Death of Ferdinand VII.—Exeter—Projected Book on Spain—Purchase of Heavitree House—Marriage of Lord King and of Addington—First Article in the Quarterly Review—Death of Mrs. Ford.
On his way to England, at the end of September 1833, Ford passed through Madrid. There he saw the funeral of Ferdinand VII., of which he gives an account in the following letter written to Addington from his mother’s house in London.
[123, Park Street], London, Wednesday, 4th Dec., 1833.
I am afraid I shall have left town before your return, which I am very sorry for, as I should have much liked to have had a chat with you in this dull and dingy capital, and to have talked over that fair land (alias brown) beyond the Pyrenees. I should have had more to tell you than will go in a letter of our perils by sea and by land, moving adventures and escapes. Poor old Fernando, as you predicted, died when we were there, and we saw him duly conveyed to the Escurial in a coche de colleras, with his feet projecting out of the front windows, and the capa of the Zagal hanging up behind. Alva, Medina Celi, and other grandees, riding hacks, in gold-embroidered coats and black trousers (the under man like an undertaker; the upper, all the tinsel of Spain, which gilds those mean hearts that lurk beneath a star). Sad dogs they looked, tel maître tel valet. Old Alagon brought up the rear. It was archi-Spanish, a mixture of the paltry and magnificent, and no one caring one inch about any part of it.
Villiers arrived with a good cook, and began his dinners, which were good and agreeable. He has arrived at a rare difficult period; but he is a very clever fellow and a complete man of the world.
I am going down to Exeter, where I have taken a house for a year, and am going to place my children in the hands of my brother[40] to eradicate Santa Maria, and teach them the architecture of the interiors of English churches.
I met Grant the other day, who was on his way from Madrid to Lisbon, viâ Londres. He told me that all your goods and chattels were in the Downs, “all in the downs the goods were moored”; among them is a silver vase and some coins belonging to your servidor, and a Maja dress with four million silver buttons belonging to Mrs. Ford. A case of old books went at the same time, and probably is among them; for them I wish to pay duty, if your agent would be so good as to do so, and then all the Roba may be forwarded to my mother’s, with many thanks for all the trouble you have taken.
Grant tells me that your pension is rather undecided! God forfend! Ruin seems to stare everybody in the face; London half-deserted, and the roads and inns of the continent encumbered with absentees. We are patriotic, and come home in the time of need.
The surroundings of his new home at Southernhay, Exeter, delighted him. Writing to Addington, February 4th, 1834, he says:—
“This Exeter is quite a Capital, abounding in all that London has, except its fog and smoke. There is an excellent institution here with a well-chosen large Library, in which I take great pastime and am beginning my education. There is a bookseller who has some ten thousand old tomes to tempt a poor man. However, here one has no vices or expenses except eating clotted cream, and a duro crown piece wears a hole in your pocket before you are tempted to change it. The dollars accumulate, and I am reading my Bible and minding my purse. Spain is in a pretty state. Llauder[41] cannot be trusted, as he has been true to no one, not even to himself. Quesada is a violent man, without much statesmanlike tact; he is piqued with what happened to him at Madrid, when they were fools enough to set out with disgusting him. He is no Liberal in his heart, hates the English, likes the French, believes in the Gazette de France. I know him right well; he is muy integro, and has a sort of straightforward common sense.