576 



MOROCCO. 



MORTON, LEVI PARSONS, 



upon the Sultan's dominions. The Spanish 

 Government was the only one whose dealings 

 with the Sultan had been marked throughout 

 with sincerity and justice. The conference at 

 Madrid was rendered practically abortive by 

 France's refusal to accede to the proposals on 

 behalf of Morocco made by Spain, and then 

 supported by Great Britain. The Spanish lega- 

 tion at Tangier is the only one that has kept 

 itself entirely clean from the illegitimate use 

 of the right of protection, and the Spanish 

 Government has consistently urged the justice 

 of the Sultan's demand that foreign protection 

 should be done away with. England acknowl- 

 edged the evils of the system, but refused to 

 consider proposals for remedying them, except 

 in return for substantial commercial conces- 

 sions, and in this position was supported by 

 several other powers. The Spanish minister 

 to Morocco then endeavored to persuade Muley 

 Hassan to concede the demands of the powers, 

 the meeting of the proposed conference being 

 postponed from time to time, but could not in- 

 duce him to throw the country open to foreign 

 capital and enterprise. A new rebellion of 

 more formidable dimensions than that of 188V, 

 followed by a recurrence of the Sultan's sick- 

 ness, interrupted the negotiations, and caused 

 the conference to be indefinitely postponed. 



Outrages on Europeans. Owing to the failure 

 of the conference negotiations and the exhi- 

 bition of discord among the Christian powers, 

 or to the unsettled condition of the country 

 resulting from rebellions and the precarious 

 health of the Sultan, the Moors were more 

 insolent toward Christians in 1888 than they 

 had been for many years. British proteges 

 were stripped of their possessions, imprisoned, 

 and tortured by order of the kaids. An 

 American protege was arrested at Rabat, and 

 the American Consul- General demanded his 

 release, which the Moorish authorities refused 

 to grant, on the ground that a suit was pend- 

 ing against him when the protection was is- 

 sued. The matter was finally submitted to the 

 decision of arbitrators. Numerous other out- 

 rages were reported. 



Revolt of Berber Tribes. The warlike mount- 

 aineers inhabiting the Beni M'Gilol hills on 

 the northern slope of the Atlas, have never 

 been subdued. They boast that eleven sultans 

 have entered their territory, and that only two 

 of them returned alive. The Sultan Muley 

 Hassan, who had extended the boundaries of 

 his dominions in some directions, and aims at 

 a confederation of the Mohammedan states of 

 the Western Soudan as far as Timbuctoo, re- 

 solved to conquer this troublesome tribe, \\ Inch 

 still clings to the Drissian dynasty, having in 

 its midst a pretender, and became aggressive 

 when the ferment pervaded Morocco that was 

 caused by the Sultan'-; iilnc-ss. Muley Has- 

 san, who was at Mcquinez, took the field with 

 his army in the summer, and after two months 

 of almost daily fighting, during which his army 

 was twice nearly cut in two, he succeeded, as 



he supposed, in putting down the revolt, visited 

 cruel vengeance on the kabylas that were re- 

 duced to submission, placed governors over 

 the conquered districts, and marched toward 

 the seacoast with the intention of making a 

 promised visit to Tangier, which he had never 

 seen. Kaid Maclean, the English officer who 

 instructs his troops and commands the cav- 

 alry, was left at Fez with a part of the army, 

 in order to quell any fresh outbreak. In Sep- 

 tember the Sultan, who had reached the bor- 

 ders of the Zimouri and Beni Hassan country, 

 received intelligence of a fresh rising of the 

 tribes, and of the massacre of his cousin Muley 

 Souro, who had been entrapped in an ambush 

 and, with 300 of his followers, was put to the 

 sword. Muley Hassan immediately set out 

 upon an expedition to avenge his cousin's 

 death. The tribes rose in the rear of the Sul- 

 tan's army, exasperated by the taxes he had 

 levied on them to maintain his army of 70,000 

 men, the troops, perishing of starvation, de- 

 serted in large numbers, the enemy attacked 

 him in front, and at last Muley Hassan found 

 himself far in the hills, with neither food nor 

 ammunition. Kaid Maclean was shut up in Fez 

 by the Beni M'Gilol tribe, who were joined by 

 others in that region. The Sultan had excited 

 general indignation by ordering all the mem- 

 bers of a certain tribe to be beheaded, on the 

 mistaken supposition that they were concerned 

 in the massacre of his cousin's force. Messen- 

 gers reached Tangier at last, and Sir "William 

 Kirby Green, the British minister, obtained 

 from the Governor of Gibraltar 150 rounds of 

 ammunition, which he sent to Fez. Kaid 

 Maclean broke through the Beni M'Gilol tribe 

 who besieged Fez, and reached the Sultan's 

 camp with the ammunition. Muley Hassan 

 then abandoned the expedition. 



MORTON, LEVI PARSONS, Vice-President of 

 the United States, born in Shoreham, Vt., May 

 16, 1824. His first ancestor was George Mor- 

 ton, who came in the ship " Ann " from Eng- 

 land, and landed at Plymouth in 1623. The 

 Morton family afterward settled at Middlebor- 

 ough, Mass. Mr. Morton's father, the Rev. 

 Daniel Oliver Morton, was a Congregational 

 minister, and his mother, Lucretia Parsons, was 

 the daughter of the Rev. Justin Parsons, while 

 her brother, for whom the Vice-President was 

 named, was the first American missionary to 

 Palestine. The Rev. Mr. Morton sent his eldest 

 son to college, but even the marvelous economy 

 of a New England minister's family could not 

 make the few hundred dollars of -salary stretch 

 far enough to cover the second boy's expenses, 

 and after partly preparing Levi for Middle- 

 bury College, the father reluctantly consented 

 to let him go as clerk into a store at Enfield, 

 Mass., where he remained for two years. He 

 was then sixteen years old, and returning to 

 his home, which had been removed to Bristol, 

 N. II., he taught a district school for a while, 

 and then, at the age of seventeen, entered the 

 store of a Mr. Esterbrook, in Concord. His 



