Chapter I

BRUCE APPOINTED CONSUL-GENERAL AT ALGIERS.

The circumstances which induced Bruce to accept the post of Consul-General at Algiers are contained in the following extracts from his autobiography:—

My Lord Halifax, in many conversations, laughed at me for my intention of returning to Scotland. He said, the way of rising in this King’s reign was by enterprise and discovery; that all Africa, though just at our door, was yet unexplored; that every page of Doctor Shaw, a writer of undoubted credit, spoke of some magnificent ruins which he had seen in the kingdoms of Tunis and Algiers; that now was the age to recover these remains of architecture and add them to the King’s collection.

Fortune seemed to enter into this scheme. At the very instant, Mr. Aspinwall, very cruelly and ignominiously treated by the Dey of Algiers, had resigned his consulship, and Mr. Ford, a merchant, formerly the Dey’s acquaintance, was named in his place. Mr. Ford was appointed, and, dying a few days afterwards, the consulship became vacant. Lord Halifax pressed me to accept this, as containing all sorts of conveniences for making the proposed expedition. The appointment was a handsome one, the salary was 900_l._ a year, and a promise was added that a vice-consul of my own appointment would be allowed to keep my place while on the discovery, and that, if I made wide excursions into Africa, and any considerable additions to the King’s collection, my former conditions of being made a baronet were to be preserved, and either a pension if I chose to retire, or my rank and advancement in the diplomatique line, preserved to me on my return.

Many conversations passed about the then unknown and despaired of fountains of the Nile; but this was considered as an enterprise above the power of extraordinary men, presumption to think it was within the reach of an untried ordinary man like me, but agreed on all hands that he that should achieve it, if he was a Briton, should not in this age despair of any reward.

In passing through Holland, I had collected all the printed books in the Arabic language, and at the time when I was to go to Algiers I was as good an Arabian as these books and dictionaries and this manner of study could make me.

Thus prepared, I set out for Italy through France, and though it was in time of war, and some strong objections had been made to particular passports solicited by our Government from the French Secretary of State, Monsieur de Choiseul most obligingly waived all such exceptions with regard to me, and most politely assured me that those difficulties did not in any shape regard me, but that I was at perfect liberty to pass through or remain in France with those that accompanied me, without limiting their number, as short or as long a time as should be agreeable to me.

On my arrival at Rome, I received orders to proceed to Naples, there to await His Majesty’s further commands.

While waiting at Naples for instructions to proceed to his post, Bruce visited Pæstum, the ruins of which were then but little known, and at the suggestion of Sir James Gray, the British Ambassador, made accurate drawings of those ruins, and conceived the idea of illustrating the history of that city from its various coins of different periods. This idea, which he was the first to originate, he executed with great learning and ingenuity. On proceeding to Africa, he entrusted these drawings to Sir Robert Strange, for the purpose of having them engraved; but, from circumstances which have never been explained, copies of them were surreptitiously obtained, and, on his return from Abyssinia, he found that his work had been pirated and published under another name. In his autograph memoir he expresses himself strongly on this subject, but his chief complaint is

That the bunglers did not know how to avail themselves of the materials for the history of Pæstum which, by whatever means, had fallen into their hands.

To resume, however, Bruce’s own narrative:—

The Government was so kind as to send the ‘Montreal’ frigate to carry me to Algiers.

I pursued my plan, studied hard, was become now a good Orientalist in general. I speedily spoke the Arabic fluently; among the natives and among the servants I exercised myself every day. I was also an adept in Geer, or Ethiopic, as far as Ludolph and Memmers and the few books I had could make me, but these were as yet very few.

It happened at St. Philip’s in Minorca, as it always, I believe, happens, that when a fortress is surrendered to an enemy, the papers, plans, and documents found therein are to be delivered up to the captors. The French, when they took Minorca, had found in that fortress a multitude of blank Mediterranean passes, a number of these being always lodged for common demand with the Secretary of the Governor of Minorca and Gibraltar. The French, upon finding these, had countersigned them, and sold them to Sardinians, Genoese, Neapolitans, and Spaniards, who navigated under their authority with English colours. They had not even taken the precaution of putting an English supercargo on board, so that English colours were found everywhere, with not a man on board but the enemies of Algiers.

This Regency soon were informed of this in all its circumstances by the French and Swedish Consuls residing in Algiers; they could not read, their only trial of the passport was by a countercheck delivered them by the Consul. When they applied this to these false passports they all checked and agreed; when the ships were, notwithstanding, brought into Algiers, the English Consul detected the fraud, disowned the signature, and the ship was made a legal prize.

This secret, however obvious to everyone skilled in business of that kind, was inscrutable to pirates who knew no other rule but the check; the cruisers were on the point of mutinying; had I not been on good terms with the whole Regency, as well as with the common soldiers and merchants, I should have been burned in my house, or condemned to draw the stone cart in irons, as a short time before I had had the mortification to see the French Consul and all his nation do.

The event here alluded to is an extraordinary example of the terrorism which prevailed in Algiers at that epoch, and of the indignities to which even representatives of the most powerful nations were subjected, without provoking more than a passing remonstrance. The story is recorded in the private memorials of the Congrégation de la Mission, which have been obligingly placed at my disposal by the Superior-General in Paris. Well may he remark: ‘Nos confrères ont beaucoup travaillé et beaucoup souffert sur cette terre d’Afrique, où les Chrétiens avaient été si longtemps persécutés; maintenant la croix a heureusement triomphé, et puisque vous avez étudié l’histoire de ce pays, vous pouvez voir combien il a gagné à être délivré de la domination Mahométane.’

A French vessel had, through some mistake, fired upon an Algerian galliot, which made a prize of it, and brought it into the harbour of Algiers. Monsieur Vallière, the French Consul, went on the following day to request the Dey to restore the boat and its equipage, assuring his Highness that if the latter had been guilty of any infringement of the conventions between the two countries they would be severely punished in France. The Dey answered him that the French were only good at chicanery; they were liars, the greatest enemies of the country, and no better than spies of the Spaniards; he knew how to right himself, and would hear nothing more from the Consul, who might retire.

The Consul did retire, in company with his chancellor. In less than an hour he was again called to the palace, and, without further explanation, he was heavily chained, as were also the Vicar Apostolic, two other missionaries, the chancellor, the secretary, the Consul’s servants, and the crews of the four boats then in harbour, in all fifty-three persons. Every morning they were sent out to the hardest and most degrading labour, and exposed to the insults and jeers of the populace; harnessed two and two to stone carts and heavily ironed, they were compelled to drag their weary burden twice every day from the quarries at several miles’ distance to where the masons were at work, after which, though worn out with fatigue, the good priests’ first care was to console their fellow-captives, and to conduct public prayer in the Bagnio.

Our treaties, made and renewed by captains of men-of-war, from time to time, who know no more of the interest of their country in the Mediterranean than I know of directing a line-of-battle, afforded no sort of remedy for this grievance, which was new, because Port Mahon falling into the hands of the enemy was a new event not to be foreseen.

These treaties were growing worse every day; they were a monstrous heap of confusion not understood either by the Turkish or the British Government. I wrote home repeated letters explanatory of the mischief and the causes of it. I either got no answers at all, or short ones, that showed me they did not attend to the subject. We were on the very eve of having all our Mediterranean and Straits trade carried into the Barbary ports as prizes, when letters were said to be expeded (_sic_) by the Secretary of State—I think the Duke of Grafton or Lord Shelburne—desiring the Governor of Mahon and Gibraltar (for Mahon was now restored to the English) to recall all these old irregular passports signed by the French, and in their place to issue what was called _passavants_, under the hand and seal of the Governor of those fortresses, importing the ship bearer thereof to be British property, and that this should serve as a passport during a limited time, after which new checks and new passports were to be issued by the Admiralty for the ships then in the Mediterranean and the Barbary cruisers that visited them. But no intimation was sent to the Consuls of this, nor was such passavant to be found in the treaty, nor did any new checks or passports come for a long time from the Admiralty.

In the meantime the Algerine cruisers were more exasperated than before; they had still no way of knowing an enemy from a friend but by the check the Consul gave them, and that had been declared as no longer of use, as covering fraud, and was issued no more.

· · · · · · ·

All Algiers was in arms, and to excuse our Government was impossible; they never did know Barbary politics in my time.

· · · · · · ·

British Consuls in the Straits, or in the Barbary States, are generally men that have failed in their own mercantile affairs; they are afraid to write the true situation of things to a Secretary of State, because they fear hurting their interest at Algiers and losing their posts at home. Government have for some years been afraid of Algiers, or so complaisant as to recal the British Consul upon a complaint they do not like him, and often for having done his duty.

I was no merchant, and afraid of neither; I had stated the thing as it was constantly, and one day when a few of these pirates had come home in disappointment at meeting nothing but what was covered by these passavants, crossing me in the street, one of them, drunk, I suppose, fired a large horse pistol directly in my face at the distance of sixteen yards. It was loaded with slugs, one of which cut the loop where my hat was buttoned, another cut the skin of my eyelid, and a third wounded me slightly in the left arm. Government seized the unhappy beast and would have put him to death, had I not saved him by the trouble of some application and interest, and even a little expense.

It was no vain boast on the part of Bruce that his intercession had saved this man’s life. Monsieur Laugier de Tassy, in his ‘Histoire du Royaume d’Alger,’ published at Amsterdam in 1727, gives the following account of what happened to another unhappy wretch who had insulted a British Consul, and there is little doubt that if Barbary justice had been left to take its course this man would have fared no better.

‘In 1716 Mr. Thomas Thompson, British Consul, going to the Assembly Rooms of the ship captains, met on the pier a young Moor, who, it is generally believed, was drunk. The pier is very narrow, and much rain having fallen, the passage was by no means easy. The Moor would not make way for the Consul, but began to quarrel and even pushed him. The Consul asked him whether he wished to throw him off the pier, adding that he thought it rather impertinent of him not to turn aside. The Moor answered that it was well for a Christian to wish to pass before him, and at the same time seized the Consul, boxed his ears, tripped him over, threw him on the ground and placed his knee on his stomach. The Captain of the Port, having witnessed this scene from a distance, came forward and threatened the Moor, who thought it better not to wait for him and ran away. The Captain took the Consul to the house where the captains met, to console him and to repair the disorder he was in. The Admiral expressed his regret at what had happened. He told him he would report the matter to the Dey, and the Moor would soon be punished for his crime. The Admiral had great regard for the family of this young man, for his father was a friend of his and an honest merchant. When, therefore, he had laid the whole affair before the Dey, he begged him not to condemn the man to death, as he deserved, as he belonged to a respectable family, and that drink, to which he had been tempted by libertines, had been the cause of his crime. The Dey answered that he deserved to be hanged, but that out of regard for him he would be pardoned. As an example, however, and for the sake of the insulted Consul, it was necessary to punish the wretch; the Dey therefore asked the Admiral to choose the kind of punishment he liked. The Admiral chose the bastinado, and the Dey said to him, “Out of regard for thee I will spare him.” The Consul soon after arrived. The Dey, seeing him, said, “Consul, I am doing what you desire. I am sorry for what has happened to you, but you shall have justice; remain there.” He gave orders at the same time to the Moorish _Bach-Chaouch_ to bring the accused before him. As he had not hidden himself, he was soon found and brought before the Dey, who, in great anger, said to him, “Wretch, what hast thou done?”—“I have beaten a Christian, a dog who wanted to be more than myself, and who insulted me.” The Dey, enraged at his arrogance, said, “Is it true that you have treated the British Consul in such and such a way?”—“Yes, my Lord,” he answered. “Is it worth sending for me for such a trifle?” Then the Dey, furious, cried out, “That is enough,” and pronounced sentence, which was that he should receive 2,200 stripes. This was done at once, in the presence of the Consul. He received 100 blows on the soles of the feet, so that his feet were taken off as far as the ankles, or held on by so little that Mehemed Effendi Khasnadar drew his knife and cut the skin by which they hung. As further blows would have caused death, and as the Dey was anxious that he should suffer well before such a thing happened, he gave orders to conduct him to prison, so that he might regain strength. The following day, at nine in the morning, the Dey sent for the British Consul, and also for the prisoner, who there and then received the remaining 1,200 blows on his back, which was so cut up that he lost both speech and breath. But, as he was not yet dead, the Dey ordered him to be taken back to prison, and to be shut up there alone, and without help. This was done, and the poor wretch was suffered to die of pain, hunger, and thirst.’

To resume however Bruce’s narrative:—

This dispassionate behaviour reconciled all the soldiery to me, already well-inclined to a man as to personal friendship. I gave Government a long detail of the situation of their affairs, without fear or disguise; I begged them to send out a man of some knowledge and dignity in business, who with me might go through the treaties, renew them, and make them intelligible, who might bring out new Mediterranean passes, a thing to be done in a very short time, after which I was satisfied that things would be settled on a peaceable and permanent footing. I claimed the King’s promise to be allowed to appoint a man, who had nothing to do but to sign the passports, while I made the excursions into Africa, which were the object of my voyage, for which I was fully prepared, and wished to defer no longer.

I received an answer that His Majesty commanded me to stay, till an Ambassador should be sent, to explain and settle the matter and the disputes with the Dey of Algiers. At the same time it said, slightly enough, that it undoubtedly was the King’s wish I might continue at Algiers; but since I did not choose it, His Majesty was resolved, that these places should not be sinecures, and therefore another Consul would be sent over, unless I certified my resolution to stay in course.

This mandate, which was a direct breach of the faith of Government, filled me with indignation.

· · · · · · ·

A relative of my own, a Captain C———,[9] son to the Secretary of the Admiralty, a man that I knew much better than those that sent him, came as the King’s representative to Algiers, and brought with him a city attorney,[10] that had somehow or other connected himself by marriage with the family of Egerton, as Consul.

None of them understood a word of the language, none of them a word of sense; they quarrelled from the beginning, and the Ambassador privately engaged the Dey to send the Consul home again by the end of the year, when he would bring out another and new presents from the King.

· · · · · · ·

The Dey[11] continued my fast friend; he furnished me with all the necessary letters to his provinces. I told him I was going for some necessaries to Mahon. I should then go down the coast by Bona, to Tunis. I should then come back to Constantine and return again to Tunis by the foot of Mount Atlas.

He assured me of every mark of friendship and protection, which he kept through the whole course of the voyage.

The Ambassador, in the _Phœnix_, man-of-war, and I in a small Mahonese barque, sailed together from Algiers for Mahon.[12]

In the night we were overtaken by a violent storm of wind, which lasted all the next day, broke our mainsail yard, and did us other considerable damage. We saw no more of the _Phœnix_; she had held her wind, which though violent was fair, and arrived at Gibraltar.

I put into Quarantine Island in Mahon, and announced my arrival there and the reason of it to General Townshend, desiring it might be entered in some book, where the authentic evidence of day and date might be referred to. Every sort of politeness was shown me by that officer, who ordered immediately to give me pratique. Having nothing to do in Mahon, I refused it, and set sail for Tunis.

As the first portion of Bruce’s journey is not given in the order in which he made it, I subjoin the dates of the various stages, as nearly as they can be made out.

1765.

About August 19, left Algiers.

Middle of October, left Tunis for Medjez-el-Bab, Dougga, and Kef.

November 5, left Kef.

„ 6 to 9, Zanfour, Mukther.

„ 10, Oulad Ayar.

„ 11, Sbiba—Oulad Hassan.

„ 12 to 14, Sbaitla.

„ 15, six miles north of Sbaitla.

„ 16, Zeghalma.

„ 17, Djebel Hannech.

„ 18, Mountains of Zeghalma.

„ 19-20, Hydera.

„ 21 to 23, Tebessa.

„ 24, Mountains of Hannencha, fourteen miles from Tebessa.

„ 25, Oulad Aissa at Bucowash.

„ 26, passed Miskiana and ‘entered eastern province of
Algiers.’

„ 27, eight miles E. of Sidi Bou-geise.

„ 28, Sigus.

„ 29, Boo Marzook.

„ 30, Constantine.

December 2, five miles south of Constantine.

„ 3, Ain Fisgeeah.

„ 4, Tattubt.

„ 5, encamped at Smala of the Bey, nine miles from Tattubt.

„ 6, Zana.

„ 7, Djebel Mustowa, seven miles from Zana.

„ 8, The Medrassen.

„ 9, 10, Tezzoute (Lambessa).

„ 11, eight miles S.E. of Lambessa.

„ 12, Timegad.

„ 13, four miles from Baggai.

„ 14, head of the Miskiana.

„ 15, five miles from Ain Shabrou.

„ 16, Tebessa.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 9: Captain Cleveland.]

[Footnote 10: Mr. Robert Kirke.]

[Footnote 11: Baba Ali, 1754-1766.]

[Footnote 12: Bruce’s passport for Tunis, signed by his successor, Robert Kirke, is dated August 19, 1765.]