Having saved the Bible Society 9000 _reals_ in its paper bill alone, { 191d} Borrow proceeded to arrange for the printing. He had already opened negotiations with Charles Wood, who was associated with Andréas Borrégo, { 192a} the most fashionable printer in Madrid, who not only had the best printing-presses in Spain, but had been specially recommended by Isturitz. It had been tentatively arranged that an edition of 5000 copies of the New Testament should be printed from the version of Father Felipe Scio de San Miguel, confessor to Ferdinand VII., without notes or commentaries, and delivered within three months.
Remembering the advice of Isturitz, Borrow determined to entrust the work to Borrégo, including the binding. He was the Government printer, and, furthermore, enjoyed the good opinion of Mr Villiers. Having persuaded Borrégo to reduce his price to 10 _reals_ a sheet, he placed the order. It was agreed that the work should be completed in ten weeks from 20th January.
Each sheet was to be passed by Borrow. As a matter of fact he read every word three times; but in order to insure absolute accuracy, he engaged the services of Dr Usoz, “the first scholar in Spain,” { 192b} who was to be responsible for the final revision, leaving the question of the remuneration to the generosity of the Bible Society. The result of all this care was that, according to Borrow the edition exhibited scarcely one typographical error. { 192c}
The question of systematic distribution had next to be considered. After much musing and cogitation, Borrow came to the conclusion that the only satisfactory method was for him to “ride forth from Madrid into the wildest parts of Spain,” where the word is most wanted and where it seems next to an impossibility to introduce it, and this he proposed to the Committee.
“I will take with me 1200 copies,” he wrote, { 193} “which I will engage to dispose of for little or much to the wild people of the wild regions which I intend to visit; as for the rest of the edition, it must be disposed of, if possible, in a different way—I may say the usual way; part must be entrusted to booksellers, part to colporteurs, and a depôt must be established at Madrid. Such work is every person’s work, and to anyone may be confided the execution of it; it is a mere affair of trade. What I wish to be employed in is what, I am well aware, no other individual will undertake to do: namely, to scatter the Word upon the mountains, amongst the valleys and the inmost recesses of the worst and most dangerous parts of Spain, where the people are more fierce, fanatic and, in a word, Carlist.”