LETTER XIX.. Barcelona.

BARCELONA.

You will, as I am, be tired of hearing so much about Messrs. Wombwell, Curtoys, Adams, and Co.--but as there are some other persons here, which my last letter must have put you in some pain about, I must renew the subject. I had, you know, some letters of recommendation to the Marquis of Grimaldi, which I had reserved to deliver into his Excellency's hands at Madrid; but which I found necessary to send away by the post, and to request the honour of his Excellency to write to some Spaniard of fashion here, to shew me countenance, and to clear up my suspected character. I accordingly wrote to the Marquis, and sent him my letters of recommendation, but sixteen days was the soonest I could expect an answer. I therefore, in the mean time, wrote myself to the Intendant of Barcelona, a man of sense, and high birth; I told him my name, and that I had letters in my pocket from a Spanish Gentleman of fashion, whom he knew, which would convince him who I was, and desired leave to wait upon him. The Intendant fixed six o'clock the same evening. I was received, and conducted into his apartment, for he was ill, by one of his daughters; the only woman I had seen in Barcelona that had either beauty or breeding;--this young Lady had both in a high degree. After shewing my letters, and having conversed a little with the Intendant, a Lady with a red face, and a nose as big as a brandy bottle, accosted me in English: "Behold, Sir, (said she) your countrywoman." This was Madam O'Reilly, wife to the Governor of Monjuique Castle, and brother to the Gentleman of that name, so well known, and so amply provided for, by the late and present King of Spain. She was very civil, and seemed sensible. Her husband, the Governor, soon after came in, and the whole family smiled upon me. I then began to think I should escape both goal and inquisition. Mrs. O'Reilly visited my family. Mr. O'Reilly borrowed a house for me, and a charming one too; I say borrowed it, for no Spaniard letts his house; I was only to make him some recompense for his politeness and generosity. The Intendant even sent Gov. O'Reilly to know why Mr. Curtoys had not presented me, on the court-day, to the Captain-General. Mr. Consul Curtoys was obliged to give his reasons in person; had they been true, they were good: the Intendant accepted them, and said he would present me himself. Things seemed now to take a favourable turn: Mr. Curtoys visited me on his way back from the Intendant's; assured me he had told him that I was a man of character, and an honest man; and that though he could not see me as Consul Curtoys, he should be glad to see me as Merchant Curtoys. On the other hand, the Marquis of Grimaldi, with the politeness of a minister, and the feelings of humanity, wrote me a very flattering letter indeed, and sent it by a special courier, who came in four days from Madrid. Now, thought I, a fig for your Wombwells, Curtoys, &c. The first minister's favour, and the shining countenance of Madam O'Reilly, must carry me through every thing. But alas! it was quite otherwise;--the courier who brought my letter had directions to deliver it into my own hands; but either by his blunder, or Madam O'Reilly's, I did not get it till nine hours after it arrived, and then from the hands of Madam O'Reilly's servant. The contents of this letter were soon known: the favour of the minister at Madrid did not shine upon me at the Court of Barcelona! I visited Madam O'Reilly, who looked at me,--if I may use such a coarse expression,--"like God's revenge against murder." I could not divine what I had done, or what omitted to do. I could get no admittance at the Intendant's, neither. I proposed going to Montserrat, and asked my fair countrywoman for a letter to one of the monks; but--she knew nobody there, not she:--Why then, madam, said I, perhaps I had better go back to France:--Oh! but, says she, perhaps the Marquis of Grimaldi will not let you; adding, that the laws of France and Spain were very different.--But, pray, madam, said I, what have the laws of either kingdom to do with me, while I violate none of them? I am a citizen of the world, and consequently free in every country.--Now, Sir, to decypher all this, which I did by the help of some characters an honest Spaniard gave me:--Why, says he, they say you are a great Captain; that you have had an attention shewn you by the Marquis of Grimaldi, which none of the O'Reilly's ever obtained; and they are afraid that you are come here to take the eldest brother's post from him, and that you are to command the troops upon the second expedition to Algiers; for every body is much dissatisfied with his conduct on the first; adding, that the Spaniards do not love him.--I told him, that might arise from his being a stranger; but I had been well assured, and I firmly believed it, that he is a gallant, an able, and a good officer; but, said I, that cannot be the reason of so much shyness in the Intendant, even if it does raise any uneasiness in the O'Reilly's family:--Yes, said he, it does; for the Captain-General O'Reilly is married lately to one of the Intendant's daughters. So you see here was another mine sprung under me; and I determined to set out in a day or two for Montserrat. I had but one card more to play, and that was to carry the open letter I had to the French Consul, and which, I forgot to tell you, I had shewn to the acute, discerning, and sagacious merchant Wombwell. It was written by Madame de Maigny, the Lady of the Chevalier de Maigny, of the regiment d'Artois, one of the Gentlemen with whom I had eat that voluptuous supper in company at Pont St. Esprit; but, as Mr. Wombwell shrewdly observed, my name was not even mentioned in that letter, it was the bearer only who was recommended; and how could that Lady, any more than Mr. Wombwell, tell, but that I had murdered the first bearer, and robbed him of his recommendatory letter, and dressed myself in his scarlet and gold-laced coat, to practise the same wicked arts upon their lives and fortunes?

Now, you will naturally wish to know how Sir Thomas Gascoyne, my vis-a-vis neighbour in the same Hotel, conducted himself. I had, before all this fuss, eat, drank, and conversed with him: he is a sensible, genteel, well-bred man; and there was with him Mr. Swinburne, who was equally agreeable: no wonder, therefore, if I endeavoured to cultivate an acquaintance with two such men, so much superior, in all respects, to what the town afforded. Sir Thomas, however, became rather reserved; perhaps not more so than good policy made necessary for a man who was only just entering upon a grand tour through the whole kingdom, from Barcelona to Cadiz, Madrid, &c. &c. I perceived this shyness, but did not resent it, because I could not censure it. He had no suspicion of me at first; and if he had afterwards, I could not tell what circumstances might have been urged against me; and I considered, that if a man of his fortune and figure could have been suspected, there was much reason for him to join with others in suspecting me.

The Moor, it seems, who had put off the counterfeit bank notes, had been advertised in all the foreign papers; his person was particularly described; and as application had been made to the Courts of France and Spain, to stop the career of such a villain, the Governor of Barcelona had, upon Sir Thomas Gascoyne's first arrival, stopped him, and sent for the Consul, verily believing he had got the offender. The Moor was described as a short, plump, black man; and as Sir Thomas has black eyes, and is rather en bon point, the plain, honest Governor had not discernment enough to see that ease and good breeding in Sir Thomas, which no Moor, however well he may imitate Bank notes, can counterfeit. But as Sir Thomas had letters of credit upon Mr. Curtoys, which ascertained his person and rank, this adventure became a laughable one to him. It is, indeed, from his mouth I relate it, though, perhaps, not with all the circumstances he told me.--Now, had my person tallied as well as Sir Thomas's did with that of the itinerant Moor, I should certainly have been in one of the round towers, which stick pretty thick in the walls of the fortification of this town.

You will tremble--I assure you, I do--when I think of another escape I had; and I will tell you how:--The day after I left Cette, I came to a spot where the roads divide; here I asked two men, which was mine to Narbonne? one of them answered me in English; he was a shabby, but genteel-looking young man, said he came from Italy, and was going to Barcelona; that he had been defrauded of his money at Venice by a parcel of sharpers, and was going to Spain to get a passage to Holland, of which country he was a native; he was then in treaty, he said, with the other man to sell him a pair of breeches, to furnish him with money to carry him on; and as I had no servant at that time, he earnestly intreated me to take him into my service: I would not do that, you may be sure; but lest he might be an unfortunate man, like myself, I told him, if he could contrive to lie at the inns I did, I would pay for his bed and supper. He accepted an offer, I soon became very sorry I had made; and when we arrived at Perpignan, I gave him a little money to proceed, but absolutely forbad him either to walk near my chaise, or to sleep at the same inns I did; for as I knew him not, he should not enter into another kingdom as one in my suite; and I saw no more of him till some days after my arrival at Barcelona, where he accosted me in a better habit, and shewed me some real, or counterfeit gold he had got, he said, of a friend who knew his father at Amsterdam. He was a bold, daring fellow; and it was with some difficulty I could prevail upon him not to walk cheek by jole with me along the ramparts.

Soon after this I was informed, that a fine-dressed, little black-eyed man was arrived in a bark from Italy. This man proved to be, as Mr. Curtoys informed me, the very Moor whom Sir Thomas Gascoyne was suspected to be: he was apprehended, and committed to one of the round towers. But what will you say, or what would have been my lot, had I taken the other man into my service?--for the minute my white man, for he was a whitish Moor, saw the black one arrive, he decamped; they were afraid of each other, and both wanted to escape; my man went off on foot; the black man was apprehended, while he was in treaty with the master of the same bark he came in, to carry him to some other sea-port. Now had I come in with such a servant, and with my suspected Bank notes, without letters of credit, or recommendation; had the Moor arrived, who is the real culprit, and who had been connected with my man, what would have become of his master, your unfortunate humble servant?--I doubt the abilities of his Britannic Majesty's Consul would not have been able to have divided our degrees of guilt properly; and that I should have experienced but little charity on my straw bed, from the humanity of Mr. Wombwell. However, I had still one card more to play to reinforce my purse; it was one, I thought could not fail, and the money was nearer home:--I had lent, while I was at Calais, thirty guineas to a French officer, for no other reason but because he wanted it: I knew the man; and as he promised to pay me in three months, and as that time was expired, I applied to Mr. Harris, a Scotch merchant, at his house at Barcelona, on whom the London Bankers of the same name give letters of credit to travellers. I begged the favour of him to send the note to his correspondents at Paris, and to procure the money for me, and when it was paid, that he would give it to me at Barcelona; but Mr. Harris too, begged to be excused: he started some difficulties, but at length did give me a receipt for the note, and promised, reluctantly enough, to send it. I began now to think that I should starve indeed. Every article of life is high in Spain, and my purse was low. I therefore wrote to Mr. Curtoys, to know if he had any tidings of the Bank bills; for I had immediately wrote to Messrs. Hoare, to beg the favour of them to send Mr. Curtoys the numbers of those which I received at their house; and they very politely informed me, they had so done. Mr. Consul Curtoys favoured me with the following answer:

"Mr. Curtoys presents his compliments to Mr. Thicknesse; no ways doubts the Bank bills to be good, from London this post under the 24th past, they accuse receipt thereof, &c. Barcelona, 12th of December, 1775."

As Mr. Curtoys's correspondent had accused receipt thereof, I thought I might too, and accordingly I went and desired my money. The cashier was sick, they said, and I was desired to call again the next morning, when he would be much better;--I did so, and received my money; and shall set off immediately for Montserrat, singing, and saying what I do not exactly agree to; but, being at Rome, I would do as they do there: I therefore taught my children to repeat the following Spanish proverb:

"Barcelonaes Bueno, Si la Bolsa fueno; Sueno o no fueno; Barcelonaes Bueno."

I will not translate what, I am sure, you will understand the sense of much better than you will think I experienced the truth. I hope, however, to have done with my misfortunes; for I am going to visit a spot inhabited by virtuous and retired men; a place, according to all reports, cut out by nature for such who are able to sequester themselves from all worldly concerns; and from such strangers as they are I am sure I shall meet with more charity for they deal in nothing else than I met with humanity or politeness at Barcelona.

P.S. I should have told you, that before Sir Thomas Gascoyne left this town, he sent a polite message, to desire to take leave of me and my family: I therefore waited upon him; and as he proposed visiting Gibraltar, I troubled him with a letter to my son, then on that duty; and was sorry soon after to find that my son had left the garrison before Sir Thomas could arrive at it. If you ask me how Sir Thomas Gascoyne ventured to make so great a tour through a country so aukwardly circumstanced for travellers in general, and strangers in particular, I can only say, that when I saw him he had but just began his long journey, and that he had every advantage which religion and fortune could give him. I had none: he travelled with two coaches, two sets of horses, two saddle mules, and was protected by a train of servants. I had religion, (but it was a bad one in that country) and only one footman, who strictly maintained his character, for he always walked. Indeed, it is the fashion of all Spanish gentlemen to be followed by their servant on foot. I therefore travelled like a Spaniard; Sir Thomas like an Englishman. The whole city of Barcelona was in an uproar the morning Sir Thomas's two coaches set off; and I heard, with concern, that they both broke down before they got half way to Valencia; but, with pleasure, by a polite letter soon after from Mr. Swinburne, that they got so far in perfect health.

I am, dear Sir, &c.

P.S. Before I quit Barcelona, it will be but just to say, that it is a good city, has a fine mole, and a noble citadel, beside Monjuique, a strong fort, which stands on a high hill, and which commands the town as well as the harbour. The town is very large and strongly fortified, stands in a large plain, and is encompassed with a semi-circular range of high hills, rather than mountains, which form un coup-d'oeil, that is very pleasing, as not only the sides of the hills are adorned with a great number of country houses, but the plain also affords a great many, beside several little villages. The roads too near the town are very good. As to the city itself, it is rather well built in general, than abounding with any particular fine buildings. The Inquisition has nothing to boast of now, either within or without, having (fortunately for the public) lost a great part of its former power: it, however, still keeps an awe upon all who live within its verge. I never saw a town in which trade is carried on with more spirit and industry; the indolent disposition of the Spaniards of Castile, and other provinces, has not extended ever into this part of Spain. They have here a very fine theatre; but those who perform upon the stage are the refuse of the people, and are too bad to be called by the name of actors. They have neither libraries nor pictures worthy of much notice, though they boast of one or two paintings in their churches by natives of the town, Francois Guirro, and John Arnau. In the custom-house hangs a full-length of the present King, so execrable, that one would wonder it was not put, with the painter, into the Inquisition, as a libel on royalty and the arts. I am told, at La Fete Dieu there are some processions of the most ridiculous nature. The fertility of the earth in and about the town is wonderful; the minute one crop is off the earth, another is put in; no part of the year puts a stop to vegetation. In the coldest weather, the market abounds with a great variety of the choicest flowers; yet their sweets cannot over-power the intolerable smell which salt fish, and stinking fish united, diffuse over all that part of the city; and rich as the inhabitants are, you will see the legs, wings, breasts, and entrails of fowls, in the market, cut up as joints of meat are in other countries, to be sold separately: nor could I find in this great city either oil, olives, or wine, that were tolerable. I paid a guinea a day at the Fontain d'Or for my table; yet every thing was so dirty, that I always made my dinner from the dessert; nor was there any other place but the stable of this dirty inn to put up my horse, where I paid twelve livres a week for straw only; and whoever lodges at this inn, must pay five shillings a day for their dinner, whether they dine there or not.

Catalonia is undoubtedly the best cultivated, the richest, and most industrious province, or principality, in Spain; and the King, who has the SUN FOR HIS HAT, (for it always shines in some part of his dominions) has nothing to boast of, equal to Catalonia.

As I have almost as much abhorrence to the Moors, as even the Spaniards themselves, (having visited that coast two or three times, many years ago) you may be sure I was grieved to meet, every time I went out, so many maimed and wounded officers and soldiers, who were not long returned from the unsuccessful expedition to Algiers. There are no troops in the world more steady than the Spaniards; it was not for want of bravery they miscarried, but there was some sad mismanagement; and had the Moors followed their blows, not a man of them would have returned. My servant, (a French deserter) who was upon that expedition, says, Gen. O'Reilly was the first who landed, and the last who embarked;--but it is the HEAD, not the arm of a commander in chief, which is most wanted. The Moors at le point du jour, advanced upon the Spaniards behind a formidable masked and moving battery of camels: the Spaniards, believing them, by a faint light, to be cavalry, expended a great part of their strength, spirits, and ammunition, upon those harmless animals; and it was not till this curtain was removed that the dreadful carnage began, in which they lost about nine thousand men. There seems to have been some strange mismanagement; it seems probable that there was no very good understanding between the marine and the land officers. The fleet were many days before the town, and then landed just where the Moors expected they would land. There is nothing so difficult, so dangerous, nor so liable to miscarriage, as the war of invading: our troops experienced it at St. Cas; and they either have, or will experience it in America. The wild negroes in Jamaica, to whom Gov. Trelawney wisely gave, what they contended for, (LIBERTY) were not above fifteen hundred fit to bear arms. I was in several skirmishes with them, and second in command under Mr. Adair's brother, a valiant young man who died afterwards in the field, who made peace with them; yet I will venture to affirm, that though five hundred disciplined troops would have subdued them in an open country, the united force of France and England could not have extirpated them from their fast holds in the mountains. Did not a Baker battle and defeat two Marshals of France in the Cevennes? And is it probable, that all the fleets and armies of Great-Britain can conquer America?--England may as well attempt moving that Continent on this side the Atlantic.