsomely dressed, so that you take them to
be persons of rank; as indeed may sometimes be the case: persons
who by extravagance and excesses have reduced themselves to want,
and find themselves obliged at last to have recourse to pilfering
and thieving.
Next to them come the highwaymen, who rob on horseback; and often,
they say, even with unloaded pistols, they terrify travellers, in
order to put themselves in possession of their purses. Among these
persons, however, there are instances of true greatness of soul,
there are numberless instances of their returning a part of their
booty, where the party robbed has appeared to be particularly
distressed; and they are seldom guilty of murder.
Then comes the third and lowest, and worst of all thieves and
rogues, the footpads before mentioned; who are on foot, and often
murder in the most inhuman manner, for the sake of only a few
shillings, any unfortunate people who happen to fall in their way.
Of this several mournful instances may be read almost daily in the
English papers.
