Various
Testaments Had Been Sold, Though The Number Was By No Means
Considerable:
The work had to labour under great disadvantage,
from the ignorance of the people at large with respect to its tenor
and contents.
It was no wonder, then, that little interest was
felt respecting it. To call, however, public attention to the
despacho, I printed three thousand advertisements on paper, yellow,
blue, and crimson, with which I almost covered the sides of the
streets, and besides this, inserted an account of it in all the
journals and periodicals; the consequence was, that in a short time
almost every person in Madrid was aware of its existence. Such
exertions in London or Paris would probably have ensured the sale
of the entire edition of the New Testament within a few days. In
Madrid, however, the result was not quite so flattering; for after
the establishment had been open an entire month, the copies
disposed of barely amounted to one hundred.
These proceedings of mine did not fail to cause a great sensation:
the priests and their partisans were teeming with malice and fury,
which, for some time, however, they thought proper to exhibit only
in words; it being their opinion that I was favoured by the
ambassador and by the British government; but there was no attempt,
however atrocious, that might not be expected from their malignity;
and were it right and seemly for me, the most insignificant of
worms, to make such a comparison, I might say, like Paul at
Ephesus, I was fighting with wild beasts.
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