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Spilsbury, Major A. Gibbon.
The Tourmaline Expedition;
Publisher: J. M. Dent & Co. London;
Date of Publication: 1906
Stock Code: 14325
First edition, octavo, pp., 259. Photographic frontispiece and nine further photographic full page plates, two maps, including one large fold out to rear. Bevelled bottle green cloth boards with gilt titles and decorative detail to spine and upper board. A near fine copy. Major Spilsbury’s account of his attempts to smuggle and run guns to southern Moroccan tribes outside of the control and authority of the Sultan in 1897, in breach of international and British domestic laws. Spilsbury argues that if the Sultan could not guarantee a foreigner’s safely in the lands south of the Atlas mountains he should not claim to control them and he took it upon himself to negotiate directly with local leaders, agreeing to supply them with arms.

When Spilsbury tried to land his arms cargo in Mogador (now Essaouria) his men were met with hostile Moorish troops and he was forced to move away from the harbour leaving several of his crew on shore. In March 1898 Spilsbury left the Tourmaline and returned to London where The War Office suspended him from duty, discharged him from the Army and charged him with illegally landing arms in Morocco. Subsequently acquitted by a jury of his peers, he evaded arrest on a further charge by remaining outside of the jurisdiction. Spilsbury appears baffled in his conclusion that Morocco should be so resistant to colonisation. The appendix treats colonisation as inevitable and unashamedly motivated by access to Morocco’s natural resources including gold. £150.00