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

Worst, at a time Algerian corsairs had dwindled to between 4 and 13 vessels
(totalizing 36 guns)—almost nothing, 71
American politicians continued to
maintain the myth of an invincible navy certainly more by ignorance and
xenophobia than by accurate fact: “At present we are not in a condition to be at
War with any Nation, especially with one [Algiers] from whom we are to
expect nothing but hard knocks,” complained one on the congressional
delegates. 72
Today, the so-called ‘specialists’ of American-Arab relations
continue nourishing the same ‘fantasy’—to say the least. Over than two
hundred years later, they persist in describing an “Algiers’ flotilla—nine large
battleships and fifty gunboats strong” that “vastly outgunned that of the United
States.” 73
As wartime sources of voluptuous prizes tarnished, the merchant vessels
renewed with adventuring in the Mediterranean but that time with a long
experience of privateering behind them, an inflated nationalistic ego, and more
greed for larger profits as testified by this extract of American self-praise’:
Our sailors, in their struggle to maintain their commerce against pirates
and privateers, had become notably skillful in their dangerous
profession. American seamen, on their armed merchantmen, had fought
their predatory enemies in all parts of the world. Their ships were of the
best design and noted for their speed. This constant life of adventure had
developed resourcefulness in all circumstances of danger which had
equipped them for offense as well as defense. 74
71 Figures for the years 1787 and 1790 are in Devoulx, “Marine d’Alger,” p. 410-11.
72 Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774-1789, edited by Paul H. Smith, 25 vol. (Washington, D.C.:
Library of Congress, 1976-2000), 22:686, Pierse Long to John Langdon, 14 Oct. 1785. (Hereafter cited
as LDC).
73 Oren, Power, Faith, and Fantasy, p. 20.
74 Frothingham, “The Armed Merchantman,” p. 466.
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