adams-john10 Neal MillikanAmerican
RevolutionForeign RelationsHealth and IllnessRecreationSlavery and Enslaved Persons
389
13. IV:30. I am not yet extricated from the fangs of the
Protagoras; but like a bird
fascinated by a Serpent, flutter round and round it making continual and
fruitless efforts to escape from it— Oh! for a practical knowledge of
the proper time, for each thing under the Sun— This morning I bathed in
the river alone— At the Office Captain
Mullowney appointed Consul to the Empire of Morocco came
for Instructions. It is an Office in which there is scarcely ever 390any duty to be performed— There are scarcely
three American vessels in a year, that enter any of the Ports of
Morocco; and Simpson’s official
functions for several years have been confined to drawing for his
Salary; and for occasional presents to the Emperor and his family; and ransoming here and there a
ship wrecked American Seaman from the wandering Arabs who make slaves of
them— Simpson died last March of an apoplexy. Mullowney has been
appointed in his place, and I thought it sufficient to send him the
standing printed Consular Instructions— But these do not satisfy him and
he has come to claim others— I was obliged to ransack all Simpson’s
Correspondence of late years to find materials for an Instruction, which
I began but did not finish. The intense heat of the weather still
continues— Successive visits from Mr Roth, the Chargé d’Affaires,
and from Mr
Petry Consul General of France, absorbed the Evening— A
morning visit at the Office from Mr A. M’Lane Collector of the
Port of Wilmington in the State of Delaware, father of one of the members of Congress from that
State, and an old military Revolutionary Officer should not have escaped
my notice.
