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

Britain and France and makes them responsible for the failure of negotiations
during the 1780s.
But when considering another allegation relating to events which
occurred a year later, one may conclude that either Cathcart had vowed enmity
to Logie—regardless of what happened actually, or Logie was not a stranger to
what he was accused of, or else the Dey was completely disconnected from the
outside world. To a proposal of a peace treaty with the United States, the Dey
allegedly answered the American negotiator: “Make peace with your father the
King of England and then come to me and I will make peace with you.” 106
Strange as it may appear, this was recorded for the month of April 1786 i.e.:
almost three years after Great Britain and the USA concluded the treaty of
peace which ended hostilities between them!
3. 2. Algiers in American Barbary Diplomacy
Up to 1786, the American Congress dealt with Algiers as part of a whole
unit rather than a separate state. Accordingly, and for a whole decade, Algiers
was included under the denomination ‘Barbary States’ in American state
papers. So, in terms of approach and decisions making all that related to the
Barbary States was also true about Algiers. In general, the American approach
to North Africa at the age of corsairs was injurious, contemptuous, ignorant,
and self-interested. A quick look at two of the most prestigious and influential
writings on American diplomatic history gives us a middling picture about the
106 Cathcart, The Captives, p. 39.
236