se the
new colony was situated. The secular clergy supported Olavides, but the
monks cried out against his impiety, and as the Inquisition was eminently
monkish in its sympathies persecution had already begun, and this was one
of the subjects of conversation at the dinner at which I was present.

I listened to the arguments, sensible and otherwise, which were advanced,
and I finally gave my opinion, as modestly as I could, that in a few
years the colony would banish like smoke; and this for several reasons.

"The Swiss," I said, "are a very peculiar people; if you transplant them
to a foreign shore, they languish and die; they become a prey to
home-sickness. When this once begins in a Switzer, the only thing is to
take him home to the mountain, the lake, or the valley, where he was
born, or else he will infallibly die."

"It would be wise, I think," I continued, "to endeavour to combine a
Spanish colony with the Swiss colony, so as to effect a mingling of
races. At first, at all events, their rules, both spiritual and temporal,
should be Swiss, and, above all, you would have to insure them complete
immunity from the Inquisition. The Swiss who has been bred in the country
has peculiar customs and manners of love-making, of which the Spanish
Church might not exactly approve; but the least attempt to restrain their
liberty in this respect would immediately bring about a general
home-sickness."

At first Olavides thought I was joking, but he soon found out that my
remarks had some sense in them. He begged me to write out my opinions on
the subject, and to give him the benefit of my knowledge. I promised to
do so, and Mengs fixed a day for him to come and dine with me at his
house.

The next day I moved my household goods to Mengs's house, and began my
philosophical and physiological treatise on the colony.

I called on Don Emmanuel de Roda, who was a man of letters, a 'rara aves'
in Spain. He liked Latin poetry, had read some Italian, but very
naturally gave the palm to the Spanish poets. He welcomed me warmly,
begged me to come and see him again, and told me how sorry he had been at
my unjust imprisonment.

The Duke of Lossada congratulated me on the way in which the Venetian
ambassador spoke of me everywhere, and encouraged me in my idea of
getting some place under Government, promising to give me his support in
the matter.

The Prince della Catolica, invited me to dinner with the Venetian
ambassador; and in the