A journal of travels in England, Holland and Scotland, and of two passages over the Atlantic, in the years of 1805 and 1806: with considerable additions, principally from the original manuscripts of the author (Volume 3).

  • Benjamin Silliman Sr.
Date:
1820
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A journal of travels in England, Holland and Scotland, and of two passages over the Atlantic, in the years of 1805 and 1806: with considerable additions, principally from the original manuscripts of the author (Volume 3). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    \ JO URN U. OF ri ■■ No. LXV.—RETURN TO ROTTERDAM. Leave Antwerp—Gens d'armes—Breda—Dprt—Zwyridred— Beautiful country. f)ct, 17.—In the morning we left Antwerp, on our way to Breda, for we were not permitted to return by the route that we came. Our passports were examined at the gate; a woman who was without one, and ought to have been arrested, bribed the sentinel with a guilder, and was permitted to pass. We were in a very decent post-wag- gon, and at the first place where we stopped, one of the gens d'armes came up, and demanded our passports. You are doubtless informed that the gens d'armes are the armed police of France; there was a similar estab- lishment under the ancient government, but, I am inform- ed that it is greatly extended under the new. All the gens d'armes whom we saw are men of great stature and robust frames;— giants of mighty bone and bold era- prise ;—their dress and armour give them a terrific ap- pearance ; they are civil in their manners, but, in Lam- bert's pithy phrase, although they smile in your face, they cut yon off the neck behind. I am told that they are generally veterans, who, having served long and faith- fully in the armies, and distinguished themselves by acts of personal bravery, have this station assigned them, as a kind of honourable retirement from public service. They are the ministers of oppression in its minutiae and details. When a new province is coveted, an arm}' is sent to take ]t, but, if a suspected or obnoxious individual is to be ar- rested or exterminated, one of the gens d'armes would be