Mrs. O’Lawlor has presented the General with a little girl, born on the 25th. Don Carlos Downie has presented him with twenty-four robbers from the neighbourhood of Jaen, who will be duly hung, si Dios quiere.
All the authorities here, Arjona, Quesada, General Flegres (these two know something about the Raya [frontier] de Portugal), are quite confident about peace, and that Spain will not interfere. I hope you will give me a hint, verbum sapienti et ab Sapiente, as to when you think the climate of Gibraltar more favourable for the welfare of my family than that of Seville.
We have Captain Cook here. Sʳ. Eden has just returned from Lisbon. Everything most perfectly quiet there. He was much struck by the admirable appearance of the Portuguese troops. Pedro will get a licking if he does not look sharp. I should not be sorry, who want to remain another year in Spain; and then they may both go to Carrajo or the Carracas, or wherever and whenever they like.
All perfectly quiet at Badajoz.
I find my wife very unwell and in great anxiety about the little baby (who was born at Seville last year). It has been alarmingly ill within these few days, and I fear there is not much chance that it will live. I am the more distressed on my wife’s account, as it has thrown her back very much, and intercepted the slow progress of her recovery.
As the following letter shows (May 12th) Ford did not remain long in Seville. Two months were spent in an expedition along the frontier of Spain and Portugal and in the north from Lugo to Bilbao. The first part of his road took him by Merida, with its magnificent Roman remains, over the Tagus by the famous bridge at Alcantara, through Placencia to Salamanca. From Placencia he rode over the hills to the Jeronymite Convent of San Yuste, where Charles V., empire-sick, retired to die (September 21st, 1558). In the same neighbourhood and also visited by Ford, was the square-built palace of Abadia, where the Duke of Alva withdrew from public life, in the society of Lope de Vega, to lay out his gardens in terraces and adorn them with Italian statuary.
Sevilla, May 12, 1832.
I am going to set out to-morrow for Zafra and Merida, and thence through Placencia, Alcantara, Ciudad Rodrigo to Salamanca, where I shall finish my education. If I see anything interesting to you on the Raya of Portugal I will take care and forward a despatch. If this finds you in Madrid, you will much oblige me by letting Alphonso walk to that arch-Hebrew, Ravassa, to desire him to send me a credit on Ciudad Rodrigo, Salamanca and Valladolid, and write to me at Ciudad Rodrigo the names of the bankers. You may remember what a state of poverty and destitution the Jew left me in at Zaragoça for want of diplomatic garantias. I have written to the circumcised dog this post. When I reach Salamanca, I shall settle my future plans. Much will depend on whether the cholera should take a fancy about that time to travel in Spain, in which case I shall get back here through Madrid as quickly as I can, as I would rather meet José Maria than the Cholera.
My wife has relinquished all thoughts of leaving Seville this spring, as our last baby continues in rather a precarious state, and she is unwilling to leave him; otherwise we should have gone to Malaga and Granada. Seville is free from English; Heaphy el feroz, and O’Meara el Majadero [gawk], (what a knack they have at soubriquets!) are gone to Murcia; S Eden and Martin per steamer to England; Cook and Baring return to Madrid on Thursday. They have been detained here by another ball I have been giving, to the horror of the dévotes, during the Rogativas, for which, they say, all those who attended will be carried off by a particular and express cholera. Meantime the ball was very well attended; and by most beautiful and bewitching Andaluças, as Baring and Cook will tell you. By the way, we are expecting the famous French dandy, Charles de Mornay, who is coming from Morocco, where he has been as Plenipo. He will enlighten the Madrid dandies by some outlandish Paris coat couleur de cholera morbus; if you fall in with him, and can get over his outward appearance, you will find him very tolerable. He is an acquaintance of mine, and friend of my wife, which may be predicated of all his English connoissances.
Salamanca, June 6 [1832].