Peregrine in France

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Bromet William. Peregrine in France

PREFACE

LETTER I

LETTER II

LETTER III

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The friend who has ventured to send these letters to the press feels it necessary to state, in apology for the insufficiency of such a trifle to meet the public eye, that they are actually published without the knowledge of Peregrine (who is still abroad) and chiefly with the view of giving copies to the numerous friends by whom he is so justly regarded. The editor, therefore, relying on the indulgence of those friends, humbly also deprecates the stranger critic's censure, both for poor Peregrine and himself.

Arrived safely at this interesting metropolis, I take the earliest opportunity of relieving the affectionate anxiety you expressed over our parting glass, by the assurance that I have happily escaped all the evils prognosticated by some of our acquaintance from a journey at this inclement season.

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There are some striking views about Boulogne, which English travellers hurrying to and from the capital rarely stop to look at. The heights were every where bristled with cannon and mortars during the war, and the forts are very strong by art and nature: the approach to the harbour was therefore truly formidable when the republican flag waved on this iron-bound coast. This port is very ancient: it was here the Romans are said to have embarked for Britain, and the remains of a tower, built by them in the reign of Caligula, are still shewn. The harbour is also interesting from having been the rendezvous for the flotilla, which idly threatened to pour the imperial legions on our happy shores. Of this vaunted flotilla, consisting once of 2000 vessels, scarcely a wreck remains!

Our gallant tars always heartily despised this Lilliputian armada, unsupported by ships of force, which Boulogne and the ports near it are incapable of admitting. The harbour here being almost dry at low water, the French, in one tide, could only have got about 100 of their puny vessels into the outer roads, where, while waiting for the rest, they would have been equally exposed to destruction by our vigilant cruisers, or by a gale at N.W. Nevertheless our enterprising government, in the spring of 1804, was induced to send over, at no small cost, an expedition of several vessels, having each in their interior an immense mass of large stones clamped and cemented together, which artificial rocks (the wooden exterior being set on fire) were intended to be sunk at the mouth of the harbour and channels near it, and thus to block up the poor republican gun-boats for ever.

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