He Had Very Frequently Been Hemmed
In By Forces Three Times The Number Of His Own, In Places Whence
Escape Appeared Impossible, But He Had Always Battled His Enemies,
Whom He Seemed To Laugh At.
The most absurd accounts of victories
gained over him were continually issuing from the press at Seville;
amongst others, it was stated that his army had been utterly
defeated, himself killed, and that twelve hundred prisoners were on
their way to Saville.
I saw these prisoners: instead of twelve
hundred desperadoes, they consisted of about twenty poor lame
ragged wretches, many of them boys from fourteen to sixteen years
of age. They were evidently camp followers, who, unable to keep up
with the army, had been picked up straggling in the plains and
amongst the hills.
It subsequently appeared that no battle had occurred, and that the
death of Gomez was a fiction. The grand defect of Gomez consisted
in not knowing how to take advantage of circumstances: after
defeating Lopez, he might have marched to Madrid and proclaimed Don
Carlos there, and after sacking Cordova he might have captured
Seville.
There were several booksellers' shops at Seville, in two of which I
found copies of the New Testament in Spanish, which had been
obtained from Gibraltar about two years before, since which time
six copies had been sold in one shop and four in the other. The
person who generally accompanied me in my walks about the town and
the neighbourhood, was an elderly Genoese, who officiated as a kind
of valet de place in the Posada del Turco, where I had taken up my
residence. On learning from me that it was my intention to bring
out an edition of the New Testament at Madrid, he observed that
copies of the work might be extensively circulated in Andalusia.
"I have been accustomed to bookselling," he continued, "and at one
time possessed a small shop of my own in this place. Once having
occasion to go to Gibraltar, I procured several copies of the
Scriptures; some, it is true, were seized by the officers of the
customs, but the rest I sold at a high price, and with considerable
profit to myself."
I had returned from a walk in the country, on a glorious sunshiny
morning of the Andalusian winter, and was directing my steps
towards my lodging: as I was passing by the portal of a large
gloomy house near the gate of Xeres, two individuals dressed in
zamarras emerged from the archway, and were about to cross my path,
when one, looking in my face, suddenly started back, exclaiming in
the purest and most melodious French: "What do I see? If my eyes
do not deceive me - it is himself. Yes, the very same as I saw him
first at Bayonne; then long subsequently beneath the brick wall at
Novogorod; then beside the Bosphorus; and last at - at - Oh, my
respectable and cherished friend, where was it that I had last the
felicity of seeing your well-remembered and most remarkable
physiognomy?"
Myself.
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