SKETCHES OF THE HISTORY
AND PRESENT CONDITION OF TRIPOLI, WITH SOME ACCOUNTS OF THE OTHER BARBARY STATES.
NO. X.—(Continued.)
The writer of these Sketches endeavors to give entire in each number, some distinct portion of the history of the Barbary States; this however is in some cases impracticable, either from want of time on his part, or from want of place in the sheets of the Messenger. The present number will contain merely the conclusion of the portion, commenced in the last, so that the next, may embrace the whole of the war between France and Algiers.
In a country where the establishment of innocence or guilt depends much less on the weight and character of evidence, than on the interests or influence of those possessing power, and where punishment is entirely disproportioned to offence, no unfavorable inference could be fairly drawn from the flight of the accused. The D'Ghies family had been uniformly the friends of the Americans, and Hassuna although suspected of too much devotion to the interests of France, upon the whole bore a fair character, and was on terms of social intimacy with the family of Mr. Coxe. The charge against him was of a strange nature, and one not likely to be substantiated; he protested that he was innocent of all improper conduct with regard to the unfortunate traveller, that the British Consul was anxious to procure his destruction from motives of personal enmity, and that his only desire was to go to England where he could easily clear himself from all imputations. Nor could any feelings of peculiar delicacy towards the British Consul be expected to influence Mr. Coxe on this occasion. The efforts made by Warrington in 1818 to rescue Morat Rais, after the attack on the American Consul, have been already noticed; he had also in 1828 endeavored, though ineffectually, to protect Dr. Sherry an Englishman who had circulated a story that the frigate Philadelphia was burnt by Maltese hired for the purpose by the Americans; and he had on various other occasions advanced pretensions to superiority over the Consul of the United States, which were unfounded and insulting.
Under these circumstances, Mr. Coxe resolved to protect the fugitive minister, and he therefore immediately wrote a letter to the Pasha, in which he requested a Teskera or written assurance under the seal of the State, that no attempt would be made to molest Hassuna; stating at the same time, that he only required what was frequently granted to the other Consuls. No answer having been made to this request, it was repeated on the 7th of August. On the 9th the Pasha replied by letter that he could not grant the warrant for Hassuna's safety, as the affair was one of great importance between himself and the British Government, and in which the American Consul was in no wise concerned; he added that if Mr. Coxe could obtain Warrington's permission in writing to interfere in the case and deposite it with him, he would make no farther objection, and that the American Consul "might however keep Hassuna in his house until the affair should be decided."
Mr. Coxe was naturally indignant at the terms of this letter, by which his exercise of a right allowed to other Consuls, was made to depend upon the will of the representative of Great Britain; and the more so as he had reason to suspect, that it had been dictated by Warrington himself. To keep Hassuna in his house until the affair was decided, would be merely to act as his jailer until the hour of his execution; for the Pasha it was well known would not scruple to declare him guilty of theft or murder if the British Consul should require it, and it would be scarcely reconcileable either with principle or usage, to continue to protect a man, after his conviction of such crimes according to the forms of law of the country.
Fortunately at this moment the American sloop of war Fairfield had just entered the harbor of Tripoli, and her commander Captain Parker, after examining the circumstances of the case as far as known, agreed to receive Hassuna on board his ship, and to conduct him to some place from which he could with safety proceed to England. Being anxious however to secure themselves from charges of improper conduct on the part of the Government, the plan was privately intimated to Yusuf, and they were not disappointed in their expectations, that he would rejoice at being thus delivered from the difficulty. The guards were indeed doubled on that night, and they patroled the streets leading from the American Consulate to the harbor, but this was only intended to deceive Warrington; for Hassuna was safely conducted on board the Fairfield, in the dress of a Christian, without any interruption from the numerous parties of soldiers whom they met on the way.
When Hassuna's evasion was known in Tripoli, the utmost joy was manifested by the inhabitants, and he received on board the Fairfield the visits of Hadji Massen and of many other principal persons of the city, who congratulated him openly on his escape from the vengeance of the British Consul. The Fairfield remained in Tripoli until the 14th of August, during which period every attention was received by her officers from the Pasha and his Court; she then sailed for Tunis, and from that place to Port Mahon, where Hassuna left her; but instead of proceeding to England as he had declared to be his intention, he went by way of Spain to France in which country he has since resided.
On the 10th of August Mr. Warrington addressed a most angry epistle to the American Consul, in which after asserting that D'Ghies had been "proved guilty of fraud and theft and suspected of murder," and taking it "for granted that the Commander of the Fairfield must be perfectly well acquainted with the delinquency of the fugitive," he requested that his letter should be shown to Captain Parker; declaring in conclusion that should the criminal escape from justice the whole responsibility would rest upon Mr. Coxe, and the case be submitted to the American Government. Mr. Coxe replied on the 11th that he had yet to learn how and when the guilt of Hassuna had been established; and that although he deeply lamented the fate of Major Laing, yet his feelings should not prevent him from maintaining the honor of his flag, nor induce him to submit to any dictation. On receipt of this answer Col. Warrington entered a protest in the name of his Government against Mr. Coxe's interference in the affair; the Pasha also addressed a letter on the 12th to the American Consul, in which he declared that person answerable for all the consequences of Hassuna's departure, and expressed his resolution to complain to the Government of the United States on the subject. This letter although bearing the seal of the Pasha, was written in Italian in the hand of the Chancellor of the British Consulate, and delivered by Vanbreugel the Consul of the Netherlands who was known to be devoted to the service of Warrington. These circumstances rendered it extremely probable that the letter was drawn up by the British Consul and merely sealed by Yusuf as a peace offering, particularly as the British flag was again displayed on the following day in token of reconciliation. Under this impression Mr. Coxe replied on the 14th, that so far from fearing inquiries as to his conduct, he had already submitted the circumstances to the consideration of his Government, not doubting that it would approve a course by which the Pasha of Tripoli "had been indirectly saved from great trouble and uneasiness." Here the American Consul's agency in the affair terminated; a few days after Yusuf at a private audience, expressed the most friendly feelings to Mr. Coxe, and hinted his satisfaction at having been thus happily extricated from so disagreeable a situation.
Meanwhile Mohammed D'Ghies remained in the house of Baron Rousseau. On the 12th of August Colonel Warrington accompanied by some other Consuls, made a formal demand on the Baron for the delivery of Major Laing's papers, exhibiting the deposition of D'Ghies in support of his proceedings. Rousseau appeared to be highly indignant at this demand, and Mohammed on seeing the declaration which was said to have been made by him, denied all knowledge of it; having been assured however that no injury would be done to him, he left his asylum and in the presence of the Pasha and the greater part of the Consular corps, he repeated the assertion first made to the Bey, declaring at the same time that his subsequent denial had been extorted from him by the French Consul, who had threatened otherwise to expel him from his house. Baron Rousseau upon this struck his flag, and immediately embarked with his whole family for France, without deigning to make any reply to the accusations preferred against him; his departure while the affair was undetermined, and he had nothing to fear but exposure, was certainly not calculated to produce an impression in his favor.
Soon after the French Consul had quitted Tripoli, the persons whom the Pasha had summoned from the South arrived, and were examined in the presence of the British and other Consuls. It would be unfair to condemn any man on the testimony of Moors and Arabs, as those people appear to be morally incapable of giving a correct account; particularly too when as in this case the examination was exclusively conducted by those who were opposed to the accused. From the accounts of Col. Warrington, it appears to have been clearly established by their examinations, that the papers of Major Laing were received by Hassuna about the spring of 1828; of their having been delivered by him to the French Consul no direct evidence has been adduced besides the declaration of Mohammed D'Ghies. Many collateral circumstances however united to confirm this statement, and even Mr. Coxe notwithstanding all the prepossessions which he may be supposed to have entertained in favor of Hassuna and against Colonel Warrington, admitted to the latter on the 20th of November 1829, his conviction that the communications of the unfortunate traveller had been thus disposed of.
This affair excited much attention in Europe when the circumstances became known there. The British Ambassador at Paris was instructed by his Government, to demand from that of France, explanations with regard to the conduct of its Representative in Tripoli. A commission was accordingly instituted at Paris, which after interrogating Rousseau and examining the proofs presented, declared the charge against him to be wholly without foundation, and that against Hassuna D'Ghies to be unsupported by sufficient evidence. The Government of Great Britain appears to have been satisfied with this decision; the measures adopted by France in consequence of it will be hereafter related. The London Quarterly Review however, in which several articles relative to Laing had already appeared, protested against the report of the commission; the number of that periodical for March 1830, contains a statement of the circumstances which occurred in Tripoli so partial, so unjust, and accompanied with such illiberal remarks with regard to Mr. Coxe, that some notice of it seems here to be necessary.
From the minuteness with which many of the events are detailed in this Review, and the apparent precision as to dates, it is probable that the materials were furnished by Colonel Warrington himself: yet the statement is defective with regard to several important particulars; facts with which the British Consul was undoubtedly acquainted, and which might have given a different color to the case, are omitted; and there are errors calculated to lessen confidence in accounts not confirmed by other testimony than the assertion of the Reviewer. One of these errors is remarkable, and it is not easy to conceive that it arose from accident. In the Review it is said that the Pasha made his declaration respecting the receipt of the papers by Hassuna and their delivery to the French Consul, on the 5th of August; that in consequence of this, D'Ghies had taken refuge in the American Consulate on the 9th, and had been transferred on the same night to the Fairfield, which sailed the day after. Thus Mr. Coxe is represented as having acted with so much haste, that it was impossible for the Pasha or Colonel Warrington to explain the motives of their desire to arrest Hassuna, or to take any measures for proving his guilt until he was beyond their reach. Now from the official documents of the American Consulate, it appears that D'Ghies sought an asylum there on the 20th of July, that he was placed on board ship on the 9th of August, and that the Fairfield remained in the harbor until the 14th; he therefore passed nearly three weeks in the house of Mr. Coxe, during which the Pasha was twice requested to give an assurance for his safety such as had been often granted in similar cases to Consuls of other Powers; he was not placed on board the Fairfield until an invasion of the Consular dwelling was reasonably apprehended, and he continued in the port five days afterwards on board that ship. These circumstances must have been known to the person who furnished the materials for the article, and should in honor have been stated correctly.
The motives assigned in the Review for Hassuna's intercepting the papers, are that he had arranged some plan either for destroying Major Laing, or for extorting money from his friends in order to insure his safe return; that this plan had been discovered by the traveller, and that D'Ghies, learning that his schemes had been thus penetrated by the person who was their principal object, had suppressed the communications in order to prevent the exposure of his villainy. This supposition appears to be founded chiefly, if not entirely, on a passage in one of the letters received from Laing, intimating the discovery of some treachery on the part of those about him; the charge that Hassuna had been accessory to the murder of the traveller, is to be attributed only to the enmity of Warrington, as nothing has been elicited in any way calculated to confirm it. With regard to the French Consul's share in the affair, the Reviewer after citing some plausible reasons for believing him to have been implicated, and many which are utterly futile, seems to consider that he may have been induced to such dishonorable conduct purely from desire to obtain distinction by appropriating to himself in some way, the results of Laing's expedition. The grounds for this opinion are that Rousseau had for some time previous, been engaged in researches concerning the interior of Africa, upon which subject he not only corresponded with scientific societies in France, but also conducted a journal in Tripoli.
The Reviewer however in all these accounts and conjectures, is careful to forget that Hassuna was the Prime Minister of Tripoli, that political reasons may have impelled him to prevent the delivery of the papers, and that he may have acted in the whole affair conformably with the usages not only of Tripoli, but of almost every Government in Europe. A British officer engaged in exploring the interior of Africa, may well have been the object of suspicion at Tripoli. Has scientific research been even ostensibly the only motive for such expeditions? Would Major Laing have been permitted to proceed under this pretext through certain parts of Russia? Would a French or Russian officer until lately have been allowed to visit British India? The Tripoline Government did not dare refuse a passage to the English traveller through its dominions; his actions were doubtless observed, and it was proper that they should have been; his letters may have been opened, may have been found to contain matter the communication of which would be dangerous to the state, may have been in consequence destroyed, may have been even delivered to a Consul of another Power. Such things are constantly done in St. Petersburg, in Vienna, in Paris, and in many other places, and although they cannot be defended, yet it is scarcely fair to brand the African Minister with infamy for that which is daily practised by Metternich, Nesselrode and Thiers.