Page:A Tour Through the Batavian Republic.djvu/226

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214
TOUR THROUGH

healthy. They were in irons, but the weight of their fetters was not to be compared with some which I have seen in England. One of the prisoners was a youth about twenty, with an intelligent penetrating countenance: I have seen most of the rules of Lavater reversed, but, could I have taken him from his dungeon, I would with tranquillity and confidence have committed to his guardianship the care of my property or the security of my person.

I could not obtain admission into the chamber which contains the instruments of torture. The hinges of the door were not rusty; and what time has elapsed since these engines of human or devilish ingenuity were used (for their use I understand is still permitted), I could not learn. To my enquiries, if any state prisoners had been tortured since the revolution, I received the most peremptory negative; a negative which seemed to resent my question as an insult to the humanity of the Dutch nation; and I was assured on the contrary, that persons suspected of crimes against the state, had