The numerous pamphlets that appear every day for and against these two political parties is certainly a means of maintaining and augmenting animosity… - César-François de Saussure

I think that it is principally owing to this sect that Sunday is solemnised as it is in England. During the Commonwealth Cromwell, who was a Presbyterian, severely forbade shows or amusements of any kind, as well as concerts and games. All these are still forbidden, and on Sundays you never hear the sound of music. There is no opera, no comedy, no sounds in the streets. Card-playing on this day is also strictly forbidden, at least for the citizens and common people, for persons of rank, I believe, do not scruple to play. Unfortunately a great number of the people divert themselves in the taverns, and there indulge in debauch.

Would you believe it, though water is to be had in abundance in London, and of fairly good quality, absolutely none is drunk? The lower classes, even the paupers, do not know what it is to quench their thirst with water. In this country nothing but beer is drunk, and it is made in several quantities. Small beer is what everyone drinks when thirsty. ... It is said that more grain is consumed in England for making beer than for making bread.

In England the Low Church is composed of Presbyterians, in Scotland it becomes the High Church. The churches of this sect are chapels and have no bells; neither have those of the Nonconformists, as all Protestants who do not conform to the ceremonials of the Anglican Church are termed. ... The dogmas of the English-Scottish Presbyterians are very much the same as those of Calvin, differing, however, from those of Geneva, there being no printed prayers or liturgy. Presbyterian ministers are obliged, and I believe even forced, to take the oath that they will always make extempore prayers, and never repeat those they have recited before. ... These ministers are not permitted either to learn their sermons by heart, or even to write them out or prepare them, and you can imagine how uninteresting their sermons must be. They contain nothing but repetitions or citations, taken out of a Bible which they hold before them; and they preach through their noses in the peculiar manner that the English people call "cant," that is to say, a scientific jargon derived from a Presbyterian minister so enthusiastic and full of his own importance as to render his words and meaning impossible to understand.