Note 187 — Chapter XI

In a conversation with the Minister at Marocco for European affairs, his Excellency asked me if, in the event of his master’s writing to his Majesty, the latter would be able to get the letter interpreted; I answered in the affirmative, and a very polite and friendly letter was afterwards written, which requested an answer; but it remained here in the Secretary of State’s office, without any attention being paid to its contents, a mark of disrespect which gave great offence to the Emperor.

It appears to me extraordinary, that a language which is spoken over a much greater extent of country than any other on earth—a language combining all the powers and energy of the Greek and Latin, should be so little understood, that an Arabic letter written by the present Emperor of Marocco, to the King of Great Britain, actually lay in the Secretary of State’s office some months without being translated. The circumstance coming to the knowledge of the Chancellor of the Exchequer (the Right Hon. Spencer Percival), that gentleman expressed a wish to a friend of mine, to have a translation, and the letter was transmitted to me for that purpose. Doctor Buffé, who delivered it, assured me, it had been sent to one, if not both Universities, and to the post-office, but that, either from a difference in the punctuation of the characters, or in the language itself, no one could be found capable of rendering it into English. This statement, however unaccountable it may appear to many, was afterwards farther confirmed, by passports and other papers in African Arabic being sent to me for translations, the want of which had detained vessels in our ports, and caused merchants in London to suffer from a loss of markets.