dined, or gone to the play
together: but if we had met at Barbadoes, I should have been invited to
spend a month at your PENN, and experienced many of those marks of
hospitality, friendship, and generosity, I have found from the Creoles
in general. When you get upon the French coast, the packet brings to,
and is soon boarded by a French boat, to carry the passengers on shore;
this passage is much longer than it appears to be, is always
disagreeable, and sometimes dangerous; and the landing, if the water be
very low, intolerable: in this case, never mind the advice of the
Captain; his advice is, and must be regulated by his _own_ and his
owner's interest, more than your convenience; therefore stay on board
till there is water enough to sail up to the town, and be landed by a
plank laid from the packet to the shore, and do not suffer any body to
persuade you to go into a boat, or to be put on shore, by any other
method, tho' the _packet-men_ and the _Frenchmen_ unite to persuade you
so to do, because they are mutually benefited by putting you to more
expence, and the latter are entertained with seeing your cloaths
dirted, or the ladies _frighted_. If most of the packet-boats are in
_Calais_ harbour, your Captain will use every argument in his power to
persuade you to go on shore, in the French boat, because he will, in
that case, return directly to Dover, and thereby save eight-and-twenty
shillings port duty. When we came over, I prevailed upon a large company
to stay on board till there was water enough to sail into the harbour:
it is not in the power of the Captain to deceive you as to that matter,
because there is a red flag hoisted gradually higher and higher, as the
water flows into the harbour, at a little fort which stands upon
_stilts_ near the entrance of it. When you are got on shore, go directly
to _Dessein_'s; and be in no trouble about your baggage, horses, or
coach; the former will be all carried, by men appointed for that
purpose, safely to the Custom-house, and the latter wheeled up to your
_Hotel_, where you will sit down more quietly, and be entertained more
decently, than at Dover.

LETTER IV.

RHEIMS, in Champagne.

Little or nothing occurred to me worth remarking to you on my journey
hither, but that the province of _Artois_ is a fine corn country, and
that the French farmers seem to understand that business perfectly well.
I was surprised to find, near _St. Omer_'s, large plantations of
t