Soon after this I was informed, that a fine-dressed, little black-eyed man was arrived in a bark from Italy.  This man proved to be, as Mr. Curtoys informed me, the very Moor whom Sir Thomas Gascoyne was suspected to be:  he was apprehended, and committed to one of the round towers.  But what will you say, or what would have been my lot, had I taken the other man into my service?—­for the minute my white man, for he was a whitish Moor, saw the black one arrive, he decamped; they were afraid of each other, and both wanted to escape; my man went off on foot; the black man was apprehended, while he was in treaty with the master of the same bark he came in, to carry him to some other sea-port.  Now had I come in with such a servant, and with my suspected Bank notes, without letters of credit, or recommendation; had the Moor arrived, who is the real culprit, and who had been connected with my man, what would have become of his master, your unfortunate humble servant?—­I doubt the abilities of his Britannic Majesty’s Consul would not have been able to have divided our degrees of guilt properly; and that I should have experienced but little charity on my straw bed, from the humanity of Mr. Wombwell.  However, I had still one card more to play to reinforce my purse; it was one, I thought could not fail, and the money was nearer home:—­I had lent, while I was at Calais, thirty guineas to a French officer, for no other reason but because he wanted it:  I knew the man; and as he promised to pay me in three months, and as that time was expired, I applied to Mr. Harris, a Scotch merchant, at his house at Barcelona, on whom the London Bankers of the same name give letters of credit to travellers.  I begged the favour of him to send the note to his correspondents at Paris, and to procure the money for me, and when it was paid, that he would give it to me at Barcelona; but Mr. Harris too, begged to be excused:  he started some difficulties, but at length did give me a receipt for the note, and promised, reluctantly enough, to send it.  I began now to think that I should starve indeed.  Every article of life is high in Spain, and my purse was low.  I therefore wrote to Mr. Curtoys, to know if he had any tidings of the Bank bills; for I had immediately wrote to Messrs. Hoare, to beg the favour of them to send Mr. Curtoys the numbers of those which I received at their house; and they very politely informed me, they had so done.  Mr. Consul Curtoys favoured me with the following answer: 

“Mr. Curtoys presents his compliments to Mr. Thicknesse; no ways doubts the Bank bills to be good, from London this post under the 24th past, they accuse receipt thereof, &c. Barcelona, 12th of December, 1775.”

As Mr. Curtoys’s correspondent had accused receipt thereof, I thought I might too, and accordingly I went and desired my money.  The cashier was sick, they said, and I was desired to call again the next morning, when he would be much better;—­I did so, and received my money; and shall set off immediately for Montserrat, singing, and saying what I do not exactly agree to; but, being at Rome, I would do as they do there:  I therefore taught my children to repeat the following Spanish proverb: