The
Sheerefs Will Fire Against The French Leaden Balls, And Silver Balls."
Another Observed To Me, "If A Fleet Should Come Here, It Will Be
Immediately Sunk, Because Our Sultan Has Ordered Every Ball To Hit, And
None To Miss."
This is not unlike what a Turk of Tripoli once said to me about the
Grand Signor and his late reforms.
"The Turks will soon be civilized,
because the Sultan has given an order for all the Turks to be
civilized." The large guns of the forts were practised, and the guns of
the grand battery loaded. The infantry continued to practise on the
beach of the port: their manoeuvres were very uncouth and disorderly,
they merely moved backwards and forwards in lines of two deep. The
French Consul, Monsieur Jorelle, discontinued his usual promenade, to
prevent his being insulted, and so to avoid the the painful necessity of
demanding satisfaction.
Mr. Willshire, being well known to the Mogador population, had not so
much to fear. Here is the advantage of a long residence in a country.
The French Government lose by the frequent changing of their consuls.
Still, M. Jorelle was right in not exposing himself to the mob, or the
wild levies who had come from their mountains. The fault of the Governor
was, in exciting the warlike fanaticism of the tribes of the interior
against the Christians, which he ought to have known the city
authorities might have extreme difficulty in keeping within bounds. No
European could pass the gates of the city without being spat upon, and
cursed by the barbarous Berbers.
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