My wife does not mend, and I am rather uneasy about her, and shall be more so, if this delightful change of weather does nothing. I shall take her down to Cadiz and try sea air, sub consule Branco, who is detained at Gibraltar, not daring to go by land, as, if they could catch a consul, they would ask more ransom than for the whole staff of Sir Houston.
We are all crazy here about pictures, such buying and selling. By the time Mecænas Standish and that eminent connoisseur, Captain Cook, arrive, the market will be cleaned out. Sir William Eden is muy pegajoso and bizarro [very attractive and full of spirits]. I did not suspect that he was such an amateur and collector. In short, we are buying things here at double what they are worth in England.
I have received splendid letters from the Mˢ de la Granja and his sobrino, the Colonel. The Marques in a sad way about the dilapidations of jacks, fireplaces, and comun, damned English revolutionary nuisances. The poor administrador quite frantic about changes in a house, which had remained in genuine discomfort since the days of the Moors,—an argument he thought to put me and my fire out with. “If,” says he, “these things had been wanted, the very great families who always have lived here would have done them.”
Meantime, whenever you like to come here, you can really be decently lodged and fed, and return by Badajoz and Talavera, a very interesting route.
We are expecting the Conde de los Andes here from Granada, where Don Moreno, the “complete Spanish letter writer,” goes to replace him.
Saturday 14th [Jan. 1832], Sevilla.
I think I can assure you, on the best authority, that no troops have been sent from this place, or from hereabouts, to the Portuguese frontier, and that, rather, they are diminishing than increasing their forces, disbanding the militia regiments. At the cannon foundry they are occupied more in repairs than in casting cannon. I believe they have about a hundred pieces ready, with carriages, etc., etc.
Here all is, as usual, perfectly quiet and tranquil, I have seen several persons this day, all of whom give the same account of the absence of all military movements.
There has been a fulsome address voted by the Chapter of the Cathedral of Malaga to Don Moreno, which, with his reply, has been printed. I am sorry Don Julio O’Niel considers me so troublesome; but he will think otherwise when the term expires and he loses so good a tenant and so excellent a rent. He has a sad character here as to money matters, and as for his administrador he is still more; arcades ambo.
We have had very fine weather lately, and I am meditating a week’s shooting with Los Señores Eden and Martin, as we hear rare accounts of the woodcocks.