MEMOIR OP BRUCE. 
79 
more than all the perils and sufferings he had 
undergone. While consul at Algiers, he had fallen 
in love with a Scotch lady, to whom he had engaged 
himself by a promise of marriage. In all his 
wanderings he remained faithful to his engagement : 
he drank the health of Maria at the fountains of 
the Nile, and in the dreary desert her charming 
image was constantly before him. It is easy to 
conceive his mortification and sorrow when he 
found that the lady had forgotten him in his long 
absence, and w T as then at Rome, comfortably married 
to the Marchese d’Accoramboni. Bruce appeared 
without delay before the gates of the Marchese, 
and insisted that he would either apologize or fight 
him . The latter, who was entirely unconscious that 
any such engagement had ever existed, declined 
both proposals, evidently not a little uneasy at the 
idea of encountering a gaunt, weather-beaten, . sun- 
burnt savage, in stature six feet four inches good 
English measure, and with feelings doubly irritated 
with disease and disappointment. This absurd 
affair ended with a polite note from the Marchese, 
who expressed the profoundest respect for the cha- 
racter of his antagonist 
At Rome, where Bruce remained for some 
months, he received marks of particular attention 
from the nobility, and was presented by Pope Cle- 
ment XIV., the celebrated Ganganelli, with a series 
of gold medals, relating to several transactions of 
his pontificate. In the spring of 1774, he returned 
to France, and very shortly afterwards arrived in 
