200 CONVERSATIONS WITH A SPANISH LIBERAL. 



" A crook, a fowling-piece, a pair of pistols, and a long knife, with 

 a large slouched hat, and a short cloak ; such was the costume of 

 the shepherd priest. He was usually accompanied by a child whom 

 he passed off as his nephew, but who was, in fact, his natural son, 

 and now a lieutenant-colonel in the Spanish army. This wandering 

 life soon developed all the fiery passions of his soul. 



(< In' the year 1808, a detachment of French Voltigeurs quartered 

 at Lerma, received orders to move on Vallaviado. Merino was at the 

 time leading the tranquil life we have described ; but it so hap- 

 pened that, on the very day the French troops marched out of Villa- 

 viado, he took the same route with his flock. 



" For some time both parties held on their way very quietly, till 

 some stragglers of the French party, either to divert themselves with 

 that levity so natural to French soldiers, or with a view of vexing 

 the Spaniard, took it into their heads to make Merino carry all their 

 baggage. Accordingly, laying hands upon him, they loaded him with 

 five or six firelocks, and seven or eight knapsacks ; and with this 

 heavy load they obliged him to march upwards of three leagues. A 

 tithe of such treatment would have been sufficient to exasperate a man 

 of Merino's stamp. No sooner, therefore, was he released, than bor- 

 rowing a firelock from the Ventero of Quintariilla, he placed himself 

 in ambush at the entrance- of a wood, and, before nightfall, had al- 

 ready slain a French courier, and seized his horse. 



" Merino had two brothers, and a sister of extraordinary beauty. 

 All the members of his family suffered more or less from his cruel 

 treatment. His aged mother, whom he more than once threatened to 

 shoot, died broken-hearted. His elder brother, nicknamed, El Majo, 

 a smuggler by profession, joined him in 1810, on the very day that he 

 had a bloody affair with the French at Almanza. Merino, fearing 

 lest his brother, for the extraordinary courage he had displayed, should 

 be chosen leader of his band, caused him to be assassinated on the 

 bridge, only two hours after he had warmly embraced him, .and ex- 

 pressed how delighted he was to see him, after an absence of six 

 years. His younger brother, also a smuggler by trade, continued to 

 follow his brother's fortunes in the field for about three months ; but 

 having one day reproached Merino with his cruelty, the latter, as- 

 sembling his band in the square at Lerma, made his unfortunate 

 brother run the gauntlet, in consequence of which he expired a few 

 days after. There now only remained his sister ; she saved herself 

 by flight ; and well was it for her that she did so, as sooner or later 

 she would have fallen a victim to his ferocious cruelty. 



" These facts will enable you to form some idea of the wretch who 

 is now exercising so marked an influence upon the political destinies 

 of Spain. 



" Merino is fifty-eight years of age, short, and slender, but gifted 

 with a stentorian power of voice. His features are broadly marked ; 

 large and deeply sunk eyes, with temples so hollow that he is fre- 

 quently compared in consequence to an old horse. His face is mea- 

 gre, but his aspect bold and resolute ; and, however fragile he may 

 appear to the eye, he possesses, nevertheleiess, an iron constitution 

 of frame. Never did man support bitter and longer privation and 



