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Passes and Protection in the Making of a British Mediterranean

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2015

Tristan Stein
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Abstract

Between the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth, the security of British navigation in and around the corsair-infested waters of the Mediterranean depended on indented parchment passports—Mediterranean passes. This article recovers the history of the Mediterranean pass and traces the development of the Mediterranean pass system from its origins in England's mid-seventeenth-century treaties with the North African regencies to its role in the emergence of Britain's Mediterranean empire over the course of the long eighteenth century. At its inception, the Mediterranean pass system formed an interstate regulatory regime that mediated between North African and British naval power by providing a means to identify British vessels at sea and to limit the protection of Britain's treaties to them. During the eighteenth century, however, foreign merchants and shipowners, especially from Genoa, sought out the security of British passes by moving to Britain's colonies at Gibraltar and Minorca. The resulting incorporation of foreigners into the British pass system fundamentally altered the nature and significance of the pass and contributed to the development of Britain's imperial presence in the Mediterranean. This article reveals how the growth of British power and the interactions of British consuls and imperial officials with mariners and merchants from around the Mediterranean transformed the pass from a document of identification into an instrument of imperial protection that helped sustain Britain's Mediterranean outposts in the eighteenth century and make possible the dramatic expansion of the British Empire further into that sea at the start of the nineteenth.

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Articles
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Journal of British Studies , Volume 54 , Issue 3 , July 2015 , pp. 602 - 631
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Copyright © The North American Conference on British Studies 2015 

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References

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23 Clive Parry, ed., The Consolidated Treaty Series, vol. 7, 1661–1663 (Dobbs Ferry, 1969), 244–46, 253–56, and 273–75. These passes verified that the ship carrying it was legitimately English and, based upon rules drawn up in 1676, were to be issued only to ships that were built in England (or if foreign built, made free in England), owned by English subjects, and manned by crews that were at least two-thirds English. On the regulations for the issuance of these passes, see J. R. Tanner, ed., A Descriptive Catalogue of the Naval Manuscripts in the Pepysian Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge, vol. 3, Admiralty Letters (Naval Records Society, 1923), xviii–xxiv.

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28 In response to long-standing problems of identification caused by the different passports issued by the governments of its constituent provinces, the Dutch Republic instituted a uniform “passeport turc” in 1686. It then adopted the model of the British scalloped pass in 1712. Other European states subsequently followed the Dutch example. See de Groot, “Ottoman North Africa,” 144; van Krieken, Corsaires et marchands, 77–78, 88–89; Müller, Leos, Consuls, Corsairs, and Commerce: The Swedish Consular Service and Long-Distance Shipping, 1720–1815 (Uppsala, 2004)Google Scholar, 59, 144–46; Erik Gøbel, “The Danish ‘Algerian Sea Passes’, 1747–1838: An Example of Extraterritorial Production of ‘Human Security,’” in “The Production of Human Security in Premodern and Contemporary History,” ed. Zwierlein, Cornel, Graf, Rüdiger, and Ressel, Magnus, special issue, Historical Social Research 35, no. 4 (2010): 164–89Google Scholar.

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31 “Letter to the Farmers of the Customs about Passes to be taken by Shipps trading to the Levant Seas,” 23 November 1663, TNA, PC 2/56, 681; Paul Rycaut to the Earl of Winchilsea, Algiers, 13 September 1663, calendared in Report on the Manuscripts of Allan George Finch, Esq. of Burley-on-the-Hill, Rutland, ed. S. C. Lomas (London, 1913), 1:277.

32 In 1674, for example, the government of Tripoli announced its intention to begin making prize of foreign cargo found on English vessels, leading to a war that would last from 1675 to 1676. See Government of Tripoli to Charles II, 19 October 1674, TNA, SP 71/22, fol. 83r.

33 Algiers and Morocco proved more resistant to European pressure than Tunis or Tripoli. Notably, the French bombardment of Algiers in 1687 failed to bring the regency to terms. See Weiss, Captives and Corsairs, 81–82.

34 Francis Baker to Leoline Jenkins, Tunis, 20 March 1683, TNA, SP 71/26, fol. 274r. On the English naval campaign against Algiers, see Hornstein, Sari, The Restoration Navy and English Foreign Trade, 1674–1688 (Aldershot, 1991)Google Scholar.

35 “Captain Shovell's account of several passages at the treating of a peace with the Algereens,” fol. 190v, BL Add MS 28093.

36 This provision included a reciprocal dimension, as the article establishing the English pass also called on consuls to provide corsairs with certificates to secure them from attack by English warships. A copy of the final treaty, dated 15 July 1683, may be found at TNA, SP 108/12.

37 Herbert, Algiers Road, April 12, 1682, TNA, SP 71/2, fol. 311r; Herbert, Bay of Tunis, 20 October 1682, TNA, SP 71/2, fol. 317r–v. On opposition to passes, see the Parliamentary debate of 7 March 1677, in Grey, Debates of the House of Commons, vol. 4, 1675–1677, 207–16.

38 Seventeenth-century pass registers survive only from 1662–68 and 1683–88, TNA, ADM 7/630 and ADM 7/75–76. For the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, registers are available from 1730 to 1843, TNA, ADM 7/77–132. The quality and organization of the registers deteriorates sharply after 1820, when responsibility for their issuance was transferred from the Admiralty to the Customs.

39 Richardson gives this figure in Mediterranean Passes, 10. For the period from 1771 to 1773, Richardson calculates that most vessels sailing from British ports to the Mediterranean, Africa, and the East Indies carried passes, as did between 25 and 40 percent of those sailing to Southern Europe, North America, and the West Indies.

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52 Passes were obtainable from the Admiralty Office in London, customs houses in the outports, and colonial governors overseas.

53 Greene, “Beyond the Northern Invasion”; eadem, Catholic Pirates and Greek Merchants.

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56 John Parker to Josiah Burchett, Coruna, 24 March 1725, TNA, ADM 1/3826, 61.

57 Admiral Richard Spry reported that a pass obtainable with a £50 bond sold for up to £200; “Remarks on the present Abuse of British Mediterranean Passes,” 26 September 1769, TNA, SP 42/103, doc. 38B.

58 Benady, “The Settee Cut,” 282–86; Muller, “The Garrison Revisited,” 10–11.

59 For disputes with Algiers over “strangers” sailing with English passes out of Tangiers, see Henry Norwood to Arlington, Tangier, 9 May 1668, TNA, CO 270/10, fol. 175r–v.

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64 For some of the many references to British subjects serving as captains of the colors, see George Tatem to John Cleveland, Messina, 23 March 1756, TNA, ADM 1/3833, fol. 656r–v; Stanhope Aspinwall to Thomas Robinson, Algiers, 6 August 1755, TNA, SP 71/9, 658; Marsh to John Raleigh, Malaga, 18 June 1770, 26 April 1770, 26 June 1770, Letters from Consuls, Malaga, 1757–1772, 61–62, 53–55, 63–65, Gibraltar Government Archives (hereafter GGA).

65 Jackson to Burchett, Genoa, 19 February 1739, TNA, ADM 1/5115/8.

66 The consuls in North Africa were a partial exception to this rule, since they were salaried and represented the British state and British diplomatic interests in their interactions and negotiations with the North African governments. On eighteenth-century British consuls, see Horn, D. B., The British Diplomatic Service, 1689–1789 (Oxford, 1961), 237–52Google Scholar. On the early modern consul institution, see also the essays in Ulbert, Jörg and le Bouëdec, Gérard, ed., La fonction consulaire à l’époque moderne: L'affirmation d'une institution économique et politique (1500–1700) (Rennes, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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68 In 1775 and again in 1777, the Genoese Senate instructed the Magistrato dei Conservatori de Mare to give the British consul at Genoa full cooperation in reclaiming passes, see Promemoria del Console Inglese, 9 March 1775, Maritimarum 1720, ASG and Memoria del Console d'Inghilterra, 17 March 1777, Maritimarum 1730, ASG. For further examples, see Thomas Burnet to Burchett, Lisbon, 19 October 1721 and 15 July 1721, TNA, ADM 1/3825, 169, 183; Brinley Skinner, Livorno, 20 April 1725, TNA, ADM 1/3826, 110; Charles Compton to Burchett, Lisbon, 16 August 1737, TNA, ADM 1/5114/4; Jackson to Burchett, Genoa, 16 April 1739, TNA, ADM 1/5115/8.

69 James Shaftoe to Cleveland, Cagliari, 3 July 1753 and Shaftoe to the Lords Commissioners, Cagliari, 5 January 1754, TNA, ADM 1/3833, 143, 239; Nathaniel Ware to John Irwin, Malaga, 6 October 1766, TNA, ADM 1/3837, 12–13.

70 James Banks to Cleveland, Cartagena, 13 November 1754, TNA, ADM 1/3833, fol. 355v.

71 Dick to Philip Stephens, Livorno, 22 November 1765, TNA, ADM 1/3836, 25; Pass for the Success of Dublin, TNA, ADM 1/3836, 28.

72 Fisher, H. E. S., “Lisbon, Its English Merchant Community and the Mediterranean in the Eighteenth Century,” in Shipping, Trade and Commerce: Essays in Memory of Ralph Davis, ed. Cottrell, P. L. and Aldcroft, D. H. (Leicester, 1981), 23–44Google Scholar, at 32.

73 Samuel Thompson to Dartmouth, Algiers, 20 March 1713, TNA, SP 71/5, 13–14; James Bruce, Algiers, 28 September 1764, TNA, FO 3/1, fol. 244v.

74 Black to Newcastle, Algiers, 8 April 1731, TNA SP 71/7, 123–25.

75 For recent reinterpretations of the problem of “fraud” in the early modern period, see the essays in Biagio Salvemini and Roberto Zaugg, eds., “Frodi marittime tra norme e istituzioni (secc. XVII–XIX),” special issue, Quaderni storici, no. 143 (August 2013).

76 Constantine, Community and Identity, 14–17, 22–23; Harlaftis, Gelina, “Mapping the Greek Maritime Diaspora from the Early Eighteenth to the Late Twentieth Centuries,” in Diaspora Entrepreneurial Networks: Four Centuries of History, ed. Baghdiantz McCabe, Ina, Harlafits, Gelina, and Pepelasis Minoglu, Ioanna (Oxford, 2005), 147–72Google Scholar, at 152–53.

77 These figures come from comparing pass registers for October 1731 to December 1739, TNA, ADM 7/78, 80, 82–83 against those for January 1764 to October 1769, TNA, ADM 7/91–92, 94.

78 Müller, Consuls, Corsairs, and Commerce, 55–60, 147–51; Gøbel, “The Danish Algerian Sea Passes,” 175–82.

79 Spry, “Remarks”; Giacchero, Economia e società, 156.

80 Captain Charles Hudson to Commodore Thomas Harrison, Deal Castle at Genoa, 7 September 1765, TNA, ADM 1/385.

81 “Account, by the British Factory residing at Leghorn, of the Trade between Great Britain and its Dominions, and that City,” Livorno, 11 July 1765, TNA, CO 389/95.

82 On eighteenth-century imperial subjecthood, see Muller, “The Garrison Revisited”; eadem, “Bonds of Belonging: Subjecthood and the British Empire,” Journal of British Studies 53, no. 1 (January 2014): 29–58. On Admiralty court practice, see Benton, Lauren, “Abolition and Imperial Law, 1790–1820,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 39, no. 3 (September 2011): 355–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 357–60. On the priority of place of residence over place of birth in Admiralty prize court opinions, see also “Queries for the Opinion of Dr. Lee,” 19 November 1747, George Lee Papers 361, Box 1, Folder 10, 68, Historical Society of Pennsylvania (hereafter HSP).

83 Burchett to Sabine, 16 October 1730, TNA, ADM 2/1319, 90; Stephens to Braithwaite, 20 September 1766, TNA, ADM 2/1322, 267–68.

84 On this point, see Muller, “The Garrison Revisited,” 10–15.

85 Udny to Halifax, Venice, 7 September 1764, TNA, SP 99/69, fol. 319r; copy of Letter from William Pettigrew to Colonel Edward Braddock, Tetuan, 12 November 1753, TNA, CO 91/11, fol. 322v.

86 For examples, see “extract of a Letter from Consul Ware to the Earl of Shelburn,” Malaga, 22 October 1766, TNA, ADM 1/3837, 9; Marsh to Stephens, Malaga, 2 May 1769, TNA, ADM 1/3837, 74; Hardy to Stephens, Cadiz, 15 August 1769, TNA, ADM 1/3837, 81–82.

87 “Copy of Alcayd Mohamet Lucas, Governor of Tetuan, His Protest,” Tetuan, 17 February 1754, TNA, SP 71/19, 303.

88 Copy of a Letter from Col. Herbert to the Alcayde of Tetuan, Gibraltar, 2 September 1752, TNA, CO 91/11, fol. 290r.

89 Braithwaite to Stephens, Gibraltar, 3 October 1766, TNA, ADM 1/3836, 97–98.

90 Gibraltar's pass registers confirm Braithwaite's account of the fluid nature of the colony's maritime community. Between August 1767 and June 1777, 437 passes were issued at Gibraltar to 148 different individuals. Of these, only twenty-two held passes for all or nearly all of this period while thirty held passes for only a single year, and a further twenty held passes for two years.

91 Boyd to Dick, Gibraltar, 8 November 1774, Letters to Consuls & Ambassadors, Genoa, Barcelona, Alicante & France, 1770–1797, 7, GGA.

92 Boyd to Stephens, Gibraltar, 14 August 1769 and Raleigh to Stephens, Gibraltar, 12 November 1773, Admiralty Book 1, 2–5, 41, GGA; Augustus Elliot to Collet, Gibraltar, 1 September and 23 October 1777, Letters to Consuls & Ambassadors, Genoa, Barcelona, Alicante & France, 1770–97, 30–31, GGA.

93 “Copy of a Letter from Mr. Fraser to Mr. Wright, Secretary of the Island of Minorca, Dated Algiers, 25 July 1771,” TNA, FO 3/4, fol. 124r–v. Like that of Gibraltar, Minorca's population grew dramatically in the eighteenth century, increasing from fifteen thousand in 1720 to twenty-five thousand in 1763. See Murillo Tuduri, Andreu, “El puerto de Mahón y las evoluciones menorquinas, 1740–1911,” Revista de Menorca 61 (1970), 118–25Google Scholar; Casanovas, Miquel-Angel, Història econòmica de Menorca: La transformació d'una economia insular (1300–2000) (Mallorca, 2006), 130–39Google Scholar.

94 Fraser to Rochford, Algiers, 1 May 1772, 6 August 1772, 7 October 1772, TNA, FO 3/4, fols. 93r–94r, 122r, 144r; Jonathan Barlow to Rochford, Minorca, 5 September 1772, TNA, CO 174/7, 214r–215v; Theodore Alexiano, Mahon, 21 July 1772, TNA, CO 174/7, fols. 217r–221r.

95 Subramanian, Lakshmi, Indigenous Capital and Imperial Expansion: Bombay, Surat and the West Coast (Delhi, 1996)Google Scholar.

96 On the Indian Ocean shipping pass as an instrument of maritime jurisdiction, see Elliott, Derek L., “The Politics of Capture in the Eastern Arabian Sea, c. 1700–1750,” International Journal of Maritime History 25, no. 2 (December 2013): 187–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

97 The Algerians continued this practice through the first quarter of the eighteenth century, when the more effective distribution of passes and the decline of Algerian corsairing largely, but not entirely, brought it to an end. See Robert Cole, Algier, 8 October 1708, BL Add MS 61535, fol. 109r–v; Samuel Thompson, 23 August 1714, TNA, SP 71/5, 290–92; Hudson to Newcastle, Algier, 2 January and 15 May 1725, TNA, SP 71/6, 300, 340.

98 Heywood, Colin, “Ideology and the Profit Motive in the Algerine Corso: The Strange Case of the Isabella of Kirkcaldy, 1709–1714,” in Anglo-Saxons in the Mediterranean: Commerce, Politics and Ideas (XVII–XX Centuries), ed. Vassallo, Carmel and D'Angelo, Michael (Msida, Malta, 2007), 17–42Google Scholar.

99 Black to Newcastle, Algiers, 8 April 1731, TNA, SP 71/7, 123–25; Copy of Consul Pettigrew's letter to the Alcayd and Inhabitants of Tangier, Pettigrew to Lord George Beauclerck, Tetuan, 21 September 1751, Pettigrew to Holderness, Tetuan, 10 November 1751, TNA, SP 71/19, 117–19, 121–23, 135–36.

100 Hudson to Paul Methuen, Algiers, 12 April 1721, TNA, SP 71/6, 82; Hudson to Charles Delafaye, 10 November 1725, TNA, SP 71/6, 385–86.

101 Benton, A Search for Sovereignty, 149–58; eadem, “Abolition and Imperial Law,” 357–60.

102 Lawrence to Newcastle, Tunis, 17 April 1733 and 19 June 1733, TNA, SP 71/28, 329, 353–54.

103 Bruce, Algiers, 28 September 1764, TNA, FO 3/1, fols. 243v–244v.

104 George Lee, 5 August 1747, George Lee Papers 361, Box 1, Folder 14, 102, HSP.

105 On passavants and the regulatory problems that accompanied the Seven Years’ War in the Mediterranean, see Bruce, Algiers, 20 July 1764, TNA, FO 3/1, fols. 210r–211v.

106 On anxiety that discovery of fraudulent passes would lead North Africans to detain British vessels and British subjects, see Fraser, Algiers, 30 September 1768, TNA, FO 3/3, fols. 98v–99r.

107 Kaiser and Calafat, “Violence, Protection and Commerce,” 80.

108 “Three Letters from the Dey of Algiers to the King relating to Passes granted by Lieutenant Colonel Johnson, 2nd Letter,” received 17 August 1764, TNA, PC 1/7/147, fol. 3r–v.

109 “Extract from the Original registered in the Chancery Office of His Majesty's Consulat at Tripoly in Barbary,” TNA, FO 76/1, fol. 164v. This passport was a passavant rather than a regular Mediterranean pass.

110 On this incident, see Fraser to Hallifax, Tripoli 4 April 1765, TNA, 76/2, fols. 8r–11r; Hamed Aga to Shelburne, London, 9 September 1766, and “Journal ou l'on decrit tout ce qui s'est passé depuis le premier jour qu'on Prit le Bâttiment à Petrasse Comme assui avec le Sieur Consul de sa Majesté Brittanique,” TNA, FO 76/2, fols. 83r–84r, 85r–90r; Hudson to Harrison, Deal Castle at Genoa, 7 September 1765, TNA, ADM 1/385.

111 At the end of the eighteenth century, observers recalled Britain's costly war with Morocco from 1714 to 1721 as a warning against initiating hostilities with the North African regencies. See “Memoranda respecting Corsica and the Barbary States,” ca. 1798, TNA, FO 95/1/3, fol. 212r–v.

112 Bruce, Algier, 20 July 1764, TNA, FO 3/1, fols. 209v–210v; Halifax to Bruce, St. James's, 1 January 1765, TNA, FO 3/2, fols. 1r–2r.

113 Conway to Fraser, St. James's, 5 November 1765, TNA, FO 76/2.

114 Fraser, Algiers, 14 April 1768, TNA, FO 3/3, fol. 62v.

115 “Political Journal and Register, Algiers, 1767–8,” 2 March 1768, BL Add MS 74252.

116 Fraser, Algiers, 30 September 1768, TNA, FO 3/3, fol. 98v. See also Boyd to Hardy, Gibraltar, 29 July 1769, Letters of Consuls & Ambassadors, Lisbon and Cadiz, 1768–1797, 5, GGA.

117 Fraser, Algiers, 14 April 1768, TNA, FO 3/3, fol. 61v.

118 Fraser, Algiers, 17 October and 20 October 1772, TNA, FO 3/4, fol. 205r, 208r–209v.

119 Joseph Brame, Robert Aubert, and John Heath to Hollford, Genoa, 4 September 1776, TNA, FO 28/1, fol. 35v; Spry, “Remarks.”

120 Pennell, C. R., “Treaty Law: The Extent of Consular Jurisdiction in North Africa from the Middle of the Seventeenth to the Middle of the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of North African Studies 14, no. 2 (June 2009): 235–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 250.

121 The governor of Gibraltar, General Augustus Elliot, had two years earlier committed himself to preventing foreigners from obtaining passes at Gibraltar, but reversed that approach when the supply of the garrison became critical during the Great Siege of 1779–83; compare Elliot to Collet, Gibraltar, 23 October 1777 and Raleigh to Collet, Gibraltar, 28 June 1779, GGA Letters to Consuls & Ambassadors, Genoa, Barcelona, Alicante & France, 31, 44. On the case of Podestà, see Muller, “The Garrison Revisited,” 12–13.

122 “Report of the Transactions at Algiers between the Dey and Regency and Sir Roger Curtis,” TNA, FO 3/6, fol. 347v; Relation of Patron Podestà, Algiers, 25 November 1781, TNA, CO 91/28.

123 Elliot to Davison, Gibraltar, 22 October 1780, 30 April 1781, and 2 May 1781, Letters to Consuls & Ambassadors, Tripoli, Tunis & Algiers, 1769–1797, 19–20, 24–25, GGA; Davison to Fox, Algiers, 6 June 1782, TNA, FO 3/6, fol. 50r–v; abstracts of letters from Davison to Elliot, 16 August 1781 and 24 December 1781, TNA, CO 91/28.

124 Curtis to Nepean, Livorno, 10 July 1783, TNA, FO 52/5, fols. 69r–70r; Davison to Nepean, London, 1 August 1783, TNA, FO 3/6, fol. 87v.

125 Davison to Thomas Townsend, Lazzaretto at Livorno, 14 February 1783, TNA, FO 3/6, fol. 58r.

126 Holland, Blue-Water Empire, chap. 1.

127 Benady, “The Settee Cut,” 292; Blaquière, Edward, Letters from the Mediterranean; Containing a Civil and Political Account of Sicily, Tripoly, Tunis, and Malta (London, 1813)Google Scholar, 2:340–43; Crouzet, François, L’économie britannique et le blocus continental (1806–1813) (Paris, 1958)Google Scholar, 2:696.

128 The North African governments generally respected the passes given to vessels at Malta after the island's British officials began issuing “settee”-form scalloped Mediterranean passes in 1805. Conversely, consuls regularly reported on the limited effectiveness of the written passes that were given to Corsican and Sicilian vessels and to foreign ships supplying British forces. For example, compare Henry Blanckley to Collingwood, Algiers, 27 August 1809 and Blanckley to Hildebrand Oakes, Algiers, 29 September 1810 and 29 January 1811, TNA, FO 3/56, 151, 193, 216.

129 On this last point, see Pennell, C. R., “The Origins of the Foreign Jurisdiction Act and the Extension of British Sovereignty,” Historical Research 83, no. 221 (August 2010): 465–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Sakis Gekas, “Colonial Migrants and the Making of a British Mediterranean,” European Review of History—Revue européene d'histoire 19, no. 1 (February 2012): 75–92. On problems of identification and jurisdiction in nineteenth-century North Africa, see Clancy-Smith, Julia A., Mediterraneans: North Africa and Europe in an Age of Migration, c. 1800–1900 (Berkeley, 2012)Google Scholar, chap. 6.

130 Castlereagh to Bathurst, Foreign Office, 29 January 1816, TNA, FO 8/2, fol. 23v. On the relationship between changing conceptions of the European state system and Europe's relationship with the North African regencies, see Windler, Christian, “Diplomatic History as a Field for Cultural Analysis: Muslim–Christian Relations in Tunis, 1700–1840,” Historical Journal 44, no. 1 (March 2001): 79–106CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

131 Benady, “The Settee Cut,” 294.

132 Silk Buckingham, James, Autobiography of James Silk Buckingham: Including his Voyages, Travels, Adventures, Speculations, Successes and Failures (London, 1855)Google Scholar, 1:330.