The town, indeed, from which I write, is situated in the same manner, but is a little city, and affords a posada, (I speak by comparison, remember) comfortable enough; and the sea a fish, they call the red fish, than which nothing can be more delicious; I may venture almost to call it the sea woodcock, for it is eaten altogether in the same manner.  We fared better than my poor horse, for not a grain of oats or barley did this city afford; nor has he tasted, or have I seen, a morsel of hay since I parted from my little Dona, near the foot of the Pyrenees.  Tomorrow we have seven hours to Barcelona; I can see the high cape under which it stands, and from under which, you shall soon hear again from me.

LETTER XVIII.

BARCELONA.

Upon our arrival at this town, we were obliged to wait at the outward gate above half an hour, no person being admitted to enter from twelve till one, tho’ all the world may go out; that hour being allotted for the guards, &c. to eat their dinner.  As I had no letter to any person in this city, but to the French Consul, I had previously wrote to a Mr. Ford, a merchant at Barcelona, with whom I had formerly travelled from London to Bath, to beg the favour of him to provide lodgings for me; I therefore enquired for Mr. Ford’s house, and found myself conducted to that of a Mr. Curtoys; Mr. Ford, unfortunately for me, was dead; but the same house and business is carried on by Messrs. Adams and Curtoys, who had received and opened my letter.  After this family had a little reconnoitred mine, Mr. Curtoys came down, and with much civility, and an hospitable countenance, told me his dinner was upon the table, and in very pressing terms desired that we would partake of it.  We found here a large family, consisting of his wife, a motherly good-looking woman; Mrs. Adams, her daughter by a former husband, a jolly dame; and several children.  Mrs. Adams spoke fluently the Catalan, French, English, and Spanish tongues; all which were necessary at a table where there were people who understood but one only of each language.  Mr. Curtoys pressed us to dine with him a few days after, a favour which I, only, accepted; when he told me, he was nominated, but not absolutely fixed in his Consulship of this city; that he had obtained it by the favour of Lord Rochford, who had spent some days at his house, on his way to Madrid, when his Lordship was Ambassador to this Court; and before I went from him, he desired I and my family would dine with him at his country-house the next day:  instead of which, I waited upon him in the morning, and told him, that I had formerly received civilities from his friend, Lord Rochford, and believed him once to have been mine; but that, unfortunately, I found now it was much otherwise; and observed, that perhaps his politeness to me might injure him with his Lordship; and that I thought it right to say so