The Diary and Letters of Gouverneur Morris, vol. 2 - Online Library of ...

no stroke will probably be struck in the North this year, owing principally to the
feebleness of the Cabinet of Vienna.
“In all cases, Holland appears to me to be completely undone. The bankruptcy of their
India Company, long palliated, now stands confessed, and that of the nation exists,
though not avowed. Her commerce is totally suspended, and, as the great mass of the
people derived thence their means of subsistence, the distress will be great and
general. Discontent as general must thence arise, and if the French protection be
withdrawn the patriots (so called) will probably be sacrificed. In the case of a general
pacification I do not see how, or on what principle, the ruling powers can keep up a
large French army in the heart of their country. But in whatever manner it may be
done they can, from the nature of things, be no more than the upper servants of such
an army. Placing the matter in the fairest point of view, and supposing the present
party to be the strongest, still they will not, I think, be able to establish that order and
security without which commerce will fly far from their shores. Hence I conclude that
London will become the great emporium of trade in Europe, unless the devil should
put it into their heads to make revolutions here also, which will not, I believe, be the
case during the life of the present monarch.”
The projected journey of which Morris wrote to Washington was begun on Friday,
August 28th. “I go,” he notes in his diary, “(at great expense of turnpikes) round the
north side of London, instead of passing through that city, and enter the Cambridge
road near the two-mile stone. Then on through Edmonton to Cambridge.” From here
he gave Lady Sutherland the benefit of his experiences in a characteristic letter.
“Cambridge,
August 27, 1795.
Online Library of Liberty: The Diary and Letters of Gouverneur Morris, vol. 2
“DearLadySutherland: I will perform what I did not promise, and give you an account
of what I saw and also of what I felt. First, then, I felt on leaving Wimbledon like a
boy at the end of vacation, and I fear I shall find nothing I like so well in my whole
route. Next I visited the bed of Ware, and I am able to assure you that it still exists
and is (as the chamber-maid told me) ‘eleven feet and a half square, built by Edward
the Fourth in the year 1463 for his servants.’ I believe that she is not much of an
antiquarian, but it seems that the date is on it. Moreover, I am just returned from
having divine service (so called) at King’s Chapel, a sort of chanting in which it was
difficult to distinguish what was said. The Almighty, from his quality of omniscience,
is of course apprised of it, and also of what was thought on the occasion; but,
methinks, if ever I should be a god or a fine lady, I would never grant but to natural
sentiments expressed in a natural manner. Tell my Lord Gower that the word I have
just underscored seems to me to convey a different idea from I think. This last is a
plain declaration of what passes in the mind, as it is affected either by exterior objects
or by its own reasoning faculties. Thus, I think you are a charming woman, I think his
lordship is a sensible, well-informed man, and I think a late manifesto will be attended
with bad consequences. Methinks, on the other hand, seems to express rather an effect
of the mind on itself by means of the imagination, and precedes a communication of
those fanciful creations which accompany strong emotion. Thus, methinks the world
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