he ran away from home, shipped before the mast, and, after several
long voyages, was discharged, at his own request, at Carthagena, where
he entered a shipping-house as clerk, and, having excellent mercantile
talents, was rapidly promoted.

"Meantime, through a sister, the only remaining child, except a
half-witted brother, he heard at long intervals from home. His father
remained strangely inexorable, fiercely forbade his return, and became
violent at the slightest mention of his name by his sister, or some
old and attached servant; he died without bequeathing his forgiveness,
or, of course, a single shilling. But the young man thrived with his
employers, whose business growing rapidly more and more prosperous,
and becoming widely extended, they transferred him to a branch house
at Malaga. Here he formed the acquaintance of the Don Francisco de
Zea-Bermudez, whose rising fortunes made his own.

"Zea-Bermudez was at that time engaged in large commercial operations.
Although, under the diligent and ambitious teaching of his famous
relative, the profound, sagacious, patriotic, bold, and gloriously
abused Jovellanos, he had become accomplished in politics, law, and
diplomacy, he seemed to be devoting himself for the present to large
speculations and the sudden acquisition of wealth, and to let the
state of the nation, the Cortes, and its schemes, alone.

"Only a young, beautiful, and accomplished sister shared his splendid
establishment in Malaga; and for her my father formed an engrossing
attachment, reciprocated in the fullest, almost simultaneously with
his friendship for her brother. Zea favored the suit of the
high-spirited and clever young Englishman, whose intelligence,
independence, and perseverance, to say nothing of his good looks and
his engaging manners, had quite won his heart. By policy, too, no less
than by pleasure, the match recommended itself to him;--my father
would make a famous junior-partner. So they were married under the
name of Pintal, bestowed upon his favorite English clerk by the
adventurous first patron at Carthagena, who had found the boy provided
with only a 'purser's name,' as sailors term it.

"I will not be so disrespectful to the memory of my distinguished
uncle, nor so rude toward your intelligence, my friend, as to presume
that you are not familiar with the main points of his history,--the
great strides he took, almost from that time, in a most influential
diplomatic career: the emb