To this I replied, ‘At Your Majesty’s request, I applied in past years to the British Government for permission to allow two hundred of Your Majesty’s subjects to be sent to Gibraltar, for the purpose of being instructed in the drill and discipline of the British foot-soldier. The British Government acceded to Your Majesty’s request; a body of two hundred Moors was sent to Gibraltar and remained there between two and three years, the men being occasionally changed as they acquired a knowledge of drill. I wish to know whether Your Majesty selected these men from a superior, educated class, who had the reputation of being orderly and intelligent, or whether they were chosen after inquiry into their intelligence, past character, and behaviour?’

The Sultan replied, ‘No; the men were selected at random from various tribes, so that there might be no ground for jealousy.’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘two hundred Moors remained for nearly three years at Gibraltar. They had good clothing given them, and a quarter of a dollar (a shilling) a day was allowed each man by Your Majesty. The British Government gave them tents to live in. During the time they were stationed in Her Majesty’s garrison there were only two cases in the police court against them for dissolute conduct. Colonel Cameron, under whose superintendence they were placed, said they learnt their drill as quickly and well as Englishmen. They were sober, steady, and attentive to their duties. (“With 20,000 such men I could march to Madrid to-morrow,” said the Colonel.) This tends to show that Your Majesty’s subjects, living under a just and humane Government, having, as these had, proper provision made for their livelihood, are not a lawless or even disorderly people, and that they are capable of being transformed, under a good Government, into the grand warriors which their ancestors were in Spain.’

The Sultan smiled, and said, ‘“Hak”—True. Your arguments are certainly convincing. Point out the remedy. Select the man from amongst my Wazára (viziers), or other officers of the Court, on whom you think I could depend to introduce a new form of administration. I believe,’ he continued, ‘that if I were to tell my Wazára that, for the future, I should allot them and other officers of the Court salaries, and put a stop to bribery and peculation, they would be the first to rebel against my authority and to oppose any change in the administration.’

I replied, ‘I know not the Uzir, or other persons in authority, whom I could suggest should be employed to aid in carrying out a reform in the Government. Your Majesty—like the late Sultan Mahmud of Turkey and the great Khedive of Egypt, Mehemet Ali—will have yourself to take the sword in one hand and the balance of Justice in the other.

‘Make an example of any man who dares to oppose Your Majesty’s will and determination to improve the state of your subjects. The latter, when they learn Your Majesty’s desire for their welfare, will rise in a body to support you in getting rid of the tyrants, who are now grinding them into dust and squeezing out their life-blood.

‘In the cause of humanity and to save the lives of thousands of men, women and children, now impoverished and starved by a cruel system of extortion, Your Majesty will have to act with great severity and make a manifest example of some of the Uzirs and Bashas, thus striking terror into the hearts of other dignitaries of your Court, who may be inclined to oppose your reforms.

‘Can I speak out,’ I then asked, ‘without risk of my words being publicly reported?’

‘Speak,’ said the Sultan; ‘what passes now between us shall be kept secret.’

‘If,’ I then continued, ‘I were chief Uzir and elected by Your Majesty to carry out the proposed reforms, I should probably cause more heads to fall in a month than have been cut off during the whole of Your Majesty’s reign, and still I should feel that I was acting humanely by saving the lives and property of the innocent, and promoting the welfare and happiness of the millions over whom Your Majesty reigns. A cancerous disease can only be arrested by the knife, in the hands of a skilful and humane surgeon. But publish to the world that I have held such language, and the so-called humanitarians of my country would demand my recall as British Minister in Morocco.’