Letters from Barbary, France, Spain, Portugal, &c., by an English Officer.
London: T. Cadell, 1790. Second edition, corrected. 8vo. 2 volumes: xv, 487; vii, 528 pp. Inscribed on the front endpaper to volume one "For Her Royal Highness the Princess of Orange and her children. With great respect & esteem from the author. / A. Jardine, Major, Artillery." Jardine was appointed as a representative of the English government to Sultan Mohammed Ibn Abdallah, and the Letters touch briefly on his tenure in Morocco. Based on experiences while stationed with the British army at Gibralter in the 1770s (for a brief account, see DNB), "Jardine's letters show him to be on the whole a not unsympathetic observer, though one by no means exempt from his countrymen's usual prejudices against papists in general and Spaniards in particular. He admired Spanish painting and Spanish Gothic architecture, but in politics and economics Spain could serve only as a warning example of the effects of bad government and bad religion. Jardine believed that Spain's ancient institutions had been destroyed and that the Bourbons were in this respect no better than their predecessors" (Polt Jovellanos and His English Sources, 1966). Contemporary flame calf, gilt, spines richly gilt with ornaments and rules, morocco spine labels, boards framed with an ornamental rule, marbled endpapers. Edges of boards and spines a little rubbed, corners bumped, occasional light foxing, but an attractive copy in a lovely contemporary binding. (736). Item #54516
Price: $1,500.00