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

Maltese piracy was not condemned; instead it “received the encouragement and
the patronage of the government of the day as it helped materially to keep the
Moslems at bay” and contributed, by means of goods captured from Muslims,
“to the victualling of the island, which had to rely on outside sources of food to
feed the inhabitants. 13
Corsairing was not exclusively Maltese; corsairing against the Muslim
‘infidels’ was an international affair which gathered in “the name of Christ the
dregs of all Mediterranean ports.” 14 Already, and since the 10 th century,
Greeks, Sardinians, and Genoese had been by far the “worst members of the
fraternity of rovers.” 15
Those did not limit their depredations to Christian
merchant shipping but they “ventured eastward to plunder Turkish ships and
possessions in the Levant.” 16 By the 16 th century, however, corsairing acquired
a religious dimension and Christian attacks against Muslims expanded to reach
the southern shores of the Mediterranean. Actually, Christian corsairing was a
continuation of the tradition of crusades. 17 Generally, the Knights of Malta
were the most aggressive participants in that form of warring:
As the Order’s traditional enmity with the Moslem was at its height
when it settled in Malta, official sanction was readily given to Maltese
corsairing as such practice tallied admirably with the Order’s aggressive
policy toward the Moslems. 18
13 Cassar, “Maltese Corsairs,” p. 138.
14 Fontenay, “La course dans l’économie portuaire,” p. 1326.
15 Lane-Poole, The Barbary Corsairs, p. 24.
16 Cassar, “Maltese Corsairs,” p. 137.
17 Xavier Labat Saint-Vincent, “La guerre de course et ses effets sur le commerce en méditerrané au
cours des guerres de cent ans et l’indépendance américaine,” in Michel Vergé-Franceschi and Antoine-
Marie Graziani, eds., La guerre de course en Méditerranée (1515-1830). (Paris: Presses de l’Université
Paris IV-Sorbonne, 2000), p. 160 ; Muller, Consuls, Corsairs, and Commerce, p. 54.
18 Cassar, “Maltese Corsairs,” p. 141.
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