Borrow confesses that he was at a loss to know how to commence operations in Seville. He was entirely friendless, even the British Consul being unapproachable on account of his religious beliefs. However, he soon gathered round him some of those curious characters who seemed always to gravitate towards him, no matter where he might be, or with what occupied. Surely the Scriptures never had such a curious assortment of missionaries as Borrow employed? At Seville there was the gigantic Greek, Dionysius of Cephalonia; the “aged professor of music, who, with much stiffness and ceremoniousness, united much that was excellent and admirable”; [298] the Greek bricklayer, Johannes Chysostom, a native of Morea, who might at any time become “the Masaniello of Seville.” With these assistants Borrow set to work to throw the light of the Gospel into the dark corners of the city.

Soon after arriving at Seville, he decided to adopt a new plan of living.

“On account of the extreme dearness of every article at the posada,” he wrote to Mr Brandram on 12th June, “where, moreover, I had a suspicion that I was being watched [this may have reference to the police suspicion that he was a Russian spy], I removed with my servant and horses to an empty house in a solitary part of the town . . . Here I live in the greatest privacy, admitting no person but two or three in whom I had the greatest confidence, who entertain the same views as myself, and who assist me in the circulation of the Gospel.”

The house stood in a solitary situation, occupying one side of the Plazuela de la Pila Seca (the Little Square of the Empty Trough). It was a two-storied building and much too large for Borrow’s requirements. Having bought the necessary articles of furniture, he retired behind the shutters of his Andalusian mansion with Antonio and the two horses. He lived in the utmost seclusion, spending a large portion of his time in study or in dreamy meditation. “The people here complain sadly of the heat,” he writes to Mr Brandram (28th June 1839), “but as for myself, I luxuriate in it, like the butterflies which hover about the macetas, or flowerpots, in the court.” In the cool of the evening he would mount Sidi Habismilk and ride along the Dehesa until the topmost towers of the city were out of sight, then, turning the noble Arab, he would let him return at his best speed, which was that of the whirlwind.

Throughout his work in Spain Borrow had been seriously handicapped by being unable to satisfy the demand for Bibles that met him everywhere he went. In a letter (June) from Maria Diaz, who was acting as his agent in Madrid, [299] the same story is told.

“The binder has brought me eight Bibles,” she writes, “which he has contrived to make up out of the sheets gnawn by the rats, and which would have been necessary even had they amounted to eight thousand (y era necesario se puviÈran vuelto 8000), because the people are innumerable who come to seek more. Don Santiago has been here with some friends, who insisted upon having a part of them. The Aragonese Gentleman has likewise been, he who came before your departure, and bespoke twenty-four; he now wants twenty-five. I begged them to take Testaments, but they would not.” [300]

The Greek bricklayer proved a most useful agent. His great influence with his poor acquaintances resulted in the sale of many Testaments. More could have been done had it not been necessary to proceed with extreme caution, lest the authorities should take action and seize the small stock of books that remained.

When he took and furnished the large house in the little square, there had been in Borrow’s mind another reason than a desire for solitude and freedom from prying eyes. Throughout his labours in Spain he had kept up a correspondence with Mrs Clarke of Oulton, who, on 15th March, had written informing him of her intention to take up her abode for a short time at Seville.

For some time previously Mrs Clarke had been having trouble about her estate. Her mother (September 1835) and father (February 1836) were both dead, and her brother Breame had inherited the estate and she the mortgage together with the Cottage on Oulton Broad. Breame Skepper died (May 1837), leaving a wife and six children. In his will he had appointed Trustees, who demanded the sale of the Estate and division of the money, which was opposed by Mrs Clarke as executrix and mortgagee. Later it was agreed between the parties that the Estate should be sold for £11,000 to a Mr Joseph Cator Webb, and an agreement to that effect was signed. Anticipating that the Estate would increase in value, and apparently regretting their bargain, the Trustees delayed carrying out their undertaking, and Mr Webb filed a bill in Chancery to force them to do so. Mrs Clarke’s legal advisers thought it better that she should disappear for a time. Hence her letter to Borrow, in replying to which (29th March), he expresses pleasure at the news of his friend’s determination “to settle in Seville for a short time—which, I assure you, I consider to be the most agreeable retreat you can select . . . for there the growls of your enemies will scarcely reach you.” He goes on to tell her that he laughed outright at the advice of her counsellor not to take a house and furnish it.

“Houses in Spain are let by the day: and in a palace here you will find less furniture than in your cottage at Oulton. Were you to furnish a Spanish house in the style of cold, wintry England, you would be unable to breathe. A few chairs, tables, and mattresses are all that is required, with of course a good stock of bed-linen . . .

“Bring with you, therefore, your clothes, plenty of bed-linen, etc., half-a-dozen blankets, two dozen knives and forks, a mirror or two, twelve silver table spoons, and a large one for soup, tea things and urn (for the Spaniards never drink tea), a few books, but not many,—and you will have occasion for nothing more, or, if you have, you can purchase it here as cheap as in England.”

Borrow’s ideas of domestic comfort were those of the old campaigner. For all that, he showed himself very thorough in the directions he gave as to how and where Mrs Clarke should book her passage and obtain “a passport for yourself and Hen.” (Henrietta her daughter, now nearly twenty years of age), and the warning he gave that no attempt should be made to go ashore at Lisbon, “a very dangerous place.”

On 7th June Mrs Clarke and her daughter Henrietta sailed from London on board the steam-packet Royal Tar bound for Cadiz, where they arrived on the 16th, and, on the day following, entered into possession of their temporary home where Borrow was already installed, safe for the time from Mr Webb’s Chancery bill. It was no doubt to Mrs and Miss Clarke that Borrow referred when he wrote to Mr Brandram [301] saying that “two or three ladies of my acquaintance occasionally dispose of some [Testaments] amongst their friends, but they say that they experience some difficulty, the cry for Bibles being great.”

Borrow continued to reside at 7 Plazuela de la Pila Seca, and Mrs Clarke and Henrietta soon learned something of the vicissitudes and excitements of a missionary’s life. On Sunday, 8th July, as Borrow “happened to be reading the Liturgy,” he received a visit from “various alguacils, headed by the Alcade del Barrio, or headborough, who made a small seizure of Testaments and Gypsy Gospels which happened to be lying about.” [302] This circumstance convinced Borrow of the good effect of his labours in and around Seville.

The time had now arrived, however, when the whole of the smuggled Testaments had been disposed of, and there was no object in remaining longer in Seville, or in Spain for that matter. There were books at San Lucar that might without official opposition be shipped out of the country, and Borrow therefore determined to see what could be done towards distributing them among the Spanish residents on the Coast of Barbary. This done, he hoped to return to Spain and dispose of the 900 odd Testaments lying at Madrid. On 18th July he wrote to Mr Brandram:—

“I should wish to be permitted on my return from my present expedition to circulate some in La Mancha. The state of that province is truly horrible; it appears peopled partly with spectres and partly with demons. There is famine, and such famine; there is assassination and such unnatural assassination [another of Borrow’s phrases that must have struck the Committee as odd]. There you see soldiers and robbers, ghastly lepers and horrible and uncouth maimed and blind, exhibiting their terrible nakedness in the sun. I was prevented last year in carrying the Gospel amongst them. May I be more successful this.”

Antonio had been dismissed, his master being “compelled to send [him] back to Madrid . . . on account of his many irregularities,” and in consequence it was alone, on the night of 31st July, that Borrow set out upon his expedition. From Seville he took the steamer to Bonanza, from whence he drove to San Lucar, where he picked up a chest of New Testaments and a small box of St Luke’s Gospel in Gitano, with a pass for them to Cadiz. It proved expensive, this claiming of his own property, for at every step there was some fee to be paid or gratuity to be given. The last payment was made to the Spanish Consul at Gibraltar, who claimed and received a dollar for certifying the arrival of books he had not seen.

Borrow was instinctively a missionary, even a great missionary. At the Customs House of San Lucar some questions were asked about the books contained in the cases, and he seized the occasion to hold an informal missionary meeting, with the officials clustered round him listening to his discourse. One of the cases had to be opened for inspection, and the upshot of it was that, to the very officials whose duty it was to see that the books were not distributed in Spain, Borrow sold a number of copies, not only of the Spanish Testament, but of the Gypsy St Luke. Such was the power of his personality and the force of his eloquence.

From San Lucar Borrow returned to Bonanza and again took the boat, which landed him at Cadiz, where he was hospitably entertained by Mr Brackenbury, the British Consul, who gave him a letter of introduction to Mr Drummond Hay, the Consul-General at Tangier. On 4th August he proceeded to Gibraltar. It was not until the 8th, however, that he was able to cross to Tangier, where he was kindly received by Mr Hay, who found for him a very comfortable lodging.

Taking the Consul’s advice, Borrow proceeded with extreme caution. For the first fortnight of his stay he made no effort to distribute his Testaments, contenting himself with studying the town and its inhabitants, occasionally speaking to the Christians in the place (principally Spanish and Genoese sailors and their families) about religious matters, but always with the greatest caution lest the two or three friars, who resided at what was known as the Spanish Convent, should become alarmed. Again Borrow obtained the services of a curious assistant, a Jewish lad named Hayim Ben Attar, who carried the Testaments to the people’s houses and offered them for sale, and this with considerable success. On 4th September Borrow wrote to Mr Brandram:—

“The blessed book is now in the hands of most of the Christians of Tangier, from the lowest to the highest, from the fisherman to the consul. One dozen and a half were carried to Tetuan on speculation, a town about six leagues from hence; they will be offered to the Christians who reside there. Other two dozen are on their way to distant Mogadore. One individual, a tavern keeper, has purchased Testaments to the number of thirty, which he says he has no doubt he can dispose of to the foreign sailors who stop occasionally at his house. You will be surprised to hear that several amongst the Jews have purchased copies of the New Testament with the intention, as they state, of improving themselves in Spanish, but I believe from curiosity.”

During his stay in Tangier, Borrow had some trouble with the British Vice-Consul, who seems to have made himself extremely offensive with his persistent offers of service. His face was “purple and blue” and in whose blood-shot eyes there was an expression “much like that of a departed tunny fish or salmon,” and he became so great an annoyance that Borrow made a complaint to Mr Drummond Hay. This is one of the few instances of Borrow’s experiencing difficulty with any British official, for, as a rule, he was extremely popular. In this particular instance, however, the Vice-Consul was so obviously seeking to make profit out of his official position, that there was no other means open to Borrow than to make a formal complaint.

In the case of Mr Drummond Hay, he obtained the friendship of a “true British gentleman.” At first the Consul had been reserved and distant, and apparently by no means inclined to render Borrow any service in the furtherance of his mission; but a few days sufficed to bring him under the influence of Borrow’s personal magnetism, and he ended by assuring him that he would be happy to receive the Society’s commands, and would render all possible assistance, officially or otherwise, to the distribution of the Scriptures “in Fez or Morocco.”

Borrow was thoroughly satisfied with the result of his five weeks’ stay in Tangier. He reached Cadiz on his way to Seville on 21st Sept., after undergoing a four days’ quarantine at Tarifa, when he wrote to Mr Brandram (29th Sept.):

“I am very glad that I went to Tangier, for many reasons. In the first place, I was permitted to circulate many copies of God’s Word both among the Jews and the Christians, by the latter of whom it was particularly wanted, their ignorance of the most vital points of religion being truly horrible. In the second place, I acquired a vast stock of information concerning Africa and the state of its interior. One of my principal Associates was a black slave whose country was only three days’ journey from Timbuctoo, which place he had frequently visited. The Soos men also told me many of the secrets of the land of wonders from which they come, and the Rabbis from Fez and Morocco were no less communicative.”

Borrow had started upon his expedition to the Barbary Coast without any definite instructions from Earl Street. On 29th July the Sub-Committee had resolved that as his mission to Spain was “nearly attained by the disposal of the larger part of the Spanish Scriptures which he went out to distribute,” the General Committee be recommended to request him to take measures for selling or placing in safe custody all copies remaining on hand and returning to England “without loss of time.” This was adopted on 5th Aug.; but before it received the formal sanction of the General Committee Mr Browne had written (29th July) to Borrow acquainting him with the feeling of the Sub-Committee, thinking that he ought to have early intimation of what was taking place. This letter Borrow found awaiting him at Cadiz on his return from Tangier. He replied immediately (21st Sept.):

“Had I been aware of that resolution before my departure for Tangier I certainly should not have gone; my expedition, however, was the result of much reflection. I wished to carry the Gospel to the Christians of the Barbary shore, who were much in want of it; and I had one hundred and thirty Testaments at San Lucar, which I could only make available by exportation. The success which it has pleased the Lord to yield me in my humble efforts at distribution in Barbary will, I believe, prove the best criterion as to the fitness of the enterprise.

“I stated in my last communication to Mr Brandram the plan which I conceived to be the best for circulating that portion of the edition of the New Testament which remains unsold at Madrid, and I scarcely needed a stimulant in the execution of my duty. At present, however, I know not what to do; I am sorrowful, disappointed and unstrung.

“I wish to return to England as soon as possible; but I have books and papers at Madrid which are of much importance to me and which I cannot abandon, this perhaps alone prevents me embarking in the next packet. I have, moreover, brought with me from Tangier the Jewish youth [Hayim Ben Attar], who so powerfully assisted me in that place in the work of distribution. I had hoped to have made him of service in Spain, he is virtuous and clever . . .

“I am almost tempted to ask whether some strange, some unaccountable delusion does not exist: what should induce me to stay in Spain, as you appear to suppose I intend? I may, however, have misunderstood you. I wish to receive a fresh communication as soon as possible, either from yourself or Mr Brandram; in the meantime I shall go to Seville, to which place and to the usual number pray direct.”

It would appear that the Bible Society had become aware of Borrow’s mÉnage at Seville, and concluded that he meant to take up his abode in Spain more or less permanently.

Borrow’s next plan was to order a chest of Testaments to be sent to La Mancha, where he had friends, then to mount his horse and proceed there in person. With the assistance of his Jewish body-servant he hoped to circulate many copies before the authorities became aware of his presence. Later he would proceed to Madrid, put his affairs in order, and make for France by way of Saragossa (where he hoped to accomplish some good), and then—home.

In September a circular signed by Lord Palmerston was received by all the British Consuls in Spain, strictly forbidding them “to afford the slightest countenance to religious agents. [307a] What was the cause of this last blow?” [307b] Borrow rather unfortunately enquired of Mr Brandram. The Consul at Cadiz, Mr Brackenbury, explained it, according to Borrow, as due to “an ill-advised application made to his Lordship to interfere with the Spanish Government on behalf of a certain individual [307c] [Lieut. Graydon] whose line of conduct needs no comment.” [307d] After pointing out that once the same consuls had received from a British Ambassador instructions to further, in their official capacity, the work of the Bible Society, he concludes with the following remark, as ill-advised as it is droll: “When dead flies fall into the ointment of the apothecary they cause it to send forth an unpleasant savour.” [308a]

It must have been obvious to both Borrow and Mr Brandram that matters were rapidly approaching a crisis. Mr Brandram seems to have been almost openly hostile, and draws Borrow’s attention to the fact that after all his distributions have been small. Borrow replies by saying that the fault did not rest with him. Had he been able to offer Bibles instead of Testaments for sale, the circulation would have been ten times greater. He expresses it as his belief that had he received 20,000 Bibles he could have sold them all in Madrid during the Spring of 1839.

“When the Bible Society has no further occasion for my poor labours,” he wrote [308b] somewhat pathetically, “I hope it will do me justice to the world. I have been its faithful and zealous servant. I shall on a future occasion take the liberty of addressing you as a friend respecting my prospects. I have the materials of a curious book of travels in Spain; I have enough metrical translations from all languages, especially the Celtic and Sclavonic, to fill a dozen volumes; and I have formed a vocabulary of the Spanish Gypsy tongue, and also a collection of the songs and poetry of the Gitanos, with introductory essays. Perhaps some of these literary labours might be turned to account. I wish to obtain honourably and respectably the means of visiting China or particular parts of Africa.”

It is clear from this that Borrow saw how unlikely it was that his association with the Bible Society would be prolonged beyond the present commission. For one thing Spain was, to all intents and purposes, closed to the unannotated Scriptures. Something might be done in the matter of surreptitious distribution; but that had its clearly defined limitations, as the authorities were very much alive to the danger of the light that Borrow sought to cast over the gloom of ignorance and superstition.

At Earl Street it was clearly recognised that Borrow’s work in Spain was concluded. On 1st November the Sub-Committee resolved that it could “not recommend to the General Committee to engage the further services of Mr Borrow until he shall have returned to this country from his Mission in Spain.” Again, on 10th January following, it recommends the General Committee to recall him “without further delay.”

Although he had been officially recalled, nothing was further from Borrow’s intentions than to retire meekly from the field. He intended to retreat with drums sounding and colours flying, fighting something more than a rearguard action. This man’s energy and resource were terrible—to the authorities! Seville he felt was still a fruitful ground, and sending to Madrid for further supplies of Testaments, he commenced operations. “Everything was accomplished with the utmost secrecy, and the blessed books obtained considerable circulation.” [309] Agents were sent into the country and he went also himself, “in my accustomed manner,” until all the copies that had arrived from the capital were put into circulation. He then rested for a while, being in need of quiet, as he was indisposed.

By this action Borrow was incurring no little risk. The Canons of the Cathedral watched him closely. Their hatred amounted “almost to a frenzy,” and Borrow states that scarcely a day passed without some accusation of other being made to the Civil Governor, all of which were false. People whom he had never seen were persuaded to perjure themselves by swearing that he had sold or given them books. The same system was carried on whilst he was in Africa, because the authorities refused to believe that he was out of Spain.

There now occurred another regrettable incident, and Borrow once more suffered for the indiscretion of those whom he neither knew nor controlled. To Mr Brandram he wrote:

“Some English people now came to Seville and distributed tracts in a very unguarded manner, knowing nothing of the country or the inhabitants. They were even so unwise as to give tracts instead of money on visiting public buildings, etc. [!]. These persons came to me and requested my coÖperation and advice, and likewise introductions to people spiritually disposed amongst the Spaniards, to all which requests I returned a decided negative. But I foresaw all. In a day or two I was summoned before the Civil Governor, or, as he was once called, the Corregidor, of Seville, who, I must say, treated me with the utmost politeness and indeed respect; but at the same time he informed me that he had (to use his own expression) terrible orders from Madrid concerning me if I should be discovered in the act of distributing the Scriptures or any writings of a religious tendency; he then taxed me with having circulated both lately, especially tracts; whereupon I told him that I had never distributed a tract since I had been in Spain nor had any intention of doing so. We had much conversation and parted in kindness.” [310]

For a few days nothing happened; then, determined to set out on an expedition to La Mancha (the delay had been due to the insecure state of the roads), Borrow sent his passport (24th Nov.) for signature to the Alcalde del Barrio.

“This fellow,” Borrow informs Mr Brandram, “is the greatest ruffian in Seville, and I have on various occasions been insulted by him; he pretends to be a liberal, but he is of no principle at all, and as I reside within his district he has been employed by the Canons of the Cathedral to vex and harrass me on every possible occasion.”

In the following letter, addressed to the British ChargÉ d’Affaires (the Hon. G. S. S. Jerningham), Borrow gives a full account of what transpired between him and the Alcalde of Seville:—

Sir,

I beg leave to lay before you the following statement of certain facts which lately occurred at Seville, from which you will perceive that the person of a British Subject has been atrociously outraged, the rights and privileges of a foreigner in Spain violated, and the sanctuary of a private house invaded without the slightest reason or shadow of authority by a person in the employ of the Spanish Government.

For some months past I have been a resident at Seville in a house situated in a square called the “Plazuela de la Pila Seca.” In this house I possess apartments, the remainder being occupied by an English Lady and her daughter, the former of whom is the widow of an officer of the highest respectability who died in the naval service of Great Britain. On the twenty-fourth of last November, I sent a servant, a Native of Spain, to the Office of the “Ayuntamiento” of Seville for the purpose of demanding my passport, it being my intention to set out the next day for Cordoba. The “Ayuntamiento” returned for answer that it was necessary that the ticket of residence (Billete de residencia) which I had received on sending in the Passport should be signed by the Alcalde of the district in which I resided, to which intimation I instantly attended. I will here take the liberty of observing that on several occasions during my residence at Seville, I have experienced gross insults from this Alcalde, and that more than once when I have had occasion to leave the Town, he has refused to sign the necessary document for the recovery of the passport; he now again refused to do so, and used coarse language to the Messenger; whereupon I sent the latter back with money to pay any fees, lawful or unlawful, which might be demanded, as I wished to avoid noise and the necessity of applying to the Consul, Mr Williams; but the fellow became only more outrageous. I then went myself to demand an explanation, and was saluted with no inconsiderable quantity of abuse. I told him that if he proceeded in this manner I would make a complaint to the Authorities through the British Consul. He then said if I did not instantly depart he would drag me off to prison and cause me to be knocked down if I made the slightest resistance. I dared him repeatedly to do both, and said that he was a disgrace to the Government which employed him, and to human nature. He called me a vile foreigner. We were now in the street and a mob had collected, whereupon I cried: “Viva Inglaterra y viva la Constitucion.” The populace remained quiet, notwithstanding the exhortations of the Alcalde that they would knock down “the foreigner,” for he himself quailed before me as I looked him in the face, defying him. At length he exclaimed, with the usual obscene Spanish oath, “I will make you lower your head” (Yo te harÉ abajar la cabeza), and ran to a neighbouring guard-house and requested the assistance of the Nationals in conducting me to prison. I followed him and delivered myself up at the first summons, and walked to the prison without uttering a word; not so the Alcalde, who continued his abuse until we arrived at the gate, repeatedly threatening to have me knocked down if I moved to the right or left.

I was asked my name by the Authorities of the prison, which I refused to give unless in the presence of the Consul of my Nation, and indeed to answer any questions. I was then ordered to the Patio, or Courtyard, where are kept the lowest thieves and assassins of Seville, who, having no money, cannot pay for better accommodation, and by whom I should have been stripped naked in a moment as a matter of course, as they are all in a state of raging hunger and utter destitution. I asked for a private cell, which I was told I might have if I could pay for it. I stated my willingness to pay anything which might be demanded, and was conducted to an upper ward consisting of several cells and a corridor; here I found six or seven Prisoners, who received me very civilly, and instantly procured me paper and ink for the purpose of writing to the Consul. In less than an hour Mr Williams arrived and I told him my story, whereupon he instantly departed in order to demand redress of the Authorities. The next morning the Alcalde, without any authority from the Political [Civil] Governor of Seville, and unaccompanied by the English Consul, as the law requires in such cases, and solely attended by a common Escribano, went to the house in which I was accustomed to reside and demanded admission. The door was opened by my Moorish Servant, Hayim Ben-Attar, whom he commanded instantly to show the way to my apartments. On the Servant’s demanding by what authority he came, he said, “Cease chattering” (Deje cuentos), “I shall give no account to you; show me the way; if not, I will take you to prison as I did your master: I come to search for prohibited books.” The Moor, who being in a strange land was somewhat intimidated, complied and led him to the rooms occupied by me, when the Alcalde flung about my books and papers, finding nothing which could in the slightest degree justify his search, the few books being all either in Hebrew or Arabic character (they consisted of the Mitchna and some commentaries on the Coran); he at last took up a large knife which lay on a chair and which I myself purchased some months previous at Santa Cruz in La Mancha as a curiosity—the place being famous for those knives—and expressed his determination to take it away as a prohibited article. The Escribano, however, cautioned him against doing so, and he flung it down. He now became very vociferous and attempted to force his way into some apartments occupied by the Ladies, my friends; but soon desisted and at last went away, after using some threatening words to my Moorish Servant. Late at night of the second day of my imprisonment, I was set at liberty by virtue of an order of the Captain General, given on application of the British Consul, after having been for thirty hours imprisoned amongst the worst felons of Andalusia, though to do them justice I must say that I experienced from them nothing but kindness and hospitality.

The above, Sir, is the correct statement of the affair which has now brought me to Madrid. What could have induced the Alcalde in question to practise such atrocious behaviour towards me I am at a loss to conjecture, unless he were instigated by certain enemies which I possess in Seville. However this may be, I now call upon you, as the Representative of the Government of which I am a Subject, to demand of the Minister of the Spanish Crown full and ample satisfaction for the various outrages detailed above. In conclusion, I must be permitted to add that I will submit to no compromise, but will never cease to claim justice until the culprit has received condign punishment.

I am, etc., etc., etc.

George Borrow.

Madrid (no date).

Recorded 6th December [1839].” [313]

Thus it happened that on 19th December Mr Brandram received the following letter:—

Prison of Seville, 25th Nov. 1839.

I write these lines, as you see, from the common prison of Seville, to which I was led yesterday, or rather dragged, neither for murder nor robbery nor debt, but simply for having endeavoured to obtain a passport for Cordoba, to which place I was going with my Jewish servant Hayim Ben-Attar.

When questioned by the Vice-Consul as to his authority for searching Borrow’s house, the Alcalde produced a paper purporting to be the deposition of an old woman to whom Borrow was alleged to have sold a Testament some ten days previously. The document Borrow pronounced a forgery and the statement untrue.

Borrow’s fellow-prisoners treated him with unbounded kindness and hospitality, and he was forced to confess that he had “never found himself amongst more quiet and well-behaved men.” Nothing shows more clearly the power of Borrow’s personality over rogues and vagabonds than the two periods spent in Spanish prisons—at Madrid and at Seville. Mr Brandram must have shuddered when he read Borrow’s letter telling him by what manner of men he was surrounded.

“What is their history?” he writes apropos of his fellow-prisoners. “The handsome black-haired man, who is now looking over my shoulder, is the celebrated thief, Pelacio, the most expert housebreaker and dexterous swindler in Spain—in a word, the modern Guzman D’alfarache. The brawny man who sits by the brasero of charcoal is Salvador, the highwayman of Ronda, who has committed a hundred murders. A fashionably dressed man, short and slight in person, is walking about the room: he wears immense whiskers and mustachios; he is one of that most singular race the Jews of Spain; he is imprisoned for counterfeiting money. He is an atheist; but, like a true Jew, the name which he most hates is that of Christ. Yet he is so quiet and civil, and they are all so quiet and civil, and it is that which most horrifies me, for quietness and civility in them seems so unnatural.” [315]

Such were the men who fraternised with an agent of a religious society and showed him not only civility but hospitality and kindness. It is open to question if they would have shown the same to any other unfortunate missionary. In all probability they recognised a fellow-vagabond, who was at much at issue with the social conventions of communities as they were with the laws of property.

On this occasion the period of Borrow’s imprisonment was brief. He was released late at night on 25th Nov., within thirty hours of his arrest, and he immediately set to work to think out a plan by which he could once more discomfit the Spanish authorities for this indignity to a British subject. He would proceed to Madrid without delay and put his case before the British Minister, at the same time he would “make preparations for leaving Spain as soon as possible.”