Dan H. Andersen,
The Danish Flag in the Mediterranean Shipping and Trade, 1747-1807
2 vols. tables, graphs, maps, 364 pages. CD-ROM.
University of Copenhagen 2001
English and Danish Summary

English Summary

In the last half of the eighteenth century the merchant marine under Danish flag experienced a brief flowering which made it one of the largest in Europe after Britain and France and on a par with the Netherlands. In terms of tonnage pr. capita Denmark had about 50% more than Britain. The most remarkable and least studied part of this expansion was in the Mediterranean. Before the 1740s, Danish ships had sailed to the Atlantic coast of Spain and Portugal regularly, but seldom beyond Setubal (St. Ubes), and only very occasionally did a well-armed vessel venture into the Mediterranean. The danger of capture by North African corsairs was too great, and ships carrying guns, and sailors to man them, were not competitive. But between 1746 and 1753, Denmark concluded treaties with the Barbary States, and soon the Mediterranean had become a very important area of operation for Danish ships. During the Seven Years War the annual number rose to around 200, almost doubled during the War of American Independence, and doubled again during the Revolutionary Wars. The high point came in 1794 with almost 800 departures. Out of 20,500 voyages beyond Cap Finisterre between 1747 and 1807, by ships under Danish flag, there were about 15,000 departures for the Mediterranean.

The present thesis has two aims:
1: A descriptive survey of Danish Mediterranean shipping 1747-1807. The number of annual departures, the routes to the Mediterranean, the most important ports in the Mediterranean, the typical routes and cargoes.
2: An analysis of the reasons for the success of the Danish merchant marine. In the Danish historiography there have been two schools of thought on this issue. One has linked the expansion to Denmark’s policy of neutrality which apart from brief skirmishes kept the country out of the big great power wars between 1720 and 1807 when the British bombardment of Copenhagen forced the country into the Napoleonic Wars on the French side. While competitors were forced to remain in harbour or preyed upon in the seas, Danish ships took over their markets. The other school has not denied the importance of neutrality, but also pointed to Danish advantages of a more economic nature. Low wages, low rate of interest, access to cheap materials for ship building, and an advantageous location of the important route from the Baltic with strategic materials.

The first section of the thesis deals with the prehistory, most importantly the treaties with the Barbary States of Algiers, Tunis, Tripolis and Morocco 1746-1753. It is emphasized that the policies of Danmark and these states must be considered rational and based upon common interest, and that Denmark never did possess the military strength to defeat them. A chapter about the creation of privileged companies to exploit the new market establish trade between Denmark and the Mediterranean concludes that these failures showed the limits of what was feasible in Danish commercial policy, and that the economic structure of Denmark and the Mediterranean area made it logical that the Danish activity was concentrated on offering the transport services of Danish ships to others, and that the operators were small part owned companies.

The second section deal with shipping 1747-1807 and is divided into two periods:
1: From the first arrivals of Danish ships in the Mid-1740s to the Danish war with Algiers 1769-1772 which brings about a sharp decline in Danish shipping.
2: From peace is concluded with Algiers in 1772 to the British bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807.

In the first period the annual number of departures for the Mediterranean is between 100 and 200, and there is a clear correlation between the Danish activity and the Seven Years War 1756-63, when the number of departures peaks at 227 in 1759. The most important ports are Lisbon and Setubal in Portugal and Livorno on the western coast of Italy, but also Barcelona, Genoa and Marseilles are important. In spite of an expensive treaty with the Ottoman Empire in 1756, Danish activity in the Levant was limited, and mainly confined to Smyrna (Izmir) during the Seven Years War.

When the War of American Independence developed into a European great power war, Danish shipping to the Mediterranean expanded significantly. Annual departures rose to more than 400, and freight rates more than doubled. After the war activities stabilized on a high level, and when the French revolutionary wars broke out in 1793, the annual number of departures for the Mediterranean doubled again and peaked at almost 800 in 1794 and 1795. Denmark’s conflicts with several of the Barbary States from 1796 and increasingly stringent French measures against neutral shipping created substantial problems for Danish shipping, and from 1797 the Danish navy instituted convoys in the Mediterranean. In the thesis it is argued that these convoys were mainly directed against the depredations of the belligerent states and not against North African corsairs.

The Danish activity in the Mediterranean is more diversified in this period, but still concentrated on the Western Mediterranean and the Iberian Peninsula. Few ships sail to North Africa, fewer to the Levant. Spanish ports become more important, especially Barcelona, and from 1793 the Danish activity is characterised by opportunistic shifts between states, regions and ports, as they change hands during the ever spreading war. It is also typical for the last years of the century that many Danish ships are not specialised on one area of operation, but shift between Western Europe, the Mediterranean, the Caribbean and America without financial or navigational problems.

The third part of the thesis discusses the reasons for the expansion of Danish shipping in the second half of the 18th century. It is argued that Danish neutrality did play a part, because markets gained during the wars were partly retained after the conclusion of peace and shipping stabilized on a higher level than the pre-war one. But neutrality does not explain everything. Danish ships were basically very competitive. An analysis of the tons-per-man ratio (T/M) of Danish ships shows ery considerable productivity improvements between 1770 and 1780, and the Danish ratios seem to be better than the French and on the level of the Americans. The wages of Danish sailors were on an average half those of British sailors, and they increased much less during a war or a crisis. In the thesis it is argued that political and economic factors were tightly interwoven, and that much of the neutrality advantage was transmitted through economic elements. During a war Danish costs rose less than that of the competitors, and the very considerable increase in freight rates had implications for investment cycles and the ability to survive after the conclusion of peace. The Danish reputation for staying of the the great wars accumulated and conferred considerable advantages to Danish owners during political crises when merchants as a safety precaution often transferred their goods to Danish ships.

The sources:
The most important sources are the so-called Algerian Passport Registers which are copy books of passports issued for ships sailing beyond Cap Finisterre.
Dispatches and annual shipping lists from the Danish consuls in the Mediterranean
These are in the National Archive in Copenhagen.
Research has also been conducted in Archivio di Stato in Florence of the reports of the health authorities in Livorno
Public Record Office in London. Danish cases at the High Court of Admiralty.
University Library, Bergen. The archive of the Krohn family.

The raw data on which the thesis is based, mainly the Algerian Passport Registers and annual shipping lists from the Mediterranean, have been copied to the CD-ROM enclosed with the thesis. Here are databases containing data on all passports issued to Danish ships destined for the Mediterranean and their arrivals in Mediterranean ports 1747-1807. There is a description of the databases, their structure and content in the thesis:
Appendix A. The Databases.