A
late eighteenth-century Austrian attempt to develop the Red Sea trade
route.
Middle Eastern Studies; 4/1/1994; Crecelius, Daniel
Austria, as well as England, France and Russia, sought in the 1780s and 1790s to persuade the Ottoman government to allow European ships to use the port of Suez and carry on trade through the Red Sea to India. The Ottoman Empire had barred European commerce from the Red Sea since the 16th century. The Europeans also tried to persuade the beys or rulers of Egypt who had received autonomy from the Ottomans. Several times the beys seemed to accede to the Europeans’ wishes only to renege on their promises. European trade was not permitted in the Red Sea until the 19th century.
The northern Red Sea had been closed to the ships of Europe since the conquest of the territories along its two shores by Ottoman forces in the sixteenth century, but in the second half of the eighteenth century a series of attempts was made, by merchants acting independently and by several European states, to open a direct line of commerce and/or communication between the Indian principalities and the Egyptian port of Suez.(1) European merchants first requested that the governments petition the Ottoman central government for the right, under their capitulations, to bring their ships directly to Suez, then, when the Ottomans continued their objections to this trade, sought to gain their objective by sending vessels to Suez under authority granted to them by the ruling mamluk beys of Egypt.(2)
The attempt to open the port of Suez to ships bringing their cargoes directly from India was led, first of all, by a small group of European and Eastern Christian merchants resident in Egypt who were familiar with the enormous profits their Muslim counterparts of Cairo derived from this trade route.(3) This small group of speculators included Greeks, Jews, Armenians, and Greek-Catholics of the Ottoman Empire(4) and European merchants whose residence in Egypt had made them familiar with the trade of the Red Sea. Some of the Europeans with longer experience in Egypt had even formed relationships with native Muslim merchants and used the occasion of the annual pilgrimage which the Egyptian authorities sent to the shrine cities of Mecca and Medina to speculate in the Meccan trade.(5) This small group of European and native Christian adventurers came to importance with the emergence of an autonomous mamluk regime in Egypt in the late 1760s under the leadership of the Qazdughli amir Ali Bey al-Kabir (1760-72).(6) The inner group having influence over the mamluk leaders themselves was composed of non-muslim citizens of the Ottoman Empire such as the Greek Cypriot S. Lusignan and the Greek Catholic Antoine Qassis Phara'un, who became chief customs agent for Ali Bey's successors, and Carlo Rosetti, a Venetian merchant who early in his career in Egypt gained the confidence of his Qazdughli patrons.(7) While this group helped to influence the economic policies of the Qazdughli amirs, it did not have sufficient influence in Constantinople to secure a lifting of the ban against Europeans trading in Red Sea ports north of Jedda, for it had no independent government to support its policies. One of the major goals of these merchants in Egypt, citizens of both the Ottoman Empire and European states, was therefore to secure the backing of a major European power that could induce the Ottoman government to give its approval for the use of the harbor at Suez by European ships.
European states had for centuries carried on trade with Egypt through its Mediterranean ports of Damiette, Rosette and Alexandria and through their residence in Egypt European merchants had become familiar with the potential of the Red Sea trade route from which they were excluded. When, therefore, Ali Bey invited the Europeans in India to send their ships directly to Suez, Venetian and French merchants resident in Egypt sprang forward to urge their respective governments to ignore the Ottoman ban on Christian shipping north of Jedda. These merchants argued that the Qazdughli amirs had achieved autonomy, that the Ottoman central government could not enforce its ancient ban, and that, besides, the capitulatory treaties the European states had with the Ottoman Empire already gave them the right to trade in all Ottoman ports. While the French hesitated, the Venetians began to carry on a clandestine trade at Suez. It was the English, however, who made the first serious attempt to challenge the Ottoman prohibition.
The enthusiasm of the merchants eager to develop this route increased in 1773 when Muhammad Bey Abu al-Dhahab (Shaykhu al-balad 1772-75), the successor of Ali Bey, gave assurances to the English explorer-diplomat James Bruce that the ships of the East India Company would be welcomed at Suez. In 1775 Muhammad Bey signed a treaty with officials whom the East India Company sent to Suez in response to his invitation of 1773.(8) From 1776 England was represented in Egypt by a single merchant, George Baldwin, who devoted the remainder of his life to a vain attempt to open this route. The more established European merchants among the Venetian and French communities were eager to duplicate this English success, especially when rumors spread throughout the French community that the English had enjoyed 120 per cent profits after expenses on the first cargoes that they had brought to Suez in 1775 and 1776.(9)
Another push for the opening of the Red Sea route came from officials of both the British and French trading houses in India.(10) By the second half of the eighteenth century the old established charter companies such as the British Levant Company, the East India Company, the French East India Company and the Dutch East India Company had fallen on hard economic times and were virtually bankrupt. Their profits had diminished severely, their costs of doing business had increased enormously, and their utility to their own members and to the governments that chartered them centuries before was no longer apparent. Governments had given to these charter companies broad monopolies. The monopoly to carry on trade for Great Britain in the Ottoman Empire, for instance, had been granted to the Levant Company, whose chief merchant in the region also served as Britain's ambassador to the Ottoman court. In the British scheme of things, as well as in Ottoman politics, the Red Sea acted as a convenient buffer separating the Mediterranean world from the Asian one, for the East India Company's charter did not permit it to trade in areas granted to the Levant Company. But at the time the Qazdughli rulers of Egypt had issued their invitation to bring the ships of the East India Company to Suez, the company in India had acquired an aggressive new director determined to preserve the company from imminent bankruptcy. This new director, Warren Hastings, saw salvation for the East India Company in this new route and signed the aforementioned treaty with Muhammad Bey Abu al-Dhahab in 1775.
The urgings of Baldwin in Egypt and of Hastings in India did not move company or government officials, who in 1777 issued explicit orders to Ainslee, Baldwin and Hastings to discontinue the trade they had begun.(11) These orders echoed the attitude of Sir Robert Ainslee, the new British ambassador in Constantinople and chief representative of the Levant Company in the Ottoman Empire, who argued that the trade at Suez was an intrusion by the East India Company into an area reserved to the Levant Company, that the mamluk regime in Egypt was too unstable and the ruling beys too tyrannical to trust, and that the projected profits to be made at Suez could not offset the enormous losses, political as well as economic, that England would suffer in the central regions of the Ottoman Empire when retribution would be taken against English interests by the Ottoman government, which was determined not to permit English or other European ships to trade at Suez. Ainslee maintained his opposition to this trade throughout his tenure in Constantinople (1776-94), but he and his government did see the utility of using the Suez route for the transit of British dispatches between India and London, and sought therefore to secure from the Ottoman authourities permission to use the Suez for that purpose.
As early as 1774 the Ottoman government had issued a strongly worded decree against the use of Suez by English ships, but this decree had been ignored by the Qazdughli amirs and by Baldwin and Hastings, who eagerly sought to exploit this new route.(12) The concern of the Ottoman authorities mounted in 1776-77 when reports reached Constantinople that as many as 13 British ships were unloading rich Indian cargoes at Suez. A good deal of this merchandise was distributed as quickly as possible by Baldwin to British merchants in the central lands of the Ottoman Empire, including Constantinople itself. This trade, however, was in direct contradiction to the wishes of both the British government and the East India Company directors in London. In the Ottoman capital Ainslee therefore accepted without protest an even more threatening Ottoman decree against the English use of Suez in 1778, for he was determined to put a stop to this trade.(13)
No one had pushed as hard for the opening of Suez as Baldwin, who in 1777 wrote Ainslee bluntly that whether the Ottoman government liked it or not, some nation was going to trade at Suez and it might as well be England. He arrogantly told his ambassador that the approval of the beys was all the legitimacy that was required.(14) The ambassador wrote to his superiors in August 1778:
I am credibly informed that a knot of adventurers composed of Greeks, Armenians, and most of the different European nations, as well as English subjects, who are concerned in the cargoes of eight merchant ships arrived this year at Suez, and in the returns to India of the manufactures of Italy, Germany (Austria) and France, arevery busy in negotiating with the beys of Egypt for permission to continue this trade contrary to the intentions of the Porte and to the interests of Great Britain.(15)
Unable to convince Ainslee by correspondence of the advantages of the Suez trade, of the necessity of appointing him consul-general in Egypt, and of the need to withdraw the right that the previous British ambassador had given Antoine Oassis to act as agent for the British in Egypt in the absence of any official British representation, Baldwin made a trip to Constantinople in December 1778 to confront him personally.
Ainslee had developed a strong personal dislike for Baldwin, for he considered him a scoundrel interested only in self-promotion and did not trust him, especially after Baldwin offered him a sizable bribe in return for his support of the Suez trade.(16) He therefore continued to oppose Baldwin's plans. He again wrote his superiors:
I have reason to suspect that Mr. Baldwin is tampering with the French ambassador and that he is commissioned by the people in India to devise a secure method for transmitting their fortunes to Europe by a trade to Suez, in which he is greatly favoured and supported by the Greek and Armenian subjects of this empire, who go to India, and find a great benefit in purchasing the commodities on the spot and paying the amount here.(17)
The French ambassador, Priest, had indeed been won over to Baldwin's scheme, for he reported to Versailles that these entrepreneurs needed a government to protect them and proposed that France take the lead in developing this lucrative trade.(18)
Baldwin had sought to be named consul-general for Egypt, but returned to Cairo merely with a document naming him Ainslee's agent there. Ainslee also dismissed Antoine Qassis as agent for the British in Egypt. Baldwin was made aware of the Ottoman threat to seize any English cargoes that arrived after the summer of 1778 and of the Ottoman intent to enslave all Englishmen on board such captured ships. He promised Ainslee to put a stop to this trade.(19) Officials of the East India Company in India also had sufficient warning of the Ottoman threat, but nevertheless, in collaboration with Baldwin and a small band of international adventurers, which included French and Dutch merchants, sent four ships with dispatches and cargo to Suez in the summer of 1779. (The conspirators hoped to avoid the ban against English vessels by sending the two cargo ships under the Danish flag).(20)
This first attempt to develop European trade at Suez was dealt a fatal blow when bedouins of Sinai, acting at the instigation of the beys, seized the cargoes from the ‘Danish’ ships as they were being carried to Cairo. Seven Europeans turned loose in the desert without water or clothing perished; two made it to safety. The beys, acting under the authority of the Ottoman decree, seized the ships and their crews and imprisoned all Englishmen in Egypt, including Baldwin. Eventually the survivors were released to their ships after signing guarantees that they would not protest to the Ottoman government or seek reimbursement of their losses, that they would take no hostile action against Egypt, and that they would never return to Egypt. They then returned to India. But Baldwin, who was under house arrest and acting as a sort of hostage to guarantee the good behaviour of the freed merchants, broke the bond he had given and fled to Constantinople, where he argued with Ainslee to retrieve the heavy losses he had suffered in the seizure of the Indian cargoes and complained bitterly that the seizure of the ships' cargoes was the work of Qassis and Rosetti, who plotted together to block the English at Suez so they themselves could develop this route.(21) It did not seem to matter to Baldwin that he had given his solemn promise to Ainslee that he would not engage in trade in the Red Sea and that these cargoes were illegal. Ainslee did not give up his opposition to this trade and Baldwin did not win compensation.(22) As the enmity between Ainslee and Baldwin worsened noticeably, Baldwin sought other outlets for his frustration.
This incident of 1779 demonstrated to officials of the European governments that the beys could not be trusted to fulfill their treaties and pointed up the precariousness of this route. Still, the utility of using Egypt for the transit of packets had become evident to English and French officials, so some interest in Suez remained.(23) While official British and French policy sought to petition the Ottoman government for the right to pass dispatches across Egypt, merchants familiar with conditions in the area continued to make plans to use Egyptian ports for passing trade in both directions between Europe and India. The Ottoman government continued to deny the use of Suez to foreign ships, but did grant the right for the Europeans to pass dispatches between Jedda and Suez on Muslim ships plying that route.
The disaster that befell the English at Suez and another incident that involved five British couriers who arrived at Qusayr in 1780(24) discouraged the British and French from sending ships to Suez for several years and provided an opening for other nations to make an effort to open the link between India and Egypt. In an age before nationalism, individuals not infrequently changed nationalities to further their own self-interest. It was not unusual, therefore, for British captains to command Russian warships, for Italians to serve as Scandinavian consuls, or for French officers to serve in the Ottoman army. Acting in their own self-interest, a knot of merchant adventurers now stepped forward to force the route to Suez open, but they needed the backing of a powerful European state.(25)
Merchants in Egypt had for decades been sending back reports of how easy it would be for a small European army to seize Egypt from the mamluks. The published accounts of a growing number of European travellers also pointed out the defenseless state of all of Egypt's Mediterranean and Red Sea ports. The strategic position of Egypt as a potential base from which to launch an attack upon India was also becoming apparent. As the European merchants suffered increasing losses in Egypt and other Mediterranean ports because of the rapaciousness of local ruters who disregarded completely the rights guaranteed to them in their capitulatory treaties, a growing sense of frustration led to calls for military action. It was pointed out by more than one merchant or traveller that a single armed vessel could destroy Ottoman-Egyptian shipping in the Red Sea and wreak complete havoc on this vital conduit for the products of Asia and the Red Sea (coffee in particular) that were so much in demand in Constantinople and the central Ottoman lands.
Great indeed must have been the anger of those speculators who lost their fortunes in the disaster of 1779. One of the survivors, John O’Donnell, even threatened to return with a single warship to drive Egyptian-Ottoman ships completely from the Red Sea. To this suggestion Ainslee wrote that ‘Mr. O’Donnell appears to be a madman, and may prove to be a dangerous one’.(26) Ainslee also continued his complaints about Baldwin, whom he said was the friend of the French ambassador and met frequently with the Imperial (Austrian) ambassador. Ainslee suspected that the meetings with the latter related to a plan to open a route to India under the leadership of a Mr Bolts. He also continued his denunciation of his nemesis. ‘Demands to a great amount’, he wrote, ‘have been forwarded to this place from London and India against the so often mentioned Mr. Baldwin, who it appears has gone off to avoid his creditors.’(27)
Baldwin had in fact left Constantinople on a journey to India via Basra, but had to turn back when he was wounded in an ambush near Antioch.(28) Ainslee did not suspect the real motives of Baldwin’s journey, nor is there any evidence that anyone outside the principals themselves ever knew what Baldwin had determined in collaboration with the Austrian ambassador in Constantinople.
Baldwin’s relationship with the Austrians has been completely overlooked in the accounts of his attempt to open Suez to ships arriving from India.(29) Yet he apparently had had a relationship with them for many years. At the time he assumed his deceased brother's post as British vice-consul in Cyprus in 1771 he inherited his brother's position as vice-consul for the Austrian Empire as well.(30) Through this position Baldwin must have established a relationship with Austrian officials both in Constantinople and Vienna. Ainslee had reported that Baldwin was having meetings with Baron d’Herbert Rathkeal, the Austrian ambassador, after his arrival in Constantinople in 1780 following his escape from Egypt, but had not given these meetings as much significance as Baldwin's association with the French ambassador.(31) Ainslee also reported that one of the English distributing Indian merchandise in the Constantinople market, had confessed that the previous Austrian ambassador in Constantinople (the Baron de Thugut) had given him a good deal of money to invest in Baldwin’s Red Sea scheme.(32)
Baldwin had, however, been up to much more with the Austrians, who up to this point had shown only a casual interest in the affairs of Egypt. Austrian correspondence relating to Egypt is scant. What exists are mainly reminders to the ruling authorities in Egypt not to harm the Catholic priests who were protected by Austrian capitulations or memos relating to the return of Austrian citizens, mainly soldiers taken as prisoners of war in the Balkans who had been sent as mamluk slaves to Egypt. As early as 1750, for instance, afirman had been sent to Ahmad Pasha, the governor of Egypt, granting to the Austrians perpetual freedom to trade, by land or sea, in the Ottoman Empire and to establish consulates or vice-consulates in all Mediterranean ports belonging to the Ottoman Empire.(33) Suddenly, however, as a result of Baldwin’s dealings with d’Herbert Rathkeal, Austria developed a short-lived interest in this province, for the ambassador convinced his government to open a consulate in Egypt to give support to Mr Bolts in India and as a means of participating in this new trade route.(34) This Austrian plan for participating in the Red Sea trade was sustained by both the Baron de Thugut and d'Herbert Rathkeal, who obtained for it the approval of the Austrian emperor.
Baldwin had apparently convinced the Austrian ambassador that with a minimum amount of political and financial support he could develop the Red Sea route for the Austrians. Baldwin must have been consumed with anger over the loss of his fortune in Egypt and with the continued opposition to his plan for the Red Sea route from Ainslee and his superiors in London to have entered into a secret agreement for the development of this trade under the auspices of Austria. For the Austrians, the plan was simple and did not require much cost to the empire.
On 1 February 1780 Baldwin obtained from d’Herbert Rathkeal a set of six documents, including a document granting Baldwin Austrian citizenship, two patents de mer, two receipts serving as patents for North Africans with whom the Austrians were then at peace, three blank certificates of naturalization which Baldwin was to use in obtaining the services of two ships’ captains and for a third person chosen by Baldwin to help him in this scheme, a document granting Baldwin authority (pleinpouvoir) to act on his own, and a letter from the foreign minister, Prince Kaunitz, to a Lieutenant Colonel de Boetz. In another letter of the same date Baldwin promises to be a faithful subject of the Austrian emperor.(35) In yet another letter of 24 February 1780 Baldwin reveals that he was in the process of purchasing two ships (hence the two blank certificates of naturalization and two patents de mer) which he would send to India.(36)
In another series of Baldwin’s letters dated 24 February 1780 he suggests that Austria make common cause with France in opposing England and urged that the establishment of Mr Bolts in India be strengthened. If this bold scheme was too costly he proposed to send one or two ships under the flag of Malta into the Red Sea to destroy Ottoman shipping. In yet another letter, also dated 24 February 1780, Baldwin writes to d'Herbert Rathkeal that he would go as an Austrian citizen to Cairo to help Mr Bolts establish himself in India, but that in any fighting between England and Austria he would remain an observer. He proposed to make Trieste the entrepot for the merchandise brought from India and for the export of Europe's manufactures to India. Baldwin reminded the ambassador that it would be necessary to obtain the permission of the Ottoman government for this scheme and suggested that the Ottoman officials could be bribed to give their consent.(37)
Baldwin recommended that once permission to trade at Suez was obtained from the central government two armed vessels be sent to Suez to demand reparations (for the losses suffered in 1779); or to Suez and Jedda. He predicted that cutting off the coffee supply would cause a revolt against the beys in Egypt. Baldwin also tried to strengthen the Austrians’' resolve by referring to the enormous profits made by the English from the cargoes they brought to Suez from 1776-78. He also noted that Mr Bolts had already established himself in India and was receiving encouragement from English merchants there who, apparently, were also frustrated by their superiors’ refusal to countenance the trade to Suez. Baldwin then boasted to Rathkeal, ‘I can raise arms and men upon my own personal credit equal to the undertaking’. In the event of a war with the Ottoman Empire he would destroy Ottoman shipping in the Red Sea and both Egypt and the empire would be in distress. Baldwin urged the Austrians to support the independence of both Yemen (the source of the preferred Mocha coffee) and Egypt. He noted that:
The defection of Egypt would cut off the supply of rice and coffee from Constantinople, and otherwise entail such a variety of fatal consequences upon the Porte, as to throw every advantage into the scale of our Sovereign.(38)
Armed with his packet of documents from d’Herbert Rathkeal, Baldwin set off for India by the overland route towards Aleppo and Basra, but was set upon by bandits near Antioch. His Tartar guides were killed and he himself was shot in the arm. He lost his packets in the encounter, but then apparently retrieved them and headed back, wounded, towards Constantinople. He then determined to return to London via Vienna.(39) Ainslee, still suspicious of his scheming, but unaware of the full extent of his association with the Austrians, asked the British ambassador in Vienna to report on Baldwin’s activities in the Austrian capital.(40) Lord Robert Murray Keith, the British ambassador, remained ignorant of Baldwin's agreement with the Austrians and was impressed both by Baldwin's manner and the warm reception he received from Vienna’s aristocratic society, especially after Baldwin had been received by the emperor himself.(41) Rathkeal later reported to the emperor that Baldwin had returned to London to wrap up his affairs. he remarked that since his departure from Constantinople he had heard a lot of unfavourable things said about Baldwin's character but that he had found him to be an honorable man.(42)
Austrian prospects looked even better when Melek Mehmed Pasa was named governor of Egypt. Rathkeal sent to the new governor a congratulatory letter, dated 13 October 1780, in which the pasha was reminded that he had become a friend of Austria during his previous posting in Belgrade. Rathkeal recommended Austrian merchants to Melek Mehmed Pasa, pointed out that the Austrians did not inflate their prices like the merchants of other nations, and concluded: |I regard the nomination of your excellency as the epoque for the reestablishment of Austrian commerce in Egypt and for the redressment of all our grievances.(43)
In February 1781 an anonymous report, entitled ‘Memoire sur la situation politique del Egypte’, was submitted to the Austrians. The enthusiasm and language is that of Baldwin, but the recipient had many questions. What expenses were to be incurred? What of the hazards of sailing in the Red Sea? What security was there from attacks on the commerce by the Sharif of Mecca, by the governor of Egypt or by the bedouins? What would Austria sell in Egypt? Baldwin made a response to these questions, reasserting the ease with which the trade could be protected and the profits to be made, but nothing more exists in the Austrian archives to suggest any further official relationship with Baldwin, who never revealed his Austrian naturalization or used the documents he had been issued to put any plan for the Austrians into effect.(44) He remained in London, petitioning his English superiors for redress and urging upon them support for the Suez trade. But English interest in Egypt rose only when it was revealed that the French had signed a series of secret treaties with the beys in February 1785 and were about to bring the trade of India to Suez on French vessels.
In 1786, therefore, over the strong protests of Ainslee and the officers of the Levant Company, his government appointed Baldwin British consul in Egypt and agent of the East India Company with instructions to supervise the transit of dispatches between London and India and to obtain a treaty from the beys at least the equal of the one secured by the French. He was explicitly forbidden to engage in any trade whatsoever in the Red Sea.(45) Baldwin loyally proceeded to Egypt to take up a post he had long sought and gave no indication whatsoever of any preference to the Austrians. He did, however, develop a working, almost warm, relationship with Rosetti, whom he had blamed for his debasement in 1779. It is possible that it was the Austrian connection that brought them together during Baldwin’s second residence in Egypt.
Baldwin was not the only individual the Austrians had sought to use in their plans to develop their trade through Egypt. Rather than posture and bluster as the French and English had done in Cairo and Constantinople, the Austrians decided to enlist the services of two well-placed local merchants, Antoine Qassis and Carlo Rosetti, who had shown themselves eager to participate in the development of this trade. Baldwin had in fact accused both of them as being the instigators behind the attack upon the English cargoes in 1779 which put a halt to British plans for Suez. Both had long residence in Cairo, were fully knowledgeable of the local situation, both had the confidence of the beys, and both had demonstrated their eagerness to participate in the trade with India.(46)
Qassis had since 1774 been chief customs officer for the Qazdughli amirs Muhammad Bey Abu al-Dhahab, Ismail Bey, Ibrahim Bey and Murad Bey. Rosetti, too, had served the beys well, securing armaments and advisers for them, and as thanks had been granted by the beys iltizams for natron and senna.(47) Although both were very powerful they did not represent, like other foreign merchants in Egypt, the affairs of any European great power in an official capacity. Qassis’ semi-official position as ‘agent’ for the British ambassador had been withdrawn in 1778 and he and the other merchants, as citizens of the Ottoman Empire, had to pay 8 per cent duties on their merchandise while the Europeans, under the terms of their capitulations, paid only 3 per cent.(48) He and the other Greek-Catholic customs agents of the ports continously offered their services to European states that might grant them the coveted berat, which extended to its holder the capitulatory privileges of the nation that issued it. Qassis had preferred a French berat since he had close dealings with the French and preferred their trade.(49) Now, however, he was won to the Austrian cause by being given high honours.
Sometime in 1781 the Austrian ambassador in Constantinople issued Qassis a coveted berat, thereby extending to the chief customs agent all capitulatory privileges enjoyed by citizens of the Austrian Empire. Qassis, whose immense fortune derived more from his extensive commercial activities in ports extending between India and Europe than from his extortions from the merchants in Egypt (the majority of which had to be turned over to his mamluk patrons), now enjoyed a considerable personal advantage in furthering his own ambitions and those of his minority community. He had now a certain measure of protection from the beys, he had only to pay 3 per cent on his merchandise instead of 8 per cent, and he held a new authority that gave at least some of his actions official sanction. A firman from the Ottoman central government was also read in the divan of Cairo, declaring that the Ottoman government was answerable for any losses suffered by Imperial subjects in the Red Sea trade, whether the losses were the result of the activities of the bedouins or the beys, and announcing that the Austrian emperor had bestowed upon Qassis the titles of Baron and Count Palatine.(50) Ainslee also received word that Carlo Rosetti had revived a plan for the Red Sea trade under Imperial colors.(51) By August 1782 Ainslee could report that ‘It is certain that a project exists for opening the navigation between Egypt and India under the Imperial flag. The Imperial Ambassador will gain 5000 [pounds] a year if this plan succeeds’. An intelligence report from Smyrna also claimed that ships under the imperial flag would reach Suez in 1783.(52)
Baldwin, Qassis and other Greek-Catholic citizens of the Ottoman Empire, joined by Rosetti, now sought to establish a commercial house in Trieste to handle the trade with Egypt. The pro-consul Lee wrote from Smyrna that Rosetti and the custom master possess unbounded ambition and the deepest cunning, that they aim at no less than carrying on a reserved trade to themselves and their party from India via Suez to Trieste.
It's pretty certain that a very capital house of business is setting up at Trieste for the purpose of carrying on this mediated trade. Lee went on to report that several vessels had sailed from Constantinople and Leghorn, possibly headed toward Suez. He suspected that Mr Bolts was involved in this scheme and asserted that the emperor himself was giving full support to this plan. He also remarked that the Ottoman government had issued decrees to support this effort.(53)
Qassis set about with energy to take advantage of his relationship with the Austrian Empire. He cooperated with Rosetti and used the French interpreter, M. Pellie, in an attempt to open the route to India.(54) In a short time Trieste and Livorno became major entrepots for the trade with Egypt. It was also reported that Qassis, who had increased his fortune considerably in the two years since obtaining the Austrian berat, also had assembled sizable capital in India.(55) The drive by Qassis for European protection and his efforts to establish a merchant house for the Indian trade at Trieste were part of a regional scheme by the Greek-Catholic merchants to take control from the Venetians and French of the bulk of the trade between Europe and Ottoman ports in Egypt, Palestine and Syria.(56) The French in particular were well aware of the threat posed to their preeminent position in this trade and apparently succeeded in undermining Qassis’s position, for in December 1783 Qassis, under the pretense of going on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, suddenly fled Egypt with an immense fortune.(57)
The departure of Qassis from Egypt put a virtual end to any hope that the Austrians might be the ones to develop successfully the Red Sea route. Qassis himself was still a wealthy and influential merchant, and it was still felt in European capitals that he represented the best opportunity for introducing Indian merchandise directly into the Ottoman Empire via the Red Sea route. But from Constantinople Ainslee continued to report that the Ottoman Empire, whose approval was required, continued in its absolute opposition to this scheme. He remarked disdainfully that
Everybody agrees that this scheme of commerce is very precarious, and no merchant here could be induced to venture their own property in a speculation, the success of which must necessarily depend upon the good faith of the Beys, and of the many notorious villains who influence them, and upon the inefficiency of the means which the Porte and the Sheik of Mecca, may at any time employ to prevent it.(58)
Ainslee and others were caught off guard, therefore, when news reached the Ottoman capital in the second half of 1785 that the French had secured a secret treaty with the Egyptian beys which granted them the right to trade at Suez.(59) Qassis himself must have recognized his inability in exile to execute his plans under the auspices of the Austrian Empire, which had no strong representation in Egypt, and now offered to establish himself in France and work for the development of French trade at Suez.(60) The Austrians were aware of the change in Qassis' loyalty, for they now sought to strengthen their relationship with Rosetti in Cairo. In a letter of 2 April 1785 the Austrian ambassador in Constantinople recommended to Rosetti that he separate himself from the Venetians and from Qassis and place himself under Austrian protection.(61)
Once more the ambassadors of the European states pressed the Ottoman officials for the same rights the French had seemingly won at Suez. Baldwin was rushed to Egypt with the cherished position of consul-general and given the task of securing from the beys a treaty similar to the one the French had obtained, but by the time he arrived in December 1786 the Ottomans had given their own answer to the beys' policies. In July 1786, under the command of the grand admiral Ghazi Hasan Pasha, Ottoman forces had launched attacks upon rebellious mamluks by land and sea, had driven them into upper Egypt and had established their own regime in Cairo under the new shaykh al-balad, Isma'il Bey. The French treaty, therefore, was void, and Austrian, English and Russian hopes for an immediate opening of the Red Sea were also dashed. Although Ghazi Hasan Pasa had to withdraw the bulk of his forces when war with Russia resumed in 1787, Ibrahim and Murad were unable to return to Cairo until 1791 when a pandemic plague wiped out most of the mamluks, including Isma'il Bey and his faction, in the urban centers of Lower Egypt. From their refuge in Upper Egypt, however, Ibrahim and Murad had continued to seek European support for their independence and offered sweeping advantages to virtually any European government that would support their independence against the Ottoman Empire. Whereas the Austrians and the Russians were at the time engaged in yet another war with the Ottomans, it was with these states that the Qazdughli amirs dealt.
It was Russian-Austrian policy to stir up revolts anywhere possible in the Ottoman Empire and the Baron de Thonus, the Russian consul in Egypt, undertook to support Ibrahim and Murad in their opposition to Ottoman authority, even after the occupation of Lower Egypt by Ghazi Hasan Pasa.(62) Baldwin reported that in December 1783 the beys had sent an emissary to the Russian court with proposals for an alliance. He claimed that a treaty had actually been signed in which Russia recognized the independence of the beys and promised to shield Egypt from an Ottoman attack by providing garrison troops in the Egyptian ports of Alexandria, Rosette and Damietta.(63) Baldwin suggested in 1788 that Ibrahim and Murad were willing to offer any terms to the emperor of Austria in return for recognition of their independence.(64) But no European government was any longer willing to consider the promises or proposals of the beys seriously, though the merchants in the area still tried to convince their governments of the immense importance of Egypt’s strategic location as the half way point to India and of the enormous trade that could be developed across her territory.
In late 1791 d’Herbert Rathkeal informed his foreign minister, Count Kaunitz, that he intended to appoint Rosetti Austrian consul in Alexandria. Rosetti appears to have subsequently undertaken several representations for the Austrians, particularly in obtaining freedom for a number of captured Austrian soldiers sold into slavery in Egypt and in reasserting Austrian protection over German-speaking Catholic priests long resident in Egypt, but his efforts to support Austrian commercial ambitions there were unfruitful.(65)
From 1793, with the approval of the Austrian chancery, Rosetti also acted as vice-consul for Russia. During this period he also performed many services for the growing number of English officers and adventurers who transitted Egypt. In 1794, acting on a request from Baldwin, who was old and ill in Alexandria, Rosetti secured from Ibrahim and Murad the commercial treaty for the English that Baldwin had been sent to obtain in 1786.(66) Baldwin rushed copies of this treaty to India, Constantinople and London, but conditions had so entirely changed that the British government took no note of the treaty whatsoever.(67) It was only with the occupation of Egypt by the French from 1798 to 1801 that Egypt once more assumed such importance in British imperial strategy, and it was only in the nineteenth century that the Red Sea and Suez were finally opened to European shipping. Austrian arguments, inducements, and pressures, like those of the other European states, had failed to convince the Ottomans to admit European commerce in the northern Red Sea, and Suez remained closed to European ships for the time being.
NOTES
The research for this study was undertaken in previous years under the auspices of grants from California State University, Los Angeles, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Research Center in Egypt. This study has been completed while the author has held a Fulbright grant for the 1991-92 academic year. Opinions expressed in this essay are those of the author, not of the granting agencies.
(1.) The ban on non-muslim shipping applied to the entire Red Sea, but a small number of European ships was tolerated in the ports of Mocha and Jedda because they brought desired goods from India and the heavy tax they paid on this merchandise provided a sizable income for the local rulers. While the Ottomans justified their ban against non-Muslim, mainly Christian, ships in the waters north of Jedda by arguing that they were protecting the Muslim holy sites from defilement, it became clear that the continued prohibition was maintained more to preserve for themselves the enormous profits of the lucrative coffee and spice trade carried between Mocha, Jedda and Suez than to protect the holy sites from Christians. For a description of this trade, and its enormous economic significance to Egypt and the Ottoman Empire, see Andre Raymond, Artisans et commercants au Caire au XVIII Siecle (Damascus, 1973), Vol.I,pp.108-64.
(2.) The best published account of the attempt by the Europeans to open a trade route between Indian ports and Suez remains Francois Charles-Roux, Autour d’une Route: l’Angleterre, l’Isthme de Suez et l’Egypte au XVIIIe Siecle (Paris, 1922). See also, H. L. Hoskins, British Routes to India (London, 1966).
(3.) The richest merchants in Egypt were from the Shara’ibi family, whose wealth derived from the transport of coffee and spices from the ports of the Arabian coast to Suez. The Shara’ibis even owned their own ships, which they themselves often piloted. See Raymond, Artisans et commercants, Vol. 1, pp.292-6.
(4.) Of this group, the commercial activities of only the Greek-Catholics are known. See Thomas Philipp, The Syrians in Egypt, 1725-1975 (Stuttgart, 1985); Daniel Crecelius, ‘The Attempt by the Greek Catholics to Control Egypt’s Trade with Europe in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century’, in La vie sociale dans les provinces arabes a l’epoque ottomane, edited by Abdeljelil Temimi (Zaghouan, 1988), Vol. 3, pp. 121-32.
(5.) The English merchant George Baldwin was reported to have consigned merchandise to the amir al-hajj for sale in Jedda. In this he was only following a practice which French merchants of Cairo had previously established. See Archives Nationales (Paris), Affaires Estrangeres (hereafter AE), B 1, 336, Le Caire (1 776-1781), f. 188, 7 Aug. 1777.
(6.) See Daniel Crecelius, The Roots of Modern Egypt: A Study of the Regimes of |Ali Bey al-Kabir and Muhammad Bey Abu al-Dhahab, 1760-1775 (Chicago and Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1981).
(7.) Lusignan was forced to flee with Ali Bey when the latter was driven from power in 1772. Qassis came to have enormous influence as the chief customs agent and in league with Rosetti encouraged the Qazdughli amirs to welcome the expansion of European trade in Egyptian ports. Qassis and Rosetti were particularly eager to see European ships bring the goods of India to the port of Suez, but they also encouraged the expansion of trade with the European states through Egypt's Merditerranean ports. Qassis, for instance, gained monopolies for the export of numerous products, including rice, which was shipped primarily through the port of Damiette on French vessels. See AE, B1, 336, Le Caire (1776-1781), f.24,5 April 1776.
(8.) See Daniel Crecelius, ‘Unratified Commercial Treaties Between Egypt and England and France, 1773-1794’, Revue d’Histoire Magherebine (June, 1985), pp.67-104. Pages 85-91 contain a text of the treaty of 1775.
(9.) AE, B1, 111 (Alexandrie), 4 Oct. 1777.
(10.) Little is known of attempts by the Dutch or others to utilize the Red Sea route.
(11.) In a letter of 11 July 1777 Lord Weymouth informed Ainslee that the East India Company ‘have strictly prohibited all persons in India employed in their service, or remaining there under their license, from trading to any port in the Red Sea but Judda and Mocha...’ See PRO, SP 97 (Turkey) Vol.53, f.144. See also Hoskins, op.cit., pp.12-14. There is some irony in the fact that Hastings had put the East India Company on a solid economic footing before he was brought to trial for his ‘misdeeds’. For a collection of letters and speeches in defense of Hastings’ activities as company director, see Major John Scott, Narrative of Transactions in Bengal (London, 1784).
(12.) An abstract of this firman of 1774 can be found in Baron Leopold de Testa, Bibliotheque Diplomatique: Recueil des Traites de la Porte Ottomane avec les Puissances Etrangeres (Paris: 1865), Vol.2, p.71.
(13.) A rough English translation of this lengthy firman, which was reissued by the Ottoman government in early 1779, can be found in George Baldwin, Political Recollections Relative to Egypt (London, 1802), pp.8-19.
(14.) Public Record Office, (London), SP 97 (Turkey), Vol.53 (1777), f. 10.
(15.) PRO, SP 97 (Turkey), Vol.54 (1778), f. 191.
(16.) Ainslee reported to his superiors that Baldwin had offered him a bribe of 10,000 piasters annually in return for his support for his trade at Suez. See India Office G/17/5, Egypt and the Red Sea, f.200, and PRO, SP 97 (Turkey), Vol.54, Ainslee to Weymouth, 17 Dec. 1778.
(17.) PRO, SP 97 (Turkey), Vol.55 (1779), f.3.
(18.) Quai d’Orsay (Paris), Correspondence Politique-Turquie., Vol.165 (1779), Memoire of 9 Jan. 1779, f. 1 1. Ainslee was particularly conscious of French interests in Egypt and tended to see in all French commercial activities there an ulterior plan for the conquest of Egypt as the prelude for an attack upon British establishments in India.
(19.) PRO, SP (Turkey), Vol.55 (1779), ff .46-7.
(20.) The most complete, though biased, report of this incident is Baldwin’s own Narrative of Facts Relating to the Plunder of the English Merchants by the Arabs and other subsequent Outrages of the Government of Cairo in the Course of the Year 1779 (London, 1780). Other second-hand accounts are to be found in the respective consular and ambassadorial reports of England and France.
(21.) In addition to the accusations against Qassis and Rosetti contained in his Narrative, Baldwin complained in his Political Recollections Relative to Egypt, pp.7-8, that a cloud of jealousy was at this time gathering over my scheme: the Turk, who had hitherto been silent, began to complain; the Daganier, or custom-master, wanted a participation in the customs; the Sheriff of Mecca began to complain that the port of Jedda would be abandoned, and the cause of religion sustain an injury in its effects; the Directors of the East India Company complained that their trade would suffer; the Turkey Company cried out that they would be ruined. They had no conception of the tendency of these things; they wrote to his Majesty’s Ambassador at Constantinople, and his Excellency officiated for its suppression at the Sublime Porte; the Sublime Porte, instigated, as the act avers, by his remonstrances, issued orders for the suppression of the East India commerce at Suez... '
(22.) Ainslee showed little sympathy for Baldwin. In a letter of 3 March 1780 he wrote: ‘Mr. Baldwin understood and persevered in speculations contrary to his duty. He was warned and fully apprized by me, of all the risks and dangers attendant on his pursuits . . . I am told that Mr. Baldwin failed in England and had no capital of his own when he came to Turkey a few years since. Under the promise of immense profits, he engaged some gentlemen at home and in India to advance money, and address him commissions for the India trade thro Egypt.’ See PRO, FO 78, Vol. 1 (1780), ff. 41-4.
(23.) In early 1778 Baldwin had used this route to give British authorities in India forewarning of the imminent outbreak of war with France. This information had permitted the British to capture Pondicherry and forestall any French advance in India. See Hoskins, British Routes to India, p. 18.
(24.) The five were arrested by the ruling bey of Upper Egypt, and forced to pay a large ransom. Four were sent back to India, but the fifth, Wooley, was permitted to proceed with his dispatches to Cairo, where he was again arrested and sent to Constantinople. There Ainslee had to physically intervene to rescue Wooley from Ottoman detention. Ibid.,p.24.
(25.) It was one of the principal rules of the charter companies that only a chartered merchant could engage in trade within the company's monopoly area, and he could only trade with other merchants of the company, but by the second half of the eighteenth century such rules were generally ignored and, much to the disadvantage of the company, merchants were trading with foreign nationals outside their own company. One of the worst offenders was Baldwin, who although a member of the Levant Company was distributing Indian goods in Syria and Constantinople, and collaborating with Ottoman subjects and French merchants in Cairo to trade in the Hijaz and the Red Sea. See, for instance, AE, B1, 11 (Alexandrie), 1773-1778, report of 30th March 1778, which complains that the Frenchman Arnaud in Cairo and the Maison Martin were involved in trade with the English. Since Baldwin was the only English merchant in Egypt at the time the reference must be to him.
(26.) PRO, FO 78, Vol.4, f. 33, 25 Feb. 1783.
(27.) PRO, FO 78, Vol. 1 (1780), f. 95, f. 105, f. 129.
(28.) PRO, Levant Company Records, Letter Books, SP 110 (Aleppo), 1766-1798, ff. 66-67, letter of 7 June 1780.
(29.) Charles-Roux, op. cit., Hoskins, op. cit., and Rosemary Janet Said, ‘George Baldwin and British Interests in Egypt, 1175-1798’, unpublished doctoral dissertation (University of London, 1968), did not consult the Austrian archives for their studies, hence did not uncover Baldwin’s dealings with the Austrians.
(30.) See Baldwin's correspondence to d’Herbert Rathkeal of 24 Feb. 1780 in Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv (Vienna), Turkei 11, Vol.72, ff. 161f. It was the Baron de Thugut who had appointed him. In his own review of his official career in Political Recollections Baldwin was silent on his service to the Austrians while performing his duties for England in Cyprus.
(31.) PRO, FO 78, Vol. 1 (1780), f. 105.
(32.) PRO, FO 78, Vol.3 (1782), letter of 12 April 1782, ff.82-3. Both de Thugut and d'Herbert Rathkeal had apparently profited greatly from the Indian trade, but their exact participation is not known.
(33.) Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv, Agypten 1. Prior to the appointment of Carlo Rosetti as Austrian consul in 1791, Austria had been represented for many years in Egypt by the Italian merchant Agostini.
(34.) The mysterious Mr Bolts, frequently referred to in the English and Austrian correspondence, was an Austrian merchant situated for many years in Calcutta who supported what we today would call ‘free trade’. See Charles-Roux, Autour d'une Route, p. 158. Further information on Wilheim von Bolts appears in the following sources: Franz von Pollack-Parnau, ‘Eine osterreichisch-ostindische Handelscompagnie 1775-1785,’ Beihefte zur Vierteljahrschrift fur Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, p. 12 (Stuttgart, 1927); Hugo Hassinger, Osterreichs Anteil an der Erforschung der Erde (Vienna 1949), p.92; Walter Markov, ‘L’expansion autrichienne outre-mer et les interets portugais (1777-1781)’, Congresso Internacional de Historia dos Descobriomentos (Lisboa: 1961), Vol.V; Walter Markov, ‘Die Triestiner Ostindien-Kompanie (1775-1785) und die Nordsee-Adria-Konkurrenz’, Hansische Studien (Berlin, 1961), pp.293-302.
(35.) This correspondence relating to Baldwin can be found in Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv, Turkei, 11, Vol.72, ff.109f. It is not immediately clear if the patents de mer are for the purchase of commercial ships or to cover corsair activity.
(36.) Ibid.
(37.) Ainslee hints that the 5,000 pounds per year that d’Herbert Rathkeal would receive from this endeavor was a bribe to support Baldwin’s amibitions. See PRO, FO 78, Vol.3, f.208, letter of 26 Aug. 1782.
(38.) Ibid., ff.163-6, 24 Feb. 1780. It should be noted that the Austro-Hungarian Empire was at this time urging the partition of the Ottoman Empire upon the Russian Tsarina Catherine. See Hans Uebersberger, Russlands Orientpolitik in den letzten zwei Jahrhunderten, Band I (Stuttgart, 1913), p.358.
(39.) PRO, Leyant Company Records, Letter Books, SP 110 (Aleppo), Vol.39 (1766-1798), ff.66-67, letter of 7 June 1780 contains a descripton of this incident.
(40.) PRO, FO 261, Vol.4 (1780-1783), letter from Ainslee to Robert Murray Keith, 12 Apr. 1782.
(41.) Rosemary Janet Said, George Baldwin and British Interests in Egypt', pp.88-9.
(42.) Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv, Turkei II, Vol.73, 26 Sept. 1780.
(43.) Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv, Turkei II, Vol.73, ff.110-1 1.
(44.) Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv, Turkei II, Vol.76, ff.49-64.
(45.) Charles-Roux, op. cit., pp.207-13. No one seemed to take note of the remark by Brandi, Ainslee’s agent in Alexandria, who expeditiously secured copies of Truguet’s secret treaties that any nation ready to treat with the (independent) government of Egypt could obtain similar terms from the beys. See PRO, FO 78, Vol.6 (1785), f.208, letter of 22 Aug. 1785.
(46.) Rosetti and Qassis had shown an interest in participating in the trade of the Red Sea since the days of Ali Bey and Muhammad Bey in the early 1770s. Rosetti had married into the Greek-Catholic community when he espoused the widow of the customs agent Yusuf Bitar and made a natural partner for Qassis in this endeavor. See Bulis Qirali, al-Suriyunfi Misr (Helopolis, 1928), p.86,
(47.) William G. Brown, Travels in Africa, Egypt and Syria, from the year 1792 to 1798 (London, 1799), pp.36-7, and L.A. Balboni, Gli Italiani nella civilta Egiziana del Secolo XIXo (Alexandria, 1906), Vol.1, p.205. Baldwin had also sought to develop a trade with England in natron prior to his flight in 1779. Upon his return in 1786 he freighted even larger quantities of this product, used as a substitute for saltpeter in the manufacture of soap and gunpowder. See Rosemarie Janet Said, |George Baldwin and British Interests in Egypt', pp.291-2.
(48.) The French in particular complained that it was this disparity that induced Qassis to find the means to raise the fees the French paid to the beys to 8-10 per cent. See AE, B 1 112 (Alexandrie), 24 March 1779.
(49.) The French ambassador Priest wrote in July 1783 that Qassis had particular favor for the French; his successor, Choiseul-Gouffier, also remarked on Qassis' preference for the French and noted the request by several customs agents in Egypt for the French berat. See Correspondence Politique-Turquie, Vol. 169 (June-Dec. 1783), f.71; Vol. 171 (July-Dec. 1784), f.281. Thomas Philipp views the Greek-Catholics and French as implacable rivals for control of Egypt's foreign trade and challenges the views held by others that the two groups often cooperated. He mistakenly identifies Mikha'il Fakhr as Greek Orthodox instead of Greek-Catholic. See The Syrians in Egypt, p.32n. While it is true that the Greek-Catholics sought to establish themselves in European ports and wrest control of the eastern trade from the French and Venetians, they cooperated closely with the French community in Egypt, even during the period when they imposed extraordinary levies upon them. The French opened their church to the Greek-Catholics, tried to extend their protection to them, and looked upon the Greek-Catholic customs agents, despite the commercial competition between them, as sympathetic to their interests, at least into the early 1780s.
(50.) PRO, FO 78, Vol.3, f. 199.
(51.) Ibid. Rosetti's role in the Austrian plan is not so apparent in the available papers, but it is certain that he was something of a |silent partner' in Austria's plan to develop the route between India and Trieste.
(52.) Ibid., f.208, f.264.
(53.) PRO, FO 178, Vol4 (1783), f. 1 1, extract of 31 Dec. 1782. It is possible to see in this report the unfolding of the plan that Baldwin has suggested to Rathkeal in 1780, but there is no evidence that Baldwin himself was any longer directly involved. Still, Baldwin’s activities in London between 1781 and 1785 are not well documented.
(54.) Pellie had experience with the route between India and Suez, for he had been sent previously to India by the French inspector Baron de Tott to encourage the French to open the route to Suez. In a letter of 6 Feb. 1783 Qassis revealed that Pellie had been in his service for the previous year. AE B 1, 113 (Alexandrie), 1783-1787.
(55.) PRO, FO 261, Vol. 1 (1783-1785), 10 Feb. 1784: AE, B1, 113 (Alexandrie), 1783-1787, Rosette, 2 Jan 1784.
(56.) See Crecelius, ‘The Attempt by the Greek Catholics to Control Egypt’s Trade with Europe in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century’, pp. 121-32, and Philipp, op. cit., pp.35-48.
(57.) French sources declare that Qassis’ fall came as a result of a dispute he had with Uthman Bey, who levied upon him a sizable contribution, but British sources suggest that the French, who were in Murad Bey's good graces and who had lent him a considerable amount of money, had succeeded in discrediting Qassis. See PRO, FO 261, Vol.1, 9July 1785; AE, B1, 113 (Alexandrie), 1783-1787, Rosette, 2 Jan 1784.
(58.) PRO, FO 261, Vol.2 (1785-1787),25 Jan. 1786.
(59.) See Crecelius, ‘Unratified Commercial Treaties’, pp.91-8, for a text of this treaty.
(60.) In a letter Qassis sent to French officials in Dec. 1785, he argued, like Baldwin had suggested to his own superiors, that the Europeans did not need the approval of the Ottoman government for bringing their ships to Suez; the approval of the beys was authorization enough. See Correspondence Politique-Turquie, Vol.173 (July-Dec. 1785), f.298; Vol. 174 (1786), f.51, Report of Feb. 1786.
(61.) See Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv, Turkei 11, Vol.88, ff.280-1.
(62.) On Russia’s relations with the beys, see Daniel Crecelius, ‘Russia’s Relations with the Mamluk Beys of Egypt, 1770-1798’, in A Way Prepared, Essays on Islamic Culture in Honor of Richard Bayly Winder, Farhad Kazemi and R.D. McChesney (eds.) (New York: 1988), pp.55-67.
(63.) India Office Archives (London), G/17/5A, 1786-1799, f.95, Letter from Baldwin, 24 Sept. 1787, and PRO, FO, Vol. 1 (1786-1796), ff.89-92, Baldwin's letter of 24 Sept. 1787. Even the contemporary Egyptian historian al-Jabarti remarked on this alleged treaty with Russia, but no copy has yet been found. See Abd al-Rahmam ibn Hasan al-Jabarti, Aja’ib al-Atharfi al-Tarajim wa al-Akhbar (Bulaq, 1880), Vol.2, p. 164.
(64.) India Office Archives (London), G/17/5A, 1786-1799, f. 15 1.
(65.) See Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv, Turkei 11, Vol.100, from Rathkeal, 25 Aug. 1792; Turkei II, Vol. 103,25 May 1793, 10 June 1793; Turkei 11, Vol. 106, 25 Feb. 1794.
(66.) There is no doubt that it was Rosetti, not Baldwin, who obtained this treaty from the beys. See the account of Major MacDonald, ‘Voyage to the Red Sea’, British Museum Library, Manuscript Collection, Add. Mss. 19289, f.34. Hugh Cleghorn, another officer who transitted Egypt at this time, states specifically that Rosetti executed the treaty under commission from Baldwin. See PRO, WO, Vol.361 (1795-1797), p. 158, Cleghorn’s letter of 25 June 1795. One is reminded of Brandi’s remark in 1785 that it would be easy for any nation to obtain a treaty from the beys similar to the one they had issued to the French. See ft.46.
(67.) See Crecelius, ‘Unratified Commercial Treaties’, pp.98-103, for a text of Baldwin's treaty. There is no evidence in the British archives that the government acknowledged the receipt of the treaty or commented upon it in any of its correspondence with its representatives in India, Egypt or Constantinople.
1994 Frank Cass & Company Ltd.
Middle Eastern Studies; 4/1/1994; Crecelius, Daniel
Austria, as well as England, France and Russia, sought in the 1780s and 1790s to persuade the Ottoman government to allow European ships to use the port of Suez and carry on trade through the Red Sea to India. The Ottoman Empire had barred European commerce from the Red Sea since the 16th century. The Europeans also tried to persuade the beys or rulers of Egypt who had received autonomy from the Ottomans. Several times the beys seemed to accede to the Europeans’ wishes only to renege on their promises. European trade was not permitted in the Red Sea until the 19th century.
The northern Red Sea had been closed to the ships of Europe since the conquest of the territories along its two shores by Ottoman forces in the sixteenth century, but in the second half of the eighteenth century a series of attempts was made, by merchants acting independently and by several European states, to open a direct line of commerce and/or communication between the Indian principalities and the Egyptian port of Suez.(1) European merchants first requested that the governments petition the Ottoman central government for the right, under their capitulations, to bring their ships directly to Suez, then, when the Ottomans continued their objections to this trade, sought to gain their objective by sending vessels to Suez under authority granted to them by the ruling mamluk beys of Egypt.(2)
The attempt to open the port of Suez to ships bringing their cargoes directly from India was led, first of all, by a small group of European and Eastern Christian merchants resident in Egypt who were familiar with the enormous profits their Muslim counterparts of Cairo derived from this trade route.(3) This small group of speculators included Greeks, Jews, Armenians, and Greek-Catholics of the Ottoman Empire(4) and European merchants whose residence in Egypt had made them familiar with the trade of the Red Sea. Some of the Europeans with longer experience in Egypt had even formed relationships with native Muslim merchants and used the occasion of the annual pilgrimage which the Egyptian authorities sent to the shrine cities of Mecca and Medina to speculate in the Meccan trade.(5) This small group of European and native Christian adventurers came to importance with the emergence of an autonomous mamluk regime in Egypt in the late 1760s under the leadership of the Qazdughli amir Ali Bey al-Kabir (1760-72).(6) The inner group having influence over the mamluk leaders themselves was composed of non-muslim citizens of the Ottoman Empire such as the Greek Cypriot S. Lusignan and the Greek Catholic Antoine Qassis Phara'un, who became chief customs agent for Ali Bey's successors, and Carlo Rosetti, a Venetian merchant who early in his career in Egypt gained the confidence of his Qazdughli patrons.(7) While this group helped to influence the economic policies of the Qazdughli amirs, it did not have sufficient influence in Constantinople to secure a lifting of the ban against Europeans trading in Red Sea ports north of Jedda, for it had no independent government to support its policies. One of the major goals of these merchants in Egypt, citizens of both the Ottoman Empire and European states, was therefore to secure the backing of a major European power that could induce the Ottoman government to give its approval for the use of the harbor at Suez by European ships.
European states had for centuries carried on trade with Egypt through its Mediterranean ports of Damiette, Rosette and Alexandria and through their residence in Egypt European merchants had become familiar with the potential of the Red Sea trade route from which they were excluded. When, therefore, Ali Bey invited the Europeans in India to send their ships directly to Suez, Venetian and French merchants resident in Egypt sprang forward to urge their respective governments to ignore the Ottoman ban on Christian shipping north of Jedda. These merchants argued that the Qazdughli amirs had achieved autonomy, that the Ottoman central government could not enforce its ancient ban, and that, besides, the capitulatory treaties the European states had with the Ottoman Empire already gave them the right to trade in all Ottoman ports. While the French hesitated, the Venetians began to carry on a clandestine trade at Suez. It was the English, however, who made the first serious attempt to challenge the Ottoman prohibition.
The enthusiasm of the merchants eager to develop this route increased in 1773 when Muhammad Bey Abu al-Dhahab (Shaykhu al-balad 1772-75), the successor of Ali Bey, gave assurances to the English explorer-diplomat James Bruce that the ships of the East India Company would be welcomed at Suez. In 1775 Muhammad Bey signed a treaty with officials whom the East India Company sent to Suez in response to his invitation of 1773.(8) From 1776 England was represented in Egypt by a single merchant, George Baldwin, who devoted the remainder of his life to a vain attempt to open this route. The more established European merchants among the Venetian and French communities were eager to duplicate this English success, especially when rumors spread throughout the French community that the English had enjoyed 120 per cent profits after expenses on the first cargoes that they had brought to Suez in 1775 and 1776.(9)
Another push for the opening of the Red Sea route came from officials of both the British and French trading houses in India.(10) By the second half of the eighteenth century the old established charter companies such as the British Levant Company, the East India Company, the French East India Company and the Dutch East India Company had fallen on hard economic times and were virtually bankrupt. Their profits had diminished severely, their costs of doing business had increased enormously, and their utility to their own members and to the governments that chartered them centuries before was no longer apparent. Governments had given to these charter companies broad monopolies. The monopoly to carry on trade for Great Britain in the Ottoman Empire, for instance, had been granted to the Levant Company, whose chief merchant in the region also served as Britain's ambassador to the Ottoman court. In the British scheme of things, as well as in Ottoman politics, the Red Sea acted as a convenient buffer separating the Mediterranean world from the Asian one, for the East India Company's charter did not permit it to trade in areas granted to the Levant Company. But at the time the Qazdughli rulers of Egypt had issued their invitation to bring the ships of the East India Company to Suez, the company in India had acquired an aggressive new director determined to preserve the company from imminent bankruptcy. This new director, Warren Hastings, saw salvation for the East India Company in this new route and signed the aforementioned treaty with Muhammad Bey Abu al-Dhahab in 1775.
The urgings of Baldwin in Egypt and of Hastings in India did not move company or government officials, who in 1777 issued explicit orders to Ainslee, Baldwin and Hastings to discontinue the trade they had begun.(11) These orders echoed the attitude of Sir Robert Ainslee, the new British ambassador in Constantinople and chief representative of the Levant Company in the Ottoman Empire, who argued that the trade at Suez was an intrusion by the East India Company into an area reserved to the Levant Company, that the mamluk regime in Egypt was too unstable and the ruling beys too tyrannical to trust, and that the projected profits to be made at Suez could not offset the enormous losses, political as well as economic, that England would suffer in the central regions of the Ottoman Empire when retribution would be taken against English interests by the Ottoman government, which was determined not to permit English or other European ships to trade at Suez. Ainslee maintained his opposition to this trade throughout his tenure in Constantinople (1776-94), but he and his government did see the utility of using the Suez route for the transit of British dispatches between India and London, and sought therefore to secure from the Ottoman authourities permission to use the Suez for that purpose.
As early as 1774 the Ottoman government had issued a strongly worded decree against the use of Suez by English ships, but this decree had been ignored by the Qazdughli amirs and by Baldwin and Hastings, who eagerly sought to exploit this new route.(12) The concern of the Ottoman authorities mounted in 1776-77 when reports reached Constantinople that as many as 13 British ships were unloading rich Indian cargoes at Suez. A good deal of this merchandise was distributed as quickly as possible by Baldwin to British merchants in the central lands of the Ottoman Empire, including Constantinople itself. This trade, however, was in direct contradiction to the wishes of both the British government and the East India Company directors in London. In the Ottoman capital Ainslee therefore accepted without protest an even more threatening Ottoman decree against the English use of Suez in 1778, for he was determined to put a stop to this trade.(13)
No one had pushed as hard for the opening of Suez as Baldwin, who in 1777 wrote Ainslee bluntly that whether the Ottoman government liked it or not, some nation was going to trade at Suez and it might as well be England. He arrogantly told his ambassador that the approval of the beys was all the legitimacy that was required.(14) The ambassador wrote to his superiors in August 1778:
I am credibly informed that a knot of adventurers composed of Greeks, Armenians, and most of the different European nations, as well as English subjects, who are concerned in the cargoes of eight merchant ships arrived this year at Suez, and in the returns to India of the manufactures of Italy, Germany (Austria) and France, arevery busy in negotiating with the beys of Egypt for permission to continue this trade contrary to the intentions of the Porte and to the interests of Great Britain.(15)
Unable to convince Ainslee by correspondence of the advantages of the Suez trade, of the necessity of appointing him consul-general in Egypt, and of the need to withdraw the right that the previous British ambassador had given Antoine Oassis to act as agent for the British in Egypt in the absence of any official British representation, Baldwin made a trip to Constantinople in December 1778 to confront him personally.
Ainslee had developed a strong personal dislike for Baldwin, for he considered him a scoundrel interested only in self-promotion and did not trust him, especially after Baldwin offered him a sizable bribe in return for his support of the Suez trade.(16) He therefore continued to oppose Baldwin's plans. He again wrote his superiors:
I have reason to suspect that Mr. Baldwin is tampering with the French ambassador and that he is commissioned by the people in India to devise a secure method for transmitting their fortunes to Europe by a trade to Suez, in which he is greatly favoured and supported by the Greek and Armenian subjects of this empire, who go to India, and find a great benefit in purchasing the commodities on the spot and paying the amount here.(17)
The French ambassador, Priest, had indeed been won over to Baldwin's scheme, for he reported to Versailles that these entrepreneurs needed a government to protect them and proposed that France take the lead in developing this lucrative trade.(18)
Baldwin had sought to be named consul-general for Egypt, but returned to Cairo merely with a document naming him Ainslee's agent there. Ainslee also dismissed Antoine Qassis as agent for the British in Egypt. Baldwin was made aware of the Ottoman threat to seize any English cargoes that arrived after the summer of 1778 and of the Ottoman intent to enslave all Englishmen on board such captured ships. He promised Ainslee to put a stop to this trade.(19) Officials of the East India Company in India also had sufficient warning of the Ottoman threat, but nevertheless, in collaboration with Baldwin and a small band of international adventurers, which included French and Dutch merchants, sent four ships with dispatches and cargo to Suez in the summer of 1779. (The conspirators hoped to avoid the ban against English vessels by sending the two cargo ships under the Danish flag).(20)
This first attempt to develop European trade at Suez was dealt a fatal blow when bedouins of Sinai, acting at the instigation of the beys, seized the cargoes from the ‘Danish’ ships as they were being carried to Cairo. Seven Europeans turned loose in the desert without water or clothing perished; two made it to safety. The beys, acting under the authority of the Ottoman decree, seized the ships and their crews and imprisoned all Englishmen in Egypt, including Baldwin. Eventually the survivors were released to their ships after signing guarantees that they would not protest to the Ottoman government or seek reimbursement of their losses, that they would take no hostile action against Egypt, and that they would never return to Egypt. They then returned to India. But Baldwin, who was under house arrest and acting as a sort of hostage to guarantee the good behaviour of the freed merchants, broke the bond he had given and fled to Constantinople, where he argued with Ainslee to retrieve the heavy losses he had suffered in the seizure of the Indian cargoes and complained bitterly that the seizure of the ships' cargoes was the work of Qassis and Rosetti, who plotted together to block the English at Suez so they themselves could develop this route.(21) It did not seem to matter to Baldwin that he had given his solemn promise to Ainslee that he would not engage in trade in the Red Sea and that these cargoes were illegal. Ainslee did not give up his opposition to this trade and Baldwin did not win compensation.(22) As the enmity between Ainslee and Baldwin worsened noticeably, Baldwin sought other outlets for his frustration.
This incident of 1779 demonstrated to officials of the European governments that the beys could not be trusted to fulfill their treaties and pointed up the precariousness of this route. Still, the utility of using Egypt for the transit of packets had become evident to English and French officials, so some interest in Suez remained.(23) While official British and French policy sought to petition the Ottoman government for the right to pass dispatches across Egypt, merchants familiar with conditions in the area continued to make plans to use Egyptian ports for passing trade in both directions between Europe and India. The Ottoman government continued to deny the use of Suez to foreign ships, but did grant the right for the Europeans to pass dispatches between Jedda and Suez on Muslim ships plying that route.
The disaster that befell the English at Suez and another incident that involved five British couriers who arrived at Qusayr in 1780(24) discouraged the British and French from sending ships to Suez for several years and provided an opening for other nations to make an effort to open the link between India and Egypt. In an age before nationalism, individuals not infrequently changed nationalities to further their own self-interest. It was not unusual, therefore, for British captains to command Russian warships, for Italians to serve as Scandinavian consuls, or for French officers to serve in the Ottoman army. Acting in their own self-interest, a knot of merchant adventurers now stepped forward to force the route to Suez open, but they needed the backing of a powerful European state.(25)
Merchants in Egypt had for decades been sending back reports of how easy it would be for a small European army to seize Egypt from the mamluks. The published accounts of a growing number of European travellers also pointed out the defenseless state of all of Egypt's Mediterranean and Red Sea ports. The strategic position of Egypt as a potential base from which to launch an attack upon India was also becoming apparent. As the European merchants suffered increasing losses in Egypt and other Mediterranean ports because of the rapaciousness of local ruters who disregarded completely the rights guaranteed to them in their capitulatory treaties, a growing sense of frustration led to calls for military action. It was pointed out by more than one merchant or traveller that a single armed vessel could destroy Ottoman-Egyptian shipping in the Red Sea and wreak complete havoc on this vital conduit for the products of Asia and the Red Sea (coffee in particular) that were so much in demand in Constantinople and the central Ottoman lands.
Great indeed must have been the anger of those speculators who lost their fortunes in the disaster of 1779. One of the survivors, John O’Donnell, even threatened to return with a single warship to drive Egyptian-Ottoman ships completely from the Red Sea. To this suggestion Ainslee wrote that ‘Mr. O’Donnell appears to be a madman, and may prove to be a dangerous one’.(26) Ainslee also continued his complaints about Baldwin, whom he said was the friend of the French ambassador and met frequently with the Imperial (Austrian) ambassador. Ainslee suspected that the meetings with the latter related to a plan to open a route to India under the leadership of a Mr Bolts. He also continued his denunciation of his nemesis. ‘Demands to a great amount’, he wrote, ‘have been forwarded to this place from London and India against the so often mentioned Mr. Baldwin, who it appears has gone off to avoid his creditors.’(27)
Baldwin had in fact left Constantinople on a journey to India via Basra, but had to turn back when he was wounded in an ambush near Antioch.(28) Ainslee did not suspect the real motives of Baldwin’s journey, nor is there any evidence that anyone outside the principals themselves ever knew what Baldwin had determined in collaboration with the Austrian ambassador in Constantinople.
Baldwin’s relationship with the Austrians has been completely overlooked in the accounts of his attempt to open Suez to ships arriving from India.(29) Yet he apparently had had a relationship with them for many years. At the time he assumed his deceased brother's post as British vice-consul in Cyprus in 1771 he inherited his brother's position as vice-consul for the Austrian Empire as well.(30) Through this position Baldwin must have established a relationship with Austrian officials both in Constantinople and Vienna. Ainslee had reported that Baldwin was having meetings with Baron d’Herbert Rathkeal, the Austrian ambassador, after his arrival in Constantinople in 1780 following his escape from Egypt, but had not given these meetings as much significance as Baldwin's association with the French ambassador.(31) Ainslee also reported that one of the English distributing Indian merchandise in the Constantinople market, had confessed that the previous Austrian ambassador in Constantinople (the Baron de Thugut) had given him a good deal of money to invest in Baldwin’s Red Sea scheme.(32)
Baldwin had, however, been up to much more with the Austrians, who up to this point had shown only a casual interest in the affairs of Egypt. Austrian correspondence relating to Egypt is scant. What exists are mainly reminders to the ruling authorities in Egypt not to harm the Catholic priests who were protected by Austrian capitulations or memos relating to the return of Austrian citizens, mainly soldiers taken as prisoners of war in the Balkans who had been sent as mamluk slaves to Egypt. As early as 1750, for instance, afirman had been sent to Ahmad Pasha, the governor of Egypt, granting to the Austrians perpetual freedom to trade, by land or sea, in the Ottoman Empire and to establish consulates or vice-consulates in all Mediterranean ports belonging to the Ottoman Empire.(33) Suddenly, however, as a result of Baldwin’s dealings with d’Herbert Rathkeal, Austria developed a short-lived interest in this province, for the ambassador convinced his government to open a consulate in Egypt to give support to Mr Bolts in India and as a means of participating in this new trade route.(34) This Austrian plan for participating in the Red Sea trade was sustained by both the Baron de Thugut and d'Herbert Rathkeal, who obtained for it the approval of the Austrian emperor.
Baldwin had apparently convinced the Austrian ambassador that with a minimum amount of political and financial support he could develop the Red Sea route for the Austrians. Baldwin must have been consumed with anger over the loss of his fortune in Egypt and with the continued opposition to his plan for the Red Sea route from Ainslee and his superiors in London to have entered into a secret agreement for the development of this trade under the auspices of Austria. For the Austrians, the plan was simple and did not require much cost to the empire.
On 1 February 1780 Baldwin obtained from d’Herbert Rathkeal a set of six documents, including a document granting Baldwin Austrian citizenship, two patents de mer, two receipts serving as patents for North Africans with whom the Austrians were then at peace, three blank certificates of naturalization which Baldwin was to use in obtaining the services of two ships’ captains and for a third person chosen by Baldwin to help him in this scheme, a document granting Baldwin authority (pleinpouvoir) to act on his own, and a letter from the foreign minister, Prince Kaunitz, to a Lieutenant Colonel de Boetz. In another letter of the same date Baldwin promises to be a faithful subject of the Austrian emperor.(35) In yet another letter of 24 February 1780 Baldwin reveals that he was in the process of purchasing two ships (hence the two blank certificates of naturalization and two patents de mer) which he would send to India.(36)
In another series of Baldwin’s letters dated 24 February 1780 he suggests that Austria make common cause with France in opposing England and urged that the establishment of Mr Bolts in India be strengthened. If this bold scheme was too costly he proposed to send one or two ships under the flag of Malta into the Red Sea to destroy Ottoman shipping. In yet another letter, also dated 24 February 1780, Baldwin writes to d'Herbert Rathkeal that he would go as an Austrian citizen to Cairo to help Mr Bolts establish himself in India, but that in any fighting between England and Austria he would remain an observer. He proposed to make Trieste the entrepot for the merchandise brought from India and for the export of Europe's manufactures to India. Baldwin reminded the ambassador that it would be necessary to obtain the permission of the Ottoman government for this scheme and suggested that the Ottoman officials could be bribed to give their consent.(37)
Baldwin recommended that once permission to trade at Suez was obtained from the central government two armed vessels be sent to Suez to demand reparations (for the losses suffered in 1779); or to Suez and Jedda. He predicted that cutting off the coffee supply would cause a revolt against the beys in Egypt. Baldwin also tried to strengthen the Austrians’' resolve by referring to the enormous profits made by the English from the cargoes they brought to Suez from 1776-78. He also noted that Mr Bolts had already established himself in India and was receiving encouragement from English merchants there who, apparently, were also frustrated by their superiors’ refusal to countenance the trade to Suez. Baldwin then boasted to Rathkeal, ‘I can raise arms and men upon my own personal credit equal to the undertaking’. In the event of a war with the Ottoman Empire he would destroy Ottoman shipping in the Red Sea and both Egypt and the empire would be in distress. Baldwin urged the Austrians to support the independence of both Yemen (the source of the preferred Mocha coffee) and Egypt. He noted that:
The defection of Egypt would cut off the supply of rice and coffee from Constantinople, and otherwise entail such a variety of fatal consequences upon the Porte, as to throw every advantage into the scale of our Sovereign.(38)
Armed with his packet of documents from d’Herbert Rathkeal, Baldwin set off for India by the overland route towards Aleppo and Basra, but was set upon by bandits near Antioch. His Tartar guides were killed and he himself was shot in the arm. He lost his packets in the encounter, but then apparently retrieved them and headed back, wounded, towards Constantinople. He then determined to return to London via Vienna.(39) Ainslee, still suspicious of his scheming, but unaware of the full extent of his association with the Austrians, asked the British ambassador in Vienna to report on Baldwin’s activities in the Austrian capital.(40) Lord Robert Murray Keith, the British ambassador, remained ignorant of Baldwin's agreement with the Austrians and was impressed both by Baldwin's manner and the warm reception he received from Vienna’s aristocratic society, especially after Baldwin had been received by the emperor himself.(41) Rathkeal later reported to the emperor that Baldwin had returned to London to wrap up his affairs. he remarked that since his departure from Constantinople he had heard a lot of unfavourable things said about Baldwin's character but that he had found him to be an honorable man.(42)
Austrian prospects looked even better when Melek Mehmed Pasa was named governor of Egypt. Rathkeal sent to the new governor a congratulatory letter, dated 13 October 1780, in which the pasha was reminded that he had become a friend of Austria during his previous posting in Belgrade. Rathkeal recommended Austrian merchants to Melek Mehmed Pasa, pointed out that the Austrians did not inflate their prices like the merchants of other nations, and concluded: |I regard the nomination of your excellency as the epoque for the reestablishment of Austrian commerce in Egypt and for the redressment of all our grievances.(43)
In February 1781 an anonymous report, entitled ‘Memoire sur la situation politique del Egypte’, was submitted to the Austrians. The enthusiasm and language is that of Baldwin, but the recipient had many questions. What expenses were to be incurred? What of the hazards of sailing in the Red Sea? What security was there from attacks on the commerce by the Sharif of Mecca, by the governor of Egypt or by the bedouins? What would Austria sell in Egypt? Baldwin made a response to these questions, reasserting the ease with which the trade could be protected and the profits to be made, but nothing more exists in the Austrian archives to suggest any further official relationship with Baldwin, who never revealed his Austrian naturalization or used the documents he had been issued to put any plan for the Austrians into effect.(44) He remained in London, petitioning his English superiors for redress and urging upon them support for the Suez trade. But English interest in Egypt rose only when it was revealed that the French had signed a series of secret treaties with the beys in February 1785 and were about to bring the trade of India to Suez on French vessels.
In 1786, therefore, over the strong protests of Ainslee and the officers of the Levant Company, his government appointed Baldwin British consul in Egypt and agent of the East India Company with instructions to supervise the transit of dispatches between London and India and to obtain a treaty from the beys at least the equal of the one secured by the French. He was explicitly forbidden to engage in any trade whatsoever in the Red Sea.(45) Baldwin loyally proceeded to Egypt to take up a post he had long sought and gave no indication whatsoever of any preference to the Austrians. He did, however, develop a working, almost warm, relationship with Rosetti, whom he had blamed for his debasement in 1779. It is possible that it was the Austrian connection that brought them together during Baldwin’s second residence in Egypt.
Baldwin was not the only individual the Austrians had sought to use in their plans to develop their trade through Egypt. Rather than posture and bluster as the French and English had done in Cairo and Constantinople, the Austrians decided to enlist the services of two well-placed local merchants, Antoine Qassis and Carlo Rosetti, who had shown themselves eager to participate in the development of this trade. Baldwin had in fact accused both of them as being the instigators behind the attack upon the English cargoes in 1779 which put a halt to British plans for Suez. Both had long residence in Cairo, were fully knowledgeable of the local situation, both had the confidence of the beys, and both had demonstrated their eagerness to participate in the trade with India.(46)
Qassis had since 1774 been chief customs officer for the Qazdughli amirs Muhammad Bey Abu al-Dhahab, Ismail Bey, Ibrahim Bey and Murad Bey. Rosetti, too, had served the beys well, securing armaments and advisers for them, and as thanks had been granted by the beys iltizams for natron and senna.(47) Although both were very powerful they did not represent, like other foreign merchants in Egypt, the affairs of any European great power in an official capacity. Qassis’ semi-official position as ‘agent’ for the British ambassador had been withdrawn in 1778 and he and the other merchants, as citizens of the Ottoman Empire, had to pay 8 per cent duties on their merchandise while the Europeans, under the terms of their capitulations, paid only 3 per cent.(48) He and the other Greek-Catholic customs agents of the ports continously offered their services to European states that might grant them the coveted berat, which extended to its holder the capitulatory privileges of the nation that issued it. Qassis had preferred a French berat since he had close dealings with the French and preferred their trade.(49) Now, however, he was won to the Austrian cause by being given high honours.
Sometime in 1781 the Austrian ambassador in Constantinople issued Qassis a coveted berat, thereby extending to the chief customs agent all capitulatory privileges enjoyed by citizens of the Austrian Empire. Qassis, whose immense fortune derived more from his extensive commercial activities in ports extending between India and Europe than from his extortions from the merchants in Egypt (the majority of which had to be turned over to his mamluk patrons), now enjoyed a considerable personal advantage in furthering his own ambitions and those of his minority community. He had now a certain measure of protection from the beys, he had only to pay 3 per cent on his merchandise instead of 8 per cent, and he held a new authority that gave at least some of his actions official sanction. A firman from the Ottoman central government was also read in the divan of Cairo, declaring that the Ottoman government was answerable for any losses suffered by Imperial subjects in the Red Sea trade, whether the losses were the result of the activities of the bedouins or the beys, and announcing that the Austrian emperor had bestowed upon Qassis the titles of Baron and Count Palatine.(50) Ainslee also received word that Carlo Rosetti had revived a plan for the Red Sea trade under Imperial colors.(51) By August 1782 Ainslee could report that ‘It is certain that a project exists for opening the navigation between Egypt and India under the Imperial flag. The Imperial Ambassador will gain 5000 [pounds] a year if this plan succeeds’. An intelligence report from Smyrna also claimed that ships under the imperial flag would reach Suez in 1783.(52)
Baldwin, Qassis and other Greek-Catholic citizens of the Ottoman Empire, joined by Rosetti, now sought to establish a commercial house in Trieste to handle the trade with Egypt. The pro-consul Lee wrote from Smyrna that Rosetti and the custom master possess unbounded ambition and the deepest cunning, that they aim at no less than carrying on a reserved trade to themselves and their party from India via Suez to Trieste.
It's pretty certain that a very capital house of business is setting up at Trieste for the purpose of carrying on this mediated trade. Lee went on to report that several vessels had sailed from Constantinople and Leghorn, possibly headed toward Suez. He suspected that Mr Bolts was involved in this scheme and asserted that the emperor himself was giving full support to this plan. He also remarked that the Ottoman government had issued decrees to support this effort.(53)
Qassis set about with energy to take advantage of his relationship with the Austrian Empire. He cooperated with Rosetti and used the French interpreter, M. Pellie, in an attempt to open the route to India.(54) In a short time Trieste and Livorno became major entrepots for the trade with Egypt. It was also reported that Qassis, who had increased his fortune considerably in the two years since obtaining the Austrian berat, also had assembled sizable capital in India.(55) The drive by Qassis for European protection and his efforts to establish a merchant house for the Indian trade at Trieste were part of a regional scheme by the Greek-Catholic merchants to take control from the Venetians and French of the bulk of the trade between Europe and Ottoman ports in Egypt, Palestine and Syria.(56) The French in particular were well aware of the threat posed to their preeminent position in this trade and apparently succeeded in undermining Qassis’s position, for in December 1783 Qassis, under the pretense of going on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, suddenly fled Egypt with an immense fortune.(57)
The departure of Qassis from Egypt put a virtual end to any hope that the Austrians might be the ones to develop successfully the Red Sea route. Qassis himself was still a wealthy and influential merchant, and it was still felt in European capitals that he represented the best opportunity for introducing Indian merchandise directly into the Ottoman Empire via the Red Sea route. But from Constantinople Ainslee continued to report that the Ottoman Empire, whose approval was required, continued in its absolute opposition to this scheme. He remarked disdainfully that
Everybody agrees that this scheme of commerce is very precarious, and no merchant here could be induced to venture their own property in a speculation, the success of which must necessarily depend upon the good faith of the Beys, and of the many notorious villains who influence them, and upon the inefficiency of the means which the Porte and the Sheik of Mecca, may at any time employ to prevent it.(58)
Ainslee and others were caught off guard, therefore, when news reached the Ottoman capital in the second half of 1785 that the French had secured a secret treaty with the Egyptian beys which granted them the right to trade at Suez.(59) Qassis himself must have recognized his inability in exile to execute his plans under the auspices of the Austrian Empire, which had no strong representation in Egypt, and now offered to establish himself in France and work for the development of French trade at Suez.(60) The Austrians were aware of the change in Qassis' loyalty, for they now sought to strengthen their relationship with Rosetti in Cairo. In a letter of 2 April 1785 the Austrian ambassador in Constantinople recommended to Rosetti that he separate himself from the Venetians and from Qassis and place himself under Austrian protection.(61)
Once more the ambassadors of the European states pressed the Ottoman officials for the same rights the French had seemingly won at Suez. Baldwin was rushed to Egypt with the cherished position of consul-general and given the task of securing from the beys a treaty similar to the one the French had obtained, but by the time he arrived in December 1786 the Ottomans had given their own answer to the beys' policies. In July 1786, under the command of the grand admiral Ghazi Hasan Pasha, Ottoman forces had launched attacks upon rebellious mamluks by land and sea, had driven them into upper Egypt and had established their own regime in Cairo under the new shaykh al-balad, Isma'il Bey. The French treaty, therefore, was void, and Austrian, English and Russian hopes for an immediate opening of the Red Sea were also dashed. Although Ghazi Hasan Pasa had to withdraw the bulk of his forces when war with Russia resumed in 1787, Ibrahim and Murad were unable to return to Cairo until 1791 when a pandemic plague wiped out most of the mamluks, including Isma'il Bey and his faction, in the urban centers of Lower Egypt. From their refuge in Upper Egypt, however, Ibrahim and Murad had continued to seek European support for their independence and offered sweeping advantages to virtually any European government that would support their independence against the Ottoman Empire. Whereas the Austrians and the Russians were at the time engaged in yet another war with the Ottomans, it was with these states that the Qazdughli amirs dealt.
It was Russian-Austrian policy to stir up revolts anywhere possible in the Ottoman Empire and the Baron de Thonus, the Russian consul in Egypt, undertook to support Ibrahim and Murad in their opposition to Ottoman authority, even after the occupation of Lower Egypt by Ghazi Hasan Pasa.(62) Baldwin reported that in December 1783 the beys had sent an emissary to the Russian court with proposals for an alliance. He claimed that a treaty had actually been signed in which Russia recognized the independence of the beys and promised to shield Egypt from an Ottoman attack by providing garrison troops in the Egyptian ports of Alexandria, Rosette and Damietta.(63) Baldwin suggested in 1788 that Ibrahim and Murad were willing to offer any terms to the emperor of Austria in return for recognition of their independence.(64) But no European government was any longer willing to consider the promises or proposals of the beys seriously, though the merchants in the area still tried to convince their governments of the immense importance of Egypt’s strategic location as the half way point to India and of the enormous trade that could be developed across her territory.
In late 1791 d’Herbert Rathkeal informed his foreign minister, Count Kaunitz, that he intended to appoint Rosetti Austrian consul in Alexandria. Rosetti appears to have subsequently undertaken several representations for the Austrians, particularly in obtaining freedom for a number of captured Austrian soldiers sold into slavery in Egypt and in reasserting Austrian protection over German-speaking Catholic priests long resident in Egypt, but his efforts to support Austrian commercial ambitions there were unfruitful.(65)
From 1793, with the approval of the Austrian chancery, Rosetti also acted as vice-consul for Russia. During this period he also performed many services for the growing number of English officers and adventurers who transitted Egypt. In 1794, acting on a request from Baldwin, who was old and ill in Alexandria, Rosetti secured from Ibrahim and Murad the commercial treaty for the English that Baldwin had been sent to obtain in 1786.(66) Baldwin rushed copies of this treaty to India, Constantinople and London, but conditions had so entirely changed that the British government took no note of the treaty whatsoever.(67) It was only with the occupation of Egypt by the French from 1798 to 1801 that Egypt once more assumed such importance in British imperial strategy, and it was only in the nineteenth century that the Red Sea and Suez were finally opened to European shipping. Austrian arguments, inducements, and pressures, like those of the other European states, had failed to convince the Ottomans to admit European commerce in the northern Red Sea, and Suez remained closed to European ships for the time being.
NOTES
The research for this study was undertaken in previous years under the auspices of grants from California State University, Los Angeles, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Research Center in Egypt. This study has been completed while the author has held a Fulbright grant for the 1991-92 academic year. Opinions expressed in this essay are those of the author, not of the granting agencies.
(1.) The ban on non-muslim shipping applied to the entire Red Sea, but a small number of European ships was tolerated in the ports of Mocha and Jedda because they brought desired goods from India and the heavy tax they paid on this merchandise provided a sizable income for the local rulers. While the Ottomans justified their ban against non-Muslim, mainly Christian, ships in the waters north of Jedda by arguing that they were protecting the Muslim holy sites from defilement, it became clear that the continued prohibition was maintained more to preserve for themselves the enormous profits of the lucrative coffee and spice trade carried between Mocha, Jedda and Suez than to protect the holy sites from Christians. For a description of this trade, and its enormous economic significance to Egypt and the Ottoman Empire, see Andre Raymond, Artisans et commercants au Caire au XVIII Siecle (Damascus, 1973), Vol.I,pp.108-64.
(2.) The best published account of the attempt by the Europeans to open a trade route between Indian ports and Suez remains Francois Charles-Roux, Autour d’une Route: l’Angleterre, l’Isthme de Suez et l’Egypte au XVIIIe Siecle (Paris, 1922). See also, H. L. Hoskins, British Routes to India (London, 1966).
(3.) The richest merchants in Egypt were from the Shara’ibi family, whose wealth derived from the transport of coffee and spices from the ports of the Arabian coast to Suez. The Shara’ibis even owned their own ships, which they themselves often piloted. See Raymond, Artisans et commercants, Vol. 1, pp.292-6.
(4.) Of this group, the commercial activities of only the Greek-Catholics are known. See Thomas Philipp, The Syrians in Egypt, 1725-1975 (Stuttgart, 1985); Daniel Crecelius, ‘The Attempt by the Greek Catholics to Control Egypt’s Trade with Europe in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century’, in La vie sociale dans les provinces arabes a l’epoque ottomane, edited by Abdeljelil Temimi (Zaghouan, 1988), Vol. 3, pp. 121-32.
(5.) The English merchant George Baldwin was reported to have consigned merchandise to the amir al-hajj for sale in Jedda. In this he was only following a practice which French merchants of Cairo had previously established. See Archives Nationales (Paris), Affaires Estrangeres (hereafter AE), B 1, 336, Le Caire (1 776-1781), f. 188, 7 Aug. 1777.
(6.) See Daniel Crecelius, The Roots of Modern Egypt: A Study of the Regimes of |Ali Bey al-Kabir and Muhammad Bey Abu al-Dhahab, 1760-1775 (Chicago and Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1981).
(7.) Lusignan was forced to flee with Ali Bey when the latter was driven from power in 1772. Qassis came to have enormous influence as the chief customs agent and in league with Rosetti encouraged the Qazdughli amirs to welcome the expansion of European trade in Egyptian ports. Qassis and Rosetti were particularly eager to see European ships bring the goods of India to the port of Suez, but they also encouraged the expansion of trade with the European states through Egypt's Merditerranean ports. Qassis, for instance, gained monopolies for the export of numerous products, including rice, which was shipped primarily through the port of Damiette on French vessels. See AE, B1, 336, Le Caire (1776-1781), f.24,5 April 1776.
(8.) See Daniel Crecelius, ‘Unratified Commercial Treaties Between Egypt and England and France, 1773-1794’, Revue d’Histoire Magherebine (June, 1985), pp.67-104. Pages 85-91 contain a text of the treaty of 1775.
(9.) AE, B1, 111 (Alexandrie), 4 Oct. 1777.
(10.) Little is known of attempts by the Dutch or others to utilize the Red Sea route.
(11.) In a letter of 11 July 1777 Lord Weymouth informed Ainslee that the East India Company ‘have strictly prohibited all persons in India employed in their service, or remaining there under their license, from trading to any port in the Red Sea but Judda and Mocha...’ See PRO, SP 97 (Turkey) Vol.53, f.144. See also Hoskins, op.cit., pp.12-14. There is some irony in the fact that Hastings had put the East India Company on a solid economic footing before he was brought to trial for his ‘misdeeds’. For a collection of letters and speeches in defense of Hastings’ activities as company director, see Major John Scott, Narrative of Transactions in Bengal (London, 1784).
(12.) An abstract of this firman of 1774 can be found in Baron Leopold de Testa, Bibliotheque Diplomatique: Recueil des Traites de la Porte Ottomane avec les Puissances Etrangeres (Paris: 1865), Vol.2, p.71.
(13.) A rough English translation of this lengthy firman, which was reissued by the Ottoman government in early 1779, can be found in George Baldwin, Political Recollections Relative to Egypt (London, 1802), pp.8-19.
(14.) Public Record Office, (London), SP 97 (Turkey), Vol.53 (1777), f. 10.
(15.) PRO, SP 97 (Turkey), Vol.54 (1778), f. 191.
(16.) Ainslee reported to his superiors that Baldwin had offered him a bribe of 10,000 piasters annually in return for his support for his trade at Suez. See India Office G/17/5, Egypt and the Red Sea, f.200, and PRO, SP 97 (Turkey), Vol.54, Ainslee to Weymouth, 17 Dec. 1778.
(17.) PRO, SP 97 (Turkey), Vol.55 (1779), f.3.
(18.) Quai d’Orsay (Paris), Correspondence Politique-Turquie., Vol.165 (1779), Memoire of 9 Jan. 1779, f. 1 1. Ainslee was particularly conscious of French interests in Egypt and tended to see in all French commercial activities there an ulterior plan for the conquest of Egypt as the prelude for an attack upon British establishments in India.
(19.) PRO, SP (Turkey), Vol.55 (1779), ff .46-7.
(20.) The most complete, though biased, report of this incident is Baldwin’s own Narrative of Facts Relating to the Plunder of the English Merchants by the Arabs and other subsequent Outrages of the Government of Cairo in the Course of the Year 1779 (London, 1780). Other second-hand accounts are to be found in the respective consular and ambassadorial reports of England and France.
(21.) In addition to the accusations against Qassis and Rosetti contained in his Narrative, Baldwin complained in his Political Recollections Relative to Egypt, pp.7-8, that a cloud of jealousy was at this time gathering over my scheme: the Turk, who had hitherto been silent, began to complain; the Daganier, or custom-master, wanted a participation in the customs; the Sheriff of Mecca began to complain that the port of Jedda would be abandoned, and the cause of religion sustain an injury in its effects; the Directors of the East India Company complained that their trade would suffer; the Turkey Company cried out that they would be ruined. They had no conception of the tendency of these things; they wrote to his Majesty’s Ambassador at Constantinople, and his Excellency officiated for its suppression at the Sublime Porte; the Sublime Porte, instigated, as the act avers, by his remonstrances, issued orders for the suppression of the East India commerce at Suez... '
(22.) Ainslee showed little sympathy for Baldwin. In a letter of 3 March 1780 he wrote: ‘Mr. Baldwin understood and persevered in speculations contrary to his duty. He was warned and fully apprized by me, of all the risks and dangers attendant on his pursuits . . . I am told that Mr. Baldwin failed in England and had no capital of his own when he came to Turkey a few years since. Under the promise of immense profits, he engaged some gentlemen at home and in India to advance money, and address him commissions for the India trade thro Egypt.’ See PRO, FO 78, Vol. 1 (1780), ff. 41-4.
(23.) In early 1778 Baldwin had used this route to give British authorities in India forewarning of the imminent outbreak of war with France. This information had permitted the British to capture Pondicherry and forestall any French advance in India. See Hoskins, British Routes to India, p. 18.
(24.) The five were arrested by the ruling bey of Upper Egypt, and forced to pay a large ransom. Four were sent back to India, but the fifth, Wooley, was permitted to proceed with his dispatches to Cairo, where he was again arrested and sent to Constantinople. There Ainslee had to physically intervene to rescue Wooley from Ottoman detention. Ibid.,p.24.
(25.) It was one of the principal rules of the charter companies that only a chartered merchant could engage in trade within the company's monopoly area, and he could only trade with other merchants of the company, but by the second half of the eighteenth century such rules were generally ignored and, much to the disadvantage of the company, merchants were trading with foreign nationals outside their own company. One of the worst offenders was Baldwin, who although a member of the Levant Company was distributing Indian goods in Syria and Constantinople, and collaborating with Ottoman subjects and French merchants in Cairo to trade in the Hijaz and the Red Sea. See, for instance, AE, B1, 11 (Alexandrie), 1773-1778, report of 30th March 1778, which complains that the Frenchman Arnaud in Cairo and the Maison Martin were involved in trade with the English. Since Baldwin was the only English merchant in Egypt at the time the reference must be to him.
(26.) PRO, FO 78, Vol.4, f. 33, 25 Feb. 1783.
(27.) PRO, FO 78, Vol. 1 (1780), f. 95, f. 105, f. 129.
(28.) PRO, Levant Company Records, Letter Books, SP 110 (Aleppo), 1766-1798, ff. 66-67, letter of 7 June 1780.
(29.) Charles-Roux, op. cit., Hoskins, op. cit., and Rosemary Janet Said, ‘George Baldwin and British Interests in Egypt, 1175-1798’, unpublished doctoral dissertation (University of London, 1968), did not consult the Austrian archives for their studies, hence did not uncover Baldwin’s dealings with the Austrians.
(30.) See Baldwin's correspondence to d’Herbert Rathkeal of 24 Feb. 1780 in Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv (Vienna), Turkei 11, Vol.72, ff. 161f. It was the Baron de Thugut who had appointed him. In his own review of his official career in Political Recollections Baldwin was silent on his service to the Austrians while performing his duties for England in Cyprus.
(31.) PRO, FO 78, Vol. 1 (1780), f. 105.
(32.) PRO, FO 78, Vol.3 (1782), letter of 12 April 1782, ff.82-3. Both de Thugut and d'Herbert Rathkeal had apparently profited greatly from the Indian trade, but their exact participation is not known.
(33.) Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv, Agypten 1. Prior to the appointment of Carlo Rosetti as Austrian consul in 1791, Austria had been represented for many years in Egypt by the Italian merchant Agostini.
(34.) The mysterious Mr Bolts, frequently referred to in the English and Austrian correspondence, was an Austrian merchant situated for many years in Calcutta who supported what we today would call ‘free trade’. See Charles-Roux, Autour d'une Route, p. 158. Further information on Wilheim von Bolts appears in the following sources: Franz von Pollack-Parnau, ‘Eine osterreichisch-ostindische Handelscompagnie 1775-1785,’ Beihefte zur Vierteljahrschrift fur Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, p. 12 (Stuttgart, 1927); Hugo Hassinger, Osterreichs Anteil an der Erforschung der Erde (Vienna 1949), p.92; Walter Markov, ‘L’expansion autrichienne outre-mer et les interets portugais (1777-1781)’, Congresso Internacional de Historia dos Descobriomentos (Lisboa: 1961), Vol.V; Walter Markov, ‘Die Triestiner Ostindien-Kompanie (1775-1785) und die Nordsee-Adria-Konkurrenz’, Hansische Studien (Berlin, 1961), pp.293-302.
(35.) This correspondence relating to Baldwin can be found in Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv, Turkei, 11, Vol.72, ff.109f. It is not immediately clear if the patents de mer are for the purchase of commercial ships or to cover corsair activity.
(36.) Ibid.
(37.) Ainslee hints that the 5,000 pounds per year that d’Herbert Rathkeal would receive from this endeavor was a bribe to support Baldwin’s amibitions. See PRO, FO 78, Vol.3, f.208, letter of 26 Aug. 1782.
(38.) Ibid., ff.163-6, 24 Feb. 1780. It should be noted that the Austro-Hungarian Empire was at this time urging the partition of the Ottoman Empire upon the Russian Tsarina Catherine. See Hans Uebersberger, Russlands Orientpolitik in den letzten zwei Jahrhunderten, Band I (Stuttgart, 1913), p.358.
(39.) PRO, Leyant Company Records, Letter Books, SP 110 (Aleppo), Vol.39 (1766-1798), ff.66-67, letter of 7 June 1780 contains a descripton of this incident.
(40.) PRO, FO 261, Vol.4 (1780-1783), letter from Ainslee to Robert Murray Keith, 12 Apr. 1782.
(41.) Rosemary Janet Said, George Baldwin and British Interests in Egypt', pp.88-9.
(42.) Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv, Turkei II, Vol.73, 26 Sept. 1780.
(43.) Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv, Turkei II, Vol.73, ff.110-1 1.
(44.) Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv, Turkei II, Vol.76, ff.49-64.
(45.) Charles-Roux, op. cit., pp.207-13. No one seemed to take note of the remark by Brandi, Ainslee’s agent in Alexandria, who expeditiously secured copies of Truguet’s secret treaties that any nation ready to treat with the (independent) government of Egypt could obtain similar terms from the beys. See PRO, FO 78, Vol.6 (1785), f.208, letter of 22 Aug. 1785.
(46.) Rosetti and Qassis had shown an interest in participating in the trade of the Red Sea since the days of Ali Bey and Muhammad Bey in the early 1770s. Rosetti had married into the Greek-Catholic community when he espoused the widow of the customs agent Yusuf Bitar and made a natural partner for Qassis in this endeavor. See Bulis Qirali, al-Suriyunfi Misr (Helopolis, 1928), p.86,
(47.) William G. Brown, Travels in Africa, Egypt and Syria, from the year 1792 to 1798 (London, 1799), pp.36-7, and L.A. Balboni, Gli Italiani nella civilta Egiziana del Secolo XIXo (Alexandria, 1906), Vol.1, p.205. Baldwin had also sought to develop a trade with England in natron prior to his flight in 1779. Upon his return in 1786 he freighted even larger quantities of this product, used as a substitute for saltpeter in the manufacture of soap and gunpowder. See Rosemarie Janet Said, |George Baldwin and British Interests in Egypt', pp.291-2.
(48.) The French in particular complained that it was this disparity that induced Qassis to find the means to raise the fees the French paid to the beys to 8-10 per cent. See AE, B 1 112 (Alexandrie), 24 March 1779.
(49.) The French ambassador Priest wrote in July 1783 that Qassis had particular favor for the French; his successor, Choiseul-Gouffier, also remarked on Qassis' preference for the French and noted the request by several customs agents in Egypt for the French berat. See Correspondence Politique-Turquie, Vol. 169 (June-Dec. 1783), f.71; Vol. 171 (July-Dec. 1784), f.281. Thomas Philipp views the Greek-Catholics and French as implacable rivals for control of Egypt's foreign trade and challenges the views held by others that the two groups often cooperated. He mistakenly identifies Mikha'il Fakhr as Greek Orthodox instead of Greek-Catholic. See The Syrians in Egypt, p.32n. While it is true that the Greek-Catholics sought to establish themselves in European ports and wrest control of the eastern trade from the French and Venetians, they cooperated closely with the French community in Egypt, even during the period when they imposed extraordinary levies upon them. The French opened their church to the Greek-Catholics, tried to extend their protection to them, and looked upon the Greek-Catholic customs agents, despite the commercial competition between them, as sympathetic to their interests, at least into the early 1780s.
(50.) PRO, FO 78, Vol.3, f. 199.
(51.) Ibid. Rosetti's role in the Austrian plan is not so apparent in the available papers, but it is certain that he was something of a |silent partner' in Austria's plan to develop the route between India and Trieste.
(52.) Ibid., f.208, f.264.
(53.) PRO, FO 178, Vol4 (1783), f. 1 1, extract of 31 Dec. 1782. It is possible to see in this report the unfolding of the plan that Baldwin has suggested to Rathkeal in 1780, but there is no evidence that Baldwin himself was any longer directly involved. Still, Baldwin’s activities in London between 1781 and 1785 are not well documented.
(54.) Pellie had experience with the route between India and Suez, for he had been sent previously to India by the French inspector Baron de Tott to encourage the French to open the route to Suez. In a letter of 6 Feb. 1783 Qassis revealed that Pellie had been in his service for the previous year. AE B 1, 113 (Alexandrie), 1783-1787.
(55.) PRO, FO 261, Vol. 1 (1783-1785), 10 Feb. 1784: AE, B1, 113 (Alexandrie), 1783-1787, Rosette, 2 Jan 1784.
(56.) See Crecelius, ‘The Attempt by the Greek Catholics to Control Egypt’s Trade with Europe in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century’, pp. 121-32, and Philipp, op. cit., pp.35-48.
(57.) French sources declare that Qassis’ fall came as a result of a dispute he had with Uthman Bey, who levied upon him a sizable contribution, but British sources suggest that the French, who were in Murad Bey's good graces and who had lent him a considerable amount of money, had succeeded in discrediting Qassis. See PRO, FO 261, Vol.1, 9July 1785; AE, B1, 113 (Alexandrie), 1783-1787, Rosette, 2 Jan 1784.
(58.) PRO, FO 261, Vol.2 (1785-1787),25 Jan. 1786.
(59.) See Crecelius, ‘Unratified Commercial Treaties’, pp.91-8, for a text of this treaty.
(60.) In a letter Qassis sent to French officials in Dec. 1785, he argued, like Baldwin had suggested to his own superiors, that the Europeans did not need the approval of the Ottoman government for bringing their ships to Suez; the approval of the beys was authorization enough. See Correspondence Politique-Turquie, Vol.173 (July-Dec. 1785), f.298; Vol. 174 (1786), f.51, Report of Feb. 1786.
(61.) See Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv, Turkei 11, Vol.88, ff.280-1.
(62.) On Russia’s relations with the beys, see Daniel Crecelius, ‘Russia’s Relations with the Mamluk Beys of Egypt, 1770-1798’, in A Way Prepared, Essays on Islamic Culture in Honor of Richard Bayly Winder, Farhad Kazemi and R.D. McChesney (eds.) (New York: 1988), pp.55-67.
(63.) India Office Archives (London), G/17/5A, 1786-1799, f.95, Letter from Baldwin, 24 Sept. 1787, and PRO, FO, Vol. 1 (1786-1796), ff.89-92, Baldwin's letter of 24 Sept. 1787. Even the contemporary Egyptian historian al-Jabarti remarked on this alleged treaty with Russia, but no copy has yet been found. See Abd al-Rahmam ibn Hasan al-Jabarti, Aja’ib al-Atharfi al-Tarajim wa al-Akhbar (Bulaq, 1880), Vol.2, p. 164.
(64.) India Office Archives (London), G/17/5A, 1786-1799, f. 15 1.
(65.) See Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv, Turkei 11, Vol.100, from Rathkeal, 25 Aug. 1792; Turkei II, Vol. 103,25 May 1793, 10 June 1793; Turkei 11, Vol. 106, 25 Feb. 1794.
(66.) There is no doubt that it was Rosetti, not Baldwin, who obtained this treaty from the beys. See the account of Major MacDonald, ‘Voyage to the Red Sea’, British Museum Library, Manuscript Collection, Add. Mss. 19289, f.34. Hugh Cleghorn, another officer who transitted Egypt at this time, states specifically that Rosetti executed the treaty under commission from Baldwin. See PRO, WO, Vol.361 (1795-1797), p. 158, Cleghorn’s letter of 25 June 1795. One is reminded of Brandi’s remark in 1785 that it would be easy for any nation to obtain a treaty from the beys similar to the one they had issued to the French. See ft.46.
(67.) See Crecelius, ‘Unratified Commercial Treaties’, pp.98-103, for a text of Baldwin's treaty. There is no evidence in the British archives that the government acknowledged the receipt of the treaty or commented upon it in any of its correspondence with its representatives in India, Egypt or Constantinople.
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