The public shall be my confessor.—In the summer of last year, whilst the larger portion of the civilized world was anxiously awaiting the result of our sincere negotiations for a peace, which, alas! the crafty ministers of Napoleon, never intended should be other than mere “romans politiques,” the desire of contemplating a country, and a race of people to me entirely new, induced me to trespass upon their shore. I resolved upon visiting Holland, although in a state of reluctant war with my own country, of a war which yet permitted to her commerce a few stolen embraces with that of England, which forced many a pursy Dutchman to lament the separation, and in the narcotic atmosphere of his consoling pipe, to wish for better times. In gratifying my wishes, I was guilty of assuming a character respected in every country, as well for its being most wisely and profitably at peace with all the world, as for its integrity and enterprize: I became an American, and by an act of temporary adoption, fixed upon Baltimore in North America as the place of my nativity. A fortunate correspondence in the personal description, except a slight variation, not easily discoverable, relating to my face and age, enabled a friend of mine, a legitimate American, to accommodate me with his passport, which after all I might as well have left behind me, so kindly are the Hollanders disposed towards us.
