The pillars of Hercules : $b or, A narrative of travels in Spain and Morocco in 1848; vol. 1Urquhart, David
History
The pillars of Hercules : $b or, A narrative of travels in Spain and Morocco in 1848; vol. 1
Urquhart, David
Morocco -- Description and travel; Spain -- Description and travel
The son of the Emperor had exchanged letters with Marshal Bugeaud
during the first days of August: both spoke of peace, and only of
peace. Letters from the Emperor of a prior date to the 2d--afterwards
taken--breathe nothing but peace; they announce that peace is about
to be made, and he enjoins his son not to leave till all is finally
settled, and to do everything that could be agreeable to the French.
On the 11th, the intelligence arrived that peace had been concluded:
then arrived an aide-de-camp of Marshal Soult at the French camp with
letters from the government in Paris, enjoining the Marshal to abstain
from all offensive measures, and inclosing a letter from Lord Aberdeen
to M. Guizot, which stated that in that event he could not answer for
the consequences. The Marshal threw the letter upon the ground and
stamped upon it, and taking the aide-de-camp by the arm, said “M. de V.
vous en serez.”
On the 14th the son of the Sultan is awakened by an alarm, “_The French
army is in sight_.” He tells his people the Marshal is coming to pay
him a visit before his departure, and after giving orders for a tent to
be pitched, and coffee--which he knew the French liked--to be sought
for and prepared, he again assumed, to use the phraseology of Antar,
“the attitude of repose.” He is again awakened--“_The French are on
us_”--and the French _were_ on them--found _the coffee ready_, and
instead of drinking, spilt it. The loss of the Moors was eight hundred
men by _suffocation_.
While the Emperor had every wish to make peace, and every dread of war,
the troops had no disposition to fight. The Ai Tata (fifteen thousand)
and several other tribes, their best cavalry, had drawn apart, having
come to observe, not to act. They had formally announced to the Sultan,
that if he prosecuted his present system of intercourse with Europeans,
and of commercial monopoly, they would reserve their strength to defend
their own mountains.
The French government, in like manner, had every disposition to make
peace, and every reason to avoid war. Its dread was not Morocco,
but Algiers: its interests were bound up with Morocco against the
military colonial usurpation that defied the power of the cabinet,
and threatened the institutions of the country. Consequently, after
intelligence received of the victory of Isly, of the bombardment of
Tangier,[68] and with the certainty that Mogadore was at the time also
bombarded, the instructions were despatched for the treaty signed at
Tangier on the 10th September, by which nothing was demanded more than
had been settled before.[69]
FOOTNOTES:
[63] “Western Barbary,” p. 165.
[64] In answer to the comments to which the circumstance gave rise,
it was stated “from the Convent,” that the reason why the Russian was
saluted first, was that as it was near sunset, the fort would not have
had time to return the salute, if it had waited till she had saluted
first.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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