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There are 7 L is a Board which consists of 7 members
here called the Admiralty. They do the business of Lords
of the Admiralty, Commissioners of the Customs, Commissioners
of the Navy & of the Victualling. Their Salary is 310£
yes three hundred pounds a year and about 50 Pounds
perquisites: besides they have a house firing & I believe
candles. Yet they are rich because not from their places
for they consider these as posts of honour only. The Burgomaster
of Amsterdam clears about 60 pounds a year
by his place. But at the same time he has the disposal of
all places under of the City one or two worth perhaps two
thousand a year. They are never known to have offered an
account of this power to go snacks with the nominee.
Every department is carried on with the greatest Oeconomy
conceivable. By observations which a 3d Mr May has
made who is a Captain in the dutch service and has seen every
thing at Toulon in France it appears [he reckons] that there
in the dockyard there about the same quantity of work done
here at Amsterdam an equal number of Ships fitted
and built in a given time. There are employed there
near 4,000 men who work with their tools and upwards
of 200 who keep accounts or direct the works. Here
there are about 1,200 men who work with their tools
and about 20 who keep accounts and direct the works.
A dutch workman is very slow in his motions but he
never stops. He drinks only the small beer which is
allowed him and of which he may drink as much as he
pleases. I met with a clever fellow to day who would have
no objections to go to England or any where else to get a
little more money. He talks speaks english very well.
neither would he have any objections to go to any other part
of the world where he could either get more money or where
money went further. I set him down.
Silver and Pinchbeck tarnish here amazingly. Buckles
want cleaning 2 or 3 times a day.
Does Mr Touch continue to write for you? if so have
you already or can you spare him to write me out in
a very pretty manner some Metaphysical exhaustions
I believe you know what I mean. I believe I have not
a copy of the Expounding Table. I shall in a little time perhaps have
an exhaustive set of Queries, as soon as I think I have
I will send them you.
I have seen to here a very extraordinary shaped &
constructed Vessel which is building after a plan of
the Mr Seyer's you may remember a letter in the
paper about a Vessel building at Copenhagen after
his plan this is I believe of the same kind.
I have just bought Chambands French dictionary
I wanted one very much and I thought it cheap. it is printed
here. Quarto. New. unbound. price 12 gelders.
I have pretty well filled 30 pages of Inserenda
---page break---
Send me by the first opportunity some more of this paper.
Send me the latest [red book] Court Calendar] no you need not for I have now heard that I can have Sam here and among the news you
tell me take notice or rather desire Wilson to take notice when
there are any changes with respect to the Officers of the Marine
department from Admiralty down to dock yard. I wish you
could persuade Wilson to give me a little of the news that he thinks
can at all interest me. He could do it much better than you.
'Tis true I shall at least in Russia have opportunities of seeing
English news papers but I never shall have time to read them.
I have not yet since I have been here been to any coffee house,
for whenever I have been free from engagements I have had enough
to do at home. When you send me any parcel put up 3 or 4
Ramschov bottles unless you can learn that they are to
be had cheap at Petersburgh.
I dont know whether it is much warmer here than in England,
but I sat writing in my room yesterday morning from 7
o clock till 1 without shoes stockings breeches or waistcoat,
only a great coat unbuttoned over my Shirt. I sit every morning
so till I go out. Yet it is now noon and the Thermometer
is below 60. I had forgot I had such an Instrument with
me till just now although I have always had it in
my pocket.
Mr Munster is a Commissioner of Bankrupts, therefore
I dare to say if you there are any queries which you wish
to have answered Mr Lindegaard would be kind enough to
send them.
What is it that the Abbè Fontana does to the inside of his glass
tubes to prevent the drops of water hanging to it and thereby occupying
a space which ought to be occupied by air alone?
Sunday Saturday Evening.
I have been to Sardam today, but since
that I have called on Mr Job who is the Shipbuilder
and found his brother there and a company of 10 or 20.
The company honors greatest part of them at least soon went
away and the rest sat with the family retired into another
room and leaving the 2 Brothers and me by ourselves.
I had never before had the 2 Brothers together. We first
began to talk of the observations I had made at Sardam,
Then of the A dock yard here Admirality as it is called
There is scarcely a word which comes out of either of
their words mouths but what I wish to have written down.
In the midst of our Ship building & natural Philosophicaly
it occurred to me that it was possible that I might learn
from them something about the Bankrupt laws which I
had heard from Munter when I was with him in the country
had been lately put under new regulations. I began
by putting the Question whether there had not been some new
regulations in this respect. Yes, there had. — whether there
was any work which gave an account of them or whether the Code
itself was published. Job said that he believed his brother
could give perhaps inform me a with respect to that matter pretty well.
I then perceived a smile in both their countenances and John
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Identifier: | JB/538/384/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 538.
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1779-10-06 |
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538 |
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384 |
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001 |
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Correspondence |
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Samuel Bentham |
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