Friday June the 15
th1781
This morning Mr
Dana, Mr
Thaxter, brother Charles and
myself went to Kaa’s, to see Mr Jennings &
Mr Bordly. we found
Mr Searle1 there; he has just arriv’d from the
Texel; where he has been since saturday.
We stay’d sometime there and then went to take a ride; we went out of the Haerlem
Port, and rid round by the side of the outer Cingel2 and came in again into the
26the Leyden Port.
After dinner I wrote a letter to Dr: Waterhouse;3 and then went to Madam
Chabanel’s where I found Mr: Brailsford; he went away soon after,
and I went to take a walk, with the young ladies; when we got back we found
Mr Le Roi,
and young Mr Chabanel at
home; I return’d home soon after,
The English papers are arriv’d, There is an account of an action between Commodore Johnstone and the french Squadron which was going to the East India’s, but we have not got the paper in which an account of it is given; and therefore, do not yet know the details.
80
From Guthrie’s
Grammar.
Chap 4th § 6th
(Continuation from yesterday)4
“The valour of the Dutch becomes warm and
27and active when they find their interest at stake, witness
their sea wars with England and France. Their boors, though slow of understanding,
are manageable by fair means. Their seamen are a plain, blunt, but rough, surly
& ill manner’d sort of people, and appear to be insensible of public spirit
and affection for each other. Their tradesmen are in general, very honest in all
their dealings; and they seldom use more words than are necessary about their
business, Smoaking tobacco is practised by old and young of both sexes; and as
they generally plodding upon ways and means of getting money, no people are so
unsociable. Though a Dutchman of low rank, when drunk, is guilty of every species
of brutality; and though they have been known to excercise the most
28most dreadful inhumanities for interest abroad, where they
thought themselves free from discovery, yet they are in general quiet and
inoffensive in their own country, which exhibits but few instances of murder,
rapine, theft or Violence. As to habitual tippling and drinking charged upon both
sexes, it is owing in a great measure to the nature of their soil and climate. In
general, all appetites and passions seem to run lower and cooler here than in
other countries, that of avarice excepted— Their tempers are not airy enough for
joy, or any unusual strains of pleasant humour, nor warm enough for love; so that
the softer passions are no natives of this country; and love itself is little
better than a mechanical affection, arising from interest, conveniency, or habit
29habit; it is talked of sometimes among the young men, but as
a thing they have heard of rather than felt, and as a discourse that becomes them
rather than affects them.[”]
(to be continued)
Biog. Dir. Cong.
; Mildred E. Lombard, “James Searle: Radical Businessman of the
Revolution,”
PMHB,
59:284–294 [July 1935]).
The outer Singel canal, one of two by that name in Amsterdam: this one formed the outer boundary of the old city.
Letter not found.
On the following two and one-half pages in the Diary JQA continued his transcription of the second paragraph from the same subsection of Guthrie which he began the day before (p. 401–402).