96 HORTICULTURAL TOUR. 



manufacture of all kinds of ship-cordage, both established 

 by the same wonderful man. The cloisters of the suppress- 

 ed Abbey of St Michael, one of the most opulent religious 

 establishments of the Low Countries, were now used for the 

 stowing of naval timber. 



We entered the citadel, having readily, as English stran- 

 gers, obtained the permission of the commanding officer. We 

 walked on the top of the ramparts, so as to command a view 

 of the whole at once. The citadel is of a pentagonal shape ; 

 and the walls and fosses appeared to us much more formi- 

 dable than those of Ostend. That it might be defended 

 against a very powerful assailing army, is abundantly evident. 

 In the last struggles of Buonaparte, it became a place of 

 signal importance. Here, as already noticed, he thought 

 it worth while to station the celebrated mathematician 

 and engineer Carnot in 1814 ; and in the following 

 eventful year, the Duke of Wellington fixed on this 

 as the point to which he would retreat, in case he should 

 have been unable to protect Brussels : he therefore threw 

 into it a garrison of British soldiers ; and had the day 

 of Waterloo turned against him, there can be no doubt 

 that he would have held out this citadel till relieved by the 

 advance of the Russians. We procured access to the Ga» 

 kres, or great prison for felons, which is situated within the 

 citadel. About 1000 offenders were now in confinement, 

 none of them for less than five years, many for ten years, 

 and not a few for life. They are kept closely at work ; but 

 all the employments which we saw, were of a sedentary 

 kind. Some of the apartments were very ill ventilated, and 

 had a nauseous smell. The jailor, indeed, who accom- 

 panied us, alleged, that, on an average, not more than 

 twenty die in the year; the greater number of the inmates, 

 however, appeared squalid, pale, and emaciated. We were 



