84

LETTERS.

[ 1783 .

Mac the justice to say it was all my doings, and in a greatmeasure against his advice ; but experience bought is thebest; and all mine I have paid pretty dearly for.

We dined at Canterbury the day we parted from you, andcalled at Captain Sandys’ house , 4 but he was just gone out todinner, in the country, therefore we did not see him: we sleptat Dover, and next morning at seven a clock, put to Sea witha fine North-west wind, and at half- past ten we were safe atbreakfast in Monsieur Grandsire’s house at Calais . Hismother kept it when Hogarth w r rote his ‘ Gate of Calais.’Sterne’s Sentimental Journey is the best description I cangive of our tour. Mac advised me to go first to St. Omer , ashe had experienced the difficulty of attempting to fix in anyplace where there are no English ; after dinner we set off, in-tended for Montreuil , sixty miles from Calais : they told uswe travelled en poste, but I am sure we did not get on morethan four miles an hour. I was highly diverted with lookingwhat a curious figure the postillions in their jack boots, andtheir rats of horses made together. Their chaises have nosprings, and the roads generally paved like London streets ;therefore you will naturally suppose we were pretty well shooktogether by the time we had travelled two posts and a-half,which is fifteen miles, to Marquise. Here we [were] showninto an inn—they called it—I should have called it a pigstye:we were shown into a room with two straw beds, and, withgreat difficulty, they mustered up clean sheets; and gave ustwo pigeons for supper, upon a dirty cloth, and wooden-han-dled knives— O what a transition from happy England.

But we laughed at the repast, and went to bed with the de-termination that nothing should ruffle our tempers. Havingslept very well, we set off at daylight for Boulogne, where webreakfasted: this place was full of English , I suppose becausewine is so very cheap. We went on after breakfast for Montreuil ,and passed through the finest corn country that my eyes everbeheld, diversified with fine woods, sometimes for twomiles together, through noble forests. The roads mostlywere planted with trees, which made as fine an avenue asto any gentleman’s country seat. Montreuil is thirty miles

4 Videp. 110.