e II. Of The Printed Books]

Providence, Dec. 20, 1793.

"All places that are visited by the eye of Heaven, are to the wise man
happy havens." If Shakspeare's philosophy be orthodox, the French have,
it must be confessed, many claims to the reputation of a wise people; and
though you know I always disputed their pretensions to general gaiety,
yet I acknowledge that misfortune does not deprive them of the share they
possess, and, if one may judge by appearances, they have at least the
habit, more than any other nation, of finding content under situations
with which it should seem incompatible. We are here between six and
seven hundred, of all ages and of all ranks, taken from our homes, and
from all that usually makes the comfort of life, and crowded together
under many of the inflictions that constitute its misery; yet, in the
midst of all this, we fiddle, dress, rhyme, and visit as ceremoniously as
though we had nothing to disturb us. Our beaux, after being correctly
frizz'd and powdered behind some door, compliment the belle just escaped
from a toilet, performed amidst the apparatus of the kitchen; three or
four beds are piled one upon another to make room for as many
card-tables; and the wits of the prison, who are all the morning
employed in writing doleful placets to obtain their liberty, in the
evening celebrate the loss of it in bout-rimees and acrostics.

I saw an ass at the _Corps de Garde_ this morning laden with violins and
music, and a female prisoner seldom arrives without her complement of
bandboxes.--Embarrassed, stifled as we are by our numbers, it does not
prevent a daily importation of lap-dogs, who form as consequential a part
of the community in a prison, as in the most superb hotel. The faithful
valet, who has followed the fortunes of his master, does not so much
share his distresses as contribute to his pleasure by adorning his
person, or, rather, his head, for, excepting the article of
hair-dressing, the beaux here are not elaborate. In short, there is an
indifference, a frivolity, in the French character, which, in
circumstances like the present, appears unaccountable. But man is not
always consistent with himself, and there are occasions in which the
French are nothing less than philosophers. Under all these externals of
levity, they are a very prudent people, and though they seem to bear
with infinite fortitude many of the evils of life, there are some in
which their sensibility