Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 39.djvu/58

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Morier
52
Morier

through Persia,' 1818. 3. 'The Adventures of Haiji Baba of Ispahan,' 1824. 4. 'Zohrab the Hostage,' 1832. 5. 'Ayesha, the Maid of Kars,' 1834. 6. 'Abel Allnutt, a novel,' 1837. 7. 'The Banished' [by W. Hauff]: only prefatory note by Morier, 1839. 8. 'The Adventures of Tom Spicer,' a poem, printed 1840. 9. 'The Mirza,' 1842. 10. 'Misselmah, a Persian tale,' 1847. 11. 'St. Roche,' a romance (from the German), merely edited by Morier, 'the practised author,' 1847. 12. 'Martin Troutroud, or the Frenchman in London,' originally written by Morier in French, and translated by himself, 1849.

[Authorities cited in the article; Bates's Maclise Portrait Gallery, where there is a portrait of Morier; information from Sir E. Hertslet, librarian to the foreign office; private information; Fraser's Magazine, vii. 159; Quarterly Review, vols. xxi. xxxvi. xxxix. James Justinian has been confounded with his elder brother, John Philip, in biographical dictionaries.]


MORIER, JOHN PHILIP (1776–1853), diplomatist, was the eldest of the four sons of Isaac Morier [q. v.], and was born at Smyrna 9 Nov. 1776. He was attached to the embassy at Constantinople 5 April 1799, where he acted as private secretary to the ambassador, the seventh Earl of Elgin, best known for his acquisition of the 'Elgin marbles.' Morier was despatched on 22 Dec. 1799 on special service of observation to Egypt, to accompany the grand vezir in the Turkish expedition against General Kléber, whom Napoleon had left to hold the country. Morier joined the Turkish army at El-'Arish, on the Egyptian frontier, 31 Jan. 1800, and remained with it until July. He published an admirable account of the campaign, under the title of 'Memoir of a Campaign with the Ottoman Army in Egypt from February to July 1800' (London, 8vo, 1801). According to the 'Nouvelle Biographie' he was taken prisoner by the French, but in spite of his character as the representative of a hostile power, entrusted, moreover, with a secret mission to co-operate diplomatically with the Turks with a view to the expulsion of the French from Egypt, he was set at liberty, with a warning that should he again be found in Egypt he would meet the fate of a spy. No authority, however, is adduced for this story, which is unsupported by any public or private evidence. In December 1803 Morier was appointed consul-general in Albania, where the policy of 'Ali Pasha of Jannina, the most powerful of the semi-independent vassals of the Porte, was for many years a subject of solicitude both to English and French diplomacy (Lane-Poole, Life of Stratford Canning, i. 104). In April 1810 he was promoted to be secretary of legation at Washington, and in October 1811 was gazetted a commissioner in Spanish America. On his return to England he became for a while acting under-secretary of state for foreign affairs in August 1815. In the following year, 5 Feb., he was appointed envoy extraordinary to the court of Saxony at Dresden, which post he held till his retirement, on pension, 5 Jan. 1825. He died in London 20 Aug. 1853. He had married, 3 Dec. 1814, Horatia Maria Frances (who survived him only six days), eldest daughter of Lord Hugh Seymour, youngest son of the first Marquis of Hertford, by whom he had seven daughters, one of whom married the last Duke of Somerset.

[Foreign Office List, 1854; London Gazette, 1 Oct. 1811; Ann. Reg. 1853; information from Sir E. Hertslet; private information.]


MORIER, Sir ROBERT BURNETT DAVID (1826–1893), diplomatist, only son of David Richard Morier [q. v.], was born at Paris 31 March 1826. He was educated at first privately at home, and then at Balliol College, Oxford, where he took a second class in litteræ humaniores in 1849. To his Oxford training he owed in part the scholarly style and analytical insight which afterwards characterised his despatches. In January 1851 he was appointed a clerk in the education department, a post which he resigned in October of the following-year in order to enter the diplomatic service. On 5 Sept. 1853 he became unpaid attache at Vienna, and the next twenty-three years of his life were spent almost entirely in German countries. He was appointed paid attache at Berlin, 20 Feb. 1858; accompanied Sir H. Elliot on his special mission to Naples, June 1859; and was assistant private secretary to Lord John Russell during his attendance upon the queen at Coburg in September to October 1860. On 1 Oct. 1862 he was made second secretary, on 1 March 1865 British commissioner at Vienna for arrangement of tariff, and on 10 Sept. 1865 secretary of legation at Athens, whence he was soon transferred in the same capacity to Frankfort on 30 Dec. 1865. His services were recognised by the companionship of the Bath in the following January. From March to July 1866 he was again engaged on a commission at Vienna, for carrying out the treaty of commerce, and on returning to Frankfort acted as charge d'affaires, and was appointed secretary of legation at Darmstadt in the same year. Here, with an interval of commission work at Vienna upon