ich I had received great benefit the preceding winter: but I had
many inducements to leave England. My wife earnestly begged I would
convey her from a country where every object served to nourish her
grief: I was in hopes that a succession of new scenes would engage her
attention, and gradually call off her mind from a series of painful
reflections; and I imagined the change of air, and a journey of near a
thousand miles, would have a happy effect upon my own constitution.
But, as the summer was already advanced, and the heat too excessive for
travelling in warm climates, I proposed staying at Boulogne till the
beginning of autumn, and in the mean time to bathe in the sea, with a
view to strengthen and prepare my body for the fatigues of such a long
journey.

A man who travels with a family of five persons, must lay his account
with a number of mortifications; and some of these I have already
happily overcome. Though I was well acquainted with the road to Dover,
and made allowances accordingly, I could not help being chagrined at
the bad accommodation and impudent imposition to which I was exposed.
These I found the more disagreeable, as we were detained a day
extraordinary on the road, in consequence of my wife's being indisposed.

I need not tell you this is the worst road in England with respect to
the conveniences of travelling, and must certainly impress foreigners
with an unfavourable opinion of the nation in general. The chambers are
in general cold and comfortless, the beds paultry, the cookery
execrable, the wine poison, the attendance bad, the publicans insolent,
and the bills extortion; there is not a drop of tolerable malt liquor
to be had from London to Dover.

Every landlord and every waiter harangued upon the knavery of a
publican in Canterbury, who had charged the French ambassador forty
pounds for a supper that was not worth forty shillings. They talked
much of honesty and conscience; but when they produced their own bills,
they appeared to be all of the same family and complexion. If it was a
reproach upon the English nation, that an innkeeper should pillage
strangers at that rate; it is a greater scandal, that the same fellow
should be able to keep his house still open. I own, I think it would be
for the honour of the kingdom to reform the abuses of this road; and in
particular to improve the avenue to London by the way of Kent-Street,
which is a most disgraceful entrance to such an opulent city. A