Bruce's Residence at Algiers as British Consul.
We have already stated that Bruce had been appointed to the consulship of Algiers, to succeed Mr. Aspinall, who had been recalled. This gentleman had, with great firmness and integrity, opposed many unjust demands made on him by the dey, who, in consequence, sent a letter to England requesting that he might be dismissed, and Mr. Ford, a British merchant, appointed in his stead. This official document, addressed "to the English vizier, Mr. Pitt," is a curious specimen of barbarous diplomacy: "My high friend: For some time past, John Ford was a merchant at Algiers, whom we desire you to appoint consul, and send him a day the sooner to us, because your consul in Algiers is an obstinate person, and like an animal!"
This Mr. Ford died in England; and Bruce, on his arrival at Algiers, presented to the old dey credentials from his Britannic majesty, graciously appointing as consul "our trusty and well-beloved James Bruce, Esq., whom, by his birth and education, as well as by his knowledge and experience, we have judged to be every way qualified for this trust."
Ali Pasha, the dey of Algiers, was one of those savage characters who, on the coast of Barbary, are very appropriately distinguished by the appellation of great men. In the history of mankind, it is curious to observe how, in the various conditions of society, different descriptions of men rise to the surface, where they remain until a moral revolution, altering their specific gravity, obliges them to sink into oblivion. In a highly-civilized community, a man rises to distinction by the estimable qualities of his nature: in an uncivilized country he climbs above his comrades by violence and cruelty. The Dey of Algiers was, therefore, well-suited to the manners of the country in which he lived. Although a very old man, Bruce found him preparing most vigorously for the siege of Oran: his tent and camp equipage were ready; and he declared it to be his intention to command in person, that, by dying at the siege of Oran, he might merit Paradise.[5] On the 1st of May, 1763, Bruce wrote to Lord Egremont to announce his arrival; and the concluding sentence of even this, his first official communication, to use a vulgar expression, "smells strongly of the shop," or, rather, of the shambles, which he was doomed to inhabit: "I have nothing farther to trouble your lordship with," says the new consul, "at present, only that the late aga was strangled a very few days ago by order of the dey, and that Amor Rais, late ambassador in England, has been deprived of his employment here as captain of the port, and is gone on a pilgrimage to Mecca."