Trading with the Ottomans by Vlami Despina;

Author:Vlami, Despina;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 4758043
Publisher: I.B.Tauris

Some Contractual and Individual Aspects of an Unforeseen Partnership

The collaboration between British traders and Ottomans, generally Greeks, Jews and Armenians, between the 1790s and 1820s was determined by a complex series of setbacks, priorities and interests. These encounters took more precise forms and developed institutionally from the eighteenth century. The pursuit of opportunity and profit by both sides in this encounter developed within precapitalist market conditions and engaged both the British and Ottomans in a multifaceted relationship of dependency. As the British sought local footholds to further their business interests, they insisted on their monopoly rights as members of a chartered company. To forward their own particular interests, Greeks, Jews and Armenians chose to do business within a structured institutional environment (such as the Levant Company) where contractual, non-flexible relations prevailed. They thus acquired British protection and gradually permeated the British Levantine trade as intermediaries, commissioners, ship owners and ship masters and, eventually, as independent import–export operators. Throughout this process, they maintained the benefits they enjoyed as Ottoman subjects. Some of the particular contractual and individual aspects of this encounter, as they developed within an existing system of precapitalist market relationships, structures and processes, are presented in the following examples. Collaboration forged new market relationships and multiplied opportunities for new business. The incidents described below reveal how various types of association brought the British merchants and their factors together with members of the local societies in short- or long-term ventures. The transport and market conditions during war and in peacetime, bureaucratic complications and state policies and, most of all, the pursuit of profit, determined the when and how of these associations. All cases referred to were litigations, disputes, claims and frauds that required some kind of intervention by the administration and the Levant officials. As such, they present the inconclusive and risky aspects of some types of collaborations, illicit activities and unsuccessful partnerships. Being typical and detailed paradigms of many other similar incidents, however, they offer a close-up, fascinating view of their development and complexity. The incidents are interesting for another reason. They depict the legal environment within which the European merchants lived and did business: inside this environment the capitulations played a significant role but, ultimately, were limited in their jurisdiction and scope. As the following cases demonstrate, they did not apply to a wide range of situations in which British and other European merchants were implicated in foreign environments. Although cases involving only Europeans and their protégés were in theory resolved and adjudicated by their ambassadors and consuls, anyone, Ottoman or European, could refer to the Ottoman jurisdiction (a qadi court or the imperial divan) to resolve disputes and conflicts, especially when Ottoman subjects were involved. Long discussions and negotiations between British representatives and the Ottoman authorities usually resulted in a settlement, but there were cases that remained unresolved.62

The St Antonio di Padova

Throughout the French revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, British navigation in the Mediterranean was extremely perilous as all vessels sailing under the British flag ran the risk of being stopped by French frigates or French privateers and their cargos being sequestrated.

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