Whether He
Himself Had At All Encouraged The Corregidor In His Behaviour
Towards Me, It Is Impossible To Say; The Probability Is That He Had
Not:
The latter, however, was an officer of his own appointing,
for whose actions himself and the government were to a certain
extent responsible.
Sir George had already made a very strong
remonstrance upon the subject, and had even gone so far as to state
in an official note that he should desist from all farther
communication with the Spanish government until full and ample
reparation had been afforded me for the violence to which I had
been subjected. Ofalia's reply was, that immediate measures should
be taken for my liberation, and that it would be my own fault if I
remained in prison. He forthwith ordered a juez de la primera
instancia, a kind of solicitor-general, to wait upon me, who was
instructed to hear my account of the affair, and then to dismiss me
with an admonition to be cautious for the future. My friends of
the embassy, however, had advised me how to act in such a case.
Accordingly, when the juez on the second night of my imprisonment
made his appearance at the prison, and summoned me before him, I
went, but on his proceeding to question me, I absolutely refused to
answer. "I deny your right to put any questions to me," said I; "I
entertain, however, no feelings of disrespect to the government or
to yourself, Caballero Juez; but I have been illegally imprisoned.
So accomplished a jurist as yourself cannot fail to be aware that,
according to the laws of Spain, I, as a foreigner, could not be
committed to prison for the offence with which I had been charged,
without previously being conducted before the captain-general of
this royal city, whose duty it is to protect foreigners, and see
that the laws of hospitality are not violated in their persons."
Juez.
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