Emperor was then residing. Adopting his advice, I left the same evening
for Gibraltar. I took my passage in a very fine cutter, which had
formerly been a yacht, and had since been engaged as a smuggler of
Spanish goods. I confess, I was not sorry to hear that the Spanish
custom-house was often duped. The cutter had been purchased for the
Gibraltar secret service.

The Anti-Slavery Society had placed at my disposal a few yards of green
cloth, for a present to the minister of the Emperor. At the custom-house
of Havre-de-Grace, I paid a heavy duty on it. But, when I got to Irun,
on the Spanish frontier, (having determined to come through Spain in
order to see the country), the custom-house officers demanded a duty
nearly double the cost of the cloth in London, so that there was no
alternative but to leave it in their possession. The only satisfaction,
or revenge which I had, was that of calling them _ladrones_ in the
presence of a mob of people, who, to do justice to the Spanish populace,
all took my part.

When I complained of this conduct at Madrid, my friends laughed at my
simplicity, and told me I was "green" in Spanish; and in travelling
through "the land of chivalry," and of "ingeniósos hildágos," ought, on
the contrary, to thank God that I had arrived safe at Madrid with a
dollar in my pocket; whilst they kindly hinted, if I should really get
through the province of Andalusia safe to Cadiz, without being stripped
of everything, I must record it in my journal as a miracle of good luck.
This was, however, exaggeration. I had no reason to complain of anything
else during the time I was in Spain. My fellow travellers (all
Spaniards), nevertheless, rebuked me for want of tact. "You ought," they
said, "to have given a few pesetas to the guard of the diligencia, who
would have taken charge of your cloth, and kept it from going through