by Giles Milton
Ockley was fascinated by Islamic culture and horrified at the general level of English ignorance and prejudice on the subject. He described Prideaux’s book as “very imperfect”—a generous description—and argued that a deeper understanding of Islam was “more necessary than the being acquainted with the history of any people whatsoever.”
Ockley did all he could to fill this gap in knowledge. He translated scores of works by Arabic theologians and philosophers, and then embarked on his monumental History of the Saracens, which was completed in 1718. In his preface, he took a sideswipe at all who contented themselves “in despising the eastern nations, and looking upon them as brutes and barbarians.” Having chastised those who allowed prejudice to rule their thoughts, he explained, with charming simplicity, his love of Arabic. His book included the Sentences of Ali, a collection of maxims by the Prophet Mohammed’s son-in-law, which Ockley believed to be both instructive and wise. “The sentences are full and to the purpose,” he wrote. “They breathe a spirit of devotion, strictness of life and express the greatest gravity.” After setting out his reasons why such theology was worth reading, he castigated all who persisted in damning the world of Islam. “There is enough, even in this little handful, to vindicate … the poor injured Arabians from the imputation of that gross ignorance fastened upon them by modern novices.”
Ockley received scant reward for his hard work and was invariably short of money. He was crushingly shy—particularly when he found himself in distinguished company—and squandered his one chance of improving his lot when he was invited to a dinner party hosted by the earl of Oxford. Finding himself seated alongside some of the greatest lords in the kingdom, Ockley was so paralyzed by nerves that he managed to offend almost everyone present, including his patron. He later apologized in writing to the earl of Oxford, bemoaning the fact that he was “struck dumb and almost insensible” by the assembled company. “It is not the talent of every well meaning man to converse with his superiors with due decorum,” he explained. But his apologies fell on deaf ears. The earl refused to have any further dealings with Ockley, and the principal apologist for Islam sank into penury. When he died in 1720, his wife and children were left utterly destitute.
THOMAS PELLOW REMAINED in Meknes for some weeks following the execution of the rebel leaders from the Atlas Mountains. He had been deeply disturbed by his previous audience with Moulay Ismail, who had threatened to kill him unless he could produce more booty from the recent campaign. Pellow had left the palace chamber in fear of his life. But the sultan’s threats were often mere bluster, and this occasion was no exception. With his fury slaked by the execution of the rebels, he expressed delight with the black slaves and richly embroidered bridles. After a tense few days, Pellow and his men were ordered to return to Kasbah Temsna.
“On our approach to the walls of the castle, all the women, and several of the men, came forth to meet us.” Pellow said that this was “a meeting both of a great deal of joy and lamentation.” Sixty of the women in his company found themselves widowed during the recent campaign, while the rest were thankful that their husbands were safe and well. Pellow writes very little in his account about his relationship with his wife. He records neither her name nor her age, and provides few clues about the months that they had spent together at Kasbah Temsna. It may be that he was embarrassed about being married to a Muslim girl, even though she was from an influential family at court. Yet the few anecdotes he does mention suggest that there was warmth—perhaps even love—between the two of them. He was certainly pleased to be reunited with his wife, whom he had last seen during the early stages of her pregnancy. “I entered very merrily with my girl,” he wrote, “insomuch that I had forgot, as knowing her to be with child before our departure, to ask her if it was a boy or a girl.” His wife, upset that he seemed to care so little, played a trick on him. She told him that she had given birth to a girl some six weeks previously, but added that she so despaired of him ever returning home that she had given the newborn away.
Pellow was horrified and “very much enraged,” until his wife let out a stifled chuckle. She told him she was joking and added that she hoped he would be more attentive in the future. “The cunning gypsy ordered the child to be brought forth,” wrote Pellow, who was now able to hold the baby for the first time. He was enchanted with his daughter—whose name he neglects to record—and “not a little pleased with the joke, laughing and embracing the child very heartily.” Over the next few years, she would become a source of the greatest pleasure and happiness. Every time Pellow was sent on a military campaign, he would dream of the day when he would be reunited with his daughter. “[She] always used, at my coming home wounded, to clasp her little arms about my neck, hugging and bemoaning her poor father and telling me that I should no longer go to the wars.” On one occasion, she asked him about his family in Penryn and announced “that she and her mother would go with me to England and live with her grandmother.”
Pellow and his men soon managed to relax after their arduous campaign in the High Atlas. “Now are we again at liberty to divert ourselves,” wrote Pellow, “spending the best part of our time in shooting and hunting in the woods.” They resumed their sport of pigsticking, and spent their evenings drinking and feasting on the day’s catch. But just a few months after their return to Kasbah Temsna they were ordered to crush yet another rebellion. A tribe in the sandy wilds of southern Morocco had risen up against Moulay Ismail, “killing sixteen of the emperor’s blacks sent there with his credentials to receive and bring them to Meknes their accustomed tribute.” Knowing that this was tantamount to a declaration of war, they had set to building defenses, “fortifying the town with strong walls and putting into it great quantities of warlike stores and provisions.”
Moulay Ismail ordered one of his sons, Moulay ech-Cherif, to lead a 40,000-strong force against the rebels. This new campaign was to be very different from the one that Pellow and his men had fought in the Atlas Mountains. Now, they found themselves in a barren country where the midday heat was oppressive. They tried to build defensive positions in the wasteland around the rebel town of Guzlan, but discovered that this was virtually impossible, “the sand sliding so fast from underneath us.” Worse still, their cannon made no impact on the sandy defenses.
Half despairing of their predicament, they fired directly into Guzlan, with the idea of causing as much mayhem and carnage as possible. After several weeks of intense bombardment, the shot-battered rebels were at their wits’ end, and were forced to make sorties in an attempt to silence or capture the sultan’s cannon.
Their second sortie spelled near-disaster for Pellow. Straying too far from his battalion, he suddenly found himself outflanked and hopelessly exposed. Although dressed in a djellaba, like the rebel Moors, his fair skin singled him out as a European renegade. Within seconds, several of the enemy had him in their sights.
There was the crack of a musket and the acrid stench of gunpowder. A split second later, Pellow felt a searing pain in his leg and collapsed to the ground. He would certainly have been killed by the rebels had his companions not come to his rescue. He was carried back to the camp with “a musket shot lodging in my right thigh.”
Pellow was fortunate that the army was accompanied by renegade physicians whose skills were far superior to those of the Moorish mountebanks and quack doctors. “[The shot] was soon taken out by a German surgeon,” he wrote, “a man of great skill and diligence, and I was most carefully attended by him.” Yet it was forty days before he was strong enough to use his leg, by which time the rebel forces had been defeated. “[They] beat a parley,” wrote Pellow, “humbly imploring the general that they might be spared with their lives.”
General Moulay ech-Cherif’s response was ambiguous. Although delighted that the rebels promised to swear their “most dutiful obedience” to Moulay Ismail, he refused to guarantee them clemency. Indeed, he barracked them for behaving in a “most insolent and contemptuous manner,” and told them that they
could not expect “to become their own choosers.”
The slaughter began as soon as they had laid down their weapons. Moulay ech-Cherif had no intention of allowing the rebels to escape with their lives and ordered every man in Guzlan to be killed and decapitated. His plan was to carry the rebel heads back to Meknes, where he would ceremoniously present them to Moulay Ismail. But the general had not counted upon the terrible heat of midsummer, which caused the heads to putrefy within hours of being cut off. “They became so stinking to that degree,” wrote Pellow, “that he was obliged to be contented with the ears, which were all cut off from their heads and put up with salt into barrels.” Pellow added that the decision to dispose of these grisly trophies came not a moment too soon. “For, had we carried so many stinking heads so long a way, it must certainly have very much annoyed the whole army, and probably have bred an infection in it.”
The troops were given a ceremonious welcome when they entered the great gates of Meknes. “[Moulay Ismail] was highly contented with the ears,” wrote Pellow, who added that “the sight of the heads would have given him a great deal of pleasure, yet, as they were stinking … he thought them far better left behind.” The sultan ordered the salt barrels to be opened and the ears removed, so that he could examine them more closely. His intention was to keep them in storage and send them as a grim warning to any chieftain suspected of rebellion, but they pleased him so much that he decided to keep them for himself. “They were all at last strung on cords,” wrote Pellow, “and hanged along the walls of the city.”
9
AT THE COURT OF MOULAY ISMAIL
CONSUL ANTHONY HATFEILD was weary of Morocco. He was subject to daily abuse at the hands of Moulay Ismail’s kaids and taunted for his inability to release the British slaves. Worse still, he had run out of money. Ministers in London expected him to subsist on a special tax called consulage, which he was allowed to levy on any English goods imported into Tetouan. This was generous in theory, but rather less so in practice. Few British ships dared to call at Tetouan, and it was not long before His Britannic Majesty’s consul found himself with empty coffers.
Moulay Ismail’s officials derided the fact that Hatfeild had scarcely enough cash to feed himself. When consuls of other nations were sent to live in Morocco, they did so with a splendor proportionate to their rank. Yet the British seemed content to send their most lowly officials and then leave them without the means to bribe local governors. The kaid of Tetouan displayed particular contempt toward Hatfeild, writing to Joseph Addison to inform him that the British consul had “a crude character which was harmful, and did no good.”
Hatfeild responded with his own series of letters to London, to “acquaint your honours with [the] hardshipp attending our house.” But King George I had never shown any interest in Morocco and certainly entertained no notion of dispatching any money to Hatfeild. The consul was left bemoaning the daily ordeal of living in Tetouan. Passing the town prison one morning—the date is not recorded—he was horrified to see a man “hanged by the heels, with irons upon his legs, pinchers upon his nose, his flesh cut with scissors, and two men perpetually drubbing him.” The assailants continued to torture the man until he lapsed into unconsciousness.
In spite of all the hardships, Consul Hatfeild continued to gather intelligence on the movements of the Salé corsairs. They had grown increasingly bold since his appointment in 1717 and were freely roaming the North Atlantic in search of European vessels. “The Sallymen … roves where they please,” he wrote in one letter to London. Shortly after, he reported the capture of four ships, along with fifty mariners. The corsairs also seized an Irish vessel, whose passengers included a woman. “They advize me from Meknes that the woman … had been tortured almost to death to make her turn [Muslim],” he wrote. “She says she will not, but during her tortures she fainted, and then they said she had turn’d; she is in the seraglio, and so lost.”
Consul Hatfeild’s dispatches were read with a mixture of anxiety and despair by ministers in Whitehall. The situation had become so dire that a group of West Country merchants wrote to Parliament, demanding that something be done. “A great many persons are in captivity in Salé,” they said, “ … where they endure unexpressible calamities.” London’s merchants, who were also facing ruin, lamented the fact that their lucrative trade with Newfoundland was under threat. There was even more disquieting news from Algiers. The newly appointed consul, Charles Hudson, had been harangued by the ruling dey, who bragged that he intended to enslave all British subjects serving on vessels at enmity with Algiers. Ministers realized that such a situation could not be allowed to continue and began preparations for a new mission to Meknes.
Joseph Addison had retired in the spring of 1718; his replacement as secretary of state was James Cragg, a skilled politician who was judged to be “as fit a man for it [the job] as any in the kingdom.” Cragg vowed that this new mission would succeed, come what may, and that all the British and North American slaves in Morocco would be freed and reunited with their families.
The man chosen to lead the embassy was Commodore Charles Stewart, a sure-footed sea captain whose urbane charm was overlaid with a natural swagger. Stewart was only thirty-nine years old, yet he bore the scars of a turbulent career at sea. His first voyage, in 1697, had very nearly been his last. His vessel had been attacked by a French warship off Dover, and Stewart’s hand had been shot to pieces, leaving him with an ungainly stump. Undeterred by this misfortune, he returned to sea and served with distinction in the Mediterranean. Now, after five years of service in the Irish Parliament, he found himself spearheading a mission to Moulay Ismail’s court.
Stewart was the perfect choice of plenipotentiary to Morocco. He had verve and charisma, and was more than capable of adopting the airs and graces of a haughty ambassador. Yet he was also a master of flattery and adept at disarming his enemies with a flow of oily obsequies. In the world of the Moroccan imperial court, where sycophancy was the sine qua non for success, Stewart would prove himself a master among men.
His ship, the Winchester, left Portsmouth on a breezy September day in 1720. She made a magnificent sight as she edged out of the harbor and into the Solent. Her sails billowed with the wind and the pennants were streaming from the mizzenmast. Although she was indistinguishable from most other warships heading into the Channel, her cargo revealed that hers was a mission of peace, not war. In the darkness of the hold, wrapped in burlap and wood chips, was a hodgepodge of costly playthings for Moulay Ismail. These included a fine musical clock with a delicate chime, faience platters, four glass candlesticks, three chandeliers, “one large fruit basket” and an exquisitely crafted parasol. There was also a selection of preserved fruits and spices—including ginger, cloves and nutmegs—and a large stash of Chinese porcelain. Every gift had been selected with the greatest care; there was even a huge sugarloaf, which, it was hoped, would bring pleasure to the sweet-toothed sultan.
Commodore Stewart arrived at Gibraltar in the third week of October and wasted no time in dispatching a letter to Basha Hamet of Tetouan, who officiated over much of northern Morocco. “I take the liberty to acquaint your excellency of my arrival in these parts,” wrote Stewart, “with full powers to treat of a peace.” His tone was polite but firm. He made veiled threats about military action against Moulay Ismail, but promised that if the sultan agreed to a peace, “I shall then very readily in person throw myself at His Imperial Majesty’s feet.”
Basha Hamet’s reply was as charming as it was surprising. He expressed his “great inclination” to sign a truce with Stewart—although he did not give any reasons—and sent over a draft treaty within a few days. It decreed that British ships and mariners “shall not be stopt, taken away, imbezzled or plundered,” but came with the proviso that any binding treaty had to be signed in person by King George I. It took more than six months for this to be achieved, and it was not until the following May—almost eight months after leaving London—that Stewart finally stepped ashore a
t Tetouan with the signed treaty in hand. He was feeling more and more confident that the British slaves would at long last be freed.
His sense of optimism increased still further when he discovered that Basha Hamet had prepared a lavish welcome. “We found a sufficient number of tents, pitched for our conveniency,” wrote John Windus, one of Stewart’s entourage. “Among them [was] a fine large one that the emperor had sent from Meknes.” Basha Hamet had also instructed his chefs to prepare a mouth-watering feast to welcome Commodore Stewart to Morocco. They arrived bearing “couscous, fowls, and a sheep roasted whole, upon a great wooden spit as thick as a man’s leg.”
The basha himself arrived in midafternoon, along with a troop of 500 horsemen and soldiers. The British were most impressed by Basha Hamet’s imperious looks and manner. “His countenance is grave and majestick,” wrote Windus, “having a Roman nose, good eyes and a well turn’d face.” To the pale-faced newcomers his skin seemed “a little swarthy,” and Windus felt he was “inclining to be fat,” but this did not detract from his “very manly appearance.”
Basha Hamet was one of Moulay Ismail’s principal lieutenants and one of the few who could facilitate Stewart’s journey to the imperial court. After formally welcoming the commodore to Barbary, he promised to do “all that lay in his power to make the country agreeable to him.” With a crafty smile, he added “that he liked the English better than any other Christian nation.” Stewart might have been forgiven for asking why, if this was true, the basha had been instrumental in seizing so many British slaves. But he was anxious to build a bond of trust and managed to hold his tongue. He uttered instead some courteous platitudes, and the basha responded in similar fashion.