Bruce remained for several years without a profession. He at last fixed on India as a field, the distance, vastness, and novelty of which were best suited to the ardent disposition of his mind; but, being now considerably above the age for receiving a writership from the East India Company, he resolved to petition the Court of Directors for permission to settle under its patronage as a free trader. In July, 1753, in the twenty-second year of his age, he left Scotland with the view of prosecuting this design. On arriving in London, his English friends and former acquaintances received him with the greatest kindness; and, during the time he spent in soliciting permission from the directors, he lived among them in the interesting character of one who was soon to leave them for a very considerable period of his life.
By one of those friends whose kindness he was thus enjoying, he was introduced to Adriana Allan, whose mind accorded with the beauty of her person. She was the daughter of Mrs. Allan, the widow of an eminent wine-merchant, who had raised himself to opulence by diligence and integrity. This young person was elegant in her manners and appearance, and as remarkable for a gentle, unassuming temper, as for a warm, affectionate disposition. Bruce fell in love with this interesting young lady, and accordingly addressed himself to Mrs. Allan, who listened with approbation to the proposal of marriage which he had already made to her daughter; and she herself suggested that, having no profession, he should take a share in the wine-trade; and, although Bruce knew nothing of that business, as it was to be the link which was to connect him with the object of his affections, he eagerly assented to the proposal. The marriage took place on the 3d of February, 1754, and Bruce took an active part in the management of the concern. The dealings of the company were extensive, and he appeared now to be on a road which was to lead him to wealth and happiness; but this flattering prospect became suddenly overcast. His young wife had inherited from her family the seeds of a fatal disease, which, in a few months after her marriage, made it necessary for her to leave the foggy atmosphere of London. She resided at Bristol for a few months, for the benefit of the waters, though with little advantage: her complaint was alleviated, but not removed. Her last journey was to try the mild climate of the south of France. Exhausted, however, by travelling, she was obliged to stop at Paris, where she apparently rallied for a few days; but consumption was only insidiously gaining strength to overpower her, and a week after her arrival she again relapsed, the hectic flush vanished, and she expired!
While Bruce was attending her during her last moments, he was driven almost to distraction by the disgraceful bigotry of the French priests, who, in the garb of Christian ministers, crowded around his door to persecute the last moments of one whom they termed a dying heretic; and, even when the pale object of their unmanly persecution had ceased to exist, their intolerant fury sought to deny her Christian burial. At the hour of midnight, when the savage passions of his enemies were lulled in sleep, Bruce attended the corpse of his young wife to her untimely grave; and a month afterward, on the 12th of November, 1754, he thus addressed his father:
"My mind is so shocked, and the impression of that dreadful scene at Paris so strongly fixed, that I have it every minute before my eyes as distinctly as it was then happening. Myself a stranger in the country; my servants unacquainted with the language and country, my presence so necessary among them, and indispensably so with my dear wife; my poor girl dying before my eyes, full of that affection and tenderness which marriage produces when people feel the happiness, but not the cares of it; many of the Roman Catholic clergy hovering about the doors, myself unable to find any expedient to keep them from disturbing her in her last moments.... But I will write no more. I cannot, however, omit telling you an instance of Lord Albemarle's very great humanity. The morning before my wife died he sent his chaplain down to offer his services in our distress. After hearing the service for the sick read, and receiving the sacrament together, he told me, in case I received any trouble from the priests, my lord desired I would tell them I belonged to the English ambassador. When my wife died, the chaplain came again to me, desired me to go home with him, and assured me that my lord had given him orders to see my wife buried in the ambassador's burying-ground, which was accordingly done; and, had it not been for this piece of humanity, she must have been buried in the common yard where the wood is piled that serves the town for firing. Having ordered the mournful solemnity, with as much decency as is allowed in that country to heretics, at midnight, between the 10th and 11th ult., accompanied only by the chaplain, a brother of my Lord Foley's, and our own servants, we carried her body to the burying-ground at the Porte St. Martin, where I saw all my comfort and happiness laid with her in the grave. From thence, almost frantic, against the advice of everybody, I got on horseback, having ordered the servant to have post-horses ready, and set out, in the most tempestuous night I ever saw, for Boulogne, where I arrived next day without stopping. There the riding in the night-time, in the rain, want of food, which for a long time I had not tasted, want of rest, fatigue, and excessive concern, threw me into a fever; but, after repeated bleedings, and the great care taken of me by Mr. Hay, I recovered well enough to set out for London on the Wednesday. I arrived at home on the Thursday, when my fever again returned, and a violent pain in my breast. Thus ended my unfortunate journey, and with it my present prospects of happiness in this life."
After this melancholy event Bruce returned to his business in London; but he soon found that the tie which had connected him with the wine-trade was completely broken. He therefore at once gave up the chief burden of its management to his brother; and, resolving to embrace the first opportunity to resign his share altogether, he applied himself to studies calculated to divert his mind from painful thoughts and recollections. For about two years he occupied himself with the Spanish and Portuguese languages, which he learned to pronounce with great accuracy. He also laboured hard in practising several different styles of drawing. Fortunately for his views, the trade in which he was engaged required a regular and constant intercourse with France, Portugal, and Spain. The plan which he had secretly formed of visiting the Continent happily coincided, therefore, with his business; and he looked forward to the time when he should travel over the south of Europe with the taste and judgment of a scholar.
After having made a short visit to the islands of Guernsey and Alderney, he sailed in the month of July for the Continent, and spent the remainder of the year in Portugal and Spain. His professed object was to be present at the vintage of that season, while his real intention was to view the state of society and of science in those kingdoms. He landed at Corunna, in Gallicia, on the 5th of July, and proceeded to Ferrol, where he remained a few days. From Ferrol he travelled to Oporto, and thence to Lisbon. In Portugal he was much diverted with the novelty of manners and customs so different from those of his own country; and his journals during this period are filled with satirical observations on the apparent pride and stiffness of the nobility, and the ignorance of the clergy. The following may be given as a specimen of one of his first impressions as a young traveller:
"There are many particular customs in Portugal, all of which may be known by this rule—that, whatever is done in the rest of the world in one way, is in Portugal done by the contrary, even to the rocking of the cradle, which, I believe, in all the rest of the world is from side to side, but in Portugal is from head to foot; I fancy it is from this early contrariety that their brains work in so different a manner all their lives after. A Portuguese boatman always rows standing, not with his face, but his back to the stern of the boat, and pushes his oar from him. When he lands you, he turns the stern of the boat to the shore, and not the head; if a man and woman ride on the same mule, the woman sits before the man, with her face the contrary way to what they do in England; when you take leave of any person to whom you have been paying a visit, the master of the house always goes out of the room, down stairs, and out of the house before you," &c.
After travelling about Portugal for nearly four months, Bruce entered Spain; but, instead of going at once to Madrid, he turned to the right, passed through Toledo, and made an excursion over the mountains into the province of New Castile. Having advanced beyond the Sierra Morena, he traversed the districts of Cordova and Seville, on the river Guadalquivir, and about the middle of November reached Madrid. In this rapid journey he seems to have considerably improved his knowledge of the Spanish language, and to have made several attentive and judicious observations. His character, which had hitherto been concealed by various untoward circumstances, now began to appear in its real colours. The traces of Oriental manners visible in the south of Spain, the ruined palaces of the Caliphs, and the tales of romantic chivalry interwoven with the Moorish wars, suggested to him the idea that an inquiry into the history of Spain during the eight centuries in which it was possessed by the Arabs would elucidate many of the obscure causes which had obstructed the prosperity of that country.[2] Two large and unexplored collections of Arabic manuscripts belonging to the Spanish crown were lying buried in the monastery of St. Lawrence and in the Library of the Escurial; and, though Bruce was as yet but little acquainted with the Arabic language, he felt a strong ambition to trace, through this tedious labyrinth, the Moorish history of the country. On reaching Madrid, he procured an introduction to Don Ricardo Wall, minister to his Catholic majesty, a gentleman of British extraction, and of superior abilities; and from him he earnestly solicited assistance in the researches which he desired to make in Arabic literature. Mr. Wall frankly told Bruce, that the jealousy with which the Spaniards concealed their historical records from every intelligent foreigner obstructed all access to the Library of the Escurial; but the minister, pleased with the adventurous spirit and the intelligence which he evinced, used every endeavour to persuade him to enter his master's service. Bruce, however, had already many roaming projects in his head: he was therefore unwilling to settle; and, like the swallow, about to take its departure it knows not where, he kept constantly on the wing, flying apparently everywhere rather than be at rest. After having made many observations on the several places which he visited in Spain, on Christmas day, 1757, he arrived at Pampeluna, the capital of Navarre, on his way to France.
Crossing the Pyrenees, he went to Bordeaux, where, delighted with the cheerful vivacity of French society, he remained several months among friends and some relations who were residing there. From Bordeaux he travelled through France to Strasburg; then, following the course of the Rhine to its confluence with the Maine, he visited Frankfort. Returning to the romantic valley of the Rhine, he visited Cologne, from whence he proceeded to Brussels, the capital of the Austrian Netherlands, which country he had long been extremely desirous to examine. On the second day after his arrival, he happened to be in the company of a young man, a perfect stranger to him, who was rudely insulted. Bruce foolishly remonstrated with the aggressor, who sent him a challenge, which he accepted. They met; and Bruce, having wounded his antagonist, left Brussels immediately for Holland; whence, proceeding towards Hanover, he arrived in time to see the battle of Crevelt. This was the first military operation which he had ever witnessed. He had often boasted, and still more often dreamed, of what he was always delighted to call the exploits of his ancestors, but hitherto he had only read or heard of war. The moment he became acquainted with its reality, it appeared to his excited mind to be a brilliant game, teeming with prizes and blanks; a legal gambling of life, which, by comparison, made every other employment appear trifling and insipid; and, impressed with these feelings, he resolved to forsake the peaceful life he had hitherto led, and seek adventures more congenial, as he conceived, to the spirit of his ancestors.
On his way to England he received a letter at Rotterdam informing him of the death of his father. The inestimable affection of a mother Bruce had never known; and, by the demise of his father, a man of excellent character and sound abilities, he was now deprived of all that he had ever known of parental love. He immediately proceeded to England, where he arrived in the end of July, 1758. In consequence of his father's death, Bruce succeeded to the family estate of Kinnaird, a respectable inheritance, but inadequate to the wants of his growing ambition. He did not immediately visit Scotland, being partly occupied with his concern in the wine-trade: but he gradually retired from this occupation, and in 1761, three years after his return, the partnership was legally dissolved. During this period he had been diligently employed in acquiring the Eastern languages; and, in the course of studying the Arabic (a branch of learning at that time little connected with European knowledge), he was induced to examine, in the works of Ludolf, the Ethiopic or Geez tongue, which first directed his attention to the mountains of Abyssinia. While he was thus employed, the establishment of the Carron Company in Scotland made a very considerable addition to his fortune: his property partly consisting of coal-mines, which were required by that company for the smelting of their iron.