Of the country which I was quitting, and of that to which I was proceeding, our Charles the Second, a monarch of whom Sir Richard Bulstrode justly says, that had he loved business as well as he understood it, he would have been the greatest prince in Europe, observed, “that the former was the most comfortable climate to live under, he had ever experienced; as there were more days in the year, and more hours in the day, that a man could take exercise out of doors in it, than in any country he had ever known. That during his exile he had seen many countries, of which none pleased him so much as the Flemings, who were the most honest and true-hearted people he had ever met with; and added very prophetically to me, to whom he addressed these remarks, I am weary of travelling, I am resolved to go abroad no more; but when I am dead and gone, I know not what my brother will do, I am much afraid that when he comes to the throne he will be _obliged to travel again_.” A prediction fatally realized by the wicked folly of the royal object of it. At Gravesend we paid six guineas apiece to a Dutch captain, and a little favourable breeze springing up, we proceeded on board with a large party composed of specimens of the human race from various parts of the globe, proceeding, through the indulgence of the government of Holland, to their various destinations on the continent. The moment we stepped on board we found we were victims to the most infamous imposition. Six guineas for a berth in a vessel, which Noah in the first rudiments of his art, would have made a thousand times more commodious! Figure to yourself about forty persons stowed in a Dutch galliot of about one hundred tons burthen, deeply laden with a cargo of chalk, &c. a hold near the bows covered with straw for the accommodation of thirty-six of the passengers; a low miserable cabin, four feet high on the deck, which formed the honey-moon bower of a young Swiss and a pretty English girl just married; and a little hole astern which, furnished with a couple of tickings crammed with Dutch peas instead of feathers, constituted the vestibule, drawing-room and chamber for me and one of my companions. Hoping for a speedy termination to our marine miseries, we set sail and slowly creeped down the Thames by the aid of a scanty breeze, which dying before we had advanced two miles, left us as a legacy to the tardy tides. Indeed, we almost _tided_ it over to Holland, in the achievement of which we were six long days and nights; but then the days were serene and warm, and the nights were adorned by a brilliant moon, and the blue vault of heaven was spangled over with stars.