Silvia Marzagalli

‘However illegal, extraordinary or almost incredible such conduct might be’: Americans and neutrality issues in the Mediterranean during the French Wars

This article examines the conditions under which American ships sailed into the Mediterranean during the French Wars (1793–1815), particularly in the late 1790s after the signature of peace treaties with the Barbary States. Theoretically, such treaties should have enabled Americans to take advantage of two factors: the increasing demand for neutral transport in this area, and the reorganization of international trade flows precipitated by European warfare. In fact, American ships in the Mediterranean still faced major difficulties, especially with French and Spanish privateering, against which United States’ agents and consuls tried to protect them. They not only struggled with the contradictory principles of neutrality applied by different states, but also with the private interests of belligerent privateers, consuls and judges. At the same time, American merchants and captains were tempted to cover trades which belligerents might consider illegal. Commercial realities blurred traditional concepts of national allegiance and affiliation. Based on primary sources, this article argues that neutrality should be conceived within an evolving system of relations in a given region, rather than as a clear-cut, objective legal determination of the status of neutral shipping and the maritime trading rights of a given flag.

‘In apparent disagreement with all law of nations in the world’: Negotiating neutrality for shipping and trade during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars

This Forum deals with maritime trade and shipping conducted by three neutral maritime states in the French Revolutionary Wars: Sweden, Denmark and the United States. The five contributions, based on specific cases of neutral shipping, illustrate the complementarity of neutral and belligerent trade and shipping, and so the significance of neutrality for the continuity of commerce in wartime. The introduction discusses eighteenth-century concepts of neutrality, as neutrals and belligerents understood it. Moreover, it provides a background narrative of the French Revolutionary Wars from the perspective of these three neutral states.

Navigocorpus, a database for shipping information. A methodological and technical introduction

Navigocorpus is a database which stores information about shipping information from the XVIth century on. Each travel is stored as a list of chronologically ordered points (ports and high-sea points). Any kind of information items (taxes paid, cargo items loaded and unloaded, commercial operations, sea hazards, characterization of the point or of the ship, etc.) can be linked to any point. The result is a highly flexible and powerful tool. Any kind of extra information can be inserted at any moment, from original sources or existing databases. Navigocorpus is based on FileMaker. Any kind of data processing is allowed. It was elaborated as part of a French ANR research project, and is based on FileMaker.

Reviews of Silvia Marzagalli, “Les boulevards de la Fraude:” le négoce maritime et le Blocus continental, 1806–1813: Bordeaux, Hambourg, Livourne

Dr. Marzagallis book is the published version of a doctoral dissertation on a subject that has attracted little attention from historians. The author correctly notes that the history of maritime trade in the nineteenth century has been somewhat shortchanged by historians who have generally exhibited more interest in earlier, more flamboyant periods. This is particularly true of the Napoleonic era, which has been traditionally associated with a long and deep contraction of international trade resulting from the Franco-British wars and the Continental Blockade. Studying European maritime trade during a period when the great maritime powers attempted to freeze it is not the most tempting of research subjects. Silvia Marzagalli has taken up the challenge. Her method is original. She could have conducted a classic general study of maritime trade in the French empire during the Napoleonic period, using governmental sources from all countries involved. She would have given us a global picture of trade which would have remained at some distance from local action and local actors by relying on centralized administrative sources, general statistics, government memoranda, and the like. Instead, she chose to focus all her attention on only three port cities located at extreme ends of the French empire, far distant from each other: Hamburg, Bordeaux and Leghorn. Using research as a microscope to examine just three ports allowed her to carry out a far more detailed exploration