The letter goes on to say that if it can be shown that Lieut. Graydon is acting in the same manner as he did in Valencia, for which he was admonished,
“he will assuredly be recalled on this ground. You wonder perhaps that we for a moment doubt the fact of his reiterated imprudence; but audi alteram partem must be our rule—and besides, on reviewing the Valencia proceedings, we draw a wide distinction. Had he been as free, as you suppose him to be, of the trammels of office in our service, many would say and think that he was prefectly at liberty to act and speak as he did of the Authorities, if he chose to take the consequences. Really in such a country it is no marvel if his Spirit has been stirred within him! Will you allow me to remind you of the strong things in your own letter to the Valencia ecclesiastic, the well pointed and oft repeated Væ!”
Mr Brandram points out that strong language is frequently the sword of the Reformer, and that there are times when it has the highest sanction; but
“the judgment of all [the members of the Committee] will be that an Agent of the Bible Society is a Reformer, not by his preaching or denouncing, but by the distribution of the Bible. If Mr G’s. conduct is no worse than it was in Valencia,” the letter continues, rather inconsistently, in the light of the assurance in the early part that recall would be the punishment for another such lapse into indiscretion, “you must not expect anything beyond a qualified disavowal of it, and that simply as unbecoming an Agent of such a Society as ours.
“After what I have written, you will hardly feel surprised that our Committee could not quite approve of your Advertisement. We have ever regarded Mr Graydon as much our Agent as yourself. In three of our printed reports in succession we make no difference in speaking of you both. We are anxious to do nothing to weaken your hands at so important a crisis, and we conceive that the terms we have employed in our Resolution are the mildest we could have used. Do not insert the Advertisement a second time. Let it pass; let it be forgotten. If necessary we shall give the public intimation that Mr G. was, but is not our agent any longer. Remember, we entreat you, the very delicate position that such a manifesto places us in, as well as the effect which it may have on Mr Graydon’s personal safety. We give you full credit for believing it was your duty, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, to take so decided and bold a step, and that you thought yourself fully justified by the distinction of salaried and unsalaried Agent, in speaking of yourself as the alone accredited Agent of the Society. Possibly when you reflect a little upon the matter you may view it in another light. There are besides some sentiments in the Advertisement which we cannot perhaps fully accord with . . . If to our poor friend there has befallen the saddest of all calamities to which you allude, should we not speak of him with all tenderness. If he be insane I believe much of it is to be attributed to that entire devotion with which he has devoted himself to our work.”
No complaint can be urged against the Committee for refusing to condemn one of their agents unheard, and without documentary evidence; but it was strange that they should pass resolutions that contained no word of sympathy with Borrow for his sufferings in a typhus-infested prison. It is even more strange that the covering letter should refer to Graydon’s sufferings and hardships and the danger to his person, without apparently realising that Borrow had actually suffered what the Committee feared that Graydon might suffer. There is no doubt that Borrow’s impulsive letters had greatly offended everybody at Earl Street, where Lieut. Graydon appears to have been extremely popular; and the few words of sympathy with Borrow that might have saved much acrimonious correspondence were neither resolved nor written.
The other side of the picture is shown in a vigorous passage from Borrow’s Report, which was afterwards withdrawn:
“A helpless widow [the mother of Don Pascual Mann] was insulted, her liberty of conscience invaded, and her only son incited to rebellion against her. A lunatic [Lieut. Graydon] was employed as the repartidor, or distributor, of the Blessed Bible, who, having his head crammed with what he understood not, ran through the streets of Valencia crying aloud that Christ was nigh at hand and would appear in a short time, whilst advertisements to much the same effect were busily circulated, in which the name, the noble name, of the Bible Society was prostituted; whilst the Bible, exposed for sale in the apartment of a public house, served for little more than a decoy to the idle and curious, who were there treated with incoherent railings against the Church of Rome and Babylon in a dialect which it was well for the deliverer that only a few of the audience understood. But I fly from these details, and will now repeat the consequences of the above proceedings to myself; for I, I, and only I, as every respectable person in Madrid can vouch, have paid the penalty for them all, though as innocent as the babe who has not yet seen the light.”
If the General Committee at a period of anxiety and annoyance failed to pay tribute to Borrow’s many qualities, the official historian of the Society makes good the omission when he describes him as “A strange, impulsive, more or less inflammable creature as he must have occasionally seemed to the Secretaries and Editorial Superintendent, he had proved himself a man of exceptional ability, energy, tact, prudence—above all, a man whose heart was in his work.” [262]
Borrow’s acknowledgment of the Resolutions was dated 16th June. It ran:—
“I have received your communication of the 30th ult. containing the resolutions of the Committee, to which I shall of course attend.
“Of your letter in general, permit me to state that I reverence the spirit in which it is written, and am perfectly disposed to admit the correctness of the views which it exhibits; but it appears to me that in one or two instances I have been misunderstood in the letters which I have addressed [to you] on the subject of Graydon.
“I bear this unfortunate gentleman no ill will, God forbid, and it will give me pain if he were reprimanded publicly or privately; moreover, I can see no utility likely to accrue from such a proceeding. All that I have stated hitherto is the damage which he has done in Spain to the cause and myself, by the—what shall I call it?—imprudence of his conduct; and the idea which I have endeavoured to inculcate is the absolute necessity of his leaving Spain instantly.
“Take now in good part what I am about to say, and O! do not misunderstand me! I owe a great deal to the Bible Society, and the Bible Society owes nothing to me. I am well aware and am always disposed to admit that it can find thousands more zealous, more active, and in every respect more adapted to transact its affairs and watch over its interests; yet, with this consciousness of my own inutility, I must be permitted to state that, linked to a man like Graydon, I can no longer consent to be, and that if the Society expect such a thing, I must take the liberty of retiring, perhaps to the wilds of Tartary or the Zingani camps of Siberia.
“My name at present is become public property, no very enviable distinction in these unhappy times, and neither wished nor sought by myself. I have of late been subjected to circumstances which have rendered me obnoxious to the hatred of those who never forgive, the Bloody Church of Rome, which I have [no] doubt will sooner or later find means to accomplish my ruin; for no one is better aware than myself of its fearful resources, whether in England or Spain, in Italy or in any other part. I should not be now in this situation had I been permitted to act alone. How much more would have been accomplished, it does not become me to guess.
“I had as many or more difficulties to surmount in Russia than I originally had here, yet all that the Society expected or desired was effected, without stir or noise, and that in the teeth of an imperial Ukase which forbade the work which I was employed to superintend.
“Concerning my late affair, I must here state that I was sent to prison on a charge which was subsequently acknowledged not only to be false but ridiculous; I was accused of uttering words disrespectful towards the Gefé Politico of Madrid; my accuser was an officer of the police, who entered my apartment one morning before I was dressed, and commenced searching my papers and flinging my books into disorder. Happily, however, the people of the house, who were listening at the door, heard all that passed, and declared on oath that so far from mentioning the Gefé Politico, I merely told the officer that he, the officer, was an insolent fellow, and that I would cause him to be punished. He subsequently confessed that he was an instrument of the Vicar General, and that he merely came to my apartment in order to obtain a pretence for making a complaint. He has been dismissed from his situation and the Queen [Regent] has expressed her sorrow at my imprisonment. If there be any doubt entertained on the matter, pray let Sir George Villiers be written to!
“I should be happy to hear what success attends our efforts in China. I hope a prudent conduct has been adopted; for think not that a strange and loud language will find favour in the eyes of the Chinese; and above all, I hope that we have not got into war with the Augustines and their followers, who, if properly managed, may be of incalculable service in propagating the Scriptures . . . P.S.—The Documents, or some of them, shall be sent as soon as possible.”