The only relief, which could be hinted to us, was to write to the Commandant at Mentz, who might re-testify his knowledge of our destination; yet, as an answer could not be received in less than eight days, and, as imagination suggested not only all the possible horrors of oppression, during that period, but all the contrivances, by which the malignant disposition we had already experienced, might even then be prevented from disappointment, we looked upon this resource as little better than the worst, and resolved in the morning to demand leave for an immediate return to Mentz. There being then some witnesses to the application, the Lieutenant conducted himself with more propriety, and even proposed an introduction to the Commandant, to whom we could not before hear of any direct means of access; there being a possibility, he said, that a passage into Switzerland might be permitted. But the disgust of Austrian authority was now so complete, that we were not disposed to risk the mockery of an appeal. The Lieutenant expressed his readiness to allow our passage, if we should choose to return from Mentz with another passport; but we had no intention to be ever again in his power, and, assuring him that we should not return, left Friburg without the hope of penetrating through the experienced, and present difficulties of Germany, into the far-seen delights of Switzerland. As those, who leave one home for another, think, in the first part of their journey, of the friends they have left, and, in the last, of those, to whom they are going; so we, in quitting the borders of Switzerland, thought only of that country; and, when we regained the eminence from whence the tops of its mountains had been so lately viewed with enthusiastic hope, all this delightful expectation occurred again to the mind, only to torture it with the certainty of our loss; but, as the distance from Switzerland increased, the attractions of home gathered strength, and the inconveniences of Germany, which had been so readily felt before, could scarcely be noticed when we knew them to lie in the road to England. We passed Offenburg, on the first day of our return, and, travelling till midnight, as is customary in Germany during the summer, traversed the unusual space of fifty miles in fourteen hours. Soon after passing Appenweyer we overtook the rear-guard of the army, the advanced party of which we had met at that place three nights before. The troops were then quartered in the villages near the road, and their narrow waggons were sometimes drawn up on both sides of it. They had probably but lately separated, for there were parties of French ladies and gentlemen, who seemed to have taken the benefit of moon-light to be spectators, and some of the glow-worms, that had been numerous on the banks, now glittered very prettily in the hair of the former.