Page:A Tour Through the Batavian Republic.djvu/24

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12
TOUR THROUGH

open violations of justice, however they may be inclined to connive at private injuries to the rights of individuals.

We are now with commodore ———, prisoners of war, till passports arrive from the Hague, either remanding us to our own country, or granting us permission to see whatever is most remarkable in the Batavian republic. Since the fortune of war has conducted me hither, and it is little probable that business, necessity, or pleasure, should ever lead me again to this part of the continent of Europe, I am resolved, if I can obtain permission, to profit by the occasion, and make the tour of the United Provinces. I say the United Provinces, because the Batavian republic has not yet obtained a place in our maps and gazetters; and to the one I associate something that is great and heroic, whereas the other conveys to my mind no favourable ideas. I shall therefore probably when I meet with objects which please me, speak of them as belonging to the United Provinces, or the contrary as belonging to the Batavian republic. I have no disinclination