Myself. - With Such A Predilection For England, What Could Have
Induced You To Leave It And Come To Spain?
Luigi. - I will tell you:
About sixteen years ago a universal
desire seized our people in England to become something more than
they had hitherto been, pedlars and trampers; they wished,
moreover, for mankind are never satisfied, to see other countries:
so the greater part forsook England. Where formerly there had been
ten, at present scarcely lingers one. Almost all went to America,
which, as I told you before, is a happy country, and specially good
for us men of Como. Well, all my comrades and relations passed
over the sea to the West. I, too, was bent on travelling; but
whither? Instead of going towards the West with the rest, to a
country where they have all thriven, I must needs come by myself to
this land of Spain; a country in which no foreigner settles without
dying of a broken heart sooner or later. I had an idea in my head
that I could make a fortune at once, by bringing a cargo of common
English goods, like those which I had been in the habit of selling
amongst the villagers of England. So I freighted half a ship with
such goods, for I had been successful in England in my little
speculations, and I arrived at Coruna. Here at once my vexations
began: disappointment followed disappointment. It was with the
utmost difficulty that I could obtain permission to land my goods,
and this only at a considerable sacrifice in bribes and the like;
and when I had established myself here, I found that the place was
one of no trade, and that my goods went off very slowly, and
scarcely at prime cost. I wished to remove to another place, but
was informed that, in that case, I must leave my goods behind,
unless I offered fresh bribes, which would have ruined me; and in
this way I have gone on for fourteen years, selling scarcely enough
to pay for my shop and to support myself. And so I shall doubtless
continue till I die, or my goods are exhausted. In an evil day I
left England and came to Spain.
Myself. - Did you not say that you had a countryman at St. James?
Luigi. - Yes, a poor honest fellow, who, like myself, by some
strange chance found his way to Galicia. I sometimes contrive to
send him a few goods, which he sells at St. James at a greater
profit than I can here. He is a happy fellow, for he has never
been in England, and knows not the difference between the two
countries. Oh, the green English hedgerows! and the alehouses!
and, what is much more, the fair dealing and security. I have
travelled all over England and never met with ill usage, except
once down in the north amongst the Papists, upon my telling them to
leave all their mummeries and go to the parish church as I did, and
as all my countrymen in England did; for know one thing, Signor
Giorgio, not one of us who have lived in England, whether
Piedmontese or men of Como, but wished well to the Protestant
religion, if he had not actually become a member of it.
Myself. - What do you propose to do at present, Luigi? What are
your prospects?
Luigi. - My prospects are a blank, Giorgio; my prospects are a
blank. I propose nothing but to die in Coruna, perhaps in the
hospital, if they will admit me. Years ago I thought of fleeing,
even if I left all behind me, and either returning to England, or
betaking myself to America; but it is too late now, Giorgio, it is
too late. When I first lost all hope, I took to drinking, to which
I was never before inclined, and I am now what I suppose you see.
"There is hope in the Gospel," said I, "even for you. I will send
you one."
There is a small battery of the old town which fronts the east, and
whose wall is washed by the waters of the bay. It is a sweet spot,
and the prospect which opens from it is extensive. The battery
itself may be about eighty yards square; some young trees are
springing up about it, and it is rather a favourite resort of the
people of Coruna.
In the centre of this battery stands the tomb of Moore, built by
the chivalrous French, in commemoration of the fall of their heroic
antagonist. It is oblong and surmounted by a slab, and on either
side bears one of the simple and sublime epitaphs for which our
rivals are celebrated, and which stand in such powerful contrast
with the bloated and bombastic inscriptions which deform the walls
of Westminster Abbey:
"JOHN MOORE,
LEADER OF THE ENGLISH ARMIES,
SLAIN IN BATTLE,
1809."
The tomb itself is of marble, and around it is a quadrangular wall,
breast high, of rough Gallegan granite; close to each corner rises
from the earth the breech of an immense brass cannon, intended to
keep the wall compact and close. These outer erections are,
however, not the work of the French, but of the English government.
Yes, there lies the hero, almost within sight of the glorious hill
where he turned upon his pursuers like a lion at bay and terminated
his career. Many acquire immortality without seeking it, and die
before its first ray has gilded their name; of these was Moore.
The harassed general, flying through Castile with his dispirited
troops before a fierce and terrible enemy, little dreamed that he
was on the point of attaining that for which many a better,
greater, though certainly not braver man, had sighed in vain. His
very misfortunes were the means which secured him immortal fame;
his disastrous route, bloody death, and finally his tomb on a
foreign strand, far from kin and friends. There is scarcely a
Spaniard but has heard of this tomb, and speaks of it with a
strange kind of awe.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 103 of 218
Words from 104598 to 105613
of 222596
