CHAPTER I. A CONFESSION ... THE WAR ... AN ADOPTION ... CONFIDENCE IN FORTUNE SOMETIMES NECESSARY ... HATEFUL CHARACTER OF A SPY ... A MOTIVE FOR TRAVELLING ... A MORAL ... ANECDOTE OF A ROYAL DESCRIPTION ... MISERIES OF A DUTCH GALLIOT ... CALVIN AND SERVETUS ... RELIGION AND A ROPE’S END ... DUTCH ANECDOTE OF FORTITUDE ... ANECDOTE OF A NEWFOUNDLAND DOG ... APPEARANCE OF HOLLAND FROM THE SEA ... ITS COAST ... A DILEMMA ... THE MAAS RIVER ... ANECDOTE OF NAPOLEON ... OF A DUTCH WOMAN ... A DISASTER ... ROTTERDAM DESCRIBED ... LEANING HOUSES. The public shall be my confessor.—In the summer of last year, whilst the larger portion of the civilized world was anxiously awaiting the result of our sincere negotiations for a peace, which, alas! the crafty ministers of Napoleon, never intended should be other than mere “_romans politiques_,” the desire of contemplating a country, and a race of people to me entirely new, induced me to trespass upon their shore. I resolved upon visiting Holland, although in a state of reluctant war with my own country, of a war which yet permitted to her commerce a few stolen embraces with that of England, which forced many a pursy Dutchman to lament the separation, and in the narcotic atmosphere of his consoling pipe, to wish for better times. In gratifying my wishes, I was guilty of assuming a character respected in every country, as well for its being most wisely and profitably at peace with all the world, as for its integrity and enterprize: I became an American, and by an act of temporary adoption, fixed upon Baltimore in North America as the place of my nativity. A fortunate correspondence in the personal description, except a slight variation, not easily discoverable, relating to my face and age, enabled a friend of mine, a _legitimate American_, to accommodate me with his passport, which after all I might as well have left behind me, so kindly are the Hollanders disposed towards us. I was promised by my friend a full description of the principal places in Baltimore, and of the adjacent country, that I might pass unsuspected through a cross examination, should any be attempted: the description never arrived, or arrived too late, and I ascended my chaise, as ignorant of Baltimore as of the Peruvian Potosi, trusting to that good _chance_ which has often favoured me, and under the guidance of which “In my school days, when I had lost one shaft, I shot his fellow of the self same flight The self same way, with more advised watch, To find the other forth; by vent’ring both, I oft found both.” _Merchant of Venice_, Act I. Sc. 1.