04 - Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon by Henry Fielding

Embark on a memorable sailing voyage from England to Portugal in the mid-eighteenth century, as narrated by one of the eras leading humorists, satirists, novelists, and playwrights. This poignant work, recorded during the final chapter of his life, interweaves the authors declining health with the captivating details of his journey.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Part three of a voyage to Lisbon by Henry Fielding.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Friday, July fifth,
This day I sent a servant on board a man
of war that was stationed here, with my compliments to
the Captain, to represent to him the distress of the ladies,

(00:23):
and to desire the favor of his longboat to conduct
us to Dover at about seven miles distance, And at
the same time presumed to make use of a great
lady's name, the wife of the first Lord Commissioner of
the Admiralty, who would I told him, be pleased with
any kindness shown by him towards us in our miserable condition,

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And this I am convinced was true from the humanity
of the lady, though she was entirely unknown to me.
The Captain returned a verbal answer to a long letter,
acquainting me that what I desired could not be complied,
with it being a favor not in his power to grant.
This might be, and I suppose was true, But it

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is as true that if he was able to write,
and had pen, ink and paper on board, he might
have sent a written answer, And that it was the
part of a gentleman so to have done. But this
is a character seldom maintained on the watery element, especially
by those who exercise any power upon it. Every commander

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of a vessel here seems to think himself entirely free
from all those rules of decency and civility which direct
and restrain the conduct of members of a society on shore,
and each claiming absolute dominion in his little wooden world
rules by his own laws and his own discretion. I

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do not, indeed know so pregnant an instance of the
dangerous consequences of absolute power and its aptness to intoxicate
the mind, as that of those petty tyrants who become
such in a moment from very well disposed and social
members of that communion in which they affect no superiority,

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but live in an orderly state of legal subjection with
their fellow citizens. Saturday, July sixth, this morning, our commander,
declaring he was sure the wind would change, took the
advantage of an ebbing tide and weighed his anchor. His assurance, however,
had the same completion and his endeavors the same success

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with his former trial, and he was soon obliged to
return once more to his old quarters. Just before we
let go our anchor, a small sloop, rather than submit
to yield us an inch of whey, ran foul of
our ship and carried off her bow spirit. This obstinate

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frolic would have cost those aboard the sloop very dear
if our steersman had not been so generous to exert
his superiority, the certain consequence of which would have been
the immediate sinking of the other. This contention of the inferior,
with a might capable of crushing it in an instant,
may seem to argue no small share of folly or madness,

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as well as of impudence, But I am convinced there
is very little danger in it. Contempt is a port
to which the pride of man submits to fly with reluctance.
But those who are within it are always in a
place of the most assured security. For whosoever throws away
his sword prefers indeed a less honorable, but much safer

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means of avoiding danger than he who defends himself with it.
And here we shall offer another distinction of the truth
of which much reading and experience have well convinced us, that,
as in the most absolute governments, there is a regular
progression of slavery downwards from the top to the bottom,

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the mischief of which is seldom felt with any great
force and bitterness, but by the next immediate degree. So
when the most dissolute and anarchical states, there is as
regular an ascent of what is called rank or condition,
which is always laying hold of the head of him

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who is advanced but one step higher on the ladder,
who might, if he did not too much despise such efforts,
kick his pursuer headlong to the bottom. We will conclude
this digression with one general and assured observation, which will
perhaps set the whole matter in a clearer light than

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the longest and most labored harangue. Whereas envy of all
things most exposes us to danger from others, so contempt
of all things best secures us from them. And thus,
while the dung cart and the sloop are always meditating
mischief against the coach and the ship, and throwing themselves

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decidedly in their way, the latter consider only their own security,
and are not ashamed to break the road and let
the other pass by them. Monday, July eighth, having passed
our Sunday without anything remarkable, unless the catching of a
great number of whitings in the afternoon may be thought.

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So we now set sail on Monday at six o'clock,
with a little variation of wind. But this was so
very little, and the breeze itself so small. But the
tide was our best, and indeed almost our only friend.
This conducted us along the short remainder of the Kentish.

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Here we passed that cliff of Dover, which makes so
tremendous a figure in Shakespeare, and which whoever reads without
being giddy, must, according to mister Addison's observation, have either
a very good head or a very bad one, but
which whoever contracts any such ideas from the sight of

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must have at least a poetic, if not a Shakespearian genius.
In truth, mountains, rivers, heroes, and gods owe great part
of their existence. The poets, and Greece and Italy do
so plentifully abound in the former, because they furnish so
glorious a number of the latter, who, while they bestowed

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immortality on every little hillock and blind stream, left the
noblest rivers and mountains in the world to share the
same obscurity with the Eastern and Western poets in which
they are celebrated. This evening we beat the Sea of
Sussex in sight of Dungeness with much more pleasure than progress,

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for the weather was almost a perfect calm, and the moon,
which was almost at the full scarce, suffer'd a single
cloud to veil her from our sight. Tuesday Wednesday, July
ninth tenth. These two days we have much the same
fine weather, and made much the same way. But in

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the evening of the latter day a pretty fresh gale
sprung up out of north northwest, which brought us by
the morning in sight of the Isle of Wight Thursday,
July eleventh. This gale continued till towards noon, when the
east end of the island bore but little ahead of us.

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The captain swaggered and declared he would keep the sea,
but the wind got the better of him, so that
about three he gave up the victory, and making a tack,
stood in for the shore, passed by Spitthead and Portsmouth,
and came to an anchor at a place called Ride
on the island. A most tragical incident fell out this

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day at sea. While the ship was under sail, but
making as will appear no great way, a kitten, one
of four of the feline inhabitants of the cabin fell
from the window into the water. An alarm was immediately
given to the captain, who was then upon deck, and

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received it with the utmost concern and many bitter oaths.
He immediately gave orders to the steersman to favor of
the poor thing, as he called it, The sails were
instantly slackened, and all hands, as the phrase is employed,
to recover the poor animal. I was, I owned extremely

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surprised at all this, less indeed at the captain's extreme tenderness,
than at his conceiving any possibility of success. For if
the puss had nine thousand instead of nine lives, I
concluded they had been all lost. The boatsmen, however, had
more sanguine hopes, for, having stripped himself of his jacket, breeches,

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and shirt, he leaped boldly into the water, and, to
my great astonishment, in a few minutes returned to the ship,
bearing the motionless animal in his mouth. Nor was this,
I observed, a matter of such great difficulty as it
appeared to my ignorance, and possibly may seem to that
of my fresh water reader. The kitten was now exposed

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to Aaron's son on the deck, where its life, of
which it retained no symptoms, was despaired of by all.
The captain's humanity, if I may so call it, did
not so totally destroy his philosophy as to make him
yield himself up to affliction on this melancholy occasion. Having

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felt his loss like a man, he resolved to show
he could bear it like one. And having declared he
had rather have lost a cask of rum or, Brandy
betook himself to threshing at backgammon with the Portuguese Friar,
in which innocent amusement they had passed about two thirds
of their time. But, as I have, perhaps a little

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too wantonly endeavored to raise the tender passions of my
readers in this narrative, I should think myself unpardonable if
I concluded it without giving them the satisfaction of hearing
that the kitten at last recovered, to the great joy
of the good captain, but to the great disappointment of
some of the sailors, who asserted that the drowning of

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a cat was the very surest way of raising a
favorable wind, a supposition of which, though we had heard
several plausible accounts, we will not presume to assign the
true original reason. Friday July twelfth, this day our ladies
went ashore at Ride and drank their afternoon tea at

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an ale house there with great satisfaction. Here they were
regaled with fresh cream to which they had been strangers
since they left the downs. Saturday, July thirteenth, the wind
seeming likely to continue in the same corner where it
had been almost constantly for two months together, I was

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persuaded by my wife to go ashore and stay at
Ride till we sailed. I approved the motion much, for
though I am a great lover of the sea, I
now fancied there was more pleasure in breathing the fresh
air of the land. But how to get thither was
the question. For being really that dead luggage, which I

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considered all passengers to be in the beginning of this narrative,
and incapable of any bodily motion without external impulse, it
was in vain to leave the ship, or to determine
to do it, without the assistance of others. In one instance,
perhaps the living luggage is more difficult to be moved

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or removed than an equal or much superior weight of
dead matter, which, if of the brittle kind, may indeed
be liable to be broken through negligence, but this, by
proper care, may be almost certainly prevented, whereas the fractures
to which the living lumps are exposed are sometimes, by

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no caution avoidable, and often by no art to be amended.
I was deliberating on the means of conveyance, not so
much out of the ship to the boat, as out
of the little tottering boat to the land, a matter which,
as I had already experienced in the Thames, was not

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extremely easy when to be performed by any other limbs
than your own. Whilst I weighed all that could suggest
itself on this head, without strictly examining the merit of
the several schemes which were advanced by the captain and sailors,
and indeed giving no very deep attention even to my wife, who,

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as well as her friend and my daughter, were exerting
their tender concern for my ease and safety. Fortune, for
I am convinced she had a hand in it. Sent
me a present of a buck, a present welcome enough
of itself, but more welcome on account of the vessel
in which it came, being a large hoy, which in

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some places would pass for a ship, and many people
would go some miles to see the sight. I was
pretty easily conveyed on board this hoy, But to get
from hence to the shore was not so easy a task, For,
however strange it may appear, the water itself did not
extend so far, an instance which seems to explain those

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lines of ovid Omnio pontus errant darrant quo que le
tora ponto in a less toutological sense than hath generally
been imputed to them. In fact, between the sea and
the shore there was at low water an impassable gulf,
if I may so call it, of deep mud, which

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could neither be traversed by walking nor swimming, so that
for near one half of the twenty four hours ride
was inaccessible by friend or foe. But as the magistrates
of this place seemed more to desire the company of
the former than to fear that of the latter, they
had begun to make a small causeway to the low

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water mark, so that foot passengers might land wherever they pleased.
But as this work was of a public kind and
would have cost a large sum of money at least
ten pounds, and the massistrates, that is to say, the
church wardens, the overseers, the constable and tithing man, and

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the principal inhabitants, had every one of them some separate
scheme of private interest to advance at the expense of
the public. They fell out among themselves, and after having
thrown away one half of the requisite sum, resolved at
least to save the other half, and rather be contented

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to sit down losers themselves than to enjoy any benefit
which might bring in a greater profit to another. Thus
that unanimity which is so necessary in all public affairs
became wanting, and every man, from the fear of being
a bubble to another, was in reality a bubble to himself. However,

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as there is scarce any difficulty to which the strength
of men, assisted with the cunning of art, is not equal,
I was at last hoisted into a small boat, and,
being rowed pretty near the shore, was taken up by
two sailors, who waded with me through the mud and
placed me in a chair on the land, whence they

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afterwards conveyed me a quarter of a mile farther, and
brought me to a house which seemed to bid the
fairest for hospitality of any in ride. We brought with
us our provisions from the ship, so that we wanted
nothing but a fire to rest our dinner, and a
room in which we might eat it. In neither of

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these had we any reason to apprehend a disappointment, our
dinner consisting only of beans and bacon, and the worst
apartment in His Majesty's dominions, either at home or abroad,
being fully sufficient to answer our present ideas of delicacy. Unluckily, however,

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we were disappointed in both, for when we arrived about
four at our inn, exulting in the hopes of immediately
seeing our beings smoking on the table, we had the
mortification of seeing them on the table, indeed, but without
that circumstance which would have made the sight agreeable, being
in the same state in which we had despatched them

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from our ship. In excuse for this delay, though we
had exceeded almost purposely the time appointed, and our provision
had arrived three hours before the Mistress of the house
acquainted us that it was not for want of time
to dress them, that they were not ready, but for
fear of their being cold or overdone before we should come,

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which she assured us was much worse than waiting a
few minutes for our dinner, an observation so very just
that it is impossible to find any objection in it.
But indeed was not altogether so proper at this time,
for we had given the most absolute orders to have
them ready it four, and had been ourselves, not without

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much care and difficulty, most exactly punctual in keeping to
the very minute of our appointment. But tradesmen, innkeepers and
servants never cared to indulge us in matters contrary to
our true interest, which they always know better than ourselves.
Nor can any bribes corrupt them to go out of

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their way while they are consulting our good in our
own despite our disappointment in the other particular, in defiance
of our humility, as it was more extraordinary, was more provoking.
In short, Missus Francis, for that was the name of
the good woman of the house. No sooner received the

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news of our intended arrival than she considered more the
gentility than the humanity of her guests, and applied herself
not to that which kindles, but to that which extinguishes fire, and,
forgetting to put on her pot, fell to washing her house.

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As the messenger who had brought my medicine was impatient
to be dispatched, I ordered it to be brought and
laid on the table in the room where I was seated,
and the table, not being large enough, one side, and
that a very bloody one was laid on the brick floor.
I then ordered Missus Francis to be called in in

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order to give her instructions concerning it, in particular what
I would have roasted and what baked, concluding that she
would be highly pleased with the prospect of so much
money being spent in her house, as she might have
now reason to expect if the wind continued only a
few days longer to blow from the same points. Whence

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it had blown for several weeks past, I soon saw
good cause I must confess to despise my own sagacity.
Missus Francis, having received her orders without making any answer,
snatched the side from the floor, which remained stained with blood,
and bidding a servant to take up that on the table,

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left the room with no pleasant countenance, muttering to herself
that had she known the litter which was to have
been made, she would not have taken such pains to
wash her house that morning. If this was gentility, much
good may it do such gentle folks. For her part,
she had no notion of it. From these murmurs I

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received two hints, the one that it was not from
a mistake of our inclination that the good woman had
starved us, but from wisely consulting her own dignity, or
rather perhaps her vanity, to which our hunger was offered
up as a sacrifice. The other that I was now
sitting in a damp room, a circumstance, though it had

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hitherto escaped my notice, from the color of the brooks,
which was by no means to be neglected in a
valetudinary state. My wife, who, besides discharging excellently well her
own and all the tender offices, becoming the female character, who,
besides being a faithful friend, an amiable companion, and a

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tender nurse, could likewise supply the wants of a decrepit husband,
and occasionally perform his part, had before this discovered the
immoderate attention to neatness in Missus Francis, and provided against
its ill consequences. She had found, though not under the
same roof, a very snug apartment belonging to mister Francis,

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and which had escaped the mop by his wife's being
satisfied it could not possibly be visited by gentle folks.
This was a dry, warm, oaken floored barn, lined on
both sides with wheaten straw, and opening at one end
into a green field and a beautiful prospect. Here without hesitation,

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she ordered the cloth to be laid and came hastily
to snatch me from worse peril by water than the
common dangers of the sea. Missus Francis, who could not
trust her own ears and could not believe a footman
in so extraordinary a phenomenon, followed my wife and asked

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her if she had indeed ordered the cloth to be
laid in the barn. She answered in the affirmative, upon
which Missus Francis declared she would not dispute her pleasure.
But it was the first time she believed that quality
had ever preferred a barn to a house. She showed

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at the same time the most pregnant marks of contempt,
and again lamented the labor she had undergone through her
ignorance of the absurd taste of her guests. At length
we were seated in one of the most pleasant spots
I believe in the kingdom, and were regaled with our
beans and bacon, in which there was nothing deficient, but

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the quantity this defect was, however, so deplorable, that we
had consumed our whole dish before we had visibly lessened
our hunger. We now waited with impatience the arrival of
our second course, which necessity and not a luxury, had dictated.
This was a joint of mutton, which Missus Francis had

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been ordered to provide. But when being tired with expectation,
we ordered our servants to see for something else. We
were informed that there was nothing else, on which Missus Francis,
being summoned, declared there was no such thing as mutton
to be had at ride. When I expressed some astonishment

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at their having no butcher in the village so situated,
she answered, they had a very good one, and one
that killed all sorts of meat in season. Beef two
or three times a year, and mutton the whole year round,
but that it being then beans and peas time, he
killed no meat, by reason he was not sure of

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selling it. This she had not thought worthy of communication
any more than that there lived fishermen at next door,
who was then provided with plenty of souls and whitings
and lobsters, far superior to those which adorn a city feast,
this discovery being made by accident, we completed the best,

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the pleasantest, and the merriest, with more appetite, more real
solid luxury, and more festivity than was ever seen in
an entertainment at White's. It may be wondered at, perhaps
that Missus Francis should be so negligent of providing for
her guests, as she may seem to be thus inattentive

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to her own interest. But this was not the case.
For having clapped a poll tax on our heads at
our arrival, and determined at what price to discharge our
bodies from her house, the less she suffered any other
to share in the levee, the clearer it came into
her own pocket. And that it was better to get

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twelvepence in a shilling than tenpence which latter would be
the case if she afforded us fish at any rate.
Thus we passed a most agreeable day, owing to good
appetites and good humor, two hearty feeders, which will do
our with satisfaction whatever food you place before them, Whereas

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without these the elegance of Saint James's the shard, the
perigord pie, or the ortelaun, the venison, the turtle, or
the custard may tintillate the throat, but will never convey
happiness to the heart or cheerfulness to the countenance. As
the wind appeared still immovable, my wife proposed my lying

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on shore. I presently agreed, though in defiance of an
Act of Parliament, by which persons wandering abroad and lodging
in ale houses are decreed to be rogues and vagabonds.
And this too, after having been very singularly officious in
putting that law in execution. My wife, having reconnoitered the house,

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reported that there was one room in which there were
two beds. It was concluded therefore that she and Harriet
should occupy one, and myself take possession of the other.
She added likewise, an ingenious recommendation of this room to
one who had so long been in a cabin, which

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it exactly resembled, as it was sunk down with age
on one side, and was in the form of a
ship with gunwales too. For my own part, I make
little doubt but this apartment was an ancient temple, built
with the materials of a wreck, and probably dedicated to
Neptune in honor of the blessing sent by him to

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the inhabitants, such blessings having in all ages been very
common to them. The timber employed in it confirms this opinion,
being such as is seldom used by ally but ship builders.
I do not find indeed any mention of this matter
in hearn, but perhaps its antiquity was too modern to

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deserve his notice. Certain it is that this island of
White was not an early convert to Christianity. Nay, there
is some reason to doubt whether it was ever entirely converted.
But I have only time to touch slightly on things
of this kind, which, luckily for us, we have a

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society whose peculiar profession it is to discuss and develop. Sunday,
July nineteenth, this morning early I summoned Missus Francis in
order to pay her the preceding day's account. As I
could recollect only two or three articles, I thought there

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was no necessity of pen and ink in a single instance.
Only we had exceeded what the law allows grottas to
a foot soldier on his march, that is, vinegar, salt,
et cetera, and dressing his meat. I found, however, I
was mistaken in my calculation, for when the good woman

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attended with her bill, it contained as follows bread and
beer two shillings fourpence, wine two shillings, rum two shillings,
dressing dinner three shillings, tea one shilling sixpence, firing one shilling,
lodging one shilling sixpence, servants lodging sixpence. Total thirteen shillings tenpence.

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Now that five people and two servants should live a
day and night at a public house for so small
a sum will appear incredible to any person in London
above the degree of a chimney sweeper. But more astonishing
will it seem that these people should remain so long
at such a house without tasting any other delicacy than bread,

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small beer, a tea cupful of milk called cream a
glass of raw converted into punch by their own materials,
and one bottle of wine, of which we only tasted
a single glass, though possibly indeed our servants drank the
remainder of the bottle. This wine is a liquor of

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English manufacture, and its flavor is thought very delicious by
the generality of the English, who drink it in great quantities.
Every seventh day. It is thought to produce as much
as the other six. It is then drank so plentifully
that the whole nation are in a manner intoxicated by it,

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and consequently very little business is carried on at that season.
It resembles in color the red wine which is imported
from Portugal, as it doth in its intoxicating quality. Hence,
and from this agreement in the orthography, the one is
often confounded with the other, though both are seldom esteemed

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by the same person. It is to be had in
every parish of the Kingdom, and a pretty large quantity
is consumed in the metropolis, where several taverns are set
apart solely for the vendition of this liquor, the masters
never dealing in any other. The disagreement in our computation

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produced some small remonstrance to Missus Francis on my side,
but this received an immediate answer. She scorned to overcharge gentlemen.
Her house had been always frequented by the very best
gentry of the island, and she had never had a
bill found fault with in her life, though she had

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lived upward of forty years in the house, and within
that time the greatest gentry in Hampshire had been at it.
And that Lawyer Willis never went to any other when
he came to those parts. That for her part, she
did not get her livelihood by travelers who were gone

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and away, and she never expected to see them more,
but that her neighbors might come again. Wherefore, to be
sure they had the only right to complain. She was
proceeding thus, and from her volubility of tongue seemed likely
to stretch the discourse to an immoderate length, when I

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suddenly cut all short by paying the bill. This morning,
our ladies went to church, more I fear from curiosity
than religion. They were attended by the Captain in a
most military attire, with his cockade in his hat and
his sword by his side. So unusual an appearance in
this little chapel drew the attention of all present, and

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probably disconcerted the women who were in dishabille, and wished
themselves dressed for the sake of the curate, who was
the greatest of their beholders. While I was left alone,
I received a visit from mister Francis himself, who was
much more considerable as a farmer than as an inn holder. Indeed,

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he left the latter entirely to the care of his wife,
and he acted wisely, I believe in so doing. As
nothing more remarkable passed on this day, I will close
it with the account of these two characters, as far
as a few days residence could inform me of them.
If they should appear as new to the reader as

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they did to me, he will not be displeased at
finding them here. This amiable couple seemed to bor hard
on their grand climacteric, nor indeed were they shy of
owning enough to fix their ages within a year or
two of that time. They appeared to be rather proud

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of having employed their time well than ashamed of having
lived so long. The only re in which I could
ever assign, why some fine ladies and fine gentlemen, too,
should desire to be thought younger than there really are
by the contemporaries of their grandchildren. Some, indeed, who too

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hastily credit appearances, might doubt whether they had made so
good a use of their time as I would insinuate,
since there was no appearance of anything but poverty, want,
and wretchedness about their house. Nor could they produce anything
to a customer in exchange for his money, but a
few bottles of wind and spirituous liquors, and some very

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bad ale to drink, with rusty bacon and worse cheese
to eat. But then it should be considered on the
other side, that whatever they received was almost as entirely
clear profit as the blessing of a wreck itself, such
an inn being the very reverse of a coffee house.
For here you can neither say for nothing, nor have

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anything for your money. Again, as many marks of want
abounded everywhere, so were the marks of antiquity visible. Scarce
anything was to be seen which had not some scar
upon it made by the hand of time, not a utensil,
it was manifest, had been purchased within a dozen years

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last past, So that whatever money had come into the
house during that period at least must have remained in it,
unless it had been sent abroad for food or other
perishable commodities. But these were supplied by a small portion
of the fruits of the farm, in which the farmer allowed,

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he had a very good bargain. In fact, it is
inconceivable what sums may be collected by starving only, and
how easy it is for a man to die rich
if he will be but contented to live miserable. Nor
is there in this kind of starving anything so terrible

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as some apprehend. It. Neither wastes a man's flesh, nor
robs him of his cheerfulness. The famous Coronaro's case well
proves the contrary, and so did farmer Francis, who was
of a round stature, had a plump, round face with
a kind of smile on it, and seemed to borrow

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an air of wretchedness, rather than from his coat's age,
than from his own. The truth is there is a
certain diet which emaciates men more than any possible degree
of abstinence, though I do not remember to have seen
any caution against it, either in Cheney, arborreth Not or

(36:49):
in any other modern writer or regiment. Nay, the very
name is not, I believe in the learned doctor James's dictionary.
All which is the more extraordinary, as it is a
very common food in this kingdom, and the College themselves
were not long since very liberally entertained with it by

(37:10):
the present Attorney and other eminent lawyers in Lincoln's Inn Hall,
and were all made horribly sick by it. But though
it should not be found among our English physical writers,
we may be assured of meeting with it among the Greeks,
for nothing considerable in nature escapes their notice, though many

(37:32):
things considerable in them, it is to be feared, have
escaped the notice of their readers. The Greeks, then, to
all such as feed too voraciously on this diet, give
the name of he to fagi, which our physicians will,
I suppose translate men that eat themselves. As nothing is

(37:57):
so destructive to the body as this kind of food.
So nothing is so plentiful and cheap, But it was
perhaps the only cheap thing the farmer disliked. Probably living
much on fish might produce this disgust. For Diodorus Siculus
attributes the same aversion in a people of Ethiopia to

(38:20):
the same cause, he calls them the fish eaters, and
asserts that they cannot be brought to eat a single
meal with the heatefoggy by any persuasion, threat or violence, whatever, not,
even though they should kill their children before their faces.
What hath puzzled our physicians and prevented them from setting

(38:45):
this matter in the clearest light is possibly one single mistake,
arising from a very excusable ignorance that the passions of
men are capable of swallowing food as well as their appetites,
that the former in feeding resemble the state of those
animals who chew the cud. And therefore such men, in

(39:07):
some sense may be said to prey on themselves, and
as it were, to devour their own entrails, and hence
ensues a meager aspect and thin habit of body, as
surely as from what is called consumption. Our farmer was
one of these. He had no more passion than an

(39:30):
Icthuofagus or Ethiopian fisher. He wished not for anything, thought
not of anything. Indeed, he scarce did anything or said anything.
Here I cannot be understood strictly, for then I must
describe a nonentity whereas I would rob him of nothing

(39:52):
but that free agency which is the cause of all
the corruption and of all the misery of human nature.
No man indeed ever did more than the farmer, for
he was an absolute slave to labor all the weak.
But in truth, as my sagacious reader must have at
first apprehended, when I said he resign'd the care of

(40:15):
the house to his wife, I meant more than I
then express'd, even the house and all that belonged to it,
For he was really a farmer, only under the direction
of his wife. In a word, so composed, so serene,
so placid a countenance I never saw, And he satisfied

(40:36):
himself by answering to every question he was asked, I
don't know anything about it, sir, I leaves all that
to my wife. Now, as a couple of this kind would,
like two vessels of oil, have made no composition in life,
and for want of all savor must have palled every

(40:58):
taste nature or fortune or both of them, took care
to provide a proper quantity of acid in the materials
that formed the wife, and to render her a perfect helpmate,
For so tranquil a husband she abounded in whatsoever he
was defective, that is to say, in almost everything. She

(41:21):
was indeed as vinegar to oil, or a brisk wind
to a standing pool, and preserved all from stagnation and corruption. Quinn,
the player, on taking a nice and severe survey of
a fellow comedian, burst forth into this exclamation. If that

(41:41):
fellow be not a rogue, God Almighty doth not write
a legible hand. Whether he guessed right or not is
not worth my while to examine. Certain it is that
the latter, having wrought his features into a proper harmony
to become the characters of Yago, Shylock, and others of
the same caste, gave us a semblance of truth to

(42:05):
the observation that was sufficient to confirm the wit of it. Indeed,
we may remark in favor of the physiognomist, though the
law has made him a rogue and a vagabond, that
nature is seldom curious in her works within without employing
some little pains on the outside, And this more particularly

(42:26):
in mischievous characters in forming which, as mister Durham observes,
in venomous insects as the sting or saw of a wasp,
She is sometimes wonderfully industrious. Now, when she hath thus
completely armed our hero to carry on a war with man,

(42:47):
she never fails of furnishing that innocent lambkin with some
means of knowing his enemy and foreseeing his designs. Thus
she hath been observed to act in the case of
a rasnick, which never mediates a human prey without giving
warning of his approach. This observation will I am convinced

(43:11):
hold most true, if obliged to the most venomous individuals
of human insects. A tyrant, a trickster, and a bully
generally wear the marks of their several dispositions in their countenances.
So do the vixen, the shrew, the scold, and other
females of the like kind. But perhaps nature hath never

(43:35):
afforded a stronger example of all this than in the
case of Missus Francis. She was a short, squat woman.
Her head was closely joined to her shoulders, where it
was fixed somewhat awry. Every feature of a countenance was
sharp and pointed, her face was furrowed with the smallpox,

(43:57):
and her complexion which seemed to be able to turn
milk to kourds. Not a little resembled in color such
milk as had already undergone that operation. She appeared, indeed
to have many symptoms of a deep jaundice in her look,
but the strength and firmness of a voice overbalanced them all.

(44:19):
The tone of this was a sharp trouble at a distance,
for I seldom heard it on the same floor, but
was usually waked with it in the morning, and entertained
with it almost continually through the whole day. Though vulcal
be usually put in opposition to instrumental music, I question

(44:40):
whether this might not be thought to partake the nature
of both. For she played on two instruments, which she
seemed to keep for no other use, from morning till night.
These were two maids, or rather scolding stocks, who I suppose,
by some means or other, earned the aboard, and she

(45:01):
gave them their lodging grottis, or for no other service
than to keep her lungs in constant exercise. She differed,
as I have said, in every particular, from her husband,
but very remarkably in this that as it was impossible
to displease him, so it was as impossible to please her,

(45:25):
And as no art could remove a smile from his countenance,
so could no art carry it into hers. If her
bills were remonstrated against, she was offended with the tacit
censure of her fair dealing. If they were not, she
seemed to regard it as a tacit sarcasm on her folly,

(45:46):
which might have set down larger prices with the same success.
On this lather hint she did indeed improve, for she
daily raised some of her articles. A penny worth of
fire was to day rated at a shilling tomorrow at
eighteen pence, and if she dressed us two dishes for

(46:08):
two shillings on the Saturday, we paid half a crown
for the cookery of one on the Sunday. And whenever
she was paid, she never left the room without lamenting
the small amount of her bill, saying she knew not
how it was that others got their money by gentlefolks,
but for her part, she had not the art of it.

(46:30):
When she was asked why she complained when she was
paid all she demanded, she answered she could not deny that,
nor did she know she had omitted anything, but that
it was but a poor bill for gentlefolks to pay.
I accounted for all this by her having heard that

(46:51):
it is a maxim with the principal in holders on
the continent to levy considerable sums on their guests who
travel with many horses and servants, though such guests should
eat little or nothing in their houses, the method being
I believe in such cases to lay a capitation on
the horses and not on their masters. But she did

(47:13):
not consider that in most of these inns a very
great degree of hunger, without any degree of delicacy, may
be satisfied, and that in all such inns there is
some appearance at least of provision, as well as of
man cook to dress it, one of the holstlers being

(47:33):
always furnished with a cook's cap, waistcoat, and apron, ready
to attend gentlemen and ladies on their summons. That the
case therefore of such inns differed from hers, where there
was nothing to eat or to drink, and in reality
no house to inhabit, no chair to sit upon, nor

(47:54):
any bed to lie in. That one third or fourth part, therefore,
of the levyn posed at inns was in truth a
higher tax than the whole was when laid on in
the other where in order to raise a small sum
a man is obliged to submit to pay as many
various ways for the same thing as he doth to

(48:17):
the government for the light which enters through his own
window into his own house from his own estate. Such
are the articles of bread and beer, firing, eating, and
dressing dinner. The foregoing is a very imperfect sketch of
this extraordinary couple, for everything is here lowered, instead of

(48:39):
being heightened. Those who would see them set forth in
more lively colors and with the proper ornaments, may read
the description of the furies in some of the classical poets,
or of the Stoic philosophers in the works of Lucian. Monday,
July twentieth, this day nothing remarkable past Missus Francis levied

(49:03):
attacks of fourteen shillings for the sunday. We regaled ourselves
at dinner with venison and good claret of our own,
And in the afternoon the women attended by the captain
walked to see a delightful scene two miles distant, with
the beauties of which they declared themselves most highly charmed

(49:24):
at their return, as well as with the goodness of
the lady of the mansion, who had slipped out of
the way, that my wife and their company might refresh
themselves with the flowers and fruits with which her garden abounded. Tuesday,
July twenty first, this day, having paid our taxes of yesterday,

(49:45):
we were permitted to regale ourselves with more venison. Some
of this we would willingly have exchanged for mutton. But
no such flush was to be had nearer than Portsmouth,
from whence it would have cost more to convey a
joint to us than the freight of a Portugal ham
from Lisbon to London amounts to For though the water

(50:08):
carriage be somewhat cheaper here than at deal, Yet can
you find no waterman who will go on board his
boat unless by two or three hours rowing he can
get drunk for the residue of the week. And here
I have an opportunity, which possibly may not offer again,
of publishing some observations on that political economy of this nation, which,

(50:32):
as it concerns only the regulation of the mob, is
below the notice of our great men, though on the
due regulation of this order depend many emoluments which the
greater men themselves, or at least many who tread close
on their heels, may enjoy. As well as some dangers

(50:52):
which may, some time or other arise from introducing a
pure state of anarchy among them. I will represent the
case as it appears to me, very fairly and impartially
between the mob and their betters. The whole mischief which
infects this part of our economy arises from the vague

(51:14):
and uncertain use of a word called liberty, of which,
as scarce any to men with whom I have ever conversed,
seem to have one and the same idea. I am
inclined to doubt whether there be any simple universal notion
represented by this word, or whether it conveys any clearer

(51:37):
or more determinate idea than some of those old punic
compositions of syllables preserved in one of the comedies of Plautus.
But at present, as I conceive, not supposed to be
understood by any one by liberty, however, I apprehend, is
commonly understood the power of doing what we please, not absolutely,

(52:00):
for then it would be inconsistent with law, by whose
control the liberty of the freest people, except only the
Hattentots and wild Indians must always be restrained. But indeed,
however largely we extend or however moderately we confine the
sense of the word. No politician will, I presume, contend

(52:24):
that it is to pervade in an equal degree and
be with the same extent enjoyed by every member of society,
no such polity having been ever found, unless among those
vile people just before commemorated, among the Greeks and Romans,
the servile and free conditions were opposed to each other,

(52:47):
and no man who had the misfortune to be enrolled
under the former could lay any claim to liberty till
the right was conveyed to him by that master whose
slave he was, either by the means means of conquest,
of purchase, or of birth. This was the state of
all the free nations in the world, and this till

(53:08):
very lately was understood to be the case of our own.
I will not indeed say this is the case at present,
the lowest class of our people, having shaken off the
shackles of their superiors, and become not only as free,
but even freer than most of their superiors. I believe

(53:28):
it cannot be doubted, though perhaps we have no recent
instance of it, that the personal attendance of every man
who hath three hundred pounds per annum in parliament is
indispensably his duty, and that if the citizens and burgesses
of any city or borough shall choose such a one,

(53:49):
however reluctant he appear, he may be obliged to attend,
and be forcibly brought to his duty by the sergeant
at arms. Again, there are our numbers of subordinate offices,
some of which are of burden and others of expense
in the civil government, all of which persons who are

(54:09):
qualified are liable to have imposed on them, may be
obliged to undertake and properly execute, notwithstanding any bodily labor,
or even danger to which they may subject to themselves
under the penalty of fines and imprisonment. Nay, and what
may appear somewhat hard, may be compelled to satisfy the

(54:32):
losses which are eventually incident to that of sheriff, in
particular out of their own private fortunes. And though this
should prove the ruin of a family, Yet the public
to whom the price is due, incourage no debt or
obligation to preserve its officer harmless. Let his innocence appear,

(54:52):
ever so clearly, I purposely omit the mention of those
military or military duties which our old concer institution laid
upon its greatest members. These might indeed supply their posts
with some other able bodied men, But if no such
could have been found, the obligation nevertheless remained, and they

(55:14):
were compellable to serve in their own proper persons. The
only one, therefore, who is possessed of absolute liberty is
the lowest member of the society, who, if he prefers
hunger or the wild product of the fields, hedges, lanes
and rivers, with the indulgence of ease and laziness, to

(55:36):
a food a little more delicate, but purchased at the
expense of labor, may lay himself under a shade, nor
can be forced to take the other alternative from that
which he hath I will not affirm, whether wisely or
foolishly chosen. Here I may perhaps be reminded of the
last Vagrant Act, where all such persons are compellable to

(55:59):
work work for the usual and accustomed wages allowed in
the place. But this is a clause little known to
the justices of the peace, and least likely to be
executed by those who do know it, as they know
likewise that it is formed on the ancient power of
the justices to fix and settle these wages every year,

(56:22):
making proper allowances for the scarcity and plenty of the times.
The cheapness and dearness of the place, and the usual
and accustomed wages are words without any force or meaning
when there are no such. But every man sponges and
raps whatever he can get, and will haggle as long

(56:43):
and struggle as hard to cheat his employer of tupence
in a day's labor, as an honest tradesman will to
cheat his customers of the same sum in a yard
of cloth or silk. It is a great pity, then,
that this power, or rather this practice, was not revived.
But this having been so long omitted that it is

(57:06):
become obsolete, will be best done by a new law,
in which this power, as well as the consequent power
of forcing the poor to labor at a moderate and
reasonable rate, should be well considered and their execution facilitated.
For gentlemen who give their time and labor gratis and

(57:28):
even voluntarily, to the public, have a right to expect
that all their business be made as easy as possible
and to enact laws. Without doing this is to fill
our statute books much too full, already still fuller with
dead letter of no use. But to the printer of
the Acts of Parliament that the evil which I have

(57:51):
here pointed at is of itself worth redressing. Is I
apprehend no subject of dispute. For why should any persons
in distress be deprived of the assistance of their fellow
subjects when they are willing amply to reward them for
their labor. Or why should the lowest of the people

(58:11):
be permitted to exact ten times the value of their work,
for those exactions increase with the degrees of necessity in
their object insomuch that on the former side may be
horribly imposed upon, and that often in no trifling matters,
I was very well assured that at deal no less

(58:32):
than ten guineas was required and paid by the supercargo
of an Indiaman for carrying him on board two miles
from the shore when she was just ready to sail,
so that his necessity, as his pillager well understood, was absolute. Again,
many others, whose indignation will not submit to such plunder,

(58:55):
are forced to refuse the assistance, though they are often
great sufferers by so doing. On the latter side, the
lowest of the people are encouraged in laziness and idleness,
while they live by a twentieth part of the labor
that ought to maintain them, which is diametrically opposite to

(59:16):
the interest of the public, for that requires a great
deal to be done, not to be paid for a little.
And moreover, they are confirmed in habits of exaction, and
are taught to consider the distresses of their superiors as
their own fair emolument. But enough of that matter, of
which I at first intended only to convey a hint

(59:39):
to those who are alone capable of applying the remedy,
though they are the last to whom the notice of
those evils would occur without some such monitor as myself,
who am forced to travel about the world in the
form of a passenger. I cannot say but say I
heartily wish our governors would attentive consider this method of

(01:00:01):
fixing the price of labor, and by that means of
compelling the poor to work. Since the due execution of
such powers will I apprehend, be found the true and
only means of making them useful, and of advancing trade
from its present visibly declining state, to the height to

(01:00:22):
which Sir William Petty, in his political arithmetic, thinks it
capable of being carried, And of Part three