The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface.
• Travels In Germany.
• Chapter I.: Dresden—leipsic.
• Chapter II.: Leipsic—berlin
• Chapter III.: Prussia.
• Chapter IV.: Brunswick—hannover.
• Chapter V.: Hannover—hamburg.
• Chapter VI.: Hamburg, and Free Towns of Germany.
• Chapter VII.: Free Lands Near the Elbe.
• Chapter VIII.: Bremen—oldenburg—friezland.
• Chapter IX.: Papenburg—schauenburg Lippe.
• Chapter X.: Kalenberg—the Harz.
• Chapter XI.: Hannover—statistical and Historical View.
• Chapter XII.: Hannover—government.
• Chapter XIII.: Hannover—former States.
• Chapter XIV.: Hannover—the Present States.
• Chapter XV.: Hannover.—the Army.—revenue.—taxes.

CHAPTER VIII.

bremen—oldenburg—friezland.

Bremen.—Public walk.—Raths Keller.—Museum.—Town house.—Character of people.—Cultivation of wastes.—Oldenburg.—Government.—Corvees.—Friezland.—Canals.—Aurick.—Track-boat.—Company.—Embden.—Former size.—Superiority of the character of the Friezlanders.—Their origin.—Division of property.—Part they take in government.—United to Prussia.—Treatment of Prussia.—United to Hannover.—Public spirit proportionate to liberty.—Disasters.—Leave Embden.—An adventure.

There is nothing worth seeing in our town, said an elderly merchant of Bremen, but our public walk, and our museum, and our Raths Keller. I had lounged with great pleasure on the first, I had drank wine in the last, but for my knowledge of the other I was indebted to him. Bremen is built on both banks of the Weser, and the two parts are united by a wooden bridge. The greater part of the town is, however, situated on the right bank, and it is round this part that the public walk has been made. Trees have been planted throughout the whole length of the ancient wall, and the outer part has been sloped away and ornamented with jessamines and honeysuckles and roses. Bowers, thickets, little forests, and tufts of sweet smelling shrubs, are now the only centinels. The bastions, which might once have frowned with cannon, are now smiling with beautiful flowers, the parapet has become a shady grove, and the former ditch is now a handsome little lake, the abode of stately swans. There are straight and serpentine walks, and walks on the top, and on the sides, and at the bottom. At the lower end of the town the walk terminates in a high mound, also well laid out, and planted with trees. From it there is a charming view of the Weser, of the town, and the whole adjoining country. To be situated at the very borders of a large town, it is a most elegant public promenade. Nature did nothing for it, it is indebted for its beauties to the old mound, which was raised for defence, and to the good taste of the inhabitants. It is admirably calculated to promote both their health and their enjoyment, and is a proof, that a sound mind and an elegant taste may be found in the small commercial cities of the north, as well as in the capitals of the south. In the flat country immediately outside of the walk are many of those houses of entertainment and Kegel Bahns, that must be dear to the Germans, for they pass there many calm and happy hours.

The Raths Keller is celebrated for containing a great quantity of the best sort of Rhenish wines. Every stranger indulges in the best Hockheimer or Johannisberg when he visits Bremen; the inhabitants prefer French wines.

The museum is not one of those collections of butterflies to which this name is very often given, but such a club of the inhabitants as I have mentioned to be at Hamburg. Similar ones are, indeed, established in all the large towns of Germany. The merchant who described it to me thought it only remarkable for the convenience of its rooms, and for the quantity of journals and readers always found there. He admitted that it was not so splendid as the Börsen Halle at Hamburg. These clubs are worth mentioning, as a proof of sociability being a part of the German character, for which I believe it has rarely received full credit.

Travellers’ guides enumerate several other curiosities in Bremen, such as, a cellar in the cathedral, the Bley Keller, in which human bodies do not decay, a statue of Roland on the market place, the cathedral, and the town-house. The cathedral is by no means handsome, but the town-house is a magnificent old building, superior to any thing of the kind I have seen. Bremen is altogether better built than Hamburg. The streets are wider, the houses are more uniform, and the town is cleaner; but the country about it, though pleasing, cannot vie with the delightful country about Hamburg. There is a greater stillness about Bremen. The inhabitants, amounting to 36,000, are only one-third of the number of the inhabitants of Hamburg; and half the bustle of a trading town is lost by the shipping not being able to come higher up the Weser than Braake, a town nearly 30 miles below Bremen. With this disadvantage, it is a curious fact, that Bremen still engrosses all the commerce of the Weser, to the exclusion of the inhabitants of Oldenburg and Hannover. Braake, where the ships unload, is in the territories of Oldenburg, and at present a steam-boat passes daily between the two places. The people of Bremen are more quiet and sedate than those of Hamburg; they mix less with foreigners. Their places of entertainment are less splendid. Their government is more aristocratical, their police stronger, and their religion more rigid. Matters are arranged in Bremen more methodically than in Hamburg. There is an air of reserve about the people, not common to Germans. They are careful and economical, the men wear old-fashioned clothes, and follow old-fashioned conduct. The women preserve the antiquated custom of going with their husbands to public places, and, dreading expence, they have made regular contracts with the owners of all the public gardens and Kegel Bahns about the town, to be supplied with hot water, and the use of cups and saucers, at so much per head, while they use their own tea and cakes.

The merchant remarked to me, that the only nobles of Bremen were merchants, and that it would be good for the whole world if there were no others. I hardly joined in the opinion, particularly when I saw these nobles going in crowds to see their soldiers relieve guard, thus doing homage to their own mercenaries. The love for military foppery and glare seems, indeed, so common to the Germans, that even the citizens, both of Hamburg and Bremen, who are in all their pursuits so different from soldiers, admire, and in a manner worship them. The noble merchants of Italy certainly improved their country, but apparently only to reduce it to slavery. It is of little consequence what trade men follow, whether they are soldiers or merchants; if they have power they will abuse it, and the merchants of Genoa, of Venice, and, indeed, of Hamburg and Bremen, seem only to have acquired wealth, that they might riot in the fulness of arbitrary will. The former were more tyrannical and aristocratic than any mere nobles; and if the latter have not been so, it has been owing to their power having been much more limited.

The inhabitants of the mercantile town of Leipsic were less informed in polite literature than those of Dresden. The same fact appeared true of those of Hamburg; and in Bremen, I could find only one decent bookseller, and but one circulating library. The mass of the people, in mercantile towns, have too many occupations to be enabled to read, while the idlers, who live in the train of a court, the minor artists, who are nourished by its wants and its rewards, often depend on reading not only for amusement, but for that improvement which is useful in their employments. Merchants are warmly interested in every change of other countries. It is of little consequence to those of Bremen, whether sculpture and painting, and poetry, flourish in Britain or not, but our custom-house regulations, our progress in the improvement of machinery, by which our cottons have almost superseded in the markets of the west the linens in which they deal, are of great importance to them. They care very little about either the magnetism or the theatres of Prussia and Bavaria, but they must know accurately the tariffs of the monarchs of these countries. They have no circulating libraries; but they have two or three clubs in which newspapers may be read. The difference between the literary attainments of the inhabitants of mere mercantile towns, and of towns which are the residence of courts, appear to be very strong in Germany. At the table d’hôte at Bremen, where between twenty and thirty people dined every day, and who were mostly inhabitants of the town, there was no sort of conversation, but of their own trade or their amusements. At the theatre, two or three persons, of whom I asked the name of the author of a little musical piece I saw represented, knew nothing about it. Leisure is necessary for the cultivation of literature, men have recourse to it as an amusement, but the leisure, which is possessed by the dependants of a court, is purchased by condemning to severer toil the great mass of the society, and literature itself is not worth having at such a price; the graces it bestows are worthy of all admiration, but they are only the elegant coverings of a feeble frame, whenever they are thrown over it by the hands of sovereigns. There is, probably, a stronger mind altogether in mercantile towns than in the others. Both Hamburg and Bremen have been famous for astronomical observations, and for mathematics. Dr Olbers, so well known as an astronomer, lived in Bremen, and in Lilienthal, not far from the town, is the observatory of Mr Schröter, in which a celebrated professor at Göttingen, Mr Harding, acquired the principal part of his knowledge.

I left Bremen on Wednesday, and passing through a flat country, first marshy, then sandy, and at length boggy, reached Oldenburg, the principal town of the dukedom of the same name, at evening. Much of the country was uncultivated, but an extensive tract of moor near the town was in part recently inclosed, and was then inclosing. The excellent appearance of the corn in those places which had been cultivated was a proof that the whole of the moor was fit for cultivation. It was evident, also, that it might be cultivated with a reasonable profit, that the labour and the seed were returned to man with an usurious interest. It was all claimed by the sovereign as his domanial property, and the cultivators were obliged to pay him a certain sum for permission to cultivate it. About eight shillings an acre was given as purchase money, and about three shillings per acre was to be given yearly as rent. The country had before this produced nothing but peat. It was a spongy elastic bog, which the industry of man might fertilize, but which of itself supplied nothing but fuel.

Oldenburg is a neat little town, with a good public walk, and a tolerable large palace, but it has no theatre, no university, no excellent situation, nothing to make it desirable as a residence. It contains 5000 inhabitants. The whole dukedom only contains 217,000, scattered over a surface of 1840 square geographical miles. The greater part of it is a flat sandy or moory country. A small part of it, where it borders on Osnabrück, is hilly, and the borders of the Weser and of the sea, particularly that portion called Jever, are good fruitful marsh lands; but the remainder of the country, without being quite so barren as the sands of the province of Lüneburg, is a desolate neglected waste. How much this may be owing to nature, and how much to a very complicated government, which directs a large part of the capital and revenue of the country to the support of amtmen, consistorial counsellors, counsellors for the poor, and all the multiplied officers of a German government, and which directs all the talents and ingenuity of the country, to fit themselves for these offices, is somewhat difficult to decide; but there is reason to believe, had ingenuity and capital not been so misdirected, the whole land might have been brought under cultivation.

The revenue of Oldenburg is supposed to amount to 1,200,000 florins, or L. 120,000 per year. L. 3000 of this is raised by a royal toll on the land at Wildeshausen, and L. 6000 by a toll on the Weser at Elsfleth. The army amounts to 1650 men. The states of this country have been so long in disuse, that no public records remain of any having ever been summoned. According to the general principles which have been followed in all the countries of Germany, there can be no doubt that meetings of the states were formerly held in Oldenburg, but little or nothing is known concerning them. The country, separated in a great measure from the more flourishing and enlightened parts of Germany, is yet sunk in apathy and ignorance. I could find but one bookseller in the town, and he had no works whatever relative to the country, more than an almanack, describing the court with all its officers. The schools of Oldenburg, and the manner of instruction which is followed in them, resemble those of the other parts of Germany; but in all other sorts of learning, particularly in all that relates to politics, it is much behind.

A dreary walk, on the following day, brought me into East Friezland. On the road some spots were now for the first time inclosing, and there were some marks of an increasing cultivation and improvement. The magistrates have the power, both in Oldenburg and Friezland, of ordering out all the owners of land, for twenty days in the year, to mend the roads. The evil of this practice is considerably greater in the former country, in which the magistrates are appointed by the crown, than in the latter, where they are elected by the land-owners. I saw a large party of men and women employed in this labour. Each owner of a spot of ground must send one person, or go himself. The opulent farmers send a maid servant; the poor man must leave his own work to go. The soil was sandy; there were no stones to mend the road with. All that the people did, or could do, was to clean out the ditches on the sides, and throw the loose sand into the middle of the road, to be washed back by the next heavy shower of rain. It is evil enough to be compelled to do useful works, but it is rather too much to compel people to waste their time in doing what is at most but of very little service. The people of Holland, who were once free, and who still possess that spirit of enterprise which is given by freedom, have paved most of their roads with small bricks. The dukedom of Oldenburg has conveniences for making bricks, but there the peasants are still employed throwing loose sand out of the ditches to be washed back again by the next shower.

There are comparatively few nobles in Oldenburg, and the greater part of the land is held immediately from the grand duke. The good plan has been here followed of building the farm houses in the neighbourhood of the land which each farmer cultivates. The houses are, however, generally small, thatched, and very dirty. The few people I saw were ill dressed and ugly. The women wore, in general, hats like the men, and, dressed rather after the English manner, reminded me of the degraded females of our sea-ports.

Rather a large extent of moor separates Friezland from Oldenburg, and I was sensible of a great difference of appearance in the houses of the former immediately on entering it. They were, many of them, built of brick, and the roofs were covered with tiles. They were larger, cleaner, and altogether better-conditioned than the houses of Oldenburg. At the house where I slept, which was a small one, fine gilded cupboards were filled with old-fashioned china. Two large coarse china vases stood on the table. The fire-place was lined with Dutch tiles. Plates, pans, and kettles, were all kept very clean and bright, and were ranged on the wall with great art and order. The whole of the house, even to the coffee, which was execrable, shewed that the manners of the Dutch had extended to the borders of Oldenburg, and had there stopped. On the whole, however, a great improvement was visible. It was immediately obvious that the people of Friezland had something more than the mere necessaries of life, while those of Oldenburg appeared confined to the gratification of its most simple wants.

Much of Friezland, particularly where it borders on Oldenburg, is sand and bog, but man is extending his empire over both. All the banks of the Ems, and the borders of the sea which belong to Friezland, are some of the finest marsh lands of the world. The ground is so good that it does not require all the manure the farmers have to give it, and those who live in the fertile part exchange manure for peat, which is chiefly dug in the Hoch Moor, a district bordering on Oldenburg. To facilitate this exchange, canals have been dug from the Hoch Moor to the Ems. The manure is thus employed to improve the sterile, sandy, and moory districts, which are inclosing and cultivating, while the extensive market which has thus been opened for the peat, has given a value to what was before a desart. After the wastes I had passed of the provinces of Lüneburg, and Bremen, and of Oldenburg, in which the extent of improvement was the erection of a new sheep hut, or the inclosure of a few acres of ground, it was pleasing to see the spirit of enterprise of which the improvements of Friezland were evidence. The canals were made by a subscription company, a degree of exertion, which is not common in any country where departments of a ministry direct the course of trade, and where making canals and roads are numbered among the duties of the monarch.

Between where I slept and Aurich, I saw a small spot of ground newly inclosed. The garden was dug and planted, but the house was only half built. A man and a woman were sawing trees into timbers for the roof. The woman was beneath; they were a couple who were just fixing themselves here, and who were building their own house and cultivating their own land. Had they been young, many happy days might have awaited them, but they were at that season of life when man should think more of rest than of toil,—when his house should have given protection to his children, instead of being then first to be roofed in for himself.

Aurich, though not so large as Embden, has always been the seat of government of East Friezland, and was formerly the residence of its counts. Their palace is now a barrack, though Aurich still remains the chief place, and is now the seat of the provincial government, and of the chief tribunal of this province. I saw nothing so curious here as an establishment for the poor. It was a house, to which a spot of ground belonged, on which three cows were fed. A sum of money was given the people to buy bread, but the younger ones, and those who were able to work, provided for the rest, and did all the work, such as milking the cows and cooking, which was necessary to nourish the rest, and keep the place clean. Forty-two old men, women, and children, were all huddled together, but the place, though small, was clean. A canal (not the one before mentioned) connects Aurich with Embden. It has also been made by subscription; but, in consequence of its not having been carried so far as was intended, it is said not to pay the share-holders. The changes which took place in the political situation of Friezland had hindered the original plan from being fully executed. The canal was to have extended to Witmund, and perhaps, ultimately, to the Weser, though this part of the execution would have depended on the sovereign of Oldenburg. Had the plan been fully executed, there is little doubt it would have improved the country, and that the subscribers would have been paid a proper interest for their money.

I went in a track-boat, by this canal, to Embden. There was some company present that rather reminded me of England. It will not be asserted, I hope, that I wish to throw a stigma on my country by any unnecessary severity of remark, but I was reminded of England by the conduct of some women who occupied the fore part of the boat. They were half tipsy; they sang, and were riotous, and mocked at every traveller on the road. It is only when we see such conduct that we recollect we have before not seen it for a long time. In truth, a riotous and a drunken woman is almost an unknown character except in the sea-ports, and among the lower classes of Britain. There is something either in the greater inequality of the different classes of our people, or in the force of our moral opinions, which condemns the sinning part of our population to a state of rough brutality,—of profligate and boisterous licentiousness,—of active and devilish vice, which glances in rags, in filth, and drunkenness, on the eye, and sounds, in imprecations, on the ear, and which I have never seen in any other part of the world but in Britain. Single specimens of this sort of character may be seen in Paris, but it is found in masses only in the neighbourhood of Wapping, of St Giles, and of our sea-ports. Our activity is conspicuous, not only in virtue, but in vice, and the latter is carried to loath-some excess. Licentiousness, and perhaps cruelty and revenge, may be the characteristics of other people, but it is only in our country that hard and disgusting brutality is combined with profligacy. This sort of character may be owing, in both countries, to commerce, or to activity of mind, but much of it is to be attributed to a severity of opinion, which not only condemns the sin, but has no charity for the sinner. Calvinism is the predominant religion of Friezland, and it too frequently classes enjoyment as vice, and pushes those who have made one false step into the abyss of misery. In other countries frailties are regarded with more tenderness, and those who are addicted to any one vice are not compelled to be utterly vicious. To whatever causes the difference of character which has been mentioned may be owing, it is, I think, certain, that one reprobated vice brings after it, in our country, many other vices, and more misery, than in other countries. This is worthy the attention of the moralist and the philosopher, as it may lead to some more accurate knowledge of the causes of crime, and the means of preventing it.

There was also a man in the boat who fully convinced me that these women were strongly marked exceptions to the generality of the people. He was a tradesman who had been settled at Embden forty years, a calm sedate man, who had read the Bible and the history of his country very attentively,—who had laboured hard to rear his family, and had taken much pains to teach them morality. There was a carefulness and a self-denial about him, together with an ease and openness that shewed he sailed with the current of opinion, and that his virtue was also the virtue of most of his fellow citizens. He had accustomed his children, he said, to many little privations, that they might be better enabled to brave the evils of life. To submit, without necessity, to any privation, is in general no part of the character of the Germans. I saw one of his daughters at Embden, and she appeared to have done honour to her father’s precepts. She was a careful good wife.

There was another rather strange character, a Dutchman, who had long been an officer of the French armies, and had acquired all the confidence and presumption of French officers, without any of their graces or their gaiety. He had an affectation of being above decency, which shewed itself in indiscriminately talking nonsense to every person. He was a blackguard of another sort, differing from the women in outward polish, but not in sentiment. Both parties only served to make the old tradesman more conspicuous, and, without their riotousness, his calmness would have attracted no observation.

It was evening when we reached Embden. The town-house is a fine old building. The inhabitants appeared mostly very good-looking, and were all very cleanly dressed. Short white or coloured jackets, with black petticoats and black silk aprons, a white clean cap, pinned close to the head, and ruffs about the neck, was in general the dress of the females, though many of the better sort were clad after the fashions of France or England. The older women wore a more ancient costume, of which the principal part was a hat that was as large as an umbrella.

Sunday in Embden was observed as Sunday is observed in England. No business was done. The people all went to church, and partook of no amusement but a walk.

The walls of the town inclose a much larger space than the houses at present occupy; formerly, also, the people were not so conveniently and spaciously lodged as at present, and it is, therefore, probable, as is asserted, that Embden once contained many more inhabitants than at present. In 1649, they were estimated at 20,000, and at present at 12,000. Embden was once a powerful member of the Hanseatic league, and was then an independent city, keeping sometimes the prince prisoner, and always bidding him defiance. It retained the greater part of its power and privileges till 1749, and it only fully lost every shadow of freedom and independence when the government of Hannover gave it, in 1818, an entire new constitution.

Its trade was formerly much greater than at present; from the beginning of the seventeenth century it appears to have declined; under the prohibitive system of Buonaparte, it made a rapid progress, and its merchants rapidly made fortunes; the general peace had again very much diminished their trade, and made them at the moment full of discontent. The harbour of Embden is said to be growing shallower, and projects have been formed by the present government to remedy this. It has proceeded so far as to appoint an engineer, and to take into its own hands the tolls which formerly belonged to the town. Magnificent schemes have been talked of, but there is a want of funds to execute them. The trade of Embden will hardly recover under the fostering care of the Hannoverian government, but while its port remains large enough for a single vessel to enter, Embden has so favourable a situation, that it will always have a considerable trade.

The same extraordinary manner of building farmhouses, which I have mentioned, when speaking of Hadeln, also prevails in Friezland, and, from the wealth of the farmers, is very conspicuous in the vicinity of Embden. That a common German bauer, whose corn is thrashed so soon as it is housed, who has perhaps only a pair of horses and cows, should find it convenient to cover all his worldly possessions with one roof, is not surprising; nor did I observe that their houses were enormously large. But, when I saw the same mode practised in Friezland by the largest farmers, I was astonished at the strangeness and the magnitude of the buildings. The rich farmers of Friezland, who have some of them fifty cows and sixteen horses, and whose dwellings are spacious, cover the whole with one roof. I have counted fifty windows in the dwelling part of the house, and attached to this, and under the same roof, were the stalls for fifty cows and twelve horses. The dwelling is at one end, at the other end is the stable; on the sides between the two ends are the stalls for the cows, the middle is the thrashing-floor, the barn, and the place where the carts and the farming instruments are kept. At the outside of the end farthest from the dwelling is the dunghill. In short, the whole farm-yard, and the dwelling of the family, with the exception of the dunghill, are brought under the same covering. The inhabitants say this is a cheaper and better plan of building than any other, that all their conveniences are at hand, and that, when built of bricks, and covered with tiles, when the stalls are nicely paved, as they are in Friezland, it is a better mode than ours of having separate buildings for stables, barns, and cow-houses. The danger, however, to which the property is exposed in case of fire, seems a strong reason against it. From the specimens I saw of farm-houses in Friezland and Hadeln, there is no objection to it on account of cleanliness. The dwelling is far removed from the animals, it has always a separate entrance, and no people are more conspicuous for cleanliness than the Friezlanders. I have since seen, that the same plan is followed in some of the provinces of Holland, particularly in West Friezland, and there the houses are equally large.

The Friezlanders are more Dutch than German, and distinct in their manners and language from the latter, though East Friezland has always formed a part of the empire. Numerous mills for sawing, for making oil, and for spinning, stand on the walls of Embden, and in the neighbourhood of the town; they are all built after the Dutch manner, and are proofs of the industry and enterprise of the people. The dikes with which the greater part of Friezland is protected, and in a manner won from the sea and the river; the manner in which the inhabitants are obliged constantly to struggle against this element; the canals I have already mentioned, and numerous others which have been dug from Embden to all the villages in its neighbourhood; are, all proofs of the same admirable qualities. The agriculture of the Friezlanders is excellent, and they are, in all respects, a more enterprising people than the greater part of the Germans. They are stouter and better-looking,—they are better clothed and better fed,—they hold themselves upright and manly, and they pride themselves on being superior to the Germans. After seeing something of both, I join in their opinion. One of the causes of this superiority has already been mentioned; the Friezlanders were originally a separate tribe, and were every where distinguished by the form of their government, and by the division of their landed property from the rest of the Germans. Friezland, like Hadeln, is divided into farms of from 400 to 50 acres, which are, in general, possessed in full property by the persons who cultivate them. The farmers owe no feudal services, and they have no labourers but those they hire. There are nobles in Friezland, but they are not numerous. That part of the feudal system which considered a certain class of men as the property of their lord has long been abolished, or never found its way into Friezland. Every man was his own master, or, as a respectable merchant of Embden said, a king in his own house, and if an action were to be done for the common good, and by general exertion, it could only be done by the consent of all. The land owners, or the farmers, had a vote in the election of their own priests, of their own tax-gatherers, of the people who looked after the dikes, and they elected the persons who were to administer the taxes. There was a regular parliament for the management of public business, to which the towns sent fifteen deputies, and the owners of land, or third stand, 180. They were, therefore, adequately represented. At the head of the government was a Count of Friezland, and constant disputes between him, the nobles, the town of Embden, and the parliament, till the very last moment of the independent existence of Friezland, shew that no one party had obtained the possession of uncontrolled power.

In 1744 the family of the Counts became extinct, and Friezland then fell under the dominion of the sovereign of Prussia, who held it as a fief of the empire. It stood in the same relation to him as Hadeln did to Hannover. Under him the inhabitants preserved some of their privileges. A particular treaty regulated the number of men, and the sum of money Friezland was to pay its sovereign, but the manner of levying both was to be left to the states, and it was to remain free from the conscription of Frederick, and his arbitrary taxes. The sovereign appointed some of the principal officers, but the greater part of the inferior ones, particularly all those connected with the administration of the revenue, were as formerly appointed by the states, or elected by the people. The monarch did not long respect the treaty which he had made with his subjects. In return for the money and the soldiers they were to give him, he sent a commissioner to administer the government, and take care of the interests of the crown. Notwithstanding the solemn assurances which had been given that all the privileges of the people should be secured to them, this commissioner told the states, when they refused to augment their tribute of men and money, “If you will not do as my master wishes, I will leave you tomorrow, and he will send in my place a few regiments of soldiers, to facilitate giving a subsidy, and sending recruits.” Such was the exchange. The Friezlanders gave their wealth and blood for such protection as a royal commissioner could afford, and they were only employed to exact still more wealth and blood. Common men can easily appreciate such governments, but by some people they are called paternal. Under their own Counts, the freedom of the Friezlanders was preserved; it was much diminished when the mighty sovereigns of Prussia became the masters of the country; it was entirely destroyed by the occupation of the French; and is only very partially restored since the country has been added to the dominions of Hannover. The full property of the soil still remains to the farmer. The inhabitants still preserve some minor privileges, such as those of electing local magistrates, and of appointing their own clergymen; but the former parliament has been amalgamated in the parliament for the kingdom of Hannover, and the government has taken the whole direction of the affairs of Friezland on itself.

The public spirit of this people is visible in the construction of canals and dikes, and their prosperity in the extent of their commerce, and the goodness of their agriculture; and we see their morality and happiness in their general comforts and appearance. Friezland, after Hadeln, is the most prosperous looking part of Germany, and here, as there, the people have always managed their own affairs. They have erected works of public utility, superior to any which have been erected in the much governed lands of Germany. When the canals of Friezland, which extend every where, are compared to a single one which the government of Hannover attempted to cut in Bremen sixty years ago, we may conclude that the real business of men, what promotes their prosperity, is always better done by themselves than by any few separate and distinct individuals, acting as a government in the name of the whole.

The minds of the inhabitants of Friezland have been chastened by disasters, and ennobled by a continued independent national existence. Every other country of Germany has been bought and sold, or bequeathed as an inheritance: but Friezland has always been nearly of its present extent, and the people have always lived and fought as Friezlanders. They have a regular and a continued history of their exploits, and are ennobled by knowing that they are the descendants of men who have always been independent. But their pride has been humbled and chastened, while their minds have been strung to new toils by disasters which were inflicted by the hand of God. Their country is on a level with the sea, and it requires constant care, and great labour, to preserve it from being overwhelmed. Their history is full of sufferings, but none equals that which was occasioned by the great flood of Christmas 1717, when a large part of the land was inundated. The farm-houses were swept away, and the people whom the water spared perished from cold.∗

I left Embden on Tuesday, June 23d, crossed the Ems at Petkum to visit a large district that was embanked during the time the country belonged to Prussia, and therefore called the Prussian Polder. It is celebrated for its very great fertility. Unfortunately it came on to rain, and continued to rain the whole day. I recrossed the river at Weener, and reached Papenburg to sleep.

The roads are very often made on the top of the dikes, which exposes the traveller to all the fury of the tempest. In the midst of a very heavy shower, and when the wind was so strong that it was with difficulty I could keep my umbrella spread, and nothing was heard but the rain blowing against it, I was surprised by a voice close to my ear, and, turning my head rather frightened, was still more surprised to see close to my shoulder a pair of bright eyes, and rosy cheeks, speaking health, animation, and the pleasure of exertion. It was a lovely looking young woman, who, laughing, told me we might go together. I embraced the offer with great pleasure, as I measured a tall and graceful form; and, clasping my arm round her that I might shelter her better, I blessed the storm that had forced so handsome a companion to seek the shelter of my cotton roof. We walked two miles together, and before we parted, the rain, which had driven every other person within doors, had made us quite intimate. She was well dressed, as the Friezlanders generally are, and full of animation as a French woman. I have seen nothing in the character of a countrywoman half so amiable in all Germany, and I was sorry when she arrived at the farm-house to which she was going, and when I was again obliged to pursue my walk alone.

[∗]The greater part of these particulars are taken from Wiarda’s History of Friezland. It is untranslated, and fills nine octavo volumes.