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

At about the same period, i.e.: beginning of shipbuilding in Europe but
high tide of corsairing, Algiers had an imposing fleet composed of 50-80 large
sailing vessels armed with 626 guns. 106
According to the English admiral
Narborough, that force was equivalent to what could be found in European
fleets of the time. 107 So far, the Algerian fleet had won most of the major sea
battles; it imposed respect of Algiers in Europe and preserved its existence. But
progressively, it started losing ground to more powerful European fleets so that
one hundred years later, the supremacy of the fleet was no more; worse, the
very vessels were on the verge of extinction. At the death of Muhammed Ben
Uthman, Algiers’ last long-ruling Dey (r. 1766-1791), corsairing had reached
its lowest level. Abandoned, the fleet counted 4 ships with a total of 36 guns,
the largest having 26 and those seemed to have “suffered more from rain and
sun at the home port than from the enemy,” as reported by the Dutch Consul
Pierre Fraissinet. 108 At a time the United States had no navy, Algiers’s naval
power had already dwindled to the bottom. The peaceful evolution of
diplomatic relations with Europe but also an emerging commerce seem to
indicate that corsairing was deemed to disappearance. However, this condition
was to be unexpectedly reversed after 1810 and Algiers vigorously renewed
with corsairing but not for long.
106 Groot, “Ottoman North Africa and the Dutch Republic,” p. 131.
107 As reported in Panzac, Corsaires Barbaresques, p. 36.
108 As quoted in Krieken, Corsaires et marchands, p. 120; for detailed statistics see Devoulx, “Marine
d’Alger,” pp. 396-420.
151