I went back with full as much speed as I came, but free from those salutations of the quarter-staff, which I still felt upon my haunches. The scale of politeness was now turned in my favour; and to shew their respect for me, the soldiers knocked down every person they overtook in the streets, giving him first a blow with the quarter-staff upon the head, then asking him, why he did not get out of the way? All my people at St George had given me over for lost, or thought I had gone home to the French merchants, and taken my bed there.
I was twice after this with Mahomet Bey, in which time I concluded the agreement in favour of the English merchants. Instead of 14 per cent, and an enormous present, the Bey agreed for 8, and no present at all, and at his own expence sent the firman to Mocha, together with my letter, a copy of which, and instructions given in India in consequence, I have here subjoined.
Mr Greig, capt, Thornhill's lieutenant, whom I have mentioned as having seen at Jidda, was the first who came down the Gulf to Suez in the Minerva, and in the whole voyage, both by sea and after at Cairo, behaved in a manner that did honour to his country.
In the two subsequent visits which I paid to Mahomet Bey, I received the firman, and had a conversation before the Bey with the man that was to go express to Mocha; not that I thought my recommendation was of any consequence after his receiving orders from the Bey, but I knew very well, as diligence was recommended to him, that it might be secured by a small gratuity given unknown to the Bey. Two other similar presents, of no great value, were likewise given to the two servants who had assisted me in procuring the firman, the original of which I left with the Venetian consul. I thought it was unbecoming of me to starve a cause that promised to be both a private emolument and public benefit; and, as I never expected, so I never received the smallest return or acknowledgement either public or private.
It may be said, that the trade carried on there by Suez and the Isthmus would not be of any advantage to the India Company, but rather a detriment to it. Such was the answer I got from Lord North upon my first interview with his Lordship after my return, and upon which I shall not pretend to decide. But this I shall submit to the public, whether, when a great object, such as that was, is unexpectedly in the power of an individual, he is not obliged, as a good citizen, to avail himself of the occasion that offers, and leave it to that part of the public concerned, to determine whether they can make it of service to them or not.
I have read, either in Abbé Prevot or M. de Maillet, (the reader will assist me, as neither of these books are in my hands at present) that the French, in the beginning of this century, offered a very large sum of money to the government of Cairo, to be allowed to send only an advice-boat to Suez, to carry and bring back their dispatches from their settlements in India, but they were constantly refused; both the India Company and British Government are, by my means, now in possession of that privilege, and I am informed it has already been of use, both in public and private dispatches.
I must further be permitted to say, that, independent of these particulars, it seemed very strange that, considering the immense empire which belonged to Britain in the East Indies, the Company and their servants should be, to a man, so perfectly ignorant of the Red Sea and ports in it, and so indifferent as to the means of being better informed; a sea which washed the shores of their conquests, and came, at the same time, within two days journey of the Mediterranean. To my endeavours it is owing that so many ingenious gentlemen have had an opportunity of lending their hands to perfect the chart of that sea, which I hope is now in great forwardness. It would perhaps, too, have been more generous and liberal-minded in them, had they honoured the author of the liberty and safety they enjoyed, with at least a word of their approbation. Prisons and chains, ransoms, torments, and perhaps death itself, were the calamities they escaped by my preparing their way, and to this would have been added the miscarriage of their design and their undertaking likewise[53].
Copy of Mr Bruce's Letter to the Gentlemen trading to the Red Sea from the British Settlements Bombay and Bengal.