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

million). 61
Compared with the total value of trade in 1770, as indicated above,
this explains largely why American merchant ships disappeared from the
Mediterranean during the war.
During the war, the numbers of merchantmen armed by American rebels
as well as profits made outside trade were enormous. The Continental Congress
built, purchased, or hired 64 cruisers armed with a total of 1242 guns and
swivels; this government force captured 196 British vessels. 62 Moreover, there
were 792 privateers armed with more than 13,000 guns and swivels that were
involved in campaigns against British shipping; those vessels captured or
destroyed about 600 British vessels. 63 Motivation of privateers for participating
in hostilities was partly patriotic but it was also lucrative because they could
sell their prizes and make money for themselves. 64 Those particular deeds of
privateers, which in essence and legal status did not differ from those of the
Algerian corsairs, were singled out by American politicians, thinkers,
historians, sociologists, and a host of other writers of the early Republic as
remarkable acts of courage, superiority, and heroism of the American
individual. By doing this, they aimed at promoting cohesion and
‘americanness’ among citizens of the United States. 65 This ideology of the
formative years of the Republic contributed largely to the fashioning of a
61 Edgar Stanton Maclay, A History of American Privateers (New York: D. Appleton and Company,
1899), pp. IX-X.
62 Ibid., p. VIII.
63 Ibid.
64 In the war for independence, the entire naval forces of the United States, both Continental and
privateers, captured about 800 British vessels valued at $23.8 million and in the War of 1812, the
Americans captured 1,300 British prizes valued at $39,000,000—“enormous figures for those days.”
Maclay, American Privateers, p. IX; Frothingham, “The Armed Merchantman,” p. 466.
65 Dillon, “Slaves in Algiers,” 417.
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