being indisposed.

Some English people now came to Seville and distributed tracts in a very
unguarded manner, knowing nothing of the country or the inhabitants.
They were even so unwise as _to give tracts instead of money on visiting
public buildings_, _etc._ These persons came to me, and requested my
co-operation and advice, and likewise introductions to people spiritually
disposed amongst the Spaniards, to all which requests I returned a
decided negative. But I foresaw all. In a day or two I was summoned
before the _Gefe Politico_ or, as he was once called, _Corregidor_ of
Seville, who I must say treated me with the utmost politeness, and indeed
respect; but at the same time he informed me that he had (to use his own
expression) terrible orders from Madrid concerning me, if I should be
discovered in the act of distributing the Scriptures or any writings of a
religious tendency. He then taxed me with having circulated both lately,
especially tracts: whereupon I told him that I had never distributed a
tract since I had been in Spain, nor had any intention of doing so. We
had much conversation and parted in kindness. I went away for a few
days, though without intending to do anything, and wrote to the firm of
O'Shea for money, of which I stood in need and which I received. I now
determined to make for La Mancha and to put my plan into execution, which
I should have done sooner had the roads been a little more secure.
Yesterday I sent my passport to be signed by the _Alcalde del Barrio_.
This fellow is the greatest ruffian in Seville, and I have on various
occasions been insulted by him; he pretends to be a liberal, but is of no
principle at all, and as I reside within his district he has been
employed by the Canons of the cathedral to vex and harass me on every
possible occasion. (By the way, the hatred which these last people
nourish against me amounts almost to frenzy, and scarcely a day passes by
in which they do not send in false accusations against me to the _Gefe
Politico_; they have even gone so far as to induce people to perjure
themselves by swearing that I have sold or given them books, people whom
I have never seen nor heard of; and the same system was carried on whilst
I was in Africa, for they are so foolishly suspicious that they could not
be persuaded that I was out of Seville.) The above-mentioned _Alcalde_
refused to sign the passport, though he was bound to do so, it being
quite in form, and in