Letters from England by Don Manuel Alvarez Espriella Translated from the Spanish (Complete‪)‬

A volume of Travels rarely or never, in our days, appears in Spain: in England, on the contrary, scarcely any works are so numerous. If an Englishman spends the summer in any of the mountainous provinces, or runs over to Paris for six weeks, he publishes the history of his travels; and if a work of this kind be announced in France, so great a competition is excited among the London booksellers, that they import it sheet by sheet as it comes from the press, and translate and print it piece-meal. The greater number of such books must necessarily be of little value: all, however, find readers, and the worst of them adds something to the stock of general information.

We seldom travel; and they among us who do, never give their journals to the public. Is it because literature can hardly be said to have become a trade among us, or because vanity is no part of our national character? The present work, therefore, is safe from comparison, and will have the advantage of novelty. If it subject me to the charge of vanity myself, I shall be sorry for the imputation, but not conscious of deserving it. I went to England under circumstances unusually favourable, and remained there eighteen months, during the greater part of which I was domesticated in an English family. They knew that it was my intention to publish an account of what I saw, and aided me in my enquiries with a kindness which I must ever remember. My remarks were communicated, as they occurred, in letters to my own family, and to my Father Confessor; and they from time to time suggested to me such objects of observation as might otherwise perhaps have been overlooked. I have thought it better to revise these letters, inserting such matter as further research and more knowledge enabled me to add, rather than to methodize the whole; having observed in England, that works of this kind wherein the subjects are presented in the order wherein they occurred, are always better received than those of a more systematical arrangement: indeed, they are less likely to be erroneous, and their errors are more excusable, in those letters which relate to the state of religion, I have availed myself of the remarks with which my Father Confessor instructed me in his correspondence. He has forbidden me to mention his name; but it is my duty to state, that the most valuable observations upon this important subject, and, in particular, those passages in which the Fathers are so successfully quoted, would not have enriched these volumes, but for his assistance.

In thus delineating to my countrymen the domestic character and habits of the English, and the real state of England, I have endeavoured to be strictly impartial; and, if self-judgment may in such a case be trusted, it is my belief that I have succeeded. Certainly, I am not conscious of having either exaggerated or extenuated any thing in any the slightest degree—of heightening the bright or the dark parts of the picture for the sake of effect—of inventing what is false, nor of concealing what is true, so as to lie by implication. Mistakes and misrepresentations there may, and, perhaps, must be: I hope they will neither be found numerous nor important, as I know they are not wilful; and I trust that whatever may be the faults and errors of the work, nothing will appear in it inconsistent with that love of my country, which I feel in common with every Spaniard; and that submission, which, in common with every Catholic, I owe to the Holy Church.