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

elentlessly invoked financial and naval powerlessness in an attempt to sell a
picture of a ‘fledgling United States’ that was in desperate need for European
‘protection’ for American citizens and their property against “the piratical
states” which according to them exacted tribute and depredated on American
shipping. 3 Straightforwardness, along with naïveté and pettiness, the American
agents exchanged it in their ‘secret’ and ‘ciphered’ correspondence but
hypocrisy and humility they exhibited at every European court. The aim was
boringly the same: single-way profit-making treaties; historians call this
approach in American foreign policy ‘Commercial Diplomacy.’ 4
More,
American envoys to Europe wanted others to assume charges that, by laws and
usage of nations, were attached to privileges and pay the bill for them while
they enjoy the ‘fruits of vine and fig-tree’ as in the old days.
The Europeans, as good accountants as America’s commercial agents as
well as well-trained in the art of diplomatic shrewdness—rather they invented
it—knew it all perfectly well and would not let them get peace or commercial
treaties, sometimes none of the last, except on the basis of reciprocity. All that
at a time Algiers was still clinging to principles that were three centuries-old,
lost the protective shield of its once powerful navy, and was ruled by a group of
aging and despotic Turks who kept from the founding principles of the
Regency but the shell while real power had long evaded them. In a world
where it lost the privileges of the British treaties, the United States was going
to face enormous difficulties chiefly with the European powers because, like
3 DCAR, 4:184, Franklin to the President of Congress, December 25, 1783.
4 Straus, “Commercial Diplomacy,” pp. 218-25.
205