A memoir of sir john drummond hay, p.c., k.c.b., g.c.m.g., sometime minister at the court of morrocc
A memoir of Sir John Drummond Hay, P.C., K.C.B., G.C.M.G., sometime minister at the court of Morrocco
Louisa Annette Edla Brooks & Alice
Emily Drummond-Hay
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Title: A memoir of Sir John Drummond Hay, P.C., K.C.B., G.C.M.G., sometime minister at the court of Morrocco
Author: Louisa Annette Edla Brooks Alice Emily Drummond-Hay
Release date: October 12, 2023 [eBook #71860]
Language: English
Original publication: London: John Murray, 1896
Credits: Galo Flordelis (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive and the HathiTrust Digital Library) *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MEMOIR OF SIR JOHN DRUMMOND HAY, P.C., K.C.B., G.C.M.G., SOMETIME MINISTER AT THE COURT OF MORROCCO ***
A MEMOIR OF
SIR JOHN HAY DRUMMOND HAY
Oxford
HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
Barraud’s Photo. Walker & Boutall Ph. Sc.
J. H. Drummond Hay
A MEMOIR OF SIR JOHN DRUMMOND HAY
P.C. K.C.B. G.C.M.G.
SOMETIME MINISTER AT THE COURT OF MOROCCO BASED ON HIS JOURNALS AND CORRESPONDENCE
WITH A PREFACE BY SIR FRANCIS W. DE WINTON K.C.M.G.
PORTRAITS & ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY ALBEMARLE STREET 1896
PREFACE
ON his retirement from public service in 1886, Sir John Hay Drummond Hay, at the instance of many friends, undertook to set down the recollections of his life. Some of these notes were published in Murray’s Magazine in 1887 under the title of ‘Scraps from my Notebook’; others were laid by to be incorporated in a complete volume. The work was, however, interrupted by an accident to one of his eyes which rendered it impossible for him to write. For a time he confined himself to dictating to my sister, who acted as his amanuensis, quaint stories and detached incidents connected with the Moors, intending to resume the continuous tale of his life when his sight grew stronger. But, shortly after the recovery of his eyesight, and before he had proceeded much further in ‘unwinding the skein of his memories, ’ he was prostrated by a severe illness, followed by influenza, of which he died in 1893.
It has fallen therefore to my sister, Miss Drummond Hay, and myself, his two daughters, to endeavour to unite, to the best of our ability, these scattered notes and memoranda, and to add to them such details as could be supplied from our own recollections. In this task we have been naturally somewhat restricted. In the first place, we have been obliged to omit from the memoirs of one who lived and died so recently much that might have been published twenty years hence. In the second place, as we have been necessarily debarred from using any official documents except those published in the Blue
Books, our work can scarcely do full justice to the life of a public servant. These restrictions have not lightened our task; and, had it not been for the kindly help and advice of friends, we should have had still greater difficulty in tracing, from my father’s notes and private correspondence, the course of his lifelong labours in Morocco.
The main portion of Sir John’s letters are addressed to his mother —to whom he was a devoted son—and, later, to his eldest sister, Mrs. Norderling, who was during her lifetime the sympathetic and intelligent sharer of his confidences. Except with his mother and sister he carried on but little private correspondence, principally on account of his sight, which was enfeebled after an illness in 1859. But he wrote occasionally to friends, several of whom preserved and have kindly lent us his letters. Some of these have been utilised, and for all of them our thanks are most gratefully tendered.
On my father’s account of his school days at the Academy in Edinburgh and at the Charterhouse in London, on his early life at Tangier, or on his apprenticeship to diplomacy at Constantinople under Lord Ponsonby and the great Elchi, it is unnecessary to dilate. The recollections and impressions of boyhood and youth break off when more serious work presses on him after his appointment as Consul General in Morocco in 1845. Though considered very young for such a post, for he was only twenty-eight, his training in Egypt and Turkey well qualified him for a position which was destined to give scope to a character eulogised by one of his chiefs as vigorous, temperate, and straightforward. He was aided by his great facility in writing and speaking foreign languages, as at that time he had perfect command of Turkish, Italian, Spanish, French, and Arabic; and to the end he retained his fluency in the last three.
From the moment that he was appointed Consul General in Morocco, his letters are animated by the one great aim on which his public career was concentrated—the increase and consolidation of British influence in Morocco. British interests, he believed, could best be furthered by the encouragement of commerce, by the amelioration of the condition of the Moors, and also by personally gaining the respect of the people. Extracts from his diary of 1846 tend to show how he set himself to attain these objects; and his endeavours bore good fruit. The account of the arrest of piracy in Rif, through his intervention, may be taken as an instance of his direct personal influence in dealing with the wild mountain tribes.
His power of talking familiarly in their own tongue with natives of every degree was of great advantage to him in gaining a personal hold on the people, and many illustrations might be quoted from the stories which he tells of his meetings with various governors of the provinces through which he travelled in the course of his frequent journeys to the Court at the cities of Marákesh, Fas, Meknes, or Rabát. In fact his purity of motive, tenacity of purpose, his ever ready and shrewd advice, won the respect and good opinion of the people of Morocco. Implicit confidence was placed in him by high and low alike.
On his influence with successive Sultans it is unnecessary to enlarge. The offer of Sultan Sid Mohammed to place in his hands the entire control of the foreign affairs of Morocco speaks for itself. The story of Benabu, again, relates how the latter entrusted untold gold to my father’s keeping, assured that his treasure would reach its destination, though no witness or written paper attested to the transaction. Lastly, to take an instance in humble life, we may point to the pitiful faith placed in him by a wretched Rifian criminal when on the point of surrendering himself to the authorities.
Nor were this reliance in his uprightness and this respect for his judgment confined to the Moors. During the war between Spain and Morocco, when he alone of all the Foreign Representatives remained at his post, he was appealed to by the Spanish friars to protect their church and its sacred contents from the insults of the angry Moslems. Their confidence was not misplaced: his protection secured the sacred building from the slightest injury.
The Spanish war at first seemed likely to check the development of trade in Morocco at the moment when it was on the point of revival. The promise of prosperity was due to the Commercial Convention negotiated by my father in 1856, a convention which an old resident in Morocco, one well qualified to appreciate its value, has termed the Magna Charta of that country. But when peace was declared, the result of the contest proved eventually to be rather a blessing than a curse. The necessity of raising a loan to pay the war indemnity impelled the Sultan to ask help from Great Britain, thus enabling my father the more forcibly to impress upon H.S.M. the necessity of introducing into the administration of the Customs reforms which immediately and substantially increased the revenues of Morocco.
Yet in spite of the good results which in this instance followed the acceptance of his advice, the apathetic and ignorant Moors could rarely be induced to take active steps in the path of reform. It was only under the pressure of necessity that any advance was made. This lethargy did not, however, proceed from any want of plain speaking on my father’s part. As is shown by the account of his private interview with Sultan Sid Mohammed at Marákesh in 1872, he indicated to that potentate, in the clearest and most emphatic language, the debased condition of his realm, and the iniquities of the system under which his subjects were governed.
But it was not with the recalcitrant Moorish Government alone that my father had to contend. His later letters recount his failure to put a check on the abuses caused by the protection of natives by foreigners, and the consequent downfall of his hope that the end of his career might be signalised by another and more extended commercial treaty. The Moorish Government was not inclined to promote foreign trade, contending that greater facilities for commerce would inevitably cause an influx of alien traders, each of whom would have his native agents and servants under the protection of a foreign flag, and that such protected subjects, not being immediately amenable to the native authorities, would only increase friction, lessen the Sultan’s authority, and diminish the exchequer.
Her Majesty’s Government recognised my father’s value by repeated promotion, and honours were bestowed on him under various administrations; but he was given to understand that his services could not be spared from the country where, it may be said, he was an acknowledged power. Indeed, the principal aim of my father’s life during his long career in Morocco—the preponderance of British influence over that of all other nations—may be said to have been attained and maintained during his tenure of office. In 1885, the last year of his official life, he writes with reference to his unceasing anxiety that neither France nor any other country should by any means obtain a footing in Morocco, ‘As a sentinel of the Straits, I fire my gun, as a warning, when I know of a move to obtain that object. ’
Sir Francis de Winton, in his kindly and graceful introduction, touches on the expedition to the lower slopes of the Atlas made by the Mission, of which he was a member, in 1872, when the heights to the eternal snow were climbed by Capt. Sawle and Mr. Drummond Hay, and when the cordial reception offered by the wild natives left a pleasant impression on my father and his party. He also refers to my
father in the light of a sportsman. The latter’s recollections of many of the happiest days of his life spent in pursuit of wild boar and other game were noted by himself, and some of them have been embodied in this work. A keen and hard rider, an unerring shot in his earlier days, before his eyesight was impaired, and of almost reckless courage, he was well fitted to become the elected leader and head of the native hunters. Under his rule sport flourished in the environs of Tangier, the ground allotted for the purpose by the Sultan was properly guarded, and the close season strictly observed: it was then that pigsticking in Morocco reached its highest perfection, and gave pleasure to many of every rank and condition, whether Europeans or natives.
It is doubtful whether sport could again flourish in the environs of Tangier as it did in my father’s day. An increasing armed European population, the introduction of weapons of precision, and the denudation of the woods, render such a prospect unlikely. His stories therefore of narrow escapes and exciting days may prove of interest to the lover of the chase; and to some, who in those bygone years shared his sport, may perhaps recall the memory of pleasant times spent with him in the field.
L. A. E. BROOKS.
INTRODUCTION
TO this memoir of the late Sir John Hay Drummond Hay I have been asked by his daughters to write a few introductory lines.
My acquaintance with Sir John began in the year 1870. At that time I was quartered at Gibraltar, being on the staff of Sir William Fenwick Williams of Kars, who was then Governor of the fortress.
They were old comrades, Sir John and Sir Fenwick, having served together in Constantinople, and the friendship begun in Turkey was continued at the gates of the Mediterranean. Often and often Sir John and Lady Drummond Hay, with their two daughters, visited the Convent at Gibraltar; and in return the doors of the Legation at Tangier were ever open, and always gave us a hearty welcome.
It was between 1870 and 1875 that this intercourse took place, and to me it is filled with happy recollections. The quaint old town of Tangier, full of the decaying influences of Moslem rule, yet keeping up the struggle of life after an existence of over a thousand years; racial and religious differences, civilisation and barbarism, struggling along together, while Jews and Arabs, unchanged for five hundred years, jostled with Christendom of the present day. It was a strange medley: and out of it all stands one figure prominent, nay pre-eminent, in the history of Morocco during the past forty years.
I do not think Sir John’s reminiscences sufficiently convey the enormous influence he wielded in the empire, so called, of Morocco.
Throughout the Sherifian dominions his name was known and respected; and after the Emperor and the Sheríf of Wazan, his was the most powerful influence in the state. His long residence in the country; his intimate acquaintance with the manners and customs of the people; his perfect knowledge of Arabic; his love of justice; his absolute fearlessness; his keen appreciation of their sports and amusements, in which he often joined; not only made him the trusted friend of the late Emperor and his predecessors, but also the chosen friend of the people.
In the many expeditions in which I had the good fortune to be one of Sir John’s companions, I had abundant opportunities of observing the power he possessed over the different tribes with whom we came in contact; and especially among the hill tribes of Jebel Musa, who occupy the country between Tangier and Tetuan. These people held him in great esteem, and often sought his advice and counsel in their tribal differences; thus enabling him to be of service to the Emperor in the constant struggles between that ruler and his people.
A description of Morocco and its government has often been essayed by various writers; but no one could give an adequate idea of Sir John’s influence who had not personally witnessed his intercourse with the discordant elements which constitute the government of that country.
On one occasion I had the pleasure of being on Sir John’s staff when he paid a visit to the Emperor, who was then residing at Marákesh. What a pleasant journey it was! The daily ride, the evening camp, our first view of the great Atlas range of mountains, the entry into Marákesh, our reception by the Sultan, and the six weeks we spent in the city but little known to Europeans; and it was, perhaps, the events of that journey which impressed one more than
anything as to the individuality and power of the British Representative.
By many Sir John will also be remembered as an ardent sportsman. Whether he was organising a boar-hunt, or a day after partridge, or enjoying a run with the Calpe hounds, there was always the same keen interest, the thorough enjoyment of sport, which characterised the man. Under his guidance you were always sure of finding boar, or of getting a good bag of partridge; and it was through Sir John that, some twelve miles South of Tangier, where the ground was favourable, the exciting sport of pigsticking was introduced into Africa. Well do I remember after a day’s sport the evening camp fire, round which we gathered after dinner, when Sir John would tell us of some of his earlier hunting recollections. He was an excellent storyteller, keeping his audience in a state of the deepest interest to the end; and then, with a merry twinkle in his eye, he would finish his narrative by a description of some ludicrous incident in which he was often the chief actor, and no one joined more heartily in the laughter which followed than he himself.
It is not possible, within the short space of an introduction, to give more than a mere outline of the personality of Sir John Drummond Hay. His recollections furnish the true index to his character. In them are reflected the sterling honesty, the integrity, and the courage and capacity of the man who, though working in a country but little known and full of prejudice and fanaticism, made England respected and trusted. He belonged to that band of the men of Great Britain who serve their country wherever they are placed, and who, while mindful of her interests and her honour, gain the good will of the rulers and the people to whom they are accredited.
In conclusion, I shall ever remember him as a friend whom I respected, and for whom I always had a true affection; and when asked to write these few lines, while wishing the duty had fallen to an abler pen than mine, I felt that, having been honoured with his friendship, I might, in affectionate remembrance of that friendship, write this brief tribute to his memory.
F. DE WINTON.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PORTRAIT OF SIR JOHN HAY DRUMMOND HAY (From a photograph by Barraud.)
Frontispiece
SENYA EL HASHTI 229
RECEPTION BY SULTAN SID MOHAMMED To face page 238
RAVENSROCK 353
PORTRAIT OF SIR JOHN HAY DRUMMOND HAY ON HORSEBACK To face page 368
NOTE
THE system of orthography used in this book for native names and places is that adopted by the Council of the Royal Geographical Society, the true sounds of words as locally pronounced being taken as the basis of spelling, except in the case of old-recognised names such as Tangier (more properly Tanja). According to this system, vowels are pronounced as in Italian; consonants as in English; kh and gh as the Oriental gutturals. Morocco, the name of the region of Western Mauritania of Roman geography, has undoubtedly been corrupted from the native name ‘Moghreb’ (setting sun). Maroc, Marocco, Marruecos, Marok, &c., written by different peoples of Europe, are curious corruptions, some
even further off from Moghreb than the English corruption of the native name, and no nearer to the old classic corruption Mauritania than in beginning with Ma instead of Mo.
The name of the ancient city which we British call Marocco, or yet more absurdly Morocco, is in the mouth of the natives ‘Marákesh. ’
SIR JOHN HAY DRUMMOND HAY
CHAPTER I.
BOYHOOD. 1816-1834.
IN 1816, my father, at that time Major in the 73rd Regiment, was on the staff of Lord Lynedoch—then in command of the army of occupation—and held the post of ‘Majeur de Place’ at Valenciennes; where my mother, after the conclusion of peace, had joined him. Here I was born on the 1st of June of that year, and my name was inscribed as a French citizen at the Mayoralty.
After my father retired from the army, he was offered by his relative the Earl of Kinnoull, hereditary Lord-Lyon, the office at Edinburgh of Lord-Lyon Clerk. At Edinburgh we resided first in an old-fashioned house at Deanhaugh—the boards of the room where I slept were stained with the blood of a tenant who had committed suicide there— the garden adjoined that attached to the house where the painter Raeburn dwelt. Later, we moved into a house in Athol Crescent, one of the first of the new buildings in Edinburgh in those days; I have a little sketch, from a window at the back of the house, of the pretty country seen therefrom and which is now all built over.
With my elder brother, I was sent as day-boarder to the Academy. Early in the morning, after a breakfast of porridge, and having been given by my mother a penny to buy a ‘bap’ for my luncheon, I started off, with my satchel on my back, for school. Near Stockbridge I would meet ‘daft Jamie’—walking up and down in all weathers, bareheaded, with his hands behind his back—and often gave the poor fellow half
my bap: one day he had disappeared, and afterwards I learnt he had been one of the first victims of the murderers Burke and Hare, who sold bodies for dissection to the eminent surgeon, Knox.
Being an indolent boy, and having great difficulty in learning by heart any lesson, I was always at the bottom of the form, but, for my age and size, I was the best runner and player at football; at which game I broke my arm and was taken to the well-known surgeon, Symes, to have it set.
On going to school in the morning, I passed through Charlotte Square and there frequently met Lord Cockburn[1] taking an early walk, wearing Hessian boots, a large frill of shirt showing from his waistcoat and a long chain with seals dangling from the fob in the top of his trousers. He was a friend of my father’s, and on one occasion he stopped and asked me to state what place I held in the form.
Hanging my head with shame, I did not reply.
‘Come, ’ he said, ‘I dare say you are dunce! Tell me. ’ I replied that I was always at the bottom of the form. Upon which Lord Cockburn said, ‘That’s right, my dear boy; keep there and you are sure to get on in life and become an eminent man. Do you know who I am?’
‘Yes, ’ I said, ‘you are a judge. ’
‘Well, ’ he resumed, ‘I was like you, always at the bottom of the form. Some day you may be a judge, or a greater man than I am. ’
Shortly after this happened, having reported to my mother that I was dunce as usual, she remonstrated with me for being such an idle boy. Then I joyfully related Lord Cockburn’s language to me, adding, ‘Some day I shall be as great a man as he is. ’ As may be supposed, the judge was rebuked by my parents for encouraging me in idleness!
The future archbishop, Tait, was at the Edinburgh Academy at the same time as myself. Though an idle boy, I learnt more at that school than I did in the five years I spent at Charterhouse—whither I was transferred with my brother in 1827—and it was at the Academy that I won a prize of which I was very proud. It was not a reward for efficiency in study, but an annual prize given to the boy who was elected by a majority of votes as the favourite of the school.
In 1844, being on a visit to a friend in Edinburgh, I went to the Academy, and on inquiring of the porter at the entrance who were then the masters, I learnt that one of them was Ferguson, who had been master of my form, and that he was then at lunch in the lodge with the other masters. I entered, without my name being announced, and, recognising Ferguson, gravely said: ‘I beg to be let off to-day, Sir, for being late; I was prevented coming earlier. ’
‘Hay junior, ’ he replied at once, ‘you are forgiven. ’ How he had been able to remember my face after a lapse of sixteen years, when he had known me only a smooth-faced boy, who now returned as a man with a moustache, was especially strange to me, who never can recollect any face—unless indeed it be that of a pretty woman!
Walter Scott was a great friend of my family and frequently came to Athol Crescent. I have often sat on his knee and had stories told me by him. I also accompanied my father to Abbotsford and spent some days there, and I remember that on our arrival Walter Scott, followed by his sleugh-hound ‘Maida, ’ came out to welcome us, and, taking my father by the arm, he turned round to ‘Maida’ and said, ‘Do you take care of Johnny and let him have a ride on your back if he likes. ’ ‘Maida’ and I became great friends, and she allowed me to get on her back; for I was a very slight boy.
When in Edinburgh, Walter Scott for a time lived in Walker Street, leading out of Coates Crescent, opposite to our house. He called one day on my mother and said he was going away for a month and requested that he should be allowed to send, at night, his writingtable, desk, and chair to her house, as he said his housekeeper complained bitterly that she had no peace from the constant visits of travellers, asking permission to see the chair, &c., where he wrote his works. My mother consented, and Walter Scott then added: ‘I shall put a notice on the door of my house, “Walter Scott has left this house and his furniture has been removed. ”’
A few days after the removal to Athol Crescent of the desk and other articles, there was an unceasing knocking and ringing of bells at our front door by travellers, begging to be admitted to see the desk. My mother had to have it removed, and a notice, similar to that suggested by Walter Scott, was placed on the door.
Mention is here omitted of an incident well remembered by his children as related by Sir John’s mother, Mrs. Hay. Some visitors who gained admittance to her house removed surreptitiously her own worn quill pen from Walter Scott’s desk, under the impression that it had been used and left there by him!
Among the memoranda left by Sir John are notes to the effect that when he entered Charterhouse, Thackeray had either just left or was about to leave that school; but Havelock, Leech, and John Murray were his schoolfellows, as also a young Sheridan, who was remembered by him chiefly on account of the readiness with which he would improvise verses on any subject. This boy appears to have been of improvident habits, and was generally in a state of impecuniosity, which debarred him from buying the dainties in which other boys indulged. His schoolfellows would offer to share their tarts, &c., with him if he would make verses in reference to them—to which he would instantly respond with apt rhymes.
During their early school life at Charterhouse the brothers spent their holidays with either of their two grandfathers, the one being the Rector of Hadleigh, Dean Drummond (youngest son of the Archbishop of York of that day, and brother of the ninth Earl of Kinnoull), through whom lay Sir John’s claim to French extraction, as the Dean’s wife was a daughter of the Prince de Vismes et de Ponthieu. Captain J. Thomson was their other and maternal grandfather. A very learned linguist, he had been private secretary to the Marquess of Hastings in India, spoke twenty-five languages, and was author of Etymons of the English Language, which work was completed after his death by his son-in-law, Mr. E. A. Drummond Hay, father of the subject of the present memoir.
At Christmas-time, however, the two boys returned to their parents in Edinburgh, a long, wearisome journey from London, travelling by coach through two days and nights in bitterly cold weather. The return journey to school, in particular, seems to have left a desolate remembrance of arriving in London, cold and stiff after long confinement in the crowded coach, but also a pleasant recollection of the gruff kindness to the young travellers of the guards, who would often forego their customary tip when changing, rather than disturb from their sleep the schoolboys who were going from home.
After the death of Dean Drummond, and the appointment of their father to a foreign post in 1829, the brothers were wont to spend a portion of their holidays at Dupplin Castle with the Earl of Kinnoull, to whom they were then prospective heirs: the elder to the earldom, the younger to the property of Cromlix. In fact, Lord Kinnoull asked their father to allow him to have entire charge of the two boys and of their education, in view of their being his probable successors. But this offer was prudently declined, their father not wishing them—the sons of a poor man—to be brought up amidst surroundings unsuited to adapt them for pushing their own way in life, and in the expectation of a prosperous future which, in their case, might fail to be realised. In this he judged wisely; as, while still in the prime of life, Lord Kinnoull married and had a large family.
The boys, however, continued to spend many happy holidays at Dupplin; posting from Edinburgh to Perth, a pleasanter mode of travelling than by coach.
Another recollection, in connection with their visits to Dupplin, was the ceremonious importance of their attendance at the parish church at Aberdalgie on Sundays. Though only a short distance intervened between this place and the Castle, the family coach, with four horses and postilions, was always prepared, and in this manner the two schoolboys proceeded alone to the church, to occupy on arrival the family ‘sitting, ’ and listen, with what patience they might, to the long discourse of the minister.
In 1829 my father was appointed Political Agent and Consul General in Morocco. At that time I was at Charterhouse, and first received the tidings from another boy who had seen the notice in the Gazette. Geography was not taught at Charterhouse, and, as my informant professed ignorance regarding the whereabouts of Morocco, beyond that ‘it was a country in Africa inhabited by naked niggers, ’ we got hold of a map and made therein a voyage of discovery until we found Morocco.
My family came up to London from Edinburgh and rented a house in Clarges Street for the season, and my father decided that my elder brother, the late Sir Edward Hay, and I should remain at Charterhouse two or three years longer; then rejoin our family at Tangier, and there be placed under a private tutor.
It was a curious coincidence that before my father was appointed to Morocco, or had indeed any expectation of obtaining any employment in a foreign country, the boys at Charterhouse had nicknamed me ‘Othello, ’ or ‘the Moor, ’ not only because I was a passionate youngster who resented an injury, but also on account of my dark eyes and hair and olive complexion; typical of a thorough
Hay, according to Sir Walter Scott in The Fair Maid of Perth, where he describes the clan as ‘a dark, short race. ’
A frigate, H.M.S. Athol, in command of Captain Gordon, conveyed my father and family to Tangier.
Three years later [1832], when I was fifteen, my brother and I, to our great joy, were summoned to join them. Steam communication was very rare in those days, and we sailed from Plymouth in a merchant brig of about a hundred and fifty tons, with only a skipper and four seamen on board. She was a clipper and made the run in seven days.
It was a rough life on board the brig: hard sea-biscuit, salt pork, with now and then currant dumplings, was the fare.
Nothing particular occurred during the voyage, except that after rounding Cape St. Vincent, when off the Spanish coast, a large lateen craft—called a ‘mistico’—gave chase, making signals to the brig to heave to: but our skipper, who declared the ‘mistico’ to be a pirate, responded to the signals by hoisting every stitch of canvas—though a strong breeze was blowing—and we flew through the water, leaving the ‘mistico’ far behind, and she gave up the chase after firing shots which missed us. Probably she was a Spanish revenue vessel and her commander had mistaken us for a smuggler.
There was a six-horned Barbary ram on board, which the skipper had not been allowed by the Customs’ officers to land in England, for fear, I suppose, of its contaminating the British breed of sheep. No provision of fodder had been made for the poor animal, but, as he had become a great favourite with the sailors, he was not made mutton of, and lived on a pittance of hard biscuit, which the sailors gave him from their rations. The poor ram was so ravenous that I
