waters, or gossiping with the man who sold oranges and water under
the shade of the old water-tower. Once he went to see an execution--
anything to drive from his mind the conscientious secretary and the
Council of Trent, the sole obstacles to the realisation of his plans.

Borrow informed Mr Brandram at the end of May that the Cabinet was
unanimously in favour of granting his request; nothing happened.
There seems no doubt that the Cabinet's policy was one of subterfuge.
It could not afford to offend the British Minister, nor could it, at
that juncture, risk the bitter hostility of the clergy, consequently
it promised and deferred. A petition to the Ecclesiastical Committee
of Censors, although strongly backed by the Civil Governor of Madrid
(within whose department lay the censorship), produced no better
result. There was nothing heard but "To-morrow, please God!"

Foiled for the time being in his constructive policy, Borrow turned
his attention to one of destruction. He had already announced to the
Bible Society that the authority of the Pope was in a precarious
condition.


"Little more than a breath is required to destroy it," he writes,
{177a} "and I am almost confident that in less than a year it will be
disowned. I am doing whatever I can in Madrid to prepare the way for
an event so desirable. I mix with the people, and inform them who
and what the Pope is, and how disastrous to Spain his influence has
been. I tell them that the indulgences, which they are in the habit
of purchasing, are of no more intrinsic value than so many pieces of
paper, and were merely invented with the view of plundering them. I
frequently ask: 'Is it possible that God, who is good, would