

Transcribed from the 1912 John Murray edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org

                          [Picture: Book cover]

    [Picture: George Borrow from the picture in the possession of John
                                 Murray]





                               THE LIFE OF
                              GEORGE BORROW


                        COMPILED FROM UNPUBLISHED
                         OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS, HIS
                       WORKS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.

                            BY HERBERT JENKINS

                 WITH A FRONTISPIECE IN PHOTOGRAVURE, AND
                        TWELVE OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS

                                * * * * *

                                  LONDON
                    JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
                                   1912

                                * * * * *

                                    TO
                         JOHN MURRARY THE FOURTH

              IN GRATEFUL RECOLLECTION OF THE KEEN INTEREST
                HE HAS SHOWN IN THE WRITING OF THE LIFE OF
              A MAN WHOM HE WELL REMEMBERS AND MUCH ADMIRES
                         THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED
                              BY THE AUTHOR

                                * * * * *




PREFACE


DURING the whole of Borrow’s manhood there was probably only one period
when he was unquestionably happy in his work and content with his
surroundings.  He may almost be said to have concentrated into the seven
years (1833–1840) that he was employed by the British and Foreign Bible
Society in Russia, Portugal and Spain, a lifetime’s energy and resource.
From an unknown hack-writer, who hawked about unsaleable translations of
Welsh and Danish bards, a travelling tinker and a vagabond Ulysses, he
became a person of considerable importance.  His name was acclaimed with
praise and enthusiasm at Bible meetings from one end of the country to
the other.  He developed an astonishing aptitude for affairs, a tireless
energy, and a diplomatic resourcefulness that aroused silent wonder in
those who had hitherto regarded him as a failure.  His illegal
imprisonment in Madrid nearly brought about a diplomatic rupture between
Great Britain and Spain, and later his missionary work in the Peninsula
was referred to by Sir Robert Peel in the House of Commons as an instance
of what could be achieved by courage and determination in the face of
great difficulties.

Those seven rich and productive years realised to the full the strange
talents and unsuspected abilities of George Borrow’s unique character.
He himself referred to the period spent in Spain as the “five happiest
years” of his life.  When, however, his life came to be written by Dr
Knapp, than whom no biographer has approved himself more loyal or
enthusiastic, it was found that the records of that period were not
accessible.  The letters that he had addressed to the Bible Society had
been mislaid.  These came to light shortly after the publication of Dr
Knapp’s work, and type-written copies were placed at my disposal by the
General Committee long before they were given to the public in volume
form.

A systematic search at the Public Record Office has revealed a wealth of
unpublished documents, including a lengthy letter from Borrow relating to
his imprisonment at Seville in 1839.  From other sources much valuable
information and many interesting anecdotes have been obtained, and
through the courtesy of their possessor a number of unpublished Borrow
letters are either printed in their entirety or are quoted from in this
volume.

My thanks are due in particular to the Committee of British and Foreign
Bible Society for placing at my disposal the copies of the Borrow
Letters, and also for permission to reproduce the interesting silhouette
of the Rev. Andrew Brandram, and to the Rev. T. H. Darlow, M.A. (Literary
Superintendent), whose uniform kindness and desire to assist me I find it
impossible adequately to acknowledge.  My thanks are also due to the Rt.
Hon. Sir Edward Grey, M.P., for permission to examine the despatches from
the British Embassy at Madrid at the Record Office, and the Registers of
Passports at the Foreign Office, and to Mr F. H. Bowring (son of Sir John
Bowring), Mr Wilfrid J. Bowring (who has placed at my disposal a number
of letters from Borrow to his grandfather), Mr R. W. Brant, Mr Ernest H.
Caddie, Mr William Canton, Mr S. D. Charles, an ardent Borrovian from
whom I have received much kindness and many valuable suggestions, Mr A.
I. Dasent, the editors of _The Athenæum_ and _The Bookman_, Mr Thomas
Hake, Mr D. B. Hill of Mattishall, Norfolk, Mr James Hooper, Mr W. F. T.
Jarrold (for permission to reproduce the hitherto unpublished portrait of
Borrow painted by his brother), Dr F. G. Kenyon, C.B., Mr F. A. Mumby, Mr
George Porter of Denbigh (for interesting particulars about Borrow’s
first visit to Wales), Mr Theodore Rossi, Mr Theodore Watts-Dunton, Mr
Thomas Vade-Walpole, who have all responded to my appeal for help with
great willingness.

To one friend, who elects to be nameless, I am deeply grateful for many
valuable suggestions and much help; but above all for the keen interest
he has taken in a work which he first encouraged me to write.  To her who
gave so plentifully of her leisure in transcribing documents at the
Record Office and in research work at the British Museum and elsewhere, I
am indebted beyond all possibility of acknowledgment.  To no one more
than to Mr John Murray are my acknowledgments due for his unfailing
kindness, patience and assistance.  It is no exaggeration to state that
but for his aid and encouragement this book could not have been written.

                                                          HERBERT JENKINS.

_January_, 1912.




CHAPTER I:
1678–MAY 1816


ON 28th July 1783 was held the annual fair at Menheniot, and for miles
round the country folk flocked into the little Cornish village to join in
the festivities.  Among the throng was a strong contingent of young men
from Liskeard, a town three miles distant, between whom and the youth of
Menheniot an ancient feud existed.  In days when the bruisers of England
were national heroes, and a fight was a fitting incident of a day’s
revelry, the very presence of their rivals was a sufficient challenge to
the chivalry of Menheniot, and a contest became inevitable.  Some
unrecorded incident was accepted by both parties as a sufficient cause
for battle, and the two factions were soon fighting furiously midst
collapsing stalls and tumbled merchandise.  Women shrieked and fainted,
men shouted and struck out grimly, whilst the stall-holders, in a frenzy
of grief and despair, wrung their hands helplessly as they saw their
goods being trampled to ruin beneath the feet of the contestants.

Slowly the men of Liskeard were borne back by their more numerous
opponents.  They wavered, and just as defeat seemed inevitable, there
arrived upon the scene a young man who, on seeing his townsmen in danger
of being beaten, placed himself at their head and charged down upon the
enemy, forcing them back by the impetuosity of his attack.

The new arrival was a man of fine physique, above the medium height and a
magnificent fighter, who, later in life, was to achieve something of
which a Mendoza or a Belcher might have been proud.  He fought strongly
and silently, inspiring his fellow townsmen by his example.  The new
leader had entirely turned the tide of battle, but just as the defeat of
the men of Menheniot seemed certain, a diversion was created by the
arrival of the local constables.  Now that their own villagers were on
the verge of disaster, there was no longer any reason why they should
remain in the background.  They made a determined effort to arrest the
leader of the Liskeard contingent, and were promptly knocked down by him.

At that moment Mr Edmund Hambley, a much-respected maltster and the
headborough of Liskeard, was attracted to the spot.  Seeing in the person
of the outrageous leader of the battle one of his own apprentices, he
stepped forward and threatened him with arrest.  Goaded to desperation by
the scornful attitude of the young man, the master-maltster laid hands
upon him, and instantly shared the fate of the constables.  With great
courage and determination the headborough rose to his feet and again
attempted to enforce his authority, but with no better result.  When he
picked himself up for a second time, it was to pass from the scene of his
humiliation and, incidentally, out of the life of the young man who had
defied his authority.

The young apprentice was Thomas Borrow (born December 1758), eighth and
posthumous child of John Borrow and of Mary his wife, of Trethinnick (the
House on the Hill), in the neighbouring parish of St Cleer, two and a
half miles north of Liskeard.  At the age of fifteen, Thomas had begun to
work upon his father’s farm.  At nineteen he was apprenticed to Edmund
Hambley, maltster, of Liskeard, who five years later, in his official
capacity as Constable of the Hundred of Liskeard, was to be publicly
defied and twice knocked down by his insubordinate apprentice.

A trifling affair in itself, this village fracas was to have a lasting
effect upon the career of Thomas Borrow.  He was given to understand by
his kinsmen that he need not look to them for sympathy or assistance in
his wrongdoing.  The Borrows of Trethinnick could trace back further than
the parish registers record (1678).  They were godly and law-abiding
people, who had stood for the king and lost blood and harvests in his
cause.  If a son of the house disgrace himself, the responsibility must
be his, not theirs.  In the opinion of his family, Thomas Borrow had, by
his vigorous conduct towards the headborough, who was also his master,
placed himself outside the radius of their sympathy.  At this period
Trethinnick, a farm of some fifty acres in extent, was in the hands of
Henry, Thomas’ eldest brother, who since his mother’s death, ten years
before, had assumed the responsibility of launching his youngest brother
upon the world.

Fearful of the result of his assault on the headborough, Thomas Borrow
left St Cleer with great suddenness, and for five months disappeared
entirely.  On 29th December he presented himself as a recruit before
Captain Morshead, {3} in command of a detachment of the Coldstream
Guards, at that time stationed in the duchy.

Thomas Borrow was no stranger to military training.  For five years he
had been in the Yeomanry Militia, which involved a short annual training.
In the regimental records he is credited with five years “former
service.”  He remained for eight years with the Coldstream Guards, most
of the time being passed in London barracks.  He had no money with which
to purchase a commission, and his rise was slow and deliberate.  At the
end of nine months he was promoted to the rank of corporal, and five
years later he became a sergeant.  In 1792 he was transferred as
Sergeant-Major to the First, or West Norfolk Regiment of Militia, whose
headquarters were at East Dereham in Norfolk.

It was just previous to this transfer that Sergeant Borrow had his famous
encounter in Hyde Park with Big Ben Bryan, the champion of England; he
“whose skin was brown and dusky as that of a toad.”  It was a combat in
which “even Wellington or Napoleon would have been heartily glad to cry
for quarter ere the lapse of five minutes, and even the Blacksmith Tartar
would, perhaps, have shrunk from the opponent with whom, after having had
a dispute with him,” Sergeant Borrow “engaged in single combat for one
hour, at the end of which time the champions shook hands and retired,
each having experienced quite enough of the other’s prowess.” {4a}

At East Dereham Thomas Borrow met Ann {4b} Perfrement, {4c} a strikingly
handsome girl of twenty, whose dark eyes first flashed upon him from over
the footlights.  It was, and still is, the custom for small touring
companies to engage their supernumeraries in the towns in which they were
playing.  The pretty daughter of Farmer Perfrement, whose farm lay about
one and a half miles out of East Dereham, was one of those who took
occasion to earn a few shillings for pin-money.  The Perfrements were of
Huguenot stock.  On the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, their
ancestors had fled from their native town of Caen and taken refuge in
East Anglia, there to enjoy the liberty of conscience denied them in
their beloved Normandy.  Thomas Borrow made the acquaintance of the young
probationer, and promptly settled any aspirations that she may have had
towards the stage by marrying her.  The wedding took place on 11th
February 1793 at East Dereham church, best known as the resting-place of
the poet Cowper, Ann being twenty-one and Thomas thirty-four years of
age.

For the next seven years Thomas and Ann Borrow moved about with the West
Norfolk Militia, which now marched off into Essex, a few months later
doubling back again into Norfolk.  Then it dived into Kent and for a time
hovered about the Cinque Ports, Thomas Borrow in the meantime being
promoted to the rank of quarter-master (27th May 1795).  It was not until
he had completed fourteen years of service that he received a commission.
On 27th February 1798 he became Adjutant in the same regiment, a
promotion that carried with it a captain’s rank.

Whilst at Sandgate Mrs Borrow became acquainted with John Murray, the son
of the founder of the publishing house from which, forty-four years
later, were to be published the books of her second son, then unborn.
The widow of John Murray the First had married in 1795 Lieutenant Henry
Paget of the West Norfolk Militia.  Years later (27th March 1843) George
Borrow wrote to John Murray, Junr., third of the line:

    “I am at present in Norwich with my mother, who has been ill, but is
    now, thank God, recovering fast.  She begs leave to send her kind
    remembrances to Mr Murray.  She knew him at Sandgate in Kent
    _forty-six_ years ago, when he came to see his mother, Mrs P[aget].
    She was also acquainted with his sister, Miss Jane Murray, {5} who
    used to ride on horseback with her on the Downs.  She says Captain
    [_sic_] Paget once cooked a dinner for Mrs P. and herself; and sat
    down to table with his cook’s apron on.  Is not this funny?  Does it
    not ‘beat the Union,’ as the Yankees say?”

The first child of the marriage was born in 1800, it is not known exactly
when or where.  This was John, “the brother some three years older than
myself,” whose beauty in infancy was so great “that people, especially
those of the poorer classes, would follow the nurse who carried him about
in order to look at and bless his lovely face,” {6a} with its rosy cheeks
and smiling, blue-eyed innocence.  On one occasion even, an attempt was
made to snatch him from the arms of his nurse as she was about to enter a
coach.  The parents became a prey to anxiety; for the child seems to have
possessed many endearing qualities as well as good looks.  He was quick
and clever, and when the time came for instruction, “he mastered his
letters in a few hours, and in a day or two could decipher the names of
people on the doors of houses and over the shop windows.” {6b}  His
cleverness increased as he grew up, and later he seems to have become, in
the mind of Captain Borrow at least, a standard by which to measure the
shortcomings of his younger son George, whom he never was able to
understand.

For the next three years, 1800–3, the regiment continued to hover about
the home counties.  The Peace of Amiens released many of the untried
warriors, who had enlisted “until the peace,” their adjutant having to
find new recruits to fill up the gaps.  War broke out again the following
year (18th May 1803), and the Great Terror assumed a phase so critical as
to subdue almost entirely all thought of party strife.  On 5th July Ann
Borrow gave birth to a second son, in the house of her father.  At the
time Captain Borrow was hunting for recruits in other parts of Norfolk,
in order to send them to Colchester, where the regiment was stationed.
In due course the child was christened George Henry {7a} at the church of
East Dereham, and, within a few weeks of his birth, he received his first
experience of the vicissitudes of a soldier’s life, by accompanying his
father, mother, and brother to Colchester to rejoin the regiment.  The
whole infancy of George Borrow was spent in the same trailing
restlessness.  Napoleon was alive and at large, and the West Norfolks
seemed doomed eternally to march and countermarch in the threatened area,
Sussex, Kent, Essex.

No efforts appear to have been made to steal the younger brother,
although “people were in the habit of standing still to look at me, ay,
more than at my brother.” {7b}  Unlike John in about everything that one
child could be unlike another, George was a gloomy, introspective
creature who considerably puzzled his parents.  He compares himself to “a
deep, dark lagoon, shaded by black pines, cypresses and yews,” {7c}
beside which he once paused to contemplate “a beautiful stream...
sparkling in the sunshine, and... tumbling merrily into cascades,”
{7d} which he likened to his brother.

Slow of comprehension, almost dull-witted, shy of society, sometimes
bursting into tears when spoken to, George became “a lover of nooks and
retired corners,” {7e} where he would sit for hours at a time a prey to
“a peculiar heaviness... and at