Weather Report

Holland is no more at present than a great leaky Man of War, tossing on the Ocean, and Mariners are forc'd to pump Night and Day to keep the Vessel above Water. I can assure you, without a Jest, that the Cellars and Canals have frequent Communication, and happy is he that can lodge in a Garret: There are Fellows planted on all the Steeples, with a considerable Reward to him that can make the first Land, tho' they had more Need to look out for a Rainbow; for without that I shall believe that God Almighty, in his Articles with Noah after the Flood, has excluded the Dutch out of the Treaty.

George Farquhar, letter from the Hague