[226] At the time of the treaty of Kaniordgi the Moorish Sultan, however, addressed Louis XIV. on the danger to Europe of so powerful a combination directed against Turkey.
[227] In the terrors and alarms which followed the treaty of July 1840, one of his ministers thus describes the scene at the council: “Nous étions dix, et nous n’en savons pas plus l’un que l’autre, et il y avoit le roi, qui n’en savoit pas plus que nous, et qui sang-lottait.” (The above was written while Louis Philippe was still held to be the “ablest man in France,” and the “wiliest politician in Europe.”)
[228] Those who pay ready money have 25 per cent. discount allowed them. This is not the form, but the substance of the tariff regulations.
CHAPTER VI.
THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE IN RABAT.
The civil government of Rabat is vested in the Caïd, whose functions I have already described. The financial officers are the Emirs of the custom-house, the chief of whom is called the Administrador, and which, from that title, seems to have supplanted the original municipal Government; the Mehatzib, an officer appointed to fix the price of provisions, and to stamp goods publicly sold; and the Nadir, or administrator of the Sultan’s property, which consists in the houses and gardens he comes into possession of on the demise of his debtors, by which means he has extinguished in part, and is in process of extinguishing, the ancient rights and privileges of the town. There is no confiscation in Rabat for any crime; but by the custom-house system he is becoming the proprietor of all the property. The Nadir has from these funds to pay the poor Talebs, or learned men, which absorbs a great portion of the profits. There is a Beit ul Mal, or public treasury. The judicial power belongs of right to the Caïd, or to him who is next in dignity to the Caïd. The office is well known in Turkey, but here he belongs to no independent body, and exercises but slender influence: it has not, however, been always so. Mr. Addison, a chaplain of Charles II., and some time at Tangier during the English occupation, thus speaks of what he calls “The Moors’ Church Government.”
“They have in every cavila (or county) an Alcalib or high-priest, in whose nomination the secular power doth not at all interpose, for he is chosen out of and by the Alfaques, and invested with power to depose or otherwise chastise the offending clergy. Immediately upon this arch-priest’s election, he is possessed of the Giamma Gheber, or Great Church, wherein upon every Friday he expounds some text of the Alchoran, unto which exercise he always goes accompanied with the chief personages of the neighbourhood. This eminent churchman is seldom seen in public but at this exercise. For, to make himself the more reverenced, he affects retirement,[229] spending his hours in the study of the Alchoran, and in resolving such cases as the laity present him, who esteem his resolutions as infallible; and this, with a careful inspection into the deportment of the inferior clergy, doth constitute the office and government of the Alcalib. As for his revenues, they are suitable to his condition; and as to his life, it is austere and reserved, he affecting a peculiar gravity in all his carriage. Every Alcalib has his distinct diocese, out of which he has no power, so that the Alcalib of Beni Aros hath nothing to do in Minkél, for every one is absolute in his own cavila.”
Mr. Addison gives the following interesting details respecting their judicial proceedings:—
“Here’s no intriguing the plea with resolutions, cases, precedents, reports, moth-eaten statutes, &c.; but everything is determined according to the fresh circumstances of the fact, and the proof of which is alleged. The testimony of two men, if they are of known sobriety, is sufficient to make good the allegation, but there must be twelve to ratify it, if their conversation be suspected.
“In taking the testimony of a Moor upon oath, the servant of the Alcaldee carries the deponent to the Giamma or Mosch, where, in the presence of the Alcaldee, he swears by that holy place that he will declare all that he knows concerning the matter to which he is to give evidence; but oaths are never administered to any in another man’s case but such as are suspected persons, and they are usually numbered among the rogues and faithless, who have no credit without them. Besides, it is never permitted for a man to swear in his own case but for want of witnesses, or when the accusation is of that nature that the impeached cannot otherwise receive purgation: as for the Christian and Jew, they are suffered to give testimony according to the rites and customs of their own religions, but the Moors are not forward to put them upon this trial, as doubting that fear of punishment should tempt them to perjury; and those who are thereunto accessory (according to the Moresco principle), are involved in the guilt.
“In pleas of debt it is required that the reality of the debt be first manifest, which being done before the Alcaldee, he signifies it to the Almocadem of the cavila where the debtor lives, who, upon his signification, commands a present payment to be made; but if the debtor refuse, or be unable, to give the creditor satisfaction, the Almocadem remits him to the alhabs or prison, which is always near the Almocadem’s house, where he stays till bailed thence by sufficient sureties, or personally pays the debt.”