To Mrs. Ann Borrow
Seville, Spain, April 27, 1839.
My dear Mother,—I should have written to you before I left Madrid, but I had a long and dangerous journey to make, and I wished to get it over before saying anything to you. I am now safely arrived, by the blessing of God, in Seville, which, in my opinion, is the most delightful town in the world. If it were not a strange place with a strange language I know you would like to live in it, but it is rather too late in the day for you to learn Spanish and accommodate yourself to Spanish ways. Before I left Madrid I accomplished a great deal, having sold upwards of one thousand Testaments and nearly five hundred Bibles, so that at present very few remain; indeed, not a single Bible, and I was obliged to send away hundreds of people who wanted to purchase, but whom I could not supply. All this has been done without the slightest noise or disturbance or anything that could give cause of displeasure to the government, so that I am now on very good terms with the authorities, though they are perfectly aware of what I am about. Should the Society think proper to be guided by the experience which I have acquired, and my knowledge of the country and the people, they might if they choosed sell at least twelve thousand Bibles and Testaments yearly in Spain, but let them adopt or let any other people adopt any other principle than that on which I act and everything will miscarry. All the difficulties, as I told my friends the time I was in England, which I have had to encounter were owing to the faults and imprudencies of other people, and, I may say, still are owing. Two Methodist schoolmasters have lately settled at Cadiz, and some little time ago took it into their heads to speak and preach, as I am informed, against the Virgin Mary; information was instantly sent to Madrid, and the blame, or part of it, was as usual laid to me; however, I found means to clear myself, for I have powerful friends in Madrid, who are well acquainted with my views, and who interested themselves for me, otherwise I should have been sent out of the country, as I believe the two others have been or will be. I have said nothing on this point in my letters home, as people would perhaps say that I was lukewarm, whereas, on the contrary, I think of nothing but the means best adapted to promote the cause; but I am not one of those disposed to run a ship on a rock when only a little skill is necessary to keep her in the open sea.
I hope Mrs. Clarke will write shortly; tell her if she wishes for a retreat I have found one here for her and Henrietta. I have my eye on a beautiful one at fifteen pence a day. I call it a small house, though it is a paradise in its way, having a stable, court-yard, fountain, and twenty rooms. She has only to write to my address at Madrid and I shall receive the letter without fail. Henrietta had better bring with her a Spanish grammar and pocket dictionary, as not a word of English is spoken here. The house-dog—perhaps a real English bulldog would be better—likewise had better come, as it may be useful. God bless you therefore for the present, my dearest mother.
George Borrow.
Borrow had need of friends more tolerant of his idiosyncrasies than the 'powerful friends' he describes to his mother, for the Secretary of the Bible Society was still in a critical mood:—
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 accustomed—it savours, some of our friends would say, a little of the profane.[124]
On 29th July 1839 Borrow was instructed by his Committee to return to England, but he was already on the way to Tangier, whence in September he wrote a long and interesting letter to Mr. Brandram, which was afterwards incorporated in The Bible in Spain. He had left Mrs. Clarke and her daughter in Seville, and they joined him at Gibraltar later. We find him en route for Tangier, staying two days with Mr. John M. Brackenbury, the British Consul in Cadiz, who found him a most fascinating man.
His Tangier life is fully described in The Bible in Spain. Here he picked up a Jewish youth, Hayim Ben Attar, who returned to Spain as his servant, and afterwards to England.
Borrow, at the end of September, was back again in Seville, in his house near the cathedral, in the Plazuela de la Pila Seca, which, when I visited Seville in the spring of this year (1913), I found had long been destroyed to make way for new buildings. Here he received the following letter from Mr. George Browne of the Bible Society:—