r weight. Whatever you bring over that is liable to pay
duty at the custom-house, if you take it back with you on your return to
England, on producing the articles and the receipt of what you have
paid, you can reclaim whatever you have disbursed; this particularly
applies to carriages and to plate, only you must not neglect to demand a
receipt at the time you pay, and to take care of it, as I have known
many instances of persons losing them, and then their reclamations are
useless. I have never found them very severe in the custom-houses in
France, but am convinced that the best plan on both sides of the water
is to give your keys to the commissioner of the inn where you put up; by
displaying no anxiety on the subject, the officers conclude that you
have not any thing of importance, and will pass your things over more
lightly than if you were present, as when witnesses are by they like to
preserve the appearance of doing their duty strictly. I have seen some
of the English bluster and go in a passion about having their things
tumbled about, as they expressed it, but it only makes matters worse. I
have known the searchers in those cases to turn a large chest completely
topsy-turvy, so that not a single article has escaped examination, and
the whole has had to be re-packed. It is at best an unpleasant tax upon
travellers, but it is always better policy to submit to it with a good
grace.

The passport is a grievance which is much complained of by Englishmen,
and certainly it does appear an infraction on liberty, that it should
not be possible to go from one part of the country to another, without
having to obtain permission; but it has other advantages: a criminal in
France can very seldom escape; by the regulations of the police it is
almost impossible for them to evade detection, as wherever he sleeps his
passport must be produced, and every master or mistress of every
description of lodging-house is bound to give an account of whatever
stranger sleeps under their roof, to the police, and their officers; or
the gendarmes, are authorised to demand the sight of the passport of any
person whom they may suspect. In England a passport is not so
necessary, because being an island the means of escape are not so easy,
as they must either embark at some port or they must hire a boat on
their own account, or enter into some proceeding which leads to
discovery; and notwithstanding those obstacles to leaving the country,
and the ex