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

of imports which allowed for the colonies to constitute a favorable balance of
trade of their own. For the same period, imports were officially evaluated at
£228,682 (against £707,000 for exports); 53 and they consisted largely of salt,
olive oil (destined for soap factories), wool (angora from goats or camels),
leather (Moroccan), dried fruits (raisins, figs) and “other Oriental delicacies.” 54
Hundreds of ships and seamen were involved in the Mediterranean
business. According to Richard O’Brien, American prisoner at Algiers (1785-
1795) and later United States Consul General for the Barbary States, 55 “before
the war the Americans used to employ 200 sail of merchantmen in the streights
trade, and used to reap great advantages by it.” 56 No one is better placed than
Thomas Jefferson, the American Secretary of State (1789-1793), for making
estimations on colonial Mediterranean trade. Despite loss of information and
lack of accuracy, as Jefferson remarked, his 1790 report to Congress is
indicative of an active trade:
According to the best which may be obtained from other sources
meriting respect, it may be concluded that about one sixth of the wheat
and flour exported from the United States, and about one fourth in value
of their dried and pickled fish, and some rice, found their best markets in
the Mediterranean ports: that these articles constituted the principal part
of what we sent into that sea: that that commerce loaded outwards from
eighty to one hundred ships, annually, of twenty thousand tons
navigated by about twelve hundred seamen. 57
53 Irwin, Diplomatic Relations, p. 18.
54 Panzac, “Trade in the Ottoman Empire,” p. 191; Oren, Power, Faith, and Fantasy, p. 18.
55 From now onwards, the term Barbary States—with capitalization—, unless otherwise indicated, is to
be understood as the collective name officially used by the American government for the four North
African polities including the three regencies of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli in addition to the Kingdom
of Morocco; therefore there is no pejorative sense attached to it.
56 Thomas Jefferson, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Julian P. Boyd (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1955), 11:322, From Richard O’Bryen, 28 April 1787. (Hereafter cited as
PTJ).
57 SPPD, 10:41-2, Report of Secretary of State Relative to Mediterranean Trade, 28 Dec. 1790.
177