time, as if he took what His Highness had done in jest, said,
"Mon Prince" (I forget the French words he used), "that's a good
joke; but we do it much better in England," and threw a whole
glass of wine in the Prince's face. An old general who sat by
said, "Il a bien fait, mon Prince, vous l'avez commence," and
thus all ended in good humour."

In Letter XIII. Smollett settles down to give his correspondents
a detailed description of the territory and people of Nice. At
one time it was his intention to essay yet another branch of
authorship and to produce a monograph on the natural history,
antiquities, and topography of the town as the capital of this
still unfamiliar littoral; with the late-born modesty of
experience, however, he recoils from a task to which he does not
feel his opportunities altogether adequate. [See p. 152.] A
quarter of Smollett's original material would embarrass a
"Guide"-builder of more recent pattern.

Whenever he got near a coast line Smollett could not refrain from
expressing decided views. If he had lived at the present day he
would infallibly have been a naval expert, better informed than
most and more trenchant than all; but recognizably one of the
species, artist in words and amateur of ocean-strategy. [Smollett
had, of course, been surgeon's mate on H.M.S. Cumberland, 1740-41.]
His first curiosity at Nice was raised concerning the port,
the harbour, the galleys moored within the mole, and the naval
policy of his Sardinian Majesty. His advice to Victor Amadeus was
no doubt as excellent and as unregarded as the advice of naval
experts generally is. Of more interest to us is his account of
the slave-galleys. Among the miserable slaves whom "a British