{179b} had applied to him on a previous occasion he declined to interfere.

At Borrow's suggestion the President of the Bible Society, Lord Bentley, wrote to Mr Villiers thanking him for the services he had rendered in connection with the Spanish programme. It was characteristic of Borrow that he added to his letter as a reason for his request, that "I may be again in need of Mr V's. assistance before I leave Spain." {180a} Borrow was always keenly alive to the advantage of possessing influential friends who would be likely to assist him in his labours for the Society. He was not a profound admirer of the Society of Jesus for nothing, and although he would scorn to exercise tact in regard to his own concerns, he was fully prepared to make use of it in connection with those of the Bible Society. He was a Jesuit at heart, and would in all probability have preferred a good compositor who had been guilty of sacrilege to a bad one who had not. He saw that besides being something of a diplomatist, an agent of the Bible Society had also to be a good business man. He has been called tactless, until the word seems to have become permanently identified with his name; how unjustly is shown by a very hasty examination of his masterly diplomacy, both in Russia and Spain. Diplomacy, as Borrow understood it, was the art of being persuasive when persuasion would obtain for him his object, and firm, even threatening, when strong measures were best calculated to suit his ends. It is only the fool who defines tact as the gentle art of pleasing everybody. Diplomacy is the art of getting what you want at the expense of displeasing as few people as possible.

"The affair is settled--thank God!!! and we may begin to print whenever we think proper." With these words Borrow announces the success of his enterprise. "Perhaps you have thought," he continues, "that I have been tardy in accomplishing the business which brought me to Spain; but to be able to form a correct judgment you ought to be aware of all the difficulties which I have had to encounter, and which I shall not enumerate. I shall content myself with observing that for a thousand pounds I would not undergo again all the mortifications and disappointments of the last two months." {181a}

There were moments when Borrow forgot the idiom of Earl Street and reverted to his old, self-confident style, which had so alarmed some of the excellent members of the Committee. He had achieved a great triumph, how great is best shown by the suggestion made by the prime minister that if determined to avail himself of the permission that had been obtained, he had better employ "the confidential printer of the Government, who would keep the matter secret; as in the present state of affairs he [the prime minister] would not answer for the consequences if it were noised abroad." {181b} By giving the license to print the New Testament without notes, the Cabinet was assuming a very grave responsibility. All this shows how great was the influence of the British Minister upon the Isturitz Cabinet, and how considerable that of Borrow upon the British Minister.

Now that his object was gained, there was nothing further to keep Borrow in Spain, and he accordingly asked for instructions, suggesting that, as soon as the heats were over, Lieutenant Graydon might return to Madrid and take charge, "as nothing very difficult remains to be accomplished, and I am sure that Mr Villiers, at my entreaty, would extend to him the patronage with which he has honoured me." {181c} In conclusion he announced himself as ready to do "whatever the Bible Society may deem expedient." {181d}

Borrow now began to suffer from the reaction after his great exertions. He became so languid as scarcely to be able to hold a pen. He had no books, and conversation was impossible, for the heat had driven away all who could possibly escape, among them his acquaintances, and he frequently remembered with a sigh the happy days spent in St Petersburg.

A few days later (25th July) he wrote proposing as a member of the Bible Society Dr Luis de Usoz y Rio, "a person of great respectability and great learning." {182a} Dr Usoz, who was subsequently to be closely associated with Borrow in his labours in Spain, was a man of whom he was unable to "speak in too high terms of admiration; he is one of the most learned men in Spain, and is become in every point a Christian according to the standard of the New Testament." {182b}

Dr Usoz also addressed a letter to the Society asking to be considered as a correspondent and entrusted with copies of the Scriptures, which he was convinced he could circulate in every province of Spain. The advantage of having one of the editors of the principal newspaper of Spain on the side of the Society did not fail to appeal to Borrow. Dr Usoz not only became a member of the Bible Society, but earned from Borrow a splendid tribute in the Preface to The Bible in Spain.

Before advantage could be taken of the hardly earned permission to print the New Testament in Madrid, the Revolution of La Granja {182c} broke out, resulting in the proclamation of the Constitution of 1812, by which the press became free. In Madrid chaos reigned as a result. Borrow himself has given a vivid account of how Quesada, by his magnificent courage, quelled for the time being the revolution, how the ministers fled, how eventually the heroic tyrant was recognised and killed, and, finally, how, at a celebrated coffee-house in Madrid, Borrow saw the victorious Nationals drink to the Constitution from a bowl of coffee, which had first been stirred with one of the mutilated hands of the hated Quesada. {183a}

Now that no obstacle stood in the way of the printing of the Spanish New Testament, Borrow was requested to return to England that he might confer with the authorities at Earl Street. "You may now consider yourself under marching orders to return home as soon as you have made all the requisite arrangements; . . . you have done, we are persuaded, a good and great work," {183b} Mr Brandram wrote. It was thought by the Committee that the advantages to be derived from a conference with Borrow would be well worth the expense involved in his having to return again to Spain.

To this request for his immediate presence in London Borrow replied:

"I shall make the provisional engagement as desired [as regards the printing of the New Testament] and shall leave Madrid as soon as possible; but I must here inform you, that I shall find much difficulty in returning to England, as all the provinces are disturbed in consequence of the Constitution of 1812 having been proclaimed, and the roads are swarming with robbers and banditti. It is my intention to join some muleteers, and attempt to reach Granada, from whence, if possible, I shall proceed to Malaga or Gibraltar, and thence to Lisbon, where I left the greatest part of my baggage. Do not be surprised, therefore, if I am tardy in making my appearance; it is no easy thing at present to travel in Spain. But all these troubles are for the benefit of the Cause, and must not be repined at." {183c}

Leaving Madrid on 20th August, Borrow was at Granada on the 30th, as proved by the Visitors' Book, in which he signed himself

"George Borrow Norvicensis."

The real object of this visit appears to have been his desire to study more closely the Spanish gypsies. From Granada he proceeded to Malaga. Neither place can be said to be on the direct road to England; but the disturbed state of the country had to be taken into consideration, and it was a question not of the shortest road but the safest.

On his return to London, early in October, Borrow wrote a report {184a} upon his labours, roughly sketching out his work since he left Badajos. He repeated his view that the Papal See had lost its power over Spain, and that the present moment was a peculiarly appropriate one in which to spread the light of the Gospel over the Peninsula. Forgetting the thievish propensities of the race, he wrote glowingly of the Spaniards and their intellectual equipment, the clearness with which they expressed themselves, and the elegance of their diction. The mind of the Spaniard was a garden run to waste, and it was for the British and Foreign Bible Society to cultivate it and purge it of the rank and bitter weeds.

He foresaw no difficulty whatever in disposing of 5000 copies of the New Testament in a short time in the capital and provincial towns, in particular Cadiz and Seville where the people were more enlightened. He was not so confident about the rural districts, where those who assured him that they were acquainted with the New Testament said that it contained hymns addressed to the Virgin which were written by the Pope.

CHAPTER XII: NOVEMBER 1836-MAY 1837

Borrow remained in England for a month (3rd October/4th November), during which time he conferred with the Committee and Officials at Earl Street as to the future programme in Spain. On 4th November, having sent to his mother 130 pounds of the 150 pounds he had drawn as salary, and promising to write to Mr Brandram from Cadiz, he sailed from London in the steamer Manchester, bound for Lisbon and Cadiz.

In a letter to his mother, he describes his fellow passengers as invalids fleeing from the English winter. "Some of them are three parts gone with consumption," he writes, "some are ruptured, some have broken backs; I am the only sound person in the ship, which is crowded to suffocation. I am in a little hole of a berth where I can scarcely breathe, and every now and then wet through."

The horrors of the voyage from Falmouth to Lisbon he has described with terrifying vividness; {185a} how the engines broke down and the vessel was being driven on to Cape Finisterre; how all hope had been abandoned, and the Captain had told the passengers of their impending fate; how the wind suddenly "VEERED RIGHT ABOUT, and pushed us from the horrible coast faster than it had previously driven us towards it." {185b}

During the whole of that terrible night Borrow had remained on deck, all the other passengers having been battened down below. He was almost drowned in the seas that broke over the vessel, and, on one occasion, was struck down by a water cask that had broken away from its lashings. Even after he had escaped Cape Finisterre, the ordeal was not over; for the ship was in a sinking condition, and fire broke out on board. Eventually the engines were repaired, the fire extinguished, and Lisbon was reached on the 13th, where Borrow landed with his water-soaked luggage, and found on examination that the greater part of his clothes had been ruined. In spite of this experience, he determined to continue his voyage to Cadiz in the