I had scarcely opened my establishment at Madrid when I began to hear rumours of certain transactions at Valencia,said to be encouraged by the British and Foreign Bible Society.As these transactions,as they were reported,were in the highest degree absurd and improper,and as I was convinced that the Bible Society would sanction nothing of the kind,I placed little or no credit in them,and put them down to the account of Jesuitical malignity.In less than a fortnight appeared in the newspapers what I conceived to be a gross and uncalled-for attack upon the Bible Society,appended to a pastoral of the Bishop of Valencia,in which he forbade the sale of the Bible throughout his diocese.The Committee are acquainted with my answer to that epistle;they are well aware with what zeal and fervour I spoke against the spirit of Popery,and defended the Society and their cause as far as my feeble talents would permit.Yet I here confess that the said answer was penned,if not in perfect ignorance of what had been transacted in Valencia,at least in almost utter disbelief;for had it been my fortune at the time to have been as well informed as Ihave subsequently been,so far from publishing the answer in question I would at once have publicly disclaimed,as I afterwards did,any participation or sympathy in transactions which were not only calculated to bring the Bible cause into odium,but the Bible Society into difficulties,into discredit,and worst of all,into contempt.A helpless widow was insulted,her liberty of conscience invaded,and her only son incited to rebellion against her.Alunatic was employed as the REPARTIDOR or distributor of the blessed Bible,who having his head crammed with what he understood not,ran through the streets of Valencia crying aloud that Christ was nigh at hand and would appear in a short time;whilst advertisements to much the same effect were busily circulated in which the name,the noble name,of the Bible Society was prostituted;whilst the Bible exposed for sale in an apartment of a public house served for little more than a decoy to the idle and curious,who were there treated with incoherent railings against the Church of Rome and Babylon,in a dialect which it was well for the deliverer that only a few of the audience understood.But Ifly from these details,and will now repeat the consequences of the above proceedings to myself;for I,I,and only I,as every respectable person in Madrid can vouch,have paid the penalty for them all,though as innocent as the babe who has not yet seen the light.
I had much difficulty at Madrid,principally on account of the state of political matters which absorbed the minds of all,in bringing the New Testament into notice.However by dint of perseverance I contrived to direct the public curiosity towards it,indeed I was beginning to average a sale of twenty copies daily,when the shop was suddenly closed by order of the Government in consequence of the complaints from Valencia,myself being supposed to be the instigator and director of the scenes in that place already narrated.For the next four months I carried on negotiations with the Government through the medium of Sir George Villiers,who from my first arrival in the Peninsula,had most generously befriended me.But in his endeavours to forward my views he found exceeding difficulties.The clergy were by this time,both Carlist and liberal,thoroughly incensed against me,and indeed with much apparent reason;the former denounced me to the populace as a sorcerer and a heretic,and the latter spoke of me as an accomplished hypocrite.I was at last flung into prison -into the pestilential CARCEL DE LA CORTE,where my faithful servant Francisco caught the gaol-fever,of which he subsequently died.
But in this instance my enemies committed a very imprudent act,an act which had very nearly produced the result for which I had been so long unsuccessfully negotiating.My protector,Sir George Villiers,informed the Spanish Prime Minister,Ofalia,that unless full satisfaction was offered me,he should deem it his duty to cease any further transactions with the Spanish Government,and to order all the British land and sea-forces,co-operating with those of the Queen to terminate the rebellion,to desist from further operations.
I was about to obtain all I wished,when at the critical moment the news of the scenes at Malaga arrived at Madrid,and Sir George had little more to say than that Satan seemed to mingle in this game.
Nevertheless I left prison,with the understanding that the Government would connive at the circulation of the Scriptures in a quiet manner,not calculated to produce disturbances nor to give scandal to the clergy.
But speedily followed the affair of the sectarian tracts of Carthagena,which tracts were sworn to as having been left there by agents of the Bible Society;and I instantly knew that I had nothing more to expect from the Government.But some time previous I had formed an unalterable resolution that,come what might,Iwould no longer bear the odium of actions,which in whatever motive they originated had already subjected me to unheard-of persecution,loathsome imprisonment,loss of friends,and to the grief of seeing prudent and long-brooded plans baffled and brought to nought,and the Society to which I belonged subjected to opprobrium as Ibelieved undeserved;and I therefore published in the journals of Madrid an advertisement,in which I disowned,in my own name and that of the Society,any sympathy with the actor or actors in those transactions,which had given so much cause of offence to the authorities,civil and ecclesiastic,of Spain.
My principal reason for taking this step originated from my having become personally acquainted with the ex-priest Pascual Marin,who arrived at Madrid the very day in which I was committed to prison.