ABSTRACT
In the early winter of 1803 it came to the notice of the Privy Council that the Spanish port of Malaga was experiencing an epidemic of unusual ferocity. As the disease which had smitten Cadiz a few years earlier had not been too detrimental to British interests, the Council might have been excused for taking the news calmly. But there were several factors now which gave rise to disquiet. In the first place, information was arriving from two independent sources. British consuls were alerting Hawkesbury, as Foreign Secretary, and the navy were alarming the Admiralty, who rushed the news to Lord Hobart, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies.1 As the navy had been a bulwark of reassurance about the yellow fever at Cadiz, their concern about sickness at Malaga could not be taken lightly. Secondly, the outbreak was spreading rapidly: Alicante and Carthagena were soon attacked, renewing fears for the health of Gibraltar. Thirdly, the identity of the new disease had not been established. And finally, Britain, even in wartime, had a considerable trade with Spanish ports of the Mediterranean. Merchants would be less tolerant of an impediment to business with accessible Malaga than they had been in 1800 in respect of blockaded Cadiz.
