DEAR SIR, - The custom-house officers at Boulogne, though as
alert, are rather more civil than those on your side of the
water. I brought no plate along with me, but a dozen and a half
of spoons, and a dozen teaspoons: the first being found in one of
our portmanteaus, when they were examined at the bureau, cost me
seventeen livres entree; the others being luckily in my servant's
pocket, escaped duty free. All wrought silver imported into
France, pays at the rate of so much per mark: therefore those who
have any quantity of plate, will do well to leave it behind them,
unless they can confide in the dexterity of the shipmasters; some
of whom will undertake to land it without the ceremony of
examination. The ordonnances of France are so unfavourable to
strangers, that they oblige them to pay at the rate of five per
cent. for all the bed and table linen which they bring into the
kingdom, even though it has been used. When my trunks arrived in
a ship from the river Thames, I underwent this ordeal: but what
gives me more vexation, my books have been stopped at the bureau;
and will be sent to Amiens at my expence, to be examined by the
chambre syndicale; lest they should contain something prejudicial
to the state, or to the religion of the country. This is a
species of oppression which one would not expect to meet with in
France, which piques itself on its politeness and hospitality:
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