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This was supplemented by an effective convoy system on vulnerable Atlantic and Mediterranean routes 87 and, from the 1660s by a pass system guaranteeing the holders against corsair attack 88 . The value was shown by the experience of the new United States after 1783. When it ceased to be protected by the Royal Navy, the corsairs started attacking its shipping (the first were in 1785) 89 . This led directly to the foundation of the US Navy in 1794 90 , and war with Tripoli from 1801-06, to restore arrangements similar to Britain’s 91 . Britain initially took a similar approach in India, albeit modified as the East India Company grew more powerful. In 1713 the Company agreed with Kanhoji Angrey, the Maratha Grand Admiral who controlled the coast for several hundred miles south of Bombay, a mutual non-aggression pact, backed up by armed ships and convoys 92 . This arrangement rapidly broke down (largely because the Company would not observe its terms) and following Angrey attacks on its shipping (which the Company viewed as piracy) a Royal Navy squadron was posted to the Indian Ocean in 1721, partly to deal with this 93 . The next thirty or so years saw a pattern of occasional punitive raids in response to attacks on Company ships, interspersed by periodic lulls. But by the 1750s the Company had established itself as the leading military power in India, and in 1754-56 it solved the problem by attacking the main Angrey ports, destroying their ships and capturing their strongholds 94 . A roughly similar pattern, but with a different denouement, can be seen in the approach to the Qasimi Arabs in the Gulf half a century later. A relatively small 87 Earle, Op. Cit, pp. 77-78. 88 Earle, Op. Cit, p. 79; Fisher, Op. Cit, pp. 326-27. 89 Ian Toll, Six Frigates (London: Michael Joseph, 2006) p. 25. US insurance rates for Mediterranean voyages rose to 25% by the early 1790s (i.e. roughly one in four US ships were expected to be lost). This is comparable to the loss rate that drove Venice out of the eastern Mediterranean carrying trade in the early seventeenth century (see Tenenti, Op. Cit, p. 103). 90 Ibid., pp. 40-43. In response to a Senate resolution that “ a naval force adequate to the protection of the commerce of the United States, against the Algerine corsairs, ought to be provided”, the Act to Provide a Naval Armament established a six frigate navy. 91 The Bashaw of Tripoli reneged on his original treaty with the US in expectation that it would buy him off again. The US would not accept this, hence the slogan “Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute”, and “the shores of Tripoli” in the US Marine Corps hymn. 92 John Keay, The Honourable Company: A History of the English East India Company (London: HarperCollins, 1991) p. 259. 93 Ibid., p. 262. 94 Ibid, pp. 264-70. 16
number of Qasimi attacks on British, or British protected shipping (27 in all) 95 generated a punitive response 96 . In 1809 a British naval attack on the Qawasim stronghold of Ras al-Khaima and associated ports destroyed much of the Qasimi shipping 97 . Despite British attempts to restrict Qasimi access to timber their maritime activity began to pick up from 1812-14 98 , with a return to the plundering of ships under the protection of the East India Company. The deployment of a further Royal Navy force to the Gulf in response led the Qasimi to try to reopen negotiations. However, the continuation of raiding led to the British destruction in 1819 of the fortifications of Ras al-Khaima and other Qawasim ports, and of virtually all Qasimi shipping 99 . But unlike in India the British did not then impose direct rule. Rather it imposed a lower-cost alternative in the General Treaty of 1820, under which the Gulf Sheikhdoms gave up piracy and engaged in free trade, policed by the Royal Navy 100 . Finally, as the British expanded into South East Asia and China (in Singapore, Sarawak and Hong Kong) they faced a further piracy challenge around the coasts of Malaya, Borneo and South China. Piracy had always been endemic in these waters, but appears to have peaked around the time of the British arrival 101 . It focused on the native trade (European ships were by then too large and well defended to represent attractive targets), and although the impact on trade is not clear, it was strong enough for the Singapore merchant community to complain increasingly strongly to the governor in the mid 1830s 102 . Ultimately the problem was resolved by periodic British (and Dutch) expeditions to destroy pirate fleets and destroy pirate strongholds 103 , on the basis, as set out by Rajah James Brooke of Sarawak, that: ‘when these communities lose more than they gain by piracy….then, and only then, will they 95 Davies, Op. Cit, p. 134. 96 Ibid., pp. 180-88, 235-40, 242-51. Qasimi attacks arose from the combination of wider Saudi- Wahhabi political conflict with Oman and a fall-off in trade requiring other income from the ships and men no longer employed. This looked like piracy to the British. 97 Ibid., p. 190. 98 Ibid., p. 191. 99 Simultaneously an Egyptian army drove the Wahhabi Sauds out of the Hejaz, Mecca and Medina. Together with British actions in the Gulf this confined the Saudis to their heartland in the Najd until the collapse of the Ottoman Empire a century later enabled them to reassert their authority over what is now Saudi Arabia. 100 Davies, Op. Cit, pp. 203-212. 101 J.L.Anderson, Piracy in the Eastern Seas 1750-1850: Some Economic Implications, in Starkey et al., Op Cit, p. 93. 102 Ibid, pp. 94-96. 103 Greatly helped by the development of European weapon and steam technology. 17
Page 1 and 2: ROYAL COLLEGE OF DEFENCE STUDIES SE
Page 3 and 4: CONDITION OF RELEASE The United Kin
Page 5 and 6: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Romans, Spani
Page 7 and 8: Battling the Bogeyman 1 : Lessons f
Page 9 and 10: Aim What means have been used to co
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Page 33: International Expert Group on Pirac

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