Mogador was bombarded on the 13th of August, 1844. Hostilities began at
9 o'clock A.M., by the Moors firing twenty-one guns before the French
had taken up their position, but the fire was not returned until 2 P.M.
The 'Gemappes,' 100; 'Suffren,' 99; 'Triton,' 80; ships of the line.
'Belle Poule,' 60, frigate; 'Asmodée' and 'Pluton,' steamers, and some
brigs, constituted the bombarding squadron. The batteries were silenced,
and the Moorish authorities with many of the inhabitants fled, leaving
the city unprotected against the wild tribes, who this evening and the
next morning, sacked and fired the city. On the 16th, nine hundred
French were landed on the isle of Mogador. After a rude encounter with
the garrison, they took possession of it and its forts. Their loss was,
after twenty-eight hours' bombarding, trifling, some twenty killed and
as many more wounded; the Moors lost some five hundred on the isle
killed, besides the casualties in the city.
The British Consul and his wife, and Mr. and Mrs. Robertson, with
others, were obliged to remain in the town during the bombardment on
account of their liabilities to the Emperor. The escape of these people
from destruction was most miraculous.
The bombarding squadron reached on the 10th, the English frigate,
'Warspite,' on the 13th, and the wind blowing strong from N.E., and
preventing the commencement of hostilities, afforded opportunity to
save, if possible, the British Consul's family and other detained
Europeans; but, notwithstanding the strenuous remonstrances of the
captain of the 'Warspite', nothing whatever could prevail upon the
Moorish Deputy-Governor in command, Sidi Abdallah Deleero, to allow the
British and other Europeans to take their departure. The Governor even
peremptorily refused permission for the wife of the Consul to leave,
upon the cruel sophism that, "The Christian religion asserts the husband
and wife to be one, consequently," added the Governor, "as it is my
duty, which I owe to my Emperor, to prevent the Consul from leaving
Mogador, I must also keep his wife."
The fact is the Moors, in their stupidity, and perhaps in their revenge,
thought the retaining of the British Consul and the Europeans might, in
some way or other, contribute to the defence of themselves, save the
city, or mitigate the havoc of the bombardment. At any rate, they would
say, "Let the Christians share the same fate and dangers as ourselves."
During the bombardment, the Moors for two hours fought well, but their
best gunner, a Spanish renegade, Omar Ei-Haj, being killed, they became
dispirited and abandoned the batteries. The Governor and his troops,
about sunset, disgracefully and precipitately fled, followed by nearly
all the Moorish population, thereby abandoning Mogador to pillage, and
the European Jews to the merciless wild tribes, who, though levied to
defend the town, had, for some hours past, hovered round it like droves
of famished wolves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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