Dona Teresa de la Guerra’s family were always attempting to aid her husband, DON GUILLERMO HARTNELL ‘who lacked only the touch of Midas’

+++  She was backed by her father and mother, who never ceased to believe that their English son-in-law merited real respect.  Always the de la Guerras were attempting, with tact, to aid this man who lacked only the touch of Midas to make him successful in the eyes of the world.  Quite willingly would Don Jose have rolled down a barrel of gold from the attic of his fine new house, if only his ‘yerno’ would accept such a gift.  The old man owned a treasure accumulated from his years of trade and, consequently, money had lost its importance to him.  Far more he valued the qualities of character which distinguished Don Guillermo from the fortune hunters who were arriving by overland trail, as well as by ships coming around the Horn or over from Sandwich or down from the north.  ++  From his blood relations, Hartnell heard nothing at a time when he needed reassurance as never before.  Feeling against papists ran high in England throughout the 1820s, and the wanderer’s marriage had seemed a she-devil’s pact to his Church of England family.  The only prospect of reconciliation appeared in a letter from Captain Lincoln, written from Liverpool toward the end of 1829:  ++  ’You’ll have heard of the great Theological change in England, of complete Emancipation of the Roman Catholics which I sincerely believe will be the means of deciding all animosities that have existed between them and the Protestants.’  ++  Still no friendly word came from the Hartnells in England to their “transatlantic brother,” no recognition of his marriage, only a legal notice that an old uncle from Lincoln had died leaving 200 pounds to William Hartnell.  George was named executor of the will, but William asked his sister Mary to aid him in collection of the legacy. He must have felt that she, more than the implacable older brother, would advance his interests. . . . +++