On Sunday, I heard an English sermon at the Presbyterian congregation, where they had chalked upon a slate the psalms that were to be sung, so that all the congregation might see them without the bidding of a clerk. I was told, that after such an age no minister was permitted to preach, but had his maintenance continued during life.

I purposely changed my lodgings, being desirous to converse with the sectaries that swarmed in this city, out of whose spawn came those almost innumerable broods in England afterward. It was at a Brownist‘s house, where we had an extraordinary good table. There was in pension with us my Lord Keeper, Finch, and one Sir J. Fotherbee. Here I also found an English Carmelite, who was going through Germany with an Irish gentleman.

I now went to see the Weese-house, a foundation like our Charter-house, for the education of decayed persons, orphans, and poor children, where they are taught several occupations. The girls are so well brought up to housewifery, that men of good worth, who seek that chiefly in a woman, frequently take their wives from this hospital.

Thence to the Rasp-house, where the lusty knaves are compelled to work; and the rasping of brasil and logwood for the dyers is very hard labor. To the Dool-house ((Dolhuis, mad-house. –AD)), for madmen and fools. But none did I so much admire, as an Hospital for their lame and decrepit soldiers and seamen, where the accommodations are very great, the building answerable; and, indeed, for the like public charities the provisions are admirable in this country, where, as no idle vagabonds are suffered (as in England they are), there is hardly a child of four or five years old, but they find some employment for it.

Job Adriaenszoon Berckheyde, The Old Exchange of Amsterdam, (Circa 1670)

It was on a Sunday morning that I went to the Bourse, or Exchange, after their sermons were ended, to see the Dog-market, which lasts till two in the afternoon, in this place of convention of merchants from all parts of the world. The building is not comparable to that of London, built by that worthy citizen, Sir Thomas Gresham, yet in one respect exceeding it, that vessels of considerable burden ride at the very quay contiguous to it; and indeed it is by extraordinary industry that as well this city, as generally all the towns of Holland, are so accommodated with graffs ((Dutch: gracht, a waterway in the city with streets on both sides of the water – GS)), cuts, sluices, moles ((Dutch: molen, a windmill – GS)), and rivers, made by hand, that nothing is more frequent than to see a whole navy, belonging to this mercantile people, riding at anchor before their very doors: and yet their streets even, straight, and well paved, the houses so uniform and planted with lime trees, as nothing can be more beautiful.