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RIESBECK’S TRAVELS THROUGH GERMANY. 255
who under his adminiftration rather paffed the bounds of a decent liberty, and aflumed
too gallant an air. What think you, for inftance, of a prieft appealing in his public
le€tures to Voltaire on Toleration, and other fuch books? or of fuch authors as Bayle,
and Helvetius, being common in the hands of ftudents in logic ? and this, which made
it fingularly ridiculous, at a time when the Jefuits were {till difputing with all their eager-
nefs on the infallibility of the Pope, and the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary ?
The prefent elector extends his fatherly care to the regulars, as well as the feculars, and
has brought them toa regularity, which does himfelf, as well as them, great honour.
It is impoffible to give you an idea of the veneration in which the late prelate is de-
fervedly held. From the conviction that without a good education, all projects of im-
provement and alteration are only palliatives, which do not touch the main fore; this
archbifhop gave 30,000 guilders a year out of his own privy purfe towards the erection
of {chools and other foundations for the education of youth. The prefent archbifhop,
who found the foundation of fchools for the common people laid to his hands, con-
tinues to build upon it with fome deviation from the old plan; but he direéts his chief
attention to the improvement of the education of the higher orders, and the extention
of arts and fciences. With this view he has given the ground, on which the three mo-
nafteries which he has pulled down ftood, to the Univerfity, which by this means has
raifed its heretofore rather fmall income to 100,000 guilders. As this prelate is en-.
tirely free from any temptation to Nepotifm, he has it in his power to do more for the
mufes than any other German prince.
The anecdote related in Mr. Pilati’s travels of a Swifs officer, who could find no inns
to receive his fervants on account of their religion, does not accord with the {pirit which
at prefent, at leaft, generally obtains here. I was in feveral inns, the malters of which,
when once they knew that I was a prote(tant, offered me meat of their own accord. It
is probable that the officer had not made the grand tour of all the inns; for things are
here much as they are in other places: in one {treet they read legends, and in another
converfe with Locke and Newton. Whoever attempts to judge of Paris by the inhabi-
tants of the Porcheron ; or of Berlin, from thofe who had well nigh raifed a rebellion
on account of a pfalm book; or of Hamburgh, from the carrot women, headed by Paf-
tor Goffe; will be fure to be miftaken. :
‘Though the trade of this place has been conftantly on the increafe for thefe eighteen
or twenty years palit, yet it is by no means what it ought to be, from the fituation, and
other advantages. ‘The perfons here, who call themfelves merchants, and who make
any confiderable figure, are in fact only brokers, who procure their livelihood at the
expence of the country or territory round, or who act for the merchants of Franckfort.
You will judge of the wretched ftate things are in, when I aflure you, that ’tis difficult
to procure a bill of exchange of 30,000 guilders. A few toy-fhops, five or fix druggifts,
and four or five manufacturers of tobacco, are all that can poflibly be called traders.
There is not a banker in the whole town; and yet this country enjoys the ftaple privi-
lege, and commands, by means of the Mayne, Necker, and Rhine, all the exports and
imports of Alfatia, the Palatinate, Franconia, and a part of Suabia and Hefle, as far as
the Netherlands. The port too is conftantly filled with thips, but few of them contain
any merchandize belonging to the inhabitants of the place. Religious principles are
the true caufe of this evil. When the Huguenots were driven out of France, a great
number of them were defirous of fettling here... They offered the Elector to build a city
juft above Mentz, (at the conflux of the Rhine and Mayne, between Caflel and Coft-
heim,) to fortify it at their own expence; to keep a con{tant garrifon there, and, be-
fides all this, to pay a large annual {um to the ftate, provided only they might be anne
: 2 the
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