The peace of 1783 having opened the continent to the curiosity of
the British traveller, Jackson curtly announced to his friends, that
'he was going to take a walk.' His poverty allowed him no other
mode of locomotion; so off he set on the grand tour, carrying with
him a map of France, a bundle of clothes, and a scanty supply of
money. Crossing the channel, he reached Calais, a place which Horace
Walpole, writing from Rome, declared had astonished him more than
anything he had elsewhere seen, but in which our adventurer found
nothing more astonishing than a superb Swiss regiment. He proceeded
to Paris, and thence through Switzerland, by Geneva and Berne, into
Germany, at a town of which--Guenz in Suabia--he met with a comical
enough adventure.
On entering the town he was challenged by a soldier, who, having
learned he had no passport, carried him before a magistrate, by whom
he was forthwith condemned as a vagabond, and remitted to the
custody of a recruiting sergeant. This worthy, in turn, introduced
him to the commanding officer, who politely gave our traveller the
choice of serving his Imperial and Apostolic Majesty, the Emperor of
Germany, either in his cavalry or his infantry forces. But Jackson,
strangely insensible to the honour, flatly refused to serve his
Majesty in these or any other ways, and desired to be at once set
free, and suffered to continue his journey. The officer, doubtless
amazed at such presumption, desired the sergeant to convey him to
the barracks, where he was placed in a large room, in which were
congregated some two hundred or so involuntary recruits like
himself--harmless travellers, who, being destitute of passports, the
emperor forcibly enlisted into his service.
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