I need not tell you this is the worst road in England with
respect to the conveniences of travelling, and must certainly
impress foreigners with an unfavourable opinion of the nation in
general. The chambers are in general cold and comfortless, the
beds paultry, the cookery execrable, the wine poison, the
attendance bad, the publicans insolent, and the bills extortion;
there is not a drop of tolerable malt liquor to be had from
London to Dover.

Every landlord and every waiter harangued upon the knavery of a
publican in Canterbury, who had charged the French ambassador
forty pounds for a supper that was not worth forty shillings.
They talked much of honesty and conscience; but when they
produced their own bills, they appeared to be all of the same
family and complexion. If it was a reproach upon the English
nation, that an innkeeper should pillage strangers at that rate;
it is a greater scandal, that the same fellow should be able to
keep his house still open. I own, I think it would be for the
honour of the kingdom to reform the abuses of this road; and in
particular to improve the avenue to London by the way of Kent-Street,
which is a most disgraceful entrance to such an opulent
city. A foreigner, in passing through this beggarly and ruinous
suburb, conceives such an idea of misery and meanness, as all the
wealth and magnificence of London and Westminster are afterwards
unable to destroy. A friend of mine, who brought a Parisian from
Dover in his own post-chaise, contrived to enter Southwark after
it was dark, that his friend might not perceive the nakedness of
this quarter. The stranger was much pleased with the great number
of shops full of merchandize, lighted up to the best advantage.
He was astonished at the display of riches in Lombard-Street and