I received a telegram a few days ago from the Minister, congratulating me on my nomination to the K.C.B. I am pleased, as Government recognises so handsomely my labours; and, after all the abuse of the Spanish Press, and even of the Spanish Government, it is a public acknowledgement that I have done some good in the cause of peace and goodwill. My ambition is now nigh satisfied, and I am quite content if this is the last handle I get to my name.
I am rather troubled with inflamed or weak eyes. I have perhaps strained them at night. I have given up reading almost entirely, and only write to earn my bread, or to retain the affections of those I love.
This eye trouble had its origin, no doubt, in the attack of influenza from which he had suffered in 1859, accompanied as it was by overstrain and work. It was further aggravated by his hurried journey to Meknes in the great heat of summer. For many years he continued to suffer, and, by the advice of eminent oculists in London and Paris, gave up all reading and writing. All his letters and dispatches were written from his dictation. Though towards the latter part of his life Sir John in great measure recovered the use of his eyes, he was always unable to read much at night, and thus endured what to him was a great deprivation.
The following extract from the Gibraltar Chronicle of July 21, 1883, concludes the history of the Moorish loan.
We are informed that a letter has been lately addressed to the Secretary of the Stock Exchange by Messrs. Robinson and Fleming, the contractors of the Moorish loan of 1862, notifying its final settlement last month. The text of the communication is as follows:—‘It affords us great pleasure to hand you enclosed the official announcement of the payment off at par, on June 26, 1883, of the total amount of the undrawn Bonds of the Loan of His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Morocco. We take this opportunity of stating that His Majesty has been careful to observe the provisions of the contract upon which the loan was issued, and we further beg to observe that Her Britannic Majesty’s Minister at Morocco, Sir J. H. Drummond Hay, K.C.B., has most kindly rendered, voluntarily and continually, his valuable services in all details connected with the loan.’ In further speaking of this loan it was observed that it is one of the only loans where no hitch of any kind had occurred, and where perfect good faith had been shown. That such has been the case all credit should be given to the Sultan, but we may also observe that the Moorish Government has been so carefully watched and kept up to the mark in its payments by our energetic Minister, that they have had no opportunity of falling into arrears. The loan was not a very big one, but the amount of detail work caused by the smallest of loans to a country such as Morocco is much greater than is generally imagined. From the first, however, the superintendence of it was undertaken by Sir John Drummond Hay without any benefit or remuneration to himself, and it has been carried through with the thoroughness which has marked throughout his long public career every measure to which he has put his hand.
CHAPTER XVI.
SIR JOHN HAY’S HOME AT TANGIER. 1862.
The British Legation at Tangier was, until 1891, situated in the town, within a few minutes walk of the shore. In 1862 it still commanded a full view of the bay and of the surrounding country; for houses before that time were built only one story high, with the exception of the residences of the Foreign Representatives, then all within the town walls.
Erected in 1791, when James Mario Matra was Consul, the old Legation was designed and built by an English architect. The narrow street, leading to it from the beach, passed the principal mosque, which, in the reign of Charles II, when Tangier was a British possession, was known as the English cathedral.
A short distance beyond the mosque the street passed under an archway from which the Legation was entered by large double doors. Inside these was the deep porch where the kavasses sat, and adjoining was a small room where one of them slept at night as guard and porter. The entrance led to a paved court surrounded by the dwelling-house and the public offices. On entering the house a great stuffed hyena, grinning round the angle of the staircase, greeted the new comer—frequently to the dismay of a native, who took it to be a living beast.