Item 33 - Peter Elmsley to his sister-in-law [Mary Hallowell?]

Brussels, Hotel de Flandre. Travelling without a companion. Quantities of white poplars - luxuriant vegetation and accurate cultivation. Houses and inhabitants poor and wretched. Entrance into Brussels like that into Paris - narrow, dirty, stinking streets, and shabby and lounging inhabitants. Upper part of town more agreeable. Allee verte - avenue of limes. Country side beautiful and accessible. Provisions good and cheap. Dines at hotel at 3 in the common room ; want of sitting rooms inconvenient to lovers - PE interrupted a tender conversation while in search of a newspaper. Walk to Laken, from which Buonaparte dated the proclamations which he had ready printed for circulation in case of defeating the allies at Waterloo. The chapel given over to various protestant sects in return for payment - PE preached at 2pm. The catholic churches contain little worthy of observation - the modern ones are hideous, but the three gothic ones might be handsome if stripped of their tawdry ornaments. It will be long before PE is reconciled to the Virgin wearing a brocade petticoat.