CHAPTER XVIII DECEMBER 1838–MAY 1839

On 14th December 1838 it was resolved by the General Committee of the Bible Society that Borrow should proceed once more to Spain to dispose of such copies of the Scriptures as remained on hand at Madrid and other depôts established by him in various parts of the country.  He left London on the 21st, and sailed from Falmouth two days later, reaching Cadiz on the 31st, after a stormy passage, and on 2nd January he arrived at Seville, “rather indisposed with an old complaint,” probably “the Horrors.”

In such stirring times to be absent from the country, even for so short a period as two months, meant that on his return the traveller found a new Spain.  Borrow learned that the Duke of Frias had succeeded Count Ofalia in September.  The Duke had advised the British Ambassador in November that the Spanish authorities were possessed of a quantity of Borrow’s Bibles (? New Testaments) that had been seized and taken to Toledo, and that if arrangements were not made for them to be taken out of Spain they would be destroyed.  Sir George Villiers had replied that Mr Borrow, who was then out of the country, had been advised of the Duke’s notification, and as soon as word was received from him, the Duke should be communicated with. Then the Duke of Frias in turn passed out of office and was succeeded by another, and so, politically, change followed change.

The Government, however, had no intention of putting itself in the wrong a second time.  Great Britain’s friendship was of far too great importance to the country to be jeopardised for the mere gratification of imprisoning George Borrow.  An order had been sent out to all the authorities that an embargo was to be placed upon the books themselves; but those distributing them were not to be arrested or in any way harmed.

At Seville he found evidences of the activity of the Government in the news that of the hundred New Testaments that he had left with his correspondent there, seventy-six had been seized during the previous summer.  Hearing that the books were in the hands of the Ecclesiastical Governor, Borrow astonished that “fierce, persecuting Papist by calling to make enquiries concerning them.”  The old man treated his visitor to a stream of impassioned invective against the Bible Society and its agent, expressing his surprise that he had ever been permitted to leave the prison in Madrid.  Seeing that nothing was to be gained, although he had an absolute right to the books, provided he sent them out of the country, Borrow decided not to press the matter.

On the night of 12th Jan. 1839, he left Seville with the Mail Courier and his escort bound for Madrid, where he arrived on the 16th without accident or incident, although the next Courier traversing the route was stopped by banditti.  It was during this journey, whilst resting for four hours at Manzanares, a large village in La Mancha, that he encountered the blind girl who had been taught Latin by a Jesuit priest, and whom he named “the Manchegan Prophetess.” [284]  In telling Mr Brandram of the incident, Borrow tactlessly remarked, “what wonderful people are the Jesuits; when shall we hear of an English rector instructing a beggar girl in the language of Cicero?” Mr Brandram clearly showed that he liked neither the remark, which he took as personal, nor the use of the term “prophetess.”

On reaching Madrid a singular incident befell Borrow.  On entering the arch of the posada called La Reyna, he found himself encircled by a pair of arms, and, on turning round, found that they belonged to the delinquent Antonio, who stood before his late master “haggard and ill-dressed, and his eyes seemed starting from their sockets.”  The poor fellow, who was entirely destitute, had, on the previous night, dreamed that he saw Borrow arrive on a black horse, and, in consequence, had spent the whole day in loitering about outside the posada.  Borrow was very glad to engage him again, in spite of his recent cowardice and desertion.  Borrow once more took up his abode with the estimable Maria Diaz, and one of his first cares was to call on Lord Clarendon (Sir George Villiers had succeeded his uncle as fourth earl), by whom he was kindly received.

A week later, there arrived from Lopez at Villa Seca his “largest and most useful horse,” the famous Sidi Habismilk (My Lord the Sustainer of the Kingdom), “an Arabian of high caste . . . the best, I believe, that ever issued from the desert,” [285a] Lopez wrote, regretting that he was unable to accompany “The Sustainer of the Kingdom” in person, being occupied with agricultural pursuits, but he sent a relative named Victoriano to assist in the work of distributing the Gospel.

Borrow’s plan was to make Madrid his headquarters, with Antonio in charge of the supplies, and visit all the villages and hamlets in the vicinity that had not yet been supplied with Testaments.  He then proposed to turn eastward to a distance of about thirty leagues.

“I have been very passionate in prayer,” he writes, [285b] “during the last two or three days; and I entertain some hope that the Lord has condescended to answer me, as I appear to see my way with considerable clearness.  It may, of course, prove a delusion, and the prospects which seem to present themselves may be mere palaces of clouds, which a breath of wind is sufficient to tumble into ruin; therefore bearing this possibility in mind it behoves me to beg that I may be always enabled to bow meekly to the dispensations of the Almighty, whether they be of favour or severity.”

Mr Brandram’s comment on this portion of Borrow’s letter is rather suggestive of deliberate fault-finding.

“May your ‘passionate’ prayers be answered,” he writes. [286]  “You see I remark your unusual word—very significant it is, but one rather fitted for the select circle where ‘passion’ is understood in its own full sense—and not in the restricted meaning attached to it ordinarily.  Perhaps you will not often meet with a better set of men than those who assembled in Earl Street, but they may not always be open to the force of language, and so unwonted a phrase may raise odd feelings in their minds.  Do not be in a passion, will you, for the freedom of my remarks.  You will perhaps suppose remarks were made in Committee.  This does not happen to be the case, though I fully anticipated it.  Mr Browne, Mr Jowett and myself had first privately devoured your letter, and we made our remarks.  We could relish such a phrase.”

Sometimes there was a suggestion of spite in Mr Brandram’s letters.  He was obviously unfriendly towards Borrow during the latter portion of his agency.  It was clear that the period of Borrow’s further association with the Bible Society was to be limited.  If he replied at all to this rather unfair criticism, he must have done so privately to Mr Brandram, as there is no record of his having referred to it in any subsequent letters among the Society’s archives.

All unconscious that he had so early offended, Borrow set out upon his first journey to distribute Testaments among the villages around Madrid.  Dressed in the manner of the peasants, on his head a montera, a species of leathern helmet, with jacket and trousers of the same material, and mounted on Sidi Habismilk, he looked so unlike the conventional missionary that the housewife may be excused who mistook him for a pedlar selling soap.

In some villages where the people were without money, they received Testaments in return for refreshing the missionaries.  “Is this right?” Borrow enquires of Mr Brandram.  The village priests frequently proved of considerable assistance; for when they pronounced the books good, as they sometimes did, the sale became extremely brisk. After an absence of eight days, Borrow returned to Madrid. Shortly afterwards, when on the eve of starting out upon another expedition to Guadalajara and the villages of Alcarria, he received a letter from Victoriano saying that he was in prison at Fuente la Higuera, a village about eight leagues distant. Acting with his customary energy and decision, Borrow obtained from an influential friend letters to the Civil Governor and principal authorities of Guadalajara.  He then despatched Antonio to the rescue, with the result that Victoriano was released, with the assurance that those responsible for his detention should be severely punished.

Whilst Victoriano was in prison, Borrow and Antonio had been very successful in selling Testaments and Bibles in Madrid, disposing of upwards of a hundred copies, but entirely to the poor, who “receive the Scriptures with gladness,” although the hearts of the rich were hard.  The work in and about Madrid continued until the middle of March, when Borrow decided to make an excursion as far as Talavera.  The first halt was made at the village of Naval Carnero.  Soon after his arrival orders came from Madrid warning the alcaldes of every village in New Castile to be on the look out for the tall, white-haired heretic, of whom an exact description was given, who to-day was in one place and to-morrow twenty leagues distant.  No violence was to be offered either to him or to his assistants; but he and they were to be baulked in their purpose by every legitimate means.

Foiled in the rural districts, Borrow instantly determined to change his plan of campaign.  He saw that he was less likely to attract notice in the densely-populated capital than in the provinces.  He therefore galloped back to Madrid, leaving Victoriano to follow more leisurely.  He rejoiced at the alarm of the clergy.  “Glory to God!” he exclaims, “they are becoming thoroughly alarmed, and with much reason.” [288a]  The “reason” lay in the great demand for Testaments and Bibles.  A new binding-order had to be given for the balance of the 500 Bibles that had arrived in sheets, or such as had been left of them by the rats, who had done considerable damage in the Madrid storehouse.

It was at this juncture that Borrow’s extensive acquaintance with the lower orders proved useful.  Selecting eight of the most intelligent from among them, including five women, he supplied them with Testaments and instructions to vend the books in all the parishes of Madrid, with the result that in the course of about a fortnight 600 copies were disposed of in the streets and alleys.  A house to house canvass was instituted with remarkable results, for manservant and maidservant bought eagerly of the books.  Antonio excelled himself and made some amends for his flight from Labajos, when, like a torrent, the Carlist cavalry descended upon it.  Dark Madrid was becoming illuminated with a flood of Scriptural light.  In two of its churches the New Testament was expounded every Sunday evening.  Bibles were particularly in demand, a hundred being sold in about three weeks.  The demand exceeded the supply.  “The Marques de Santa Coloma,” Borrow wrote, “has a large family, but every individual of it, old or young, is now in possession of a Bible and likewise of a Testament.” [288b]

Borrow appears to have enlisted the aid of other distributors than the eight colporteurs.  One of his most zealous agents was an ecclesiastic, who always carried with him beneath his gown a copy of the Bible, which he offered to the first person he encountered whom he thought likely to become a purchaser. Yet another assistant was found in a rich old gentleman of Navarre, who sent copies to his own province.

One night after having retired to bed, Borrow received a visit from a curious, hobgoblin-like person, who gave him grave, official warning that unless he present himself before the corregidor on the morrow at eleven A. M., he must be prepared to take the consequences.  The hour chosen for this intimation was midnight.  On the next day at the appointed time Borrow presented himself before the corregidor, who announced that he wished to ask a question.  The question related to a box of Testaments that Borrow had sent to Naval Carnero, which had been seized and subsequently claimed on Borrow’s behalf by Antonio.  In Spain they have the dramatic instinct. If it strike the majestic mind of a corregidor at midnight that he would like to see a citizen or a stranger on the morrow about some trifling affair, time or place are not permitted to interfere with the conveyance of the intimation to the citizen or stranger to present himself before the gravely austere official, who will carry out the interrogation with a solemnity becoming a capital charge.

By the middle of April barely a thousand Testaments remained; these Borrow determined to distribute in Seville.  Sending Antonio, the Testaments and two horses with the convoy, Borrow decided to risk travelling with the Mail Courier.  For one thing, he disliked the slowness of a convoy, and for another the insults and irritations that travellers had to put up with from the escort, both officers and men.  His original plan had been to proceed by Estremadura; but a band of Carlist robbers had recently made its appearance, murdering or holding at ransom every person who fell into its clutches.  Borrow wrote:—

“I therefore deem it wise to avoid, if possible, the alternative of being shot or having to pay one thousand pounds for being set at liberty . . . It is moreover wicked to tempt Providence systematically.  I have already thrust myself into more danger than was, perhaps, strictly necessary, and as I have been permitted hitherto to escape, it is better to be content with what it has pleased the Lord to do for me up to the present moment, than to run the risk of offending Him by a blind confidence in His forbearance, which may be over-taxed.  As it is, however, at all times best to be frank, I am willing to confess that I am what the world calls exceedingly superstitious; perhaps the real cause of my change of resolution was a dream, in which I imagined myself on a desolate road in the hands of several robbers, who were hacking me with their long, ugly knives.” [290]

In the same letter, which was so to incur Mr Brandram’s disapproval, Borrow tells of the excellent results of his latest plan for disposing of Bibles and Testaments, three hundred and fifty of the former having been sold since he reached Spain.  He goes on to explain and expound the difficulties that have been met and overcome, and hopes that his friends at Earl Street will be patient, as it may not be in his power to send “for a long time any flattering accounts of operations commenced there.”  In conclusion, he assures Mr Brandram that from the Church of Rome he has learned one thing, “Ever to expect evil, and ever to hope for good.”

Nothing could have been more unfortunate than the effect produced upon Mr Brandram’s mind by this letter.

“I scarcely know what to say,” he writes.  “You are in a very peculiar country; you are doubtless a man of very peculiar temperament, and we must not apply common rules in judging either of yourself or your affairs.  What, e.g., shall we say to your confession of a certain superstitiousness?  It is very frank of you to tell us what you need not have told; but it sounded very odd when read aloud in a large Committee.  Strangers that know you not would carry away strange ideas . . . In bespeaking our patience, there is an implied contrast between your own mode of proceeding and that adopted by others—a contrast this a little to the disadvantage of others, and savouring a little of the praise of a personage called number one . . . Perhaps my vanity is offended, and I feel as if I were not esteemed a person of sufficient discernment to know enough of the real state of Spain . . .

“Bear with me now in my criticisms on your second letter [that of 2nd May].  You narrate your perilous journey to Seville, and say at the beginning of the description: ‘My usual wonderful good fortune accompanying us.’  This is a mode of speaking to which we are not well accustomed; it savours, some of our friends would say, a little of the profane.  Those who know you will not impute this to you.  But you must remember that our Committee Room is public to a great extent, and I cannot omit expressions as I go reading on.  Pious sentiments may be thrust into letters ad nauseam, and it is not for that I plead; but is there not a via media?  “We are odd people, it may be, in England; we are not fond of prophets or ‘prophetesses’ [a reference to her of La Mancha about whom Borrow had previously been rebuked].  I have not turned back to your former description of the lady whom you have a second time introduced to our notice.  Perhaps my wounded pride had not been made whole after the infliction you before gave it by contrasting the teacher of the prophetess with English rectors.”

Borrow replied to this letter from Seville on 28th June, and there are indications that before doing so he took time to deliberate upon it.

“Think not, I pray you,” he wrote, “that any observation of yours respecting style, or any peculiarities of expression which I am in the habit of exhibiting in my correspondence, can possibly awaken in me any feeling but that of gratitude, knowing so well as I do the person who offers them, and the motives by which he is influenced. I have reflected on those passages which you were pleased to point out as objectionable, and have nothing to reply further than that I have erred, that I am sorry, and will endeavour to mend, and that, moreover, I have already prayed for assistance to do so. Allow me, however, to offer a word, not in excuse but in explanation of the expression ‘wonderful good fortune’ which appeared in a former letter of mine. It is clearly objectionable, and, as you very properly observe, savours of pagan times. But I am sorry to say that I am much in the habit of repeating other people’s sayings without weighing their propriety. The saying was not mine; but I heard it in conversation and thoughtlessly repeated it. A few miles from Seville I was telling the Courier of the many perilous journeys which I had accomplished in Spain in safety, and for which I thank the Lord.

His reply was, ‘La mucha suerte de Usted tambien nos ha acompañado en este viage.’”

Thus ended another unfortunate misunderstanding between secretary and agent.

Borrow had taken considerable risk in making the journey to Seville with the Courier. The whole of La Mancha was overrun with the Carlist-banditti, who, “whenever it pleases them, stop the Courier, burn the vehicle and letters, murder the paltry escort which attends, and carry away any chance passenger to the mountains, where an enormous ransom is demanded, which if not paid brings on the dilemma of four shots through the head, as the Spaniards say.”  The Courier’s previous journey over the same route had ended in the murder of the escort and the burning of the coach, the Courier himself escaping through the good offices of one of the bandits, who had formerly been his postilion. Borrow was shown the blood-soaked turf and the skull of one of the soldiers. At Manzanares, Borrow invited to breakfast with him the Prophetess who was so unpopular at Earl Street. Continuing the journey, he reached Seville without mishap, and a few days later Antonio arrived with the horses.

It was found that the two cases of Testaments that had been forwarded from Madrid had been stopped at the Seville Customs House, and Borrow had recourse to subterfuge in order to get them and save his journey from being in vain.

“For a few dollars,” he tells Mr Brandram (2nd May), “I procured a fiador or person who engaged that the chests should be carried down the river and embarked at San Lucar for a foreign land. Yesterday I hired a boat and sent them down, but on the way I landed in a secure place all the Testaments which I intend for this part of the country.”

The fiador had kept to the letter of his undertaking, and the chests were duly delivered at San Lucar; but a considerable portion of their contents, some two hundred Testaments, had been abstracted, and these had to be smuggled into Seville under the cloaks of master and servant.  The officials appear to have treated Borrow with the greatest possible courtesy and consideration, and they told him that his “intentions were known and honored.”

Borrow had great hopes of achieving something for the Gospel’s sake in Seville; but the operation would be a delicate one.  To Mr Brandram he wrote:—

“Consider my situation here.  I am in a city by nature very Levitical, as it contains within it the most magnificent and splendidly endowed cathedral of any in Spain.  I am surrounded by priests and friars, who know and hate me, and who, if I commit the slightest act of indiscretion, will halloo their myrmidons against me.  The press is closed to me, the libraries are barred against me, I have no one to assist me but my hired servant, no pious English families to comfort or encourage me, the British subjects here being ranker papists and a hundred times more bigoted than the Spanish themselves, the Consul, a renegade Quaker.  Yet notwithstanding, with God’s assistance, I will do much, though silently, burrowing like the mole in darkness beneath the ground.  Those who have triumphed in Madrid, and in the two Castiles, where the difficulties were seven times greater, are not to be dismayed by priestly frowns at Seville.” [293]