A man who has seen only this skirting of France would demonstrate the highest degree of presumption, were he to pretend to draw a parallel between it and England; but, to confine myself to what I have seen here, I may venture to affirm, that civilization, luxury, a general diffusion of the comforts of life, or by whatever other name you please to call it, is more advanced in Cornwall and Wales than it was in this province, even before the revolution. Formerly there were two public walks on the banks of the river; but the stately elms which formed one of them have been lately cut down, to the great dissatisfaction of the inhabitants, in order to be sent to Brest for keels of ships. The cathedral is a large edifice, of majestic appearance, but strikingly irregular in its exterior. Over its principal door is written “_Le peuple Français reconnait l’Etre Suprème_.” All the other churches and monasteries, which are numerous, have been converted (as the property of the state) into hospitals, stables, magazines, or manufactories of salt-petre. The church applied to this last use is well adapted to the purpose. I went with an English gentleman to see it, and no objection was made by the people whom we found there at work to our inspecting every part of their process, which is very simple.----Against one of the side walls are piled large heaps of wood-ashes, and near them two rows of casks with perforated bottoms, which are filled with the ashes thoroughly wetted. The water, after passing through the ashes, is received into tubs, and constitutes a vegetable alkaline lixivium. The opposite side of the church is filled with the ruins of old houses, and heaps of earth dug out of stables, slaughter-houses, and cemeteries, which last are full of the wrecks of humanity. These, after being macerated and mixed with the liquor drained through the wood ashes, are evaporated over a slow fire, until exhausted of the superfluous watery particles; after which the remaining part is put into large shallow coolers, on the sides of which the salt-petre shoots into crystals.