War with Spain in 1654 accelerated English interest in the acquisition of a naval base adjacent to the Pillars of Hercules whence trade might be succoured, North African pirates suppressed, and Dutch mercantile competition challenged. Gibraltar would have been ideal but Portuguese Tangier, noted by Admiral Edward Mountagu (1625–1672) in 1656 as a serviceable watering and victualling station despite its exposure to Atlantic weather, was a more realistic target.Footnote ¹ The Franco-Spanish Treaty of the Pyrenees, 7 November 1659, deprived Portugal of overt French military assistance in its long and expensive war for independence from Spain (1640–1668), leading the regency of Luisa de Guzmán (1613–1666), acting on behalf of King Afonso VI (1643–1683), to seek a compensatory alliance with England. By the terms of the subsequent marriage agreement between King Charles II of England (1630–1685) and Princess Catherine of Braganza (1638–1705), Portugal exchanged £330,000 in cash, Bombay, and unproductive Tangier for a mixed brigade of New Model veterans.Footnote ² Whitehall's lack of due diligence soon became embarrassingly evident. Governor Lord Peterborough's expeditionary force anchored in Tangier Bay on 29 January 1662 to take possession but found the town much smaller than anticipated – 600 dilapidated buildings accommodated about 2,000 people, mostly Portuguese – its military situation inauspicious, the enceinte feeble, and shallow harbour inadequate. Unwarranted initial optimism was further eroded on 3 May when a sizeable detachment from the garrison, under Major George Fiennes Clinton, was thrashed by the forces of al-Ghailan, the regional warlord.Footnote ³ Exactly two years later, a second disaster reinforced an enduring miasma of defeat and induced a siege mentality.Footnote ⁴

Following Moulay Ismail ibn Sharif's expulsion of al-Ghailan and his forces from the Gharb in 1668, Tangier's outlook temporarily brightened as Moroccan energies were expended in the ensuing civil war. Emerging victorious in 1672, the new sultan, Moulay Ismail, considered it his sacred duty to reconquer the Spanish, Portuguese, and English enclaves which besmirched the north-west coast of Morocco but his immediate resources were limited and political position insecure. Not until 1678 was he able to open significant operations against Tangier, climaxing between April and May 1680 when 7,000 troops, commanded by Omar Ben Haddu Hamami, alcaid of Alcazar, captured all but three of the feeble outworks. However, both sides lost heavily during the fighting and the alcaid's suggestion of a ceasefire until 15 September was welcomed by Governor Inchiquin. During the ensuing hiatus, Sir Palmes Fairborne received sufficient reinforcements to enable major counter-attacks on 20 September and 27 October.Footnote ⁵ Pole Fort was retaken but only 1,500 effective troops remained, the attenuated ring of fortifications could not withstand further assault, and fresh provisions were nearly exhausted. Despite strong opposition from Major James Halkett and several senior officers who pressed for renewed aggression to maintain the tactical initiative, the acting lieutenant governor Edward Sackville acceded to the alcaid's proposal to suspend hostilities for six months provided that the garrison neither built new fortifications nor repaired those it still occupied. The survival of English Tangier appeared to depend upon translating this arrangement into a formal and enduring peace. An embassy to the court at Meknès was accordingly prepared but the absence of both trust and a working relationship between colonists and Moroccans presented every advantage to Moulay Ismail.Footnote ⁶

These difficulties were exacerbated by the Tangerines’ insularity and ignorance – it was said that their knowledge of the country did not extend beyond the view from the top of Peterborough Tower – which resulted from geo-political isolation, frequent military reverses, a lack of local initiative, and severe underfunding. Some residents could manage a smattering of pidgin-Arabic and a few were moderately competent in Spanish, the local lingua franca, but most oral and written translation had to be entrusted to Jews, apostates, and renegades whose work was often of variable quality and reliability.Footnote ⁷ Communications with England were tenuous and subject to deliberate and accidental interference. Although, from 14 August 1682, Percy Kirke's confidential correspondence was enciphered, the code was unsophisticated and letters sent overland through Spain and France were opened routinely and their contents selectively revealed to Meknès.Footnote ⁸ As a result, Whitehall was badly informedFootnote ⁹ about the nature and priorities of the sultan's government. First, it assumed that the Moroccans would act like Europeans. Secondly, it failed to grasp that every political initiative required lubrication by showers of appropriate gifts: undersized horses did not qualify.Footnote ¹⁰ Thirdly, although Moulay Ismail shared in the profits of the Barbary Corsairs and used their enslaved prisoners in the construction of Meknès, he exercised only nominal authority over their quasi-independent city states. Whitehall's insistent enthusiasm for a maritime agreement to curtail piratical depredations upon English shipping merely served to advertise publicly the sultan's embarrassment.Footnote ¹¹ Finally, Westminster's diplomacy was often misdirected because it did not appreciate that while Moulay Ismail concentrated mainly upon inland affairs – fighting rival claimants to the throne and squabbling with the dey of Algiers – the alcaid of Alcazar directed operations against the coastal enclaves.Footnote ¹²

Finding an ambassador for such an unrewarding, even dangerous, posting was difficult. Faute de mieux, Charles settled upon Major James Lesley, a Tangier veteran who had undertaken some minor negotiations in Alcazar and Sallee. A quickly arranged knighthood veneered his plebeian origins but Moulay Ismail was not to be deceived. Lesley returned to Tangier from London on 18 December 1680 aboard the convoy carrying the 2nd Tangier Regiment, of which Percy Kirke had become acting colonel following Lord Plymouth's death on 17 October,Footnote ¹³ but then dithered in town completing his equipage and travel arrangements. During this interval, he received additional instructions from Whitehall, where views had been influenced by Halkett's warlike faction, to insist upon the right to rebuild and repair Tangier's fortifications. Moulay Ismail, renowned for impatience, let it be known that he was about to enter the field against his rebellious nephew, Ahmed ibn Muhriz, and would wait no longer. Desperate not to squander the opportunity, Sackville asked Kirke to travel to Meknès to apologize for and explain the ambassador's delayed departure. Unbeknown to Lesley, Kirke was party to an understanding between Sackville and the alcaid of Alcazar to the effect that the six-month truce would form the basis for the impending negotiations.

Kirke set out in early January 1681, escorted by the alcaid. Entering a truly foreign land, he expected to meet primitive, bloodthirsty barbarians. Instead, he found a well-established culture where hospitality was fulsome and courteous, although the interminable, flowery verbosity was trying, and the hunting excellent. He reached Meknès, ‘the Versailles of this kingdom’, on 26 February 1681 and, at their first meeting, informed Moulay Ismail of the arrangement between Sackville and the alcaid. Sultan and colonel shared many traits of character and a seemingly friendly modus vivendi resulted but, on 20 March, Lesley arrived and the mood changed abruptly. Moulay Ismail then departed on campaign leaving the talks to the alcaid, a stern, unyielding Anglophobe, whose stance was inflexible: in return for an annual tribute payable in muskets, gunpowder, and cloth, the six-month armistice might be extended to four years and the garrison allowed limited access to regional markets. Sackville's prior agreement with the alcaid fatally undermined Lesley's position and his bid to acquire more generous terms regarding the fortifications was quickly brushed aside. Angry, embarrassed, and without room for manoeuvre, he reluctantly initialled the Treaty of Meknès on 29 March 1681.Footnote ¹⁴ The sole positive achievement was Moulay Ismail's commitment to send an ambassador to England equipped with plenary powers to amend any articles in the Meknès treaty unacceptable to Charles II. Sackville sailed for England during April leaving Kirke in command. He was to be promoted governor on 26 January 1682, the news reaching Tangier before 3 April.

Competent, prudent, cautious, Anglican, boisterously healthy, professional, and not given to dipsomania, Kirke was one of Tangier's better viceroys. He was far from perfect but his rampant addiction to sex did not materially affect his government. Samuel Pepys remarked that Kirke's predecessors had ‘minded nothing but to make themselves rich; but [Dr Thomas Lawrence] says that as to the public buildings for the real benefit of the place, this man Kirke has done more in his time than all of them put together’.Footnote ¹⁵ Responsible for managing, without expectation of either human or fiscal reinforcement, a declining asset consuming between £40,000 and £50,000 annually,Footnote ¹⁶ he repaired the remaining fortifications;Footnote ¹⁷ gathered the soldiers from scattered billets into new barracks fashioned within the Upper Castle; and constructed additional magazines.Footnote ¹⁸ The Tangier Committee was pestered for more cavalry, qualified gunners, and better cannon. Drunk and insubordinate officers were removed while those who had secured extended furloughs in England, where they enjoyed regular and punctual wages but left in Tangier debts untended and soldiers unremunerated and undersupervised, were recalled.Footnote ¹⁹ When arrears of pay threatened the functioning of the municipal economy, Kirke re-established liquidity by requisitioning money from Benedict Thistlethwaite, agent for the farmers of the Irish revenues.Footnote ²⁰ Various measures benefited the garrison's health: one soldier per company was designated cook; additional funding for the hospital was requested; superannuated veterans were repatriated; and the tenuous water supply upgraded.Footnote ²¹ Naturally, his own interests were not ignored, every assistance being given to the careers of relatives and protégés and all opportunities for financial gain fully exploited.Footnote ²²

Pressure on Tangier reintensified following the capitulation of the Spanish fortress-enclave of La Mamora (Mahdiya) to the alcaid of Alcazar on 2 April 1681 but neither party sought an immediate resumption of hostilities: England could not afford to furnish its colony with adequately garrisoned modern defences, while Moulay Ismail was distracted by internal unrest. Lacking any agreed protocols by which to conduct relations with the Moroccans, except Sackville's time-expired truce and the unconfirmed Treaty of Meknès, Kirke was pleased to receive the sultan's ambassador to the court of St James, Moulay Ahmed Mohammed Attar Ben Haddu, in Tangier on 28 November 1681 and wished every success to his embassy charged with clarifying the terms of the treaty.Footnote ²³ Nevertheless, a fortnight's acquaintance caused him to worry about the likely impact of this exotic and devious personage on gullible ministers in Whitehall. Drawing upon recent experiences, he advised them to ignore hysteria and other theatricalities and explained that Ben Haddu's main objective would be to obtain modern armaments, ‘contraband’, which he would also seek to purchase on the open market.Footnote ²⁴ Kirke's admonitions were disregarded and a treaty, essentially a replication of the earlier document plus a draft naval agreement aimed at controlling corsairs, was signed on 23 March 1682. His work complete, Ben Haddu set out to enjoy the fruits of Caroline England and delayed his departure until 23 July. On receiving a copy from Thomas Onby, Kirke cavilled at the additional clauses that undermined Tangier's security by granting thirty Moroccans the right to remain in town and permitting the sultan's local representatives to buy munitions from English merchants. Kirke's unease was partly mollified when the alcaid of Alcazar, anxious to protect his own position as military leader of the campaigns against the enclaves, persuaded Moulay Ismail to refuse ratification on the grounds that Ben Haddu, one of the alcaid's many rivals, had acted ultra vires in agreeing a naval codicil. The atmosphere became even chillier when the alcaid promptly created a permanent camp of between 2,500 and 3,000 soldiers within sight of Tangier and engineered a series of quibbles about the garrison's right to purchase straw, cattle, and timber and its tardiness in delivering the tribute of textiles, muskets, and gunpowder.

Convinced that the sultan's truculence was intended to browbeat Charles into dispatching another diplomatic mission to Meknès,Footnote ²⁵ which would necessarily have to be laden with a cornucopia of presents and contraband, the governor counselled firmness. Charles took note before addressing the sultan in Arabic. The postman, Kirke's aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Francis Nicholson, was additionally enjoined to suborn the leading officials into promoting the endorsement of the treaty. The outcome was unfortunate because, for probably the first time, the sultan fully understood a missive from England – hitherto, translators had tactfully edited both substance and tone – and realized that he had massively over-estimated his own importance and reputation among European states. Moulay Ismail's bad-tempered and ill-mannered reply, written in his native tongue and emblazoned in gold leaf, stated that Tangier, which he regarded as a very useful fount of contraband, was now effectively subject to Moroccan control. While he was prepared to allow it to function as a free port under infidel administration and undertook to restrain some of his more intemperate subjectsFootnote ²⁶ from taking drastic action, should the English try to improve the fortifications, initiate naval action against the Sallee Rovers, or allow British arms dealers to continue trading with the insurgents in Suz, then it would be seized. Cognizant of much that passed in Tangier and surprisingly well informed about London politics through Kirke's intercepted mail, intelligence from the French government, and spies in Whitehall, the sultan knew that the ripe fruit would soon fall and there was nothing to be gained from bullying the English into premature departure.Footnote ²⁷ The former ambassador Ben Haddu reinforced the point, warning that, unless abundantly rewarded, Moulay Ismail would descend upon Tangier with a multitude of 600,000, including forces from Algiers and all regions of Morocco, which, of course, would soon be unified under the great sultan.Footnote ²⁸ The preposterous hyperbole notwithstanding – at the time, Meknès was ravaged by plague while Moulay Ismail's field army, containing significantly fewer than 10,000 soldiers, was heavily engaged against both Algiers and his rebellious nephew in Suz – this bellicose message was not uninfluential.

That English Tangier no longer justified the heavy cost in money and resources was unofficially recognized by the decision to suspend work on the mole beyond February 1681.Footnote ²⁹ Despite considerable investment, the harbour remained too small, lacked ‘all conveniences for [the] supply of shipping’, and was not proof against Atlantic storms: commanders of the Straits squadronFootnote ³⁰ much preferred facilities at Cadiz, Lisbon, Malta, Leghorn, and Gibraltar. Agricultural development remained inchoate because the garrison had proved unable to enlarge the tiny hinterland, leaving the colony dependent on victualling from England and Iberia; a reliable water supply was a persistent concern; the garrison was demotivated and demoralized; and the wielding of a single pickaxe outside the walls risked attack.Footnote ³¹ The bill for rebuilding the remaining defences, estimated at between two and three million pounds sterling plus recurrent expenditure on a garrison of 8–10,000 men thereafter, would have fallen solely upon the king, parliament having refused financial help on 9 November 1680.Footnote ³² York, Rochester, and Sunderland favoured the abandonment of Tangier, pointing out that the incorporation of the garrison into the English standing army would enhance royal authority without incurring additional expense.Footnote ³³ Once convinced, Charles decided to disguise de facto defeat and its concomitant loss of prestige by emptying then obliterating the town: rumours to this effect reached Kirke before 28 July 1683.Footnote ³⁴ Queen Catherine, who regarded Tangier as her personal gift to England, was deeply hurt at such ingratitude and her confidante, Ambassador Luis de Vasconcelos e Sousa, 3rd count of Castel Melhor (1636–1720), suggested that Portugal might buy Tangier. Charles hesitated but Lisbon could not afford the asking price.Footnote ³⁵ Castel Melhor next ventured that England could cede the town in return for repayment of ‘expenses’ and a grant of free trade. Charles was half-minded to accept but York, the power behind the throne, was anxious for the promised augmentation of the army and vetoed the proposal, arguing that the Portuguese would soon forfeit Tangier to France.

Chosen to command the joint naval and Ordnance Office expedition to evacuate and ruin Tangier, an unattractive and vexatious appointment, Lord Dartmouth, a client of the duke of York, received instructions before the end of July 1683. Samuel Pepys was chief of staff. All inhabitants were to be removed – there were about 600 civilians, 361 of whom were soldiers’ dependents, plus 2,830 assorted military personnel – and the buildings demolished. Nine warships and twelve merchantmen left Spithead on 19 August 1683 and entered Tangier Bay on Friday 14 September. Kirke was rowed to the flagship, HMS Grafton (3rd rate, 70 guns), to be informed that, although his governor's commission was revoked, as ranking garrison officer he would serve as Dartmouth's deputy.Footnote ³⁶ Having partially damaged the mole, a few sections of the ramparts, and some of the forts, houses, and civic buildings, the garrison embarked on 5–6 February 1684. As the last longboats pulled away from the mole, the Moroccans were already filing through Catharina Port.Footnote ³⁷

The Letter Book contains official, government correspondence: accounts of Kirke's colourful private life may be found elsewhere.Footnote ³⁸ After his death in Breda on 15 October 1691, the Letter Book passed to his widow, Dame Mary Kirke née Howard (d.1707); then to their only surviving son, Lieutenant General Percy Kirke (1683–1741), who was childless; to his unmarried niece and heir, Diana Dormer (1712–1743); and, finally, to her maternal cousin, Sir Clement Cottrell Dormer (1686–1758).Footnote ³⁹ When his collection was auctioned in 1764, the Letter Book was acquired for the library of Horace Walpole (1717–1797) at Strawberry Hill, Twickenham. It was catalogued MS 2572 and put into Press P ‘in the Glass Closet’.Footnote ⁴⁰ Kirke's Letter Book was one of three pieces comprising Lot 93 of the ‘Great Sale’ of Walpole's collection in 1842. It was purchased on day six for £11 11s 0d by Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792–1872), who amended the title to, ‘State Letters from Tangier, 17 June 1681 to 21 September 1683’; appended, ‘from Strawberry Hill 1842. P.’; and entered it into the register as MS 11791.Footnote ⁴¹ Although Thomas Fitzroy Fenwick (1856–1938), Phillipps's grandson and legatee, began the sale of the majority of his grandfather's books and manuscripts in 1886, he retained many items including the Letter Book.Footnote ⁴² William H. Robinson Ltd, booksellers of Newcastle upon Tyne and London, bought it from Fenwick's estate. On 21 March 1949, it was purchased from Robinson Ltd by the American collector and voracious Horace Walpole enthusiast, Wilmarth Sheldon Lewis (1895–1979),Footnote ⁴³ for his personal library in Farmington, Connecticut, where its original Walpolean classification, MS 2572, was restored.Footnote ⁴⁴ Lewis bequeathed his property to Yale University. The Lewis Walpole Library became a department of Yale University Library in 1980.