Account book for servant’s wages, kept by James Sampson, agent and consul general of the king of Great Britain for the dominions of Sultan Mohammed Ben Abdellah al-Khatib of Morocco, manuscript in English with Arabic signatures, on paper [Morocco (Tetuan) and Gibraltar, 1771-72] 14 leaves (including 4 blank), with entries added at various times in a clearly legible and scrolling hand in brown ink, endleaves with scribbled accounts and a short modern printed description, smudges and small stains, last leaf becoming loose, 195 by 155mm., original binding of parchment over pasteboards (somewhat battered), with “1855 / Foreign Letter / Book / 22” upside down in pen on back cover This slim volume offers a snapshot of an eighteenth-century traveller from Devon to the court of Sultan Mohammed Ben Abdellah al-Khatib in Morocco. This sultan was a progressive and open ruler, who signed peace treaties with several European powers, allowing their officials to open embassies there and engineers and craftsmen to settle from those countries. Incidentally, in 1777, he was the first ruler to recognise the United States as an independent nation. James Sampson was the son of a Baptist minister at Tiverton, and had served as ambassador to the Dey of Algiers before taking up his post in attendance of the Moroccan court. The entries here originated during the second of these offices. Each consists of a brief records of services and monies paid, followed by the autograph signature of the receiver of the funds. Many of these are Italians (Raphaello Benedetto, Lucho delle Piane and Giacomo Marenco, among others), or other Europeans (an apparently illiterate Thomas Penco signs with the mark of a cross on fol. 2v, as does a Catharine Rodriges on fol.3v and 5v-6r), but what is perhaps most fascinating is the repeated appearance of an Arabic servant’s name in shaky signatures in Arabic followed by the original scribe’s notes in the form “the Arabic name of Mohamed Fidel”. The records begin with a large sum received from the British crown, some “sixty pounds sterling” (fol. 1v), and after a few records of payments in “dollars [of] Gibraltar currency” (fol. 1r), most are then made in local currencies: ‘cobs and ounces’ and ‘blanquins’. In February 1772, Sampson had clearly moved to Gibraltar, keeping some of his staff in tow, and making a payment to an Englishman named Isaac Charles. The last pages of the account contain copies of more lengthy legal documents in other hands, which show that in the early 1800s it (and presumably he) had returned home via Bristol to Tiverton, and by the time of its inscription on its back pastedown, the White Ball Inn in nearby Sampford Arundel.
Account book for servant’s wages, kept by James Sampson, agent and consul general of the king of Great Britain for the dominions of Sultan Mohammed Ben Abdellah al-Khatib of Morocco, manuscript in English with Arabic signatures, on paper [Morocco (Tetuan) and Gibraltar, 1771-72] 14 leaves (including 4 blank), with entries added at various times in a clearly legible and scrolling hand in brown ink, endleaves with scribbled accounts and a short modern printed description, smudges and small stains, last leaf becoming loose, 195 by 155mm., original binding of parchment over pasteboards (somewhat battered), with “1855 / Foreign Letter / Book / 22” upside down in pen on back cover This slim volume offers a snapshot of an eighteenth-century traveller from Devon to the court of Sultan Mohammed Ben Abdellah al-Khatib in Morocco. This sultan was a progressive and open ruler, who signed peace treaties with several European powers, allowing their officials to open embassies there and engineers and craftsmen to settle from those countries. Incidentally, in 1777, he was the first ruler to recognise the United States as an independent nation. James Sampson was the son of a Baptist minister at Tiverton, and had served as ambassador to the Dey of Algiers before taking up his post in attendance of the Moroccan court. The entries here originated during the second of these offices. Each consists of a brief records of services and monies paid, followed by the autograph signature of the receiver of the funds. Many of these are Italians (Raphaello Benedetto, Lucho delle Piane and Giacomo Marenco, among others), or other Europeans (an apparently illiterate Thomas Penco signs with the mark of a cross on fol. 2v, as does a Catharine Rodriges on fol.3v and 5v-6r), but what is perhaps most fascinating is the repeated appearance of an Arabic servant’s name in shaky signatures in Arabic followed by the original scribe’s notes in the form “the Arabic name of Mohamed Fidel”. The records begin with a large sum received from the British crown, some “sixty pounds sterling” (fol. 1v), and after a few records of payments in “dollars [of] Gibraltar currency” (fol. 1r), most are then made in local currencies: ‘cobs and ounces’ and ‘blanquins’. In February 1772, Sampson had clearly moved to Gibraltar, keeping some of his staff in tow, and making a payment to an Englishman named Isaac Charles. The last pages of the account contain copies of more lengthy legal documents in other hands, which show that in the early 1800s it (and presumably he) had returned home via Bristol to Tiverton, and by the time of its inscription on its back pastedown, the White Ball Inn in nearby Sampford Arundel.
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.jpg "Quelle: Christie's")
.jpg "Quelle: Christie's")
