Journal of Islamic Studies 14:1 (2003) pp. 37–58
# Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies 2003
THE LAST MOORS: MAGHĀRIBA IN
EARLY EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY
BRITAIN
NABIL MATAR
Florida Institute of Technology
By the 1620s, Muslims from the Maghrib (Morocco, Algeria, and
Tunisia), the Maghāriba, had become familiar figures to the inhabitants of Wales and the southern regions of England, especially
London. They had arrived as official emissaries, enjoying strength and
assurance, fully aware that their countries were important for the
realization of England’s emergent diplomatic and commercial goals in
the Mediterranean. Others had docked in Portsmouth and Weymouth
or sailed up the Thames or the Severn to barter, trade, or pillage
victuals. On many occasions, Maghāriba privateers attacked port
cities or intercepted boats and ships, carrying away British captives
to slave markets extending from Tunis to Salee; on other occasions,
however, official delegations from North Africa freed some British
captives and brought them with them as tokens of cooperation with
the British monarch. In the first half of the seventeenth century, the
‘Moors’ were a powerful presence in the political, commercial, and
naval affairs of Ireland, southern England, and Wales. And although
Britons may not have known much about the culture and background
of these Moors, they were so fascinated by them that they depicted
them repeatedly on their stage from 1588 until the closure of the
theatres in 1642.1
Such fascination began to decline in the second half of the century,
as Britain strengthened its fleet and confronted piracy, while at the
same time consolidating its mercantilist policies in the Mediterranean.
Furthermore, internecine unrest in North Africa, bouts of the plague,
and the devastating impact of Ottoman domination and danger
(for the Regencies and for Morocco respectively), led to weaker
economies, non-development of administrative infrastructures, and
extensive reliance for maritime travel and commercial exchange on
British (and other European) vessels. The tripartite Maghrib was
1
See e.g. the study of the Moor in English drama, Jack D’Amico, The Moor in
English Renaissance Drama (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1991).
38
n ab i l i. m at a r
beginning its dependency on foreign countries to the extent that
Maghāriba began seeking employment among the British—just as
Britons had done among them in the second half of the sixteenth
century.2 On 14 January 1666, ‘Peter the Moore’ presented a petition
to King Charles II stating that he had served the English in Tangier
for five years, ‘bringing in Horses, Cattle and Such like provisions’.
Since his brother ‘and twelve more of ye Natives’ had been killed,
he had found himself without any provisions for his ‘Security’ and
therefore petitioned that he be either ‘mounted, & listed in his majties
life-Guard, or to have some employment in ye R[oya]ll navye’.3
By the early eighteenth century, three groups of Moors were
arriving in England. First were the soldiers or sailors who had
been enslaved on French or Spanish ships and who escaped onto
British ships, seeking shelter and help. These men were brought
back to England, but soon fell into poverty and despair as they
awaited assistance towards their journey back to their countries.
The second group was of merchants and traders who sailed into
English and Welsh ports, disembarked, wandered about, bought
supplies, and were accosted by academics eager to perfect their
mastery of North African Arabic. In June 1714, Simon Ockley
described how, upon coming across terms in Arabic that he could not
translate, he would go to London ‘among merchants yt have been
in the Country, & sometimes from the Moors themselves’ and query
them about enunciation and meaning.4 Other merchants arrived to
petition for restitution of property that had been stolen by French
or Maltese pirates while they were sailing on British vessels. Thirdly
and finally, there were ambassadors and their delegations who stayed
in England for months or—in one famous case, that of Bentura de
Razy—for years.
These Maghāriba projected a very different image to British society
from their compatriots a century earlier. These Maghāriba reflected
poverty and helplessness, and as diplomats, they represented weak
governments that were confronting a powerful imperial Britain. Still,
the Maghāriba felt that they could petition and negotiate with the
British government in a way that they could not with the Spanish or
French governments: they felt that they were important to Britain
in realizing its Mediterranean goals since the British garrisons in
Gibraltar (seized in 1704) and Minorca were dependent on Morocco
2
See the chapter on ‘Mulay Ahmad al-Mansur and Elizabeth I’, in my Before
Empire: Britain and Barbary, 1578–1683 (forthcoming, University Press of Florida,
2003).
3
State Papers, Public Record Office, London, 29/188/105.
4
SP 102/2/179.
m a g h ār i ba i n e a rl y e i g h t e e n t h - c e n t u r y b r i t a i n 39
for food supplies and other provisions.5 The maintenance of a strong
presence in Gibraltar was crucial for Britain because Gibraltar served
as the bridgehead for the penetration of British consumer goods into
Morocco and the rest of North Africa. The fact that Britons permitted
petitioners and other Maghāriba into their country was thus a result
of commercial and military expediency. Many petitioners (and even
royal envoys) were actually given help to return to their countries
because they were deemed useful in consolidating British interests in
North Africa.
In their petitions, letters, and appeals, the Maghāriba described
their conditions to British authorities ranging from the Foreign
Secretary to the monarch. Their writings survive either in the original
Arabic holographs, in translations, or in both. While it is important
to approach the translated material with caution (since, as will be
shown below, translators altered their versions from the original), the
whole group of letters and petitions in the British archives provides
valuable information about these ‘strangers’6 in Britain in the first half
of the eighteenth century.
PETITIONERS
Petitions had been presented by London-based Maghāriba to the
British authorities as early as the 1630s, when a Moroccan prisoner
petitioned King Charles I for help against English creditors who had
tricked him into England and then had thrown him in jail.7 A quarter
of a century later, on 16 September 1658, Maghāriba traders told
Richard Cromwell how ‘they were taken prisoneers by the Spannyard’
and enslaved for twenty years, after which they escaped to ‘ffrance
And by License were granted Liberty for to come into this Nation of
England’. The petitioners sought help to return ‘home into their owne
country’.8 On 29 January 1697, a certain ‘Cara Mutapha, of Algiers
[petitioned the King] for an allowance for his subsistence here, as a
matter which will be of great benefit to his Majesty’s subjects living
under that government’. Three months later, on 13 April, the petition
5
J. C. Hurewitz, The Middle East and North Africa in World Politics (New Haven,
Conn.: Yale University Press, 1975), 63.
6
The Maghāriba saw themselves as ‘strangers’—the Arabic word they used was
ghareeb.
7
SP 71/12/267. See my ‘The First Turks and Moors in England’, in Randolph Vigne
and Charles Littleton (eds.), From Strangers to Citizens (Brighton: Sussex Academic
Press, 2001), 261–7.
8
SP 71/12/179.
40
n ab i l i. m at a r
of five penniless Algerians was granted since, as in the previous case,
it was ‘of great use to his Majesty’s subjects there’.9
By the early eighteenth century, such petitions were frequent.
In November 1716, the English ship the Sarah was seized by the
Spaniards, who confiscated its cargo and took captive the Maghāriba
travellers and their property. Soon after the English captain, Daniel
Israel, wrote to the Governor of Gibraltar, demanding the return of
his possessions.10 He also added a ‘list of the Algereen Passengers that
were on board’, which consisted of fourteen Algerians along with ‘one
Negro Man and one Boy/ three she Negroes’ who had been taken with
their valuable cargo of ‘several parcels of Gold Coin & some Silver
some Cloath’ to Ceuta.11 The total loss incurred by the Algerians was
5,155 Spanish dollars.12 When the Spaniards ignored the requests,
some of the victims of this ship, along with victims of other ships,
travelled to England to seek restitution, led by Ibrahim Agha, an
ambassador from the Bey of Tripoli. Agha presented a petition to the
Duke of Newcastle in which he mentioned how ‘the Subjects of the
Otoman Empire have been so ill used by the English Men of War
Privateers and Letter of Marque ships’. He mentioned that the rulers
in Constantinople, Algiers, and Tripoli were eager to see ‘Justice done
soon to their subjects here in England who ware claiming their own
property’. The sooner justice was done, the better it would be for
building confidence between
this Court and the Mahometans. And at the same time the English Court
will be sooner free of the Expences in keeping the Petitioner and the Turkish
[Muslim] merchants here, who are all willing to return home as soon as
possible. For tho’ they are in part supported here by this Court, at the same
time their Families are starving at Home.
The names on the petition included Osman Bashaw, Ahmad
Bashaw and other merchants ‘Taken from on Board the Saint
Frances’; Ahmad Ben Sarty, a number of Libyan merchants, Sidi Ali,
and a ‘Tripoli merchant’ who had been taken ‘on Board the Saint
Joseph’.13
A few years later, in 1720, another petition was presented by an
Egyptian, ‘Soliman Abdalah of Grand Cairo’, who had served seven
years in the British fleet. He demanded his salary, which had been paid
to the English ambassador in Algiers, who had kept the money to
9
Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, William III, 1 January–31 December 1697,
24, 98.
10
SP 71/5/405.
11
SP 71/5/413.
12
SP 71/5/419.
13
SP 71/23/90–1.
m a g h ār i ba i n e a rl y e i g h t e e n t h - c e n t u r y b r i t a i n 41
himself. Soliman had been ‘Render’d’ very poor and was unable to
leave England and return to his ‘Native Country’. He pleaded with his
Grace (probably the Duke of Newcastle) to help him, the ‘humble
Petitoner and Slave’, for which he would pray ‘to God and Mahomed’
for the Duke’s ‘long life and happynesse here and hereafter’.14 On
8 July 1726, another petition was presented to the Duke by the
Moroccan ambassador Muhammad bin Ali Abghali. Having been
well received, he was not as much presenting a petition as requesting
a ship to carry him back to his country. Still, he did include in his
letter, which survives in Arabic and French, a request that some
Moroccans who had been captured and held in Gibraltar be released.
He explained that because their merchandise had been stolen, a
‘Procureur’ with a few other merchants had come to London from
Morocco to demand restitution.15
The petitions show how London had become the locus for
Maghāriba traders. Mediterranean commerce was now managed from
London and dispossessed traders were leaving their homes and
travelling into the cold north, from where pirates and privateers had
ruined their lives and livelihoods. Their journeys to England were
viewed with trepidation: for the petitioners were travelling without
enough financial resources (which they did not have after their losses
to the British attackers), and—inevitably—were having to spend
weeks and months before they could get access to the authorities,
present their petitions, and await results. By the mid-1720s, there
were so many such Maghāriba victims of British piracy that they
became quite familiar on London streets, as John Windus observed.16
In 1727, a petition was presented by a former captive. During the
Moroccan siege of Ceuta in 1720, Ali bin Musa Zefzef, a soldier in
Mulay Ismail’s ‘Forces against The Spaniards’, had been captured and
sold to the former governor of Majorca. While on a visit with his
master to Madrid, Ali escaped to Portugal and from there on a British
vessel to Bristol. On 24 November 1727, he petitioned King George II
for help ‘That he may arrive safely To his own country where He will
acknowledge the Goodness Your Majesty abounds in, and ever think
it his Duty to Improve The Harmonious Interest of Your Majesty
together with that of His Masters’.17 The petition was accompanied
by a statement from the translator, Jezreel Jones, who attested to the
veracity of the petitioner’s words: ‘I was well acquainted with the
14
SP 71/23/143.
SP 71/17/62, 85–7.
16
A Journey to Mequinez; The Residence of the Present Emperor of Fez and
Morocco (London, 1725), Preface.
17
SP 71/21/23.
15
42
n ab i l i. m at a r
Petitioners Father Moosa Zefzef, who was a Favorite of The Alcaides,
The present Basha Ahmad ben Alys Father, and an intimate Freind of
his.’ The petition survives only in an English version: Jones changed
the original from a first-person to a third-person account, explaining
that once Ali returned home, he could become an agent and advance
British commercial and maritime interests.
Another petition, a very curious one, was presented some time in
1728–9, after the death of Mulay Abdelmeleck, and the ascension to
the throne of Mulay Abdallah. Elhazar Ben Quequi, as he signed his
petition to his the Duke of Newcastle, had been sent as an ambassador
to Holland by Mulay Ismail. On his way, and soon after he docked in
Gibraltar, he learned of the death of Ismail (d. 1727). When he later
reached Holland, he found that there were two other ambassadors
who had been sent to negotiate a treaty with the Dutch. Confused
with whom they should negotiate, the Dutch had suspended all
dialogue with the men until one was confirmed. Elhazar found himself with little money for ‘his subsistance’, and so left Holland for
England, hoping for assistance from the Queen since his brother
had brokered the peace between England and Morocco some years
earlier ‘when 293 Slaves were redeemed’. Elhazar promised that upon
his return to his country and master, he would exert all his ‘capacity
to prove gratefull to what favour her most Sacred Majesty shall
be pleased to Vouchsafe and bestow on me’.18 Like the previous
petitioner, he hoped to find financial assistance in England in return
for which he would advance British interests in his country.
The petition by Muhammad al-Hajj Mustapha of Tlemsen to King
George II provides a different view of Maghāriba refugees and their
plight in England. It is also a case where both the Arabic and the
English versions of the petition survive. The petitioner stated that
he had appealed to Horace Walpole, who responded to him in a
letter from Paris on 26 July 1729. As nothing had resulted from that
petition, Muhammad was now presenting another directly to the
King—to which he appended the letter from Walpole. The petition is
written in poor colloquial Arabic ‘O sultan’, starts Muhammad after
a very brief (and, from a Moroccan perspective, blunt) opening, ‘I am
a stranger in your country and I have come to complain to you about
what has happened to me under your banner. I am a man from Algiers
and had been in Tripoli sailing to Crete’. The ship was attacked by the
French who stole all his and his fellow travellers’ merchandise. So
he wrote to ‘Basha Walpole’ in Paris to tell him about what had
happened. At this point, Muhammad lost his restraint and burst out
18
SP 71/17/116.
m a g h ār i ba i n e a rl y e i g h t e e n t h - c e n t u r y b r i t a i n 43
angrily: ‘How can they seize us from under your flag, but do not seize
Spaniards, Maltese, Genovese, and Valencians’. He then described
how he had come to England seeking restitution according to the law,
shar[, ‘for I have left wives and children without anything [to sustain
them]. May God have mercy on the souls of your parents [Allāh ta[ālā
yirham wālidayk] _ Peace’.19 Without the fleets which European
˙
countries
possessed and with which they could wield power, the
Muslim could rely only on invocation and appeal.
In the English translation, the letter reads quite differently: it is
more polite, more restrained, and drastically edited. It opens with a
long section of honorific titles, reflecting all the flourish of Arabic
rhetori. Since this flourish is not by Muhammad himself, the translator, Jezreel Jones (recognizable by his hand), may have felt that
such flourish was expected of Arabic writers and that King George
expected such flourish too:
Peace of God Prosperity and long life to The King our Lord, and too His
Royall Progeny successe and all Happiness; after our humble duty &
acknowledgment saluting Your Royall hands, prostrating at Your Royall
Feet, with all duty full wishes, and respect for the glorious Memory of your
Royall Father in Glory; and hopeing the Choisest blessings from God for the
long life of the Queen Your Royall consort & all her Royall Posterity _
The translation then continues with the story that Muhammad had
told, but without the angry exclamations or recriminations. While
sailing under the English flag from Tripoli to Crete, he, Muhammad,
and other merchants from Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis had been
attacked by a French ship, which seized them and took them to Malta.
He was beaten and wounded, and then, along with his brother and
the ‘Blacks’, were sold and their effects seized, despite the ‘Peace &
alliance between the English and the French’. He was able to procure
his freedom but was not permitted to go to Paris and present his
grievance there; so he decided to come to England. He spent five
months on the journey and only after six weeks in London was he able
to find ‘any body to assist him’, but none to introduce him ‘to Your
Majesty, being a Stranger’. He had approached the King’s secretary
for a ‘Loan or subsistence to keep me alive’ since ‘I had noe Freind by
God and Your Majesty’ and hoped that the King would help him with
Clothes and Food against the Cold & rain of this climate, which I fear
otherwise would be insupportable. The 6. of Rabea the first. 1143 of the
Hegira [19 September 1730]. From Your Most Royall Majestys most obedient and most humble servant, Mohamet Elhadge Mustapha of Tremesen.
19
SP 71/23/50.
44
n ab i l i. m at a r
Arriving in European cities to claim justice, and carrying the keys to
the coffers in which he had kept his possessions, Muhammad soon
discovered that there was none to help him.20
The importance of this petition lies in the list of possessions that
had been seized by the French; the amount of capital that had been
invested by the Moroccan and the other merchants; and the financial
disaster that befell this small group of entrepreneurs as a result of
European piracy. The list mentions various sums of money, along
with an ‘English watch, and a Dager with Scabard and Garnish of
silver: These were Taken & carryd by a lame or limping Drummer,
who struck & wounded this mercht with a Cimiter’. In another
‘Wooden Chest’ were the following items:
800 Sevill Dollars amongst which were 200 ditto
of Legorn current money; This Mercht has still ye key ofthis chest; 14 Ps of
Muslin, ye rest contained wearing apparrell &c.
400 Muslins of Egypt, 17 Dozn of fine Tunis Crimson Caps for Turks; 31
Turky skins wch the French men made buskins of; 200 White skins; * two
Gold rings, & one of them with a jewell cost 60 dollars & a halfe;
* These were taken by ye Mate or Pilot when they Striped him they were in
his shoose.21
Without the British king’s intervention and compensation, there
would be no hope for Muhammad and his fellow merchants to
relaunch their commercial enterprise. European piracy was causing
serious economic destabilization in North Africa: for Muhammad and
his fellow investors were not part of a stockholding company, similar
to those that had developed in England, Holland, and France over a
century earlier; rather theirs was an individual venture. The Muslims’
loss of capital would bring about the collapse of their whole trade.
A letter from the Dey of Algiers to King George II in 1731 shows
the repeated frequency with which traders-cum-petitioners went to
England to claim compensation. Two traders who had been robbed by
the Spaniards while travelling on British ships went to London as
envoys of the basha because some of the stolen cargo on the ships had
belonged to him. Because nothing was resolved on their first journey,
they had to travel again to London:
We sent your Majesty last year the abovesaid hagge Mohammad Said, &
his Partner Hagge Ali, in order to make the proper Representation
thereupon. Answer was made on the part of your Majesty, That they
should go back to Algiers [to get the appropriate documents about the stolen
20
21
SP 71/23/46.
‘A copy was attached in Arabic.’ SP 71/23/ff. 29–31, 45–6.
m a g h ār i ba i n e a rl y e i g h t e e n t h - c e n t u r y b r i t a i n 45
possessions] _ This Paper will be found annexed to the Letter which Hagge
Mohammad Said & his Partner will have the honour to present to Your
Majesty on our part, in hopes that We shall meet with good success.22
Evidently, it took more than one journey to Britain for North Africans
to retrieve their stolen goods—if they ever did.
The last petition from the period under study survives from an
ambassador who had visited England earlier in his life, and who now
found himself a victim of British unwillingness to abide by international law. ‘The late great affront, insolence, and indignity’, opened
the letter by the Tripolitanian ambassador al-Hajj Ibrahim Agha on
15 June 1744 to his ‘Grace’, in having his servants arrested, had so
‘disordered’ him that he was unable to ‘stir out of my House’. It seems
that the ambassador, the same who had presented a petition nearly
twenty years earlier, had in his service two Jewish servants, one by the
name of ‘Moses Moravia (a foreigner)’ whom he had registered with
the ‘Sheriffs of London’, and another, Mordecai Caroline, who, as
a result of British neglect, had not been registered. Both had been
seized and jailed in ‘Contempt of the Law of Nations’. Such a deed,
continued the ambassador, reflected negatively on the ‘King, and
the Country I represent, whom I intend to acquaint with the affair,
unless my said Servants, are both immediately discharged, from out
of their Confinement’. Having made his threat, Ibrahim turned to
declaim against Britain’s non-abidance by its own laws. Agha had
been in England before, and therefore knew about English laws and
diplomatic protocol. He insisted on having his servants returned in
accordance with ‘your English Laws, which I do not understand, but
look on your Grace as the proper person only to apply to’. He then
informed his addressee of his decision to leave England because of his
shame, having suffered what no other ambassador had suffered
before.23
BENTURA DE RAZY
Actually, a quarter of a century earlier, an ambassador from Morocco
had experienced the same kind of shame and humiliation as did
Ibrahim. His is a unique story in the annals of early modern diplomatic
exchange. While danger always beset envoys and travellers, whether
from highway brigands, angry mobs, or whimsical rulers, no
ambassador seemed to have undergone the kind of humiliation that
the Moroccan ambassador experienced in London between 1710 and
22
23
SP 102/1/171.
SP 71/23/385–6.
46
n ab i l i. m at a r
1713. The story of Don Bentura de Razy reveals the dramatic change
in the balance of power that had occurred by the early eighteenth
century. No such episode could have occurred a century earlier, when
Elizabeth was appealing to Moroccans for financial help, or James
was negotiating with the Algerians for the return of British captives,
or Charles was bribing the Tunisians with munitions and military
supplies so they would control the attacks of their privateers. Bentura
fell victim to the imbalance of power between Britain and the Islamic
Mediterranean that marked the beginning of the modern age.
In 1710, Bentura de Razy arrived at the court of Queen Anne. The
Moroccan ruler, Ismail, described him as al-nusrani, the Christian,
and al-armani, the Armenian. He was the first Christian ever to be
recruited by a Moroccan ruler to serve as an ambassador in England.
Like many Muslim potentates before him, in both the Mashriq
and the Maghrib, Mulay Ismail realized how valuable the employment of local Christian and Jewish subjects could be in ambassadorial
functions. Indeed, throughout the seventeenth century Moroccan
rulers had sent Jews as their representatives in Christendom; Bentura
was the first Christian to represent a North African Muslim monarch
in Christendom. Bentura knew Spanish (thus the title ‘Don’) but not
English, and all but a handful of letters that survive by him are in
English translations, copied by Jezreel Jones, the English commercial
representative in Morocco and Bentura’s servant in London. To these
letters, Bentura added only his signature, in both English and
Armenian. Bentura’s immediate contact in London was the Earl of
Dartmouth, the Secretary of State.
Bentura reached England towards the end of April 1710,24 carrying
a letter of credentials introducing him as a ‘Person of good repute and
in whom we [Ismail] have an Entire Confidence’.25 He rented a house
on Dartmouth Street, hired a few servants, and turned his attention to
business activity as he awaited the audience with the Queen. By midDecember, neither Dartmouth nor anybody else had communicated
with him,26 and so on 16 December 1710 he wrote a letter in Spanish
to Jones27, stating (in the English translation) that he had been ‘in the
Court of the most Serene Queen of Great Brittain some months’, and
was eager to present his credentials ‘that he may be no longer in
Suspence’.28 Bentura was quite aware how European courts often
24
Narcissus Luttrell, A Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs from September
1679 to April 1714 (Oxford, 1857), vi. 577.
25
SP 71/15/237.
26
SP 71/15/249.
27
SP 71/15/255.
28
SP 71/15/258.
m a g h ār i ba i n e a rl y e i g h t e e n t h - c e n t u r y b r i t a i n 47
delayed ambassadors for months, claiming improper documents.
Four days later, however, Bentura was granted his request, and on 20
December 1710 he was ‘conducted from his House by Sir Clement
Cotterel, Master of the Ceremonies, in Her Majesty’s Body-Coach
to private Audience at St. James’s, where being introduc’d into the
Queen’s Presence by the Lord Dartmouth, He thus Deliver’d himself’:
Most Puissant, most Victorious, and Most Gracious Queen.
The Emperor my Master _ who has Kings for his Slaves, and Sovereign
Princes for his Tributaries, has sent me to _ congratulate You upon the
many Important Victories and Conquests that your Majesty’s Arms have
gain’d over the Two Great Flowers of the Christian Messias, the Kings of
France and Spain.
The ‘Harangue’ to the Queen exhibited more the ‘Politeness of an
European than an African Court’, commented the local press, as a
result of which it was soon after printed (in an English translation).
The court had obviously been perplexed at the presence of a Christian
representing a Muslim potentate—a Christian whose rhetorical strategies were quite different from the royal Moroccan tradition. After
the audience was concluded, Bentura presented his Master’s presents
to the Queen ‘consisting of Two Lions, Tigers Skins, Gold Dust, and
Jewels’.29
Ismail was fully aware of British hostility to Spain and France and
was eager to use that hostility to destroy the Spanish presidios in
North Africa. In return, Britain would have free range in his ports and
thus be able to confront not only the Spaniards but, more importantly,
the French, who were competing with Britain for the maritime control
of the Mediterranean. Despite the incentives that Bentura presented in
regard to the possibilities of Anglo-Moroccan cooperation, the British
government did not respond and nothing much happened during the
next few months; there is no record of any negotiations or meetings
between Bentura and court officials or diplomats. It may well be that
the British government found a Christian spokesman for Morocco
impossible to believe: such Christian–Islamic cooperation between
subject and ruler was unknown in Britain. Thus Bentura found
himself with nothing to do except to look after the spotted deer that
Queen Anne was planning to send to his Master as a gift.
In order to assist him establish social and commercial contacts,
as well as conduct his daily affairs, Bentura employed a number of
servants: William Henley, Lyon Palace, Thomas Pelletier, and Charles
29
The Speech of His Excellency Don Venturo Zary Embassador Extraordinary
from Muly Hamet Ismael, Emperor and King of MOROCCO, to Her Majesty at
St. JAMES’S Palace; Dec. 20, 1710.
48
n ab i l i. m at a r
Waine.30 As many English writers complained in that period, there
were too many servants available for hire, but few were honest or
reliable.31 Bentura used his servants to establish a network around
him, and to keep himself informed of events that took place just a few
streets away in the Houses of Parliament or that were reported in the
weekly newspapers. Such an active role by Bentura and his servants
seemed to have irritated his hosts, who were not pleased to see him
develop that much familiarity with the city and its society. And so
in May, one of his servants was committed to prison, whereupon
Bentura complained to Dartmouth that ‘George Devereux’ had been
imprisoned ‘contrary to the Act for preserving the Priviledges of
foreign Ministers’.32 No reason was given for the apprehension of the
servant and Bentura clearly saw that apprehension as an affront to his
ambassadorial status. A month later, on 2 June 1711, a petition was
presented to Lord Dartmouth from the creditors of John Atkins, a
cardmaker from Southwark, who was employed by Bentura too.33
The group of servants around Bentura was being trimmed.
By 20 July 1711, Bentura was ready to sail back with the deer. He
had found a ship that would take them directly to ‘Barbary’ and so he
wrote to Dartmouth asking for a letter from Anne to Ismail; he also
pleaded for reimbursement of money he had spent during his stay
in England.34 After all, like other ambassadors from Morocco (and
the rest of the Islamic world), he had accepted the dangerous task of
representing his country in a foreign land because there was a business
side to the journey. Unlike European ambassadors and envoys who
enjoyed financial support either from the trading companies or (later)
from the monarchy, Bentura had no financial support and depended
wholly on the assistance of the hosting government and on his private
means. On 4 August, he wrote to Mohammad Andaluz (in Spanish
which was translated and transcribed by Jones), and mentioned that
he would be taking with him 44 deer, 10,000 Dutch tiles (part of
a business agreement he had with his French ‘Friend Pillet of Salle’),
and a coach, ‘an Extraordinary Invention to goe two Leagues an
houre _ [along] with other things For my master & my Mistress
the Sultana’.35 Demonstrating the international nature of commerce,
an Armenian Moroccan was cooperating with a French resident in
Morocco to send Dutch tiles from England to be used in the palace
30
31
32
33
34
35
SP 71/21/15.
John Ashton, Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne (London, 1883), 58–63.
SP 44/113/90.
SP 34/31/20.
SP 71/15/319.
SP 71/15/330–2.
m a g h ār i ba i n e a rl y e i g h t e e n t h - c e n t u r y b r i t a i n 49
of Mulay Ismail in Meknes. Realizing that he would return to no
rewards from a disappointed ruler, he hoped to arrange for profitable
trade.36
But it was in this letter of 4 August that the first allusion was made
to the troubles that Bentura would face in the following year. As he
was describing his preparations, he sounded a note of alarm:
I am much concerned at the News I heard at Court the other day, that my
Masters ships had taken two ships belonging to Her Britannic Majesty’s
Subjects, it troubled me very much till I had some consolation from my Lord
Dartmouth, That the captains had written to their Friends here, that my
Master promised to restore them with their Lodeing and Men.37
Despite the concern over the seizure of those ships, Bentura was
granted audience by the Queen and given permission to leave. On
24 August he wrote to Dartmouth to bid him farewell.
It was expected, however, that the captured Britons in Morocco
would be freed before he left. And so the ship left with the spotted deer
but without Bentura, who had to await news of the Britons’ release.
As the waiting grew longer, rumours began to circulate in London
that until the Britons and their ships were freed, Ambassador Bentura
would be kept under house arrest. Jones picked up those rumours
and passed them on to Bentura, who promptly asked him to write (on
3 January 1713) to Dartmouth telling him how concerned he, Bentura,
was to see reference to his confinement already appearing in the
London Gazette. Jones added that Ismail’s informants in England
would report the ambassador’s humiliation to Meknes, which would
lead the Moroccan ruler to retaliate and seize all English merchants
and their possessions in Morocco.38
On 9 January, a messenger brought Bentura the order for his
confinement. From that point on, an exchange of letters with Lord
Dartmouth took place in which Bentura invoked, threatened, pleaded,
complained, and lamented his plight. Bentura felt empowered by his
master, who could inflict heavy damage on British trade and shipping;
he did not feel helpless although he was obviously vulnerable. So on
that same day, he wrote a letter to Dartmouth assuring him that he
knew nothing about the seizure of the British ships. He also indicated
that letters he had received had mentioned nothing about the event,
and then he inquired: ‘what Improvement the seizure of me can be
to bring matters to a good Understanding and lasting Friendship
36
See Dariusz Kolodziejczyk, Ottoman–Polish Diplomatic Relations, Fifteenth to
Eighteenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 169–185.
37
SP 71/15/332.
38
SP 71/16/#34.
50
n ab i l i. m at a r
between the two Nations _’ . At the top of the letter, he wrote in a
plaintive tone, ‘From two pair of Stairs at the messengers hous in
Dartmouth streete Westminster’.39
But Dartmouth simply ignored him, showing interest neither in
the ambassador nor in the possibility of a treaty with Morocco.
Despite the dozens of letters that Bentura wrote to him, there are only
two references to the Moroccan in Dartmouth’s own records of
correspondence (SP 44/114). In a letter that Bentura wrote two weeks
later, 23 January 1713, he complained how Dartmouth had ignored
him and then threatened that the poor treatment he was receiving
would ‘draw upon Her Majestys Subjects in his [Ismail] Dominions;
Inconveniencey of a much more deplorable Consequence, And if
I may be allowed to know any thing of the [sic] Maxims of the Eastern
Mahometan Court’. He emphasized to Dartmouth that he knew
the operations of Ismail’s court, and warned of dire consequences.40
The Eastern Christian was warning the Western Christian about
provoking the ire of his Muslim master.
It is at this point that Bentura introduced a curious reference to his
Christian identity. Throughout his writings, Bentura had emphasized
his Moroccan role and had not alluded to his Christian background,
but in a letter of 6 February, we find his first appeal to religious
commonality with the English. Evidently, Bentura hoped that if as
an ambassador of Morocco he was not given respect, perhaps as a
Christian he might:
[I] shall bear my Confinement, with all the Christian Patience, that becomes
a Professor of that Faith, which Her Majesty is a Defender of: viz: the
Christian; And as I have a Right to it descended unto Me, through all
Generations since the Saviour of the World Redeemed it: So I think with
most humble Submission; That I have a Right to request on behalf of my
Carracter (as it relates to the Law of Nations and of Custom) An Audience of
Her Majesty.41
Bentura reminded his addressee that he belonged to that same
religion which the Queen was defending. He was also an Eastern
Christian who could claim his religious descent back to the time
of Christianity’s inception—and thus far older than England’s
Christianity. Actually, it is very likely that Ismail had chosen him
because he was an Eastern Christian—at a time when the Anglican
Church was continuing its dialogue with the Eastern Orthodox
39
40
41
SP 71/16/57.
SP 71/16/64.
SP 71/16/37.
m a g h ār i ba i n e a rl y e i g h t e e n t h - c e n t u r y b r i t a i n 51
Church.42 Bentura emphasized that notwithstanding his Christianity,
he was a representative of the Moroccan ruler and reminded
Dartmouth of the Law of Nations (presumably both Christian and
Muslim nations), which protected ambassadors against abuse. The
Queen was exhibiting neither the affinity due a co-religionist nor the
protocol due a representative of a foreign potentate.
Meanwhile, Bentura was growing concerned about newspaper
gossip and requested that Dartmouth suppress all references to his
detention. The press, after all, reflected the sentiments of the government. In his next letter, he repeated his threat, couching it in words of
concern ‘for Her Majestys Subjects in his [Mulay Ismail’s] Dominions
to hinder the ill Consequences which that News may put my Master
upon by making Reprisalls’. He concluded by reminding Dartmouth
of his expenses, asking him how much, exactly, the Queen had
ordered for him (which, it seems, Dartmouth had not divulged). He
begged that the Queen order him his allowance soon, ‘which I hope
will be suitable to my Caracter, and not less than what has been
granted by Her Majesty to any of my Predecessors’.43 His confinement
was bad enough; but to be denied his financial dues was intolerable.
The letter of 19 February was written ‘From my Confinem[en]t
in Dartmouth Street’.44 Evidently, nothing had changed, so Bentura
launched another appeal for freedom—this time on diplomatic
grounds. His confinement, he wrote, contravened the ‘Law of Nations:
for by that Law my Lord the Persons of Embassadors have ever been
sacred, even from Princes actually in Warr, with those from whom
they are sent, and the late act of Parliament relating to Embassadors
wch makes their Priviledges inviolable’.45 From his confinement,
Bentura had kept himself apprised of the activities of Parliament,
which was just a short walk away from Dartmouth Street. Since
British ambassadors were to enjoy their privileges abroad, he should
enjoy his privileges in Britain. He would have accepted his confinement, he explained, had he himself done anything wrong or had
the captives in Morocco enjoyed the same diplomatic status as he had.
His confinement was an insult. In this respect, Bentura’s invocation of
the ‘Law of Nations’ was intended to address his hosts in the language
they understood best: whenever treaties were negotiated, the British
couched the terms of the treaties in very precise legal language in order
to ensure the safety of British residents in the host countries. Bentura,
42
It is unlikely that Ismail would have realized that the Orthodox and Armenian
churches were quite different—in his view, they were all nasārā, Christians.
43
˙
SP 71/16/38.
44
SP 71/16/#39.
45
Ibid.
52
n ab i l i. m at a r
who had been sent to negotiate a treaty and who was therefore quite
aware of legal language and arguments, was reminding his hosts that
if they expected Moroccans to abide by the laws of nations, especially
laws that governed trade and the protection of British subjects in
Muslim countries, then they should abide by those laws rather than
flagrantly break them.
In order to increase the pressure on Bentura, the British government
decided to make even his house arrest unbearable. When two more of
his servants were seized, Bentura saw the action as yet another insult
to his diplomatic status. On 12 March 1712, he wrote to complain
that:
Two officers of Woodstreet Compter, Employ’d by William Tims an
attorney liveing Near the same Compter have arrested My said Cooke and
carry’d him to the Hen & Chickens In Wood Street, soe that I am deprived
of my cooke _ Her Majesty that Hath been graciously pleased to Grant to
Forreign Ministers, amongst whom These sort of Men will not stick at any
Insult or Affronts.
There was a dual matter here for the ambassador: the loss of his cook,
who may have specialized in oriental cuisine, and the infringement
on the diplomatic immunity. Again Bentura was reminding his hosts
that they were breaking the laws of nations. On 24 March 1712, he
dismissed one Thomas Haynes from his service,46 perhaps apprehensive of an informer within his house. The government, however, kept
up the pressure and made it appear that the servants who had
been hired by Bentura were of scandalous reputation—indeed, so
scandalous that on 27 March, the Post Boy announced that a hearing
had taken place before the Lord Keeper and two Lord Chief Justices
‘in relation to Persons that pretended to be protected by the MoroccoAmbassador; but it appearing that they were not his Domesticks, it
was given That the Law should take its due Course against them’.47
Such a smear campaign angered Bentura, who wrote two days later
to Dartmouth complaining about the ‘scandalous advertisement’ in
the press (29 March). On 31 March, he assured Dartmouth that he
would not protect any of his servants if a petition were brought
against them because he ‘had regard to the Decorum which is due to
Her Majesty and My Master at the same time’.48 In the midst of this
gloomy situation, on 11 April, news broke of the peace with France,
ending the war of Spanish succession with the signing of the Treaty of
Utrecht; Bentura promptly seized the opportunity and on that same
46
47
48
SP 71/16/#3.
The Post Boy #2633, From Tuesday March 25, to Thursday March 27, 1712.
SP 71/16/#12.
m a g h ār i ba i n e a rl y e i g h t e e n t h - c e n t u r y b r i t a i n 53
day, wrote to congratulate the Queen on the peace.49 Two weeks
later, on 27 April, he wrote to Dartmouth to alert him to the condition
of the lion and tiger which he had brought as a present to the Queen,
and which, presumably, were still in his care. Dartmouth informed
the Queen, who ordered the Lord Treasurer to ‘give the necessary
Directions for bringing the Lyon and the Tyger to the Tower’.50
On 15 May, Bentura wrote to Sir William Hodges about the letters
he had received from Ismail, in which he learned that the English who
had been cast away on the Moroccan coast (and not seized as had
been claimed) were all safe in Meknes and would remain there until an
ambassador from Britain was sent there. This was the first communication that Bentura had received providing him with the official
account from Morocco—and not the account that had been presented
by the seamen and sailors in their communications with London.
Bentura was now assured that his ruler was supporting him fully in his
mission to England and so he reiterated to Dartmouth that he had
been ordered to continue to ‘Act on his behalfe with Her Majesty.’
With the letters in his hand, Bentura offered the Moroccan version of
events:
It will be a very difficult and changeable Task to root out the Sally Men, for
when the Emperor looses one Ship, his way is to oblige his Subjects to do
more Mischiefs, by ordering three or four to be fitted out in the Room of One
so lost or taken.51
There would be no way of ending the piracy, he was intimating, unless
a means was found to sign a treaty between the two monarchs.
Otherwise, their subjects would continue attacking each other, and
providing justifications for more attacks.
A week later, Bentura wrote to Dartmouth asking to play a role
in mediating between Britain and Morocco. He wanted to have
an audience with the Queen—‘not’, however, ‘as a Prisoner but at
Liberty’, where he would do everything he could to ‘procure for Her
Majesty, all that She shall be pleased to Command’ him. Meanwhile,
it was important that Dartmouth clarify the matter of his confinement
in the Gazette (which evidently Dartmouth had not suppressed) in
order to appease Ismail for ‘the Dishonour he may believe he has
sustained, by former Publications of these Affaires’. Bentura then
added:
My Lord though I might complain of being a Prisoner allmost five Months,
and detained so (as I conceive) contrary to the Laws & Customes of Nations,
49
50
51
SP 71/16/#59.
SP 44/113/408, 30 Apr. 1713.
SP 71/16/56.
54
n ab i l i. m at a r
and of other Treatment too; Yet as I am a Christian, and ambitious of doing
the best Services for Her Majesty, I shall not Repine at my own Restraint nor
Usage, if your Lordship does thereby obtaine the End, which was to bring
Matters to a good Understanding and lasting Friendship between the two
Nations.52
Bentura was now presenting himself as the martyr: if his confinement would serve the Queen’s and Ismail’s ‘End’, that would be
fine. Again, the appeal to diplomatic protocol was conjoined with
religious language. But Bentura was still strongly focused on the ‘End’
for which his master had sent him to England; and so he assured
Dartmouth that as soon as he was released from his confinement, and
given the good conditions of the Britons who had been ‘cast away
on the Coasts of Barbary’, he could proceed to finalize the treaty of
peace between Britain and Morocco. For he had the ‘Credentials’ to
do so, and had received ‘Powers and Instructions’ to complete such
negotiation. Meanwhile, there was nothing for him to do but to enjoy
the ‘Mellon seeds’ which he was eating.53
The veiled threats that Bentura had made were recognized by the
merchants who traded with Morocco. They realized that if a truce
was not reached with Morocco, they and their trade would stand to
lose heavily. They were eager therefore that Dartmouth learn of the
implications and dangers of Bentura’s continued confinement. In May
1713, Jezreel Jones wrote to Dartmouth about the ‘late reports we
have had of a new warr likely to ensue with Morocco’ with a possible
damage to trade of ‘no less than 5000 p/annum’. He warned that any
attempt to send a fleet to fight the privateers would not only be too
costly (‘annual Expence of 12000 besides the loseing of so many
Subjects’), but would merely result in the capture of a few useless
privateers from among the enemy. Gunboat diplomacy, which the
British government had grown used to in the Mediterranean, would
be counterproductive; Jones urged negotiations with Don Bentura,
‘the Ambassador, who has as full a power (as ever I saw any from
thence have) seemingly well disposed’.54 A month later, on 24 June
1713, Thomas Baker reiterated what Jones had said: peace with
Morocco was better for trade, but conflict would be inevitable unless
the ‘Embassador may bee fully released from the Confinement hee has
been under for some months past’.55
52
53
54
55
SP
SP
SP
SP
71/16/101–2.
71/17/50.
71/16/95–8.
71/16/121.
m a g h ār i ba i n e a rl y e i g h t e e n t h - c e n t u r y b r i t a i n 55
By July, the merchants had pressed their case so forcibly that
Dartmouth realized nothing was to be gained by keeping Bentura
under house arrest. On 9 July, Bentura wrote to Dartmouth thanking
him for procuring for him his freedom and arranging an audience
with the Queen. He was so happy that he decided to go to St Paul’s
and participate in the public Day of Thanksgiving. For such a visit,
he needed the permission of the Archbishop of Canterbury as he was
not a ‘Christian’ in the Protestant definition. Upon receiving the
permission, he wrote and thanked the Archbishop.56 The Queen
meanwhile had ordered that all spotted deer which had died should
be replaced, and that ‘two dozen of the largest china dishes that can
be had’ plus ‘two large copper tea kitchens and a fine tea’ be included
in the gift to Ismail, who despite being a ‘barbarian’ needed to be
humored so he would release the sixty-nine British captives.57 As far
as she was concerned, the insult to the Moroccan ambassador and her
flouting of the law of nations could be bought off with a few kitchen
goods sent to the barbarian.
On 2 August, Bentura was granted audience by the Queen.58 In his
speech, he mentioned the spotted deer, and reiterated the powers he
had been given to ‘Treat for a Stricter Alliance than formerly’. He also
emphasized Ismail’s desire that an ambassador be sent to Morocco to
receive the Britons who ‘by their owne Unskillfullness [had been] cast
upon my Masters Coasts’.59 What happened after the audience and in
the following days is not clear. But it seems that Bentura did not leave
on board the ship and stayed in England, while Captain George
Padden sailed to Morocco with all the presents and with the authorization to negotiate with Ismail. On 26 August 1713, Padden wrote
to assure Dartmouth that he would follow his directions, ‘Especially
in relation to Don Bentura Zari’.60 Evidently, Dartmouth had some
queries that he wanted Padden to pursue. In Cadiz, Padden learned
that the English captives in Morocco were very well treated, ‘with soe
much Civillity _ [and receive from Ismail] an Extra allowance of
Shoes, Tobaco and Money’.61 Padden continued on his journey and
on 3 December 1713, he wrote from Gibraltar to assure Dartmouth
that he had been granted a safe conduct to the royal residence in
Meknes. Subsequently, Padden negotiated a treaty with Morocco the
draft of which was finished in July of the year after, 1714. In the draft,
56
57
58
59
60
61
SP 71/16/#66.
David Green, Queen Anne (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970), 316.
SP 71/16/#74.
SP 71/16/14/143–5.
SP 71/16/#79.
Ibid.
56
n ab i l i. m at a r
mention was made of the imminent departure of Ahmad bin Ali as an
ambassador to London to ratify the treaty.62
A year later, in April 1715, Ismail wrote to congratulate King
George I on his accession to the throne. In the letter, he mentioned
that the news of the accession had been relayed to him by ‘our
Christian servant Bentura de Zari the Armenian, who is there [in
England] by our authorization there with you and in your country’.63
Although he was eager that the King uphold the treaty with Morocco
which Queen Anne had signed, he was not willing to forget the
insults that Bentura had endured. The kitchen goods had not done
the trick:
We have heard also that your servants have failed to give to our Christian
servant Bentura the aforementioned his due, and have harmed him and have
not acknowledged that he is there with you only for the purpose of our
blessed service. When your Christian servant Padden came to our seat made
lofty by God (who is exalted) did we fall short with respect to him? Or did
anything disagreeable happen to him? Ask him and he will tell you how we
behaved towards him. We have authorized our servant Bentura to reside in
the city of London to fulfil for us any purposes of ours which may arise there,
so treat him well and meet good with good. The aforementioned Bentura will
inform you of the conditions laid down by Queen Anne.64
The letter was a short lecture from the Muslim to the Christian
about proper protocol between countries. Evidently, the ‘barbarian’
abided by the laws of nations much more attentively than did the
Briton. And the ‘barbarian’ was perfectly confident in employing and
protecting (as much as he could) a Christian envoy to the lands of the
Christians—in a manner that no British monarch would have ever
contemplated for a non-Christian subject. And so, five years after first
arriving in London, Bentura was still serving his Moroccan king from
his house on Dartmouth Street.
All the Maghāriba who came to Britain stayed in London. While
ambassadors may have travelled out of the capital and visited other
parts of Britain, it is unlikely that the impoverished petitioners
ever did. Both ambassadors and petitioners always established contact with the British representative/resident because they relied on
him for translation and presentation of their petitions to the proper
authorities. As the workings of the British bureaucracy were slow, the
Maghāriba had to spend weeks and months in the metropolis, often
writing in vain as well as pounding the corridors of power in vain.
62
63
64
Hopkins, 41.
Ibid. 43.
Ibid.
m a g h ār i ba i n e a rl y e i g h t e e n t h - c e n t u r y b r i t a i n 57
Meanwhile, they learned about British society, mastered a little of the
language (especially if they already knew other European languages,
as was the case with all the ambassadors), and returned to their
countries with stories and anecdotes about the nasārā of the north.
˙
Despite the difficulties and humiliations they experienced,
their
impressions of Britain were more favourable than of Catholic France,
Spain, or Malta. For Britons did not enslave Maghāriba for their
fleets as much as other Catholics did, nor did they raid the Maghāribi
coast to capture men, women, and children and use them in slavery
either in Britain or in the Americas—as the soldiers of Spain and
Portugal had done. Britain preferred to trade rather than to fight—
although it did not always abide by the ‘Laws of Nations’ in its
dealing with the weaker countries.
The presence of Maghāriba in London in the first half of the
eighteenth century leads to the following conclusions:
First, although those Maghāriba were nearly all Muslim, there
were non-Muslims among them. At a time when the British government had never employed ambassadors of different religions (let alone
a different denomination—Catholic), the Mahgariba courts recruited
and trusted Jews and Christians in international negotiations.
Towards Bentura, Ismail exhibited a breadth that no other monarch
in European Christendom showed to a subject of a different religion:
he was confirming a multi-religious dimension to his monarchy by
including among his Moroccan subjects a ‘servant’ (khādimunā, as
he described him) from among the People of the Book. Notwithstanding Ismail’s strident attempts to convert European potentates
and emissaries (Colonel Kirke in Tangier and the deposed King James
in France), the Moroccan recognized that the Islamic principality
had a secure place and, in this case, an important diplomatic role, for
the non-Muslim subject.
Secondly, the petitions and letters demonstrate how the Maghāriba
used all means available to them for seeking assistance and redress
as a result of the attacks by European Christian pirates on their
emergent maritime ventures. The historiography of the early modern
Mediterranean has invariably focused on the depredations committed
by the North African pirates, the notorious ‘Barbary Corsairs’, and
the damage, pain, and havoc they brought on European Christians as
the latter plied their honest trades in the Mediterranean. But as the
many petitioners revealed, piracy was widely practised by European
Christians and was not a monopoly of the ‘Moors’. Indeed, the
damage that was done to Maghāriba trade not only would leave its
mark on the early eighteenth century, but would ultimately lead to
the complete demise of their maritime enterprise. In the seventeenth
58
n ab i l i. m at a r
century there had been a possibility that the Maghāriba would acquire
enough technological knowledge to develop their own shipping
industry and to begin to rival the Europeans; by the eighteenth century, and with the devastating enslavement of their seamen, captains,
and merchants (chiefly by France and Malta), and the continued attacks
on their trade and commerce, the Maghāriba lost momentum and
became completely and irrevocably dependent on European powers.65
They became the consumers of services and products manufactured,
transported, and sold by the Europeans. They also became so
dependent on British naval protection and services that they started
treating London as the locus of their maritime activity and the
metropolis for petitions, financial assistance, restitution, and mediation. A century after the first Moors had impressed and intimidated
London with their power and exoticism, the last Moors projected
need and helplessness, and embodied the defeat of Barbary. In the
latter part of the eighteenth century, and as naval wars raged between
Britain and France, the Maghāriba seized the opportunity to reassume
some of the Mediterranean trade. During the Napoleonic wars, the
Mediterranean became an open space, and Barbary ships returned to
the sea without much harassment from European powers. Once the
wars were over, however, British, Austrian, French, Maltese, Sicilian,
and even Russian fleets moved in to re-monopolize trade and to drive
the Barbary ships out, first from the Atlantic, and then from the
Mediterranean, bringing to a final end the maritime ventures of
the Maghrib.66
Finally, the petitioning captives, traders and even envoys projected
an image of a weak and subdued Islamic population in the Maghrib.
As a result, Moors did not stimulate imaginative creativity—unlike
the Moors of a century before, who had commanded respect and
excited the imagination of playwrights, poets, and historians. In the
early eighteenth century, no great plays or poems were produced
about the Moors: in a Britain that was beginning to assume the
imperial certitude of world hegemony, the Maghāriba would remain
‘strangers’.
65
For an excellent study of the decline of Morocco, see Abd al-Majid al-Qadduri,
Al-Maghreb wa-Urubba (Casablanca: Al-Markiz al-Thaqafi al-Arabi, 2000).
66
Restifo Giuseppe, ‘Archival Mines: Maghreb and Great Britain in the Records
of Public Records Office F 08: Barbary States’, lecture given on 24 Mar. 2001,
Zaghouan, Tunisia.