Madrid, 17th February 1848

Rev A. Brandram No.14

Madrid, 17th February 1848

My Dear Friend,

I received your letter yesterday dated the 9th instant, and I cannot tell how much I feel obliged by the very kind sympathies and the prayers of yourself and of the Committee in my present distress. The Lord reward you all. I needed your help, and you have very kindly given it me. God has heard your prayers, and he has not left me, but deals with me very graciously. Blessed be his name, I do not sorrow for my wife, as those who have no hope. She is in heaven, I doubt not; and to that holy happy place I now look more than ever, and with a new interest, superadded to all its attractions and glories previously impressed on my mind. There we shall meet again, and there we two shall enjoy, I believe, a peculiar fellowship together, and happiness in each other, as is adumbrated here below, though faintly, in the marriage union.

In answer to your inquiry, my letter of the 14th will inform you of what previous intimations I had of the sad calamity that came upon me. The aggravating circumstances in regard to my loss, are, as you enumerate and say, many, but the will of the Lord be done. He knows best how to do good to all, and I doubt not but we two shall yet praise him together for this very way in which he has been pleased to deal with us, with the one and with the other.

I thank you for your consoling expressions in regard to my wife's Christian character, which is all correct. It was pleasing you met with Colonel Anderson at such a time. He and his wife were our dear friends, and Mrs. Thomson spent a week with them on the little island of St. Helens in the River St. Lawrence, whilst I paid a visit to Quebec, and she was some days with them when I was in Scotland.

I had a letter today from Bath, from a clergyman formerly in the West Indies, from which I quote the following, – "To Mrs. Thomson's affectionate and faithful dealing with her, my wife considers herself originally indebted for such spiritual views and impressions, as by God's grace and blessing have issued in her 'translation from the kingdom of darkness into that of God's dear son.'" How gratifying is this information! And at such a time! Blessed be God for this, and for all his goodness and mercies to us in all our ways.

On the 30th ultimo, the day on which I wrote you, and the first post after the sad event, I wrote to Mrs. Thomson's only Brother concerning it. But, before the letter reached, he also was gone! He died on the 3rd instant. Thus each was spared the shock of the death of the other. In his last days and hours this clergyman and his wife, in affectionate remembrance of their former friends, administered instruction and consolation to the dying Brother. Oh, the goodness of God here, and in everything. In heaven we shall all praise him together for all his mercies and loving kindnesses. Blessed be the name of the Lord both now and forever, Amen.

Allow me to give you a further extract from the above-mentioned pleasing letter, though conveying doleful intelligence. "I had the satisfaction of ministering consolation, in my humble way, to your dying friend, and of directing his eye of faith to the 'Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world'. I made his acquaintance only about two months ago, and had not been in his company more than three or four times before he fell sick; nor was it till within the last few weeks that I happened (accidentally) to discover his relationship to you. From the date of that discovery however, both Mrs. Thorburn and myself felt quite a new and tender interest in him; and considering her (Mrs. Thorburn's) deep debt of obligations to your late excellent wife for her faithful counsels and remonstrances, a debt of obligation which it would have been most pleasing to have had an opportunity of acknowledging to Mrs. Thomson, had God been pleased to spare, and permit a meeting on this side the grave. Mrs. Thorburn did very greatly rejoice to meet with her Brother, and that in God's providential arrangements it was ordained that we should be privileged to be near him, and render such Christian offices as lay in our power."

Mrs. Thomson's great concern was the salvation of her only Brother, and she used to say, that God would accomplish the work in his own time and way. Probably what might have been wanting as to due and full effects from the sister's instructions and entreaties was made up in the providential way mentioned, by the help of strangers, and in the hour when the ear is fully open, and the heart melted. In this supposition he would enter heaven just five days after, and oh, what most unspeakable joy that would be! May the two left behind arrive safely in due time, and add to the joy of those already blessed!

Be so good as to say to Mr. Mills, that he has rendered me a great service in my present case. He procured me a letter of introduction from Mr. Pratt (as he will recollect) to Colonel Stopford here: and Col. and Mrs. Stopford were the chief parties who attended my dear wife in her illness, and with night and day kindness till her death: also their tender interest has been, and is, every way shown to the survivor.

You very kindly inquire concerning my health, and as affected by present circumstances. My health, blessed be God, is good, very good. My spirits also, I am thankful to say, are as good as they well can be under this visitation. Overflowings occur, and why shouldn't they? It would be a sort of sacrilege to suppress them altogether. Did not your tender letter open every wound afresh? And I let them flow. But, by and by, God will wipe away all tears from all our eyes, and with his own blessed hand in heavenly places. The new turn, which I may say, has been given to my feelings sustains me, and more, I look not to the dead, but to the living, not to the grave, but to the skies; nor do I mourn as a marriage dissolved, for that it is not, but I look forward to the day when we shall be most truly married and united in a conjugal bond of eternal duration.

I have thus written you, according to your friendly desire, not about business, but about my poor self, and of God's goodness to me past and present, and of his prospective blessings which he graciously keeps before me.

Remember me very kindly to all in your house, and to all the Committee, in thankfulness for all their kind interest in my case. The Lord be with you all.

Please continue to remember me, and poor Spain. We are both very poor and low, we much need heavenly help, and this you can aid us in procuring.

Believe me, My Dear Friend,

            Most Affectionately Yours,

                                    James Thomson.

Madrid, 10th April 1848

Rev  A Brandram No.16

Madrid 10th April 1848

My Dear Friend,

My last letter give you a hint of our troubles here. Many were killed on the night of the 26th and a great number were wounded. Among the former was one Englishman of the Society of Friends lately come here, and among the latter Mrs. Colonel Stopford's waiting maid, who had one of her ankles shattered by three balls. Amputation had to take place, and she is not yet out of immediate danger. I was nearly being caught in the midst of this affray, as I generally go on the Sunday evening to read Prayers in the American Ambassador's house, which would both in going and coming have exposed me. But I was warned in time and did not go out. This is another of the many preservations God has vouchsafed me in the midst of dangers, and blessed be his name for all these mercies.

Did you write me between the 7th January and the 9th February? I have no letter between. I wish we could return again to our numbering, as it is always satisfactory to know with certainty whether all letters come to hand or not. I may here acknowledge the receipt of yours of the 6thMarch, and of Mr. Jackson's of the 27th.

You ask in your letter of the 22nd February whether I saw Mr. Brackenbury our Consul at Cadiz. I did see him, and thought him cold, especially considering the letters of introduction I sent him, and I thought the best thing I could say of him was, nothing. The Downing Street incubus no doubt was upon him, but yet he might have been as friendly as the Marks in Malaga who are officially under the same.

Pray did you get the parcel containing the two cushions from Barbary, and the Hebrew Pentateuch from Gibraltar? It was sent from Cadiz by the Packet of the 27th December, which carried a letter of the same date. I may here mention a curious little coincidence. Right opposite the door of my lodging is a "European Bookseller's," and lately there has been stuck up an advertisement banner in large letters "La Bible en Espagne, par George Borrow." It seems this work has been translated into French, and has come to travel here also, and over again, whether for good or evil I know not.

I cannot help congratulating you, and the country, on the elevation of the Bishop of Chester to the Archepiscopal See of Canterbury, as you have noticed to me. May God bless him there and make him a blessing.

In regard to a Summer extensive Tour. What I contemplate, and wish your opinion of, is the following. To go first to San Sebastian, where through friends in that place I should try to get the Gospel of Luke in the Basque language printed, the revision of which has just been completed by the Translator. There are four Basque provinces in Spain, beside what is in France, and in these the major part of the people speak only this tongue. San Sebastian is in one of them.

You will perhaps recollect that I wrote to you formerly about establishing a place of sale on the French side of the River Bidasoa which divides France and Spain. That object I would try to get arranged. Also in that place might be printed with security our Basque volume, should we fail of doing it in San Sebastian. The French call their side of the of the town Behovie, the Spaniards theirs and both Behovia. Now our Books would carry being printed in Behovia, which all the Basque people would consider their own Behovia. In the same manner there, and through the same happy use of the word, we might perhaps print, if judged desirable, the Spanish New Testament. Our printing and paper manufacturing friends in San Sebastian could probably manage these matters for us, for our advantage and their own.

From Behovia I would think of going to Bayonne to arrange about our Spanish Books which should be sent to that place, either from London or Paris. From that port I could sail to different ports on the northwest coast of Spain, and take on each occasion a supply of Bibles and Testaments, and have them landed as part of my luggage.

Further, on this tour, I should like to go Eastward from Bayonne, zig-zagging the Pyrenean Ridge, so as to avail myself of the opportunities that should offer for entering our Books from France into Spain, for which we would need to have supplies in Toulouse and some other French towns. On this course I would make a special point of paying a visit to a small independent republic which has long existed in the Pyrenean mountains. Its name is Andorra, and by a geographical work now before me published this same year, its inhabitants are stated to amount to 15,000, of which 2000 are in the capital of the same name. This little nation is under the protection, I had nearly said of the crown of France, but say in things civil, and ecclesiastically it is part of a diocese of Spain. Now there I should think we might print, and sell, and do what we liked. At all events the place should be visited to see what could be done there in all our work. Lastly, I would go into Catalonia which lies still further Eastward, and extends to the end of the Ridge, and then would visit Barcelona. I would have the Catalonian New Testament particularly under my attention in that quarter.

All this, and less, would make an ample summer tour. What I have given is a mere sketch and outline, and to be filled up more or less as things should appear when in the several places, and as time might permit. I may add, that all this plan is in full accordance with Mr. Usoz's views. We now therefore wait to learn what are yours, as to the whole, and the parts severally.

In regard to the Letter of Credit about which I wrote to Mr. Hitchin, I would observe, that hitherto I have not stood in need of such a document, as in all those parts where I travel there were remittances to be made to England, and I always found parties both ready to trust me, and glad of my Bills. I took out indeed a Letter of Credit to the West Indies for £200, but I never made any use of it, and tore it up at the end of my Seven Years Tour in that quarter. Here there are not remittances of the same sort, and business has to be done with Banks. My first Bill here was drawn in the Union Bank where the chief officer was my particular friend, and hence I found no difficulty. But that bank has broken up, or rather down, and I am obliged to go elsewhere. Mr. O'Shea's Bank is the only other place I can go to, and though I drew my last Bill there in my usual way, it was intimated to me, that through a Letter of Credit was the regular way of doing business. Hence my application for the same. You are aware that the having a Letter of Credit does not imply the immediate drawing f the sum mentioned in it, nor even the drawing of any part of it, for in the West Indies, as I have said, I did not drawn on it at all. Sums are drawn on it from time to time, and as they are drawn, they are advised in England to the house where the letter was procured, and then, and not till then, they will be charged to your account. There is an advantage in having such a letter, as it enables one to draw any small sums, say £10 or £20 at a time, instead of what has been usual with me in Bills of £50. When I wrote I had in view a little journey to see a friendly Priest, and as I am about out on my travelling score, I said I might have occasion to draw soon on it, and from thus noticing the subject I extended to more general and distant travelling. I have now however given up that little journey, owing to the peculiar state of things here at present. A month hence will be quite in time for me to receive this Letter of Credit; and I may observe that my needed of it is not dependent on my travelling, for I shall have to draw whether I travel or not. I have made inquiry since I wrote Mr. Hitchin, and find that any of the City Banks will do as well as Coutt's, though that is the one O'Shea's Bank here is more immediately connected with.

Mr. Jackson's letter of the 4th instant has come in whilst I was writing.

            I remain, My Dear Friend,

                        Yours Very Truly,

                                    James Thomson.