From the cloister at Grussau (the day before yesterday) we returned to dine with Mr Ruck at Landeshut—1 It was a formal dinner of thirty persons according to the fashion of the country; we sat down soon after one, & rose from table just before six. The whole of this time is employed in eating; for the ladies & gentlemen rose together, & there was little wine drunk. But as only one dish is served at a time, & in a dinner of three courses, every dish must be handed round to every guest, the intervals between the dishes are of course very long; the usual time of sitting on such occasions, we are told is about seven hours, but it was here abridged out of complaisance to us. After dinner we walked in the garden, & coffee was served in an arbour where we sat some time, & conversed. As evening came on, the company sat down to cards, & played untill eleven, when a cold collation was served in another room. We were now permitted as strangers to return to our inn, but the rest of the company continued at their cards & the collation untill half past twelve. This is the usual course of a great dinner, in Silesia. The company consisted of the principal linen merchants, & the lutheran clergy of the place. Among them I found men of agreable manners, & of considerable information; but none of them spoke any other language than German— In general, throughout Silesia, speaking french is considered as an affectation of high life, & a sort of ridicule is cast upon it; so that many, who are well versed in the language, scruple at speaking it even with a stranger— For myself I like this so much the better. It forces me to make a trial of my 340 strength in German, & affords me some help in the acquisition of this language.

Yesterday morning we went to see the Lutheran church at Landeshut. The church is built exactly upon the same model as that of Hirschberg, though not so large, nor like that decorated with paintings. The library is small & consists chiefly of theological books— Its principal curiosity is a manuscript volume containing original letters from persons of distinguished name in the sixteenth & seventeenth centuries. Among the rest are a few from Luther, & many from his friend & assistant Melancthon.2

The number of catholics & of evangelics, throughout Silesia, is nearly equal. But in all the manufacturing parts of the province the proportion of the catholics is much smaller—scarcely of one to ten. The arch bishop of Breslau is the only catholic prelate in the province, though before the Prussian conquest, the abbots of the great cloisters at Grüssau, & Leubus, & perhaps others, were members of the states. There are no lutheran bishops; but the ecclesiastical concerns are under the superintendency of a consistory at Breslau, subordinate to the Minister of Justice at Berlin, who presides over the whole ecclesiastical department.3 The salaries of the lutheran clergy are very low, none of them amounting to two hundred prussian dollars a year.

After viewing Mr Ruck’s bleachery, which differs little from those we had seen before, we came yesterday afternoon, three german miles from Landeshut to this town; the country still continues to be enchantingly beautiful, & the roads excellent, though very hilly. When we had come about two thirds of the way, we passed through the little town of Gottesburg, & before almost every house saw women, boys & girls industriously employed in knitting worsted stockings, of which that is the principal manufacturing place. Thus upon almost every mile of our passage we behold industry, with a different, & always with an useful occupation. But it is always a great alloy to the satisfaction we receive from this prospect, that it is accompanied with that of wretchedness. The poor people, who are thus continually toiling can scarcely earn a sufficiency for their bare subsistence, & are subjected to various heavy impositions. The linen manufactories in particular, which raise large fortunes to the merchants, who export them from the cities, scarcely give bread to the peasants, who do all the valuable part of the work.

Here at Waldenberg, the inn, where we lodge, is as usual situated in the ring, or public square, which I described to you in my last 341 letter, & this being a market day, we had all the forenoon a croud of peasants under our windows, each of them, with one, or two pieces of linen in a bag, standing & waiting for a purchaser. The merchant offers his price, & if it is agreed to, marks it upon the piece of linen, which the peasant then carries to the purchaser’s store, & receives his money. But it is said that the merchant often marks the linen with the price he offers, even when the seller refuses to let it go at so low a rate, & as the peasant cannot efface immediately the mark of the chalk, he scarcely ever obtains from a subsequent purchaser any more than he sees has been offered for the piece before. Thus the price is made dependant in a great degree upon the will of the purchaser, & the peasant, who feels himself by the iniquitous constitution of human society, a degraded being, subdued alike in soul & body, has neither the spirit to resent, nor the right to claim redress against this abominable imposition. We walked called up this morning one of those peasants, from our windows, & asked him the price of the piece of linen he had under his arm. He said six dollars— It was doubtless at least a dollar more than any of the merchants would have given him; but I was disposed to see what would be the effect of giving him his own price, & told him we would take it. He no sooner saw what accomodating traders he had to trade with, than he began to extol the excellency of his linen, & to urge me to give him more, than he had asked— This I refused, & though the poor fellow had certainly sold his goods higher than he had expected, I am afraid he went away rather regretting that he had not demanded more, than pleased that he had got so much.

We have this day visited the coal mines, which are within an english mile of the town— A subterraneus canal, the entrance into which reminds one of the poetical descent of epic heroes to the infernal regions, conducts one to the spot where the miners draw the coal. You go down in a boat, flat bottom’d, about a yard wide, & ten feet long. The canal is not more than four wide, & equally deep, & over it is an arch about as high, hew’d in many places through the solid rock. It is nearly an english mile long, & strikes deeper & deeper under ground, untill the surface of the earth over head is more than 150 feet above you. The boat is pushed along through the canal, by two men, one standing at each end, who with a short stick in the hand press it against the sides of the arch that goes over the canal. After you have advanced about two thirds of the way, you come to lanes, which open on one side, & lead two or three hundred yards to the places, where the coal is cut out from the side 342 of the mine; but we could not see the miners at work this day, because they were employed in exercises for a solemn procession, which is intended in compliment to the queen, who is expected here the next week. This water communication from the surface of the earth to the bottom of the mine, which so prodigiously facilitates the transportation of the coal from its original dungeon to the regions of day, is an english contrivance, very recently, & very reluctantly adopted here— The further we go, & the more we see, the greater reason we have to be convinced that England is the country, where genius & science has been the most successfully applied to the improvement of the arts & manufactures.4

Before we left Berlin, we had heard a great deal of Silesian hospitality, & from our reception & treatment from the moment, when we entered the province, you will judge how amply this character is deserv’d. We have had occasion to see more of it this day— Mr Töpfer, the burgomaster of the town, to whom we had a letter of introduction, invited us this morning to breakfast with him & family, at Altwasser, a bathing place about an english mile out of the town; at which he has a country house, & according to the custom of the country, sent his carriage to take us there— It is a charming spot in a valley surrounded by hills, & in a situation, which probably contributes more than the waters to restore health to the visitors of the place. The taste of the water resembles that of Selzer water, but contains not so large a quantity of fixed air— Mr Töpfer I find, as well as all the other great linen merchants of the mountain towns, has made the experiment of opening a trade directly with America, & like all the rest, he is not satisfied with the success of his undertaking— The brothers Bollman, two of whom were here personally about two years ago, & a Mr Thun, another german merchant settled at Philadelphia, procured linens to be sent them to a very large amount, for which they have not yet made their payments.5 The returns they have made were chiefly in sugar, in coffee, & in bills payable in England, upon all which great loss has been sustained by the great failures last winter at Hamburg, & by the very low course of exchange upon London. Mr Töpfer asked me if I could recommend any mercantile houses to him, in New York, Philadelphia, or Baltimore, as perfectly sure houses to whom he could safely consign linens, & the same question has been asked me by other merchants in these towns; but I have ventured only to 343 name Mr Smith at Boston, & that without knowing whether it would be agreable to him. I will thank you to send me one, or two names of merchants in each of those towns, who do business upon consignments, & who enjoy the most firmly established credit. But let them be genuine, solid merchants, whose credit is founded upon their character for honesty, & not, as is too common in our country, upon the extravagent extent of their enterprizes— I shall likewise be obliged to you to make enquires what was the situation in point of pecuniary circumstances, of Mr Gillon of South Carolina, when he died. For he owed about £4000. sterling to Mr Hasenclever, who never could obtain the payment of it in his lifetime, & whose daughter has been equally unsuccessful in her applications for it since his decease.6

This afternoon we went to Fürstenstein, the seat of Count Hochberg, who has very large possessions in this part of the country, & to whom in particular the town of Waldenberg belongs. The seat is about a German mile distant from the town, situated in one of those beautiful & romantic spots, which are still as delightful to us to see, as I am afraid it is by this time tedious for you to hear of them— On the summit of an hill near the house, in which the count resides, are the ruins of an old castle, which have been partly rebuilt by him, & which for that reason scarcely look so venerable as those of the Kÿnast, & of Lähnhaus— This place however is so remarkable for picturesque beauty, that it is visited at all times by strangers, as one of the principal objects of curiosity in the province— At present it is doubly interesting— The day after tomorrow, the queen is expected to arrive at Fürstenberg, where she purposes to spend a couple of days— For her reception, the Count is preparing an entertainment suitable to the character of his ancient castle— On the same hill, & just below the draw bridge over the moat, which is still supposed to surround the building, the ground is measured out, & enclosed, where a carousel is to be held in honor of the great visitor— Sixteen knights, all in the costume of the feudal times, are to issue from the walls of the old castle, to go & meet the queen upon her approach, & escort her to the spot, where the exercises of arms, or rather of horsemanship are to be performed— The evening is to close with a masked ball— This afternoon, a preparatory representation (for it cannot strictly be called a rehearsal) of the whole ceremony was given, & it was necessary for us, in order to get a sight of the exhibition on Tuesday, to pay our respects previously to the Count & Countess, we took the opportunity at the same time to 344 see this trial, of which we had doubtless a much better view, than we shall have amidst the immense crouds of people, who will throng to the real show— The count & countess received & treated us with a courteousness, worthy of the real age of chivalry.7

Yesterday we took a ride in one of the common post chaises of the country to Adersback in Bohemia, which is between 3 & 4 german miles from this place. The roads have lately repaired for the accomodation of the queen, but they are still not such as we could travel with our own carriage. We passed through the small town of Friedland on our way, just beyond which are the boundaries between the two provinces. Adersback itself is a small village of no importance, but what makes it remarkable, is that near it, begins an immense range of rocks, which extend more than three german miles, & which have thrown together & loosened from each other in a manner the most extraordinary of any thing I ever beheld. Imagine to yourself a city of the first magnitude, all the buildings of which were from 150 to 400 feet high. Suppose this city to have been destroyed by fire, or by an earthquake, & to have left only fragments of the walls of its houses standing; & all the streets, lanes & houses alleys still passable; you will then have the most accurate idea of I can give you of this truly wonderful sport of nature. Many of the rocks hang together in large masses, but many of them stand singly, like one side of a house’s wall, & upon bases so excessively small in proportion to their weight, that they seem to bid defiance to the laws of gravitation. Many of them are thrown into shapes, which bear more or less resemblance to various other objects, of which the names are given for the sake of distinction. Thus there is the inverted sugar loaf, the priest, the pulpit, the kettle drums, the gallows, the chimney the bridge (which I think must resemble the natural bridge described by Mr Jefferson in his notes on Virginia) the church steeple &c—8 In the margin you have an outline of the inverted sugar loaf— In one place there is a water fall, about as high as the Zackerlefall, & at present nearly as copious. There is likewise an echo, not superior to that of the Kÿnast—

The shortness of my paper, & of my time yesterday abridged my discription of the natural ruins at Adersback, one of the most curious objects we have yet viewed upon this journey. As I was closing my letter, the king & queen passed under our windows, on their way to Furstenstein. There, a double entertainment combining the fashionable amusements of antient & modern times, a carousel & a masquerade was prepared for them.

The carousel was in a style of great splendour & magnificence. The sixteen knights, the herald and the bannerest were clad, not in 346 armour, but in the fashionable full dress of the age of Charles the fifth & Francis the first. The ceremonies were performed with rigorous accuracy according to the usages of chivalry. The exercises of the knights were in themselves nothing at all. The highest proof of skill was to take a ring, from the hand of a statue, with the point of the spear, upon an horse in full gallop. Even this, very few of them succeeded in doing. At any riding amphitheatre in Europe, or America, may be seen for half a crown the same things performed with infinitely more skill & address, but the close adherence to the forms usual in the times when knighthood was its glory; the pomp & solemnity of the representation; the contrast between the grandeur of the spectacle, & the old ruin’d walls, the relics of five centuries, & between the romantic wildness of the extensive prospect around, & the crowded thousands, who were present to see the show, all contributed to produce a pleasing effect. The four most successful knights received medals of different value proportioned to the degree of the prize they obtained. The queen hung the medals upon their necks. It was expected that after the names of the victors had been proclaimed, & the herald had thrice called out to ask, if any knight were yet disposed to dispute the prizes adjudged a strange would appear & enter the lists to renew the contest for the first medal, but this expectation was disappointed.1

The masked ball was given in the house, where the count now resides, an elegant & richly furnished modern building, which was illuminated upon the occasion. There were scarcely any masks in character, & no attempt was made by those, that were, to support them. Upon the whole it was very dull. The principal company consisted of the knights, who had performed at the carousel & their ladies; three quarters of these to say the least were dissatisfied at the issue of the day, in which as is very common on such occasions, the race was not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; for it so happened that the very best riders of the company failed in obtaining any one of the prizes. Thus the countenances in shade, & the multitude of black dominos, with unmeaning, or hideous masks, gave the whole rather the appearance of a funeral procession, than of an high festivity. We stayed not more than half an hour, & a little after midnight returned to our inn at Waldenberg.2

Yesterday afternoon we came from Waldenberg, three german miles, to this town. About half way between the two places we 347 descended from the hill upon which Fürstenstein is situated, & leaving the small town of Freyberg at our left hand, enterred upon a very extensive plain, which admirably contrasts with those mountanous regions, where we have so agreably passed about four weeks. The mountain towns properly so called are five, from four of them, Hirschberg, Schmiedeberg, Landeshut, & Waldenberg, my last letters to you are dated.3 Upon our return we hope to see the fifth, which is Greiffenberg, & is situated just upon the borders of Saxony. We have now gone through the most interesting part of our journey. The mountain towns & the mountains themselves, with their inhabitants, have a peculiar character, distinct even from that of the rest of Silesia, & much more so from the other Prussian provinces. Their distance from the sea & even from all inland navigation, secludes them from that great & continual intercourse with the rest of the world, which according to Yorick’s happy illustration, effaces the appropriate stamp, at the same time that it gives the highest polish to human characters. Accordingly we find something original & characteristic in almost every individual we meet— As their country is seldom visited by strangers, their hospitality is cordial, warm, confiding, & carried sometimes so far as would be troublesome, if gratitude could admit any thing to be troublesome, which proceeds from such good intentions. The habitual industry so general among them preserves them from that excessive poverty, & those vices, which are prevalent in some countries still more favored by nature, though even here the comfort of the great mass of the people is so much inferior to what their industry deserves, that humanity cannot contemplate their condition without a sigh of compassion. Yet they have a priviledge very unusual in the prussian dominions; a great & valuable priviledge, the worth of which they fully know, & in which they take a proper pride. It is that of having no soldiers quartered upon them; no troops in garrison. This circumstance alone would be sufficient to produce an immense difference between the character of the people here, & that of their less fortunate fellow subjects. Instead of that perpetual, unvaried & disgusting view of Idleness, & misery & vice, with the uniform on the back, & the gun in the hand, it is truly refreshing to the soul, to see towns & villages, & I might almost say the very mountain wilds teeming with active & useful labour. In consequence of this exemption too, that reverence for the military character, which the policy of the state has rendered necessary in Prussia, extends not here. To go through the exercises of a review is not considered as the most exalted of all mortal 348 accomplishments; nor is an epaulette the golden image before which all the people must prostrate themselves in sign of worship. The badges of monarchy being thus remote, & the nobility, who reside in the province having generally their houses in the country, the manners of the people in the towns have more of a republican, than a monarchical cast, & the general equality among the citizens gives them a social turn, which I have seldom seen in other parts of Germany. In every one of the towns we found some institution, of an assembly where the citizens in confortable circumstances, with their families, meet once a week, or oftener to enjoy the pleasures of conversation & social amusements.

Yet however interesting the sight of this country may be to a traveller passing through it, at this season of the year, its attractions are counterbalanced by too many inconveniences to make it an inviting place for a permanent residence. We have had ample occasion to convince ourselves that the representations of the prussian travellers in these regions, who make Saturnian times roll round again, to bless this land with innocence & happiness, are greatly exagerated to say the least. Those passions, which in the more closely accumulated societies of mankind, contribute to make human life miserable, being here confined to a narrower sphere, & applied to smaller objects are still active to make it uncomfortable. The climate is at least by ten degrees of latitude more rigorous, than that of the same parallel upon level ground. Those mountain tops, where we were regaled with refreshing breezes, are almost the whole year round swept with chilling blasts. Those trees, which now wave their verdure over the brows of the hills, three quarters of the year stretch forth their leafless branches, as if to implore the mercy of an unrelenting sky. Those fields, which now seem to exult under the burden of their fertility, six months of the twelve lie bleaching under a thick crust of snow. The transitions from heat to cold even at the fairest season, are so great, so frequent & sudden, as often to prove pernicious to the health; & scarcely any of the fruits of temperate regions here enjoy enough of the genial warmth of the sun to attain maturity. If one were to give full credit to Zöllner, the most moderate of the Prussian tourists in Silesia, one would suppose beggary to be a thing unheard of on the Silesian side of the mountains, but that the instant you set your foot into Bohemia, they swarmed round you by thousands— The superior condition of the Silesians is indeed very clearly & even strongly marked in this particular, as the beggars are certainly more numerous on the 349 Bohemian side. But even on the other, we were not fortunate enough to pass a single day without meeting more than one beggar, & the train of women & children, who followed us to the Zackenfall, gasping for a dryer, was as numerous, as that which pursued us among the ruins of Adersbach.

The accomodations for travellers upon the mountains themselves, are very miserable, but in the towns, the inns are rather above the average of public houses in Germany. Almost every where we found good butter, bread, coffee, milk & water. The water indeed which trickles down the sides of the mountains in ten thousand streams, which you pass at almost every tenth step you take, is so clear & cool, that some self controul is necessary to avoid drinking it while you are sweating under the toil of the ascent. The mountaneers however take no precautions of this kind, but freely drink from the brooks at the very moment when they are in the profusest perspiration. If I were a Physician I should perhaps enquire whether the goitres, of which we have heard so much upon the mountains of Switzerland, & which are by no means uncommon upon these, are not partly imputable to this carelessness.4

Just on this side of Freyberg upon our ride hither, we stopped & I went down into a lime pit, which was close by the side of the road. Its depth might be about 120 feet. At the same place there was formerly a quarry of marble, which is now exhausted. We saw one furnace, in which they were burning lime stone; it was in the open air; like a deep kettle sunk into the ground, upon which they lay alternately a layer of coal, & a layer of stone, which they keep thus continually burning, the whole summer through. At the bottom of the pit, were small ponds of water, which some of the workmen were employed in pumping out. There was a mashine on the top, like those used under the Adelphi buildings, to answer the same purpose.5 We saw one large block of the marble, which was formerly drawn from the quarry. It was a bluish stone, with a very small mixture of white; apparantly a marble of the most ordinary kind. The works have been carried on about thirty years.

Schweidnitz is a large & handsomely built town, containing about six thousand inhabitants with a garrison usually of about two thousand men. It is chiefly remarable as one of the three fortresses, (Silberberg & Glatz, are the two others) upon which the fate of Silesia, in the wars between Austria & Prussia, must always depend. But as the place is situated in the midst of a large plain, & has not even a navigable river running before it the place is far from strong, 350 & mere art has never yet contrived a fortification, which is not capable to subdue. Schweidnitz therefore has never been able to stand a long siege, & in the seven years war, was four times taken & retaken. The catholics in the town are in the proportion of one, to four protestants. There are four cloisters, but like most of the Silesian convents they are almost entirely without monks, or nuns; excepting one of the order of St: Ursula, where seven & twenty poor sisters bewail their virginity, & of which my wife can give a better account than I can, as the good nuns according to the rules of their order hold the male sex too much in abomination to admit any of us publickly within their walls.6

I am sorry to say that Sweidnitz is not yet ashamed to enjoy the priviledge of suffering no jews within the town. The occasion, which gave rise to this ridiculous & barbarous regulation is represented in a picture, which yet disgraces the catholic church in the town— under which is a german inscription relating the story after the catholic fashion. It relates that about the year 1450, certain jews obtained possesion of a consecrated host, which they treated with contempt & indignity—which the picture further explains by representing two of the jews as stabbing the wafer with daggers, & the wafer of course as streaming with blood— For this offence ten jews & seven of their wives were burnt at the stake, & the town was formally priviledged never again to be contaminated with the presence of a jew.7

This catholic church was first built by Bolko, the little, the last duke of Schweidnitz, & the same pious personage, whose gradations of greatness were so accurately measured upon the inscription at Grussau. It has gone through various adventures, & a singular succession of proprietors, & finally belonged to the jesuits untill the abolition of their order in 1775. It has highest steeple in all Silesia, from which there is an extensive & beautiful prospect of the wide plains, which surround the town, to the distant mountains, which look like a wall round the horizon.8

The lutheran church was one of the three, which were stipulated to be built in Silesia, by the treaty of Westphalia; the priviledge was granted upon condition that the fabric should only be of wood & plaister, which gives it on the outside the appearance of a barn. But as a compensation for this external restraint the Lutherans indulged themselves by ornamenting more profusely the inside of the church, & it is sufficiently spacious to contain a congregation of five 351 thousand persons. It assembles nearly that number in their devotions almost every sunday, to this day.—9 In general, we find the churches very well filled on Sunday, in every town, which have had an opportunity to visit at that time.

This morning the queen passed through this town on her way to Glatz. She was received with much ceremony, & a procession of twelve pretty maidens clad in white, went with an address to her & some small presents. We have spent the day here partly for the purpose of letting her majesty get so far before us, as not to deprive us of lodging place at the inns, & of post horses on the roads.

Your’s,10