he rate of five per
cent. for all the bed and table linen which they bring into the
kingdom, even though it has been used. When my trunks arrived in a ship
from the river Thames, I underwent this ordeal: but what gives me more
vexation, my books have been stopped at the bureau; and will be sent to
Amiens at my expence, to be examined by the chambre syndicale; lest
they should contain something prejudicial to the state, or to the
religion of the country. This is a species of oppression which one
would not expect to meet with in France, which piques itself on its
politeness and hospitality: but the truth is, I know no country in
which strangers are worse treated with respect to their essential
concerns. If a foreigner dies in France, the king seizes all his
effects, even though his heir should be upon the spot; and this tyranny
is called the droit d'aubaine founded at first upon the supposition,
that all the estate of foreigners residing in France was acquired in
that kingdom, and that, therefore, it would be unjust to convey it to
another country. If an English protestant goes to France for the
benefit of his health, attended by his wife or his son, or both, and
dies with effects in the house to the amount of a thousand guineas, the
king seizes the whole, the family is left destitute, and the body of
the deceased is denied christian burial. The Swiss, by capitulation,
are exempted from this despotism, and so are the Scots, in consequence
of an ancient alliance between the two nations. The same droit
d'aubaine is exacted by some of the princes in Germany: but it is a
great discouragement to commerce, and prejudices every country where it
is exercised, to ten times the value of what it brings into the coffers
of the sovereign.

I am exceedingly mortified at the detention of my books, which not only
deprives me of an amusement which I can very ill dispense with; but, in
all probability, will expose me to sundry other inconveniencies. I must
be at the expence of sending them sixty miles to be examined, and run
the risque of their being condemned; and, in the mean time, I may lose
the opportunity of sending them with my heavy baggage by sea to
Bourdeaux, to be sent up the Garonne to Tholouse, and from thence
transmitted through the canal of Languedoc to Cette, which is a
sea-port on the Mediterranean, about three or four leagues from
Montpelier.

For the recovery of my books, I had recourse to the advice of my
landlord, Mo