[Previous page]... with clean hay. Before
each coop is a court of eight by sixteen feet, with wire in front and
netting above, if the fowls be able to fly. For such as require it,
there are bushes of evergreen growing in their court for them to lay
their eggs under. The coops are frequently divided into two stories:
the upper for those birds which perch, such as pigeons, &c., the
lower for those which feed on the ground, as pheasants, partridges,
&c. The court is in common for both stories, because the birds do no
injury to each other. For the water-fowl there is a pond of water
passing through the courts, with a movable separation. While they
are breeding they must be separate, afterwards they may come
together. The small birds are some of them in a common aviary, and
some in cages.
The Dutch wheel-barrow is in this form: (illustration omitted)
which is very convenient for loading and unloading.
Mr. Hermen Hend Damen, merchant-broker of Amsterdam, tells me
that the emigrants to America come from the Palatinate down the
Rhine, and take shipping from Amsterdam. Their passage is ten
guineas if paid here, and eleven if paid in America. He says they
might be had in any number to go to America, and settle lands as
tenants on half stocks or metairies. Perhaps they would serve their
employer one year as an indemnification for the passage, and then be
bound to remain on his lands seven years. They would come to
Amsterdam at their own expense. He thinks they would employ more
than fifty acres each; but
quaere, especially if they have fifty
acres for their wife also?
Hodson. -- The best house. Stadhonderian, his son, in the
government. Friendly, but old and very infirm.
Hope. -- The first house in Amsterdam. His first object
England; but it is supposed he would like to have the American
business also, yet he would probably make our affairs subordinate to
those of England.
Vollenhoven. -- An excellent old house; connected with no
party.
Sapportus. -- A broker, very honest and ingenuous,
well-disposed; acts for Hope, but will say with truth what he can do
for us. The best person to consult with as to the best house to
undertake a piece of business. He has brothers in London in
business. Jacob Van Staphorst tells me there are about fourteen
millions of florins, new money, placed in loans in Holland every
year, being the savings of individuals out of their annual revenue,
&c. Besides this, there are every year reimbursements of old loans
from some quarter or other to be replaced at interest in some new
loan.
1788. March 16th. Baron Steuben has been generally suspected
of having suggested the first idea of the self-styled Order of
Cincinnati. But Mr. Adams tells me, that in the year 1776 he had
called at a tavern in the State of New York to dine, just at the
moment when the British army was landing at Frog's Neck. Generals
Washington, Lee, Knox and Parsons, came to the same tavern. He got
into conversation with Knox. They talked of ancient history -- of
Fabius, who used to raise the Romans from the dust; of the present
contest, &c.; and General Knox, in the course of the conversation,
said he should wish for some ribbon to wear in his hat, or in his
button hole, to be transmitted to his descendants as a badge and a
proof that he had fought in defence of their liberties. He spoke of
it in such precise terms, as showed he had revolved it in his mind
before. Mr. Adams says he and Knox were standing together in the
door of the tavern, and does not recollect whether General Washington
and the others were near enough to hear the conversation, or were
even in the room at that moment. Baron Steuben did not arrive in
America till above a year after that. Mr. Adams is now fifty-three
years old, i.e. nine years more than I am.
It is said this house will cost four tons of silver, or forty
HOPE'S HOUSE, NEAR HARLAEM.
thousand pounds sterling. The separation between the middle
building and wings in the upper story has a capricious appearance,
yet a pleasing one. The right wing of the house (which is the left
in the plan) extends back to a great length, so as to make the ground
plan in the form of an L. The parapet has a pannel of wall, and a
pannel of ballusters alternately, which lighten it. There is no
portico, the columns being backed against the wall of the front.
March 30th, 31st. Amsterdam. Utrecht. Nimeguen. The lower
parts of the low countries seem partly to have been gained from the
sea, and partly to be made up of the plains of the Yssel, the Rhine,
the Maese and the Schelde united. To Utrecht nothing but plains are
seen, a rich black mould, wet, lower than the level of the waters
which intersect it; almost entirely in grass; few or no farm-houses,
as the business of grazing requires few laborers. The canal is lined
with country houses, which bespeak the wealth and cleanliness of the
country; but generally in an uncouth state, and exhibiting no regular
architecture. After passing Utrecht, the hills north-east of the
Rhine come into view, and gather in towards the river, till at Wyck
Dursted they are within three or four miles, and at Amelengen they
join the river. The plains, after passing Utrecht, become more
sandy; the hills are very poor and sandy, generally waste in broom,
sometimes a little corn. The plains are in corn, grass, and willow.
The plantations of the latter are immense, and give it the air of an
uncultivated country. There are now few chateaux; farm-houses
abound, built generally of brick, and covered with tile or thatch.
There are some apple-trees, but no forest; a few inclosures of willow
wattling. In the gardens are hedges of beach, one foot apart, which,
not losing its old leaves till they are pushed off in the spring by
the young ones, gives the shelter of evergreens. The Rhine is here
about three hundred yards wide, and the road to Nimeguen passing it a
little below Wattelingen, leaves Hetern in sight on the left. On
this side, the plains of the Rhine, the Ling, and the Waal unite.
The Rhine and Waal are crossed on vibrating boats, the rope supported
by a line of seven little barks. The platform by which you go on to
the ferry-boat is supported by boats. The view from the hill at
Cress is sublime. It commands the Waal, and extends far up the
Rhine. That also up and down the Waal from the Bellevue of Nimeguen,
is very fine. The chateau here is pretended to have lodged Julius
Caesar. This is giving it an antiquity of at least eighteen
centuries, which must be apocryphal. Some few sheep to-day, which
were feeding in turnip patches.
April 1st. Cranenburg. Cleves. Santen. Reynberg. Hoogstraat.
The transition from ease and opulence to extreme poverty is
remarkable on crossing the line between the Dutch and Prussian
territories. The soil and climate are the same; the governments
alone differ. With the poverty, the fear also of slaves is visible
in the faces of the Prussian subjects. There is an improvement,
however, in the physiognomy, especially could it be a little
brightened up. The road leads generally over the hills, but
sometimes through skirts of the plains of the Rhine. These are
always extensive and good. They want manure, being visibly worn
down. The hills are almost always sandy, barren, uncultivated, and
insusceptible of culture, covered with broom and moss; here and there
a little indifferent forest, which is sometimes of beach. The plains
are principally in corn; some grass and willow. There are no
chateaux, nor houses that bespeak the existence even of a middle
class. Universal and equal poverty overspreads the whole. In the
villages, too, which seem to be falling down, the over-proportion of
women is evident. The cultivators seem to live on their farms. The
farm-houses are of mud, the better sort of brick; all covered over
with thatch. Cleves is little more than a village. If there are
shops or magazines of merchandise in it, they show little. Here and
there at a window some small articles are hung up within the glass.
The goose-berry beginning to leaf.
April 2d. Passed the Rhine at Essenberg. It is there about a
quarter of a mile wide, or five hundred yards. It is crossed in a
scow with sails. The wind being on the quarter, we were eight or ten
minutes only in the passage. Duysberg is but a village in fact,
walled in; the buildings mostly of brick. No new ones, which
indicate a thriving state. I had understood that near that were
remains of the encampment of Varus, in which he and his legions fell
by the arms of Arminius (in the time of Tiberius I think it was), but
there was not a person to be found in Duysberg who could understand
either English, French, Italian, or Latin. So I could make no
inquiry.
From Duysberg to Dusseldorf the road leads sometimes over
the hills, sometimes through the plains of the Rhine, the quality of
which are as before described. On the hills, however, are
considerable groves of oak, of spontaneous growth, which seem to be
of more than a century; but the soil being barren, the trees, though
high, are crooked and knotty. The undergrowth is broom and moss. In
the plains is corn entirely. As they are become rather sandy for
grass, there are no inclosures on the Rhine at all. The houses are
poor and ruinous, mostly of brick, and scantling mixed. A good deal
of grape cultivated.
Dusseldorf. The gallery of paintings is sublime, particularly
the room of Vanderwerff. The plains from Dusseldorf to Cologne are
much more extensive, and go off in barren downs at some distance from
the river. These downs extend far, according to appearance. They
are manuring the plains with lime. A gate at the Elector's chateau
on this road in this form (illustration omitted). We cross at
Cologne on a pendulum boat. I observe the hog of this country
(Westphalia), of which the celebrated ham is made, is tall, gaunt,
and with heavy lop ears. Fatted at a year old, would weigh one
hundred or one hundred and twenty pounds. At two years old, two
hundred pounds. Their principal food is acorns. The pork, fresh,
sells at two and a half pence sterling the pound. The hams, ready
made, at eight and a half pence sterling the pound. One hundred and
six pounds of this country is equal to one hundred pounds of Holland.
About four pounds of fine Holland salt is put on one hundred pounds
of pork. It is smoked in a room which has no chimney. Well-informed
people here tell me there is no other part of the world where the
bacon is smoked. They do not know that we do it. Cologne is the
principal market of exportation. They find that the small hog makes
the sweetest meat.
Cologne is a sovereign city, having no territory out of its
walls. It contains about sixty thousand inhabitants; appears to have
much commerce, and to abound with poor. Its commerce is principally
in the hands of Protestants, of whom there are about sixty houses in
the city. They are extremely restricted in their operations, and
otherwise oppressed in every form by the government, which is
Catholic, and excessively intolerant. Their Senate, some time ago,
by a majority of twenty-two to eighteen, allowed them to have a
church; but it is believed this privilege will be revoked. There are
about two hundred and fifty Catholic churches in the city. The Rhine
is here about four hundred yards wide. This city is in 51 degrees
latitude, wanting about 6'. Here the vines begin, and it is the most
northern spot on the earth on which wine is made. Their first grapes
came from Orleans, since that from Alsace, Champagne, &c. It is
thirty-two years only since the first vines were sent from Cassel,
near Mayence, to the Cape of Good Hope, of which the Cape wine is now
made. Afterwards new supplies were sent from the same quarter. That
I suppose is the most southern spot on the...
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