There is something singularly deficient and wrong, although to persons
unacquainted with Barbary, it looks sufficiently fair and just, in the
provision--"he (the English guilty subject) shall not be punished with
more severity than a Moor could be," fairly made? In the first place,
although this does not come under the idea of "serious personal injury,"
would the English people approve of their countrymen suffering the same
punishment as the Moors for theft, by cutting off their right hand?
Moors and Arabs have been so maimed for life, on being convicted of
stealing property to the value of a single shilling! Who will take upon
himself to enumerate the punishments, which may be, and are inflicted
for grave offences? It may be replied that this stipulation of punishing
British subjects, like Moorish, is only on paper, and we have no
examples of its being put into execution. I rejoin, without attempting
to cite proof, that, whilst such an article exists in a treaty, said to
be binding on the Government of England as well as Morocco, there can be
no real security for British subjects in this country; for in the event
of the Maroquines acting strictly upon the articles of this treaty, what
mode of inculpation, or what colour of right, can the British Government
adopt or shew against them? and what are treaties made for, if they do
not bind both parties?
In illustration of the way in which British subjects have their disputes
sometimes settled, according to Articles VII and VIII, I take the
liberty of introducing the case of Mr. Saferty, a respectable Gibraltar
merchant, settled at Mogador. A few months before my arrival in that
place, this gentleman was adjudged, in the presence of his Consul, Mr.
Willshire, and the Governor of Mogador, for repelling an insult offered
to him by a Moor, and sentenced to be imprisoned with felons and
cut-throats in a horrible dungeon. However, Mr. Saferty was attended by
a numerous body of his friends; so when the sentence was given, a cry of
indignation arose, a scuffle ensued, and the prisoner was rescued from
the Moorish police-officers. Mr. Willshire found the means of patching
up the business with the Moorish authorities, and the case was soon
forgotten. "All's well that ends well."
I do not say that the Moors are determinedly vindictive, or seek
quarrels with Europeans; on the contrary, I believe the cause of the
dispute frequently rests with the European, and the bonâ-fide agressor,
some adventurer whose conduct was so bad in his own country, that he
sought Barbary as a refuge from the pursuit of the minister of justice.
What I wish to lay stress on is, the enormous power given to the
Emperor, by a solemn treaty, in making him the final judge, and the
imminent exposure of British subjects to the barbarous punishments of a
semi-civilized people.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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