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from Boulogne , situated upon a small hill, in the middle of afine plain, which reached as far as the eye could carryyou, except towards the sea, which is about twelve miles from it.We put up at the same house, and with the same jolly land-lord that recommended Le Fleur to Sterne. Here we wishedmuch to have fixed, but neither good lodgings, or masterscould be had here ; for there are no middling class of people :sixty noblemen’s families lived in the town, who owned thevast plain round it, and the rest very poor indeed. This isthe finest country for game that ever was; partridges two-pence halfpenny a couple, pheasants and woodcocks in pro-portion, and in short, every species of poultry. We dined,supped, lay, and breakfasted next day, Saturday: then weproceeded on our tour, leaving Montreuil you will supposewith great regret.
We reached Abbeville at eight o’clock: but unluckily forus, two Englishmen, one of whom called himself Lord Kings-land, I can hardly suppose it to be him, and a Mr. Bullock,decamped at three o’clock that afternoon in debt to everyshopkeeper in the place. These gentlemen kept eleganthouses, horses, &c.: we found the Town in an uproar; andas no masters could be had at this place that could speaka word of English , and that all masters that could speakEnglish grammatically, attend at the places that are frequentedby the English , which is, St. Omer , Lisle, Dunkirk, andBoulogne , to the Northward of Paris , and as I had no inten-tion of travelling to the South of France till the spring at anyrate, I determined, with Mac’s advice, to steer for St. Omer ,where we arrived last Tuesday: and I own I was surprisedto find, that instead of a dirty, nasty Town, which I had alwaysheard it represented, to find a large City, well paved, goodstreets, and well lighted.
We lodge in a pleasant French family, and have our din-ners sent from a traiteur’s. There are two very agreeableyoung ladies, daughters, who honour us with their companypretty often : one always makes our breakfast, and the otherour tea, and play a game at cards in an evening. There-fore I must learn French if ’tis only for the pleasure of talk-ing to them, for they do not speak a word of English . Hereare a great number of English in this place, but we visit