THE PLAGUE. l65 I am confident, if my advice had been taken, the disease might have been checked in the beginning ; for it was almost three quarters of a year confined to old Fas. I wrote in the most pressing manner to Ben Ottoman *", who never beUeved me. A few days before he was seized with it, he wrote me a melancholy letter for advice, and pathetically lamented that he had not listened to me in time ; and I suppose that even Broussonet ' believed me when he embarked. I hope your opinion that it diminishes with you will prove well founded ; but I fear its ravages are only suspended by the great heats ; besides, you should recollect that people cannot die twice, and with a population so diminished, you must not expect so many as formerly on your daily dead-list. Mrs. M., who desires her remembrance to you, is well, but barring plague, would rather be at Tangier than Gibraltar ; so would I.

Ever truly thine, J. Matra.

• The emperor's prime-minister, or talb cadus at that time.

Dr. Broussonet, French consul. This gentleman was intendant of the botanical garden at Montpelier : he, with another doctor embarked for Europe just as the plague began to appear at Mogodor in the year 1799.

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