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

the United States “must hold the high ground with that power which they ought
to hold.” 145 While the first element of the objective could be obtained easily,
Algiers being a weaker country, the second, however, proved to be difficult
because it affected the interests of a greater power, in this case Great Britain.
Great Britain precisely considered that the 18 th article of the 1815 treaty
of the United States with Algiers relating to the sale of prizes in the port of
Algiers was incompatible with the 9 th and 10 th articles of the treaties of 1682
and 1686 of Britain with Algiers. 146 That was sufficient reason for Britain to
send its gunboats to Algiers in 1816 not only as a reminder to the Dey but also
as a gunboat diplomacy signal intended for the United States. 147 The United
States, well knowledgeable about the implications of that method, understood
the signal and backed up. 148 This brings into discussion a second definition of
gunboat diplomacy. According to the American historian Kenneth J. Hagan,
gunboat diplomacy is “the finite application of force to effect discrete political
ends in distant places.” 149 In fact, in addition to the declared objectives, the
Americans had a concealed objective: that of raising the United States to an
equal footing with the powerful nations as indicated here in a private letter of
Monroe:
145 WJMPPP, 5:379
146 John Quincy Adams, Writings of John Quincy Adams, edited by Worthington C. Ford, 7 vol. (New
York: The Macmillan Company, 1813-1917), 3: 356, (Hereafter cited as WJQA); Shaler, Sketches of
Algiers, p. 298. For articles of the British treaties see Hertslet, Collection of Treaties and Conventions,
pp. 60-1, 68-9; for article 18 of the American treaty see SaL, 8:226-27. See also Appendix 2A and
Appendix 14 respectively.
147 For a full account of the expeditions of 1816 see Roger Perkins and K. J. Douglas-Morris, Gunfire
in Barbary: Admiral Lord Exmouth’s Battle with the Corsairs of Algiers in 1816: The Story of the
Suppression of White Christian Slavery (Homewell, Great Britain: Kenneth Mason, 1982), pp. 107-33.
148 Shaler, Sketches of Algiers, p. 298; Schuyler, American Diplomacy, p. 225.
149 As cited in Mark A. Gunzinger, “Power Projection: Making the Tough Choices,” Paper, United
States Air Force, Alabama, (undated), p. 3.
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