Ottoman Algeria in Western Diplomatic History with ... - Bibliothèque

a legal act of war. In this context, the Algerian corsair who set out to target not
only economic rivals who sought to expand their trade supremacy at the
detriment of Algiers but also religion enemies and crusaders who were intent
upon eradicating his religion and threatened his very existence had acquired
legitimacy. As a matter of fact, this is an even more legitimate and stronger
motivation for corsairing than mere commercial supremacy.
As stated earlier, the dividing line between corsairing and piracy is thin.
When a state of war against a lawful enemy does not exist, corsairing simply
becomes piracy. As far as Christian corsairing is concerned, this distinction
was often blurred by a succession of European inter-state wars followed by
short-lived truces: at wartimes, the demand for privateers increased which
caused a boost in letters’ of marque issuance. At times of peace, however,
privateers were decommissioned thus losing the legitimacy conferred on them
by letters of marque. This situation created confusion in interpretations.
Confusion arose mainly because it was difficult to determine whether seizure
occurred while warfare was still going on, therefore it was a legitimate act of
corsairing, or whether it occurred after a truce was proclaimed, therefore it was
piracy:
Decommissioned, experienced sea raiders found themselves without
sponsors yet sometimes continued to engage in raiding, especially in
places where lucrative shipping was poorly protected. The legality of
their actions depended upon open and conflicting interpretations of
whether the timing, location, and targets of raids fell within the terms of
often dubious commissions. Not surprisingly, both captains and
common sailors cultivated a certain expertise in representing their
commissions as legitimate and the assets they seized as legal prizes. 116
116 Benton, “Legal Spaces of Empire,” p. 706.
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