I subsequently learned that the secretary of legation, Mr. Southern, had been despatched by Sir George, as soon as the latter had obtained information of my arrest, and had been waiting at the office during the greater part of the time that I was there. He had demanded an audience of the _corregidor_, in which he had intended to have remonstrated with him, and pointed out to him the danger to which he was subjecting himself by the rash step which he was taking. The sullen functionary, however, had refused to see him, thinking, perhaps, that to listen to reason would be a dereliction of dignity; by this conduct, however, he most effectually served me, as no person, after such a specimen of uncalled-for insolence, felt disposed to question the violence and injustice which had been practised towards me. The _alguazils_ conducted me across the Plaza Mayor to the Carcel de la Corte, or prison of the court, as it is called. Whilst going across the square, I remembered that this was the place where, in “the good old times,” the Inquisition of Spain was in the habit of holding its solemn _Autos da fé_, and I cast my eye to the balcony of the city hall, where at the most solemn of them all, the last of the Austrian line in Spain sat, and after some thirty heretics, of both sexes, had been burnt by fours and by fives, wiped his face, perspiring with heat, and black with smoke, and calmly inquired, “_No hay mas_?” {136} for which exemplary proof of patience he was much applauded by his priests and confessors, who subsequently poisoned him. “And here am I,” thought I, “who have done more to wound Popery than all the poor Christian martyrs that ever suffered in this accursed square, merely sent to prison, from which I am sure to be liberated in a few days, with credit and applause. Pope of Rome! I believe you to be as malicious as ever, but you are sadly deficient in power. You are become paralytic, _Batuschca_, and your club has degenerated to a crutch.”