« «write, and am moreover a Bif cayner. With this addition, replied Sancho, you are fit to be a secretary, even to an em"peror."

Defeription of the Town of Bilbao, and the Manners of its Inhabitants.

TH

HE town of Bilbao, on the banks of the riverY baizabal, is about two leagues from the fea, and contains about eight hundred houses, with a large fquare by the water fide, well fhaded with pleafant walks, which extend to the outlets, on the banks of the river, with numbers of houses and gardens, which form a moft pleafing profpect, particularly as you fail up the river; for, befides the beautiful verdure, numerous objects open gradually to the eye, and the town appearing as an amphitheatre, enlivens the landscape, and completes the scenery.

The houses are folid and lofty, the streets well paved and level; water is conveyed into the streets, and they may be washed at pleafüre, which renders Bilbao one of the neatest towns in Europe. Coaches are not in ufe, by which means, inequality of wealth is not fo perceptible, exterior oftentation is avoided, and the poor man walks by the fide of the rich, with equal eafe and content.

The air is generally damp, covers iron with ruft, destroys furniture in the upper apartments, extracts the falt out of dried fish, and multiplies flies beyond meafure, yet the town is remarkably healthy, and its inhabitants enjoy,

to a great degree, the three primcipal bleffings of life, perfect health, ftrength of body, and a chearful difpofition, attended with longevity; in proof of which, though the town is very populous, the hofpital is frequently empty, and in the nine months, that Mr. Bowles refided there, only nine perfons were buried, four of which were above eighty. Every day one may fee men above that age walking upright, in chearful converse with youth. Burning fevers, which the Spaniards dread fo much, and call tabardillos, are not known here, and they are seldom troubled with agues. What is then the reafon that Bilbao, on the fide of a river in fo damp a fituation, and chiefly built on piles, like the cities in Holland, fhould be fo remarkably healthy, with every indication against it? I fhall endeavour to account for it.

The adjacent mountains ftop the clouds that arife from the faline vapours of the ocean, rains are frequent, but they are feldom without a fea breeze, or a land wind; the current of the air being thus continually ventilated, never leaves the moift vapours at reft, and prevents their forming thofe putrid combinations, which heat generally occafions, on ftagnated waters. Thus the vicinity of the fea, the rains, and, more than all, the ftrong currents of air, are the phyfical caufes of its falubrity at Bilbao, as, on the contrary, the continued heat which rarifies the exhalations of fuch rives as have a flow motion, as well as the stagnated waters in ponds or lakes, where there is great heat in the

air, and little wind, 'will be the caufes of putrifying the vapours, and bring on fevers and other diftempers. For this reafon, the inhabitants of La Mancha are fo fubject to agues, and ufe as much bark as in Holland, because the air has little motion in fummer, notwithstanding the country is open, and the furface is dry. In the fame manner, a new houfe is dangerous to dwell in, where the damp vapours are confined, though one may fleep very fafely in the deepest gallery of a mine, if the air has a free circulation.

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To thefe favourable circumftances, the Biscayners owe their good fpirits, freshness of complexion, and chearful difpofition. In other countries, women oppreffed with the flighteft fatigue; here they work as much as the ftrongest men, unload the fhips, carry burdens, and do all the bufinefs of porters. The very fe lons, confined to hard labour in the mines of Almaden, do nothing in comparison with thefe females; they go bare-footed, and are remarkably active, carrying burthens on their heads which require two men to lift up. The wife yields not in ftrength to the husband, nor the fifter to the brother, and after a chearful glafs, though heavily loaded, they move on with alacrity,

returning home in the evening, without the appearance of laffitude, often arm in arm, dancing and finging to the tabor and pipe.

Their mufic is defrayed at the expence of the town, after the manner of the antient Greeks. On holidays they play under the trees in the great fquare; the moment they begin, the concourse is great, men, women, and children, of all ages, are engaged at the fame time, down to the very infants. The dances are active, fuitable to their strength, but divefted of indecent attitudes or geftures. Thefe furprising women, though conftantly exposed to the air, have good complexions, with lively eyes, and fine black hair, in which they pride themselves greatly, and braid to uncommon advantage. Married women wrap a white handkerchief round their heads, fo knotted, as to fall down in three plaits behind, and over this the Montera cap: they have a haughty look, and work in the fields like the men. Their language is the Bafcuenfe, which, without doubt, is original, and as antient as the peopling of the country, being totally diftinct, and without any connection with any Spanish dialect; those who understand it, affure us it is very soft and harmonious, as well as energetic *.

A general

See the following books.

From

A general neatnefs prevails every where in the town of Bilbao. The fhambles is a Tuscan building, in the centre of the town, with an open court and a fountain in the middle; nothing can be more cleanly or better contrived, free from all bad fcents, or any thing difgufting, as it is copioufly fupplied with water to carry away every thing offenfive. The meat is delivered fo freth and clean, as not to require being washed, as practifed in other parts of Spain, which deprives it of its fubftance and flavour; the veal is white and delicate, and the poultry excel-, lent: the woods afford plenty of birds, befides five forts of birds of paffage called chimbos, which fatten foon after their arrival, and are greatly esteemed.

Among the different forts of fish, common at Bilbao, there are two peculiar to that river, which the inhabitants are remarkably fond of; thefe are a peculiar fort of eels in winter, and the cuttle fish in fummer: the eels are fmall like the quill of a pigeon, of a pale colour, about three inches long, and without a back bone, which they catch at low tides in prodigious quantities. In a word, every thing is in plenty at Bilbao, for befides a well fupplied market, their gardens abound in pulfe and fruit of all kinds: fo that one can live no where better than here, when we take into the account the

hofpitable difpofition of the inha bitants, which foon falls off, if you flight their cordiality, or attribute it to motives of adulation or intereft. Such is the happy life of the inhabitants of Bilbao, free from the luxuries, as well as the ambitious paffions which agitate. the minds of their neighbours, they pafs their lives in tranquillity, governed by wholefome laws; amongst which, they are faid even to have one against ingratitude, with a punishment affixed to it.

Of the Character of our Debt Laws, and of Mr. Howard. From Mr. Burke's Speech to his Conflituents at Bristol.

THE

HERE are two capital faults in our law with relation to civil debts. One is, that every man is prefumed folvent. A prefumption, in innumerable cafes, directly against truth. Therefore the debtor is ordered, on a fuppofition of ability and fraud, to be coerced his liberty until he makes payment. By this means, in all cafes of civil infolvency, without a pardon from his creditor, he is to be imprisoned for life :-and thus a miferable mistaken invention of artificial fcience, operates to change a civil into a criminal judgment, and to fcourge miffortune or indifcretion with a pu

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nishment which the law does not inflict on the greatest crimes.

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The next fault is, that the inficting of that punishment is not on the opinion of an equal and public judge; but is referred to the arbitrary difcretion of a private, nay interested, and irritated, individual. He, ho formally is, and fubftantially ought to be, the judge, is in reality no more than minifterial, a mere executive inftrument of a private man, who is at once judge and party. Every idea of judicial order is fubverted by this procedure. If the infolvency be no crime, why is it punished with arbitrary imprifonment? If it be a crime, why is it delivered into private hands to pardon without difcretion, or to punish without mercy and without measure?

To thefe faults, grofs and cruel faults in our law, the excellent principle of Lord Beauchamp's bill applied fome fort of remedy. I know that credit must be preferved; but equity must be preferved too; and it is impoffible, that any thing fhould be neceffary to commerce, which is inconfiftent with justice. The principle of credit was not weakened by that bill. God forbid! The enforcement of that credit was only put into the fame public judicial hands on which we depend for our lives, and all that makes life dear to us. But, indeed, this bufinefs was taken up too warmly both here and elsewhere. The bill was extremely mistaken. It was fuppofed to enact what it never enacted; and complaints were made of claufes in it as novelties, which exifted before the noble Lord that brought in the bill was born. There was VOL. XXIII.

a fallacy that run through the whole of the objections. The gentlemen who oppofed the bill, always argued, as if the option lay between that bill and the antient law. But this is a grand mistake. For practically, the option is between, not that bill and the old law, but between that bill and thofe occafional laws called acts of grace. For the operation of the old law is fo favage, and fo inconvenient to fociety, that for a long time paft, once in every parliament, and lately twice, the legiflature has been obliged to make a general arbitrary jail-delivery, and at once to fet open, by its fovereign authority, all the prifons in England.

Gentlemen, I never relished acts of grace; nor ever fubmitted to them but from defpair of better. They are a difhonourable invention, by which, not from humanity, not from policy, but merely becaufe we have not room enough to hold thefe victims of the abfurdity of our laws, we turn loofe upon the public three or four thoufand naked wretches, corrupted by the habits, debafed by the ignominy of a prifon. If the creditor had a right to thofe carcafes as a natural fecurity for his property, I am fure we have no right to deprive him of that fecurity. But if the few pounds of flesh were not neceffary to his fecurity, we had not a right to detain the unfortunate debtor, without any benefit at all to the perfon who confined him. Take it as you will, we commit injuftice. Now Lord Beauchamp's bill, intended to do deliberately, and with great caution and circumfpection, upon each feveral cafe, and with all attention

to the juft claimant, what acts of grace do in a much greater meafure, and with very little care, caution, or deliberation,

I fufpect that here too, if we contrive to oppofe this bill, we fhall be found in a struggle against the nature of things. For as we grow enlightened, the public will not bear, for any length of time, to pay for the maintenance of whole armies of prifoners; nor, at their own expence, fubmit to keep jails as a fort of garrifons, merely to fortify the abfurd principle of making men judges in their own caufe. For credit has little or no concern in this cruelty. I fpeak in a commercial affembly. You know that credit is given, becaufe capital must be employed; that men calculate the chances of infolvency; and they either withhold the credit, or make the debtor pay the rifque in the price. The counting-houfe has no alliance with the jail. Holland understands trade as well as we, and fhe has done much more than this obnoxious bill intended to do. There was not, when Mr. Howard vifited Holland, more than one prifoner for debt in the great city of Rotterdam. Although Lord Beauchamp's at (which was previous to this bill, and intended to feel the way for it) has already preferved liberty to thoufands; and though it is not three years fince the last act of grace paffed, yet by Mr. Howard's laft account, there were near three thousand again in jail. I cannot name this gentleman without remarking, that his labours and writings have done much to open the eyes and hearts of mankind. He has vifited all Europe, not to furvey the fump

tuoufness of palaces, or the statelinefs of temples; not to make ac curate measurements of the remains of ancient grandeur, nor to form a fcale of the curiofity of modern art; not to collect medals, or collate manufcripts: but to dive into the depths of dungeons; to plunge into the infection of hospitals; to furvey the manfions of forrow and pain; to take the gage and dimenfions of mifery, depreffion, and contempt; to remember the forgotten, to attend to the neglected, to vifit the forfaken, and to compare and collate the distresfes of all men in all countries. His plan is original; and it is as full of genius as it is of humanity. It was a voyage of difcovery; a circumnavigation of charitv. ready the benefit of his labour is felt more or less in every country: I hope he will anticipate his final reward, by feeing all its effects fully realized in his own. He will receive, not by retail but in grofs, the reward of thofe who vifit the prifoner; and he has fo foreftalled and monopolized this branch of charity, that there will be, I truft, little room to merit by fuch acts of benevolence hereafter.

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