Mohamet Ben Abdel Malik and a Dishonourable British Consul 1786

 

Credit: Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien

 

 

In a past when all letters were handwritten it was common for both senders and receivers to make copies or have them made. There were circumstances in which this was routine: a British Ambassador might need to forward a letter received (or a copy of it) to the Foreign Office in London; if any query came back, either the original or a copy would be to hand.

What I transcribe below is a copy letter probably made in Gibraltar and written on watermarked paper of European manufacture – maybe British, maybe Spanish – the watermark will identify if it can be matched. The letter may have been translated from Arabic either at source or in Gibraltar. There is no signature at the end as one would expect on an original, just a note of the date it was written with the year given as an Islamic 1200 (1785-86 and, in context, 1786).

The author is (in the spelling of the English copy) Mohamet Benabdelmalik, Pasha of Tangier, a prominent figure in the service of King Mohammed the Second who ruled Marocco from 1757 to 1790; when Benabdelmalik travelled as ambassador to Vienna in 1783 his portrait was painted and is reproduced above. 

The letter's  recipient is General George Augustus Eliott, Commander in Chief and Governor of Gibraltar from 1777-1787, a period which included the Great Siege of Gibraltar.

The letter concerns the conduct of the recently departed British Consul in Tangier, Charles Adam Duff in post from 1784 to 1786 and succeeded by the much better known James Mario (or Maria) Matra.

This is what the Pasha has to say:

To the Commander in Chief and Governor of Gibraltar, General George Augustus Eliott, Peace to the true and faithfull

I received your esteemed favor last week with an inclosed from Constantinople, which I immediately forwarded to my Royal Sovereign. I am glad to hear of your welfare; at the same time cannot fail imparting to you that your friend Consul Adam Duff, has been at Court with my Royal Sovereign, and I make no doubt that what he told him concerning King George’s Order is too true.

Mr Duff informed me that he intended going to Spain with his mother and family requesting that I should salute him with Guns at the time of his departure, - I told him it was not customary, for if he had remained at this place for four or five years and be afterwards relieved by another Consul he was intitled to a salute in that case only as a favor; - he replied, that if I did not salute him, he should not leave his English staff here. – I leave you to conceive if such conduct is competent to a man of his Character- I apprehend from his Actions and Expressions, that he is not a fit person to act between two Crowns; he has contracted many debts, and in short his proceedings are so bad, that it is a shame to relate; - God forbid that such insults should be suffered by your Nation; -

I thought it proper to impart you thereof, fearing you should be otherwise informed and give Credit to it – what I write you is nothing but fact.-

Believe me on all occasions ready to serve you, and I request you will Command me freely –

Dated the 20^th of Dec ElHahdath 1200 

I can find little on Google about Charles James Duff except for an interesting passage from a letter quoted in David Bensoussan Il etait une fois le Maroc (2012). Benoussan notes that according to a British consul writing in 1770, the Islamic rulers of Morocco depended on Jewish assistance to maintain their government and that in 1786 Consul Duff wrote that the employment of Jews in public offices was harmful to the King’s interests.