his knowledge), compelling him to pass the night at their chateau.  On my making some remark as to the urbanity of the French, “Oh! don’t think,” he exclaimed, “that I am praising them as a nation, for I hate them; I only speak of facts as they happened.”  I then asked him how he was treated at the inns in the different provinces, and whether he was much imposed upon.  “I cannot say I was,” he replied, “or in any instance that I had reason to complain of my treatment.”

From this gentleman’s account of the reception he had met with in France, would not any rational being have imagined that he would speak well of the French? instead of which, I soon had the most powerful proofs to the contrary.  When we arrived at Dieppe we found a party assembled at the table d’hote, at the hotel at which we alighted, consisting of a few French but, more of English; the former left the room as soon as the cloth was withdrawn, and the latter remaining, the conversation became general and very patriotic; and as the merits of England and the English rose in the discussion, so did the demerits of France and the French sink, and at last bumpers were drank to old England for ever, in which we all joyously joined.  This was all very natural and proper, but this ebullition of national and praiseworthy feeling had hardly subsided, when Mr. Lewis, the very man who had admitted that he had been received with kindness and hospitality wherever he had been in France, arose, and said, “Now, gentlemen, I have another toast to propose to you, which I hope will be drank with the same enthusiasm as the last; so “Here’s a curse for France and the French.”  All immediately drank it but myself and an elderly gentleman, who declared he would not invoke a curse upon any land or any people.  A silent pause intervened; every one appeared to look at the other, as to how they ought to act on their toast being refused, none caring to assume the initiative.  At last, one rising from his chair, who perhaps began to view the affair temperately, observed, “Well, I think we had better see about the packet-boat for Brighton before it is too late,” and they all quitted the room, except the elderly gentlemen and myself, and he did certainly animadvert most severely against what he termed their unchristianlike toast.  Although it was impossible for me, feeling as I did, otherwise than to agree with him on the principal points of his argument, yet I observed that we might hope that it was merely in words that the gentlemen would evince the violence of their prejudices, as I felt convinced, from the general amiability of character so apparent in the person who proposed the toast, that if he saw a Frenchman in danger of his life, and that an exertion could save him, that Mr. Lewis would use every effort to preserve a human being from destruction, whatever might be his country.