Only fancy what a shell has burst on me, scattering all my plans, especially as last week I received my four months leave in full form! The fact is that affairs in Europe are in such a state that Government wishes every man, I suppose, to be at his post, ready to do his best in the moment of danger. Morocco is ticklish ground, and it is here we might be exposed to a movement on the part of France, which might prove a severe check to us in our naval preponderance in the Mediterranean.
In a similar strain he writes again on his birthday:—
Here I am, again, all alone on the 1st of June. I miss you and the children more than ever; but I know there are yearning hearts and thoughts for me on this day, and that I am not forgotten.
By way of amusing me, I have just received from Government a dispatch telling me to report upon a bundle of false allegations made against me by two discontented merchants of Mogador. I am put out, and yet pleased, at having an opportunity to let Lord Malmesbury know what I have done, in contradiction of what these folk accuse me of not having done. I hear also of a virulent article, or letter, which has appeared in the Daily News against me. The Gibraltar merchants are very angry at the attack upon me, and I daresay they will defend me without my saying a word—at least, I flatter myself they will.
He was not mistaken in his hope that his conduct would find defenders at Gibraltar. Three weeks later he writes:—
I think I have told you I received a very handsome letter from the Gibraltar merchants, quoting a resolution, dated June 1, in which, amongst other compliments, they resolved, ‘That this Committee desires to express its strong disapproval of the tone in which the letter in the Daily News of April 24 is couched—casting reflections upon Her Majesty’s Chargé d’Affaires, Mr. Drummond Hay—and its dissent from the opinions expressed by the writer with reference to the late Treaty with Morocco. . . . That this Committee desires at once to place on record its most grateful appreciation of Mr. Hay’s eminent public services in the protection and support of British subjects in Morocco, and for his prompt and courteous attention to the demands and complaints of British subjects.’
So you see the abuse of two men calls forth the praise of many others, and I am the gainer.
He had the further satisfaction of knowing that the British Government approved of his opinions with regard to Morocco affairs. ‘Government,’ he says, ‘are carrying out all my plans. My only fear is, if they attempt to do too much, the whole crumbling fabric of Moorish Government will tumble about our ears. Lord Malmesbury is now beginning to approve of all I do.’
At this time a mark of the Sultan’s appreciation of Mr. Hay was shown by a curious gift.
The Sultan has just sent me a present of a most beautiful leopard. Fat, sleek, and tame as a cat. He is chained up in the stable. I shall give him to the Queen, or to the Zoo gardens, which will be the same thing. I wish you and the children were here to see the beautiful creature.