ABSTRACT
When Britain faced up to the Marseilles crisis, she already had two possessions in the Mediterranean, namely Gibraltar and Minorca. The measures against infection adopted in 1720-22 necessarily interfered with arrivals from both places, but not to the same extent. The few vessels sailing from Minorca were warships or merchantmen carrying only naval stores, so enumerated goods were not a problem. By contrast, arrivals from Gibraltar were frequent, and many ships carried commercial cargoes, often of high value and originating in the suspect Levant. Although some vessels called at Gibraltar to load cordivants and imports from Morocco, most dropped in only for water or provisions and, in the case of the Levant Company’s ships, to receive intelligence.1 It is difficult to be precise as to the number of ships entering quarantine in Britain which had called at Gibraltar on the way, as the information was not systematically recorded.
