He appears to have obtained his appointment through the influence of a judge in the High Court of Seville, Diego de Valdivia, a namesake of the affable captain in _El Licenciado Vidriera_; and, after a few months’ probation, his appointment was confirmed anew in January 1588. He had already discovered that there were serious inconveniences attaching to his post, for he had incurred excommunication for an irregular seizure of wheat at Écija. It would be tedious to follow him in his professional visits to the outlying districts of Andalusia. Everything comes to an end at last—even the equipment of the Invincible Armada: when the fleet sailed to meet the enemy Cervantes cheered it on to victory with an enthusiastic ode, and in a second ode he deplored the great catastrophe. He continued in the public service as commissary to the galleys, collecting provisions at a salary of twelve _reales_ a day, making Seville his centre, and lodging in the house of Tomás Gutiérrez. Weary of the sordid life, he applied in 1590 for a post in America, but failed to obtain it. At the end of the petition, Doctor Núñez Morquecho wrote: ‘Let him seek some employment hereabouts.’ Blessings on Doctor Núñez Morquecho, the conscientious official! If he had granted the petitioner’s request, Cervantes might have been more prosperous, but he would not have written _Don Quixote_. He was forced to remain where he was, engulfed in arid and vexatious routine.
Still one would imagine that he must have discharged his duties efficiently, for he was one of four commissaries specially commended to the King in January 1592 by the new Purveyor-General Pedro de Isunza. Meanwhile his condition grew rather worse than better: his poverty was extreme. The financial administration was thoroughly disorganised, and in 1591 Cervantes had not yet received his salary for 1588. He seems (not unnaturally) to have lost interest in his work, and to have become responsible for the indiscreet proceedings of a subordinate at Teba. Henceforward he was in constant trouble with the authorities. In August 1592 his accounts were found to be irregular, and his five sureties were compelled to pay the balance; he was imprisoned at Castro del Río in September for alleged illegal perquisitioning at Écija, but was released on appeal. Now and then he was tempted to return to literature. He signed a contract at Seville early in September 1592 undertaking to furnish the manager, Rodrigo Osorio, with six plays at fifty ducats apiece: the conditions of the agreement were that Osorio was to produce each play within twenty days of its being delivered to him, and that Cervantes was to receive nothing unless the play was ‘one of the best that had been acted in Spain.’ The imprisonment at Castro del Río a fortnight later interfered with this project: no more is heard of it, and Cervantes resumed his work as commissary. Two points of personal interest are to be noted in the ensuing years: in the autumn of 1593 Cervantes lost his mother, and in the autumn of 1594 he visited Baza, where (as Sr. Rodríguez Marín has shown recently in an open letter addressed to me[99]) his old enemy Blanco de Paz was residing. As the population of Baza amounted only to 1537 persons at the time, the two men may easily have met: the encounter would have been worth witnessing, for Cervantes was a master of pointed expression.