Page:A Tour Through the Batavian Republic.djvu/18

6 hills, the vast expanse of water, which the vessel proudly ploughed, have seemed to me a scene of triumph — the triumph of man over an hostile element. But now I was torn from my connections, my home, and my country; and in the power of men whose character it has been to aggravate the infelicities of war. Though I gained in all the finer feelings of the heart, I lost something of the independence of manhood, by having for the companion of my misfortune that person with whose pleasures and sorrows mine are so intimately blended, that I feel the evil with tenfold weight in which she participates. Alone, if I could not have been a hero, I could have been a stoic, but there was not a fear which she suggested, such is the electricity of affection, and the blind respect we pay to the feelings of those we love, that I did not view with horror which almost amounted to the torture of real suffering.

The Frenchmen who had charge of the vessel, consisted of a prize-master and three sailors. I have rarely seen persons of worse countenances: I enquired, and found they