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

esources, and so contemptible, that his Master [King George III] did not think
us worth the trouble or expense of subduing.’’ 82
Sheffield’s argument gives a
clear answer about the reason which caused all European powers to reject the
request of the United States for a protective clause: it was not in their interest to
allow American trade in the Mediterranean, and since the Americans could not
protect themselves against the corsairs therefore it was unlikely that they would
trade in the region.
On their side, the Americans had always argued that Great Britain was
the only power sufficiently strong at sea to put an end to corsairing but it did
not do it because, according to them, it found it advantageous to its commerce
“to leave them [Barbary pirates] in existence and to pay a large annual tribute,
so that they might remain a scourge to the commerce of other powers.” 83 They
even went to accuse it of “submit[ing] to be tributary to these robbers, and even
encourage[ing] them by paying a sum so great that other states might find it
difficult to make peace with them.” 84 The ‘scourge of Christendom’ was in fact
no more than a scourge which the major European powers used against the
commerce of their co-religious Christian rivals. Muslim corsairing, other than
its original religious and defensive functions, was unscrupulously manipulated
by Christian powers towards their own advantage.
82 Cathcart, The Captives, p. 4.
83 Straus, “Commercial Diplomacy,” p. 221.
84 WJA, 8:217-19; also, Schuyler, American Diplomacy, p. 195.
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