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.
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