Nine days later (25th June) Borrow wrote:
“I now await your orders. I wish to know whether I am at liberty to pursue the course which may seem to me best under existing circumstances, and which at present appears to be to mount my horses, which are neighing in the stable, and once more betake myself to the plains and mountains of dusty Spain, and to dispose of my Testaments to the muleteers and peasants. By doing so I shall employ myself usefully, and at the same time avoid giving offence. Better days will soon arrive, which will enable me to return to Madrid and reopen my shop, till then, however, I should wish to pursue my labours in comparative obscurity.”
Replying to Borrow’s letter of 16th June, Mr Brandram wrote (29th June): “I trust we shall not easily forget your services in St Petersburg, but suffer me to remind you that when you came to the point of distribution your success ended.” [265a] This altogether unworthy remark was neither creditable to the writer nor to the distinguished Society on whose behalf he wrote. Borrow had done all that a man was capable of to distribute the books. His reply was dignified and effective.
“It was unkind and unjust to taunt me with having been unsuccessful in distributing the Scriptures. Allow me to state that no other person under the same circumstances would have distributed the tenth part; yet had I been utterly unsuccessful, it would have been wrong to check me with being so, after all I have undergone, and with how little of that are you acquainted.” [265b]
In response, Mr Brandram wrote (28th July):
“You have considered that I have taunted you with want of success in St Petersburg. I thought that the way in which I introduced that subject would have prevented any such unpleasant and fanciful impression.”
That was all! It became evident to all at Earl Street that a conference between Borrow, the Officials and the General Committee was imperative if the air were to be cleared of the rancour that seemed to increase with each interchange of letters. [265c] Unless something were done, a breach seemed inevitable, a thing the Society did not appear to desire. When Borrow first became aware that he was wanted at Earl Street for the purpose of a personal conference, he in all probability conceived it to be tantamount to a recall, and he was averse from leaving the field to the enemy.
“In the name of the Highest,” he wrote, [266] “I entreat you all to banish such a preposterous idea; a journey home (provided you intend that I should return to Spain) could lead to no result but expense and the loss of precious time. I have nothing to explain to you which you are not already perfectly well acquainted with by my late letters. I was fully aware at the time I was writing them that I should afford you little satisfaction, for the plain unvarnished truth is seldom agreeable; but I now repeat, and these are perhaps among the last words which I shall ever be permitted to pen, that I cannot approve, and I am sure no Christian can, of the system which has lately been pursued in the large sea-port cities of Spain, and which the Bible Society has been supposed to sanction, notwithstanding the most unreflecting person could easily foresee that such a line of conduct could produce nothing in the end but obloquy and misfortune.”
Borrow saw that his departure from Spain would be construed by his enemies as flight, and that their joy would be great in consequence.
The Spanish authorities were determined if possible to rid the country of missionaries. The Gazeta Oficial of Madrid drew attention to the fact that in Valencia there had been distributed thousands of pamphlets “against the religion we profess.” Sir George Villiers enquired into the matter and found that there was no evidence that the pamphlets had been written, printed, or published in England; and when writing to Count Ofalia on the subject he informed him that the Bible Society distributed, not tracts or controversial writings, but the Scriptures.