Surrounded by a people to me strange, invisible and incomprehensible, separated from every living being who could be supposed to take the least interest in my welfare or even existence, and exposed to all the influences of national prejudice, which is said to prompt this people to take every advantage of their English neighbours, I could count on nothing but the common feelings of humanity, which might be elicited in favour of a person like myself.
extract from The Narrative of a Journey through France, &c. (London, 1822) by James Holman FRS, p.3, edited and read by Joe Rizzo Naudi.