Before Talking This Step, However, I Deemed It Advisable To Wait
Upon Mr. Villiers, The British Ambassador At Madrid; And With The
Freedom Permitted To A British Subject, To Ask His Advice In This
Affair.
I was received with great kindness, and enjoyed a
conversation with him on various subjects before I introduced the
matter which I had most at heart.
He said that if I wished for an
interview with Mendizabal, he would endeavour to procure me one,
but, at the same time, told me frankly that he could not hope that
any good would arise from it, as he knew him to be violently
prejudiced against the British and Foreign Bible Society, and was
far more likely to discountenance than encourage any efforts which
they might be disposed to make for introducing the Gospel into
Spain. I, however, remained resolute in my desire to make the
trial, and before I left him, obtained a letter of introduction to
Mendizabal.
Early one morning I repaired to the palace, in a wing of which was
the office of the Prime Minister; it was bitterly cold, and the
Guadarama, of which there is a noble view from the palace-plain,
was covered with snow. For at least three hours I remained
shivering with cold in an ante-room, with several other aspirants
for an interview with the man of power. At last his private
secretary made his appearance, and after putting various questions
to the others, addressed himself to me, asking who I was and what I
wanted. I told him that I was an Englishman, and the bearer of a
letter from the British Minister. "If you have no objection, I
will myself deliver it to His Excellency," said he; whereupon I
handed it to him and he withdrew. Several individuals were
admitted before me; at last, however, my own turn came, and I was
ushered into the presence of Mendizabal.
He stood behind a table covered with papers, on which his eyes were
intently fixed. He took not the slightest notice when I entered,
and I had leisure enough to survey him: he was a huge athletic
man, somewhat taller than myself, who measure six feet two without
my shoes; his complexion was florid, his features fine and regular,
his nose quite aquiline, and his teeth splendidly white: though
scarcely fifty years of age, his hair was remarkably grey; he was
dressed in a rich morning gown, with a gold chain round his neck,
and morocco slippers on his feet.
His secretary, a fine intellectual looking man, who, as I was
subsequently informed, had acquired a name both in English and
Spanish literature, stood at one end of the table with papers in
his hands.
After I had been standing about a quarter of an hour, Mendizabal
suddenly lifted up a pair of sharp eyes, and fixed them upon me
with a peculiarly scrutinizing glance.
"I have seen a glance very similar to that amongst the Beni
Israel," thought I to myself.
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