The Royal Navy was active in the Mediterranean for almost three and a half centuries, from the first expedition to combat the activities of the Algerian corsairs to the final humiliation of the Suez crisis. In fact, of course, it continued with occasional forays into the Mediterranean after 1956, including intervening in Libya in 2012 in order to assist the overthrow of a particularly unsavoury dictator and rescuing desperate refugees from Africa afterwards; and if one counts the Levant Company's ships as representative of the English kingdom from 1580, it had also been present in the sea for forty years before the Algerian expedition of 1620.

For much of that time the British naval presence in the Mediterranean was only occasional in strength, and otherwise minimal. Only in major wars, and not always then, did the Royal Navy arrive in the Mediterranean in real strength. The earliest cases were the contrasted presence of the armed ships of the Levant Company and the English privateers/pirates who infested the sea and bothered the Venetians. Both of these were a mix of private and public enterprise: privateers were licensed by the English government until the peace of 1604, but they slipped into piracy when out of the government's view, and became openly piratical once the Spanish war ended; the Levant Company operated as a near independent arm of the English state, and its ships were deliberately sizeable and well-armed because of the threat posed by corsairs, privateers, and pirates. Both of these groups were privately financed; it is difficult to separate public and private participation.

This may be considered the earliest phase of the English naval presence, one of essentially private naval actions, but with significant input by the English state. The increased threat of the corsairs (whose capabilities were enhanced by English and other European skills), after about 1600 coalesced into their widespread activity, throughout the Mediterranean and into the Atlantic. The suppression of this threat was the object of successive naval expeditions from 1620 to the 1680s. These anti-corsair campaigns constitute the second phase of British naval involvement, a series of intermittent campaigns directed at the corsairs, with only limited success, lasting until the 1680s.

The continual success of the ghāzī sea warriors was in sharp contrast to the very limited success of the Ottoman navy during the same period. For this there are a number of underlying reasons, of which comparative seagoing experience and levels of motivation are prime. While the ghāzī sea warriors were frequently at sea in their endless war against Christianity, Ottoman warships spent years in harbour and only fully mustered a ship's crew when immediate necessity arose. Even then, time at sea was restricted, usually a few summer months in which an untested crew had little time to learn the skills of sailing and fighting such ships. As for motivation, the ghāzī sea warriors, through the influence of religion and the lure of prize money, were characterised by passion and enthusiasm. Again, this contrasted sharply with those who served in the Ottoman navy. Here prize money was rarely awarded, and religion certainly could not be used as a motivating factor, as those most skilled in sailing the warships of the Ottoman navy were likely to be Christian rather than Muslim.

That combination of prize money and religious fanaticism as a factor for incentivising those who manned warships during the age of fighting sail was one rarely found in other navies, other than that of the crusading orders of the Knights of St John and the Knights of St Stephen. In making such a statement it is important to recognise that a typical ghāzī crew would not be equally motivated by these factors, for not all would be born-Muslims, with varying proportions composed of born-Muslims indoctrinated with the tenets of Islam and Christian apostates likely to be less committed to Islam. While the former were frequently committed to the jihad or ‘Holy War’, the latter may well have had no such commitment. Perversely, and for very different reasons, both would still have been heavily motivated by religion, one group in a positive way and the other negatively.

The eastern bay of the Mediterranean was, for much of the age of fighting sail, a secure ‘Ottoman lake’, through being surrounded by mainland coastal territory ruled in its entirety from Istanbul. In terms of being a protected lake, this was a description that applied with even greater force to the Black Sea where, for many years, the role of the Ottoman navy was simply to ensure that the various suzerain states conformed to the wishes of the Sublime Porte, and where piracy had also been more or less eradicated. It was Cossack raids emanating from ungoverned areas to the north and beginning some time during the mid-sixteenth century which began to undermine this situation, a point made by Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beuplan (1600–73), a French army engineer and cartographer who, in 1639 travelled the Dnieper by boat. In his Description d'Ukranie, de Beuplan provides clear evidence of Cossack activity and the uncertainty caused by their raiding activities among those whose lives were intertwined in some way with the Black Sea and its littoral. According to de Beuplan, the Cossacks used shallow-draughted rowing boats that rose just a little over a metre above the water and were usually equipped with a small cannon. These boats, often manned by as many as seventy and assembled in tightly grouped fleets of up to 300, were highly manoeuvrable, having rudders both at the bow and stern. When such a fleet of Cossack boats attacked large merchant galleys at sea, de Beuplan wrote:

It was the inability of the Ottoman navy to provide security of passage for the reinforcement and supply of troops during the ultimately successful Ottoman campaign to capture the island of Crete that finally led to a reinvigoration of the imperial navy and its adoption of sail over oar. Known as the fifth Ottoman-Venetian War, or sometimes the Cretan War, the conflict broke out in 1645, with the popular version of its cause relating to a squadron of six galleys belonging to the Knights of St John capturing and towing in to the Cretan port of Chania an Ottoman galleon bound for Mecca. Among those on board the captured vessel, so it was said, were a number of women bound for the seraglio and possibly also a child of the Sultan. In having put into Crete, the Knights gave to Bernardo Morosini, the Venetian-appointed Governor of the island, gifts taken from the galleon, including some fine Arabian horses. In the words of Kâtip Çelebi (1609–57), ‘the ruler of Crete did not take the rights of the Sultan into consideration’, and when these events were relayed back to Istanbul, the matter was discussed by the Divan-ı Humayun, the executive council of the Empire, with Çelebi recording the outcome:

Given that the Ottomans were able to assemble in less than six months an invasion fleet in excess of 400 galleys, together with transports and 50,000 troops, it seems highly likely that plans were already in place to undertake the island's conquest. In this respect, the claimed outrage to the Sultan's dignity was little more than subterfuge.

The war over Crete was to last a total of twenty-four years (1645–69); for although Chania fell within two months, Rethymnon the following year, and much of the rest of the island quickly taken, Heraklion was to hold out for twenty years.

Egypt, an independent Islamic sultanate, had been ruled from 1250 CE up until the time of the Ottoman conquest of 1517 by the Mamluks, a military caste that had arisen from the ranks of central Asian slave soldiers. Despite possession of a coastline bounding two sides of the eastern Mediterranean and stretching approximately 900 miles, the Mamluks had seen little value in the creation of a permanent navy. Instead, they had relied upon the assembly of naval fleets on an ad hoc basis, these designed to meet a need of the moment, galleys constructed for an invasion of Cyprus in the 1420s and a further fleet for a series of plundering raids in the 1440s. The adoption of sail or, perhaps, more correctly, a heavier reliance on sail over oar, came about during the opening years of the sixteenth century when, once again, a fleet was created to meet the demand of the moment, that of attempting to counter a Portuguese presence in the Indian Ocean.

It was towards the end of May 1498 that Vasco da Gama hove to off Calicut (Kozhikode), having confirmed that a sea route existed between Europe and the Indian sub-continent. It was a voyage made possible through the use of square-rigged carracks of approximately 90 tons and a smaller lateen-rigged caravel, vessels which, at that time, were in the forefront of a technology unwitnessed in the Islamic world. These vessels were ideal for the carriage of ordnance, the carracks having a high stern and forecastle that could serve as platforms for six small guns, with eight larger cannons positioned on the lower quarterdeck. Financed by King Manuel I of Portugal (1495–1521), the aim of the expedition was to gain entry into the profitable spice trade, this previously monopolised by Venetian merchants using the land route between the Mediterranean and Red Sea.

Britain and Germany settled into an arms competition, while Germany was also in a similar competition with France over their land armies; the strain on all three was very great. This pushed Britain and France steadily closer together. They did not conclude a formal alliance, but they openly cooperated to combat the German threat. France deliberately increased the conscription period of her soldiers from two years to three, so increasing the number of soldiers immediately available if a war began; Britain drove ahead with its determination to outbuild Germany in warships. France's alliance with Russia was supplemented by an Anglo-Russian Convention which attempted, not very successfully, to solve their disputes along the lines of the Entente Cordiale. This alignment was fragile; had German diplomacy been more skilful, it could have brought about its disintegration. But Germany was arrogant and clumsy, and put its faith in power, not in finesse or conciliation.

If a war between Germany and Austria-Hungary on one side and France and Russia and Britain on the other did break out, the Mediterranean was likely to be only a minor theatre of warfare; the only hostile coast, as far as Britain and France were concerned, would be the Austrian Dalmatian province. Austria-Hungary was developing its navy, based at Trieste and Fiume, though this was mainly in competition with its theoretical ally Italy; Italy was also building, with one eye on Austria and the other on France; the exact diplomatic stance of Italy was uncertain. If Italy stayed neutral, the Austrian ships became a threat; and if Italy joined in the war against Britain and France, the two together could pose a serious threat, though cooperation seemed unlikely. Between them in 1914 they had six Dreadnoughts, along with the usual array of smaller vessels. But Britain faced its greatest threat from Germany, and in concert with France adjusted its forces accordingly. Yet it could not permit the route through the Mediterranean to be severed.

Meanwhile the problems of the Eastern Basin continued as before, and contributed to the eventual decisions of all those who participated in the war to come. The international force remained in Crete until 1908, at which time it was agreed by the European consuls and the High Commissioner that a local police force had been properly trained and a reasonable distribution of posts between Muslims and Christians had been achieved.

Had events in 1066 turned out differently, Edgar the Aetheling would have been King Edgar II of the English. He was a grandson of King Edmund II Ironside and was briefly proclaimed King of the English between the death of King Harald II Godwinesson at the battle of Hastings and the arrival of Duke William the Bastard of Normandy in London, but William simply brushed him aside. Oddly for such a ruthless man, William did not kill his competitor, and Edgar – only a teenager at the time – faded into an existence as an occasional rebel leader, a minor landowner in Hertfordshire and an habitué of royal courts. In the reign of William II Rufus, he was a friend of Robert of Normandy, the Conqueror's eldest son, who was twice excluded from the throne by his younger brothers. Edgar was employed on several tasks of a diplomatic or military nature, including an expedition into Scotland to sort out the Scottish succession (his sister was Queen Margaret, the wife of Malcolm Canmore), in all of which he performed quite competently; any political ambitions he might have entertained in England had clearly expired. One of the tasks he took on was to command a fleet of ships manned by Englishmen which took part in the First Crusade.

Edgar joined the fleet at Constantinople. Its men were probably part of the Byzantine imperial guard of the Emperor Alexios I, which by this date was largely manned by English exiles – the emperor was anxious to ensure that the lands he had been promised by the crusaders were actually delivered, and the only way to make this happen was to have a force on the spot. Edgar's participation illustrates his ambivalent situation, for the exiles were men who had left England because of the Norman conquest and its brutal rule, while Edgar himself was a good friend of one of the Crusade's leaders, Robert of Normandy; the fleet was also carrying Italian pilgrims, many of them from the south of Italy, where Normans ruled (and where Edgar had led a Norman expedition several years before). It also, more usefully from the point of view of the crusaders, carried a consignment of siege materials supplied by the Emperor Alexios in Constantinople.

The Indian Ocean, including the Red Sea, Persian Gulf and other tributary water bodies, witnessed the activities of a number of Islamic navies during the age of fighting sail. Several were formed as a reaction to a European presence in these waters, but irrespective of this, all were engaged at one time or another in the assertion of territorial and maritime trading rights that sometimes brought them into conflict with each other. Significantly, while the Indian Ocean could be easily accessed by the three great Muslim empires of the era, Mughal, Ottoman and Safavid, for them it served more as a barrier, with the most active Islamic navies in the region those of the smaller sultanates and sheikdoms, namely Oman, Mysore and Qawāsim.

Of the three empires, sometimes referred to as the ‘gunpowder empires’, the Ottomans certainly made some attempt to project their authority into the Indian Ocean region, with Selim I declaring it to be his intention, through the use of seapower, to drive the Portuguese out of India, only to renege on this offer, made to the Gujarat ruler Muzaffer Shah, following his conquest of Egypt. Hadim Suleyman Pasha, viceroy of Egypt between 1525 and 1535, did much to improve the strategic position of the Ottomans in the waters surrounding the Arabian Peninsula, providing logistical support for Selman Reis who led an expedition in 1527 into the Red Sea, and supervising construction of an enlarged naval dockyard and fleet base at Suez. Through the use of Suez as a dockyard, despite its numerous limitations, which included lack of easily accessible timber and other shipbuilding materials, further vessels were built that, between 1538 and 1553, permitted four expeditions to be mounted. Given that heavy reliance was still being placed on galleys and larger oar-powered vessels, heavy losses were sustained, both in direct conflict with ships of the Portuguese navy, as well as the natural hazards of operating in vast stretches of open water for which these vessels were unsuited. In the more enclosed waters of the Red Sea, for which these craft were better adapted, Hadim Suleyman, while commanding the expedition of 1538 in an unsuccessful siege of Diu, was able to take from the Portuguese much of Yemen, including Aden.

The length of the North African coast from Morocco to Egypt spurned a number of independent and semi-independent Islamic naval states during the age of fighting sail. While the nature and command structure of some of the navies in this region may appear haphazard and confusing, there can be little question that the vast majority of those who sailed from the ports of this coastline, including those of the Maghreb, were operating under the full authority of the state from which they were operating. This is an important point, and one that needs to be made from the outset, since those who served in some of these navies have frequently been accorded the appellation of ‘pirate’ or ‘sea robber’. Here reference is made to Morocco, Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli, four Islamic territories where maritime forces, often privately financed, were conducting, on behalf of the state, an endless and unremitting war of commerce raiding – the Guerra de Corso. Collectively referred to by Europeans as the Barbary coastal states, the use of the term piracy in connection with their maritime forces is incorrect, a pirate being one who has no protection of the state. In terms of a correct definition, a pirate is a rogue operator at sea who, quite independently, attacks shipping of any nation or state for the purpose of committing violence or stealing cargo for personal gain. It suited those from within the Christian European states of the time, those whose shipping was most frequently attacked by ships emanating from those four territories, to make this claim, allowing them to assume the moral high ground. Furthermore, despite the lack of a continued need to apply the term, it is one used by a number of contemporary commentators whose writings are often directed at the popular market. Even the seemingly more neutral term of corsair is one that also needs to be questioned as to its veracity, originating as it does from corsaire which, in Middle French, also has the meaning of pirate. Of course, it could be suggested that ‘privateer’ is a more suitable term, this normally defined as sailing under the commission of a belligerent state, through the issuing of letters of marque which empowered the person or persons to which these were granted to attack and seize, at sea, vessels or other property of the enemies of that state.

“Credit is the value raised by opinion,” observed Nicholas Barbon, “it buys goods as money does; and in all trading cities there's more wares sold upon credit than for present money.” Credit in the sense of belief, confidence, faith, trust, the estimate in which a character is held, reputation, was the elusive but fundamental key to success in early modern commerce. A brief look at the intricate workings of seventeenth-century colonial trade, the nature of the risks involved, and the role of reputation in risk reduction strategies show the overwhelming importance of “credit” and suggest ways in which it shaped the structure of the enterprise.

England's colonial trade was well established by 1660, by which time its people had settled permanent plantations on the American mainland in the Chesapeake and New England and, in the Caribbean, in St. Christophers, Barbados, Nevis, Antigua, Montserrat and (as yet precariously) in Jamaica which had been seized from the Spaniards in 1655. The southern plantations produced valuable cash crops for exchange including tobacco, sugar, indigo, ginger, cotton, and dyewoods; New Englanders provided fish, timber, ships, and shipping services to the southerners; the mother country provided the colonists with manufactured goods, food, and labour (first white but, increasingly, black slaves taken in Africa). In the period down to the Glorious Revolution in 1688 England consolidated and extended settlement in the middle colonies and the lower south and, with the aid of the Navigation Acts streamlined after the Restoration, ensured that an increasing share of the expanding commerce remained in its hands, concentrated on London which emerged as the hub of the system. The precarious figures which survive suggest that the value of London's imports from the colonies more than doubled between the 1660s and the end of the century, with similar growth in exports (table 1). Colonial trade accounted for about twenty percent of London's overseas trade but, on account of the long distances involved, a far higher proportion of the shipping and related services. Trade was particularly buoyant in the peace years between 1674 and 1689 with a reported peak in 1686 and many of the figures given here are taken from a computerized survey of the port books for that year.

State of the Art and Sources

In maritime history, as in so much French historical writing, there is a great divide around the beginning of Louis XIV's personal reign in 1661. That regime marked the emergence of the Caribbean and Indian trades and the development of a large navy, manned by sailors conscripted, rather than impressed, from the maritime labour force. At the same time, the French state developed civilian-managed administrative services which not only ran the recruitment and logistical services of the navy but also came eventually to oversee many of the relations between maritime capital and its labour force. This new bureaucracy, which left an abundant and centralised documentation, has in turn had a massive impact on historical writing on French shipping and sailors. Such works on the period before the 1660s usually take the form of the port-based monograph, grounded in research in often recalcitrant regional sources, such as local port records, notarial archives and registers of baptisms, marriages and burials. After this date, centralised and uniform administrative documentation is more abundant, which makes it easier to write about the situation in each port as a part of a whole.

If 1661 forms one boundary in maritime history, 1789 forms another. Maritime historians follow the convention of their colleagues in other branches of French history by dividing into experts on “modern” and “contemporary” France on either side of that fateful watershed. French trade as it had developed during the eighteenth century was seriously disrupted by warfare and blockade during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and whole sectors of activity were eradicated permanently, so that the student of the eighteenth century who looks at the situation under the Bourbon Restoration finds the familiar landmarks of French maritime history much displaced. Although there is a much greater continuity of sources, particularly administrative, between 1780 and 1820 than from, say, 1640 to 1720, and although it would quite feasible to write about themes over a longue durée from the late seventeenth to the late nineteenth century, in fact it is rarely done, and nineteenth-century French maritime history is still relatively unexplored territory.

An examination of the literature on inland transport in Britain in the early modern period might lead one to believe that the most important method of conveying goods was by road. In the last twenty years there has been a plethora of articles on the role of road transport, including important pieces by John Chartres, Gerard L. Turnbull, Michael J. Freeman and, most recently, Dorian Gerhold. The effect of this research has been to disprove the idea that road travel was at best difficult, and at worst, in winter, near impossible, when mud, inclines, potholes and other hazards prevented mobility. It is now clear that there was a network of carriers, for both short-distance local travel and long distances, which provided regular and reasonably reliable journey times for a range of commodities. Road transport grew in significance over the period. Coastal shipping was equally important, however, and the aim of this paper is to highlight its role in the transport developments which preceded the coming of the railways.

The pendulum has swung too far in one direction, and the bias in the literature in favour of road transport might be mistaken as a sign of the relative unimportance of coastal shipping. This essay sets out to correct that impression. It isolates economic variables relevant to transport and reassesses the relative importance of coastal shipping in light of those factors. Material is drawn chiefly from secondary sources. Little primary research has been done since T.S. Willan wrote his masterpiece over fifty years ago, which is a la-mentable reflection on the neglect of the coasting trade. Thus, a further aim of this review is to indicate some areas where further research might be profitable. Chartres, Turnbull and others have shown that road transport was a normal method of moving goods as early as the sixteenth century and that its importance increased with Britain's economic growth. By the eighteenth century there existed a reasonably well-integrated network of carriers capable of moving significant quantities of freight. The price of the service was not in all cases the only, or even the most important, consideration in choosing a transport mode. Sometimes speed, reliability of arrival time or regularity of service was of more importance to customers. There is no simple rule as to how prices, speed or reliability compared between different transport modes.