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

3. Algiers between Europeans and Americans
3. 1. A Chess Game Pawn
Europe’s maritime powers had always shown duplicitous attitudes
towards Algiers. In public, they condemned the activities of Muslim corsairs
and demanded a concerted action to suppress them. Privately, however, they
conceded that the corsairs were acting to their commercial advantage by
harassing maritime interests of weaker powers. 85 That duplicity could partly
explain why despite the decline of Algerian naval power, insatiable desire for
colonization of the European powers, and complaints about the so-called
Algerian pirates, despotism of the Deys, and enslavement of Christian captives
Algiers continued to exist as a polity. 86 Perhaps there was some good sense in
Benjamin Franklin’s reflection when he wondered why “the rest of Europe do
[sic] not combine to destroy those nests, and secure commerce from their future
piracies.” 87 Designs and recommendations for colonization indeed existed. As
discussed previously, the Spaniards attempted to do it but failed in their venture
and others like Napoleon who surveyed the Algerian coast secretly in 1808 or
else Shaler who recommended that Britain should occupy Algiers in 1826
prepared for it. 88 But probably, at that point, none of the European countries
felt itself strong enough to claim single-handed occupation of Algiers because
85 James R. Sofka, “The Jeffersonian Idea of National Security: Commerce, the Atlantic Balance of
Power, and the Barbary War, 1786-1805.” Diplomatic History, 21: 4 (Fall, 1997), p. 531; Cordingly,
Pirates, p. 99.
86 Views about this question are numerous. One view imputes it to a reminiscence of the “really
formidable” power of Algiers of the 16 th century; this caused European powers in the 18 th century to
over-exaggerate Algiers’ fast-declining resources and courage. For more see Paullin, Diplomatic
Negotiations, pp. 46-7.
87 DCAR, 4:149, Franklin to Robert R. Livingston, July 22, 1783.
88 Shaler, Sketches of Algiers, p. 171.
231