The first stages and incidents of the expedition were not exactly
propitious. The Dover Road was a byword for its charges; the Via
Alba might have been paved with the silver wrung from reluctant
and indignant passengers. Smollett characterized the chambers as
cold and comfortless, the beds as "paultry" (with "frowsy," a
favourite word), the cookery as execrable, wine poison,
attendance bad, publicans insolent, and bills extortion,
concluding with the grand climax that there was not a drop of
tolerable malt liquor to be had from London to Dover. Smollett
finds a good deal to be said for the designation of "a den of
thieves" as applied to that famous port (where, as a German lady
of much later date once complained, they "boot ze Bible in ze
bedroom, but ze devil in ze bill", and he grizzles lamentably
over the seven guineas, apart from extras, which he had to pay
for transport in a Folkestone cutter to Boulogne Mouth.

Having once arrived at Boulogne, Smollett settled down regularly
to his work as descriptive reporter, and the letters that he
wrote to his friendly circle at home fall naturally into four
groups. The first Letters from II. to V. describe with Hogarthian
point, prejudice and pungency, the town and people of Boulogne.
The second group, Letters VI.-XII., deal with the journey from
Boulogne to Nice by way of Paris, Lyon, Nimes, and Montpellier.
The third group, Letters XIII. -XXIV., is devoted to a more
detailed and particular delineation of Nice and the Nicois. The
fourth, Letters XXV.-XLI., describes the Italian expedition and
the return journey to Boulogne en route for England, where the
party arrive safe home in July 1765.

Smollett's account of Boulogne is excellent reading, it forms an