My motives for publishing this volume of Travels, will be best
explained by a detail of the circumstances which gave rise to my
journey to Morocco. In 1805, I was serving in the capacity of
Physician to His Majesty's Forces, at the Depot Hospital in the Isle
of Wight; whence, by dexterous management of the Army Medical
Board[*], I was removed, and placed upon half-pay, in June of that
year. At this period, it occurred to Mr. Turnbull, Chairman of the
Committee of Merchants trading to the Levant, that it would be of
advantage to the public, were the offices of Garrison Surgeon of
Gibraltar, and Inspecting Medical Officer of the ships doing
quarantine, which were then united in the person of Mr. Pym, separated
and made distinct appointments; and he was pleased to think that, from
my local knowledge, and other circumstances, I should be a proper
person to fill the latter of these offices. This was also the opinion
of His Royal Highness the Duke of Kent, Governor of the garrison.
Representations were accordingly made on the subject, to the then
Secretary of State for the War and Colonial Department, Lord
Castlereagh; and it was so fully understood that the proposition had
been assented to on his part, that an order was issued from the
Transport Board, to provide a passage for myself and family to
Gibraltar. There I waited some months, in the expectation that the
commission would be sent after me, but in vain. In the mean time, I
received a communication from Mr. Mattra, British Consul General at
Tangiers, requesting that I would cross over to Barbary, and attend
His Excellency the Governor of Larache, First Minister of the Emperor
of Morocco, then labouring under a dangerous illness. It was on my
return from this journey, that I found a letter from Mr. Turnbull (See
Appendix, No. III. p. 227), stating that my old friends of the Medical
Board had been at their usual work of persecution, and by their
scandalous misrepresentations to the new Secretary of State for War
and the Colonies, Mr. Windham, had succeeded in preventing the
appointment which His Royal Highness the Governor of Gibraltar had
been graciously pleased to design for me.
During my residence in Barbary it was my good fortune to gain the
approbation and friendship of the Emperor of Morocco, and of the
principal Officers of his Court, by which I was enabled to give
facilities to the procuring of fresh provisions for our Navy, and
render to my country other services, not strictly in the line of my
profession. (See the various documents at the end of Appendix.)
Having succeeded in restoring the Governor of Larache to health, and
performed some other cures, acceptable to the Emperor of Morocco, I
considered the objects for which I had crossed over to Barbary
accomplished, and returned to Gibraltar, after having received the
most flattering marks of distinction, both from the Imperial Court,
and from Lord Collingwood, Commander of the British fleet in the
Mediterranean. The letter of the Emperor of Morocco to His Majesty
(Appendix, No. X. p. 239) is an ample proof of the disposition of
that prince in my favour.
Finding the principal aim of my voyage to Gibraltar frustrated by the
machinations of the Medical Junta, whom I have already stated as ever
active in mischief, I determined to return to England. The letter of
the Emperor of Morocco to His Majesty, and a general certificate,
couched in the strongest terms of approbation, and signed by all the
principal merchants of Gibraltar, I thought were documents, which,
added to my correspondence with Lord Collingwood, and the officers of
his fleet, would not fail to have procured me a favourable reception,
and some attention to my claims.
But the letter of the Emperor of Morocco, as it still remains
unanswered, I cannot but believe has never been presented to His
Majesty. Nay, the pressing solicitations, with which I have since
been honoured on the part of the Emperor of Morocco, through his
principal Minister, to return to that country, I have hitherto been
obliged to delay answering, that I might not, on the one hand, insult,
by evasive or false replies, a government from which I had experienced
such friendship and respect; or, on the other hand, be compelled, by a
true statement, to compromise my own.
The principal design of publishing this account of my journey to the
Barbary States, is to shew the good policy, on the part of this
country, of keeping upon terms of strict amity with the government of
Morocco. The neglect, which, on this occasion, has been evinced of the
Emperor's letter, I cannot but consider, in a public point of view, as
extremely reprehensible, independently of the private injury it has
occasioned to myself. Whether this neglect arose from the
misrepresentations of the Army Medical Board, or from those of any
other persons, I will not pretend to determine; but in any case, a
most censurable disregard, even of the forms of civility, towards a
Prince, who, however we may affect to despise his influence in the
great political scale, has it always in his power materially to
promote or to impede the interests of this country in the Levant, must
attach to some quarter or other.
[*] As the members of that body are expected shortly to be dismissed
from their situations, I think it right, lest at any future period
injustice should be done to innocent individuals, by confounding
them with the guilty, here to state that Sir Lucas Pepys,
Bart. Mr. Thomas Keate, and Mr. Francis Knight, Apothecaries, at
present compose the body illegally calling themselves the Army
Medical Board, whose conduct for a great many years has brought
disgrace and disaster on that important department. For a detail of
their conduct, see "An Analytical View of the Medical Department of
the British Army, by Charles Maclean, M.D." 8vo.
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