Here are several manufactories of excellent lace and many breweries, but the beer is considered as greatly inferior to that of Louvain.  The houses are spacious, and exhibit singular specimens of ancient taste; the roofs rise to a great height and terminate in a sharp point.  Their walls are generally of an excessive whiteness.  The tower of the cathedral is highly finished, and rises to a vast height.  There being little to detain me here, Malines being more remarkable for what it once was, than for what it now is, I continued my way to Antwerp along an excellent paved road, lined by avenues of trees, which are often so cut (the Dutch differing from the Minorquins, who never prune a tree, saying, that nature knows best how it should grow) as not to be at all ornamental, and in some places cannot be said to afford either “from storms a shelter, or from heat a shade.”  In that state, however unnatural, they answer the intention of their planters, by marking the course of the road in the snowy season, without excluding the air from it in the wet weather, prevalent in autumn.

Antwerp is one of the most celebrated cities of Europe, and although its present situation is far from comparable with its former celebrity, yet it has revived greatly of late years; and the events which have restored to these provinces their independence, will, no doubt, fill with the vessels of all trading nations those docks, which were constructed by the French Government at such incredible expence, and with far different views than the encouragement of commercial speculations.  The canals by which these docks communicate with Bruges and Ostend, that the navy of Napoleon might run no risks by passing on the high seas, are vast works, which must have cost enormous sums of money.  The Scheld is here about half the width of the Thames at Westminster; but Antwerp is above fifty miles from its mouth.  Its depth is very considerable; and such was at one period the commerce of Antwerp, that not less than 2000 vessels annually entered its port.  The present population of this city is stated at 60,000.  There are manufactures of lace, silk, chocolate, and extensive establishments for refining sugar.  The export of the productions of the fruitful district which surrounds the city is very considerable.  Nothing proves more strongly the riches of these provinces, than the short period in which they recover the evils of a campaign; and it was their fertility in grain, which principally rendered them of such importance to the French government.  During the late scarcity in France, the crops succeeded tolerably well here; and Buonaparte obliged the inhabitants of Belgium to supply France at a price which he fixed himself, and by which they lost considerably.