My dear Friend,—Your later communications have been referred to our Sub-Committee for General Purposes. After what you said yesterday in the Committee, I am hardly aware that anything can arise out of them. The door seems shut. The Sub-Committee meet on Friday. Will you wish to make any communications to them as to any ulterior views that may have occurred to yourself? I do not myself at present see any sphere open to which your services in connection with our Society can be transferred. . . . With best wishes—Believe me—Yours truly,
A. Brandram.
On 24th April, the day after Borrow’s wedding, the Sub-Committee duly met and
“Resolved that, upon mature consideration, it does not appear to this Sub-Committee that there is, at present, any opening for employing Mr Borrow beneficially as an Agent of the Society . . . and that it be recommended to the General Committee that the salary of Mr Borrow be paid up to the 10th June next.”
The Bible Society’s valediction, which appeared in the Thirty-Sixth Annual Report, read:—
“G. Borrow, Esq., one of the gentlemen referred to in former Reports as having so zealously exerted themselves on behalf of Spain, has just returned home, hopeless of further attempts at present to distribute the Scriptures in that country. Mr B. has succeeded, by almost incredible pains, and at no small cost and hazard, in selling during his last visit a few hundred copies of the Bible, and most that remained of the edition of the New Testament printed in Madrid.”
Thus ended George Borrow’s activities on behalf of the British and Foreign Bible Society, and incidentally the seven happiest and most active years of his life. On the whole the association had been honourable to all concerned. There had been moments of irritation and mistakes on both sides. It would be foolish to accuse the Society of deliberately planting obstacles in the path of its own agent; but the unfortunate championing of Lieutenant Graydon was the result of a very grave error of judgment. Borrow had no personal friends among the Committee, to whom the impetuous zeal of Graydon was more picturesque than the grave and deliberate caution of Borrow. The Officials and Committee alike saw in Graydon the ideal Reformer, rushing precipitately towards martyrdom, exposing Anti-Christ as he ran. Had Borrow been content to allow others to plead his cause, the history of his relations with the Bible Society would, in all probability, have been different. He felt himself a grievously injured man, who had suffered from what he considered to be the insane antics of another, and he was determined that Earl Street should know it. On the other hand, Mr Brandram does not appear to have understood Borrow. He made no attempt to humour him, to praise him for what he had done and the way in which he had done it. Praise was meat and drink to Borrow; it compensated him for what he had endured and encouraged him to further effort. He hungered for it, and when it did not come he grew discouraged and thought that those who employed him were not conscious of what he was suffering. Hence the long accounts of what he had undergone for the Gospel’s sake.
During his six years in Spain he had distributed nearly 5000 copies of the New Testament and 500 Bibles, also some hundreds of the Basque and Gypsy Gospel of St Luke. These figures seem insignificant beside those of Lieut. Graydon, who, on one occasion, sold as many as 1082 volumes in fourteen days, and in two years printed 13,000 Testaments and 3000 Bibles, distributing the larger part of them. During the year 1837 he circulated altogether between five and six thousand books. But there was no comparison between the work of the two men. Graydon had kept to the towns and cities on the south coast; Borrow’s methods were different. He circulated his books largely among villages and hamlets, where the population was sparse and the opportunities of distribution small. He had gone out into the highways, risking his life at every turn, penetrating into bandit-infested provinces in the throes of civil war, suffering incredible hardships and fatigues and, never sparing himself. Both men were earnest and eager; but the Bible Society favoured the wrong man—at least for its purposes. But for Lieut. Graydon, Borrow would in all probability have gone to China, and what a book he would have written, at least what letters, about the sealed East!
Borrow, however, had nothing to complain of. He had found occupation when he badly needed it, which indirectly was to bring him fame. He had been well paid for his services (during the seven years of his employment he drew some £2300 in salary and expenses), his £200 a year and expenses (in Spain) comparing very favourably with Mr Brandram’s £300 a year.
He was loyal to the Bible Society, both in word and thought. He honourably kept to himself the story of the Graydon dispute. He spoke of the Society with enthusiasm, exclaiming, “Oh! the blood glows in his veins! oh! the marrow awakes in his old bones when he thinks of what he accomplished in Spain in the cause of religion and civilisation with the colours of that society in his hat.” [328a] In spite of the misunderstandings and the rebukes he could write fourteen years later that he “bade it adieu with feelings of love and admiration.” [328b] He “had done with Spain for ever, after doing for her all that lay in the power of a lone man, who had never in this world anything to depend upon, but God and his own slight strength.” [328c] In the preface to The Bible in Spain he pays a handsome tribute to both Rule and Graydon, thus showing that although he was a good hater, he could be magnanimous.
It has been stated that, during a portion of his association with the Bible Society, Borrow acted as a foreign correspondent for The Morning Herald. Dr Knapp has very satisfactorily disproved the statement, which the Rev. Wentworth Webster received from the Marqués de Santa Coloma. Either the Marqués or Mr Webster is responsible for the statement that Borrow was wrecked, instead of nearly wrecked, off Cape Finisterre. As the Marqués was a passenger on the boat, the mistake must be ascribed to Mr Webster. The further statement that Borrow was imprisoned at Pamplona by Quesada is scarcely more credible than that about the wreck. His imprisonment could not very well have taken place, as stated, in 1837–9, because General Quesada was killed in 1836. Mention is made of this foreign correspondent rumour only because it has been printed and reprinted. It may be that Borrow was imprisoned at Pamplona during the “Veiled Period”; there is certainly one imprisonment (according to his own statement) unaccounted for. It is curious how the fact first became impressed upon the Marqués’ mind, unless he had heard it from Borrow. It is quite likely that he confused the date.