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:—
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.
