No step, however, appears to have been taken before 1796, when Lord Bute
purchased a spot of ground for the burial of Englishmen outside the
Alcalá-gate, at Madrid. During the war, when all Spain was a churchyard
to our countrymen, this bit of land was taken possession of by a worthy
Madrilenian, not for his place of sepulture, but for good and profitable
cultivation. In 1831 Mr. Addington caused some researches to be made,
and the original conveyance was found in the _Contaduria de Hypothecas_,
the registry of deeds and mortgages which backward Spain possesses, and
which advanced England does not. The intruder was ejected after some
struggling on his part. Before Lord Bute’s time the English had been
buried at night and without ceremonies, in the garden of the convent _de
los Recoletos_; and, as Lord Bute’s new bit of ground was extensive and
valuable, the pious monks wished to give up the English corner in their
garden, in exchange for it; but the transfer was prevented by the recent
law which forbade all burial in cities. The field purchased by Lord Bute
is now unenclosed and uncultivated; fortunately it has not been much
wanted, only fifteen Protestants having died at Madrid during the last
thirty years. In November, 1831, Ferdinand VII. finally settled this
grave question by a decree, in which he granted permission for the
erection of a Protestant burial-ground in all towns where a British
consul or agent should reside, subject to most _degrading_ conditions.
The first cemetery set apart in Spain, in virtue of this gracious decree
from a man replaced on his throne by the death of 30,000 Englishmen, was
the work of Mr. Mark, our consul at Malaga; he enclosed a spot of ground
to the east of that city, and placed a tablet over the entrance,
recording the royal permission, and above that a cross. Thus he appealed
to the dominant feelings of Spaniards, to their loyalty and religion.
The Malagenians were amazed when they beheld this emblem of Christianity
raised over the last home of Lutheran dogs, and exclaimed, “So even
these Jews make use of the cross!” The term Jew, it must be remembered,
is the acme of Spanish loathing and vituperation. The first body
interred in it was that of Mr. Boyd, who was shot by the bloody Moreno,
with the poor dupe Torrijos and the rest of his rebel companions.
[Sidenote: THE SPANISH FIGARO.]
CHAPTER XIX.
The Spanish
Figaro--Mustachios--Whiskers--Beards--Bleeding--Heraldic
Blood--Blue, Red, and Black Blood--Figaro’s Shop--The
Baratero--Shaving and Toothdrawing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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