... They agreed at length to remit the first and to commute
the other for a solemn vow, for every offence to give expiation by the
performance of some good action. "Oh, gentlemen," says he, "for good
actions, you know you may command me," and his first good action was to
put to instant death an hundred of their priests, whom he suspected of
intrigues against him. Not aware of his summary justice, they sent a
deputation to beg the lives of these people on the score of his
engagement. He answered that nothing would have made him so happy as
this opportunity of showing his zeal for their religion; but that they
had arrived too late; their friends had been dead nearly an hour.
He asked Lord Ebrington of which party he was, in Politics. "The
Opposition." "The Opposition? Then can your Lordship tell me the reason
why the Opposition are so unpopular in England?" With something like
presence of mind on so delicate a question, Lord Ebrington instantly
replied: "Because, sir, we always insisted upon it, that you would be
successful in Spain."
During the spring and summer of 1815 Byron was a frequent visitor at
Albemarle Street, and in April, as has been already recorded, he first
met Walter Scott in Murray's drawing-room.
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