César-François de Saussure Quotes

The English are very fond of a game they call cricket. For this purpose they go into a large open field, and knock a small ball about with a piece of wood. I will not attempt to describe this game to you, it is too complicated; but it requires agility and skill, and everyone plays it, the common people and also men of rank.

Englishmen are, however, very lavish in other ways. They have splendid equipages and costly apparel when required. Peers and other persons of rank are richly dressed when they go to Court, especially on gala days, when their grand coaches, with their magnificent accoutrements, are used. The lower classes are usually well dressed, wearing good cloth and linen. You never see wooden shoes in England, and the poorest individuals never go with naked feet.

All these seats [in the House of Lords] are upholstered and covered with red cloth, as are also the bales of wool, which are placed in this hall according to an ancient custom, intended to remind Parliament of the great wealth England has derived from woollen merchandise, and in order to encourage the development of this branch of her industry. The hall is hung with tapestries formerly belonging to Mary Queen of Scots, and which she is supposed to have embroidered, with the help of her ladies, during her long captivity. These tapestries are all of silk, and represent the history of the famous Spanish Armada which Philip II of Spain sent against Queen Elizabeth. This is an immense piece of work; you see the fleet sailing from the ports of Spain, its dispersal by storm, and its final destruction by the English fleet.

The curious sect of Quakers, or Shakers, arose in the troubled times when England was torn by revolutions, anarchy, and fanaticism, that is to say in the time of Cromwell. A rather crazy shoemaker's apprentice, George Fox, was the founder of this sect. It can almost be said that the Quakers form a particular nation of people, quite different from ordinary English citizens, by their language, manner of dressing, and religion. Amongst their other customs, one of which is the use of the pronoun "thou," is that of never giving any man his titles, whatever his position or worth may be, for everyone to them is but a vile earthworm inhabiting this planet for a few years. Quakers make use of a sort of Bible talk, which strikes you more particularly, as it appears to date two hundred years back, no Bible having been printed in England in the fine modern language, the earliest edition of the Holy Book being still in use.

They are most kind-hearted and compassionate, but they think they are more so than any other nation, hence the term "good-natured," which is not found outside England. Generally speaking, English people are not servile, and are not capable of baseness to obtain notoriety. ... The Englishman in general is not made for court; he is too fond of his liberty and is too sincere and artless, and he is not a flatterer. He detests trouble and restraints to such a degree that he lives according to his own taste and ideas, and does not consider that fashion is to be followed with servility. There are some people who keep so apart from fashion that in any other country they would be considered singularly odd and perhaps something more; but in this country people are above caring what is thought of them, and do not trouble themselves about other people's opinions.

I consider that cock-fights are much more diverting. The animals used are of a particular breed; they are large but short-legged birds, their feathers are scarce, they have no crests to speak of, and are very ugly to look at. Some of these fighting-cocks are celebrated, and have pedigrees like gentlemen of good family, some of them being worth five or six guineas. I am told that when transported to France they degenerate—their strength and courage disappear, and they become like ordinary cocks.

What attracts enormously in these coffee-houses are the gazettes and other public papers. All Englishmen are great newsmongers. Workmen habitually begin the day by going to coffee-rooms in order to read the latest news. I have often seen shoeblacks and other persons of that class club together to purchase a farthing paper. Nothing is more entertaining than hearing men of this class discussing politics and topics of interest concerning royalty. You often see an Englishman taking a treaty of peace more to heart than he does his own affairs.

I daresay it would interest you to hear of the style and the way Englishmen usually dress. They do not trouble themselves about dress, but leave that to their womenfolk. When the people see a well-dressed person in the streets, especially if he is wearing a braided coat, a plume in his hat, or his hair tied in a bow, he will, without doubt, be called "French dog" twenty times perhaps before he reaches his destination. This name is the most common, and evidently, according to popular idea, the greatest and most forcible insult that can be given to any man, and it is applied indifferently to all foreigners, French or otherwise. Englishmen are usually very plainly dressed, they scarcely ever wear gold on their clothes; they wear little coats called "frocks," without facings and without pleats, with a short cape above. Almost all wear small, round wigs, plain hats, and carry canes in their hands, but no swords. Their cloth and linen are of the best and finest. You will see rich merchants and gentlemen thus dressed, and sometimes even noblemen of high rank, especially in the morning, walking through the filthy and muddy streets.

The lower populace is of a brutal and insolent nature, and is very quarrelsome. Should two men of this class have a disagreement which they cannot end up amicably, they retire into some quiet place and strip from their waists upwards. Everyone who sees them preparing for a fight surrounds them, not in order to separate them, but on the contrary to enjoy the fight, for it is a great sport to the lookers-on, and they judge the blows and also help to enforce certain rules in use for this mode of warfare. The spectators sometimes get so interested that they lay bets on the combatants and form a big circle around them. The two champions shake hands before commencing, and then attack each other courageously with their fists, and sometimes also with their heads, which they use like rams. Should one of the men fall, his opponent may, according to the rules, give him a blow with his fist, but those who have laid their bets on the fallen man generally encourage him to continue till one of the combatants is quite knocked up and says he has had enough.

No Roman Catholic may occupy a post of any sort whatever. When soldiers are enrolled—and this is the case more especially with the Guards—they are made to take the oath that they are Protestants. If after enrolment any one of them should be discovered to be a Roman Catholic attending Mass he would be condemned to death.

These two parties are so opposed to each other that nothing but a real miracle could cause them to become united. Many causes contribute to this animosity, and none more than the antipathy that exists between the Anglicans and the Presbyterians, together with other Nonconformists. The latter are Whigs, and so great is their fear lest a Roman Catholic monarch powerful enough to annihilate the tolerance recognised by the laws should ascend the throne, that they uphold the Whigs with all their might. Zealous Anglicans, on the other hand, are Tories, and look upon the laws of toleration as a means by which the Presbyterians are so strengthened as possibly at some future date to place the established religion and rites in danger.

England undoubtedly is, in my opinion, the most happily governed country in the world. She is governed by a King whose power is limited by wise and prudent laws, and by Parliament, this being composed of lords spiritual and temporal in one house and of the people's deputies in the other. The King cannot levy any new taxes, neither can he abolish privileges or make new laws without the consent of Parliament. He cannot order the imprisonment or execution of any individual, neither can he confiscate lands or property—all this according to the laws of the kingdom. The King may, on the other hand, and without consulting Parliament, declare war and make peace, send ambassadors to foreign courts, and call together meetings of Parliament.

Peers of the realm are executed by beheading; their heads are placed on the block and severed with a hatchet. Women who have murdered their husbands are put to death in what I consider to be an unjust way: they are condemned to be burned alive. Men who murder their wives are only hanged, but the English say that any person guilty of treason, that is to say of murdering those to whom they owe faith and allegiance, must be punished in an exemplary and terrible fashion. Such would be the case of a woman murdering her husband, a slave or servant his master, a clerk his bishop, and, in short, any person who is guilty of the death of his lord and superior.

One may say that there is cruelty and even ferocity in some of the pastimes of the people. Occasionally dogs are made to fight, and sometimes men belabour each other with wicker staves, or kill cocks with blows from a club.

English workmen are everywhere renowned, and that justly. They work to perfection, and though not inventive, are capable of improving and of finishing most admirably what the French and Germans have invented.