You will form some idea of our police and government, from the circumstance of our being obliged to take our passport, not for Madrid, but Salamanca, in order thus to smuggle ourselves into the capital. The minister of _Gracia y Justicia_, or home department, Caballero, one of the most willing and odious instruments of our arbitrary court, being annoyed by the multitude of place-hunters, whom we denominate Pretendientes, who flocked to Madrid from the provinces; has lately issued an order forbidding all persons whatever, to come to the capital, unless they previously obtain a royal license. To await the King’s pleasure would have exposed us to great inconvenience, and probably to a positive denial. But as the minister’s order was now two or three months old, a period at which our court-laws begin to grow obsolete, and we did not mean to trouble _his excellency_; we trusted to luck and our purse, as to any little obstacles which might arise from the interference of inferior officers. I shall not detain you with a description of our journey--the delays at the post-houses--our diminished haste at Valdepeñas for the sake of its delicious wine just as it is drawn from the immense earthen-jars, where it is kept buried in the ground; and, finally, the ugly but close and tight post-chaises drawn by three mules a-breast, which are used from Aranjuez to Madrid. I do not love description, probably because I cannot succeed in it. You will, therefore, have the goodness to apply for a picture of this _town_ (for I wish you to remark that it is not reckoned among our _cities_) in Burgoing, Townsend, or some other professed traveller. My narrative shall, as hitherto, be limited to what these gentlemen were not likely to see or understand with the accuracy and distinctness of a native. The influence of the court being unlimited in Spain, no object deserves a closer examination from such as wish to be acquainted with the moral state of this country. I must, therefore, begin with a sketch of the main sources of that influence, carefully excluding every report which has reached me through any but the most respectable channels, or an absolute notoriety. The fountain-head of power and honours among us has, till lately, been the Queen, a daughter of the late Duke of Parma, a very ugly woman, now fast approaching old age, yet affecting youth and beauty. She had been but a short time married to the present King, then Prince of Asturias, when she discovered a strong propensity to gallantry, which the austere and jealous temper of her father-in-law Charles III. was scarcely able to check. Her husband, one of those happy beings born to derive bliss from ignorance, has ever preserved a strong and exclusive attachment to her person. This attachment, combined with a most ludicrous simplicity, closes his mind against every approach of suspicion.