The two brothers went together to call upon the 'painter of the heroic' at his studio in Connaught Terrace, Hyde Park.
There was some difficulty about their admission, and it turned out afterwards that Haydon thought they might be duns, as he was very hard up at the time.

His eyes glistened at the mention of the L100.

'I am not very fond of painting portraits,' he said, 'but a mayor is a mayor, and there is something grand in that idea of the Norman arch.' And thus Mayor Hawkes came to be painted by Benjamin Haydon, and his portrait may be found, not without diligent search, among the many municipal worthies that figure on the walls of that most picturesque old Hall in Norwich.
Here is Borrow's description of the painting: The original mayor was a mighty, portly man, with a bull's head, black hair, body like that of a dray horse, and legs and thighs corresponding; a man six foot high at the least.

To his bull's head, black hair, and body the painter had done justice; there was one point, however, in which the portrait did not correspond with the original--the legs were disproportionably short, the painter having substituted his own legs for those of the mayor.
John Borrow described Robert Hawkes to his brother as a person of many qualifications: -- big and portly, with a voice like Boanerges; a religious man, the possessor of an immense pew; loyal, so much so that I once heard him say that he would at any time go three miles to hear any one sing 'God save the King'; moreover, a giver of excellent dinners.

Such is our present mayor, who, owing to his loyalty, his religion, and a little, perhaps, to his dinners, is a mighty favourite.
Haydon, who makes no mention of the Borrows in his _Correspondence_ or _Autobiography_, although there is one letter of George Borrow's to him in the latter work, had been in jail for debt three years prior to the visit of the Borrows.