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St. Helena, Dec. 19, 1792. HAVE taken the liberty of addreffing two letters to you during this voyage, one from Teneriffe, the other from the Cape of Good Hope, on the fuppofition that a knowledge of the movements of the Providence and Aliftance fhips, deftined to accomplish fo popular and defirable an end as that of conveying the BREAD-FRUITTREE from the South Seas to our Weft-India fettlements, would not be difpleafing. I fhall now beg leave * further to trouble you with a curfory account of our proceedings from the Cape to our arrival here, which took place yesterday, Dec. 18.

Our water and provisions being completed by the 22d December 1791, the next day we failed out of Table Bay, the few fick we had being previoufly fent on fhore, and replaced by fome Swedes, &c. who had left a Dutch Indiaman. For four or five days after our departure, we experienced baffling winds, which increased our distance but very little from the African coaft; when, on the 28th, a fteady breeze fprung up, and on the 8th of February 1792, we got fight of Van Diemen's Land. The next morning, we came to an anchor in Adventure Bay, as did alfo the Affiftance; both crews in the moft perfect health: we had, during this run, a fucceffion of favourable winds, and most delightful weather: there we lay thirteen days, to complete our wood and water; the former we found in the greatest abundance, growing clofe to the water fide; the latter in fufficient quantity, and excellent. Although, in all our excurfions, we faw nothing that could ftriétly be called a river, yet Adventure Bay is well fupplied with water, by various brooks that empty themfelves in its bofom. We frequently refreshed the crews with some fine fith during our ftay; but the earth produced nothing, that we saw, for men to cat, although the foil, in many places, was rich, and the face of the country luxuriant, and only wanting the foftering and active hand of man to make it a delightful fpot. The inhabitants were only once feen, and those very few in Bumber, and for a fhort time. Capt. Bligh left a cock and two hens, and fet fome peach, apricot, &c. ftones, with feveral kinds of feed.-On the 21ft we failed out of this harbour, and should

have made the fouthern part of New Zealand, had we not experienced much haze and fog when near that coaft, which prevented our having any obfervation for feveral days. This made us run as high as lat. 50 South: there we found the cold exceffive. During this paffage we faw whales of three kinds, grampuffes, &c. albatroffes, Cape-hens, with a variety of other birds; great quantities of rock weed, and feveral times phosphoral lights. We continued our courfe without any thing extraordinary happening until the 5th of April, when we faw land; this was a low ifland, a NEW DISCOVERY, and was not feen until we were within a few miles of it. A number of craggy rocks, over which the furf broke to a prodigious height, are fcattered along its coaft. The centre of the island is a lagune, encircled, as far as our view extended, by a border of trees; but not the fmalleft appearance of either fires or inhabitants. The hour of the day enabled Capt. Eligh to ascertain its true pofi. tion; it lies in lat. 21. 39. South, longitude 218. 13. Eaft; and on the 9th we arrived at Otaheite, the Queen of the Tropical Ifles. There we were received in the moft friendly and affectionate manner, and found most of the crew belonging to the Matilda, a whaler, of London, Meffrs. Calvert and King. owners. She had been at Botany Bay, had touched at Otaheite to refresh, in her paffage round Cape Horn, and had failed only fixteen days from thence, when the ftruck on a fand bank and foundered. This happened on the 26th of February 1792. The crew took the boats and fteered for Otaheite, where they arrived on the 2d of March, and were kindly received, and humanely treated, by thefe benevolent people. But a Chief of the diftrict Matavai, who had feized four muskets, &c. from them, on their landing, and would not give them up, had occafioned King Otoo (who ftiles himself, and with very great propriety, the Friend of King George) to make a formal demand of them; which not being complied with, he had waged war against him, and was carrying it on with very great obstinacy. Two days after our arrival a battle was fought, when Edeea, the Queen of thefe extenfive ifles, like Zenobia of the Eaft, appeared in the field, and "marshall'd her footy warriors to the Bb 2

fight."

mare, from the badness of French ftables, and the carelefnefs of the garcons de ecurie, being knocked up, Mr. Young was obliged to leave her at Luzarch, and proceed to Paris, as other travellers do, in poft-chaifes, fecing and knowing little or nothing. "The laft ten miles I was eagerly on the watch for that throng of carriages which near London impede the traveller. I watched in vain, for the road, quite to the gates, is, on comparifon, a perfect defart.-Till we have been accustomed to travelling, we have a propensity to ftare at and admire every thing, and to be on the fearch for novelty, even in circumftances where it is ridiculous to look for it. I have been upon the filly gape to find out things that I have not found before, as if a ftrect in Paris could be formed of any thing but houfes, or houfes formed of any thing but brick or ftone; or that the people in them, not being English, would be walking on their heads.'

Mr. Young gives the following account of the ceremony of invefting the Duke of Berri, fon of the Count d'Artois, with the cordon blue. The Queen's band was in the chapel where the coremony was performed, but the mufical effect was thin and weak. During the fervice the King was feated between his two brothers, and feemed, by his carriage and inattention, to wish himfelf a hunting. He would certainly have been as well employed, as in hearing afterwards from his throne a feudal oath of chivalry, I fuppofe, or fome fuch nonfenfe, adminiftered to a boy of ten years old. Sceing fo much pompous folly, I imagined it was the Dauphin, and afked a lady of fashion near me, at which the laughed in my face, as if I had been guilty of the moft egregious idiotifm-nothing could be done in a worfe manner, for the ftifling of her expreflion only marked it the more. I applied to M. de la Rochefoucauld, to know what grofs abfurdity I had been guilty of fo unwittingly; when, forfooth, it was because the Dauphin, as all the world knows in France, has the cordon bleu put round him as foon as he is born. So unpardonable was it for a foreigner to be ig norant of fuch an important part of French hiftory, as of giving a babe a blue flabbering-bib inftead of a white one."

May 28. Mr. Young, finding his mare fufficiently recovered for a journey, left Paris, intending to cross the whole kingdom to the Pyrenees. "The

road to Orleans is one of the greatest that leads from Paris. I expected, therefore, to have my former imprettions of the little traffic near that city removed; but, on the contrary, it was confirmed; it is a defart compared with those round London. In ten miles we met not one ftage or diligence, only two meffageries, and very few ftages, not a tenth of what would have been met had we been leaving London at the fame hour. Knowing how great, rich, and important a city Paris is, this circumstance perplexes me much. Should it afterwards be confirmed, conclufions in abundance are to be drawn.

"The 31ft, Enter the miferable province of Sologne, which the French writers call the trifle Sologne. The poor people who cultivate the foil here are Melayers, that is, men who hire the land without ability to ftock it; the proprietor is obliged to provide cattle and feed, and he and his tenant divide the produce a miferable fyftem, that perpetuates poverty, and excludes inftruction. The fame wretched country continues to La Loge; yet all this country is highly improveable, if they knew what to do with it; the property, perhaps, of fome of thofe gittering beings, who figured in the proceffion the other day at Verfailles. Heaven grant me patience, while I fee a country thus neglected, and forgive me the oaths I wear at the abfence and ignorance of the poffeffors.'

The following is a pleafing inftance of the attention of the Bishop of Limoge to the feelings of a ftranger :-"Lord Macartney, when a prifoner in France after. the Grenades were taken, fpent fome time with him. The order came from the Court to fing Te Deum on the very day that Lord Macartney was to arrive. Conceiving that the public demonftrations of joy for a victory that brought his noble gueft a prifoner, might be perfonally unpleasant to him, the Bishop propofed to the Intendant to poftpone the ceremony for a few days, in order that he might not mece it fo abruptly:-this was inftantly acceded to, and conducted in fuch a manner afterwards, as to mark as much attention to Lord Macartney's feelings as to their own."

Mr. Young, like other travellers, finds great fault with the dirtiness of the French-indeed, every Englishman who leaves his own country, will find that fin, for furely it is one, to offend

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him wherever he goes. "It is not, he fays," in the power of an English imagination to figure the animals that waited upon us here at the Chapeau Rouge at Souillac-fome things that called themselves, by the courtesy of Souillac, women, but in reality walking dunghilis:-but a neatly-dreffed, clean, waiting girl at an inn, will be looked for in vain in France. Near Payrac all the country girls and women are without fhoes or ftockings, and the ploughmen at their work have neither fabots nor feet to their stockings. This is a poverty that ftrikes at the root of national profperity; a large confumption among the poor being of more confequence than among the rich. The houfe of Mr. du Barré,brother of the hufband of the celebrated Countefs, at Toulouze, is defcribed as being fitted up with much magnificence and at great expence. One contrivance de ferves to be noted, that of a looking-glafs before the chimnies, inftead of the various fcreens ufed in England; it flides backwards and forwards into the wall of the room. There is a portrait of Madame du Barré, which is faid to be very like if it really is, one would pardon a King fome follics committed at the fhrine of fo much beauty. As to the garden, it is beneath all contempt, except to make one stare at the efforts at which folly can arrive : in the space of an acre there are hills of genuine earth, mountains of pafteboard, rocks of canvas, abbés, cows, theep, and fhepherdeffes in lead; monkies and payfans, affes and altars in ftone; fine ladies and blacksmiths, parrots and lovers, in wood; windmills and cottages, thops and villages, nothing excluded, except nature.

"On approaching the Pyrenees the inhabitants have much of the appearance as well as the drefs of the Scotch Highlanders; they wear round flat caps, and loose breeches. "Pipers, blue bonnets, and oatmeal are found," fays Sir James Stewart," in Catalonia, Auvergne and Swabia, as well as in Lochaber!" I met on the road many waggons, each loaded with two cafks of wine, quite backward in the carriage; and as the hind wheels are much higher than the fore ones, it fhews that thefe mountaincers have more fenfe than John Bull. The wheels of thefe waggons are all fod with wood instead of iron."

The following obfervations on the French mode of dividing the day are

fenfible, interefting, and favourable to the prevailing cuftoms of England." In the common arrangement of the day no circumftance is fo objectionable as dining at noon, the confequence of eating no breakfaft; for as the ceremony of dreffing is kept up, you must be at home from any morning's excurfion by twelve o'clock. This fingle circumftance, if adhered to, would be fufficient to deftroy any purfuits except the most frivolous. Dividing the day exactly in halves, deftroys it for any expedition, enquiry, or bufinefs that demands feven or eight hours attention, uninterrupted by any calls to the table or the toilette; calls which, after fatigue or exertion, are obeyed with refreshment and pleafure. What is a man good for after his filk breeches and ftockings are on, his hat under his arm, and his head bien poudre? Noon dinners are cuftomary all over France, except by perfons of confiderable fashion at Paris. They cannot be treated with too much ridicule or feverity, for they are abfolutely hoftile to every view of fcience, to every fpirited exertion, and to every ufeful purfuit in life."

Mr. Young profeffes himself much pleafed with the manners of the polite fecieties in France, in which an invariable fweetnefs of difpofition, mildness of character, and what in English we emphatically call good temper, eminently prevail;-feeming to arife-at leaft I conjecture it, from a thoufand little namelcfs and peculiar circumftances, not refulting entirely from the perfonal character of the individuals, but apparently holding of the national one. If I may hazard a remark on the converfation of French Affetmblies, from what I have known here, I fhould praise them for equanimity, but condemn them for infipidity. All vigour of thought feems fo excluded from expreffion, that characters of ability and inanity meet nearly on a par; tame and elegant, uninterefting and polite, the mingled mais of communicated ideas has powers neither to offend nor inftruct. Where there is much polifh of character there is little argument; and if you neither argue nor difcufs, what is converfation? Good temper and habitual cafe are the firft ingredients in private fociety; but wit, knowledge, or originality, muft break their even furface into fome incquality of feeling, or converfation is like a journey on an endless flat.

After defcribing the Pyrenees,and mentioning their power of attracting clouds,

and