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

New Diplomacy, combining self-centeredness and nationalistic belligerence,
entered into its earliest phase of application.
3. 1. Algerian Attitudes
Researched material had shown that Algiers had absolutely no hostile
predispositions against the United States. According to the laws and usage of
nations which prevailed at that time, Algiers had committed no hostile acts
against the United States. A so-called Algerine hostility could only be found in
American interpretations and rumored or manipulated news. The following
elements are indicative of Algerian friendly attitudes:
a) Unawareness: Up to April 1786, it seems that Deys were ignorant
about the existence of a United States as attested by different western accounts
about Algiers during that early period. After seizure of the first American ship
in July 1785—that was the first Algerian-American contact—Cathcart noted:
On being boarded the Mahometans asked us for our flag and papers. Of
the first they had no knowledge and the papers they could not read and
Mediterranean pass we had none; consequently, they conceived us to be
a good prize. 128
More, in his 12 April 1786 report to London, the British consul Logie reported
the Dey saying when he was announced the coming of an American:
What are they come to purchase a Peace? Tell them to carry their
money to the King of England, their King I have no War with His
Subjects, I have never heard of such a Nation as Americans. 129
128 Cathcart, the Captives, pp. 5-6; he also reported the Rais who made the capture saying: “when you
make your peace with your father, the King of England, the Dey of Algiers will liberate you
immediately.
129 As quoted in Barnby, Prisoners of Algiers, p. 74.
282