our most holy religion; that I was unworthy of having been born in the bosom of the Christian church; and that my conduct was that of an atheist and an ideot;-such as might well bring down upon my head the sudden vengeance of Heaven, either by expiating my crimes at the stake, or perishing in the depths of judgement reserved for so horrible a criminal. 3d. Were the materials placed upon the table before, at any time, my property? Now I must here mention, that in rifling my wardrobe, the syndic at Villa Franca had laid his hands upon a few volumes of Rousseau and other writers along with the Freemason's diploma. These had been forwarded to this savage tribunal, and were received as good evidence upon my ecclesiastical trial. On answering that they were mine, I was loaded with fresh reproaches for perusing the opinions of such vile and blasphemous heretics the avowed enemies of Christ and his followers. Then I had farther allied myself with a sect which they believed had been expressly instituted for the purpose of persecuting all good Catholics and their Divine master. They next commanded me to interpret for them the meaning of the initial capital letters of the lodge, which I openly refused to do, declaring that I did not believe them to be competent judges in such an affair. 4th. They grew more furious in their threats and denunciations than before and unable, it seemed, longer to bear the sight of such an heterodox wretch, they ordered me to be dragged out of their presence, leaving me in ignorance even of my sentence, or the time and place in which it was to be executed. This examination lasted from ten until two o'clock in the afternoon. Once more immured in my former dungeon, I began indeed to despair of my future lot. Yet the permission I had obtained of conveying messages into the city induced me to write to one or two of my friends, who were no sooner apprised of my situation than they came to see me. Learning in what a horrid receptacle I had been confined, they paid my gaoler for granting me permission to enter another hall, where the atmosphere was more pure, appropriated to persons imprisoned on account of their opinions rather than for any particular crime. It was called Sala de las Damas. In about a fortnight my kind friends again called, and paid down another sum to the gaoler on my account. One of them farther obtained, by his personal guarantee, permission for me to walk through the rest of the prison, so as to enjoy a certain degree of freedom. Four months elapsed without hearing farther tidings of my destiny; and the alleviation of my own privations having given me more leisure to remark those of others, I shall here record one or two which I witnessed during this interval. The first was the rare example of a Spanish priest of liberal opinions, formerly curate in Siche, and imprisoned in the same chamber with me. He was accused of having informed the Constitutional Government of a correspondence held by his bishop with the Royalists. It had not been proved, however, whether he or another individual were guilty of the crime; and of course they imprisoned them both. But the Constitutionalists had fully succeeded in proving the onus of the charge against the bishop, and they had condemned him to be shot. On the re-establishment of absolute power, the supposed author of the accusation was seized and thrown into a dungeon; and notwithstanding the poor curate showed the manifest injustice of his sentence in frequent appeals to the Royal Government, he was heavily loaded with irons, and made the object of cruel abuse and calumny from his countrymen. The second case was that of Signor Gascon di Camborda, detained likewise in the same prison for his liberal opinions. By superior orders he was soon afterwards to be removed and conveyed into his own district. Four of the Government's Faith-men were to accompany him; and such was the licence permitted, that it was arranged among them, how they would first persecute, and then assassinate him on the way. The unhappy Gascon manifested the utinost anguish and alarm when he heard of this cruel order for his liberation-saddled with such an escort. He tried every method in his power to elude his fate, and remain where he was. He no longer sighed for his liberty or an exchange of prisons, which included an exchange of worlds. It was painful to witness his struggles; until, at length recalling his gaoler's extreme avarice to mind, and his almost unlimited power, he resolved to try the effect of a bribe. By offering at once a considerable sum, he succeeded in his object; while the gaoler, in order to avoid any dispute with the Government, hit upon the expedient of making him drink a strong glass of rum, well seasoned with Cayenne pepper. This unusual beverage so effectually discomposed his faculties for a tine, that the gaoler went to make a report of his case, declaring that it would be dangerous to remove him. The remaining difficulties in respect to his escort were got over by a farther draft upon poor Gascon's resources, which were wholly drained by these extortions, and the procuring of the physician's report to confirm that of the gaoler. Yet never was money more gladly applied to the task of suborning, than in the case of the unhappy Gascon. Alas! for persecuted innocence, compelled to meet its enemies in such times without the aid or means of a bribe. Yet this infamous traffic of justice was carried on under colour of the law, and the ministers themselves facilitated it. There was a police intendant, a disgrace to humanity-all whose officers acted as his satellitesequally greedy and cruel in battening upon the misfortunes of the wretched. They organized a complete system of intimidation and imposition; aud knowing the fortunes of all whom they had to deal with, they were in the habit of extorting large sums from those whom they committed or enlarged. The number of this man's arrests is without example; for none were permitted to justify themselves before they had tendered the price of their liberation. By such villainy were numbers of Catalonian families reduced to utter indigence. Many who had paid sums of money to this man, and obtained their freedom, at the same moment beheld themselves again imprisoned, notwithstanding they were ruined with their families. But this system would shortly have destroyed likewise the Royal cause; and it is remarkable that the person in question received his dismissal by an order directly from the King. Upon each Sabbath the prisoners witnessed a visit from the President of the Royal Hall throughout all the different wards. The judges in their robes attended him; and as they arrived at each of the doors, they sent the gaoler to announce their presence, that those who had any appeal to make should appear. Had this just and humane proceeding been sincere,- been any other but a shadow and mockery of equity, it would have been of incredible importance. Here, if an appellant declared that he had been unjustly accused-the answer was, that it was just the contrary. If the weight of bonds or chains were complained of "the guilty merited them." Öften, "in fact, they were little in proportion to their crimes." If some poor soul lamented his extreme misery and besought assistance, he was told that it could not be done. Yet many were nigh perishing for want of the common necessaries of life. Among those who thus speculated in justice, the keeper himself was not a jot behind the rest. He therefore set up a liquor-vault, the number of his prisoners amounting to nine hundred, including the women. Provisions had been before brought from their own houses; but the keeper set up shop and compelled their relations to buy from him. Many who came from a distance were thus condemned to starve, or, much the same thing,-to live upon casual alms. I knew two poor fellows, whose names were Widal and Cortez, who after extreme suffering fell victims to this cruel speculation on the part of their gaoler. Another plan was to exclude all those, whatever might be their rank or condition, from the Dormitory, who could not afford to pay. They were thus compelled to sleep in company with the refuse of the prisons,-with malefactors confined for every variety of crime. Among these, gambling formed the chief amusement, and refuge from their crimes; and even here the gaoler contrived to obtain some share in the game, which he turned to account. : There were moments too, when each forgetting his individual misery, joined in the dance and the song and I have seen faces as animated, and hearts as open to empty pleasure, spite of destiny-(such is human nature!) as in other scenes. A farther source of speculation to our gaoler was upon the interests and feelings of his wealthier prisoners. He permitted them to hold conferences with their commercial connexions, to regulate their business; and admitted their wives during the night, along with other relatives of the richer class. Another character whom I met with in my part of the prison, was a man whose history is too curious and interesting to be passed over in silence. He was a captain of cavalry in the service of the Royalists, and upon retiring, he forged a passport, representing himself as a colonel in active service. He likewise procured a false certificate, purporting to be from the Exminister Cruz, with which he forthwith obtained from Government unlimited power over the syndics, who were bound to obey him. He had twelve cavalry soldiers in his service, the rest of his establishment consisting of a young female and two lacqueys. Thus provided, he took the tour of Spain, calling in every district upon the parish syndic to furnish him with a list of the principal Constitutional proprietors in his commune. These he caused to be arrested, and compelled them to pay some thousand reals, upon pain of being despatched by his twelve dragoons upon the spot. This bold bad enterprise succeeded in a number of provinces through which he passed, where he raised large sums without any of the authorities questioning the validity of his mission under orders of the Ex-minister Cruz. When, however, the generality of crimes served to expose the great delinquent himself, the Spanish government, becoming aware of the heavy contributions he had levied, caused him to be arrested at Siges, near Barcelona, at the moment he was about to embark in order to enjoy the fruits of others' industry in a foreign land. He thus lost his young mistress, his troop of cavalry, his French lacqueys, and his colonel's commission, at a single tap of the shoulder from an officer of police. The plunder which he had amassed, and was now compelled to regurgitate, was immense. This was no solitary instance of the blessed fruits of a system, founded upon brute force, foreign bayonets, and a tissue of national treachery and crime. In the same royal prisons were to be seen numbers of individuals of different nations-of French, Italians, English, Germans, &c. The greater part of these being unable to speak the Spanish tongue, the gaoler was in the habit of employing me as their interpreter in their examinations before the judges. On going one day into their chamber with this view, I beheld a most niiserable object, with scarcely a rag to cover him, standing between two of the judges in a truly rueful plight. His name was Joseph Mayer, by birth an Hungarian. He had been in the Austrian service at Milan. On being disbanded, he set out to find an uncle, a professor of painting, who resided at Madrid. He embarked at Genoa, and landed at Rozes in Catalonia. But on approaching Lerida, on his way to the capital, he was attacked by three peasants, who robbed and wounded him in the most shocking manner. With difficulty reaching Lerida, he presented himself to the magistrates, who unable to understand a word of what he said, determined to arrest him, and he too was conducted to the royal prisons of San Pedro, and into that where I was confined.—But to return to myself. After an imprisonment of four months, the same friends who had before assisted me, again visited me with the same charitable object. They assured me that a petition on my behalf, signed by the principal families in Catalonia, had been already presented to the king. It contained a full demonstration of my innocence; and they augured happy result, as the petition had been presented by a person who possessed the royal confidence, and enjoyed a high reputation. My friends' hopes were not deceived. A few days afterwards an officer entered the prison, who intimated to the gaoler that it was the royal pleasure that I should be set at liberty, upon the simple condition of paying the entire expenses of my trials and of my imprisonment. This royal act of grace was accompanied with farther orders to leave Bar'celona within eight days, and to be escorted to the Spanish frontiers by the officers of police. This royal act was transmitted to the President of the Royal Hall, who gave official notice of it to the police, who were to furnish my escort to the frontiers. It was now I began to feel very like poor Gascon; and I was somewhat uneasy until I at length formed the idea of throwing myself upon the protection of the French. The first use I made of my liberty was to hasten to the French officer upon guard: I explained my fears, and intreated him to forward my petition to the Governor of Barcelona, Count Razet, in order that I might be placed under the safeguard of his countrymen. This humane officer did not hesitate a moment; he went next morning to the governor's adjutant, who paid me a visit at the prison, from which I was released on paying the gaoler his demand, which embarrassed me not a little. I was then promised an escort of gens-d'armes in the course of a few days, until which time I could take up my quarters under their protection. The commander of the garrison also wrote to procure me a passport from the police-office, at the same time requiring the return of my letters, my wardrobe, and the rest of my equipage. The reply received was, that the passport could not be granted until the costs of the whole process against me had been defrayed, in default of which I should assuredly be arrested; and that my letters, according to royal mandate, were not to be restored. It became necessary to yield to this fresh imposition; after which the police pretended to return me my effects,-two thirds of which, however, were gone. Besides, the passport which they at length granted was calculated to overwhelin me with disgrace, at least under any other circumstances; for it contained the description of an assassin, rather than of a good citizen, and a friend to humanity and civil rights. In pursuance of this arrangement I presented myself to the French étatmajor resident at Barcelona, to learn the day fixed for my departure. The evening before, I took up my quarters with the gens-d'armes to be in readiness, and we next day set out. On our arrival at Guingerra on the frontiers, the Spanish police required to see whether my name was down in the list of the convoyées, and whether I answered the description of my person. I am indebted to the answer of the French officer, who said, that it was enough that I had been taken under the protection of the French, without my name being contained in the list, or being at all exposed to observation. From Guingerra we hastened to Perpignan, where the Prefect of Police, after granting my passport, added an order of itinerary, which directed that, without farther delay, I should point my course to England. Were I here to proceed with the account of my adventures after my arrival in France, I might likewise furnish matter offensive to that government. I trust my silence, however, will be interpreted as rendering the justice due to that nation. Finally, escaping from so many disasters and sufferings, I arrived safely in England, where I at length breathed the air of liberty, and felt what it was to enjoy the condition of a freeman. This blessing, which I had learned so fully to appreciate without the aid of my Spanish confessor's sermons, was conferred upon me about the end of May 1825. However, to convince all heretics and unbelievers of the truth and candour of this my narrative, I may as well append the Royal Act of Grace, which restored me to liberty. Copy of the Royal Decree. Barcelona, March 28th, 1825. An Act communicated to the Cavalier Intendant of Barcelona, making known to him an Act especially decreed by his Majesty, bearing date of the 9th of this current month, which ordains that a passport be delivered to the Signor Don G. P. under condition that he depart from the Spanish dominions, both in Europe and India, within the prescribed term of eight days. Likewise that he be put at liberty, after having discharged the costs of his trials at the different tribunals of justice. That the effects belonging to the said Don G. P. now detained at the police offices be restored to him, excepting the letters found in his possession. Finally, commanding that the said Don G. P. have previous notice of this order. (Signed) FERDINANDO VII. Given from the Royal Palace. Articles detained at the offices.-1. Freemason's diploma. 2. Two officer's commissions of cavalry. 3. Letters from his relations. 4. Various other letters and books. LONDON LYRICS.-THE BIRTH OF PODAGRA. "FAIR daughter, it puzzles me much," "Why you married a God on a crutch, With Mars, and with Bacchus, and with Oh! how could you marry a smith Who furbishes pokers and tongs?" "Dread sire," said the Queen of the Loves, All day, I can harness my doves And call on what people I choose: Ere long, with his vine-circled rod, Came Bacchus, the ivy-crown'd God. To pass for lame Mulciber's own. |