A Tour Through the Batavian Republic/Letter XI
LETTER XI.
Amsterdam, November, 1800.
A coach being procured for us, we ordered, the driver to take us to the Star in the Ness, an hotel to which we had been recommended. The house, however, was shut up, and we left it to the discretion of the coachman to conduct us to another hotel. — We could not describe to him the kind of accommodations which we wanted, and he took us to an inn which is distinguished by the singular name of the English Bible.
We could not have alighted at a worse. — The house, landlady, and servants, were dirty to the last degree; and but that they spoke English very imperfectly, and the furniture and apartments were Dutch, I could have conceived myself to be in a Wapping tavern. This was extremely disgusting to us, after the neatness and propriety to which we had been accustomed, with only one exception, the village of Overschie, since our release from ship-board.
The inns of Holland, with proper allowance for the unavoidable dirt and confusion which a succession of guests occasions, are highly to be commended for their neatness and cleanliness, interior as well as external: the servants too of the hotels, particularly the females, are neat, in their persons; and there is a modest propriety in their manners, which I have seldom met with in the domestics of an English inn. I prefer them for other good qualities which they possess. Their deportment to strangers is attentive, without any mixture of servility; they are obliging without obsequiousness, and respectful without cringing. The servants of an inn, from the multiplicity of their masters, and the immediate interest which they have in gratifying the persons whom they serve, generally possess less of the dignity of manhood, than any other menials. But of this fault the Dutch waiters are not to be accused: they discharge all the offices of their situation without being degraded by it: their civility never deviates into meanness, nor does their attention to avoid servility degenerate into rudeness,
The condition of servants in general throughout the United Provinces is much superior to that of the same useful class of people in England. This difference, to the honour of Holland, arises from the simple, unostentatious manners of the nation, and its republican constitution, which, though vitiated and diseased in its legislative and executive powers, ought to be reverenced for its effects on the private and domestic institutions of life. The abolition of the use of liveries has destroyed an invidious mark of distinction between the master and the servant, without abridging the former of any of his proper authority, or furnishing the latter with any excuse for insolence. The treatment of female servants in Holland is remarkably kind and humane; unless for sufficient grounds of removal, they generally continue in a family for a number of years, and are considered rather as humble members of it, than as domestics. The regularity with which the Dutch live, renders the labours of their servants comparatively easy, from the circumstance that as they are acquainted with the whole of the daily work which they have to perform, so they are enabled to execute it in a manner most convenient to themselves. In houses where there are more servants than one, once a week, the seventh day is allotted in rotation to each for pleasure and recreation; and they are allowed the same privilege at fair times, which are frequent in Holland, and public festivals.
The evening was too far advanced to remove from the English Bible to search for another lodging, we were obliged therefore to endure with patience its inconveniences. That we might pass, however, as little time as possible in a disagreeable situation, we went to the French comédie, the only place of public entertainment which was open. The performances were "Les Dangers de l'Absence, ou le Souper de Famille," a sentimental comedy in two tedious acts; and "La Caravage du Caire," a pleasant operatical ballet in three acts, with excellent music, by Grétry. The French theatre is small, but neat, and the scenery and decorations are tasteful. The audience was rather numerous, compared with the attendance of spectators which we had seen at the Dutch playhouses. There was not indeed much company in the boxes, but the pit was nearly filled, and the gallery appeared crowded. Each bench of the pit had a rail to the back of it, a convenience which I have before commended in the Dutch theatres. Persons of the greatest respectability and opulence in Holland do not think it unworthy of their dignity or fortunes to sit in the pit of the theatre, and they dress equally well for that part of the house as for the boxes. Most of the ladies in the pit, advanced in life, wore an astonishing quantity of diamonds. A lapidary might speak of their brilliancy and water, their size and value; but I can only fay that the profusion of precious stones was immense. A lady who sat near us wore a necklace composed of three rows of large diamonds, bracelets, and head pins equally superb; diamond ear-rings, and buckles; and on her fingers rings without number. I will not hazard any computation of what the ornament of her dress might be worth. Her jewels were set in an old-fashioned substantial style, and had probably been in the possession of her family a century and a half. I particularise the ornaments of this person's dress because we sat near her, but there were other ladies in the pit of the theatre to all appearance equally superbly and expensively habited.
The carriage which took us to and from the theatre was a coach fastened on a sledge, and drawn by a single horse. The driver walks by the side of the coach, with a whip and reins in his hand, and guides the machine whenever it turns an abrupt corner. These vehicles are common in Amsterdam, and to be hired at half the price that is required for a carriage which runs on wheels. The magistrates of Amsterdam are careful to license few wheeled coaches, on account of the insubstantiality of the foundations of the city, which they think would be shaken and injured, were many such carriages permitted to be driven about the streets. The motion of a sledge coach is slow and jolting, if the pavement be not good, which often happens, and few strangers find them an agreeable mode of conveyance. If the drivers are not careful, they may easily be overturned, but the carriages are placed so near the ground that bad consequences can seldom happen from accidents of that kind. Returning from the theatre our driver carried a flambeau with him; an useless appendage, for the greets of Amsterdam are well lighted; but his motive was to make an additional charge. The whole demand, however, was extremely reasonable, if compared with the rates of hackney coaches in London. Including the time we were at the theatre, the sledge was engaged by us about four hours, and the fare amounted only to a florin, or twenty pence English. The driver demanded and received a gratuity, but he was satisfied with, and thankful for, a moderate donation.
We waited on the municipality at the stadthouse in the morning to have our passports examined. The gentlemen to whom this office belonged behaved to us with a politeness so unusual to persons in their situations, that I should be sorry not to mention it. They scarcely perused the description of our persons which the passports contained, but enquiring how long it was probable we should remain in Amsterdam, they affixed the necessary certificate of inspection to our papers, and in the most obliging terms hoped that our residence in their city would prove agreeable. Judging of the customs of other nations from a country where the fees of office are exorbitant, and the clerks insolent and rapacious, I was surprised at the politeness of the Dutch, and that we had nothing to pay for the inspection of our passports. Those who are acquainted with the municipal government of London will readily account for my surprise.
Our business with the municipality being dispatched, we waited on General d'Henisdal, the French commandant of Amsterdam, to deliver to him the recommendation with which we were favoured by General Chorié. He received us with much civility; and on our representing to him the badness of our accommodations at the English Bible, he carried us to the Doele on the Cingel, one of the best hotels in Amsterdam, where we are at present lodged. It is kept by a widow, whose good-humoured features, and obliging manners, are extremely agreeable. It is happy for the mistress of an hotel, who has occasion so often to dress her face with smiles, when nature has furnished her with a pleasing countenance; a forced smile from a set of features gloomy and lowering like the approaches of a winter's storm, carries with it to me something inconceivably disgusting.
The stadthouse of Amsterdam is one of the first curiosities of the city, which a stranger is anxious to visit. It is undoubtedly one of the most magnificent buildings in the world, as well for beauty of architecture, elegance of decoration, and the vast space of ground which it covers. The first pile which supports the foundation of this house was driven into the ground January the 20th, 1648, and by the 6th of October in the same year thirteen thousand six hundred and ninety-five, the aggregate number of massy trees on which the building rests, were driven into the morass. The first stone, with a suitable inscription, was then laid,' and seven years afterwards, the different colleges of magistrates took possession in state of the apartments designed for their several uses. The principal architect was John Van Kampen, who was assisted or controlled by four burgomasters of the city; and the expence of the whole, as estimated by various authors, amounted to two millions sterling.
To describe the various apartments which the stadthoufe contains — the chamber of the burgomasters, the treasury, the secretary's office, the hall for petty causes, the great hall of justice, the chamber of domains, of insurance, of orphans, the counsel-room, the offices of the bank, the citizens'-hall, &c. &c. — were a task of too great magnitude for a tourist to undertake, with any reasonable expectation that he could competently execute it. A few apartments, however, may without impropriety be noticed. The hall where criminals are brought to receive sentence is on the basement floor of the stadthoufe, and is decorated with basso-relievos analogous to the use to which it is dedicated. In one compartment is represented the story of Junius Brutus putting his sons to death; in another, Zaleucus; the Locrian king, tearing out an eye to preserve one for his son, who by his father's law was condemned to lose both for the crime of adultery; and in a third, the judgment of Solomon. The head of Bellona beneath the Roman story is of sculpture that would do honour to a Grecian chissel. I must not omit to mention a figure of silence, represented as a woman seated on the ground; with a finger on her mouth, and two children weeping over a death's head. This chamber contains also allegorical figures of punishment, and axes, fasces, and chains, the instruments of tyranny or justice. When sentence of death is to be pronounced on a criminal, he is brought guarded into this hall, the magistrates of the city appear in a gallery above, dressed in their robes of ceremony, and nothing is neglected which can contribute to the solemnity of the aweful scene. I am satisfied of the inexpediency of the punishment of death, if I may use the term, of its unlawfulness; when, however, nothing but the death of a criminal will appease the tribunal which arraigns him, every circumstance of solemnity should be given to this dreadful act of legislative vengeance. If the intention of punishments be, what lawyers maintain it is[1], not to inflict pain on the criminal, but to provide for the public security by shewing the consequences of offending, no auxiliary ought to be wanting to the spectacle which can inspire the spectators with awe. The manner of passing sentence of death in Holland is dignified, solemn, and impressive: it must on reflection appear strikingly so to a person who has seen condemnations at the Old Bailey, where sometimes a dozen wretches are crowded into a box to be told, in a style little reverent or awful, that the law sendees them to be hanged.The great hall of the stadthouse is used as a promenade by the persons whom business draws to the public offices. The brass gates by which it is entered are of wonderful beauty and solidity of execution. At one end of the hall is elevated a figure of Atlas, bearing on his shoulders the globe, and attended by Wisdom and Vigilance. On the roof, Amsterdam is represented as a woman richly habited, and surrounded by the deities of the heathen mythology. Neptune presents her with a crown, Mercury offers her a sceptre, and Cybele her keys. On the floor of this hall the celestial and terrestrial globes are delineated with brass and various coloured marbles; but the feet of the multitudes who daily walk, here, have nearly effaced the signs of the heavens and the divisions of the earth.
In the burgomaster's chamber is a beautiful picture by Ferdinand Bol, representing Fabricius in the camp of Pyrrhus, and another of Curius at his frugal repast. The council-chamber is adorned with a large picture of Moses and the seventy Elders of Israel, by Brankhorst; and Solomon, by Flink, an artist whom I have formerly praised, devoutly asking of Heaven the inestimable gift of wisdom. The marble chimney-pieces of this apartment are ornamented with some exquisitely sculptured historical basso-relievos; and over the doors are some pleasing imitations of basso-relievos, by J. de Wit, the artist who decorated with similar productions the great eating-room at the House in the Wood.
An apartment very unworthy of their transcendent excellence, contains a large picture, by B. Vanderhelst, of the feast given by the burgomasters of Amsterdam to the ambassadors of Spain, on account of the peace of Munster; a pacification which sheathed the sword that had for eighty years desolated the Netherlands: and a similar subject by Vandyke; for the head of an old man, in which piece, the sum of seven thousand florins was offered. I endeavoured to discover some extraordinary merit in the head, to justify the price which was offered for it to be cut out, but without success. I saw it twice, and failed both times. A vast repository of beauties, like the stadthouse of Amsterdam, where there is much to admire in the nobleness of the building, and the elegance of the decorations, surcharges the mind with objects, and the judgment is proportionally weakened as it is extensively exercised. To the circumstance, then, that my judgment was enfeebled by the multiplicity of objects which had engaged it, is probably to be attributed my not being able to discern in Vandyke's greyheaded old man the singular excellence for which it is praised by connoisseurs. The same apartment contains pictures by Rubens, Otho Venius, and Jordaans: but the two which I have noticed are the best.
The tower, or steeple, of the stadthouse is visited by strangers, on account of the carillons, or musical chimes, which it contains. These play every quarter of an hour some different airs; and three times a week at noon a carilloneur attends to play on the bells, for the amusement of the citizens of Amsterdam. Throughout Holland, the most difficult tunes are executed on the bells with a precision that is astonishing. The chief fault of this species of music is, that the sound of one note, for the want of stops, is confounded with the found of another; and when the chimes are out of order, which often happens, from the complexity of the tunes which they play, an unpleasant discord is produced. The labour of a carilloneur is so severe, that after he has performed an hour, he is generally obliged to go to bed; and even in winter, he plays, or rather works, in his shirt.
On the ground-floor of the stadthouse is the prison of the city for capital offenders, and apartments of detention for debtors. The latter did not amount to thirty; and the number of felons in this place of confinement, or rather I ought to say of persons suspected of felony, for none of them had been tried, was five. I saw but one of the felons' cells, which I believe was a fair specimen of the rest, in which two persons were confined. It was airy, clean, and spacious, and the persons who inhabited it seemed 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 been treated, at the most critical and alarming periods, with the utmost tenderness and lenity. How honourable is this account to the government of Holland, when compared with the treatment of the state prisoners in England! The government of no country can be supposed to entertain a personal animosity against thieves and felons, their treatment, therefore, almost invariably proceeds from circumstances for which the executive power cannot be praised or censured; but if the executive power, where itself is intimately concerned, proceeds against individuals suspected of state crimes with inordinate severity, rigour, and harshness, incarcerating them in noxious cells, secluding them from all intercourse with their friends, and treating their well-founded remonstrances with insolence (the insolence of office and authority acting illegally), it may readily and with certainty be concluded, that such measures are pursued, not to answer the ends of public justice, but to gratify personal resentments, or party animosities.The debtors' apartments were less neat and orderly than the felons, and I felt a disagreeable smell of gin and tobacco. The men were dirty in their persons, and extremely clamorous for charity. What their allowance was from their creditors I could not precisely learn, it varying according to circumstances; but I understood it was an allowance in money, and as the rates were fixed when all the articles of life were much cheaper than they at present are, the debtors find it a very inadequate support.
The small number of prisoners for debt in Amsterdam is the happy result of the excellent laws of Holland respecting creditors and debtors. No person can be arrested for debt who has not been regularly summoned three times, with the interval of fourteen days between each summons; and six weeks further must elapse from the last official notification and demand of the debt, before the creditor is permitted to arrest, or seize the effects of, the insolvent person. By this indulgent mode of procedure, debtors are generally enabled either fully to settle their affairs, or liberally to compromise with their creditors, so that few are sent to prison on account of the embarrassment of their circumstances.
A man may not be arrested in his own house in Holland, or even standing at the door of it, though all the previous citations should have been made; and should his wife be lying-in, he is humanely privileged, during the period of her illness, to go abroad without any molestation from his creditors or bailiffs.
There are some exceptions to these benevolent rules, regarding bills of exchange; debts due to the government, as taxes, duties, or fines; and house-rent, when the arrears exceed four quarters. It appears, however, from the small number of debtors confined in Amsterdam, that in few cases are the laws against insolvent persons very rigorously applied. An inferior court, composed of intelligent and upright citizens, has a power to determine small claims; and by means of this tribunal much expensive litigation is prevented. Its decisions are absolute, and they are merciful and equitable. It would be found, I believe, on examination, that nearly one third of the amount of the sums for which persons are confined in the various prisons of England, has arisen from the dreadful expence of law proceedings; — an evil of destructive magnitude, which the wise policy of the Dutch has carefully guarded against.
The number of criminals in the prison of the stadthouse of Amsterdam, forms a pleasing panegyric on the morals of the inhabitants of that great city, or the vigilance of the police. Since the year ninety-fix, a period of the greatest national calamity, which has been most severely felt by the lower orders of society, only three criminals have suffered by the hand of the executioner. The yearly average of executions for London and Middlesex exceeds forty[2] a lamentable proof of the sanguinary spirit of the English laws, or the dissolute manners of the nation. In some of the United Provinces, the barbarous spectacle of a public execution has not occurred within a century; and the average of malefactors who in that period have suffered at Amsterdam, is less than one victim a year devoted to appease the indignation of offended laws. How amiable and enlightened is this policy, compared with the profuse waste of human life by the English courts of justice! At different times, the British legislature has deliberately pronounced one hundred and sixty crimes to be worthy of the punishment of death[3]. It may safely be affirmed, that so sanguinary a code does not disgrace the institutions of any other nation or period.
On the ground-floor of the stadthouse also are the strong apartments which formerly contained the immense treasures of the bank of Amsterdam, and the offices for conducting the concerns of that opulent establishment. I shall hereafter more particularly notice the bank of Amsterdam, and its condition to fulfil its engagement with its creditors, when the French became masters of Holland, and discovered to the world the pecuniary resources of this celebrated commercial institution. A small number of clerks are still employed in the offices of the bank, to receive the voluminous claims of its creditors. On the restoration of peace, its advantages to the mercantile world will probably cause it, with proper modifications, to be revived, and under honest and upright direction, it may again become an useful and respectable institution.
The external appearance of the stadthouse is noble and grand; and certainly it is in every respect worthy of the opulent city, for the accommodation of which it was erected. The entrance, by seven small gates, has been censured as mean for so magnificent a building, and undoubtedly an elegant portal would have been more congenial to the architecture of the whole. But here security was preferred to beauty. The burgomasters who superintended the building of the stadthouse, considering that the treasures of the bank, the archives of the city, and the documents of the public offices, would be lodged in it; and knowing the turbulence and instability of the populace of Amsterdam; thought that seven small gates could be more easily defended than a large one, if, in case of a popular sedition, the mob attacked the stadthouse with a view to plunder its treasures, or by the destruction of the records which it contained, to involve the country in ruin and confusion.
The top of the stadthouse is ornamented with several noble statues, one of which, a colossal figure of Atlas, with a copper globe of immense size on his shoulders, is of remarkably fine execution. The attitude of the figure is striking, and the whole conception of the piece grand. It may not be improper in this place to mention, that the finest pieces of sculpture which ornament the stadthouse of Amsterdam, are from the chissel of Artus Quellinus, a statuary of Antwerp, a city more eminent for the celebrated artists which it has produced, than for the riches and commerce which it formerly enjoyed.
In the square before the stadthouse, is elevated on a pole, or rather mast, almost: an hundred feet high, the hat of Batavian liberty. The mast is painted with the national colours, red, white, and blue; and towards the top it is ornamented with artificial foliage of the palm-tree. The base of the pole assumes somewhat the form of a column, and figures, painted on boards, of Liberty, Justice, Independence, &c. are attached to it. As in other places of Holland, the tree of liberty was found not to flourish here, and therefore it was thought necessary to rear a mast, conspicuously to display the emblem of Dutch freedom.
The space before the stadthouse, or the dam as it is called, is disgraced with a mean erection, the custom-house of the city. It is a small, miserable building, and furnishes a stranger, who has seen the spacious and magnificent edifices for the collection of revenue in London, with very humble ideas of the commerce of Amsterdam. There was not a throng of persons about it, though at a time of the day when business is usually transacted: but I saw a considerable quantity of merchandise, which was brought to be examined, and weighed. I should mention that this is the principal, but there are two more custom-houses in Amsterdam, at convenient distances, for the facility of trade.
- ↑ Ut poena ad paucos, metus ad omnes perveniat.
Cicero.
Tully, with his generous love of liberty, was too often an advocate. Lawyers constantly declare that punishments are not inflicted by way of expiation or atonement for a crime committed, but as a precaution against future offences. — This has been the language of English lawyers from the days of Bracton to the present hour. - ↑ From December 1783, to December 1783 (vide Howard's Works, vol. 2.), the number of executions in London and Middlesex amounted to 324, which gives an average of about sixty-five persons yearly suffering by the hand of the executioner. The average of the twelve preceding years gives thirty-nine convicts annually hanged. If the amount be taken for seventeen years, from 1771 to 1788, the average is rather more than forty-seven executions a year. Since that period the number of persons annually hanged may safely be averaged at forty. The war, by furnishing a number of turbulent, ill-disposed, or necessitous persons, with employment in the army or navy, has abridged the yearly labours of the public executioner.
- ↑ Such was the estimate of Blackstone, a man by no means disposed to represent the laws of England in an unfavourable light, in 1769. Since that period, scarcely a sessions of parliament has been held, in which the punishment of death has not been enacted against offences, which, before, a slighter punishment was thought sufficient to coerce. The number has therefore been much increased, and it is greatly to be feared that not less than two hundred crimes are enrolled on this bloody dialogue.