Since our return to this place we have indulged ourselves with a few days of rest. The morning after we came back, I went over the lutheran church, which is the handsomest building in the town, & makes a conspicuous figure in all the views from the neighbouring hills. It is built in the shape of a cross, painted white, & roofed with red tile. These colours shew to great advantage here, as they contrast so well with the dark hue of the mountains, which always form the back ground of the scene. The church yard is spacious, & built almost entirely round with stone porches, within which are the family vaults of the inhabitants— The inscriptions upon the tomb stones are in great number, & generally long to tell the passenger that the person beneath was an honest linen trader— The most storied urn, can scarcely ever say so much— I have remarked here, 334 & in two, or three other church yards in this country a practice, which I had never observed elsewhere— A single tomb stone serves for a husband & wife; whichsoever of the two dies first, the inscription is made for both, only the date of the survivor’s death is left in a blank to be filled when the event happens.

As the morning prayer was singing, within the church, just at the time of my stroll thither, I went in, & looked it over— The cielings are painted in a style of mediocrity with scenes of the resurection & ascension of Christ. On the two sides of the alter, are full length portraits of the Emperors Joseph. 1. & Charles. 6. who granted the permission for building this church, & round the walls, as is customary in lutheran churches, the pictures of all the clergymen, who have been its ministers, are hung.1

One of our visits since we returned has been to the painter Rheinardt, whom I have mentioned to you before— He paints annually two landscapes of remarkable views in Silesia, for the Academy of Sciences at Berlin. He has lately sent the two, which will appear at the next exhibition in the automn, & has now at home only two, or three partly finished pictures of his own. Ten of his Silesian views have been engraved & colored at Berlin; four of which I have taken, as they exhibit together the whole range of the Giant mountains. I hope one day to have the pleasure of shewing you upon them the remarkable spots we have visited.

Yesterday afternoon, Mr Reinhardt went with us to Stohnsdorf, a village, with a chateau belonging to a count Reuss,2 & remarkable for two hills, from one of which there is one of those extensive, varied, & beautiful prospects, of which there seems to be in this country no end; & the other is curious for forming a sort of rocky labyrinth, in which enormous masses of granite seem as if they had been tumbled together in the most extraordinary positions, now forming a large cavern, where one rock, supported by others at various points serves as the roof of a chamber twenty feet square, & twelve feet high; now a sort of covered way, in which you pass in a narrow lane, between two vast rocks, over which another is laid like a bridge. These hills are called the Stangenbusch, & the Prudelberg.

As we come home last evening, the sky was perfectly clear— The sun had sunk behind the hills to the westward of us, but still shot his level rays across the vallies between them, & as they fell upon the high mountains to the eastward painted their sides, with colours varying from deep purple to a light pink; so that while we ourselves were in the shades of evening, we could perceive them glowing in 335 the mild radiance of the luminary, which seemed to play round them with delight, & to quit them with reluctance. Such an enchantment of colouring I do not remember to have seen before—3

Yesterday morning we went over the sugar refinery, which has existed here since 1787. It belongs to a company, & the property is devided into shares, which are held by the inhabitants of different towns & villages all along the mountains. In this district they have an extensive priviledge, & there is only one more establishment of the kind, in the province, which is at Breslau. The buildings employed in the business here were given to the company by the late king, & being upon a small elevation near the walls, are a great ornament to the town. They receive their raw sugar from Stettin & Hamburg, & refine quantities sufficient for the neighbourhood, but for exportation to a large amount. The principle curiosity they shewed us however, was a specimen of the new sugar produced from the beet, or turnip, which I have mentioned to you in a former letter—4 They have made here a few loaves of it, which in appearance is equal to the very finest sugar from the cane; but it is neither of so close a texture, nor so sweet to the taste— They sent about two months ago, two loaves of this sugar, as samples to the king, who returned them a very gracious letter of thanks, & an elegant gold medal, as a reward of their industry. The gentleman, who accompanied us, & who is one of the directors of the company assured us it was impossible to make this sugar under double the price, which that from the West Indies amounts to— From a quintal of the vegetable they can make only four pounds of fine sugar.

We likewise made an excursion yesterday to Lähnhaus, the seat of a Baron Grünfeld, at two German miles from the town.5 It is situated upon a steep hill, from which we had some of the most beautiful prospects that have yet been exhibited to us. At the foot of the hill is a little town of Lahn, which you will find upon the map with the Boder winding round it. The seat itself is fitted up in the modern taste, with hot houses, & gardens, & arbours, & summer houses, and fountains, all which shew some taste in their arrangment, though nothing to be compared with a nobleman seat in England. On the summit of the hill behind the house, are the ruins of an old castle, the most romantically situated of any that I have seen. It was built about the year 1250, by Henry, the bearded, duke of Silesia, whose wife appears to be more celebrated than himself— Her name 336 was Hedwige, & she is known as a Saint in the Roman calender. The catholic church at Berlin, you know is dedicated to her— From the inscriptions on her pictures of which there are two here in the catholic church at Lähnhaus, it should seem she was sainted for having repeatedly gone up the hill on foot to hear mass there— At present the proprietor & all his vassels, consisting of the inhabitants of six villages in the neighbourhood are evangelics; but they are all obliged to hear mass said once a year in this church, which joins close upon the Baron’s House— Nor are the Lutherans suffered to make use of the church during the rest of the year— Nor even to say the service of the dead, who are buried in the yard round the building— Saint Hedwige one would think, would have been more charitable, if the story of the talking old servant, who went round the place with us, related, be true— According to him, she was that famous example of conjugal affection, of whom all the world has heard; who, upon the castle’ being taken a long siege, obtained leave of the enemy’s general to carry off her most precious effects, & under that denomination took upon her back, to the astonishment of both armies, & of all posterity,—her husband.6

This morning, I attended the religious service at the Lutheran church. The house was very full, chiefly with country people from the neighbourhood. The service was like what I had heard last Sunday at the village of Seydorf, & partakes at once of our manner in the congregational churches; of that used by the church of England, & of the roman catholic mass. The sermon was more than half an hour, & consisted of an exhortation not to murmur at the dispensations of Heaven. It was delivered with great distinctness & precision, without notes, but with so much method in the treatment of the subject as fully convinced that it had been studied before hand. The style & manner are very plain, without any flourish of oratory, or any grimace of action. There was a large proportion of singing in the service, & the whole congregation joined in it. This adds so much solemnity to these acts of devotion, that I wish the practice were adopted among ourselves.

After church, we went by invitation of Mr Hesse, the gentleman, who accompanied us yesterday to the sugar refinery, & who is one of the principal merchants of the town, to dine at the public table at Warmbrunn. It is in a very elegant building erected within these two years for the accomodation of the company, who attend at the baths. The company at dinner amounted to about thirty persons, with none of whom we had any acquaintance, but all of whom we 337 found very civil & conversible. Twice a week, on Thursdays & Sundays they have balls, but the style of Society is such as cannot be very agreable to the Ladies. Next to the ballroom is an apartment as full of smoakers & smoak, as a dutch coffee house, & the door between the rooms is constantly open. On one side is a billiard room, & on the other is the den of the gamesters, all which is going on at the same time with the ball, which usually begins at five in the afternoon, & ends at nine, or ten. They are making great preparations at Warmbrunn, for the reception of the king & queen, who are expected there, this day week.

After dinner, Mr Hesse took us with him to a bleachery of linen belonging to himself at an house in the country about a mile from Warmbrunn. He shewed us a couple of tubs each containing about four hundred pieces of linen, soaking in water with a misture of soap & potash, for they make no use of any acid here for the purpose. In these two tubs they usually keep the linen overnight, & in the daytime stretch it over a grass plot, near the house, to dry in the sun. The ground is fullowed, at distances equal to the width of the linen, the more effectually to drain off the moisture. After whitening a sufficient time it undergoes the process of fulling & of mangling, both of which are performed by water mills under the same roof.

The materials of which the linen is composed usually pass through four distinct & separate hands before they come to the merchant for sale. The flax is raised by the peasant, on his own account, if he is the possessor of a farm, or of his lord, if he is in a state of vassalage. He breaks & combs the flax, & sells it in the state when it is ready for spinning, to the spinners, of whom the weavers in their turn purchase the thread, which after being wove passes to the bleachers. In general the bleacheries belong to the merchants themselves; but otherwise there is no connection other than that of byeer & seller, between the several trades employed in the work. With the most favorable weather a piece of linen cannot be fully whitened in less than ten weeks.

A large proportion of their exports of linen, before the war, were to Cadix, from which they were shipped to the Spanish colonies. Since the blockade of Cadix, this trade has in a great measure been up. At present they send great quantities to Hamburg, & even to England, of which no small quantities goes to the United States. The exportation of linen from the whole province, amounts to a million sterling, annually, of which one quarter part is sent from Hirschberg.7

We had heard much before we left Berlin of Silesian hospitality, 338 & in general find the character well deserved. We have every where found the most obliging attentions, & the strongest disposition to satisfy in every respect our curiosity. In some instances this kindness has been carried so far as to become troublesome. But this is far from having been the case with the civilities of Mr Hesse, to which we had no sort of claim whatever. We happened accidently to meet him at Mr Rheinardt’s, when we went to see his paintings, & he recollected having once dined with me at Mr Schickler’s in Berlin, a year, or two ago. He has considered this as giving us a sufficient title to all his attentions, which from that time have been unceasing.

Yesterday afternoon, we concluded to proceed upon our journey, & quitted not without reluctance the pleasant town of Hirschberg, where we have so agreably past a fortnight. The whole way hither, is over, a most romantic valley, through fields loaded with luxuriant harvests, interspersed with hills & vales, country seats & villages, & bounded on one side by the range of mountains, of which you have so often heard in these letters. The road is a turnpike not inferior to the best in England. These turnpikes, which extend all along the highway through what are called the mountain towns, were made by Frederic II, who treated this province as a favorite.

Smiedeberg is a small city, containing between 3 & 4000, inhabitants. It is about a German mile in length, & consists of one street, in which there are many very handsome buildings; in both these respects it has a very considerable resemblance with the town of Salem in Massachusetts— The principal manufacturies here are of table linen, & of printed linen. I hope to give you some further account of them in my next. Your’s—

From the cloister at Grussau (the day before yesterday) we returned to dine with Mr Ruck at Landeshut—1 It was a formal dinner of thirty persons according to the fashion of the country; we sat down soon after one, & rose from table just before six. The whole of this time is employed in eating; for the ladies & gentlemen rose together, & there was little wine drunk. But as only one dish is served at a time, & in a dinner of three courses, every dish must be handed round to every guest, the intervals between the dishes are of course very long; the usual time of sitting on such occasions, we are told is about seven hours, but it was here abridged out of complaisance to us. After dinner we walked in the garden, & coffee was served in an arbour where we sat some time, & conversed. As evening came on, the company sat down to cards, & played untill eleven, when a cold collation was served in another room. We were now permitted as strangers to return to our inn, but the rest of the company continued at their cards & the collation untill half past twelve. This is the usual course of a great dinner, in Silesia. The company consisted of the principal linen merchants, & the lutheran clergy of the place. Among them I found men of agreable manners, & of considerable information; but none of them spoke any other language than German— In general, throughout Silesia, speaking french is considered as an affectation of high life, & a sort of ridicule is cast upon it; so that many, who are well versed in the language, scruple at speaking it even with a stranger— For myself I like this so much the better. It forces me to make a trial of my 340 strength in German, & affords me some help in the acquisition of this language.

Yesterday morning we went to see the Lutheran church at Landeshut. The church is built exactly upon the same model as that of Hirschberg, though not so large, nor like that decorated with paintings. The library is small & consists chiefly of theological books— Its principal curiosity is a manuscript volume containing original letters from persons of distinguished name in the sixteenth & seventeenth centuries. Among the rest are a few from Luther, & many from his friend & assistant Melancthon.2

The number of catholics & of evangelics, throughout Silesia, is nearly equal. But in all the manufacturing parts of the province the proportion of the catholics is much smaller—scarcely of one to ten. The arch bishop of Breslau is the only catholic prelate in the province, though before the Prussian conquest, the abbots of the great cloisters at Grüssau, & Leubus, & perhaps others, were members of the states. There are no lutheran bishops; but the ecclesiastical concerns are under the superintendency of a consistory at Breslau, subordinate to the Minister of Justice at Berlin, who presides over the whole ecclesiastical department.3 The salaries of the lutheran clergy are very low, none of them amounting to two hundred prussian dollars a year.

After viewing Mr Ruck’s bleachery, which differs little from those we had seen before, we came yesterday afternoon, three german miles from Landeshut to this town; the country still continues to be enchantingly beautiful, & the roads excellent, though very hilly. When we had come about two thirds of the way, we passed through the little town of Gottesburg, & before almost every house saw women, boys & girls industriously employed in knitting worsted stockings, of which that is the principal manufacturing place. Thus upon almost every mile of our passage we behold industry, with a different, & always with an useful occupation. But it is always a great alloy to the satisfaction we receive from this prospect, that it is accompanied with that of wretchedness. The poor people, who are thus continually toiling can scarcely earn a sufficiency for their bare subsistence, & are subjected to various heavy impositions. The linen manufactories in particular, which raise large fortunes to the merchants, who export them from the cities, scarcely give bread to the peasants, who do all the valuable part of the work.

Here at Waldenberg, the inn, where we lodge, is as usual situated in the ring, or public square, which I described to you in my last 341 letter, & this being a market day, we had all the forenoon a croud of peasants under our windows, each of them, with one, or two pieces of linen in a bag, standing & waiting for a purchaser. The merchant offers his price, & if it is agreed to, marks it upon the piece of linen, which the peasant then carries to the purchaser’s store, & receives his money. But it is said that the merchant often marks the linen with the price he offers, even when the seller refuses to let it go at so low a rate, & as the peasant cannot efface immediately the mark of the chalk, he scarcely ever obtains from a subsequent purchaser any more than he sees has been offered for the piece before. Thus the price is made dependant in a great degree upon the will of the purchaser, & the peasant, who feels himself by the iniquitous constitution of human society, a degraded being, subdued alike in soul & body, has neither the spirit to resent, nor the right to claim redress against this abominable imposition. We walked called up this morning one of those peasants, from our windows, & asked him the price of the piece of linen he had under his arm. He said six dollars— It was doubtless at least a dollar more than any of the merchants would have given him; but I was disposed to see what would be the effect of giving him his own price, & told him we would take it. He no sooner saw what accomodating traders he had to trade with, than he began to extol the excellency of his linen, & to urge me to give him more, than he had asked— This I refused, & though the poor fellow had certainly sold his goods higher than he had expected, I am afraid he went away rather regretting that he had not demanded more, than pleased that he had got so much.

We have this day visited the coal mines, which are within an english mile of the town— A subterraneus canal, the entrance into which reminds one of the poetical descent of epic heroes to the infernal regions, conducts one to the spot where the miners draw the coal. You go down in a boat, flat bottom’d, about a yard wide, & ten feet long. The canal is not more than four wide, & equally deep, & over it is an arch about as high, hew’d in many places through the solid rock. It is nearly an english mile long, & strikes deeper & deeper under ground, untill the surface of the earth over head is more than 150 feet above you. The boat is pushed along through the canal, by two men, one standing at each end, who with a short stick in the hand press it against the sides of the arch that goes over the canal. After you have advanced about two thirds of the way, you come to lanes, which open on one side, & lead two or three hundred yards to the places, where the coal is cut out from the side 342 of the mine; but we could not see the miners at work this day, because they were employed in exercises for a solemn procession, which is intended in compliment to the queen, who is expected here the next week. This water communication from the surface of the earth to the bottom of the mine, which so prodigiously facilitates the transportation of the coal from its original dungeon to the regions of day, is an english contrivance, very recently, & very reluctantly adopted here— The further we go, & the more we see, the greater reason we have to be convinced that England is the country, where genius & science has been the most successfully applied to the improvement of the arts & manufactures.4

Before we left Berlin, we had heard a great deal of Silesian hospitality, & from our reception & treatment from the moment, when we entered the province, you will judge how amply this character is deserv’d. We have had occasion to see more of it this day— Mr Töpfer, the burgomaster of the town, to whom we had a letter of introduction, invited us this morning to breakfast with him & family, at Altwasser, a bathing place about an english mile out of the town; at which he has a country house, & according to the custom of the country, sent his carriage to take us there— It is a charming spot in a valley surrounded by hills, & in a situation, which probably contributes more than the waters to restore health to the visitors of the place. The taste of the water resembles that of Selzer water, but contains not so large a quantity of fixed air— Mr Töpfer I find, as well as all the other great linen merchants of the mountain towns, has made the experiment of opening a trade directly with America, & like all the rest, he is not satisfied with the success of his undertaking— The brothers Bollman, two of whom were here personally about two years ago, & a Mr Thun, another german merchant settled at Philadelphia, procured linens to be sent them to a very large amount, for which they have not yet made their payments.5 The returns they have made were chiefly in sugar, in coffee, & in bills payable in England, upon all which great loss has been sustained by the great failures last winter at Hamburg, & by the very low course of exchange upon London. Mr Töpfer asked me if I could recommend any mercantile houses to him, in New York, Philadelphia, or Baltimore, as perfectly sure houses to whom he could safely consign linens, & the same question has been asked me by other merchants in these towns; but I have ventured only to 343 name Mr Smith at Boston, & that without knowing whether it would be agreable to him. I will thank you to send me one, or two names of merchants in each of those towns, who do business upon consignments, & who enjoy the most firmly established credit. But let them be genuine, solid merchants, whose credit is founded upon their character for honesty, & not, as is too common in our country, upon the extravagent extent of their enterprizes— I shall likewise be obliged to you to make enquires what was the situation in point of pecuniary circumstances, of Mr Gillon of South Carolina, when he died. For he owed about £4000. sterling to Mr Hasenclever, who never could obtain the payment of it in his lifetime, & whose daughter has been equally unsuccessful in her applications for it since his decease.6

This afternoon we went to Fürstenstein, the seat of Count Hochberg, who has very large possessions in this part of the country, & to whom in particular the town of Waldenberg belongs. The seat is about a German mile distant from the town, situated in one of those beautiful & romantic spots, which are still as delightful to us to see, as I am afraid it is by this time tedious for you to hear of them— On the summit of an hill near the house, in which the count resides, are the ruins of an old castle, which have been partly rebuilt by him, & which for that reason scarcely look so venerable as those of the Kÿnast, & of Lähnhaus— This place however is so remarkable for picturesque beauty, that it is visited at all times by strangers, as one of the principal objects of curiosity in the province— At present it is doubly interesting— The day after tomorrow, the queen is expected to arrive at Fürstenberg, where she purposes to spend a couple of days— For her reception, the Count is preparing an entertainment suitable to the character of his ancient castle— On the same hill, & just below the draw bridge over the moat, which is still supposed to surround the building, the ground is measured out, & enclosed, where a carousel is to be held in honor of the great visitor— Sixteen knights, all in the costume of the feudal times, are to issue from the walls of the old castle, to go & meet the queen upon her approach, & escort her to the spot, where the exercises of arms, or rather of horsemanship are to be performed— The evening is to close with a masked ball— This afternoon, a preparatory representation (for it cannot strictly be called a rehearsal) of the whole ceremony was given, & it was necessary for us, in order to get a sight of the exhibition on Tuesday, to pay our respects previously to the Count & Countess, we took the opportunity at the same time to 344 see this trial, of which we had doubtless a much better view, than we shall have amidst the immense crouds of people, who will throng to the real show— The count & countess received & treated us with a courteousness, worthy of the real age of chivalry.7

Yesterday we took a ride in one of the common post chaises of the country to Adersback in Bohemia, which is between 3 & 4 german miles from this place. The roads have lately repaired for the accomodation of the queen, but they are still not such as we could travel with our own carriage. We passed through the small town of Friedland on our way, just beyond which are the boundaries between the two provinces. Adersback itself is a small village of no importance, but what makes it remarkable, is that near it, begins an immense range of rocks, which extend more than three german miles, & which have thrown together & loosened from each other in a manner the most extraordinary of any thing I ever beheld. Imagine to yourself a city of the first magnitude, all the buildings of which were from 150 to 400 feet high. Suppose this city to have been destroyed by fire, or by an earthquake, & to have left only fragments of the walls of its houses standing; & all the streets, lanes & houses alleys still passable; you will then have the most accurate idea of I can give you of this truly wonderful sport of nature. Many of the rocks hang together in large masses, but many of them stand singly, like one side of a house’s wall, & upon bases so excessively small in proportion to their weight, that they seem to bid defiance to the laws of gravitation. Many of them are thrown into shapes, which bear more or less resemblance to various other objects, of which the names are given for the sake of distinction. Thus there is the inverted sugar loaf, the priest, the pulpit, the kettle drums, the gallows, the chimney the bridge (which I think must resemble the natural bridge described by Mr Jefferson in his notes on Virginia) the church steeple &c—8 In the margin you have an outline of the inverted sugar loaf— In one place there is a water fall, about as high as the Zackerlefall, & at present nearly as copious. There is likewise an echo, not superior to that of the Kÿnast—