"I had gone there [to Madrid] to make some studies and collect some books for the history of the Pacific, which, with a prophetic instinct, I have always wanted to write. Different friends gave me letters of introduction, and among others the gentlemen of the Spanish Embassy here were very kind to me. They gave me four such letters, and when I was in Madrid and when I was in Seville it seemed as though every door flew open for me and every facility was offered me. It was not until I was at home again that I came to know the secret of these most diligent civilities. I still had one of my Embassy letters which I had never presented. I read it for the first time, to learn that I was the coadjutor and friend of the great historian Prescott through all his life, that I was his assistant through all his historical work, and, indeed, for these reasons, no American was more worthy of the consideration of the gentlemen in charge of the Spanish archives. It was certainly by no fault of mine that an exaggeration so stupendous had found its way to the Spanish Legation. Somebody had said, what was true, that Prescott was always good to me, and that our friendship began when he engaged me as his reader. And, what with translating this simple story, what with people's listening rather carelessly and remembering rather carelessly, by the time my letters were drafted I had become a sort of 'double' of Mr. Prescott himself. I hope that I shall never hear that I disgraced him."[12]