doors will speedily be closed
for the night.  _Vamos_, _Don Jorge_, _á la casa_, _á la posada_! {143a}

_Myself_.—“But Paul said unto them, they have beaten us openly
uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us into prison; and now do they
thrust us out privily?  Nay, verily: but let them come themselves and
fetch us out.” {143b}

I then bowed to the _juez_, who shrugged his shoulders and took snuff.
On leaving the apartment I turned to the _alcayde_, who stood at the
door: “Take notice,” said I, “that I will not quit this prison till I
have received full satisfaction for being sent hither uncondemned.  You
may expel me if you please, but any attempt to do so shall be resisted
with all the bodily strength of which I am possessed.”

“Your worship is right,” said the _alcayde_, with a bow, but in a low
voice.

Sir George, on hearing of this affair, sent me a letter in which he
highly commended my resolution not to leave the prison for the present,
at the same time begging me to let him know if there were anything that
he could send me from the Embassy to render my situation more tolerable.

I will now leave for the present my own immediate affairs, and proceed to
give some account of the prison of Madrid and its inmates.

The Carcel de la Corte, where I now was, though the principal prison of
Madrid, is one which certainly in no respect does credit to the capital
of Spain.  Whether it was originally intended for the purpose to which it
is at present applied, I have no opportunity of knowing.  The chances,
however, are, that it was not; indeed it was not till of late years that
the practice of building edifices expressly intended and suited for the
incarceration of culprits came at all into vogue.  Castles, convents, and
deserted palaces, have in all countries, at different times, been
converted into prisons, which practice still holds good upon the greater
part of the continent, and more particularly in Spain and Italy, which
accounts to a certain extent for the insecurity of the prisons, and th