From the slave of god…the living king, our lord, Husayn Basha Bey, master of the kingdom of Tunis…to our ally, Cavalier Mathieu de Lesseps, consul general of France in Tunis:

Your letter reached us on 2 Rabi ‘Ithani 1244 [12 December 1828]. In it you referred to a letter from your country concerning the ten days’ quarantine which we ordered for all merchant ships coming to our country to save the people from outbreaks of disease. Your request was to remove the quarantine from merchant ships coming from your Mediterranean ports. We have considered your request and the answer is that we have ordered the ten days to protect the people. God Almighty gave us the duty to take care of their welfare and to protect them from contagious diseases.

It came to us from many authoritative sources that plague, yellow fever, and other diseases are spreading. Yellow fever is severe in Gibraltar and elsewhere. We know that merchant ships have contact with other ships at sea and in port so we ordered these ten days to protect the land and the people. As for the corsair ships with their long stays at sea, we ordered any corsair ship to return to its port of origin for twenty days and to carry a patent in its language in the hand of its captain, who must prove the ship had no contact with another at sea and visited no other port.