4th July 1843.
Gentlemen,—Having received a communication from Liverpool from Harry Palmer, Esq., stating that you are his agents in London, and that as such he has requested you to communicate with us relative to a passage required for a man sent to Cadiz or Gibraltar, I shall as briefly as possible state the particulars. Mr. Palmer names £7 or £8 as the lowest which he thinks it will cost us to get him to Gibraltar or Cadiz. This we consider is a large sum when it is to be remembered that he is to fare as the ship's crew fare, and with the exception of a berth to lie down in, no difference is required at this beautiful season of the year. I must here state as an excuse for the above remark that this man came to England at his own particular desire. I have been at much expense about him. He has had good wages, but now that he wants to get back to his own country the whole expense is thrown upon me, as he has saved no money, and we wish it to be clearly understood by the captain who will take him that when he is once off from England and his passage paid that we will be responsible for no further expense whatever. We do not want to get him to Tangier, as we shall put money in his pocket which will enable him to pay for a passage across if he wishes to go there, but we will pay only to Gibraltar or Cadiz. A steam vessel sails from Yarmouth bridge every Wednesday and Friday. This will be the most direct and safe way to send him to London, and then trouble you to have him met at the steamer and conveyed to the ship at once in which he is to have his passage. All therefore that remains to be done is to trouble you to give us a few days' notice with time to get him up per Yarmouth steamer. I beg to thank you for the willingness you expressed to Mr. Palmer to assist me in this affair by getting as cheap a passage as you can and seeing him on board and the passage not paid till the ship sails. You no doubt can quite understand our anxious feelings upon the subject from your connection with shipping, and consequently knowing what foreigners generally are.—I am, Sir, Your obedient servant,
G. H. Borrow.[187]
Then we have the following document with which his cautious master provided himself:
A Statement of Hayim Ben Attar previous to his leaving England.
I declare that it was my own wish to come to England with my master G. H. Borrow, who offered to send me to my own country before he left Spain. That I have regularly received the liberal wages he agreed to give me from the first of my coming to him. That I have been treated justly and kindly by him during my stay in England, and that I return to my country at my own wish and request, and at my master's expense. To this statement, which I declare to be true, I sign my name.—Hayim Ben Attar.
Declared before me this 9 of August 1843.
W. M. Hammond, Magistrate for Great Yarmouth.
I find a letter among my Papers which bears no name, and is probably a draft. It contains an interesting reference to Hayim Ben Attar, and hence I give it here:
Sir,—I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 17th inst., which my friend, Mr. Murray, has just forwarded to me. I am afraid that you attribute to me powers and information which I am by no means conscious of possessing; I should feel disposed to entertain a much higher opinion of myself than I at present do could I for a moment conceive myself gifted with the talent of inducing any endeavour to dismiss from his mind a theory of the reasonableness of which appears to him obvious. Nevertheless, as you do me the honour of asking my opinion with respect to the theory of Gypsies being Jews by origin, I hasten to answer to the following effect. I am not prepared to acknowledge the reasonableness of any theory which cannot be borne out by the slightest proof. Against the theory may be offered the following arguments which I humbly consider to be unanswerable. The Gypsies differ from the Jews in feature and complexion—in whatever part of the world you find the Gypsy you recognise him at once by his features which are virtually the same—the Jew likewise has a peculiar countenance by which at once he may be distinguished as a Jew, but which would certainly prevent the probability of his being considered as a scion of the Gypsy stock—in proof of which assertion I can adduce the following remarkable instance.