Note 1339 — Chapter VIII

See the letters in Mahon's Spain under Charles II., pp. 138–140. On the 21st of May, ‘We have an addition of above 20,000 beggars, flocked from the country round, to share in that little here is, who were starving at home, and look like ghosts.’ On the 27th of May, ‘The scarcity of bread is growing on apace towards a famine, which increases, by vast multitudes of poor that swarm in upon us from the countries round about. I shifted the best I could till this day, but the difficulty of getting any without authority, has made me recur to the Corregidor, as most of the foreign Ministers had done before; he, very courteously, after inquiring what my family was, gave me an order for twenty loaves every day: but I must send two leagues, to Vallejas, to fetch it, as I have done this night, and my servants with long guns to secure it when they have it, otherwise it would be taken from them, for several people are killed every day in the streets, in scuffles for bread, all being lawful prize that any body can catch.’ … ‘My secretary, Don Francisco, saw yesterday five poor women stifled to death by the crowd before a bakehouse.’