Transcription
Madrid Monday, Ev’g
Sept. 25th 1843
Dear E
We are still in the midst of war’s and rumors of / wars, plots and conspiracies _ since I last wrote the explosion / of the powder magazine (I refer you to Papa’s letter of which / I take up the thread) has been strongly sustemd, if not proved, / to have been intended as the signal of an insurrection, tho in / justice to the conspirators it is stated that it was intended to / take place at night _ this was the Friday night on which Narvaez / adopted such strong measures of precaution at the Puerta del / Sol, and kept the garrison under arms until day break _ No / outbreak occurred until the thundering noise of the ex - / plosion shook the city when armed groups appeared simul - / taneously in several squares; but were immediately dispersed / by the troops _ arrests of several distinguished individuals / were made shortly after, and the city has been since that / time apparently quiet _ I believe it is only on the surface / however and that underneath there is a bitter, hostile feeling / suppressed and kept down by a strong force, and the active / energy of Narvaez _ The Moderados say that these plots / originate in some of the high offices of the gov’t, which shows / what a sense of insecurity and uncertainty exists in /
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Every quarter:
From Catalonia the news is uncertain; one account / states that Prim and the Gov’t troops had defeated the insurgents / under Ametler, taking many prisoners , and had returned again / to Barcelona, where the Junta wished to capitulate : this however / had been refused and it was supposed no mercy would be shown : / whichever party succeeds they are by this time bitter enough to make / bloody work when the fight is over; and indeed orders to enforce the / utmost rigor of the (law?) have been issued by the Ministry _ In / Saragossa the insurgents are said to be quarreling among themselves; / but as this comes from Ministerial papers it is much suspected and / as in the mean time the mails are stopped, ordinary sources of infor - / mation are cut off __ on the other hand Espartero’s most devoted / friends are at both ends of the Country; some in Gibraltar, preparing / a rising in the Serrania or wild mountain district of Rondu; others / along the frontier of the Pyrennees and the baths, read to drop in as / the scale turns in his favor or at all events against the present / incumbents _ thus you see, there’s no lack of matter for the gossips / which Spaniards are most thoroughly.
Many, many thanks for your gay and happy / letter _ a faithful picture, no doubt of your frame of mind : there / is certainly some bright peculiar influence about Nevis which, / while it enhances the pleasures, seems to me to make the troubles / of life pass away more lightly there, than elsewhere _ how I / regret the loss of this last summer, [^ there] which appears to have been /
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As pleasantly passed as the most favored of its predecessors! _ I can’t join you tho in your regret at the summer’s having passed _ for me / own part, tho I enjoy it too, this month and the next (at home) / console me fully for the flight of the dog days; and I agree with / Uncle Geoffrey in his beautiful “autumnal reflections” when he prefers / the glorious autumn and the “calm fruition of the labors of the / past” (i.e. other people’s labor) to the luxuriance of summer, “teeming / with immature abundance” _ In more prosaic phrase; I prefer an / autumn pippin to unripe fruit and a light October day to a scorching / August sun.
I have been taken hold of by an ancient Diplomatist / here who I believe has been mentioned before by me; the Chevalier / D’Alborgo representative of This Danish Magesty [^ 75 years of age +] a most active old / gentleman in his way; of the Baron Sleutelberg order without the / Baron’s had points _ since Mrs Scott’s departure he has installed me / in her place, except that instead of being the nieta I am the nieto + / he thinks proper to be very kind and all that, dines me, and visits / me, and occasionally when I am caught out in the Ev’g he trusses / me up under his wing and we drive about among Dukles and / Marquesses until I am bewildered with the old names, old / pictures, and still older house, which pass before my eyes as in / a Majic lantern : D’Alborgo knows and is known by every / body; and is a general favorite from his kind heart and charitable / disposition : his greatest fault with me is his disposition desire to / be well with all, which I hold to be impossible without making / improper sacrifices ; - however I must not enlarge upon this at / present as I driv with him tomorrow with a small party of six /
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And twenty; the cream of Spanish nobility; a very grand and I suspect / stupid affair of which he has explained to me all the arrangements : /
I have not yet heard from Mr. I at Paris, tho he must / have arrived there 8 or 10 days since _ he bore the journey to Bordeaux / so well that I cannot suppose he has been delayed by illness
“Point de raillerie” about Mrs. Livingston who has been too / kind to me not to deserve a [meat?next?neat?] deal of that short lived feeling called / gratitude on my part : I scorn your insinuation about “presentable youth” + / “Poles + Russes”. _ without being in the banale phrase a “femme incomprise”; you + all the the world do her great injustice without knowing her, or only knowing the wort / side, for which a bad education is much to blame _ I heard among the English / + Foreigners terrible accounts of her sauvagerie both to men + women; yet in spite / of it, there were two or three cases among the latter in which she had sinp[ired / a “Grande passion”, which [dele-??-ed?] itself in the funniest + most sentimental / french styly imaginable _ Good night _ the mail closes in half an hour / the last in time for the steamer of the 5th Oct _ love to Aunt + the Chicks - / and all kind things to George + Robert
Thine
H.
[ADDRESS]
Steamer
5th Oct’r
1843
George L. Schuyler Esq.
(for Mrs. E.H.S.)
13 Laight Street
Newyork
U.S.
[POSTMARK - red ink]
STEAM D
SHIP
[HAND MARKED]
20
[RED WAX SEAL - indiscernible imprint]Transcriber
Kathryn AlexanderLanguage
English
