The Pale Abyssinian: The Life of James Bruce, African Explorer and Adventurer

I am sorry that you are so badly off for your carnal callings [replied the victualler] but comfort yourself in your thoughts to make it up with interest when you return to Christendom. But if you should tarry longer in that cursed country then you ought to write to your friends to send you a pretty housekeeper.

To Bruce, this seemed a magnificent idea and soon came news of just such a housekeeper wending her way towards Algiers. Amazingly she had the same name as his former mother-in-law – Bridget Allen – but judging by the ‘fondest wishes’ that are sent to her by Bruce’s many correspondents with whom she stayed on her way to Algiers, she was somewhat more winsome. Her presence was brief. She died in childbirth (we can only guess who had fathered the child), in November 1765, and Bruce was once more left on his own.

He devoted the time to preparation. Dr Richard Ball, the consulate’s surgeon, spent many hours teaching his ever-curious superior the rudiments of medicine so that he would be able to look after himself in the interior. Bruce also decided that he was going to need someone to help him record the things he saw. Accordingly he wrote to Andrew Lumisden and Robert Strange – the latter having just been made an academician in Bologna – asking them to find a suitable young artist who could accompany Bruce on his travels. A search began throughout Italy for someone willing to drop everything to go travelling with an irascible Scot in unexplored country. Unsurprisingly, it took a long time. Meanwhile, Bruce was encountering problems in Algiers. He had intended to put the consulate in ‘the hands of a vice-consul, who is very able, and much esteemed’, but Forbes never had the opportunity, for Bruce was never given permission to travel whilst still consul, a source of great irritation to him since that was his sole purpose in accepting the £600 a year position in the first place. The only real difficulty in his first year would be his relations with his predecessor.

Simon Peter Cruise had been acting consul in the years between the departure of the previous office holder and Bruce’s arrival. Most of the community had united behind Cruise in his opposition to Bruce and he spent his days persuading friends to lobby for Bruce’s removal in London and spreading rumours about him in Algiers. Bruce received little support for he refused to indulge in the corruption that had enriched Cruise and the other merchants. This was a society where everyday corruption oiled the wheels of business: Bruce’s moral stance thus had a stagnatory effect on trade and met with a hostile reception from almost everyone. He took on Cruise over what most would have regarded as a trifle: a debt owed to the widow of a merchant captain which had gone missing during Cruise’s period of office. Cruise tried to fend off Bruce’s ever more virulent letters on the subject.

I said, and now repeat it to you, that if you do not furnish me with an account, or if you furnish a false one, the consequences will fall upon yourself or, as it is oftener called, upon your head. The consequences of false accounts, Mr Cruise, are not capital, but whatever they are, do not brave them. Remember what your behaviour has been to His Majesty’s consul, and to every British subject here in Algiers. In consideration of your family, I give you warning not to begin shuffling with me.

In one of Cruise’s many replies, he revealed that Bruce had challenged him to a duel: ‘I receiv’d your letter which you may believe surprised me much, as it contains nothing less than a challenge to fight you at your or my garden.’

Worse was to come. The previously peaceful posting was about to dissolve into anarchy.

As has been mentioned, Algiers was ruled by a Dey – on behalf of the Turks – and under him was a divan (a type of cabinet of advisers). In previous centuries, the Dey had been an all-powerful figure – obeyed on pain of death and utterly ruthless in his dealings – but as the strength of the city state began to ebb away, so too did the power of the office. By Bruce’s time the Dey was as good as subject to the wishes of the divan and the divan, whilst still high-handed, was at least conscious of the wishes of the people. At this time, the people – already victims of famine – were growing increasingly angry with the British. Britain conducted a great deal of trade in Algiers and the Mediterranean but by virtue of the treaty of 1682 they paid very little for the privilege. British ships were issued with passports (known as passavants) that were recognized by the Algerian corsairs. Any ship that could not produce a passport was legitimate bounty for the pirates. The French and Spanish, however, had found a way around this and thus the people of Algiers, who survived primarily on piracy, were earning less and less every year.

In 1756, the French had briefly captured Mahon, then a significant British port. Admiral John Byng was executed for failing to hold it, thus inspiring Voltaire’s joke in Candide: ‘il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres’. The French captors discovered some passavants in the commander’s office, copied them and gave them to their own and their allies’ ships. Spanish and French sailors had been sailing unmolested under British passavants ever since. Each time a French or Spanish ship was stopped by pirates or boarded in port they would produce their British passavants and the Algerians would grudgingly have to let them through. It was soon noticed, though, that none of them spoke English.

One such ship was brought to Algiers under tow and Bruce told the Algerian corsairs that indeed they were right, this was not an English ship, thereby condemning the entire crew to slavery. This he described as a ‘disagreeable necessity’ but it was not disagreeable enough to stop him from repeating it twice. His actions drew the attention of the Algerian mob – already irritated by the little revenue they were earning from the British – and conflict loomed. Not comprehending the depth of the enmity between France and Britain, the Algerians suspected that the British were giving passports to anyone. At the same time the British Admiralty decided to act. Their solution was to change the design of the passavants and issue British ships with new and different ones. It had not occurred to the sea lords that the old ones were recognized by sight rather than by being read by the illiterate corsairs. With the famine crazed mob baying for blood and the divan divided as to what should be done, Bruce swaggered upon the scene, behaving as though, should the Algerians not obey his wishes, the entire might of the British Navy would be brought down upon their unfortunate heads.

There were two schools of thought within the divan: the doves were led by Aga Mahomet, who liked Bruce and realized that challenging the British was not a very safe course of action even if he did suspect that the consul was all bluster and no bellows. The Dey himself, with the backing of the mob, was hawkish. The merchants in the European community at Algiers were also less than helpful, having been manipulated by the embezzler Cruise, and soon Bruce was mired in trouble. In May 1764, Bruce had asked leave to resign and been turned down: he could therefore not be dismissed. In June the Dey pricked Bruce’s pride and gave him the impetus to carry on. The Dey, Bruce was informed, had appointed a slave to act as British consul and had sent a pithy missive to Mr Pitt in which he insisted that Bruce be replaced: ‘Your consul in Algiers is an obstinate person and like a b—; and does not regard your affairs,’ it said.

Bruce dared not walk the streets, and the Foreign Office, preoccupied with rather more important matters, gave him no guidance. In July the situation became worse when the Dey announced that all British shipping would now be subject to pillage and the crews enslaved. Bruce managed to get messages to the other ports in the Mediterranean, warning British merchants not to approach Algiers, but it was too late for one ship. He wrote to Halifax, pleading for instruction:

This morning early, the master of the above-mentioned vessel, and the supercargo, were carried before the Dey, and in order to extort a confession if they had secreted any effects, were bastinadoed over the feet and loins in such a manner that the blood gushed out, and then loaded with heavy chains: The captain, it is thought, cannot recover. I have likewise received from a friend some insinuations, that I am in danger and advice to fly; but as it was not the prospect of pay, or want of fortune, that induced me to accept of this employment, so will I not abandon it from fears or any motives unworthy a gentleman. One brother has this war already had the honour of dying in his Majesty’s service [Robert Wood had told Bruce in a letter to Horace Mann’s consulate at Leghorn that ‘I am sorry to acquaint you that Mr Bruce died of his wounds at Havanna’], two more are still in it, and all I hope is, if any accident befall me, as is hourly probable, his Majesty will be favourable to the survivors of a family that has always served him faithfully.

Still no word came from Whitehall despite repeated letters in which Bruce called for task forces to be dispatched and a decision to be made about the new passavants. A month later, on 15 August, the Dey ordered Bruce to leave on pain of death, no idle threat in a state where the prime minister had been strangled in front of Bruce on the orders of the divan and consuls of less favoured countries were often whipped and made to pull carts through the streets.

Bruce was, however, soon restored to his post. The consul’s bluster combined with Aga Mahomet’s lobbying on his behalf produced a change of heart in the divan. Aga Mahomet was not convinced by Bruce’s threats but he was aware that the city state was vulnerable to attack from the powerful British Navy and convinced the allies of the danger.

After their prayers, the whole of the great officers went to the king, and openly declared to him that the dismissing of me was a matter of too great consequence to be determined without their consent; all of them put him in mind of the constant good behaviour of the English, and of their inability to resist our force, and the impossibility of thinking of peace after I was gone.

In September Bruce received a letter from Halifax commending him on his conduct of the crisis. With better communications, the proud diplomat would undoubtedly have been fired for putting such an important trading route in jeopardy but instead he managed to save his skin – literally – and solve the problem before he could be dismissed. Halifax would allow Bruce to resign as soon as a replacement could be found and the relationship between the two could remain cordial, even affectionate. Halifax went so far as to write the letter himself rather than dictating to a secretary.

I cannot close my letter without giving you the satisfaction of knowing, that the prudent and judicious manner in which you have conducted yourself throughout the whole of the disagreeable circumstances you relate in your several letters, and the measures you took to prevent the ill consequences that might have resulted from them, have met with the king’s gracious approbation; and it is not doubted but you will continue to exert your utmost diligence and abilities for his majesty’s service.

I have not omitted to lay your request before the king [to resign], and shall not fail to provide for your return to England as soon as it can be done consistently with the good of his majesty’s service.

This episode was really the last time Bruce had to act on behalf of the crown. It was almost a year before he left Algiers but, soon after Halifax’s letter of September, Bruce received notice that he would be replaced by Robert Kirke who would answer – unlike Bruce who had been neglected by him – to Captain Cleveland, the ambassador to all the Barbary States. Another treaty would be drawn up but Bruce would not be invited to help formulate it.

Slighted and beginning to believe the rumours that Cruise’s friends and Consul Duncan, the Dey’s representative at St James’s, had succeeded in blackening his name at home, Bruce devoted his days to hunting, training his gun dogs and getting himself properly equipped for the travels upon which it seemed he would now have to embark in a private capacity. He spent many hours interviewing traders and sailors, trying to find out all he could about the Red Sea and, when possible, Abyssinia. He studied his books and wrote to the Foreign Office seeking leave to depart his post, but even his most sycophantic letters received either no reply at all or replies that ignored his requests. By November he was engaged in undignified begging:

But as I hope your lordship thinks, from my attention to late transactions, I am not wholly unworthy of a small vacation, so I know it not to be unprecedented. Mr Dick, consul at Leghorn, received this permission while I was in Italy, though his journey had no other motive than that of pleasure, and I hope mine will not be unprofitable to the arts. There is, in this country, ruinous architecture enough to compose two considerable volumes. If, after obtaining this leave of absence, I could obtain another favour from your lordship, I should beg that I might have the honour to dedicate the first volume to the king, and that, from your lordship’s further goodness, I might have liberty to inscribe the second volume to your lordship.

He must desperately have been seeking leave to depart to have written so uncharacteristic a letter. But by now he was longing for travel and – rich enough to attempt it alone – he was as prepared as he ever would be. Throughout his time in Algiers he had acted in a dignified and resolute manner. It may not have been to the Dey’s liking from a commercial point of view but he could not help but admire the bluff Scotsman who refused to be bribed or intimidated. Thus he gave Bruce letters of introduction to his counterparts around the region which would make his tour of North Africa a great deal easier. Bruce’s friends Strange and Lumisden had also come up trumps: after much searching an artist had been found who would accompany Bruce for a year (he eventually stayed for six). Two others had considered the job but Lumisden had found it hard to persuade someone to ‘depart an easy life’ and embark for unknown shores. Strange wrote to say that Luigi Balugani – a fellow academician at Bologna – would accept the job.

This young man will be able to serve you in your present undertaking. He is certainly the best qualified of any I can find here. He has lived several years in Rome in the house of Conte Ranuzzi of Bologna. This gentleman gives him the best of characters to private life as well as diligence [an excellent recommendation since Bruce had met and liked Ranuzzi in Rome] … Balugani engages to serve you a year at the rate of 35 scudi a month. What he seems most defective in is figures, in which you must assist him yourself or have them afterwards retouched.

Balugani arrived in Algiers in March 1765 and in April Bruce was relieved of his duties. Cleveland came to Algiers with Robert Kirke and the pair ignored all Bruce’s advice to them, declining to meet him and even reappointing Cruise as vice-consul. It was a humiliation for the proud consul but he could not protest overmuch as it was what he himself desired. George Lawrence, the consul at Mahon, wrote to him: ‘Congratulations on getting rid of an employment which had so long become disagreeable to you.’ He had not been a very good consul though later commentators have been unnecessarily harsh.

The consulate was conferred on James Bruce solely to study antiquities in Africa [said Godfrey Fisher] and he was sent through France under a safe conduct to examine classical remains in Italy before reaching Algiers after the war. In spite of some likeable qualities, he was arrogant and irascible and, judging by his letters there may be some reason to question his mental stability. While he frantically summoned warships to his aid, he speaks in high terms of the Dey’s treatment of him … his successor complained that he had left ‘everything relative to publick affairs in much confusion and strangely neglected’.

This may be true although the British government, which had sent Bruce to study antiquities, surely had some share of the responsibility for his failure in a task he was neither trained for nor inclined to do. At least he was treated somewhat better than his predecessor and did well enough to get paid. The previous consul, Stanhope Aspinwall, spent five years in penury before he secured his pension, writing to Egremont (Halifax’s predecessor) in 1763:

Having been removed from being the King’s agent and consul at Algiers (in reaction to a letter from the Dey that I was unacceptable to him) without any the least previous notice, and left to get home as well as I could with a wife and numerous family, in winter and in time of war, I was many months in England soliciting the Earl of Bute but in vain …

Those following fared little better, for Algiers was a notoriously difficult post. The Dey often contrived to have consuls dismissed so as to leave him free to appoint his own. Kirke was soon recalled to Britain after Commodore Harrison, the Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean, reported him for corruption and dereliction of duty. Sir Robert Playfair (consul general in Algiers 100 years later and a Bruce enthusiast) wrote of the fate of Kirke’s successor, LeGros, who was driven to suicide by the difficulty of the posting: ‘He “met with a misfortune that made it impossible for him to execute that employment”, and the last we hear of him is that “he was sitting on a bed, with a sword and a brace of pistols at his side, calling for a clergyman to give him the Sacraments that he may die contented”.’

Bruce made sure that Halifax knew what he thought of his treatment: ‘I only very heartily regret with shame to myself that with my utmost diligence and attention I have not been able to merit of your Lordship the same marks of confidence constantly bestowed upon my predecessors in office,’ and in August he gave up diplomacy for good to set off on his travels. It was a chastened Bruce who left Algiers to record the ruins of ancient civilizations in which Halifax and the king had shown such interest: the merchants of Algiers heaved a collective sigh of relief.

The erstwhile consul first made for Mahon – just opposite Algiers, in the Mediterranean – where he had to attend to some ‘business of a private nature’. If, as seems likely, this was to do with Bridget Allan’s child it would have required all of his meagre diplomatic skills. His ‘housekeeper’ having died in quarantine on a visit from Algiers to Minorca, a man called Giovanni Porcile, who had been looking after the child, was demanding payment. Bruce was soon on his way back to Africa where he visited only a few ancient sites before going on to Tunis. He had learned the advantage of establishing credentials whilst in Algiers and wanted to meet the Bey before he started his exploratory tour. Carthage only occupied him for a few hours, since he knew he would be able to return with the Bey’s help whenever he wished. In Tunis, Barthélèmy de Saisieu, the French consul, provided him with a guide and ten ‘horse-soldiers, well armed with fire-locks and pistols, excellent horsemen, and, as far as I could ever discern upon the few occasions that presented, as eminent for cowardice, at least, as they were for horsemanship’. This small army proved to be quite useless when it was actually needed a few weeks later.

It was a fair match between coward and coward. With my company, I was enclosed in a square in which three temples stood [at the ruins of Spaitla], where there yet remained a precinct of high walls. These plunderers would have come in to me, but were afraid of my firearms; and I would have run away from them, had I not been afraid of meeting their horse in the plain. I was almost starved to death, when I was relieved by the arrival of Welled Hassan and a friendly tribe of Dreeda.

Bruce also had ten servants, two of whom were Irish slaves – Hugh and Roger McCormack – given him as a going away present by the Dey of Algiers (though formerly soldiers in the Spanish army, he was still referring to them as slaves a year later). He was also given a covered cart in which to put his astronomical instruments and other equipment; it was quite a caravan that made its way from Tunis inland, back towards Algiers. Bruce’s plan was twofold. He wanted to test his safari equipment – amongst which he doubtless included the artist Balugani – and he wished to record as many ancient ruins as he could. Thomas Shaw – an adventurous Oxford don and author of Travels or Observations Relating to Several Parts of Barbary and the Levant – had written about some of the ruins on the north coast of Africa but had missed out a great many others. Bruce wanted to venture where Shaw had not, paint pictures and then present the whole to the king, thus satisfying his own curiosity and simultaneously securing a peerage or a baronetcy for his dotage. They had permission to travel anywhere and took full advantage of it. They had two camera obscura, mirrored boxes, used contemporaneously by Canaletto, which by reflecting the scene on to paper allowed artists inside to trace exactly the outlines of the ruins they observed. It is astonishing how many paintings the two made: three bound volumes were given to George III on Bruce’s return. He kept some and gave others to friends. He quarrelled constantly with Dr Shaw’s artistic opinions: ‘There is at Thunodrunum a triumphal arch, which Dr Shaw thinks is more remarkable for its size than for its taste of execution; but the size is not extraordinary; on the other hand, both taste and execution are admirable,’ and criticized his work: ‘Doctor Shaw, struck with the magnificence of Spaitla, has attempted something like the three temples, in a style much like what one would expect from an ordinary carpenter or mason.’

Always contrary, Bruce was happy to have differences of opinion but he went out of his way to defend Shaw’s honour in the Travels, relating a story he knew would not be believed in order to show solidarity with his peer. At Sidi Booganim he came across a tribe which ate lions’ flesh. At the first opportunity, he tucked in: ‘The first was a he-lion, lean, tough, smelling violently of musk, and had the taste which, I imagine old horse-flesh would have … The third was a lion’s whelp, six or seven months old; it tasted, upon the whole, the worst of the three.’

Bruce was being deliberately provocative when he wrote about this in the Travels. Shaw had told a similar story when he had returned to Oxford twenty years earlier and no one had believed him. Now Bruce was doing the same. By the time of writing Bruce had also been severely criticized by those who did not believe him and, although he disagreed with Shaw on points of taste, he wanted to show solidarity on points of belief. This was an age when most people did not know what a lion looked like, save possibly in heraldry. Twenty-five years later Stubbs was to portray male lions stalking and tearing chunks out of horses – anatomically correct but not behaviourally so. Lions were still more mystical than real – they could only be seen by prisoners at the Tower of London – and no one could believe that men would or could eat the king of beasts. Thus, no one believed Bruce when he returned. Some of his stories – which seem unremarkable to us now – were judged too outlandish to be true. Bruce thus laboured the point in his book: ‘With all submission to that learned university, I will not dispute the lion’s title to eating men; but, since it is not founded upon patent, no consideration will make me stifle the merit of the Welled Sidi Boogannim, who have turned the chace [sic] upon the enemy.’

They continued their march up and down the Medjerda valley, through wheat fields that had fed ancient Rome, visiting Hydra and Constantina across lands which had seen Caesar and Hannibal, the Ptolemies and Pompey. Greeks, Romans, Egyptians – all had been there before him and left impressive traces in what, though described in ancient texts, was now the unknown world. Bruce noted all the ruins until the great amphitheatre at El Gemme, confident that the king would be grateful to his loyal subject. After all, it was not long ago that court painters and sculptors had been in the habit of depicting their kings in the guise of Roman emperors. Given the royal preoccupation with the lives of the ancient emperors and the current fascination with archaeology, these were ruins in which regal interest should be guaranteed and, accordingly, he did a thorough job: ‘I believe I may confidently say, there is not, either in the territories of Algiers or Tunis, a fragment of good taste of which I have not brought a drawing to Britain.’