Robert Adams (sailor)

Because his story was sanctioned by some of the most distinguished men in England, including members of government, who had a noted financial interest in Africa, his narrative(s) gained credibility despite "its most glaring absurdities.

[3] Joseph Dupuis, the British Consul in Mogador who eventually ransomed Adams, wrote of Adams' appearance: "The appearance, features, and dress of this man...so perfectly resembled those of an Arab, or rather a Shilluh, his head being shaved and his beard being scanty and black, that I had difficulty at first in believing him to be a Christian.

"[4]Dupuis wrote that Adams left America to avoid being prosecuted for refusing to legitimize his relationship with a young woman.

[3] After three weeks at sea, Adams said he overheard two older crew members, Newsham and Matthews, who had been on the coast before, state that the captain was lost.

Adams claimed that Captain Horton fell ill and was killed with a sword by the Moors, who were frustrated that they could not communicate with him despite having the Frenchman as a translator.

[3] He said they traveled southwest, crossing the desert at an estimated rate of 15–20 miles a day, under great hardship, with scarcity of food and water.

Adams never provides any parameters for Stevens' captivity but expresses that they were treated as honored guests of the king rather than as enslaved people and were free to move about as they pleased within the city.

Eventually, the Moors reached a village of tents, where Adams was put to work for several months tending goats and sheep.

At some point during this phase of his enslavement, Adams' master had promised to take him to Mogador and trade him to the British consul, thus helping him attain freedom.

"[6] According to Cock's introduction to the Narrative, Adams sailed home in December 1815, omitting much of his payment, as well as his royalties from the book, but promising to return in the spring.

Due to the dangerous nature of trans-Atlantic crossings in the winter, he gave Cock the "particulars of his family" to verify claims on his earnings.

This version was published as "Interiour of Africa" in the North American Review in May 1817, with an introductory note from editor Jared Sparks.

Ibn Battuta, a famed Moroccan traveler, visited Mali for several months from 1352 to 1353 and confirmed that there was abundant gold in the kingdom.

[9] The following explorers attempted many failed expeditions to the remote city of Timbuktu: the American John Ledyard, the Englishman Simon Lucas, the Irishman Major Daniel Houghton, the Scotsman Mungo Park, the German Frederick Hornemann, an Englishman named Nicholls, and the Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt.

[3] Despite the controversy regarding the veracity of Adams' story, publishing his Narrative was deemed a triumph for British science and exploration.

[1] In addition, the collector of New York, who certified ships, verified that no vessel resembling Adams' description of the Charles had ever left his stated port.

[10] Raising more doubt is the manner in which Cock "found" Adams, a then destitute beggar, wandering the streets of London in 1815, and how an illiterate person, who learned nothing from books, knew the exact number of days of his journeys, the precise number of miles he traveled each day, and the precise directions of all his travels on foot.

Placed in a wide and untravelled region, where a mere narrator of fables might easily persuade himself that no one would trace or detect him, we find Adams resisting the temptation (no slight one for an ignorant sailor) of exciting the wonder of the credulous, or the sympathy of the compassionate, by filling his story with miraculous adventures, or overcharged pictures of suffering.

This, argues critics, was done to the point in which Cock brought in a group of "scientific and respectable gentlemen" to interview Adams to verify details and geographical descriptions of Africa.

[2] Adams' story was deemed fabricated, to the point that it was denounced in the North American Review in 1817, which delivered its critique only after assessing both narratives.

The critique stated: "In our last number we published a notice of this book, to gether with a similar narrative, which was taken at Cadiz several months previously to this, expressing at the same time our suspicion, that the whole of that part, which related to the interiour, and particularly to the city of Tombuctoo, was a fabrication.

We propose now to examine the subject more at large, and to bring forward such reasons as have in duced us from the beginning to regard the story as a fiction, and a gross attempt to impose on the credulity of the publick.

To us, indeed, this has appeared so obvious, that we should not think it worthy of any serious examination, had it not excited so much interest, and gained universal belief in England...We have not time to pursue Adams through all the im probabilities, inconsistencies, and contradictions of his story.

We have mentioned some of the more important only, and such as could not possibly arise from defect of memory or observation..."[1]Despite its discrepancies, it is surmised that Adams' story found an audience due to "sympathy and curiosity of Africa" at the time.