The Strauss-Krüger Correspondence

Susan Meld Shell

Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://textbookfull.com/product/the-strauss-kruger-correspondence-susan-meld-shell/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Correspondence Analysis in Practice, Third Edition

Greenacre

https://textbookfull.com/product/correspondence-analysis-in-
practice-third-edition-greenacre/

Nadia Boulanger and the Stravinskys A Selected

Correspondence Kimberly A. Francis

https://textbookfull.com/product/nadia-boulanger-and-the-
stravinskys-a-selected-correspondence-kimberly-a-francis/

Mastering Linux Shell Scripting a practical guide to

Linux command line Bash scripting and Shell programming
Ebrahim

https://textbookfull.com/product/mastering-linux-shell-scripting-
a-practical-guide-to-linux-command-line-bash-scripting-and-shell-
programming-ebrahim/

E marketing Seventh International Edition Judy Strauss

https://textbookfull.com/product/e-marketing-seventh-
international-edition-judy-strauss/
The Correspondence of Erasmus: Letters 2357 to 2471 1st
Edition Desiderius Erasmus

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-correspondence-of-erasmus-
letters-2357-to-2471-1st-edition-desiderius-erasmus/

Shakespeare and Religion The Arden Critical Companions

1st Edition Alison Shell

https://textbookfull.com/product/shakespeare-and-religion-the-
arden-critical-companions-1st-edition-alison-shell/

Leo Strauss Between Weimar and America Adi Armon

https://textbookfull.com/product/leo-strauss-between-weimar-and-
america-adi-armon/

Defending NATO's Northern Flank First Edition Lon

Strauss

https://textbookfull.com/product/defending-natos-northern-flank-
first-edition-lon-strauss/

The Kremlin Letters Stalin s Wartime Correspondence

with Churchill and Roosevelt David Reynolds

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-kremlin-letters-stalin-s-
wartime-correspondence-with-churchill-and-roosevelt-david-
reynolds/
THE STRAUSS-KRÜGER
CORRESPONDENCE
Returning to Plato through Kant
EDITED BY
SUSAN MELD SHELL
Recovering Political Philosophy

Series Editors
Timothy W. Burns
Baylor University
Waco, TX, USA

Thomas L. Pangle
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX, USA
Postmodernism’s challenge to the possibility of a rational foundation for
and guidance of our political lives has provoked a searching re-­examination
of the works of past political philosophers. The re-examination seeks to
recover the ancient or classical grounding for civic reason and to clarify the
strengths and weaknesses of modern philosophic rationalism. This series
responds to this ferment by making available outstanding new scholarship
in the history of political philosophy, scholarship that is inspired by the
rediscovery of the diverse rhetorical strategies employed by political
philosophers. The series features interpretive studies attentive to historical
context and language, and to the ways in which censorship and didactic
concern impelled prudent thinkers, in widely diverse cultural conditions,
to employ manifold strategies of writing, strategies that allowed them to
aim at different audiences with various degrees of openness to unconven-
tional thinking. Recovering Political Philosophy emphasizes the close
reading of ancient, medieval, early modern and late modern works that
illuminate the human condition by attempting to answer its deepest,
enduring questions, and that have (in the modern periods) laid the
foundations for contemporary political, social, and economic life. The
editors encourage manuscripts from both established and emerging schol-
ars who focus on the careful study of texts, either through analysis of a
single work or through thematic study of a problem or question in a num-
ber of works.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14517
 Susan Meld Shell
Editor

The Strauss-Krüger
Correspondence
Returning to Plato through Kant
Editor
Susan Meld Shell
Department of Political Science
Boston College
Chestnut Hill, MA, USA

The English translation of Leo Strauss: Gesammelte Schriften, Volume 3,

Chapter “Korrespondenz Leo Strauss – Gerhard Krüger”, pp. 377-454, 2008,
Heinrich Meier and Wiebke Meier (Ed.), Verlag J.B. Metzler, Stuttgart is
translated with permission © Springer Nature. All Rights Reserved.

Recovering Political Philosophy

ISBN 978-3-319-74200-7    ISBN 978-3-319-74201-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74201-4

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018931915

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to
the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
institutional affiliations.

Cover credit: Tjaša Krivec

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer

International Publishing AG part of Springer Nature.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Series Editor Preface

Palgrave’s Recovering Political Philosophy series was founded with an eye to

postmodernism’s challenge to the possibility of a rational foundation for
and guidance of our political lives. This invigorating challenge has pro-
voked a searching re-examination of classic texts, not only of political phi-
losophers but of poets, artists, theologians, scientists, and other thinkers
who may not be regarded conventionally as political theorists. The series
publishes studies that endeavor to take up this re-examination and thereby
help to recover the classical grounding for civic reason, as well as studies
that clarify the strengths and the weaknesses of modern philosophic ratio-
nalism. Interpretative studies in the series are particularly attentive to his-
torical context and language and to the ways in which both censorial
persecution and didactic concerns have impelled prudent thinkers, in
widely diverse cultural conditions, to employ manifold strategies of writ-
ing—strategies that allowed them to aim at different audiences with vari-
ous degrees of openness to unconventional thinking. The series offers
close readings of ancient, medieval, early modern, and late modern works
that illuminate the human condition by attempting to answer its deepest,
enduring questions, and that have (in the modern periods) laid the foun-
dations for contemporary political, social, and economic life.
This volume contains the first complete translation into English of the
extant correspondence between Leo Strauss and Gerhard Krüger, together
with seven essays that illuminate some of the philosophic implications and
themes of the interchange—which was interrupted by the ascent of the
Nazis to power, with any serious possibility of resumption foreclosed by
Krüger’s mentally debilitating strokes in the early 1950s. As Strauss put it

v
vi SERIES EDITOR PREFACE

in an autobiographical note he published in 1964, “the philosophical

interest in theology linked me with Gerhard Krüger”; “the theologico-
political problem has since then remained the theme of my undertakings.”
The seven essays in this volume exhibit profound disagreement over how
to interpret the dialogue between Strauss and Krüger, given that both are
reacting to the shattering effect of Heideggerian historicism. One reading
sees a decisively Socratic-rationalist Strauss debating a confirmed
Augustinian-­Christian-­Platonic Krüger. The other sees two slowly matur-
ing thinkers struggling to find a response to the reopened challenge of
Christian and Jewish orthodox belief—with Krüger drawn to Kant and
Augustine, and Strauss moving from Spinoza toward Maimonides, while
both treasure the example of the Platonic Socrates’s skepticism. The reader
of this volume is thus invited to join in a provocative debate.

Baylor University Timothy W. Burns

Waco, TX, USA
University of Texas at Austin Thomas L. Pangle
Austin, TX, USA
 Contents

1 Editor’s Introduction   1
Susan M. Shell

2 Leo Strauss: Gerhard Krüger Correspondence 1928–1962  13

Jerome Veith, Anna Schmidt, and Susan M. Shell

3 The Light Shed on the Crucial Development of Strauss’s

Thought by His Correspondence with Gerhard Krüger  89
Thomas L. Pangle

4 The Example of Socrates: The Correspondence Between

Leo Strauss and Gerhard Krüger 105
David Janssens

5 “Zurück zu Plato!” But, Which Plato?: The Return

to Plato by Gerhard Krüger and Leo Strauss 125
Daniel Tanguay

6 Moral Finitude and Ontology of Creation: The Kantian

Interpretation of Gerhard Krüger 143
Luc Langlois

7 Gerhard Krüger and Leo Strauss: The Kant Motif 165

Susan M. Shell

vii
viii Contents

8 Natural Right and Historical Consciousness in Strauss

and Krüger’s Exchange 181
Alberto Ghibellini

9 History and Modernity in the Strauss-Krüger

Correspondence 199
Richard Velkley

Appendices 219

Appendix I: Review of Leo Strauss’ Die Religionskritik

Spinozas als Grundlage seiner Bibelwissenschaft 221

Appendix II: Preface to Hobbes politische Wissenschaft 227

Index 231
 Note on Contributors

Alberto Ghibellini is a visiting lecturer and a scholar at the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology as well as a visiting scholar in the Political Science
Department, Boston College. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from the
University of Genova, where he has served as a post-doctoral fellow and
Adjunct Professor in History of Political Thought. He has published essays
on Plato, Richard Rorty, and Leo Strauss and is the author of Al di là della
politica. Filosofia e retorica in Leo Strauss (Genova University Press, 2012).
David Janssens is a senior lecturer at the School of Humanities of Tilburg
University, Netherlands. He is the author of Between Athens and Jerusalem:
Philosophy, Prophecy, and Politics in Leo Strauss’s Early Thought (SUNY
Press, 2008) and co-editor (with François Coppens and Yuri Yomtov) of
Leo Strauss: À quoi sert la philosophie politique? (Presses Universitaires de
France, 2014). He has published various articles on the work of Leo
Strauss, as well as on the relationship between ancient philosophy and
ancient poetry.
Luc Langlois is Professor of Philosophy at Laval University since 1992.
He was Dean of the Faculty between 2002 and 2010. Langlois has pub-
lished extensively, mostly, on Kant and Fichte. He recently translated and
edited Kant, “Réflexions sur la philosophie morale,” précédé de
A.G. Baumgarten, Principes de la philosophie pratique première (Vrin,
Paris, 2014) and is about to publish a translation and a commentary on
Baumgarten’s Metaphysics (Vrin, forthcoming).

ix
x NOTE ON CONTRIBUTORS

Thomas L. Pangle holds the Joe R. Long Chair in Democratic Studies

in the Department of Government and is Co-Director of the Thomas
Jefferson Center for the Study of Core Texts and Ideas at the University
of Texas, Austin. He has written numerous books on topics ranging from
ancient philosophy and the Bible to modernity and postmodernity. His
most recent works include The Socratic Way of Life: Xenophon’s Memorabilia
(University of Chicago Press, forthcoming), Aristotle’s Teaching in THE
POLITICS (University of Chicago Press, 2014), and The Theological Basis
of Liberal Modernity in Montesquieu’s “Spirit of the Laws” (University of
Chicago Press, 2010).
Susan M. Shell is Professor of Political Philosophy at Boston College.
Her most recent books include Kant and the Limits of Autonomy (Harvard
University Press, 2009), The Embodiment of Reason: Kant on Spirit,
Generation, and Community (University of Chicago Press, 1996), and
Kant’s “Observations” and “Remarks”: A Critical Guide, co-­edited with
Richard Velkley (Cambridge University Press, 2012). She is also the
author of essays on Kant, Rousseau, Hobbes, German Idealism, and Leo
Strauss.
Daniel Tanguay is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ottawa.
He is the author of Leo Strauss: An Intellectual Biography (Yale University
Press, 2007) and of numerous articles on Leo Strauss. He has also written
on contemporary French political philosophers, including Pierre Manent,
Marcel Gauchet, and Alain Renaut. He is working on a new book on
Strauss.
Richard Velkley is the Celia Scott Weatherhead Distinguished Professor
of Philosophy at Tulane University and President of the Metaphysical
Society of America. He is the author of Heidegger, Strauss, and the Premises
of Philosophy: On Original Forgetting (University of Chicago Press, 2011),
Being After Rousseau: Philosophy and Culture in Question (University of
Chicago Press, 2002), and Freedom and the End of Reason: On the Moral
Foundation of Kant’s Critical Philosophy (University of Chicago Press,
1989), as well as numerous essays and co-edited volumes.
 Abbreviations

Titles of Leo Strauss’s Writings

CaM “Cohen and Maimonides.” Translated by Martin D. Yaffe and
Ian Moore. LSMC 173–222.
GS-2 Gesammelte Schriften, Band 2: Philosophie und Gesetz—Frühe
Schriften. Herausgegeben von Heinrich Meier. Stuttgart und
Weimar: J. B. Metzler Verlag, 1997; 2nd rev. printing, 1998;
3rd printing, 2004.
GS-3 Gesammelte Schriften, Band 3: Hobbes’ politische Wissenschaft,
and zugehörige Schriften-Briefe. Herausgegeben von Heinrich
Meier. Stuttgart und Weimar: J. B. Mutzler Verlag, 2001; 2nd
rev. ed. 2008.
HCR Hobbes’ Critique of Religion and Related Writings. Translated
and Edited by Gabriel Bartlett and Svetozar Minkov. Chicago,
IL: University of Chicago Press, 2011.
ISP “The Intellectual Situation of the Present.” Appendix B in
Reorientation: Leo Strauss in the 1930s. Edited by Martin
D. Yaffe and Richard S. Ruderman. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2014.
JPCM Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity. Edited by Kenneth
Hart Green. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press,
1997.
LAM Liberalism Ancient and Modern. New York: Basic Books, 1968.

xi
xii ABBREVIATIONS

LSEW The Early Writings (1921–1932). Translated and Edited by

Michael Zank. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2002.
LSMC Leo Strauss on Maimonides: The Complete Writings. Edited by
Kenneth Hart. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2013.
LSTPP Leo Strauss and Leo Strauss Theological-Political Problem. Edited
by Heinrich Meier. Cambridge University Press, 2006.
NRH Natural Right and History. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press, 1953.
OPS On Plato’s “Symposium.” Edited by Seth Benardete. Chicago,
IL: University of Chicago Press, 2001.
PAW Persecution and the Art of Writing. Glencoe, IL: Free Press,
1952.
PLA Philosophy and Law: Contributions to the Understanding of
Maimonides and His Predecessors. Translated by Eve Adler.
Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1995.
PPH The Political Philosophy of Hobbes: Its Basis and Its Genesis.
Translated by Elsa M. Sinclair. Reprint. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1952.
RCPR The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism. Edited by Thomas
L. Pangle. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1989.
RSP “Religious Situation of the Present.” Appendix B in
Reorientation: Leo Strauss in the 1930s. Edited by Martin
D. Yaffe and Richard S. Ruderman. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2014.
SCR Spinoza’s Critique of Religion. Translated by Elsa M. Sinclair.
New York: Schocken Books, 1965.
WIPP What is Political Philosophy? And Other Studies. Glencoe, IL:
Free Press, 1959.

Other Titles
PMKK Gerhard Krüger. Philosophie und Moral in der Kantischen Kritik
(Philosophy and Morality in the Kantian Critique) Tübingen:
J.C.B. Mohr, 1931; 2nd ed., 1967.
 CHAPTER 1

Editor’s Introduction

Susan M. Shell

Between 1928 through the mid-1930s, Leo Strauss and Gerhard Krüger
carried on a philosophically intense exchange, until the war and related
events cut that correspondence short. A series of debilitating strokes in the
early 1950s prematurely ended Krüger’s intellectual career, foreclosing
the possibility of further serious engagement after the war. By that time,
however, their respective intellectual paths, which had once closely
coincided, had diverged. Still, a series of late exchanges concerning
Krüger’s 1969 Festschrift, to which Strauss contributed, testifies to their
enduring mutual attachment.
Of the two, Strauss is by far the better known, having gone on to a
distinguished academic career in the United States, where he wrote many
important works in political philosophy, as well as founded an influential
philosophic “school.” Although relatively obscure today, Krüger was, at
the time of their major correspondence, certainly the more professionally
successful and personally fortunate of the two.
Krüger was born in Berlin in 1902 into a comfortable Protestant family.
He briefly attended the University of Jena before moving to Tübingen,
and then Marburg, where he studied religion with Rudolf Bultmann, and
philosophy under Paul Natorp, Nicolai Hartmann and Martin Heidegger,

S. M. Shell (*)
Department of Political Science, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA

© The Author(s) 2018 1

S. M. Shell (ed.), The Strauss-Krüger Correspondence, Recovering Political
Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74201-4_1
2 S. M. SHELL

completing a dissertation on Kant under Hartmann in 1925. From 1929

until 1933, Krüger taught at the University of Marburg, and then at
Göttingen and Frankfurt. Krüger’s public opposition to Nazism retarded
his academic advancement and led to his mandatory enlistment in the
German army from 1939 to 1940, and from 1943 to 1944, during which
time he briefly served as an interpreter in occupied Paris. Krüger was called
to a chair at the University of Münster in 1940, and was professor of
philosophy at the University of Tübingen from 1946 to 1950, where he
came under the powerful influence of the Catholic theologian Romano
Guardini. In 1950 Krüger converted to Catholicism. Prior to his 1953
stroke, he held a chair at the University of Frankfurt.
From the beginning, Krüger, who was widely regarded as perhaps
Heidegger’s most gifted student, pursued an independent path. Like
Strauss, Krüger found himself in more or less open revolt against the
academic neo-Kantianism then fashionable. For Krüger no less than
Strauss, Heidegger’s “destruction” of the philosophic tradition opened up
the prospect of a genuine recovery of ancient thought. Krüger’s own bent
might be accurately described as Christian neo-Platonist. His dissertation
on Kant established the direction of his early thought: namely, to recover
the Platonic foundations of Kant’s thought by detaching them from his
entanglement in the distorting presuppositions of modern natural
science.
Like the young Strauss, Krüger turned to Plato for the sake of inquiring
into “the right order of human things.” Deeply dissatisfied with positivism
and relativism, as well as the neo-Kantianism still academically fashionable,
Krüger saw in Plato an anticipation of the insight that only the “knowing
faith” of Augustine (and Thomas) could adequately express. Krüger
explored these and related themes in books on Kant and Plato, as well as
a long essay on Descartes that Strauss would especially praise. Like Strauss,
Krüger was interested in uncovering the origins of modernity, which he
specifically linked to a modern “self-consciousness” founded in an explicit
revolt against the commanding presence of the Christian God, and ulti-
mately dependent upon revelation. As such, modern thought was founded
in disobedience, and hence in an unacknowledged religious awareness that
had been unavailable to Plato. In this theological sense, at least, Krüger’s
thought remained “historical”; Christ’s “factual dominance over the spirit
of post-ancient humanity” made a full recovery of the ancient approach
neither desirable nor possible, as Krüger saw it, Strauss’s objections to the
contrary.
 EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION 3

Still, during the years spanning the period of Strauss’s own “reorienta-
tion,” and during which he was making some of his own most decisive
discoveries, Krüger offered Strauss both invaluable professional and
practical support, and a unique sort of intellectual friendship in common
pursuit of the “right order of human life.”
There are several factors that make the correspondence between Strauss
and Krüger especially timely.
First, like members of the generation that came of age in the waning
days of Weimar, we live in a time in which the reigning liberal assumptions
find themselves under intense and increasing pressure. Although we may
not seem to face what Strauss called in 1933 the “whole modern world…
cracking at the seams” it is hard to avoid the suspicion that for us as well
the “‘structure of [liberal democratic] knowledge’ in which we live” is
“brittle and full of gaps.” That it is at just such times, according to Strauss,
that “questioning begins” [Strauss to Krüger, 22 July 1933, unsent], and
there is the hope of an exemplary path of insight into and beyond the cur-
rent period of liberal self-doubt. Questioning, as Strauss here opines, is a
perennially available human possibility that is especially facilitated by such
moments of political and moral disarray and decay, in which the prevailing
norms that shape one’s primary experience of the world lose their appar-
ent self-evidence. Strauss sees in the “cracking” walls of the modern world
a partial repetition of the sophistical disruption of the ancient polis and its
ways that provoked Plato’s “second sailing.”

The original fact is a given law, as even psychoanalysis involuntarily confirms;

a law that need not be sought in the first place. Somewhere on earth, at
some point in time, human beings saw themselves deprived of such a law
and therefore inquired about a law, i.e. about the natural law that would be
valid for human beings as such. Since then philosophy has been in existence,
for the loss [Wegfall] of the given law and the search for the law seems to me
to mark philosophy. Socratic-Platonic philosophy inquired about order, it
even inquired about “the laws.” Until proven wrong I would maintain that
it is the philosophy for this reason, and that all other philosophies can only
be understood as leading to it or as originating from it. For every other
philosophy presupposes in one way or another that the βιος θεωρητικος is
the right βιος--for Socrates-Plato, however, it is precisely this presupposition
that is problematic. [Strauss to Krüger, 27 December 1932 (second draft;
unsent)]
4 S. M. SHELL

The questioning that initiates the project of modernity, which Strauss

here especially associates with Hobbes’s attempt to establish natural right
on an “indefeasible” basis, is less than radical because it takes the “right-
ness” of the theoretical life for granted. For Socrates-Plato, on the other
hand, the “essence of virtue” is problematic, that is, remains a primary
subject of inquiry. It is in this deepest sense that all subsequent modern
thought is “progressive,” moving forward from an assumed base that
Nietzsche’s own questioning of the traditional Socrates, in the name of
courage or andreia, finally brought to light. [Strauss, 27 December 1932
(definitive version)]
Modernity represents, in Strauss’s account in the pages of this corre-
spondence, an attempted recovery of the original freedom to philosophize
on the natural basis preceding the emergence of Christianity:

Since the seventeenth century, the real point [Sinne] of the struggle with
tradition was to recover the Greek freedom of philosophizing. It was really
a Renaissance movement. In all “foundations” [Grundlegungen], in all psy-
chology and all historicism there is this striving: to find, to find again, an
original, natural basis. [Strauss to Krüger, 17 November 1932]

“Historical consciousness,” as Strauss here presents it, is the non-self-­

transparent version of an attempt whose “primordial form” [Urform]
consists in the “battle against prejudices”—a battle specifically directed
against the predominating ethos of Christianity, and which neither the
Greeks nor the Platonizing Muslim and Jewish philosophers had to
confront. Christianity, so conceived, represents a “distraction” that
must be overcome if philosophizing on a “naïve” or “natural” basis is
to be possible once again.
We may ourselves be so shaped by “historical consciousness,” so mired
in the shallow eddies of post-modernism or, alternatively, a complacently
resistant moralism, that we no longer speak of “historical consciousness”
at all, a term that still contains the memory of another form of “conscious-
ness,” one which was not thoroughly conditioned and contingent and in
which knowledge of “natural right” could still seem possible, as it seemed,
say, to Hobbes. Strauss’s and Krüger’s shared quest for “the right ordering
of human things”—a quest revealed here with a singularly fresh urgency—
remind us of that possibility with the peculiar force of ongoing mutual
discovery, albeit along what prove to be increasingly divergent paths.
 EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION 5

This brings us to the second reason for the timeliness of the

correspondence: Krüger’s alternative appreciation of the importance of
Christianity, which represents, on his account, a new dispensation for
human understanding that fundamentally alters the philosophic horizon by
making “science,” as the Greeks understood it, newly problematic. From
this alternative point of view, the battle against “prejudices” is both deeper
and more fundamental than the struggle against “doxa” or opinion as Plato
understood it. Hence Krüger’s basic “reservation” against Strauss’s descrip-
tion of modernity as a “second cave.” To be sure, he had earlier acceded to
Strauss’s metaphorical description of the peculiar cul de sac into which
modern thought, and historicism in particular, has led us. Still, as he now
adds, from such detour, if it is one, there is no simple egress:

If one understands why we are sitting in the second cave, then it is impos-
sible to understand this “prison” as a floor of the Platonic prison. Looking
back from here it is rather the Platonic position that becomes in need of
revision. The problem of “prejudice” is, after all, more radical than that of the
δόξα (to use your words). The concept of “naturalness” and of “being
human” must therefore be determined starting from here. The unity of the
concepts “science” and “philosophy” is not as directly graspable (by taking
antiquity as the standard [in der Messung an der Antike]) as you suppose. I
certainly understand your motive of combatting historicism, but in my opin-
ion one cannot shake it off by defiantly ignoring it (and you do not really
[im Grunde] do this), but by reducing it to its substantive [sachliche] and
historical core: Christ’s factual dominion [Herrschaft] over the spirit of
post-ancient humanity. However, this dominion has become indirect in
modernity; yet it is you who take it to be factually unbroken by claiming that
the “situation” of modern thought is essentially determined by opposition
to revealed religion. Now, the denaturing of the Christian “bondage” of
humans in historicism is undoubtedly a special kind of imprisonment: there
can be philosophical liberation from this cave. But when you define the
second cave as the original ground of historicism, then there is no Socrates
for this just as there is no Newton for a blade of grass. [Krüger to Strauss, 4
December 1932]

Krüger’s basic disagreement with Strauss emerges with particular clarity in

his essay on Descartes, which he completed in 1933 and published in
1934. The new horizon opened up by Christianity is the introspective self-­
awareness that becomes possible only in the presence of the Christian
God, whether or not one deems oneself a “believer.” Self-consciousness in
6 S. M. SHELL

corum deo or before the searcher of hearts necessarily gives rise to new
doubt as to the adequacy of human reason in pursuing the “good” in
Plato’s sense; whether it issues in philosophic humility or outright rebel-
lion (as with Descartes) that insight, unavailable to Plato, cannot now be
disregarded or otherwise ignored. Our own “lived experience,” unlike
that available to Plato, opens up the possibility of a “hopeful knowledge”
that is deeper than “science” in either the modern or the original Platonic
sense, and by which our reception of nature as a “binding” order oriented
toward the good must now take its bearings. Though Plato asked the right
questions, his answers necessarily remained defective, deprived as they
were of reflective depth.

Philosophically, the matter seems to be such that we must repeat the ancient
and genuine philosophical questions, but in the insurmountable factual
[faktische] situation that philosophizing is no longer as self-evident [selbst-
verständlich] as it was then. This new thing, this newly arisen problem for
philosophy, can only be posed within a philosophy of world history, but that
means in the analysis of the ground of “reflection” that is originally discov-
ered in the face of revelation. Now, one can experience this as a “hateful
fatality” or as a glimmer of hope in the night of our perplexity – that is
simply a matter of our “worldview” and our personal ability of doing any-
thing in this condition. But if one wanted to claim to find the true and
nonarbitrarily authoritative [das Wahre und unwillkürlich Maßgebende]
somewhere else, we would have to understand ourselves worse than we two
do [sich schlechter verstehen als wir zwei es tun]. [Krüger to Strauss, 29
December 1932]

For Krüger, the true measure [Maßstab] takes the form of a binding law
our inadequacy to which revelation makes newly and undeniably evident.
It is no longer possible to philosophize “naively” or to simply follow the
logos where it leads us.
To this, Strauss replies that depth and radicality are not the same. The
order that we experience as a “command” does not have “the character of
a law in the actual sense.” “More originary than bindingness is what is
binding” and takes on the character of bindingness only “for us humans”:

Platonic philosophy is concerned with the knowledge of this ‘What’ that

does not itself have the character of a law in the proper sense, and Kant takes
account of this radical problem by recognizing the “holy will” (if only in a
sense that is limited from the outset by the theological tradition). The
 EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION 7

­ uestion of the law first comes up in the context of the question of applying
q
the measure to human beings. And it is only with respect to human beings
that the difference between a knowledge that is commanded and a “merely”
true knowledge makes any sense. [Strauss to Krüger, 18 August 1934]

Strauss distinguishes, accordingly, between the “practical knowledge” that

originally motivated philosophy and set it on the right track” and “the
original theme of philosophy”:

Philosophy that is called upon [aufgerufene] through the law does not
inquire about the law, but about the right order of human life and thus
about the principle of order. But this question cannot turn into the natural-­
theological one if one does not want to become embroiled in the difficulties
involved in a grounding of knowledge in belief; rather, it must be asked and
answered in the manner of Plato’s critical philosophy. [Ibid.]

Krüger, following Kant, privileges the practical over the theoretical, rather
than treating the former as merely leading toward the latter; the philoso-
phy called forth by the law, on Strauss’s alternate account, does not inquire
about the law but the correct order of human life, and thus forthwith
about the principle of order as such. In short: the original motive that sets
philosophy on the right track is not its ultimate subject of inquiry.
Krüger, however, stands by what he regards as the “lived experience” of
the present moment: Strauss, too, as Krüger pointedly notes, responds to
a demand for a return to naivete whose realizability is itself a matter of
belief or faith. Might the “opinion” in favor of atheism by which Strauss
claims to take his bearings itself “take[s] its measure from [messen Sie…
an]” a “modern idea of knowledge”? Might not Plato’s “critical philoso-
phy,” as Strauss here archly describes his own approach, be uncritically
dogmatic in its outright rejection of the possibility of what Krüger calls
“hopeful knowledge”? [Krüger to Strauss, 2 June 1935] In short: by
beginning with his own unbelief, does Strauss not set the problem up
“one step too late”? For the ultimate point is, as Krüger insists, the truth,
not whether or not one is personally up to meeting its demands.
In sum: the correspondence presents Strauss’s most direct early con-
frontation with the challenge of Christian revelation in particular, or of
what he here pointedly refers to as the combination of a nomos tradition
and a tradition of questioning, which precisely as a tradition is no longer
genuine questioning.
8 S. M. SHELL

With this exchange, late in 1935, the philosophic conversation between

Strauss and Krüger comes to an effectual close, before the more dramatic
rupture of the war years brings all communication to an end. Krüger will
become increasingly preoccupied with questions of rational theology, that
is, with that combination of a “nomos-tradition” and a “tradition of ques-
tioning” that Strauss had held to be ultimately responsible for the current
spiritual crisis. Strauss, for his part, will deepen his study of the Islamic/
Jewish medieval alternative: that is, of a nomos tradition that naturally gives
rise to philosophic questioning, without being tempted by the peculiar
“sublations” offered by Christianity. At the same time, with the advent of
the war years, and his own growing personal distress, not to mention that
of German Jews more generally, Strauss will come to have a greater appre-
ciation for the virtues of that combination—that is, for figures like Winston
Churchill, as well as British “muddling through” more generally.
This brings me to a third way in which these letters are timely: namely
in bearing witness to “the theological political problem” as directly expe-
rienced by two serious thinkers who were also members of two “nations”
between which all conversation ceased for a time to be possible. That
problem, which Strauss once called the “the theme” of all his studies (see
Appendix II to this volume), emerges in these letters early on, when
Strauss contrasts the political divisions among men that he regards as inev-
itable with the agreement possible through the “giving and receiving of
reasons” [δουναι και δεξασθαι],1 which he translates into “modern terms”
as “probity” [Redlichkeit].

[T]he struggle between “left” and “right” is the struggle between utopian
dizziness/fraud [utopistischem Schwindel] and sobriety…. In opposition to
agreement at any price, conflict is truer. But only peace, i.e. agreement in
the truth, can be the last word. That this agreement of reason is possible--I
firmly believe [firmiter credo]. [Strauss to Krüger, 19 August 1932]

Probity is a biblically inflected version of the ancient giving and receiving

of reasons, and a disposition that Strauss here especially associates with
Nietzsche. Probity, so understood, is the secularized Christian disposition
by which Christian belief itself is finally shaken “to its foundations,” pav-
ing the way for an understanding of history that is (once again) “naive”
and, accordingly, a philosophizing that once again is “natural.” [Strauss to
Krüger, 12 December 1932, first draft of letter from 27 December 1932]
 EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION 9

Indeed, Strauss goes so far as to suggest that by separating natural and

positive law, church and state, Christianity disrupts the concrete nomos (be
it Greek, Arab, or Jewish), the “one binding norm” that leads most directly
to a life of happiness that “consist[s] in theory”:

Natural law does not play a role in Jewish-Arabic philosophy, at least not the
role that it has in the Christian development. This is connected with the fact
that for Jews and Arabs, the positive law is at once political and “ecclesiasti-
cal” law. The positive law of Moses or Mohammed is the one binding norm
that suffices for leading life toward happiness [Glückseligkeit] (consisting in
theory). Moses or Mohammed are understood as philosopher-legislators.
The presupposition for this is the notion [Vorstellung] going back to the
Platonic state. [Strauss to Krüger 3 March 1930]

As the presupposition that modern philosophy can live neither with nor
without, Christianity is the distant historical source of the belief that all
thinking is the product of its time and place—an effusion of a particular
national spirit and nothing more. With the decay of Christianity, Europe
seemed for a moment to be poised between two possibilities: a return to a
forthright acceptance of the inevitability of division within and among
peoples—to the “sobriety” of the “right” as opposed to the “utopian diz-
ziness” of the “left”—or to the darker re-barbarization—the outright
rejection of both civilization and the science to which civilization is essen-
tially open—toward which Germany proved in the event to be headed.
In 1931, Strauss already complains of the “disgraceful nationalizing of
all good things, and thus also of science,” further noting the not “incon-
sequential fact” that, “given the question of what nation I belong to, I
would answer: Jew, and not German.” [Strauss to Krüger, 23 May 1931]
Two months later, he attributes his “deepest resistance” to energetically
seeking a German university post (despite Krüger’s efforts on Strauss’s
behalf) to the “fact that [he] take[s] ‘over-foreignization’ [‘Überfremdung’]
of German universities to be tenable for neither side: neither for the
Germans nor for the Jews.” [Strauss to Krüger, 25 July 1931] In short,
the inroads of what Strauss would later call “faustic” as opposed to genu-
ine science already seem well advanced.
There can be no question that Krüger shared Strauss’s general view on
the essential universality of science nor is Krüger’s eagerness to offer
Strauss whatever professional and personal help he can ever in doubt.
Strauss acknowledges, with a characteristic delicacy, the significance of
10 S. M. SHELL

Krüger’s aid when he writes, in an otherwise routine letter of thanks,

“please forgive me for not suppressing the reflection that there are human
beings upon whom one can rely.” [Strauss to Krüger, 12 December 1931]
At the same time, Krüger’s letters also make clear his own apprehen-
sions with regard to the political situation in Germany and beyond. As he
writes to Strauss in Paris, in April 1933 (a moment in which Strauss could
still express hopeful expectations of Mussolini):

Since world history will soon have put an end to liberalism everywhere, the
great and real problems can finally be understood again. But it will be hard
going on this ground, and one has to know what one can stand up for. You
can imagine that I am becoming more dogmatic under these circumstances;
I am thinking of doing so publicly. [Krüger to Strauss, 19 April 1933]

In sum: these letters bear witness to the respective efforts of two serious
men with shared political sympathies to articulate a decent political alter-
native to the perceived weaknesses of a “liberalism” unable, as they both
still saw it, to defend itself. Their differing views of the historical role of
Christianity—for Strauss, an ultimate root of the historicist trap, for
Krüger, the path out of the present darkness—would shape their increas-
ingly divergent understandings of what Krüger calls “lived experience”
and Strauss the “natural” or “pre-scientific” understanding of the world.
But it also presaged a practical alliance between knowledge and faith on
which students of Strauss would later build in the context of an ascendant
liberal democratic west that had met the test that Weimar failed. Whether,
and how, liberal democracy will continue to meet that test is perhaps the
most urgent, if not important, question that these letters pose today.
This volume presents the first complete translation in English of the
extant correspondence of Leo Strauss and Gerhard Krüger, along with
seven interpretive essays on some of its philosophic and historical implica-
tions. Thomas Pangle sets their conversation in the context of Strauss’s
discoveries in the early 1930s of a new way of understanding “the right
order of human things” based partly on a restoration of the “common
ground” between reason and revelation. The remaining authors specifi-
cally address the themes of Plato (David Jannsens and Daniel Tanguay),
Kant (Luc Langlois and Susan Shell), and natural right and history broadly
conceived (Alberto Ghibellini and Richard Velkley). In keeping with the
overall spirit of the correspondence, the collective aim of these essays is
more to raise questions than to resolve them.
 EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION 11

As a final note: I would like to gratefully acknowledge the very gener-

ous assistance of Heinrich Meier, Timothy Burns, Thomas Pangle, Nathan
Tarcov, Jennie Strauss Clay, Donald Maletz, Eric Watkins, Robert Faulkner,
Anna Schmidt, Svetozar Minkov, Michael Resler, and Jerome Veith.
Additionally, I would like to acknowledge the help of Jonathan Yudelman,
Rachel Pagano, and Kaishuo Chen for their invaluable editorial and
research assistance through all stages of the project.
I would also like to thank Heinrich Meier and the publisher J. B.
Metzler for their kind permission to make use of the original (German)
version of the correspondence (GS II, 2001, 377–454); and Timothy
W. Burns, Editor of Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy, for his
kind permission to reprint Donald Maletz’s translation of Strauss’s
“Preface to Hobbes’ Politische Wissenschaft.” Thomas Pangle’s essay previ-
ously appeared in Reorientation: Leo Strauss in the 1930s, ed. Martin Yaffe
and Richard Ruderman (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). The orig-
inal French version of Luc Langlois’s essay appeared under the title
“Finitude morale et ontologie de la creation: L’interprétation kantienne
de Gerhard Krüger,” in Archives de philosophie, vol. 74, 2011/1, 129–147.
An earlier version of “Gerhard Krüger and Leo Strauss: The Kant motif,”
appeared in my Introduction to Strauss’s Kant Seminars, published online
by the Leo Strauss Archive. I am grateful to Nathan Tarcov, Director of
the Archive, for his kind permission to make use of this material.

Note
1. Cf. Plato, Republic 531e.
 CHAPTER 2

Leo Strauss: Gerhard Krüger Correspondence

1928–1962

Jerome Veith, Anna Schmidt, and Susan M. Shell

1
Berlin, 24 September 1928.
[postcard]
Dear Dr. Krüger!1
Since the second copy of my work is still with my superior, I must turn to
you and sincerely request that you return the copy in your possession to
me soon. In order to avoid surprises I need to review the whole thing
again carefully. Allow me to remind you of your promise to tell me can-
didly and in detail what you think of my claims.

Translated by Jerome Veith, Anna Schmidt, and Susan M. Shell (All insertions in
square brackets are our own or those of the editors, Heinrich and Wiebke Meier.
We have unified the date format of the letters and, for the sake of clarity, silently
extended initials to full names. –Tr)

J. Veith • A. Schmidt
S. M. Shell (*)
Department of Political Science, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA

© The Author(s) 2018 13

S. M. Shell (ed.), The Strauss-Krüger Correspondence, Recovering Political
Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74201-4_2
14 J. VEITH ET AL.

With distinguished regards,

Yours humbly,
L Strauss
my address:
Berlin W 30
Motzstrasse 35a
c/o Arend.

2
Berlin W 30, 28 November 1929.
Bayerischer Platz #3.
Dear Mr. Krüger,
I had promised to send you the typescript of my work immediately upon
arriving in Berlin. When I arrived, the first galleys were waiting for me. So
I told myself that I would wait until the whole thing was printed. Now
that time has come. I am thus sending you the complete galleys. Of course,
you can get a regular copy once the book appears, but it will still take some
time until it is published. The galleys are missing an appendix, but it only
contains philological material (source citations).
I would be very happy if you went through the trouble to share with
me your overall judgment and—especially—your concrete concerns.
Particularly, what do you think of the attempt to understand the
Enlightenment in terms of Epicurus, or in contradistinction to him [von
Epikur aus, bzw. in Abhebung gegen ihn, zu verstehen]? Your lecture on
Hume has clearly shown me the limits of this attempt. But doesn’t one fail
to understand most important elements of the Enlightenment in exclu-
sively taking one’s bearings from the will to “autonomy”? I would very
much like to debate with you this question of the correct approach to
interpreting the Enlightenment.
Are you familiar with Tetens2’ critique of the beatitudes? It reminds me
very much of Kant’s, which I learned about from your work. Felix
Günther3—a student of Lamprecht’s4—has written on Tetens’ “The
Science of the Human Being: A Contribution to German Intellectual Life
in the Age of Rationalism” (Gotha, 1907). You can find some interesting
information in the book. I assume you are not familiar with it.
 LEO STRAUSS: GERHARD KRÜGER CORRESPONDENCE 1928–1962 15

Greetings to you, and please send my greetings to your wife,

Cordially,
Leo Strauss

3
Berlin, 7 January 1930.
Bayrischer Platz 3.
Dear Mr. Krüger,
I would like to thank you today already for your letter that will be of great
help in channeling my general discontent with my work into concrete
doubts and into changes in my previous way of questioning. Moreover, I
would already now like to give you some responses to your critique,
responses that I can state more clearly than in the work itself, now that a
year has passed since I finished it. By the way, it was my position of employ-
ment that forced me to remain silent about certain things in the work,
since my supervisor was of the opinion that my primitive interest in
answering the question that the Enlightenment had in mind endangered
the “objectivity” of the investigation. Not to mention the fact that my
society (the Academy for the Science of Judaism) would not have tolerated
my atheistic presupposition being openly exposed as the starting point of
my inquiry. I resigned myself—to the detriment of the intelligibility of my
book. Otherwise, I did not lose much in doing this. I do not think that
actual research depends all that much upon so-called freedom of thought.
So much by way of an apology for the peculiar, fundamentally unneces-
sary trouble that I caused you, as the reader of my book. Now I would like
to briefly convey to you the actual core of my reflections—which did not
come out clearly enough in my work partly for the reason just mentioned,
partly because of that proverbial “helplessness.” What I mean is the ques-
tion: How was it possible for the Enlightenment to have been victorious?
The typical view, still held by Franz Rosenzweig,5 claims that the
Enlightenment defeated Scholasticism but not revelation [Offenbarung],
the world of the Bible. For me, the critique of miracles serves to indicate
the inadequacy of this response: the concept of miracles is biblical, and in
the wake of the Enlightenment it has lost its force and truth. (Today it is
16 J. VEITH ET AL.

an embarrassment; at your convenience, please read Rosenzweig’s “Star of

Redemption” p. 119ff.6 Rosenzweig recognized that the problem of mir-
acles is central; and look in what way he was forced to “interpret” the
Enlightenment critique of miracles in order to be able to affirm the mira-
cle—and what a miracle!) [um das Wunder—und was für ein Wunder!—
behaupten zu können.] Yet what has the Enlightenment succeeded in with
regard to miracles? It only succeeded in securing itself, i.e. the already
enlightened human being, against miracles. It created a position that is
unattainable for miracles. But a miracle, according to its own meaning,
can be experienced as a miracle only on the basis of faith [Glaube]. Thus,
the Enlightenment advance is rendered powerless. [Yet] apparently [offen-
bar] not—as I claim, again by pointing out the fact that belief in miracles
has become powerless. No later than at this point it becomes clear that the
Enlightenment owes its victory not to scientific refutation of the claims of
revealed religion. It owes its victory to a certain will that one, with a grain
of salt [cum grano salis], may call Epicurean. This will does not seem to me
to be a legal ground [Rechtsgrund] of the Enlightenment against revealed
religion. The indication for this is the fact that the understanding of reli-
gion stemming from Epicureanism’s basic attitude [Grundgesinnung] is
evidently inadequate to anyone who understands a prayer in an even only
intellectually anticipatory fashion [der ein Gebet auch nur intellektuell
vorgreifend versteht]. In order for the social victory of the Enlightenment—
which is not a binding fact—to become a total victory, another will had to
arise against revealed religion. I see indications of such a will in Macchiavelli,
Bruno, and Spinoza (naturally, the “pantheism” of the latter two doesn’t
count here), its most extreme expression [Darstellung] reached in
Nietzsche, and its completion attained in—Being and Time; I mean in the
interpretation of the call of conscience and in the answer given there to
the question of who is calling. It is only on the basis of Heidegger’s Dasein
interpretation that an adequate atheistic interpretation of the Bible should
be possible [dürfte … möglich sein]. The progress that the critique of
religion owes to Heidegger becomes most evident when one confronts
Heidegger’s view of the relation of “seeing” (θεωρειν) and “hearing” with
certain statements in Feuerbach’s Essence of Religion.) Religion will only
have been overcome when it can be adequately interpreted atheistically.
Thus: the Enlightenment’s victory, i.e. the victory of the “scientific world-
view”—by which I only mean the loss of the possibility of believing in
miracles—is defensible only on the basis of a certain attitude, not on the
basis of this worldview itself.
 LEO STRAUSS: GERHARD KRÜGER CORRESPONDENCE 1928–1962 17

The general tendency just sketched fits with the distinction between the
ancient (Epicurean) critique and the modern critique that aims at social
peace. The latter becomes the goal because the point is no longer primar-
ily to get rid of awful delusion, but to get rid of delusion, delusional hap-
piness, in the interest of establishing real happiness. In line with this general
tendency, it bears noting that in this turn toward “reality” Nietzsche’s
position is also prepared.
I approached the work without any methodological reflections or cer-
tainties. Perhaps because I am not fit for reflections beyond a certain limit
of abstraction. In this regard, I would simply ask you—and Klein—to help
me gain footing. One thing, however, was clear to me: that I cannot
believe in God. I worked it out this way: there is an idea Dei innata, omni-
bus hominibus communis [innate idea of God, common to all men]; I can
give or withhold my assent to this idea; I believed that I had to withhold
it; I had to make clear to myself why. I had to justify myself before the
forum of the Judaic tradition; and this without any reflections drawn from
the philosophy of history, simply because I would not have considered it
defensible to surrender out of levity and convenience a cause for which my
ancestors had borne everything thinkable. Thus I asked myself: why? The
Jewish tradition itself, which designates the heretic simply as the Epicurean,
gave me the nearest [nächste] answer. I therefore began to explore the
Epicureans and soon gained the conviction that these ancients had hit the
nail on the head with their designation: “proximally” [“zunächst und
zumeist”] the apostasy was in fact of “Epicurean” provenance. But not
always. I tried to gain clarity about the various reasons for atheism; hence
the seemingly typographical presentation in the first section of my work,
and really not from some romantic delight in the “richness of life.” The
“typology” has its model much more in something like Fr. Buddeus’ list-
ing of the various reasons that lead people into unbelief. I concede to you,
of course, that this orientation is no longer defensible on the basis of my
presuppositions; also, that certain unbridled formulations concerning
Epicureanism as an eternal possibility for human beings are very much in
need of reexamination. However, I cannot yet adopt as my own your fun-
damental theses regarding the exclusively historical [geschichtlich-­
exklusiv] determination of man.
I wanted to write you a few pages more. But I must now get to bed,
and I will certainly not get around to writing in the next few days. I will
therefore delay my response to your actual concerns. I will wait until I
have in my hands your critique of my work in its entirety.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
signet of Joab, who was sent to collect tribute from them in the time
of the son of David.
In 1844 there still existed an ancient inscription in Hebrew graven
on a stone in the Dra country, which was said to be as follows: ‫עד כאן‬
‫ הגיץ יואב בן צרויה לקבל המס‬which is interpreted thus, ‘So far as this
place came Joab Ben (son of) Serruia to receive the tribute.’
Joab, chief of the army of King David, is called in the recognised
translation of the Bible ‘the son of Zeruiah.’
A drunken Rabbi, named Judah Azalia, called on me the other
day; he has been travelling for three years in the southern districts of
Morocco, and he visited also many of the towns and villages
bordering on the Great Desert beyond Dra, which province you will
find marked in the map. Judah was half intoxicated, as usual, when
he visited me, and he left Tangier before I could entrap him in a
sober moment. Judah had travelled much in the East, had read a
number of curious old books, and was full of traditions he had picked
up in the interior of this country; but all he told me was in such a
jumbled state that I could not retain it, but requested the learned and
drunken Rabbi to commit to paper the subject-matter of our
conversation.
I send you a translation of the Hebrew original.
From the preface you will expect much; but, alas! there is only the
phantom of a skeleton, whose doubtful apparition leaves us big with
fancies and uncertainty. The man knows nothing of geography or
history, except the Bible.
You will be struck with the tradition of the Jews of the interior
respecting the tribe of Naphtali, the tombs, &c. I regret he has
curtailed greatly his verbal statements; for, amongst other curious
matter, he told me of a burial-ground of the Jews in the interior—
some mile or mile and a half in circumference.
The story about the Israelite warriors is curious, but the staining of
the hair before battle looks more like the Goths.
Judah supposes that Wadan is much nearer the Red Sea than it
really is; but if the Naphtali tribes fled from captivity, through Central
Africa, towards Dra and the South of Morocco, one of the first towns
or villages at which they would have found means of subsistence,
would have been Wadden or Yaden.
The names of the places and towns are so different from those
given in our maps, as indeed they always appear to be when
mentioned by natives of the interior, that I can hardly recognise
them, and have no time just now to refer to my maps of Africa.
Judah has promised to send me a further memorandum, but the
fumes of ‘agua ardiente’ will, I fear, stifle all recollection of his
promise.

Translation from the Hebrew.

I am about to give a description respecting my brethren of Israel, who, through
captivity, are now dwelling in Western Barbary, and to tell—as far as my
knowledge permits—of their state, their mode of living and genealogy; being in
conformity with what has been related to me by wise old men and persons of
integrity and good faith, incapable of stating an untruth. I will further relate what I
have personally witnessed during the travels of my youth, as also the information I
have obtained from ancient and exact tradition, both in manuscript and in print.

It is well known that when Sennacherib (? Shalmaneser[15]), king of Assyria,

conquered the people of Israel, these (the Israelites), were led into captivity to
Lahleh (? Halah) and Habor. Thence all the Israelite tribe of Naphtali, or the
greater portion thereof, sought refuge in Vaden, a town situated on the limits of
Guinea (meaning Central Africa), which town had at that time direct
communication with Lahleh and Habor. From Vaden they (the Israelites) were
scattered to Daha[16], Tafilelt, and Vakka[17] which are situated on the confines of
the Province of Daha towards Ofran, according to the writings of the pious Rabbi,
Jakob Benisargan, who places Vakka upon the borders of the river of Daha. Thus
were the Israelites spread throughout the interior of Africa.
In Vaden there is a large burial ground of Jews, whose sepulchres are covered
with slabs of stone bearing very intelligible epitaphs. In Vaden there is a
synagogue where fragments of the Pentateuch and of the Prophets, written on
parchment, are to be found.
In Ofran is to be seen a carved stone with a Hebrew inscription which has
existed since the destruction of the first temple. In the burial ground there are
several tombstones bearing epitaphs, of which the genealogy is written in the
Hebrew character but in the Arabic tongue: some of these are dated three hundred
years ago, others go as far back as twelve hundred years.
From Ofran you journey to Eleg[18], where there exists a large congregation of
Jews; exactly as is related by the famous and illustrious Rabbi, Izak Barseset. In
Ofran there stands a building which it is supposed was erected by one of the
ancient kings of Western Barbary. It is constructed with large hewn square stones.
There are also ruins of buildings which are supposed to be Roman.
Then comes the town of Telin, and later that of Thala, where there exists even
at the present time an immense stone, and at its foot is a pool of water. The old
people of the place tell you of a tradition that upon this stone the Israelite warriors
prepared a dye of ‘henna[19]’, with which they dyed their hair before going to
battle. They relate that the number of the said warriors amounted to four hundred
thousand cavalry. It is said that on one occasion the enemies of these warriors
treacherously came to offer peace upon any conditions that might be imposed.
The peace having been concluded on the sacred day of Kipur[20], all the Israelites
were unarmed, but the enemy had hidden their own arms in the sand.
The Israelites, glad to profit by so advantageous a peace—and not suspecting
any treachery—approached the hostile army, perceiving also that they had no
arms, when suddenly a preconcerted signal was given, and the latter, rushing
upon the Israelites, cut them to pieces. One slave alone survived this most fatal
misfortune, and he buried the bodies of the slain. On account of their number he
put ten bodies into each grave, but for the last grave there were only nine bodies,
so the slave—overwhelmed with grief and sorrow—threw himself into the grave to
complete the ten. Even to the present time this spot is called ‘The sepulchre of the
ten.’
At a little distance from Eleg, there is a celebrated fountain called Ras-el-Ain
(the source of the spring), so called because there is a spring of water at forty
fathoms below the surface. The fountain can be followed three days’ journey
irrigating the olive, fig, pomegranate, almond, and palm trees, and the land is also
thereby watered for the cultivation of grain and vegetables.
The following towns or villages are to be noted as having Hebrews among the
population: Zaachian, Lasakia, Takulebat, Torribat, Bardlaiimi, and Taheret[21].
This last-mentioned town is noted for being the birthplace of many learned Jews
and Rabbis in very ancient times. The most celebrated and illustrious Rabbi,
Judah El Hayugni, was born at Taheret. He it was who founded the grammar of our
sacred language.
Beyond Taheret is the town of Lasats, which has a large Jewish population. In it
there are gardens and fruit trees, which are cultivated with great success.
The best limes in Barbary are grown here, and are used in the religious
ceremonies of the Jews throughout Morocco.

Mulai Hashem, a native of Tafilelt, tells me that the Jews are very
numerous in his country. He says there are two races of Jews
among them, one race has been in Tafilelt since eight years previous
to the Hegira of Mohammed, the other having been brought in by a
chief named Mulai Ali, the son of Mulai Hassan.
Mulai Ali, says my informant, had purchased these Jews from
some distant country of the East—where he found them in great
distress—and he gave fifty pieces of money for each: what money
he does not know.
Mulai Hashem says that these two races are thus distinguished.
The older race have the whole head shaved. The colony brought by
Mulai Ali leave a small segment of a circle unshaved on the top of
the forehead. These latter also wear a black cap, somewhat pointed
at the top, where it is made to curl down on one side of the face.
The Jewesses are not dressed like those that live in Tangier, but
in the costume of the Moorish woman, and wear rich dresses with
jewels. They are however to be distinguished from the Moorish
woman by the arrangement of their hair, which the latter draw
backwards from either side of the forehead over the temples to the
back of the head; whereas the Jewesses (unmarried) twist their hair
in circles on the top of the head. The married Jewesses are not
allowed by the law to show their hair. This law, by the way, is not
from the Bible, but is an invention of the Rabbis.
The Jews, said Mulai Hashem, are well treated in Tafilelt, whilst
they behave well and according to the rules laid down for them;
which, by the specimen of one that he gave, appear sufficiently
humiliating—viz. that should a Jew pass or be passed by a Sheríf,
he, the Jew, must take off his shoes; or, if mounted, must dismount,
unless specially absolved by the Sheríf.
He tells me that they exercise all the crafts which are practised in
the country, except tilling the soil. It appears that the Jews
themselves seldom, if ever, accompany the ‘kafilas’ (caravans), but,
he says, they have commercial dealings with the Sudan country.
It would appear that the Tafilelt Jews are much at their ease, if
one may judge from the joking adage—according to Mulai Hashem
common in Tafilelt—that ‘forty Mohammedans work for one Jew.’
Mulai Hashem said that the Filali Jews, or Jews of Tafilelt, speak the
Shloh tongue as well as the Arabic, and whenever they wish to say
what they would not have known to Moors or others they speak in
Hebrew.
A learned Jew of this country tells me that all Arabs and Moors
whose names are composed with Ben are of an Israelitish origin.
Mulai Hashem tells me that the following oath is administered in
his country to the Jews, and that they will rather give back anything
they may have come by unjustly than take so grave an oath:—
‘By God, there is no other God but He, the Eternal and Just—who
uttered His word upon the mighty hill—and by the truth of the
existence of the two palm-trees which meet together over the river
Sebts, and by the Book of Moses—peace be upon him—and by the
Ten Commandments delivered unto Moses, and by all that is
contained in his Book, the Gadi, God forbid that I should add or
diminish in this affair, else may God destroy my memory, and may
the name of my family be never mentioned in the world.’
Sebts is the Arabic for Sabbath, and is here applied to the fabled
river called by the Jews Sabbatyon.
It is not clear what is meant by Gadi.
A Jewish Rabbi, named Benshiten, tells me that two and a half
tribes of Israel are the portion which make up the number of Jews
that are found in Europe and Africa—and the remaining nine and a
half are found to exist on the East of a river which is named
Sabbatyon, and is said to be to the East of Mecca. This river, said
he, has the peculiarity of the stones in its bed fighting with each
other all the week excepting the Sabbath, on which day Hebrews
cannot travel; so that the nine and a half tribes cannot communicate
with their separated brethren.

Mr. Hay, it may be added, was the first to break through some of
the despotic rules imposed by the Moors on the Jews. On his arrival
at Tangier in 1844 the Hebrew interpreters attached to the different
Consulates were obliged to remove—as did their brethren—their
slippers on passing a mosque or other sanctuary. When he paid his
visit of ceremony to the Basha, on succeeding his father as Consul-
General and Political Agent, Mr. Hay went, according to the custom
of those days, in full uniform. He was accompanied by his staff, of
which one member—the Interpreter, Mr. David Sicsu—was a Jew, a
shrewd and able man, who had been attached for some years to the
British Consulate. On their way to the Basha’s residence they
passed the great mosque. Mr. Hay noticed that Sicsu stopped and
took off his shoes; so turning, he called out to him in a loud voice,
that all might hear, ‘What are you doing? Put on your shoes.
Remember you are an English employé and, as such, have all the
privileges of British subjects. If ever you do that again, I shall dismiss
you.’
Also, on his first visit to the Sultan’s Court, in 1846, Mr. Hay
insisted on his Jewish interpreters being allowed to ride about the
capital on mule-back, and to enjoy the same rights and privileges as
granted to other members of his staff.
It is only within the last thirty years that Jews in Morocco—not
foreign employés or protected subjects—have been allowed to
assume the European dress, or to wear yellow slippers or red caps
when in native costume. Formerly they were compelled to confine
themselves to black slippers and caps and the Jewish gaberdine.
 CHAPTER X.

DIFFICULTIES OF MR. HAY’S POSITION AT TANGIER. 1846-54.

With characteristic energy and perseverance Mr. Hay

endeavoured to increase the influence and develope the trade of
Great Britain in Morocco, then greatly on the decline. But at every
turn he met with many obstacles. Not the least of these was the
warlike attitude of France towards Morocco as compared with the
peaceful policy of Great Britain. To the ignorant, barbarian Moors
quiet strength appeared to be weakness, while they were in a
corresponding degree impressed by the restless activity of the
French, who, in consequence of the machinations of Abd-el-Kader,
were then on uneasy terms with the Sultan, and left no means
untried to consolidate their influence and to acquire sole
predominance over him. In pursuance of these objects the French
Representatives, with whom Mr. Hay individually was on excellent
terms, were unceasing in their efforts to promote French interests
and gained over to their cause all the most powerful men connected
with the Moorish Court,—not a difficult matter with a corrupt and
venal Government.
The Sultan dared not depend on the countenance of any nation
but the French—fearing that the latter power, if he sought other
protection, might, on the pretext of sending a force in pursuit of Abd-
el-Kader or rebel Algerian tribes, invade Maroquin territory. But the
natives generally were strongly in favour of Great Britain and hostile
to France.
Legitimate commerce, then principally in British hands, was ever
on the decrease, while contraband traffic was largely increasing.
 Mr. Hay urged that, to counterbalance French military influence, a
more authoritative tone must be adopted by Great Britain in her
dealings with the Sultan, and that certain commercial concessions
and reforms should be demanded. He also advised that more
frequent visits should be paid by British men-of-war to Moorish ports,
from which some vessel of the French navy was seldom absent,
while British ships were rarely seen. A year later he pointed out that
his rank, as Consul-General and Agent only, militated against his
efforts to increase British influence, since both the French and
Spanish Governments had Ministers accredited to the Moorish
Court, and the Moors, who neither had newspapers of their own nor
read those of other countries, who had no postal system, and no
native society in which Europeans could mingle, estimated the
comparative importance of different nations by the status of their
respective employés.
Mr. Hay’s efforts were not unrecognised by the Foreign Office.
Encouraging letters reached him from the Chief Clerk signifying Lord
Palmerston’s satisfaction, and at the close of 1847 he was promoted
to the rank of Chargé d’Affaires.
It was also owing to Mr. Hay’s persistent representations that
duties on imported goods were, in September, 1848, reduced ten per
cent. The reduction gave fresh impetus to British trade and
prevented its diversion into Franco-Algerian channels which seemed
at one time imminent.
In the meantime the feelings of the people of Morocco were
growing still more in favour of Great Britain and antagonistic to the
policy of the Sultan. This potentate evinced great ill-will to Mr. Hay,
and even threatened at various times to insist on his recall, should
he persist, as hitherto, in enforcing the claims of British subjects.
This ill-will on the part of the Sultan arose, no doubt, in great
measure from his having been erroneously led to believe by evil
advisers in 1844 that Great Britain would employ armed force on
behalf of the Moors, and from his conviction that she had broken
faith in failing to do so.
 A better feeling towards Great Britain was brought about,
however, by an act of kindly courtesy on the part of Her Majesty’s
Government. In July, 1849, a British vessel of war was sent to
conduct H.S.M.’s two sons to Alexandria, whence they were to
journey to Mecca, the same vessel afterwards bringing them back.
This act of kindness was received with great gratitude by the Sultan,
and in acknowledgement he shortly after sent to the Queen a
present of wild animals, horses and specimens of Moorish
manufactures. Several Moors accompanied the Sultan’s gift to the
Queen and, on their return, in May, 1850, Mr. Hay wrote to Mr.
Addington, then Chief Clerk at the Foreign Office, telling him of their
delight at their reception:—

The Moors have returned, delighted with their visit to the land of the
Nazarenes. Around my house, groups of respectable men may be seen listening
to the wondrous tales of Kaid Abd-el-Kerim or of my groom. The old chief hunter,
Hadj Abdallah, sits in his village—amidst a motley crowd of Arabs and Rifians—
telling them of the magnificence and wonders of London, and the kindness the
poor Moors received, from the Queen down to the servants that assisted them. He
proclaims loudly to the astonished fanatics that power, wealth, honesty, and charity
are to be found in the land of the Infidel and not in the land of the Moslem.
The Hadj tells me that at one time he had almost lost his reason in thinking
over what he had seen. His stories have amused me as much as they do the
Moors, and I have been almost inclined to publish the ‘Travels of the Hadj,’ or get
my brother to do so, as I am rather lazy about writing when it is not a duty.
All the Moors talk much of the Queen and Prince Albert, who they declare sent
for them more than once. So England and the English are in the mouth of every
Moor since the return of the travellers.

In direct contrast to this exchange of courtesies, the French had

continued their dictatorial policy and the feeling in Morocco ran high
against France.
Thus, in April, 1849, the French Chargé d’Affaires struck his flag
in consequence of an altercation with the Lieutenant-Governor
regarding a courier in French employ who had been imprisoned by
that official. This courier was found carrying letters of a purely private
character from Abd-el-Kader to his former lieutenant, then a State
prisoner at Fas. The Moorish Government refused to release the
courier who eventually died in prison. After much negotiation and
pacific counsel on the part of the Neapolitan Consul, who was in
charge of French interests, and of Mr. Hay—who, as he wrote to a
relative, could not have worked harder to bring about a peaceful
issue, had he been himself a Frenchman—the Moors gave way and
offered every reparation. But French pride was roused. Fresh
complications ensued, and finally all the French subjects at Tangier
and the Ports embarked on board vessels of war. In the meantime
the Sultan had begun to collect troops on the Algerian frontier and
war seemed imminent. Mr. Hay hurried off to El Araish by sea and
interviewed the Moorish Minister for Foreign Affairs who, by an
anomalous—though essentially Moorish—arrangement, resided
there. He succeeded in persuading him to check all warlike
preparations; but it was not till the close of September that matters
were brought to a peaceful termination and the French flag hoisted
and saluted.
In connection with the foregoing events Mr. Hay relates the
following story, which he had from an authentic source.

When relations between France and Morocco were in a critical condition and a
declaration of war seemed imminent, the Sultan sent for Abd-el-Hadi, the Kadi of
his Capital, said to be the wisest man in Morocco, and asked him what he was to
reply to the demands of the French.
‘Refuse the infidel,’ said Abd-el-Hadi. ‘Order the destruction of all your ports;
blow up the fortifications; let every man arm and become, as were his ancestors, a
wandering Arab, and then tell the French to do their worst!’
When Abd-el-Hadi had retired, the Sultan turned to his Uzir and said, ‘The Kadi
ought to have added—Abdicate, encourage anarchy and revolution, and destroy at
once the Empire.’
It may be surmised, however, that Abd-el-Hadi was a wiser man than he
appears. Desirous of humouring his lord and master by recommending war, he yet
put his advice in a light which would show the Sultan the folly of resisting the
French.
 Not only was the residence of the Minister for Foreign Affairs at El
Araish most inconvenient at all times to the Representatives—all of
whom lived at Tangier—but it necessitated, as has been seen,
frequent hurried journeys on their part to that port.
On one such occasion, Mr. Hay had proceeded to El Araish by
land to interview Sid Buselham, and had succeeded in getting from
him a reply, which he desired to forward at once to head-quarters by
one of the rare steamers to England due to leave Tangier next
morning. In expectation of this he had, on his way to El Araish,
arranged that four relays of horses were to await his return at
different points of the road between that town and Tangier, a
distance of sixty miles—and, as soon as he had obtained the
Minister’s signature, he mounted and dashed off homewards.
The Governor of El Araish, anxious for the British Agent’s safety
in those troubled times, had given orders that a mounted escort
should also await him with every fresh horse and follow him on the
road. These, however, were unable to keep pace with him. On arrival
at the little town of Azaila, situated about halfway between Tangier
and El Araish, he found no horse prepared for him. Riding at once to
the British Consular Agent’s house, Mr. Hay demanded his horse.
The Agent, a Jew, explained that it was locked up in the stable of the
Basha, who was away, and that the groom was not to be found.
‘Take me to the stable,’ said Mr. Hay, and, calling to four men of the
little crowd of idlers that had gathered, he ordered them to lift a large
log of wood which lay near and direct it as a ram against the door.
‘Now, all together,’ said Mr. Hay. Down came the door with a crash,
and quickly putting his saddle on the fresh horse, and throwing
money to the Agent to repay the damage to the door, he mounted
and rode on.
Before reaching the river Mishra-el-Hashef, some miles to the
west of Tangier, he found his own sturdy pony awaiting him, and
riding this, his favourite mount, he galloped to the river bank where
the ferry, rowed by two men, awaited him. Shouting to them to stand
clear, he jumped his pony into the boat, and out again on reaching
the further side. He arrived at Tangier having ridden the whole
distance in five hours.
The escorts appointed to accompany him returned to their
quarters, having failed to keep Mr. Hay in sight. ‘It was useless,’ said
they. ‘We galloped along behind him but he ran away from us, and
as soon as he had gone a little way ahead he spread large wings
and flew away with his horse!’
As Mr. Hay wore a loose Inverness cape, to protect him from sun
and weather, the fluttering of this may have suggested the idea of
wings.
An account of a curious and unpleasant adventure which befell
Mr. Hay, and which points to the unsettled and fanatical state of the
inhabitants of Tangier at that time is given in the following letter to his
wife’s sister, Mme. Marcussen.

July 29, 1849.

I have also had an affair—and as it may probably be stuffed into some
newspaper which might report my death, as was done once before, I will tell you
about it in a few words.
A few days ago I was accompanying A., perched on her donkey, and the two
children to Madame F.’s. On passing through the little market-place I had remained
rather behind to take care of R., who was holding my hand, when I was assailed
with abuse without the slightest cause by a wild-looking Hadj from the interior—
and, on my calling on the bystanders to arrest him, the fanatic made at me and
struck me a blow in the face and on the shoulder, hitting also by chance poor little
R. I had nothing in my hand but my little gold-headed cane. Of this, however, I
made good use; for I immediately struck the bare head of the Moslem who
instantly fell to the ground, stunned, with a gash of several inches from which
issued torrents of blood, whilst the wretch looked livid and appeared to be
quivering in the convulsions of death. Several of the Hadj’s brethren were near me,
but they all seemed so alarmed at the fate of the wounded man that they did not
venture within reach of my little stick. You may imagine my astonishment at the
effect of such a blow from so small a weapon, and you may imagine also, though I
was justified in defending myself, my horror at the appearance of the wounded
man.
The man was sent to prison and his head examined. The skull was not hurt, but
there was a large gash of the skin and plenty of blood from a severed vein. This
was soon put to rights, and as the wretch had received a good lesson for attacking
a Christian, and all his brethren came to me to intercede for him, as he was about
to embark on board a vessel for Alexandria, I let him out of prison and prevented
Basha giving him the bastinado as he had intended. ‘Voilà tout.’

It may be added in connection with the incident here recounted by

Mr. Hay that, surrounded though he was by a crowd of angry fanatics
—very different in those remote days from the generality of the
native population as known to the tourist in these later and more
civilised times—he stood his ground, alone and undaunted, and the
moment after he had felled his assailant, his only remark was, while
pointing to the fallen man with his stick, ‘Erfed e’jifa’ (Take away the
corpse).
No fear of consequences held back the wild pilgrims who hated
the Christian with the blind, unreasoning hatred of ignorance and
fanaticism; his individuality alone kept them in check, where another
man might have been torn to pieces.
The Basha, after seeing the wounded man, sent to inquire what
manner of sword Mr. Hay had employed which produced such a
peculiar and dangerous wound—and was much astonished when
shown a light but strong cane with a silver gilt head, formerly the
property of Sir Walter Scott, by whom it had been given to Mr. Hay’s
father.
The attitude Mr. Hay had adopted in dealing with the barbarous
Moorish Government, his firm, upright, and frank policy, began to
bear fruit, and in 1850 he writes to his cousin, Mr. R. W. Hay, then
Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies:—

I am glad to find that the straightforward course I have always pursued with this
Government—though often not very flattering to their vanity and fanaticism—
begins to be understood and appreciated, rather than the cajolery they are
accustomed to meet with from others.

On the other hand, to Sir Stratford Canning in February, 1851, he

says:—
 In this country there is nought of interest passing. Our Sultan is a fanatic, and is
guided by a set of ignorant and venal ministers, who are doing all they can to ruin
the commerce of the country by a system of monopolies. It is no use talking or
writing to those who, it appears, won’t or can’t understand.
Their disputes with the French, about frontier, &c., have ceased for the
moment, but there are difficulties we must expect to the end of the chapter—or
rather, until Algiers becomes Morocco or Morocco part of Algiers.

The difficulties he anticipated were not long in abeyance. In the

following December, in a letter to Mme. Marcussen, he tells her:—

The French bombarded Salli on the 25th ult., without giving any notice to us
here or to the Sultan or his Government. Not much harm is done to the town: some
thirteen persons killed in all, and the French have five killed and thirty wounded.
One of their steam frigates was compelled to retire from the combat. After the
bombardment they came here, and all the petty affairs they had to settle were
settled at once—as they would have been before the bombardment if they would
only have been inclined to arrange matters amicably. They saluted the town and
peace was concluded. A reference was then made to the Sultan. His Majesty
accepts the peace, but asks for explanations about bombardment; so B.[22] has
taken umbrage and embarks with all the French subjects, or most of them, leaving
the French flag flying and the Sardinian Consul-General in charge. It has been
mere bullying; the strong trampling on the weak.

In the midst of these difficulties Mr. Hay continued to press upon

the Moorish Government the necessity of a more liberal policy in
matters of trade; but French schemes of political aggrandisement
and the natural apathy of the Sultan, combined with fear of France,
for the time rendered his best endeavours fruitless. In 1853 Mr. Hay
seemed as far from his object as ever. Writing in that year to Mme.
Marcussen, he says:—

I have been very busy, and have been compelled to suspend all relations with
the Moorish Court—though I do not strike my flag. I have given them ten days in
which to give way, and have no doubt they will. My demands have reference to our
rights in trade in this country, which we are anxious to place on a better footing, not
only for Great Britain but for Morocco itself and all countries.
 The Moorish Government have announced that they send an Envoy to
England; and his object, it is reported, is to complain of the insistance and audacity
which I have shown in this negotiation. I am delighted at this manœuvre because it
will only tend finally to show these people I am acting up to my instructions and the
views of Government. So much for Moorish politics.

Such representations on the part of the Moorish Government to

the British Foreign Office were not likely to bear much weight, as
may be gathered from the following farewell letter addressed to Mr.
Hay by Mr. Addington, then retiring from his post as Chief Clerk at
the Foreign Office.

May 18, 1854.

My dear Sir,
I have been much gratified by the receipt of your letter, written on hearing of
my retirement from the Foreign Office. . . .
No act of mine, while I was in office, is remembered by me with more
satisfaction and confidence than the part I had in forwarding your appointment to
the post which you now enjoy so creditably to yourself and so beneficially to the
public.
Some thought so young an appointment hazardous. I felt satisfied it would
succeed, and I therefore pushed it on so far as it depended on me. And it has
succeeded, and will yet succeed.
Go on, without swerving, in the same track; vigorous but temperate;
straightforward; never condescending to indulge in paltry and un-English intrigue
or tortuosity; but not despising the ‘reculer pour mieux sauter’ principle whenever
you find turning the bull’s flank more likely to succeed than taking him by the
horns; and always remembering that, ‘suaviter in modo, fortiter in re,’ is the real
adage for subduing the world and any individual in it.
I wish you every success, and am ever yours very sincerely,
H. Ch. Addington.
CHAPTER XI.

LIFE AT TANGIER.
 Mr. Hay had married, in 1845, a daughter of Mr. Carstensen, a
former Danish Consul-General to Morocco. Except when the
exigencies of a climate which proved very trying in summer for
children of northern race compelled him to send them home, he, with
his wife and young family, resided either at the old Government
House in Tangier or in a villa called by him ‘The Wilderness,’ outside
the walls, which had belonged to his father-in-law. This existence
was only varied by missions to the Court or occasional visits to
England. Beyond the very small European society, composed chiefly
of the various Representatives and their families, residence in
Tangier offered no occupation for the leisure hours of a young and
active man. Thrown therefore on the resources of sport, he mingled
constantly with the wilder natives of the hills as well as with the less
uncivilised farmers and agricultural peasantry of the plains. His
interest in these folk grew, and he gained their respect and even
affection.
Justice amongst these people, when regarded from a purely
personal point of view, as Mr. Hay found, often took rather a romantic
than a strictly logical form. But his hope was to gain the hearts of the
natives, and he knew that such an aim was best attained by bending
in some cases to such national prejudices and customs as those
which are illustrated in the following letter to his mother.

‘The Wilderness,’ Tangier, June 22, 1852.

The other night A. and I were woke by my servant Azdot informing me he had
just seized a robber who had come into the garden to steal our horses, but that the
fellow, though stabbed in the breast by the son of Hadj Abdallah, whom he had
attacked with a sword, had managed to slip out of his jelab (outer cloak) and get
away, leaving as trophies the jelab and a sword they had wrested from him.
A quarter of an hour after I had dismissed Azdot, I heard a couple of shots
close by the house. My people had found the companion of the robber, who
attacked them and then attempted to make off and was fired upon, but managed to
get away—though tracks of blood were found in the gap of the hedge through
which he had escaped.
This morning I sent off a body of my hunters into the country, about twelve
miles from here, to where I suspected the robbers lived: the men were identified
and brought before me. They confessed their crime, but declared that they had
only come to rob the fruit.
Whilst telling the man the punishment I was about to inflict on him, he escaped;
so we raised a hue and cry, and judge and attendants all made after him. His
object, however, was only to get hold of my horse, whose protection he claimed,
according to Moorish custom. He was again brought before me and I was
compelled to let him off the bastinado[23], condemning him to prison only. R. was
standing near me at the time and, to his surprise, the robber sprang towards him,
and seizing him by the hand said to me, ‘I call on you in God’s name and for the
love of this boy, under the hem of whose garment I seek refuge, to have pity on
me.’
After this appeal there was no use in talking of punishing the man, and the
upshot of all was that I caused the rascal to pay a doubloon to my men and two of
the Kaid’s soldiers for arresting him. The man and his brother are the Robin Hoods
of this neighbourhood, and, grateful for my pardon, declare that they are ready to
defend me and mine whenever I call on them: or if any of my cows, camels, or
horses are robbed to cause them to be restored.
Our Governor has given an order to my people to kill any man coming into my
garden at night. This order is published: so we are safer from thieves than you are
in England. I have generally some dozen fine fellows, armed to the teeth, who
guard my garden all night, and who seek for no other compensation than to be my
friends.

The promise made by the robber was faithfully kept, and Mr. Hay
reaped the reward of his leniency in after years, as, by this clan at
least, his property was always respected.
An indefatigable sportsman, Mr. Hay delighted in expeditions into
remote districts of the country in pursuit of game. It was thus in part
that he acquired his intimate knowledge of the character of the
people. Brought into personal contact with the wild tribesmen, in
circumstances which strongly appealed to their natural chivalry, he
gained an influence among them which he was often able to turn to
useful account. A good illustration of his power of dealing with the
native races is afforded by his suppression of piracy among the
Rifians. The story is told in his own words.
 Before the year 1856, vessels becalmed on the Rif coast between
the Algerian frontier and the Spanish fortress Peñon, which is
situated about sixty miles to the eastward of the Moorish port of
Tetuan, were frequently captured by Rifian ‘karebs,’ large galleys
manned by thirty or forty men, armed with long guns, pistols, and
daggers.
When a vessel becalmed, drawn by the current, approached the
Rif coast, especially in the vicinity of the village of Benibugaffer, near
Cape ‘Tres Forcas,’ about fifteen miles to the westward of the
Spanish fortress of Melilla, the natives launched their ‘karebs,’
hidden in nooks on the rocky coast, or buried under sand, and set
out in pursuit, firing volleys as they neared the vessel. The crew, if
they had not escaped in the ship’s boats when the piratical craft
hove in sight, were made prisoners, but were not in general ill-
treated unless they attempted to offer resistance.
On landing, they were compelled to labour in the fields, receiving
a daily allowance of very coarse food. The captured vessel was rifled
of cargo and rigging, and then burnt, so as to leave no vestige.
In the year 1851 a British vessel was taken by the ‘karebs’ of
Benibugaffer.
In pursuance of instructions from H.M.’s Government, a strong
representation was made by me to the Sultan of Morocco, then Mulai
Abderahman, demanding that the pirates should be chastised, that
compensation should be given to the owner of the vessel, and that
energetic steps should be taken by His Sherifian Majesty to put a
stop to these piratical acts of his lawless subjects of the Rif.
The Sultan, on the receipt of this demand, dispatched officers
from his Court to the Rif country with a Sherifian edict to the
chieftains, directing that the sums demanded for the destruction of