This convention was hailed with much satisfaction by British merchants, and was eventually adopted by all other nations. Mr. Hay received, in July 1857, a deputation from the Gibraltar Chamber of Commerce, who expressed their gratitude for his ‘unwearied efforts on behalf of trade, and for the prompt and courteous manner in which he invariably treated any representations made by that body.’
The Queen was pleased to make Mr. Hay a C.B. on the conclusion of his labours in connexion with this Treaty.
CHAPTER XIII.
BENABU. 1857.
In December 1857, Mr. Hay writes to his sister-in-law:—
Poor Benabu has been arrested at Fas by the Sultan and imprisoned. All his property has been confiscated except the house in which he lived. The property and jewels of his wives have not yet been touched.
To the surprise of everybody the Sultan has appointed, in Benabu’s place as Basha, the youngest son of the former governor of Tangier, Alarbi el Saidi. He was a bookbinder and very poor, but no sooner did he get the Sultan’s letter, than he assumed the reins of power well, and with the dignity of a grandee. We are already good friends.
The story of Benabu, whose sudden downfall is here alluded to, deserves, we think, to be repeated.
The Basha of Tangier, Kaid Mohammed Ben Abdelmalek, better known as ‘Benabu’ (Anglice, the son of his father), was Governor of that province in the year 1857. He had previously held the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Sultan’s Cavalry, was distinguished for bravery when His Sherifian Majesty, whom, it is believed, ‘Allah protects,’ marched annually against rebellious tribes ‘to eat them up,’ an expression very significative of a Moorish monarch’s plan of campaign.
Benabu had also been for many years Governor-General of the Rif Provinces. He was a Rifian by extraction, as are most of the inhabitants of Tangier. One of his ancestors, in the time of Charles II, when the English were in possession of Tangier, commanded an army sent to invade that place. In a sanguinary conflict which took place between the Moors and the English, when the latter stormed the heights where the Moorish forces had encamped above the river of Bubána, about two miles from Tangier, Benabu’s ancestor was killed.