“Then you don’t know me.  Go and thank Don Emmanuel de Roda, who wants to know you, and I shall be glad if you will call once on the alcalde, not to make him an apology, for you owe him none, but as an act of politeness to salve over the hard things you said of him.  If you write the history of Princess Lubomirska, I hope you will tell her that I did my best for you.”

I then called on Colonel Royas, who told me that I had made a great mistake in saying that I was satisfied.

“What could I claim?”

“Everything.  Dismissal of the alcalde and compensation to the tune of fifty thousand duros.  Spain is a country where a man may speak out save in the matters which the Holy Inquisition looks after.”

This colonel, now a general, is one of the pleasantest Spaniards I have ever met.

I had not long returned to my lodging when Mengs called for me in his carriage.  The ambassador gave me a most gracious reception, and overwhelmed Mengs with compliments for having endeavoured to shelter me.  At dinner I told the story of my sufferings at Buen Retiro, and the conversation I had just had with the Count of Aranda, who had returned me my letters.  The company expressed a desire to see them, and everyone gave an opinion on the matter.

The guests were Abbe Bigliardi, the French consul, Don Rodrigues de Campomanes, and the famous Don Pablo d’Olavides.  Everyone spoke his mind, and the ambassador condemned the letters as too ferocious.  On the other hand, Campomanes approved them, saying that they were not abusive, and were wonderfully adapted to my purpose, namely, to force the reader to do me prompt justice, were the reader to be the king himself.  Olavides and Bigliardi echoed this sentiment.  Mengs sided with the ambassador, and begged me to come and live with him, so as not to be liable to any more inconveniences from spying servants.  I did not accept this invitation till I had been pressed for some time, and I noted the remark of the ambassador, who said I owed Mengs this reparation for the indirect affront he had received.

I was delighted to make the acquaintance of Campomanes and Olavides, men of intellect and of a stamp very rare in Spain.  They were not exactly men of learning, but they were above religious prejudices, and were not only fearless in throwing public scorn upon them but even laboured openly for their destruction.  It was Campomanes who had furnished Aranda with all the damaging matter against the Jesuits.  By a curious coincidence, Campomanes, the Count of Aranda, and the General of the Jesuits, were all squint-eyed.  I asked Campomanes why he hated the Jesuits so bitterly, and he replied that he looked upon them in the same light as the other religious orders, whom he considered a parasitical and noxious race, and would gladly banish them all, not only from the peninsula but from the face of the earth.