War, Trade and Neutrality

Table of contents :
Contents
Abbreviations
Introduction
Part I - Politics, the “intervention practices” and neutrality
Republican diplomacy and the power balance in Europe
Introduction
The role of mercantile republics in the development of diplomacy
The republican elite’s lack of interest in and wariness of careers in diplomacy
The role played by the consuls
The influence of courts and the struggle of republics for firmer international recognition
A parallel diplomacy: trans-national networks at the service of the republics
Conclusion
The consular institution between war and commerce, state and nation: Comparative examples in eighteenth-century Europe
Introduction
The consuls between trade, war and neutrality
Between state and nation: the debate on the consul’s nationality
Conclusion: Towards a uniform system
War, trade, products and consumption patterns: The Ginori and their information networks
Introduction: the limits of consular latitude
Case study: the Ginori brothers
Conclusion
The Tuscan Edict of 1748 and ancien régime maritime legislation
Introduction: ancien régime states and maritime law
The arrival of the House of Lorraine and the first interventions on maritime trade
The 1748 Edict
Brief notes on the edict’s application
Conclusion
From the neutrality of the port to the neutrality of the state: Projects, debates and laws in Habsburg-Lorraine Tuscany
Introduction: War clouds over the Mediterranean
Giuseppe Pierallini’s bill
The discussion between Giuseppe Pierallini and Pompeo Neri
The bill under examination in the Council of State (1771)
Conclusion: From bill to law
Legislation and trade: Reflections from the margins
Commercial treaties and the harmonisation of national interests: The Anglo-French case (1667-1713)
Introduction
Marine and commercial treaties, and neutrality
Commercial treaties with France from a British perspective
Commercial treaties with Britain from a French perspective
Conclusion: commercial treaties and the harmonisation of national interests
The emergence of Dutch neutrality: Trade, treaty politics and the peace of the Republic
Introduction
The Republic and its treaties around 1713
Rethinking foreign trade
The United Provinces, Britain and France in the 1740s
Four Grand Pensionaries
The United Provinces and the neutrality of international trade
Polarisation of the Dutch neutrality debate in the 1770s
Conclusion: The legacy of Dutch neutrality and the idea of
The capture of the Thetis: A cause célèbre at the Madrid Council of War (1780-1788)
Introduction
Spain and the emergence of armed neutrality
Between the devil and the deep blue sea
The important role of naval protocol
Exploiting the form and substance of maritime documentation
The devil’s meal
Conclusion: thirst for revenge
The “intervention practices” of the late ancien régime:Notes on the institutional and mercantile spheresof eighteenth-century Europe
Part II - Neutrality and the reception of theoretical models
Ottoman North Africa and ius publicum europaeum: The case of the treaties of peace and trade (1600-1750)
Introduction
States regarded as
The jurisprudence of treaties
From the imposition of treaties to the “law of Barbary”
Conclusion
Stare pactis and neutrality. Grotius and Pufendorf in the political thought of the early eighteenth century Grand Duchy of Tuscany
Introduction
The inviolability of conventions with enemies: Grotius vs Pufendorf
The foundation of sovereignty of the people: Grotius and Pufendorf vs proimperial jurists
Conclusion: The rights of just war, Grotius and Montesquieu vs Hobbes and Pufendorf
From a right of war to a right of peace: Martin Hübner’s contribution to the reflection on neutrality in the eighteenth century
Introduction
The principles of natural right, the basis of Hübner’s reflection on neutrality
a global system of neutrality
Hübner’s participation in the general reflection on the rights of neutrals
The echo of Hübner’s ideas
The circulation of Vattel’s Droit des gens in Italy: the doctrinal and practical model of government
Introduction
The emergence of the constitutional state between the 1760s and the 1780s
Small and medium-sized Italian states in the international politics of the 1770s and 1780s
Conclusion: Vattel the revolutionary
The trade of “neutral nations” as viewed by the publicist Lampredi
Introduction
The controversy between Lampredi and Galiani
Trade and nations in Lampredi view
Conclusion
Natural law and the birth of political economyin the eighteenth century
About the Authors
Index
QUESTO LIBRO TI È PIACIUTO?
I NOSTRI CATALOGHI

Citation preview

Studi e ricerche storiche Collana fondata da Marino Berengo e Franco Della Peruta diretta da Giuseppe Berta, Carlo Capra, Giorgio Chittolini e Franco Della Peruta Come dichiara nel suo titolo, la Collana è aperta alla “ricerca storica” nella varietà e ricchezza dei suoi temi: politici, culturali, religiosi, economici e sociali; e spazia nel lungo arco dei secoli dalle origini dell’età moderna ai nostri giorni. La Collana non si propone di riesumare “classici” della storiografia, o di tradurre opere straniere; suo specifico intento è raccogliere le nuove voci della cultura storica italiana. Contributi originali, dunque; in prevalenza dovuti a giovani studiosi, di vario orientamento e provenienza. La forma del saggio critico non andrà a detrimento di un sempre necessario corredo di riferimenti, di note e di appendici; ma eviterà anche che il testo sia appesantito da apparati eruditi. Un impianto, dunque, agile ed essenziale che entra nel vivo del lavoro storiografico in atto nel nostro paese.

Tutti i volumi della collana vengono sottoposti a un processo di peer review che ne attesta la validità scientifica.

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Edited by

Antonella Alimento

WAR, TRADE AND NEUTRALITY Europe and the Mediterranean in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

FrancoAngeli Storia

This book was published thanks to the financial assistance provided by the University of Pisa’s International Cooperation Programme of 2009-10 for the research project “War, trade and neutrality in ancien régime Europe (1648-1789)” coordinated by Antonella Alimento, and with the help of other funds provided by the University of Pisa in 2010, for which Antonella Alimento was also responsible.

Front cover image: Detail from Les heureux fruits de la paix par le rétablissement du com(m)erce universel, 1699 (engraving), by Henri Watelle, courtesy of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris

Copyright © 2011 by FrancoAngeli s.r.l., Milano, Italy L’opera, comprese tutte le sue parti, è tutelata dalla legge sul diritto d’autore. L’Utente nel momento in cui effettua il download dell’opera accetta tutte le condizioni della licenza d’uso dell’opera previste e comunicate sul sito www.francoangeli.it.

Contents

Abbreviations

7

Antonella Alimento, Introduction

9

Part I Politics, the “intervention practices” and neutrality Manuel Herrero Sánchez, Republican diplomacy and the power balance in Europe

23

Marcella Aglietti, The consular institution between war and commerce, state and nation: Comparative examples in eighteenthcentury Europe

41

Francisco Javier Zamora Rodríguez, War, trade, products and consumption patterns: The Ginori and their information networks

55

Daniele Edigati, The Tuscan Edict of 1748 and ancien régime maritime legislation

68

Franco Angiolini, From the neutrality of the port to the neutrality of the state: Projects, debates and laws in Habsburg-Lorraine Tuscany

82

Mario Montorzi, Legislation and trade: Reflections from the margins

101

Antonella Alimento, Commercial treaties and the harmonisation of national interests: The Anglo-French case (1667-1713)

107

5

Koen Stapelbroek, The emergence of Dutch neutrality: Trade, treaty politics and the peace of the Republic

129

Andrea Addobbati, The capture of the Thetis: A cause célèbre at the Madrid Council of War (1780-1788)

146

Biagio Salvemini, The “intervention practices” of the late ancien régime: Notes on the institutional and mercantile spheres of eighteenth-century Europe

160

Part II Neutrality and the reception of theoretical models Guillaume Calafat, Ottoman North Africa and ius publicum europaeum: The case of the treaties of peace and trade (1600-1750)

171

Emanuele Salerno, Stare pactis and neutrality. Grotius and Pufendorf in the political thought of the early eighteenth century Grand Duchy of Tuscany

188

Eric Schnakenbourg, From a right of war to a right of peace: Martin Hübner’s contribution to the reflection on neutrality in the eighteenth century

203

Antonio Trampus, The circulation of Vattel’s Droit des gens in Italy: the doctrinal and practical model of government

217

Enrico Spagnesi, The trade of “neutral nations” as viewed by the publicist Lampredi

233

Niccolò Guasti, Natural law and the birth of political economy in the eighteenth century

247

About the authors

253

Index

255

6

Abbreviations

AAE = Archives du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, Paris AGI = Archivo General de Indias, Seville AGRB = Archives Générales du Royaume, Bruxelles AGS = Archivo General de Simancas AHN = Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid AN = Archives Nationales, Paris ARH = Algemeen Rijksarchief, Den Haag ASFi = Archivio di Stato di Firenze ASGe = Archivio di Stato di Genova ASLi = Archivio di Stato di Livorno ASMi = Archivio di Stato di Milano ASMo = Archivio di Stato di Modena ASTo = Archivio di Stato di Torino ASTs = Archivio di Stato di Trieste AVMi = Archivio Verri, Milano BNE = Biblioteca Nacional de España, Madrid BLLi = Biblioteca Labronica, Livorno HHStA = Haus- Hof- Und Staatsarchiv, Wien RA = Rigsarkivet, Copenhagen AE = Affaires Étrangères, see AN Alm. Del = Almindelig Del, see RA AS = Archivio Segreto, see ASGe ASR = Auditore poi Segretario delle Riformagioni, see ASFi C = Consejos, see AHN CC = Carteggi consolari, see ASMi CR = Consiglio di reggenza, see ASFi E = Estado, see AHN 7

GCM = Governo civile e militare, see ASLi GM = Giunta di Marina, see ASGe IC = Intendenza commerciale per il litorale in Trieste 1748-1776, see ASTs L = Litterarum, see ASGe MD = Mémoires et Documents, see AAE ME = Materie politiche per rapporto all’Estero, Consolati nazionali, Livorno, see ASTo MM = Miscellanea Medicea, see ASFi MP = Mediceo del Principato, see ASFi SEG = Secrétairerie d’État et de Guerre, see AGRB SG = Staten Generaal, see ARH SME = Segreteria e Ministero degli Esteri, see ASFi SS = Segreteria di stato 1765-1808, see ASFi TKUA = Tyske Kancelli Undenrigske Afdeling, see RA art. = article c. = carta (sheet) cc. = carte (sheets) c.c. n.n. = carte non numerate = (sheets not numbered) ch. = chapter f. = folio ff. = folios ins. = inserto = (insert) inss. = inserti = (inserts) no. = number nos. = numbers prot. = protocollo = (protocol) r = recto s.l. = sans lieu d’édition (no place of publication) tit. = title ul. = unlabelled v = verso vol. = volume vols. = volumes DBI = Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani, 1960-2010), vols. I-LXXV also available online: http://www. treccani.it/biografie IBI = Indice Biografico Italiano / Italian Biographical Index / Italienischer Biographischer Index, ed. Tommaso Nappo and Paolo Noto (Munich: K. G Saur, 1997-2010), 7 vols.

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Introduction Antonella Alimento

This book, War, Trade and Neutrality: Europe and the Mediterranean in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries comes at the end of a research project involving scholars from the University of Pisa, the University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, the École Pratiques des Hautes Études in Paris, the Erasmus University of Rotterdam, the Pablo de Olavide University of Seville, and the Ca’ Foscari University in Venice. Launched within the Department of History of the University of Pisa under the title Empires and small states: War and neutrality between the Peace of Westphalia and the Continental Blockade, the project was then opened to teams of collaborators coordinated respectively by Wolfgang Kaiser, Françoise Janin, Koen Stapelbroek, Manuel Herrero and Antonio Trampus, thanks to the internationalisation support programme that the University of Pisa had funded for the academic years 2008-2010. By being part of a well-established institution, this collaboration enabled two workshops to be organised. The first was held in Pisa on 5-6 November 2009 on the theme The free ports in ancien régime Europe: Livorno, Trieste, the United Provinces, Marstrand, while the second, held in Seville on 17-18 June 2010, was entitled Commercial networks, national interests and trade treaties in ancien régime Europe. The support programme also made it possible to stage an international study conference in Pisa on 16-18 December 2010, the theme of which was Trade relations, political agreements and neutrality in ancien régime Europe.1 Additionally, it provided the means to publish this volume, which brings together the most significant results of the project participants’ work and also essays by specialists who, as guest speakers at the Pisa conference, gave insight into aspects of the project that had not been explored in sufficient depth (Eric Schnakenbourg and Enrico Spagnesi) or reflected on the methodological structuring and outcome of the research (Niccolò Guasti, Mario Montorzi and Biagio Salvemini). 1. For more information about the activities of the research group and details of its members visit the website http://www.storia.unipi.it/cooperazioneinternazionale/portifranchi/index.htm.

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The underlying idea of the original project, which was the basis of the dialogue with the teams from abroad, is that the Mediterranean, despite no longer being central to the global economy from the mid-seventeenth century onwards, still remained throughout the ancien régime a decisive region, and thus one which invites investigation into the configuration of political and commercial relations between states of different sizes and “constitutional” structures. The major powers that strived for hegemony in the area had in fact to deal with states which, though of lower rank, were trying hard to carve out or hold on to positions that kept them within the mainstream of profitable trade. One can see quite clearly the strategies implemented in the Mediterranean by the great powers – namely Britain, France and the Habsburg Empire – by which each sought to gain commercial and political supremacy. Yet one can also identify the policies adopted in the same area by other states, such as Holland and Spain, which were losing their economic and political dominance. And again, one can discern the efforts made by such states as Sweden and the Barbary states, which, irrespective of their size or religion, still tried to enter or remain part of the political scene, keeping a weather eye on ongoing political developments. The case of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, which made the free port of Livorno and neutrality the keystone of its foreign policy, lent itself well to the investigation of an issue – that of the “small state” – which is now the object of renewed interest in Italy and elsewhere.2 As Maurizio Bazzoli has underlined so effectively, the theme of the small state has at various times been studied “as a naturalistic element and as a historiographic principle, as a structural condition of a particular political order, internal but also international [...] as a condition of the debate on the nature of the internal political order or on the type of socioeconomic organisation, an aspect of the more general philosophical and political reflection on the “ideal state” and “good governance” (a model, a “small republic” with the republican form of government, a myth, a utopian project with strong links to antiquity)”.3 The Pisan team has anatomised the theme of the small state by studying over a long period the reception in Tuscany of modern natural law thought and the 2. Richard Whatmore, “‘Neither masters nor slaves’. Small states and Empire in the Long Eighteenth Century”, Proceedings of the British Academy, “Lineages of Empire. The Historical Roots of British Imperial Thought”, ed. Dunkan J. Kelly (2009), 53-81; Maurizio Bazzoli, Il piccolo Stato nell’età moderna. Studi su un concetto della politica internazionale tra XVI e XVIII secolo (Milan: Jaca Book, 1990); Small states in International Relations, ed. Christine Ingerbritsen (Reykjavik: University of Iceland Press, 2006); Kleinstaaten in Europa: Symposium am Liechtenstein-Institut zum Jubiläum 200 Jahre Souveränität Fürstentum Liechtenstein 18062006, ed. Dieter Langewiesche (Vaduz: Verlag der Liechtensteinischen Akademischen Gesellschaft, 2007); Alice Blyte Raviola, L’Europa dei piccoli stati. Dalla prima età moderna al declino dell’antico regime (Rome: Carocci, 2008). 3. Maurizio Bazzoli, “Piccolo stato e teoria dell’ordine internazionale nell’età moderna”, in: Polis e piccolo stato tra riflessione antica e pensiero moderno. Proceedings from the study days of 21-22 February 1997 held in Florence, eds. Emilio Gabba and Aldo Schiavone (Como: Edizioni New Press, 1999), 76-93.

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debate on trade neutrality, together with the political practices and legislative and diplomatic initiatives put in place in order to compete in the international arena. The significance of this chosen approach is deepened if one thinks that for Guicciardini, when he wrote the Dialogo del reggimento di Firenze, the combination of “small” and “free” did not represent, as noted by Galasso, “an ideal but the observation of a fact”.4 The ruling class of the Grand Duchy, like those of other small states in the Italian peninsula, lived in a situation that has rightly been called bipolar: whatever their size and status were, these states, although sovereign, were dependent on international power relations.5 There is surely no need to labour the point that after the War of the Spanish Succession the political equilibrium had a profound impact on their dynastic destinies: it is enough to mention the events in the Duchy of Milan, which passed under Habsburg rule; or those of the House of Savoy, whose ruler obtained the title of King of Sicily, later changed to that of Sardinia; or those of the Kingdom of Naples, where, after the Treaty of Seville, the right of Charles of Bourbon to establish an independent dynasty was acknowledged (1734); or, finally, those of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, where the House of Lorraine came to power following the death of the last Medici (1737).6 Being aware that they could not directly influence the politico-economic balances of Europe did not, however, deter the ruling classes of these small states from making plans for their countries’ future. They did so by bearing in mind the political, economic and, more generally, cultural choices that were being made not only by the great nation states (Britain, France and the Habsburg Empire), but also by other small states, such as the United Provinces and Sweden, which were using active trade neutrality as their workhorse to preserve and increase national wealth and so safeguard their independence. Based on the knowledge that the Grand Duchy of Tuscany had, in its own distinctive way, participated culturally and politically in the profound changes introduced by commercial society, the project welcomed the collaboration of scholars of different specialisations and historical periods who are actively investigating the relationship between Empires and small states, as well as the relationship between neutrality, commercial society and interstate relations, and also that between practice and doctrinal elaboration in the sphere of the law of nations. The organisation of the two workshops, despite having placed under stress their respective administrations, allowed the scholars to interact with 4. Giuseppe Galasso, “‘Piccolo stato’ e storiografia italiana dal Rinascimento al Risorgimento”, in: Il piccolo stato. Politica storia diplomazia. Proceedings from the study conference, the Old Monastery of Santa Chiara, San Marino on 11-13 October 2001, eds. Laura Barletta, Franco Cardini and Giuseppe Galasso (San Marino: AIEP, 2003), 127-144. 5. Aurelio Musi, “L’Italia dal Sacro Romano Impero allo stato nazionale”, in: Piccolo stato. Politica storia diplomazia, 171-195: 177. 6. On these points Paolo Alatri, Le relazioni internazionali in Europa nella prima metà del XVIII secolo (Naples: Istituto italiano per gli studi filosofici, 1990) is still unparalleled.

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one another in a concrete and profitable way. The strong integration between the groups led to the identification of the themes of free ports, trade networks and the commercial treaties of the ancien régime as areas where the different definitions of problems to be analysed and the methodologies employed by historians of politics and ideas, historians of institutions and law, and historians of economic thought and political doctrines converged. The group as a whole drew new lines of inquiry from this open forum, having found ways forward that would be difficult to discover on a personal level. During the conference in Pisa, the final stage of the collaboration process, the hallmark of the research group was clearly displayed. This had already emerged in the study meeting organised in Pisa on 28 May 2010 with Christian Windler, editor of the volume Les ressources des faibles7 in which, in a highly innovative way, the practices of neutralisation of whole regions or small states in times of war were analysed. The characteristic that perhaps best distinguishes this hallmark, and which I hope also shines through in this book, is surely the transnational line of approach by which the practices, institutions and cultural tendencies of the ruling classes of the small states in Italy and elsewhere have been investigated.8 As the essays by Marcella Aglietti, Francisco Zamora and Manuel Herrero attest, the institutions derive great advantage from not having been studied as a fact, established and indigenous, to be examined in order to research their similarities or differences. The attentive study of how the consular institution and diplomacy actually worked during the ancien régime uncovered ramified personal networks and also financial and commercial complexes composed of merchants and businessmen as well as important aristocrats and politicians, each of whom had his own wealth of knowledge.9 The cases studied by Zamora, Herrero and Aglietti demonstrate that diplomats of the republics and consuls of the “small states” guaranteed the survival of the Spanish monarchy and its colonial empire 7. Les ressources des faibles. Neutralités, sauvegardes, accommodements en temps de guerre (XVIe-XVIIe siècle), eds. Jean-François Chanet and Christian Windler (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2009). 8. See Jürgen Kocka, “Comparaison and Beyond”, History and Theory, 42 (2003): 39-44; Michel Werner and Bénédicte Zimmermann, “Beyond Comparison: Histoire croisée and the Challenge of Reflexivity”, History and Theory 45 (2006): 30-50. For the repercussions on the study of international relations see: Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Explorations in Connected History. From the Tagus to the Ganges (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); AHR Conversation: “On Transnational History”, American Historical Review, 111-5 (2006): 1441-1462; the special edition “Histoire globale, histoires connectées: un changement d’échelle historiographique?”, Revue d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine, 54-4bis (2007); Pierre Grosser, “Comment écrire l’histoire des relations internationales aujourd’hui? Quelques réflexions à partir de l’Empire britannique”, Histoire@Politique. Politique, culture, société, 10, January-April 2010, www.histoirepolitique.fr; Les Circulations internationales en Europe. Années 1680-années 1780, eds. PierreYves Beaurepaire, Pierrick Pourchasse (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2010). 9. Jan Glete, Navies and Nations: Warships, Navies and State Building in Europe and America, 1550-1860 (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell International, 1993) has called attention to the growing integration between merchants, governors and interest groups during the seventeenth century.

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and, simultaneously, that of the respective states, thus contributing to the European balance of power. The fact, highlighted by Marcella Aglietti, that until 1757 the consuls of foreign nations reached agreements with the governor of Livorno over measures relating to the free port’s neutrality, thereby ensuring the autonomy of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, further strengthens this hypothesis. In this sense the three essays represent a contribution not only to the study of the role played by the republics’ diplomacy in the stabilisation of Europe,10 but also to the more general question of the use of force and the weight of war in international relations. Certainly war “became a state industry”, so much so that seventy-five to eighty per cent of state budgets in the ancien régime was ring-fenced for military expenditure.11 However, as Hendrik Spruyt has pointed out, if “war-making is the crucial selecting mechanism, then it is difficult to explain why so many small states survived. It is the empowerment by other states of such entities that allows them to continue to operate in world affairs rather than their ability to wield force. This is even more obvious in cases where smaller states replaced larger ones as when the Dutch Republic, with roughly the same population as Venice (1.5 million) and only one tenth that of France, become a near hegemonic power in that seventeenth century”.12 In effect, war features in the essays not as a determining factor of interstate relations, nor as a narrative of battles, but rather as a catalyst for the internal reorganisation of states (not necessarily of the same territorial size) in economic competition with one another. As shown by the essays by Koen Stapelbroek and this writer, the service provided by small states specialising in maritime transport, such as the United Provinces, was essential to France, which never managed to build itself a merchant navy that was equal to its designs on commercial hegemony – designs which led to repeated clashes with Britain. From this point of view, it is worth noting that some conflicts more than others affected the political geography of Europe in so far as they activated, within single states, the dynamics of emulation that gave rise to many clashes but also significant streams of economic information. Contrary to what was planned for the original project, the chronology adopted in this book does not assign a central role to the treaties of Westphalia since it is thought, in accord with Andreas Osiander’s 10. The republican alternative: the Netherlands and Switzerland compared, eds. André Holenstein, Thomas Maissen and Maarten Prak (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2008), to be read alongside the work by Lucien Bély, in particular with Les relations internationales en Europe (XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles) (Paris: PUF, 2007). 11. Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1990 (Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 1990) which mentions that in the eighteenth century the European states were at war for seventy-eight per cent of the time compared to forty per cent in the nineteenth century, 72. See also The Fiscal Military State in Eighteenth-Century Europe. Essays in honour of P.G.M. Dickinson, ed. Christopher Storrs, (London: Ashgate, 2009). 12. Hendrik Spruyt, The Sovereign State and Its Competitors (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 32 and 207.

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innovative research and Marc Belissa’s studies,13 that the true watershed in international relations was the War of the Spanish Succession. Bringing to an end the wars of Louis XIV, the Peace of Utrecht involved the formal adoption of the principles of sovereignty, of equality between states and of security, which reached a crisis only after 1789 with the revolutionary wars, despite having been put to the test during the Seven Years’ War and the Franco-British one that followed the revolt of the North American colonies. Moreover, it was from the War of the Spanish Succession onwards that trade muscled into relations between states. As Istvan Hont has underlined, the complementarity of trade was being increasingly challenged by the “jealousy of trade”.14 Even though it represented no more than one to two per cent of global GDP,15 international trade became a major source of conflict and competition. Kalevi J. Holsti has calculated that of the fifty wars fought between 1648 and the Napoleonic era, forty-six per cent had their origins in one or more issues “relating to trade and competitive colonialism. Trade as war and war as another form of trade competition continued to be the predominant characteristic of commercial relations between the European powers throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.”16 This percentage increases if we take into consideration the post-Utrecht period.17 By analysing the correlation of war, trade and neutrality in terms of emulation processes triggered by international competition, the group in a sense took up the challenge issued in 1956 by Lucien Febvre when he stated that “history is peace”.18 In essence, the study by Guillaume Calafat, devoted to the debate about the nature of trade treaties concluded between the European powers and the Barbary regencies, confirms the fact that inter gentes ties that provided safety for people and goods under a neutral flag were being made in the Medi13. Andreas Osiander, “Sovereignty, International Relations, and the Westphalian Mith”, International Organization, 55 (2001): 251-87 and Marc Belissa, Repenser l’ordre européen (1795-1802). De la société des rois aux droits des nations (Paris: Editions Kimé, 2006). Also by Andreas Osiander, it is important to remember The States System of Europe 1640-1990. Peacemaking and the Conditions of International Stability (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994). 14. Istvan Hont, Jealousy of trade. International competition and the Nation-State in Historical perspective (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005). 15. David Held, Anthony McGrew, David Gordblatt, and Jonathan Perraton, Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 154. 16. Kalevi J. Holsti, Taming the Sovereigns. Institutional Change in International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 17. Kalevi J. Holsti, Peace and war: armed conflicts and international order 1648-1989 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991), 47. 18. Lucien Febvre, “L’histoire, c’est la paix”, Annales, ESC (1956): 51-63 who wrote; “History is war? Yes. The history of States. But history contains more than States. There are also nations. And the history of nations. If one prefers, the history of civilizations [...] The olive tree and its journey trough the Mediterranean, reconcile [...] the history of philosophies, of arts, of sciences, of techniques and of literatures [...] the history of civilisation, of a word reconcile, this type of history does not engender hate or spite”, 53.

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terranean.19 Calafat’s essay has demonstrated that trade treaties were instrumental in giving sovereignty a priori to states that, having engaged in corsair activities, were deemed not to be personae morales. Thus the essay responds to Febvre’s invitation to study those moments of European civilisation that united the people, rather than divided them. The challenge launched by Febvre was taken up also by Antonio Trampus who has reconstructed the various phases of the reception given in the Italian states and in the Habsburg Empire to the work of Vattel, the great theorist of the ius gentium and of neutrality. Eric Schnakenbourg has moved in the same direction by analysing the contribution made by the principle that peace, not war, was the natural relationship between states: a principle that the Dane Martin Hübner elaborated with his own diplomatic activities aimed at defending the right of neutrals to trade with the enemy in time of war. If the conclusions that Trampus and Schnakenbourg reached reinforce the thesis that the Seven Years’ War was a moment in which the rights of neutrals were championed vigorously,20 Enrico Spagnesi’s essay on the thought of Giovanni Maria Lampredi, professor of law at the University of Pisa, illustrates the late Enlightenment in Italy. As Trampus has stated so effectively, the Vattel who was embraced by Habsburg Lombardy is the one who postulated the sovereignty of the state. This author, for whom the “fictional theory about l’Etat as a distinct persona morale” was fundamental,21 was seen by the Italian Enlightenment figures of the 1770s to be a powerful instrument supporting the reforms implemented by the state authority to ensure public happiness. This confidence in the role of the state, about which Mario Montorzi has reflected in his contribution, made possible the transformation of Verri and Beccaria into intellectual-officials.22 With the case of Lampredi we enter a different cultural climate, that of the 1780s when the Italian translation of Vattel appeared in Venice almost as an endorsement of the decision by the Republic to adopt active neutrality. In defending the neutrality of Tuscany, which had made perfect impartiality and free trade – including the right to sell ‘contraband’, or arms – its guiding principle, Lampredi disseminated another aspect of Vattel’s teaching; this happened when he took 19. On this aspect see Christian Windler, “Diplomatic History as a Field for Cultural Analysis,” The Historical Journal 44 (2001): 79-106: 80. For relations between France and the Sublime Porte, see Géraud Poumarède, “Jalons pour une nouvelle histoire des capitulations franco-ottomanes,” in: L’invention de la diplomatie: Moyen Âge- Temps modernes, ed. Lucien Bély (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1998): 71-85 which has underlined the importance of the “commandements” or the specific arrangements that pragmatically resolved the previously insoluble problems of the capitulations, agreements that belonged to the symbolic and normative spheres. 20. Richard Pares, Colonial Blockade and Neutral Rights, 1739-1763 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1938). 21. Quentin Skinner, “A Genealogy of the Modern State”, in: Proceedings of the British Academy (2008) Lectures, 162 (Oxford: Oxford University Press): 325-370: 350. 22. See Antonella Alimento, “Introduzione”, in: Modelli d’oltre Confine. Prospettive economiche e sociali negli antichi Stati italiani, ed. Antonella Alimento (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2009), ix-xliv.

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issue with Ferdinando Galiani who, in his De’ doveri dei principi neutrali verso i principi guerreggianti, had accused him of effectively justifying the prolongation of wars by adopting the principle of perfect impartiality. In defending himself from this accusation, Lampredi entitled his work Dei doveri dei popoli neutrali thus demonstrating that he had understood Vattel’s most revolutionary message: that is, the subordination of the legitimacy of the persona ficta of the state to the will of the people, the only true repository of sovereignty. Francisco Zamora’s essay represents a contribution to help understand how the favourable conditions for an active reception of English and French economic thought and, more generally, of a distinctive participation in the Enlightenment movement, were created in the Grand Duchy: the analysis of the case study of the Ginori brothers allows us to understand why Florence in the late seventeenth century was at the centre not only of important economic initiatives but also of a great many diplomatic and intellectual exchanges. Moreover, thanks to the three Ginori brothers – one a consul in Lisbon, another in Cadiz and the third in Seville, in close contact with the fourth brother who later substituted the first one – Livorno expanded its role as the world’s “great Warehouse” that aroused much admiration in Joshua Gee, the theorist of the British colonial empire.23 If, as Stéphane Béguard, Marc Belissa and Joseph Visser have stated, “the eighteenth century seemed to be the ‘era of consuls’, since they played a role in an explosion of networks, expression of the rise of commercial imperatives in the diplomacy of the Enlightenment”,24 the case of the Ginori family is testimony to the precocity with which the Grand Ducal ruling classes seized every new opportunity in order to ensure the prosperity and autonomy of their state. The great insight that comes from analysing the work of the three consuls of the Ginori family, confirms the need to study the cultural horizons of these emblematic figures not as something home-grown, but as a process in which they selectively accepted and adapted ideas that had emerged far from their native land to local needs. The study of the external and theoretical dimension in early eighteenth century Tuscan debate is at the centre of the essay by Emanuele Salerno. In his Stare pactis, he argues that the Tus23. On the circulation and reception of English and French economic thought in Livorno in the 1750s, which occurred thanks to governor Carlo Ginori, a descendent of one of the consuls analysed by Zamora, see Antonella Alimento, “Tra Bristol ed Amsterdam: discussioni livornesi su commercio, marina ed impero negli anni Cinquanta del Settecento” in: Dall’origine dei Lumi alla Rivoluzione. Scritti in onore di Luciano Guerci e Giuseppe Ricuperati, eds. Donatella Bal�� ani, Dino Carpanetto and Marina Roggero (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2008), 25-45; Antonella Alimento, “Tra ‘gelosie’ personali e ‘gelosie’ tra gli stati: i progetti del governatore Carlo Ginori e la circolazione della cultura economica e politica a Livorno (1747-1757)”, Nuovi studi livornesi 16 (2009): 63-95. 24. Stéphane Béguard, Marc Belissa and Joseph Visser, “Introduction”, in: Aux Origines d’une alliance improbable. Le réseau consulaire français aux Etats-Unis (1776-1815) ed. Stéphane Béguard, Marc Belissa and Joseph Visser (Brusselles: Peter Lang, 2005), v.

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can ruling class’s preference for Grotius’s doctrine over that of Pufendorf, should be read in strict relation to the problems posed by the Medici succession: faced with the possible loss of autonomy, politicians and intellectuals who lived through the dynastic transition, such as Antinori and Buondelmonti, extolled the ability shown by the Medici to ensure the welfare and peace of the nation through their faithful adherence to a policy of neutrality. The issue of sovereignty analysed in connection with the acceptance of legal and regulatory models developed in different political and cultural contexts is further elaborated through the study of two fundamental laws enacted in the Grand Duchy during the eighteenth century. The first is the maritime edict of 1748, the limits of which, compared to the Ordonnance de la marine of 1681, and also its strong potential, linked to the privileges that Livorno enjoyed as a free port, are described by Daniele Edigati. The second comprises the laws that, by sovereign act, decreed the perpetual neutrality of the state of Tuscany and not only of the port of Livorno. Thanks to his retrieval of unpublished material, Franco Angiolini has reconstructed the debate that accompanied the passing of the 1778 law of neutrality that strengthened that of 1757. Combining the teaching of Vattel on state sovereignty with that of Hübner on free trade, the main author of the bill, the civil chancellor Pierallini, clashed with Pompeo Neri, the noted jurist and architect of cadastral reform in Milan,25 who would have preferred a proposal more in harmony with the legal tradition that existed before the enactment of the 1757 one. Despite the internal conflicts, the coherence and organic unity of the law on neutrality, promulgated by Peter Leopold on 1 August 1778, served as the model for those ratified by Ferdinand I, King of Two Sicilies on 19 September 1778, by Pope Pius VI on 4 March 1779, by the Republic of Genoa on 1 July 1779, and by the Republic of Venice on 9 September 1779. Addobbati’s essay focuses on the practical consequences that this law had on Tuscan trade during the American War of Independence: by reconstructing the cause célèbre of the Thetis, which made case law of an insurance matter, Addobbati has raised the issue of the procedures by which justice was dispensed. In his contribution, Biagio Salvemini has placed this issue in the wider discussion of the relationship between the representation of power and the practices of intervention, highlighting the need to conduct the study of institutions alongside that of deeper economic dynamics. Koen Stapelbroek’s essay concerns the United Provinces, the small state accused, as was the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, of opportunism and self-interest. Although the concept of neutrality, as referred to in the article dedicated to it in the Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, did not undergo significant semantic shifts between the fourteenth and twentieth centuries, many scholars have nevertheless stressed the need of differentiation since no case of neutrality was 25. Antonella Alimento, Finanze e amministrazione. Un’inchiesta francese sui catasti nell’Italia del Settecento. I. Il viaggio di François-Joseph Harvoin con uno scritto inedito di Pompeo Neri (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2008).

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identical to another.26 In his essay, Stapelbroek outlines the stages that led the Republic to claim the right to trade with the enemy under any circumstance and notes how, by practising neutrality, the United Provinces created, as Alice Carter pointed out, the conditions that prompted the whole of Europe to reflect on “what the neutral role should be”.27 The Dutch debate on neutrality ran alongside a more comprehensive effort to rethink the foundations of the country’s economic system: in this regard Stapelbroek links the choice of active neutrality with the failure to renew the favourable commercial treaty that the United Provinces had wrested from France at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession. The essay by this writer revolves around the role played by bilateral commercial treaties in the creation of equal interstate relations. By means of a strong contextualisation of the agreements that France and England tried repeatedly to reach between 1666 and 1713, the essay sheds light on the disparate objectives that France and Great Britain set out to achieve by obtaining the lowering of customs tariffs. Even though they represented different aspirations and interests, both the French and British negotiators in fact conceived the liberalisation of trade as a means of ridding themselves of the intermediary role played by the United Provinces, which, with Utrecht, became aware of the political significance of their neutral position. The development of this research and the organisation of the meetings imposed the making of certain choices, which are also evident in this volume: while the theme of trade neutrality and the associated topic of competitive emulation between the major states has received, as Niccolò Guasti has noted in his contribution, substantial attention, the issue of the “jealousy” between the neutral states has not been given the space it deserves. As Mikael af Malmborg emphasised in his study of the relations between Denmark, Sweden and the United Provinces,28 competition between neutral nations was fierce; even when, with the League of Armed Neutrality, the neutrals set out to be a third force in Europe, their interests were still divergent and conflicting.29 The study of this 26. See the interesting observations by Bernard Bacot, Des neutralités durables. Origine, domaine et efficacité (Paris: Libraire du Recueil Sirey, 1945); Jean Baptiste Duroselle, “Discours d’ouverture” in: Neutrality in History. La neutralité dans l’histoire, ed. Jukka Nevakivi (Helsinki: Finnish Historical Society, 1993). 27. Alice Clare Carter, “The Dutch as neutrals in the Seven Years’ War”, The International and Comparative Law Quarterly 12 (1963): 818-834: 819. 28. Mikael af Malmborg, Neutrality and State-Building in Sweden (New York: Palgrave, 2001). 29. On this point see Isabel de Madariaga, Britain, Russia, and the Armed Neutrality of 1780. Sir James Harri’s Mission to St. Petersburg during the American Revolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962). After having emphasised that “the Neutral League played a bigger part in the diplomacy of the period than has usually been admitted. It provided a system into which the neutral nations could fit, a kind of third force in Europe,” she acknowledged that, “Neutrality became an active policy, linking together powers which had nothing in common but their neutrality”, 446.

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competitive rivalry would certainly have allowed us to give greater profundity to the study of economic and political dynamics undertaken in this volume. I hope that this lack, as well as the missing in-depth examination of other related subjects of research, can be redressed by other research groups stimulated by the same pleasure that the participants in this initiative have found in sharing discoveries from the archives and in openly discussing methodological issues. In presenting this book to the scholarly public at the end of the project, I wish to thank Professor Enrico Giaccherini and Professor Alessandra Guidi, Pro-Rectors for Internationalisation, who have followed the project throughout its various phases of development; the head of the Department of History, Professor Giuseppe Petralia, who supported the project in its initial phase; and the administrative staff who resolved brilliantly numerous bureaucratic problems. I extend my heartfelt gratitude to the scientific committee of the FrancoAngeli series which houses this volume, and to Mrs Isabella Francisci who has supervised every stage of publication with efficiency and kindness. I also offer very special thanks to Matthew Armistead, who, with great professionalism and courtesy, has made the publication of this book in English possible by translating all the Italian texts and standardising those delivered in English, and also to David Armistead for his additional editorial work.

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Part I

Politics, the “intervention practices” and neutrality

Republican diplomacy and the power balance in Europe* Manuel Herrero Sánchez

Introduction Diplomacy in the modern period has often been described as an exercise in court politics, and therefore, in line with the classic ideas set forth by Bély, Bonney and Rivero,1 international relations during this era have been reduced in the view of many to a succession of rivalries and matrimonial alliances between major dynasties, an account of the unstable relationships between princes. This position thus dismisses the anomalous role played by urban republics. These republics, limited in number yet powerful, are at best seen as modernising alternatives to, and the antithesis of, the order-based, absolutist model preponderant in Europe;2 however, through the analysis of the Genoese and Dutch cases this present work aims to call attention to the role they played in the preservation of the balance of power in the continent until the beginning of the eighteenth century. These two patrician republics shared with the monarchies a hierarchical, order-based social model, typified by the privatisation of public office and * This essay is dedicated to José Luis Rodríguez de Diego, mentor of historians and guardian for so many years of the secrets stored in Simancas. The work has been made possible thanks to the financial support provided by the research group, currently under my direction and funded by the Spanish MICINN, “The Role of European Republics in the Formation of the Modern State. Modernising Alternative or Driving Force of the System” (HAR2010-19686). All quotations taken from original sources have presently been translated for the publication of this article. Translation: David Govantes-Edwards. 1. Lucien Bély, Les relations internationales en Europe (XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles) (Paris: PUF, 2007) and L’art de la paix en Europe. Naissance de la diplomatie moderne XVI-XVIIIe siècles (Paris: PUF, 2007); Richard Bonney, The European Dynastic States, 1494-1660 (Oxford: Oxford U.P., 1991) and Manuel Rivero, Diplomacia y relaciones exteriores en la Edad Moderna. De la Cristiandad al sistema europeo, 1453-1794 (Madrid: Alianza, 2000). 2. Martin Van Gelderen and Quintin Skinner, Republicanism. A Shared European Heritage (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 2002); The republican alternative: the Netherlands and Switzerland compared, eds. André Holenstein, Thomas Maissen and Maarten Prak (Amsterdam: Amsterdam U.P., 2008).

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the defence of privileges and local liberties. They also played an essential role in the development of diplomacy and, with it, of a comprehensive strategy for the defence of their commercial interests and the preservation of their territories in a Europe characterised by a constant state of war, while being strongly influenced by the dominant dynastic model. The role of mercantile republics in the development of diplomacy Indeed, diplomacy was far from being an exclusive feature of courts in the context of the progressive concentration of power around princes that occurred in Europe from the late fifteenth century onwards. As rightly pointed out by Daniela Frigo, many of the diplomatic models adopted by these monarchies were in fact drawn directly from the strategies developed by the small but powerful urban states.3 For these republics, under constant threat in the presence of the increasingly solid and militarised European monarchies, preserving the balance of power and their neutral status was crucial for their survival. This explains the absolute priority given to negotiation for the resolution of conflicts and, consequently, the prevalence of diplomacy over the use of force. Several factors prompted an early process of institutionalisation of diplomatic activity in these states; governance was subject to careful political supervision and thus the government was held accountable to the community, while the costs of foreign representation were also closely scrutinised. The practice of sending permanent representatives to other states, initiated by Venice in the late fifteenth century and swiftly imitated by the remaining European states, responded to the need for reliable and detailed information on the internal conditions of the territories where the legations operated. In fact, the abundant documentation generated by the Genoese and Venetian embassies is still one of the main sources of evidence for the analysis of international relations in the modern period.4 The representatives of these republics were given precise instructions as to their behaviour, the composition of their retinues, and the protocol to follow with local authorities and other foreign legations. They were also required to issue detailed reports to their governments on arrival at and on leaving the embassy, and to maintain a weekly correspondence with them. An eloquent example of this is Antonio Giulio Brignole Sale, appointed ambas3. Daniela Frigo, “Politica estera e diplomazia: figure, problema e apparati”, in: Storia degli antichi stati italiani, eds. Gaetano Greco and Mario Rosa (Roma: Editori Laterza, 1997): 117161. Daniela Frigo, “Neapolitan diplomacy in the eighteenth century: policy and the diplomatic apparatus”, in: Politics and Diplomacy in Early Modern Italy: The Structure of Diplomatic Practice, 1450-1800, ed. Daniela Frigo (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 2000), 1-24. 4. Raffaele Ciasca, Istruzioni e relazioni degli Ambasciatori genovesi (Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per l’età moderna e contemporanea, 1951-1968), Luigi Firpo, Relazioni di Ambasciatori Veneti al Senato. Tratte dalle migliori edizioni disponibili e ordinate cronologicamente (Turin: Bottega d’Erasmo, 1965-1996).

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sador extraordinary to Madrid in 1644. His instructions not only detailed how and when he should arrive at the Catholic court, but also specified all manner of additional requirements: the size of his retinue (twenty members), what carriage to use, what regalia to display, what kind of house in which to lodge, and how all this was to be paid for.5 This rigorously regulated procedure was eventually copied by the remaining European states except for the higher degree of patrimonialisation favoured by most representatives from monarchic states.6 Indeed, the ambassador’s personal assistant, in charge of codes, records and dispatches, was not appointed by the sovereign but by a member of the ambassador’s personal retinue that accompanied him throughout his whole term in office. Likewise, the embassy archive was almost considered to be the personal property of the ambassador, so much so that on occasion it was removed at the termination of his duty. These practices contrasted sharply with the Venetian case, where a public secretary in government employ was in charge of the records. Initially, the specific formulas varied widely, but with the progressive refinement of diplomatic activity a trend towards a higher degree of uniformity and an increasing conceptual distinction between the person holding office and the position itself were detectable. The case of the Genoese legation in Madrid again illustrates the point: during his term as ambassador extraordinary, Antonio Giulio Brignole Sale had to pay his retinue and secretary, whose only requirement was citizenship of the republic, from his own purse. The permanent Genoese legation, on the other hand, had very different parameters. When leaving office in 1664, Giacomo Saluzzo was required to report immediately to Genoa for a debriefing instead of remaining in Castile to attend to his private business, as was his wish. Additionally, he was instructed to surrender all his documents to Domenico Grillo, including the papers received on his appointment and the record of all letters sent during his term in office: a full inventory of all these was to be made and handed on arrival to the government of the republic.7 Grillo assumed the role of incaricato d’affari until the arrival of Agostino Spinola in 1666, and also between the departure of the latter in April 1667 and the arrival in Madrid of Giovanni Battista Pallavicino in August 1668. In the instructions issued to Pallavicino on leaving Genoa, the government of the Republic declared itself to be “fully satisfied with his office, with his obligation to report on all actions taken within his attributions and to provide you with all letters and documents relevant for such attributions, and other records and papers pertaining to the embassy”.8 The time and effort expended on maintaining the integrity of the embassy’s documents and records stand as firm evidence of the increasing institutionali5. Ciasca, Istruzioni e relazioni, vol. III, 116-146. 6. Garret Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy (London: Jonathan Cape, 1955), ch. XXV. 7. ASGe, L, 1917, Carta a Saluzzo, Genoa, 25 October 1664. See also the correspondence between Genoa and Domenico Grillo in ASGe, AS, Lettere Ministri di Spagna, 2452 and 2453. 8. Ciasca, Istruzioni e relazioni, vol. IV, 284.

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sation of diplomatic activity and of a clear desire to keep the operation of the embassy and the private concerns of its occupant separated at all times. This notwithstanding, it must be pointed out that the Genoese representative to the Catholic monarch would be the wealthiest member of the Ligurian community in Madrid, enjoying during his term of office as incaricato d’affari the lucrative asiento de negros (monopoly on negroes) directly benefiting from royal patronage.9 The line between public and private concerns remained, therefore, somewhat indistinct. The growing importance of secretaries and the maintenance of a well-catalogued archive in embassies bear witness to the increasing professionalism of diplomacy, as shown by the operation of the Spanish embassy in The Hague. This embassy, created shortly after the signing of the Peace of Münster with the United Provinces, soon became one of the main components of the solid diplomatic network deployed by the Spanish monarchy, which to a large degree compensated for its growing military weakness in the second half of the seventeenth century.10 The Hague was beyond doubt one of the key political nodes in the continent, as confirmed by the fact that most treaties and international alliances before Utrecht were signed in Dutch cities (Nijmegen, Rijswijk, and The Hague). From this strategic position, the Spanish ambassador could advantageously monitor developments in Britain, France, the Empire and the Baltic, while maintaining weekly correspondence with the King’s representatives in other embassies, the viceroys and governors of the dispersed territories under the crown and the main ministers in Madrid. Moreover, both the ambassador and his secretary would spend long periods in Brussels advising the governor on such delicate matters as the stifling of the Antwerp revolt of 1659. Sometimes, for example during the Brussels riots of 1699, it was the ambassador himself who fuelled the protests against the governor, in this case Maximilian Emmanuel of Bavaria, for not following the crown’s policies. The preservation of the embassy’s rich and sensitive archive is further evidence of the zeal with which this office performed its duties; the archive for the period between the arrival in 1649 of the first ambassador, Antoine Brun, and the move to Brussels on 23 December 1701, is fully preserved and exquisitely catalogued. This move was requested by the last ambassador, Bernaldo de Quirós, at the beginning of the War of the Spanish Succession and was granted by Philip V.11 The richness 9. Alejandro García Montón, “Trayectorias individuales durante la quiebra del sistema hispano-genovés: Domingo Grillo (1617-1687)”, in: Génova y la Monarquía Hispánica (15281713), eds. Manuel Herrero, Carlo Bitossi, Yasmina Ben Yessef and Dino Puncuh (Genoa: Atti della Società Ligure di Storia Patria, 2011), 367-384. In the same volume, see the work of Yasmina Rocío Ben Yessef on Bautista Serra who, apart from being one of the King’s most powerful asentistas, represented the Genoese republic in Madrid between 1614 and 1618. 10. Manuel Herrero Sánchez, El acercamiento hispano-neerlandés (1648-1678) (Madrid: CSIC, 2000). 11. The only significant gap corresponds to the period between September 1684 and July 1687, during which the legation was left vacant. Digital copies of all these documents are avail-

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and fine state of preservation of the archive has offered privileged information on the operation of the embassy and the part played by the secretaries, who were far from being personal attachés to specific ambassadors. Vincent Richard, for instance, not only assumed ambassadorial duties after the death of Antoine Brun, but also acted as advisor to Esteban de Gamarra, his successor, while managing the appointment of his brother, Jacques Richard, as Spanish consul in Amsterdam. This important post included liaising on behalf of the crown with trade networks under the control of Jews converted to Christianity and gathering information on smuggling activities carried out by Dutch merchants in colonies and harbours under royal jurisdiction.12 The case of the Spanish embassy in the United Provinces, however, should not be directly extrapolated to the rest of the crown’s legations in Europe, as certain events of 1677 demonstrate. These involved Pablo Spínola Doria, Marquis of Los Balbases, who, having been appointed as the King’s plenipotentiary for the peace negotiations, left the embassy in Vienna to go to Nijmegen. Due to the late arrival of his successor, the Count of Arquinto, the Marquis of Los Balbases sent a letter to Madrid informing the government that, in the absence of an official secretary, the embassy’s papers would be left in the care of his personal assistant, Don Francisco de Urbina, who had been in charge of dealing with them throughout his term of office in Vienna. He requested, however, his secretary be released as soon as possible in order to join him at Nijmegen: “where I need him near me, and I must confess to Your Majesty that I leave this person behind, only because I want to leave the post well-tended and there being nobody else, for two or three months until the arrival of Your Majesty’s reply; also, in your name, being this house as lacking as you know and having Don Francisco to live decently in such a court as this, I have forwarded him with six hundred escudos in my purse, which I hope to get back as soon as possible if you approve of it being done in Your Majesty’s service”.13 We must not forget that the Marquis of Los Balbases belonged to a family of Genoese origins which had advanced to a position of high honour within the Spanish monarchy while maintaining links with its Genoese roots, so it is hardly surprising that its operations often included typically Genoese practices. In this vein, on withdrawing his legation in the Empire, Pablo Spínola Doria decided able in AGRB. Most of the original documents are stored in AGS, with the exception of the correspondence with Naples, Sardinia, the Italian ministers, the ambassadors in London, Paris, Copenhagen, Berlin and Lisbon, the ministers of the Empire and the consuls in Amsterdam, Middelburg, London and Hamburg, which remains in Brussels. For these documents, see the detailed catalogue created by Joseph and Placide Lefèvre, Inventaire des Archives de l’Ambassade d’Espagne à La Haye (Tongres: Archives générales du Royaume de Bruxelles, 1932). 12. AGS, E, 2079, appointment of Jacques Richard as Spanish consul in Amsterdam, as recommended by Antoine Brun on account of his profession as merchant, intelligence and familiarity with the Dutch language, Madrid, July 4, 1652. The prodigious reports on trading and smuggling activities carried out by the Dutch in America issued by Jacques Richard can be consulted in AGI, Indiferente General, 1668. 13. AGS, E, 2398, letter from the Marquis of Los Balbases to the King, Vienna, 4 March 1677.

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on his own initiative to leave his successor with a detailed report of his six years as ambassador: “this summary is a partial account of what has happened during my time, more in order to inform my successor of the details of the businesses conducted and of how I leave them, than because I believe any advice to be necessary”.14 This was neither a unique case, as shown by other similar reports, such as that written by Alonso de Cárdenas on leaving the embassy in London,15 nor an established procedure. In fact, as can be deduced from Pablo Spinola’s words, it could even be considered an unacceptable interference with the independence of the incoming ambassador or with the new set of instructions issued by the King. The republican elite’s lack of interest in and wariness of careers in diplomacy Although ambassadors were allowed freedom of action, they were nonetheless limited to playing the role of their sovereign’s alter ego and, as indicated by Juan Antonio de Vera y Zúñiga in his famous treaty on the perfect ambassador, were even expected to “try to imitate him in his words and actions”.16 In this regard, diplomatic representatives of republics were at a disadvantage, because they had to act in the name of a political body in which sovereignty was invested in more than one person. This situation resulted, as we shall see shortly in more detail, in them being given more meagre public recognition and fewer prerogatives than the representatives of princes. And that was not all. Their activities were closely scrutinised by their governments, curbing their freedom of action and hindering their political effectiveness, which was one reason for the lack of interest shown by republican elites in these diplomatic positions. As rightly pointed out by Bély, in monarchic states there was also a reluctance to accept these appointments far from the court and, consequently, far from the main source of royal patronage. Furthermore, the position incurred considerable expenses, for which it was expected to be compensated with significant rewards.17 In republican estates, a diplomatic appointment was therefore considered by the local oligarchies to be an unattractive prospect, a kind of exile 14. Ibid. Manuel Herrero Sánchez and Antonio Álvarez Ossorio, “La aristocracia genovesa al servicio de la Monarquía Católica: el caso del III marqués de Los Balbases (1630-1699)”, in: Génova y la Monarquía Hispánica (1528-1713), 331-366. 15. Alonso de Cárdenas, La revolución inglesa (1638-1656), eds. Ángel Alloza and Glyn Redworth (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2011). As to the value of this sort of relationship see, Charles-Edouard Levillain, Vaincre Louis XIV. Angleterre-Hollande-France. Histoire d’une relation triangulaire, 1665-1688 (Lonrai: Champ Vallon, 2010): 31. 16. Thomas Weller, “Símbolos, imágenes, rituales: el lenguaje simbólico del poder en la Europa del Antiguo Régimen”, Memoria y Civilización 13 (2010): 29. On the impact of the work by Vera y Zúñiga see Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy, chapter XXII. 17. Bély, Art de la Paix, 52.

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from the decision-making institutions and the political game. This perception made it difficult to find suitable candidates for embassy posts. In order to tackle this problem, the Genoese government included compulsory experience of diplomatic positions in the civil cursus honorum.18 As indicated by Vito Vitale, in 1665 Genoa overturned former restrictions that barred ambassadors’ access to the main government body, the Minor Consiglio, allowing them membership of the council in the final year of their diplomatic mission.19 Two years previously, and in order to find a solution to the frequent rejection of appointments, a rigid regulation was issued, in which pay was strictly determined and the election process of candidates was spelt out to avoid “the grave problem for the Repubblica Serenisima [which] is the constant difficulty in finding people to take the position of ambassador to the court of the Pope and the Christian and Catholic kings, and these appointments having to be made by the Serenissimi Collegi and the Minor Consiglio with three fifths of the vote”.20 The acceptance of such appointments was not mandatory for men under thirty or over sixty, or men already holding a position in the Serenissimi Colleggi, the Illustrissimi Supremi Sindicatori or the Illustrissimi Protettori di San Giorgio. However, in the United Provinces the diplomatic career failed to arouse the interest of the patrician elite, despite the fact that this Republic was, along with Venice, the one most highly recognised in European courts owing to its ability to assume protection costs without recourse to the military aid of an external power, as was the case with Genoa. Dutch sovereignty basically rested on provincial states and cities which had the final word, forcing all important negotiations with other European powers to be held in The Hague and thereby dramatically restricting the scope of external ambassadorial action.21 The Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt, a key figure for the Republic’s foreign policy, constantly complained about the innumerable difficulties that confronted him when trying to find suitable candidates to fill the main legations, since these were deemed a sort of banishment, far away from domestic politics. Just how limited was the room for manoeuvre and responsibilities of the Republic’s representatives abroad is shown by the case of the first permanent delegate in Madrid, the Baron Hendrik van Reede van Renswoude. Van Reede was not appointed until 1656, and only took a position as Resident, provoking complaints from the crown, which was represented in The Hague by a full ambassador 18. Frigo, “Politica estera e diplomazia”, 140-141. 19. Vito Vitale, La diplomazia genovese (Milan: Istituto per lo studio di politica internazionale, 1941), 13-14. 20. Ciasca, Istruzioni e relazioni, vol. IV, 170-173, Law of the Minor Consiglio, 12 January 1663, on the ambassadors serving in the courts of Rome, Spain and France. The norm, which also established the size of the ambassador’s retinue and pay, was passed with 146 votes in favour and 33 against. 21. Martinus Antonius Maria Franken, “The General Tendencies and Structural Aspects of the Foreign Policy and Diplomacy of the Dutch Republic in the Latter Half of the 17th Century”, Acta Historiae Nederlandica, 3 (1968), 1-42.

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since 1649.22 That same year, the cousin of the Grand Pensionary and regent in Dordrecht, Thomas Sasburg, was appointed Resident in Brussels with more extensive powers than his colleague in Madrid in order to deal with the frequent quarrels between the Republic and the Catholic Netherlands. In contrast, Van Reede noted with frustration how the detailed agreement reached in 1658 with Felipe Spínola, 2nd Marquis of Los Balbases, to open access to the rich salt mines in Araya on the coast of Venezuela in exchange for the support of the Dutch navy against Portugal, was rejected by the Republic, which was reluctant to align itself with Spain in their conflict against France and Britain.23 The role played by the Resident of the States General in Madrid did not go beyond handling the frequent complaints regarding the limits of the ample mercantile concessions made by the crown to the Dutch merchants in the 1650 trade treaty, and was therefore devoid of any political dimension.24 Some other issues were dealt with more efficiently with special envoys, such as the visit paid in 1660 by van Merode, van Amerongen and van Humalda after the signing of the Treaty of the Pyrenees to congratulate the King after the marriage of the princess with Louis XIV,25 and the 1671 visit of the influential Regent of the Netherlands, Hieronymus van Beverningh, to prevent the diplomatic isolation of the Republic on the eve of the Franco-British invasion.26 Finally, the Dutch diplomatic network in the Catholic King’s dominions also included the personal representative of the other major power in the republic, the Prince of Orange, as shown by the dispatch of the Catholic Sébastien Chièze to Madrid in 1670. On the eve of the downfall of the Regent’s regime in 1672, Chièze was better informed than the official envoy of the States-General, Paets, and thus ended up assuming his functions until the arrival of a new representative of the Orangist government in 1675.27 22. See the considerations of Gamarra, the Spanish ambassador in The Hague, on Van Reede in AGS, Spanish Embassy in The Hague, 8474, Letter by Gamarra to Peñaranda, The Hague, 12 October 1655. His first audience with the valido, Haro, did not take place until 31 May 1656. 23. On the narrow powers of Van Reede, see Herbert H. Rowen, John de Witt, Grand Pensionary of Holland, 1626-1672 (Princeton: Princeton U.P., 1978), 290. 24. Miguel Ángel Echevarría Bacigalupe, “Las relaciones económicas hispano-holandesas y los tratados de 1648 al 1650”, in: España y Holanda. Ponencias leídas en el quinto coloquio hispano-holandés de historiadores, ed. Jan Lechner (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1995), 27-43. 25. Maurits Ebben, Un holandés en la España de Felipe IV. Diario de viaje de Lodewijck Huygens, 1660-1661 (Madrid: Doce Calles-Fundación Carlos de Amberes, 2010). More information on this collective mission is in AGS, E, 2097, Madrid, 30 June 1660. 26. The importance given to this mission is shown by how it was highlighted in the work of one of the key theoreticians of diplomacy, Abraham de Wicquefort, in: Histoire des Provinces Unies des Pays-Bas (Amsterdam: Frédéric Muller, 1874), vol. IV, 167-170. The position of the Council of State in Madrid on the successive proposals made by Beverningh between 19 January and 5 June 1671, the duration of his mission, can be consulted in AHN, E, Libro 721 and AGS, E, 2114. The Empire’s ambassador in Madrid, the Count of Pötting, referred to the ambassador with words of praise: “An ambassador extraordinary has arrived from Holland, a man deserving of the highest of estimations because of his zeal, ability and experience”, HHStA, Spanien Varien, Karton 26, letter from Pötting to the Spanish ambassador in Vienna, 18 March 1671. 27. Daniel Jeen Roorda, “The Peace of Nijmegen: the End of a Particular Period in Dutch

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The role played by the consuls The narrow scope conceded to diplomacy by the Dutch republic contrasts sharply with the extensive complex of consuls deployed in the crown’s ports – fully achieved a mere thirteen days after the signing of the Peace of Münster – which revealed the primacy given to mercantile policies by the Republic.28 In a markedly corporate society, the consul was in charge of defending the rights and privileges gained by the Republic through the various treaties signed with the crown, and protecting his co-nationals from any arbitrariness committed against them by local authorities. In exchange, resident Dutch citizens had to cover the costs of the legation through taxation and were under the consul’s jurisdiction in the first instance. The position of consul, therefore, involved attractive economic profits and was much sought after by Dutch merchants based in the ports where legations were established. Each consul had direct control of a certain geographical area within a dense network of agents and sub-consuls. Until the arrival of the first Dutch envoy to Madrid in 1656, many of the complaints made by Dutch merchants were dealt with by the Dutch consul in Cádiz, Jan Van den Hove, who occupied this post between 1648 and 1667. Van den Hove negotiated directly with the Marquis of Velada, appointed in 1649 as “protector of the citizens of the United Provinces in His Majesty’s realms”29 and, by dint of bribery, created a spectacular network in Madrid with the assistance of Juan Alonso de Salas, solicitor of the King’s Cámara del Consejo Supremo who was attached to the influential negotiator of the Peace of Münster, the Count of Peñaranda. In his reports to the States General, Van den Hove described in detail the systematic delivery of chocolate and other luxury products to those in a position to influence the King so that he looked favourably on Dutch merchants.30 The Genoese consular system, on the other hand, was far more consolidated than that set up by the United Provinces in 1648. It enjoyed the extensive privileges conceded by the Spanish monarchs since the Middle Ages and experienced a marked process of gentrification as a result of the 1528 reforms which in fact extended to all levels of the Republic’s government. As indicated by Petti Balbi, the new statutes of the influential Genoese community in Antwerp, approved by the Genoese government in 1536, barred Genoese citizens who did not belong to any of the twenty-eight alberghi for which government positions was reserved from access to the nation’s privileges.31 Something History”, in: The Peace of Nijmegen, 1676-1678/79, eds. Johannes Hans Alphonsus Bots and Antonius Gerardus Weiler (Amsterdam: Holland U.P., 1980), 18. 28. Otto Schutte, Repertorium der Nederlandse vertegerwoordigers in het buitenland, 15841810 (The Hague: 1976). Herrero, Acercamiento hispano-neerlandés, 62-74. 29. ARH, SG, 7042, Van den Hove on the appointment of Velada, Cádiz, 1 August 1649. 30. ARH, SG, 7043 (I), Letter from Juan Alonso de Salas to Van den Hove, Madrid, 20 April 1650. 31. Giovanna Petit Balbi, “Le nazioni italiane all’estero”, in: Il Rinascimento italiano e l’Europa, vol. IV, Commercio e cultura mercantile, eds. Giovanni Luigi Fontana and Luca Molà (Treviso: Fondazione Cassamarca - Angelo Colla Editore, 2007), 417.

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similar occurred in Seville in 1623, when the Genoese aristocrats united against less affluent Ligurian merchants to monopolise the position of consul and the two positions at the lonja reserved for the Republic since the reign of Ferdinand III in XIII century.32 The Consejo de Estado accepted the request from the Genoese ambassador in Madrid – supported by the Genoese government – in favour of the oligarchs because, as pointed out by the Queen Regent in 1672 on the occasion of a similar argument about the appointment of the Genoese consul in Cartagena: “the Genoese consuls must be appointed by the Republic of Genoa, to be later endorsed by me so they can carry out my instructions”.33 This stubborn defence of their right to appoint consuls did not mean, however, that the Genoese government considered them to be rightful ministers of the Republic abroad, as with the Venetian case. On the occasion of a quarrel with the Venetian consul in Genoa, Paria Tasca, in 1657, the Genoese government issued the following order: “Said consuls are not commonly regarded as ministers of princes, because their authority does not go beyond the patronage of their co-nationals and the civil quarrels between them, and they do not provide the credentials from their governments: in short, they are not ministers and are therefore treated by all as ordinary citizens”.34 The influence of courts and the struggle of republics for firmer international recognition Genoa’s refusal to give their consuls ambassadorial recognition was connected to their disinclination to do likewise for foreign consuls in Genoa, which revealed the reluctance with which republican systems empowered representatives abroad. Diplomats from the United Provinces and Genoa not only had more limited manoeuvrability but also narrower remits and less public recognition than the representatives of princes. This severely limited their negotiating capacity and slowed down the reaching of agreements to an unacceptable degree. The only way to accelerate compromises and boost bargaining was through direct negotiation. The critical strategic position of Italy and the Netherlands, and their abundant financial and naval resources, were essential for the balance of power in the continent, which explains the care with which the Spanish monarchy selected their representatives in Genoa and The Hague.35 32. Pedro Collado Villalta, “La nación genovesa en la Sevilla de la Carrera de Indias: declive mercantil y pérdida de la autonomía consular”, in: Presencia italiana en Andalucía, siglos XIVXVII. Actas del I Coloquio Hispano-italiano (Seville: EEHA, 1985), 53-114. 33. ASGe, AS, 2455, the Queen to the city of Cartagena, Madrid, 10 May 1672. 34. ASGe, AS, Secretorum, 1575. 35. As rightly pointed out by Braudel, from 1648 “the threads of diplomacy were woven and unwoven at the Hague”, Fernand Braudel, Civilization and capitalism, 15th-18th century. III: The perspective of the world, Berkeley, UCP, 1992, 203 (1st French editions, 1979). Regarding Genoa, the Council of State described the importance of the diplomatic mission in the following

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It is true that, with some notable exceptions, such as the Marquis of Castañeda and the Count of Siruela, sent to Genoa in particularly sensitive moments,36 the most common practice was not to send members of the high aristocracy to head such missions. The ambassadors were nevertheless carefully chosen from among the most experienced bureaucrats in the service of the crown.37 Men such as Manuel Coloma, Antonio Ronquillo and Francisco Manuel de Lira were appointed respectively to Genoa and The Hague before advancing to senior positions in the government. Lira’s case is paradigmatic. After a long period (between 1671 and 1679) as special envoy in the United Provinces (the government system which he always held in great admiration, being in fact the inspiration for his proposed reforms to the Carrera de Indias)38 he became Secretary of State for Italy and the North, before being appointed Secretary of the Despacho Universal in Oropesa’s government. During his stay at The Hague, Lira successfully negotiated the 1673 treaty by which the Spanish monarchy headed an alliance between the Emperor, the Duke of Lorraine and the United Provinces to oppose the Franco-British attacks against the Dutch. Negotiations had started in 1671 during Beverningh’s extraordinary mission in Madrid, but the aforementioned limited powers of the Dutch representative prompted the crown to send one of their best men to conclude an alliance with the Republic, the highest guarantee of the integrity of the Netherlands against French pressures. Lira provides an eloquent example of the part played by diplomacy in creating a distinctly cosmopolitan political culture in Europe, inspired by republican models but sustained by a rigid protocol and a rigorous hierarchy between states which gave monarchs an axial role in the exercise of power. This privilege-based society – which also determined social relationships inside these republics – placed urban republics in a position of inferiority on the international scene. Most republican regimes worked towards gaining full recognition of their sovereignty and giving evidence of their complete autonomy from other terms: “being a place where much business is conducted and where news of what happens in the whole of Italy can be gathered, it is necessary to send there a trustworthy ambassador”, AGS, E, 3608, Madrid, 3 July 1655. 36. See the reservations expressed by the Count of Siruela on his appointment as ambassador extraordinary in Genoa: “those in Genoa and other Italian places are not normally given by Your Majesty to people in my quality”, AGS, E, 3636, Madrid, 4 July 1636. 37. Manuel Herrero Sánchez, “Las repúblicas mercantiles, ¿alternativa al modelo dinástico? Génova, las Provincias Unidas y la Monarquía Hispánica en la segunda mitad del siglo XVII” in: España y las 17 Provincias de los Países Bajos. Una revisión historiográfica (siglos XVI-XVIII), eds. Ana Crespo and Manuel Herrero (Córdoba: Universidad de Córdoba, 2002), 189-228. 38. “It would be desirable that all sovereigns and their ministers travelled to Holland to learn. There, they would experience the advantages of their government, fully committed with the happiness of the people, in observing laws and customs and in fomenting virtue, production and commerce”, in: Representación de don Manuel de Lira sobre comercio y finanzas de España, recorded by Juan Sempere y Guarinos, Biblioteca española económico-política, vol. IV (Madrid: Imprenta de I. Sancha, 1821).

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powers. Venice, which had resisted the threats to her independence posed by the Pope and the Catholic monarch, became the main model to imitate. In this vein, the United Provinces, which not only had one of the most powerful navies of that period but had also gained their independence from their former sovereign through warfare, soon managed to consolidate their international recognition, eventually arousing the suspicions of not a few princes. Indeed, with the 1648 peace, Philip IV not only accepted the full sovereignty of the Republic, but also dropped the titles of Count of Holland and Zealand from official documents and mediated with the Emperor to recognise the separation of the Republic from the Empire.39 On the other hand, on the eve of the French invasion, Arnaud de Pomponne described the challenge posed by this society of merchants and seafarers: “Since then, this republic has gained an uncontested freedom and, putting itself amongst the kings and the Republic of Venice, intends to keep its position and march ahead of the other powers. This rank is, however, contested by the Empire’s electors and the highest Italian princes, though not by France and other European crowns”.40 The international recognition of Genoa, however, was far from that attained by Venice or the United Provinces. Since the signing of the condotta agreement between Charles V and Andrea Doria in 1528 the Ligurian republic was under the military protection of the Spanish monarchy, which also became a sphere for the social promotion of the King’s merchants and asentistas, closely linking the republican elites with the interests of the Catholic King.41 During the seventeenth century, Spain’s increasing military weakness and successive bankruptcies loosened these links and resulted in the emergence of a repubblichista faction openly in favour of naval development and full autonomy from Madrid.42 In 1637 this faction gained control of the government, which declared the Virgin Mary Mistress and Queen of the Republic in order to obtain wider international recognition. Madrid rejected such monarchic credentials.43 After Spain denied the Genoese ambassador the right to wear a hat in the pres39. It is true that the crown only accepted this condition grudgingly, and did not carry it out effectively until 1651, after the pressures applied by the Republic, AGRB, SEG, 250, Brussels, 2 May 1651. The 1660 embassy extraordinary once again requested the King to mediate before the Emperor for the full recognition of sovereignty, Ebben, Holandés en la España de Felipe IV, 45. 40. Pomponne’s ‘Rélation de mon ambassade en Hollande, 1669-1671, ed. Herbert H. Rowen (Utrecht: Kemink, 1955), 30. 41. Manuel Herrero Sánchez, “La finanza genovese e il sistema imperiale spagnolo”, Rivista di Storia Finanziaria, 19 (2007): 27-60. 42. Carlo Bitossi, “Navi e politica nella Genova del Seicento”, Atti della Accademia Ligure di Scienze e Lettere V (2002): 261-283 and Manuel Herrero Sánchez, “La quiebra del sistema hispano-genovés (1627-1700)”, Hispania 219 (2005): 115-152. 43. Such honours were accepted by France, Britain, the Ottoman Porte and, after the payment of generous subsidies by the Emperor, against the firm opposition of the Pope, by the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and Venice. Vitale, Diplomazia genovese, 27-36 and 255-315. Raffaele Ciasca, “Affermarsi di sovranità della repubblica di Genova nel secolo XVII”, Giornale storico e letterario della Liguria, 14 (1938): 169-170.

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ence of the King, the Genoese permanent ambassadors were withdrawn from the Spanish court. The increasing tension between the former allies developed into a spiral of sanctions with a direct effect on protocol, especially evident in the instructions issued to Antonio Giulio Brignole Sale: “Because in that court all actions are measured, words are measured and treatments are pondered, and therefore with such ministers you should always be attentive to preserve the dignity and decorum of the Republic”.44 In Genoa, the Spanish ambassador was no longer invited to public events, and the stand which raised his chair to the same level as the Doge’s was removed. In Spain, the Genoese embassy’s pantry was closed, its staff placed behind the representatives of Malta and Lucca in some public events and the number of mules allowed for their carriages limited. The real reasons for the low regard in which most European courts held the Genoese republic went beyond those strictly formal squabbles. After the Genoese Residents had protested about the inferior treatment their Republic received in comparison to that accorded the United Provinces, despite the loyalty it had always displayed towards the Catholic King, the Duke of Medina de las Torres replied sharply that: “If the Genoese had the same naval forces that the Dutch have, they could aspire to similar privileges”.45 The disparity of treatment given to Genoa and the United Provinces suggested that more and more states were ranked according to their capacity to defend themselves militarily. Notwithstanding this and their apparent weakness, Genoese aristocrats still enjoyed a number of privileges that allowed them to interact with savoir faire in court circles. Their high income and its investment in prestigious goods, their reputation for good taste, their language skills and their exquisite manners gave them a social recognition that other ambassadors were denied. As an example of this, we can quote Giovanni Battista Pallavicino, who in 1676, not without pride, wrote in the report of his embassy in Madrid: “Since my arrival to the court I tried to make myself agreeable to the ladies in the palace, who at the time had a strong bearing in the conduction of business there”.46 This understanding of court dynamics was complemented by the distribution of such gifts as works of art and, more importantly, by the facilitation of credit – provided by Genoese businessmen linked to the ambassador – to an aristocracy deeply in debt for the fierce sumptuary competition consubstantial to court life. A parallel diplomacy: trans-national networks at the service of the republics The privileged mediation role played by the Genoese ambassador between the court and the extensive network surrounding Genoese businessmen, essential for the supply of their products and services, highlights how, despite 44. Ciasca, Istruzioni e relazioni, vol. III, 117-118. 45. ASGe, AS, 2452, Giacomo Saluzzo’s report, undated, but probably from 1667. 46. Ciasca, Istruzioni e relazioni, vol. IV, 322.

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their secondary position within court protocol, representatives of the republics enjoyed some advantages that did not apply to other diplomatic legations. As pointed out by Giorgio Doria for Genoa and Ana Crespo for the United Provinces, the trade and financial networks of both republics controlled the flow of information in Europe, the Ottoman Levant and the colonies.47 Apart from channelling particulars of prices, markets and demand, they also carried news on troop movements, military supplies, naval preparations, revolts, uprisings and political conflicts.48 Correspondents also appeared as privileged agents in the process of cultural transfer between different European states, as clearly demonstrated by the case of Francesco Ferroni, a Florentine merchant based in Amsterdam and mediator between the Dutch West India Company and the aforementioned Genoese merchant Domenico Grillo, asentista of slaves for the Spanish crown.49 The efficient services rendered by Genoese family networks – vital for the cohesion of the monarchy’s dispersed territories – in the provision of credit opportunities in regions of dissimilar legal and financial traditions, explained the ease with which their more conspicuous members benefited from the many advantages of royal patronage and acquired positions of political responsibility. Indeed, the principal families not only gained promotion in local government, but also rose to important posts in the central administration of the crown, such as the Treasury Council. The families meanwhile maintained close links with their city of origin, and thus were able to perform a mediatory role between both governments. The Genoese ambassadors in Madrid often sought the support of such private citizens in promoting the interests of the Republic. In 1644, the ambassador extraordinary, Costantino Doria, recruited the assistance of Bartolomé Spinola, Philip IV’s general factor and a controller of the King’s treasury, to find a final solution to the persistent problem of the Marquisate of Finale. Bartolomé was well aware of the crown’s need for cash, and advised the ambassador to offer the King a hefty sum in exchange for the strategic position. This might have been a good way out of a problem that gave rise to friction between the allies, but, as it turned out, when the proposal was deliberated on later by the Republic, the ambassador waited in vain for the express authorisa47. Giorgio Doria, “Conoscenza del mercato e sistema informativo: il know-how dei mercanti-finanzieri genovesi nei secoli XVI e XVII”, in: La repubblica internazionale del denaro tra XV e XVII secolo, eds. Aldo De Maddalena and Hermann Kellenbenz (Bologna: il Mulino, 1986), 57-122. Ana Crespo Solana “Dutch Mercantile Networks and the Trade with the Hispanic Port Cities in the Atlantic (1648-1778)”, in: Redes y negocios globales en el mundo ibérico, siglos XVI-XVIII, eds. Nikolaus Böttiher, Bernd Hausberger and Antonio Ibarra (Frankfurt: Vervuert-El Colegio de México, 2011), 107-142. 48. Mario Infelise, “La circolazione dell’informazione commerciale”, in: Rinascimento italiano e l’Europa, vol. IV, 499-522. 49. Hans Cools, “Francesco Ferroni (1614/16-1696). Broker in Cereals, Slaves and Works of Art”, in: Your Humble Servant: Agents in Early Modern Europe, eds. Hans Cools, Marika Keblusek and Badeloch Noldus (Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 2006), 39-50. Herrero, Acercamiento hispano-neerlandés, 311.

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tion he needed from Genoa and so had to reject it.50 At any rate, and despite the linked interests between those Genoese citizens and the crown’s businesses and their full integration in Castilian society through the purchase of titles and admittance into Spanish military orders, the Republic often appealed to the Genoese community in the King’s realms. We have already mentioned Domenico Grillo’s case: for his services as the King’s asentista he was granted the Marquisate of Clarafuente and the habit of the Order of Calatrava, while also taking charge of the Genoese embassy in Madrid whenever it was vacant and acting as the Ligurian community’s foremost representative at court.51 Frictions between Genoa and the Spanish crown were exacerbated by the repubblichista faction’s criticisms of these eminent mediators, some of whom had been given positions as Spanish grandees, including Constantino Doria, Duke of Tursi and the King’s galley asentista, and the heirs of the famous Ambrogio Spinola, the Marquises of Los Balbases. The families, which, despite everything, maintained a residence in Genoa and commercial links with pre-eminent members of the Genoese oligarchy, were accused of breaking the theoretical unity of the republican aristocracy imposed by the 1528 and 1576 constitutions, and of demeaning the principles of virtue and public service that lay at the basis of republican regimes. Their obsession for acquiring new honorific titles and privileges conceded by the Spanish monarch and their disproportionate spending on luxury items were seen as natural consequences of the abandonment of productive activities for those of an exclusively speculative and financial nature, on which the Republic’s lack of autonomy was blamed.52 But in spite of the accusations the Genoese government never gave up using the valuable services provided by those families. Indeed, new ambassadors were always escorted on their first visit to the palace by the key members of their community in Madrid, who also helped in finding the ambassadors an appropriate residence and in mediating with other ministers of the court.53 Their advisory role in some of the main government bodies such as the State, Italy and War Councils, and the extension of their properties through Castile, Naples, Sicily or Milan due to royal patronage and their ability to form matrimonial alliances with such influential families as the Guzmán, Medinaceli, Medina Sidonia and 50. Ciasca, Istruzioni e relazioni, vol. III, 161-162. On the political career of Bartolomé Spinola see, Carlos Álvarez-Nogal, Luca Lo Basso and Claudio Marsilio, “La rete finanziaria della famiglia Spinola: Spagna, Genova e le fiere dei cambi (1610-1656)”, Quaderni Storici, 124 (2006): 1-14. 51. García Montón, “Trayectorias individuales”. 52. Manuel Herrero Sánchez, “La red genovesa Spínola y el entramado transnacional de los marqueses de Los Balbases al servicio de la Monarquía Hispánica”, in: Las redes del Imperio. Élites sociales en la articulación de la Monarquía Hispánica, 1492-1714, ed. Bartolomé Yun Casalilla (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2009), 97-133. 53. Citing but one example, Costantino Doria informed Genoa about his first meeting with the King in the following terms: “I was taken to the palace, where I was escorted by the Marquis Spinola and other co-nationals”, in Ciasca, Istruzioni e relazioni, vol. III, 153.

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Colonna, provided the Republic with a channel for the transmission of sensitive information and an important support in disputes. In this regard, it is convenient to qualify Daniela Frigo’s idea, according to which the republics, apart from having diplomatic representatives, could request the cooperation of their private citizens working throughout Europe as bankers, merchants and privateers, unsupported, however, by the dynastic and patronage-based alliances established by princes and sovereigns.54 As we have already mentioned, Genoa had connections with both networks, albeit indirectly, through their contacts with distinguished families, giving them a considerable advantage with respect to the Venetians and Dutch, who, jealous of their autonomy, never had the same intense interest in royal patronage. From 1648 the Spanish monarchy opted for promoting a privileged relationship with the United Provinces which, by virtue of the trade agreement of 1650, became their main commercial partner, in a move that weakened the hitherto strong links with Genoa. Fearing that such a preferential treatment could result in an alliance against France, the envoy of Louis XIV at The Hague, Brasset, warned the States General of the dangers of approaching the Catholic monarch, who in a similar process to that involving Genoa could commit them to increasing dependency in exchange for privileges: “having their subjects and citizens so tied that now he can treat them ill, squeezing all he can under the wide pretext of commerce”. 55 Those fears were, however, baseless, because few Dutch were attracted by the increasingly unprofitable policy of royal patronage. With some exceptions, such as some Catholic aristocrats or a small number of businessmen of Jewish origin, such as Antonio Isaac Lopes Suasso – who acted as agent for Charles II and was granted the title of Baron of Avernas Le Gras in 167656 – the Dutch did not integrate into the Spanish monarchy to the same extent as the Genoese. The crown was also unable to buy the favour of such figures as the Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt, who was offered a position in the Treasury Council in Brussels in exchange for his support for an alliance formed in defence of the Low Countries.57 In 1673 the State Council granted the Prince of Orange the titles of ‘General Captain’ and ‘Highness’, and soon libellous writings started claiming that his acceptance would usher in the subjugation of the Republic: “The insults to the House of Orange”, claimed the author of one of these pamphlets, “caused the rebellion of the provinces; the favours to it will cause its subjection now […] Join the typical alchemy of monarchs, hoard titles, load yourself with honours that bound you to that crown, and you’ll find yourself fully dependent on it”.58 54. Frigo, “Politica estera e diplomazia”, 143. 55. ASG, E, 2076, Madrid 19 April 1651. 56. Daniel Swetchinski and Loeki Schöndove, The Lopes Suasso Family, Bankers to Williams III (Zwolle: Waanders, 1988). Herrero, Acercamiento hispano-neerlandés, 138-139. 57. AGRB, Ambassade d’Espagne à La Haye, 47, f. 155, Gamarra to the King, 1663. 58. Gisbert Brom, Archivalia in Italië. Belangrijk voor de Geschiedenis van Nederland, II. Rome. Overige bibliotheken en archieven (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1911), 387.

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These predictions were in no way justified. The capacity for self-defence exhibited by the Dutch republic, which would eventually capitalise on the dynastic links created between the Orange family and the Stuarts and Hohenzollern, alongside the scant interest manifested by Dutch businessmen in providing ruinous loans to a bankrupt monarchy, explained the difference between the path taken by the United Provinces and that followed by the fully integrated Genoa. The agreement signed with the Hapsburgs was a crucial factor in checking France’s expansionist tendencies, but never reached the degree of symbiosis that characterised the alliance between Genoa and Madrid. The Republic’s merchants were content to limit themselves to earning privileges in the rich Hispanic markets in exchange for Dutch naval and military support. These were subsequently protected by the dense consular structure, and mainly benefited trans-national networks controlled by Jews converted to Christianity who became a pivot in the negotiations between the Republic and the Spanish monarchy. The crown’s need to be present in the main European financial hub explains the central role played by figures such as Lopo Ramires, Manuel Belmonte or the Lopes Suasso, who operated from Amsterdam in close cooperation with the Spanish diplomatic network. Similarly, the strong bonds of solidarity within the Sephardi community facilitated the actions of the Republic’s last ambassador in Madrid, Francisco de Schonemberg. The ambassador had family ties with Manuel Belmonte, the foremost royal advisor on Dutch issues, who was behind the granting of the slave concession to Balthasar Coymans in 1685 and manoeuvred in the court with rare ability on the eve of the War of the Spanish Succession.59 The measures imposed by Philip V in favour of French businessmen had negative effects on their Sephardi colleagues, prompting them – including those who had until that point loyally served Spanish interests in northern Europe – to become key financial supporters of the Archduke Charles.60 The Genoese networks at the service of the Spanish King, for example the Spinola, Grillo, Doria and De Mari, followed the opposite policy, and, in order to defend the interests held in the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, after the Peace of Utrecht served as one of the key foundations for the recuperation of the Spanish position in Italy during the XVIII century.61

59. AGS, E, 8515, Bernaldo de Quirós to Cardinal Portocarrero about Shonemberg, Antwerp, March 17, 1700. Manuel Herrero Sánchez, “Las Provincias Unidas y la Guerra de Sucesión española”, Pedralbes 22 (2002): 131-152. 60. Jonathan Irvine Israel, “The Dutch Republic and its Jews during the Conflict over the Spanish Succession, 1699-1715”, in: Conflicts of Empires, 1585-1713. Spain, the Low Countries and the Struggle for World Supremacy, 1585-1713 (London: Hambledon Press, 1997), 391-410. 61. Antonio Álvarez-Ossorio, “¿El final de la Sicilia española? Fidelidad, familia y venalidad bajo el virrey marqués de Los Balbases (1707-1713)”, in: La pérdida de Europa. La Guerra de Sucesión por la Monarquía de España, eds. Antonio Álvarez-Ossorio, Bernardo García and Virginia León (Madrid: Fundación Carlos de Amberes, 2007), 831-912.

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Conclusion The limitations experienced by republican representatives, owing to the close supervision imposed by their governments and the obligation to follow their strict instructions, must not obscure the central role played by these mercantile republics in the development of diplomacy in early modern Europe. Apart from introducing interesting innovations and promoting the institutional formalisation of embassies and consulates, these republics set forth a flexible diplomatic apparatus with the participation not only of the most conspicuous members of the governing oligarchies – at first reluctant to leave their positions near the government to take up diplomacy – but also of an heterogeneous complex of merchants, businessmen and, in the Genoese case, grand aristocrats. The crystallisation of this in multi-faceted pools of resources and extensive networks of contacts facilitated the survival of these republics in the face of the growing power of dynastic systems. The role played by Genoa and the United Provinces in the European power balance was a key factor in preventing any attempts to establish hegemony in the continent. Moreover the two republics were also critical in the functioning of such disaggregated and dispersed structures as the Spanish monarchy, which needed their naval and financial support in order to effectively mobilise their resources and satisfy their military commitments. In contrast, the imposition of a full-sovereignty model by France and Britain from the mid-seventeenth century onwards throws light on the animosity with which those two states regarded small mercantile enclaves. This is reflected in the passing of the Navigation Acts in London, the humiliations inflicted by Louis XIV on the Swiss cantons in 1663 and Genoa in 1685, after the previous year’s bombardment, and the joint invasion of the United Provinces in 1672. As rightly highlighted by Thomas Maissen for the Swiss case, the difficulties faced by those republics to maintain a prime position in the international power struggle compelled them to adopt a policy of neutrality. Neutrality no longer suggested simple connotations of weakness or mere cowardice, but was seen as a legitimate option and the maximum expression of a political pragmatism focused on the preservation of independence in a world dominated by all-powerful monarchies.62

62. Thomas Maissen, “L’invention de la tradition de neutralité helvétique: une adaptation au droit des gens naissant du XVIIe siècle”, in: Les ressources des faibles. Neutralités, sauvegardes, accommodements en temps de guerre (XVIe-XVIIe siècle), eds. Jean-François Chanet and Christian Windler (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2009), 17-45.

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The consular institution between war and commerce, state and nation: Comparative examples in eighteenth-century Europe Marcella Aglietti

Introduction The evolution in the activities and characteristics of consuls over the years has been so great that it has now become necessary to reappraise the significance of this institution to individual historical periods. In particular, the transformation of its legal basis and the consequent restructuring of its relationship with sovereign authority are matters of consequence that reward careful investigation. The intention of this essay has therefore been to single out a number of representative case studies to gain an understanding of the changes that the seventeenth century impressed on the consular institution in Europe in order to make it more responsive to the new demands of that era. In contrast to many recent studies on the figure of the consul, which concentrated exclusively on the analysis of certain national models,1 I have carried out comparative research so as to highlight incidences of cross-fertilisation and the spread of common models in the north-west Mediterranean. While countries like Spain and France had developed great systems of national diplomacy capable of creating complete juridical structures, smaller states, including those of the Italian peninsula, developed more flexible consular institutions which could react quickly, in line with an opportunistic approach to relations with local powers and other nations. It was only with the rise of the administrative 1. Amongst the more recent studies: Jesús Pradells Nadal, Diplomacia y comercio. La expansión consular española en el siglo XVIII (Alicante: Secretariado de publicaciones de la Universidad-Instituto de cultura Juan Gil-Albert, 1992); Giovanni Brancaccio, “Nazione genovese”. Consoli e colonia nella Napoli moderna (Naples: Guida, 2001); Christian Windler, “Diplomatie et interculturalité: les consuls français à Tunis, 1700-1840”, Revue d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine 50 (2003), 63-91; Stefano Villani, “I consoli della nazione inglese a Livorno tra il 1665 e il 1673: Joseph Kent, Thomas Clutterbuck e Ephraim Skinner”, Nuovi Studi Livornesi 10 (2004): 11-34; Roberto Zaugg, “Judging foreigners. Conflict strategies, consular interventions and institutionals changes in eighteenth-century Naples”, Journal of Modern Italian studies 13 (2008): 171-195.

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state, centralised and built on the principle of territorial sovereignty, impersonal and equally applicable to everyone, that consulates accepted the need to answer to homogeneous and common laws in keeping with procedures that had worked successfully elsewhere. In the light of the documents I investigated, limited by the difficulty of retrieving records that were dispersed among various archives, I have selected three episodes which are useful to comparing how consulates in different states performed under a similar kind of pressure. The first coincides with the final stages of the War of the Spanish Succession and tests the institution’s ability to absorb change; the other two episodes concern events that help in measuring how deep the process of reforming the consular institution went during the eighteenth century: the one with reference to the part played by foreign consulates in the drafting of treaties of neutrality, as exhibited in the particular case of the city and free port of Livorno; the other in relation to the introduction of a new ban on the admittance of foreign consuls, which within a few years became law in the Italian states. In each of these cases, which are far enough apart in time to draw attention to different stages in the development of the office, the extreme variability of the institution and its gradual containment in the meshes of increasingly pervasive state prerogatives comes to light. The consuls between trade, war and neutrality The War of the Spanish Succession represents an exceptional combination of events through which to observe how the consular institution was placed in regard to the opposing needs of states caught up in a conflict that had a such a fundamental and wide-ranging impact on eighteenth-century Europe. On the one hand, in fact, there persisted elements inherited from the seventeenth century, based on a perception of consuls as defenders of interests for the most part private and commercial, or even personal, which bound them to the community of expatriate merchants which they were charged to protect.2 On the other hand, new demands were being made that showed the emergence of new public pressures that eventually became the norm, and which required consuls officially to represent only the authority of the sovereign of their native country. Without entering into a discussion of the complex and largely well-known events of this conflict,3 it suffices here to remember the Madrid government’s firm response to the Republics of Genoa, Venice and Lucca when, in November 1711, they followed Pope Clement XI in recognising Archduke Charles of 2. Francisco Javier Zamora Rodríguez, “Privato versus pubblico. L’attività dei primi consoli nella Livorno granducale”, Nuovi Studi Livornesi 17 (2010): 43-64. 3. A particularly interesting contribution, among the more recent works dealing with this conflict is Renzo Sabbatini, L’occhio dell’ambasciatore. L’Europa delle guerre di successione nell’autobiografia dell’inviato lucchese a Vienna (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2006).

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the House of Habsburg as the new Spanish sovereign: the sovereign resolution of 13 December 1711 gave all Italian ministers residing in the Kingdom a fortnight to leave the country, and the consuls were explicitly included in this. The consuls of the mercantile nations of Genoa and Venice based in the main maritime towns on the Iberian coast of the Mediterranean, from Cartagena to Cádiz, via Vélez and Malaga, were thereupon sent their passports and escorted by armed guard to Gibraltar, from where they sailed back to their respective homelands. What lay behind such a decision was not immediately clear to everyone, especially not in Italy, where there were those that saw the action as simply evidence of a vendetta by Madrid motivated by nothing more than a desire to impose a new tax. And indeed, only a few months later Venetian and Genoese ships were allowed to resume trading in the Spanish ports in exchange for paying a tax equivalent to sixteen per cent of the value of their cargo.4 But in reality the nature of the Spanish reprisal was based on a logical application of the principle of reciprocity in inter-state relations, and the withdrawal of diplomatic representatives of the crown from centres in Italy, beginning with Genoa and Venice,5 was consistent with this. Nevertheless, there remained a contradiction in the fact that despite the action being taken against foreign consuls in Spain, Madrid did not withdraw its own consuls stationed in Italian ports. This discrepancy typifies the way that the role of consul could be perceived contradictorily as being representative of national sovereignty, even from a merely symbolic point of view. This was also demonstrated by what the Imperial envoy to Genoa, Carlo Bartolomeo Molinari, wrote when asking the Emperor how to resolve the ongoing delicate issues concerning relations between Finale Ligure, Milan, Catalonia, and the viceroy of Naples since no-one had remained in Genoa to represent the Spanish King, except a person deemed not up to scratch because “either he would not be listened to, or he could not have brought the possible negotiations to a conclusion”.6 At the same time, the 4. Carlo Bartolomeo Molinari of Genoa, in a letter to General La Marre, based in Finale, of 2 January 1712, which announced the forthcoming departure of the Marquis of Monteleone for Madrid wrote: “seeing that that Court wishes to avail itself of the Reconnaissance carried out by this Republic [of Genoa] of His Imperial Majesty the Catholic King. This is a clear pretext for making Money, while Reason has no place”, in ASMi, CC, 9, c. 407. 5. On 5 December 1711, Madrid ordered the secretary of its Venetian embassy to remove the sovereign coat of arms from his place of residence and to seal the archive, but to remain in the city in a personal capacity to carry out the gathering of information with all necessary prudence and secrecy. On 20 December it was the turn of the envoy to Genoa, to receive similar orders: to lower the national arms, seal the archive and send it to Spain or the viceroy of Sicily, leaving Diego de Monteagudo in loco, under a false name and without any official title, but ready to relate what was happening. On 17th of the same month a message had instead gone to the Count of Villafranca, the Head of Ambassadors, giving him the task of telling the representatives of the Italian States that had recognised the rights of the Archduke of Austria to leave the country within 15 days, without presenting themselves to the court, or to the sovereign for any reason. AHN, E, 2878, ul. box. 6. ASMi, CC, 9, c. 456, from the letter book of Molinari to the Emperor, from Genoa, 21 February 1712.

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Republic of Genoa sent a special envoy, Francesco Maria Grimaldi, to Spain with the task of justifying its actions and re-establishing dialogue, demonstrating once again the indestructibility of the custom of using an ad hoc emissary for such a matter rather than assigning it to the Genoese consuls in situ, as would have to be done when negotiating the re-establishment of trade.7 Among the Italians, the Spanish order did not affect Tuscany, at least initially. This “quite remarkable exception” was made because the Medici had not cast doubts on the legitimacy of the Duke of Anjou’s accession to the Spanish throne. In the aftermath of the Congress of Utrecht, under threat from Imperial troops already established in the presidios (fortified territories belonging to Spain on the Tuscan coast), and with the Farnese ready to claim their right to succeed in the Grand Duchy, Cosimo III judged an alliance with Philip V to be his only hope of securing adequate autonomy for the small state of Tuscany: a strategy that called for maximum caution to avoid arousing the suspicions of the Habsburgs. Thus, in order to prevent favourable treatment becoming a pretext for a reaction by the Imperial troops garrisoned in Tuscany,8 on 13 May 1712 the Medici moved in the court of Madrid that the Florentine envoy to the Spanish capital, Nero Maria del Nero, be removed, along with a number of his colleagues. The Florentine baron did leave the court but did not return home, going instead to Toro, where he remained for around two months before returning to Madrid, albeit in a private capacity. The story related up to this point is drawn from Riguccio Galluzzi’s history of the Grand Duchy, which although detailed, did not mention the fate of the Tuscan consuls, except to say that “no action was taken”. But events transpired differently, at least according to what one gleans from Spanish sources. A royal dispatch of the same 13 May ordered the immediate removal of “all the consuls, their deputies and all other vassals of the Grand Duke of Tuscany that reside in the Iberian dominions” in response to the Grand Duke Medici having recognised Charles Habsburg as the legitimate sovereign of Spain.9 However, the sovereign proclamation added a stipulation: that all “Florentine and other Tuscan merchants” were to be excluded from the removal order.10 Apparently this was a distinction difficult to observe given the impossibility of expelling the consul and retaining the merchant since they were, in most cases, the same person carrying out a dual function. Even so, the stipulation was a consequence of what had occurred a few months before the order to expel the other Italian consuls was implemented. Early in January 1712, the Venetian consul in Cádiz, Ventura Homacini, who had already been taken as a prisoner to Gibraltar was instead exempted from 7. Ibid., c. 445, Molinari to Prince Eugenio of Savoy, Genoa, 14 February 1712. 8. Jacopo Riguccio Galluzzi, Istoria del granducato di Toscana sotto il governo della casa Medici (Florence: Cambiagi, 1781), vol. V, book IX, 15. 9. AHN, E, 861, ul. box. 10. Thus wrote the Captain General of the coast Carlos Carrafa to Manuel de Vadillo y Velasco, from Vélez, 28 June 1712, ibid.

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having to leave the country in recognition of his long residency, his advanced age and ill health, as well as for the fact that he was married to a Spaniard (with whom he had had many children); he had, however, to renounce his consular duties. A similar situation with an identical outcome involved the consul of the Republic of Genoa based in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Juan Esteban Sabinon. And between late January and early February the Venetian consul to Alicante, Antonio Pavia, and the Genoan consul to Cádiz, Lorenzo Maria Grassi, were likewise exempted from expatriation in the same way, in consideration of their commercial activities locally but with the strict suspension of their consular work.11 These dispensations throw light on the wording used in the royal dispatch addressed to the Tuscan consuls, as does the decision regarding the Grand Duchy’s consul who had been based in Cádiz since 1679. The man in question was Francesco Ginori, who belonged to one of the most important families in the Florentine court and the Tuscan commercial and business elite.12 In his memorandum to the Consejo de Estado (Council of State), Ginori listed his not inconsiderable achievements and was adjudged worthy of the cedula de naturaleza (certificate of naturalisation) in view of the profitable businesses he operated “much to the benefit of the Royal Treasury”, the properties he had acquired in Cádiz and Jerez, and his significant contributions to the local economy.13 On the grounds of well-documented health problems, the Florentine sought and was given leave to remain in the city – of course in a private capacity and after renouncing any consular duties – in consideration of what he had already done “with other dependent subjects from the Italian Republics, and in particular from Genoa and Venice, of the same rank”.14 In this episode the consul’s recognised public role appears to be seen in the main as purely symbolic and quite insignificant compared to the more important and real needs of the states, such as those of guaranteeing the continuity of trade and the gathering of information. However, on other occasions the consuls were given more power, such as when they were entrusted with the task of deputising for the sovereign, albeit only in ad hoc missions similar to those carried out by special envoys, or when they were asked to provide assistance during the negotiation of international treaties. Nevertheless, these eventualities became fewer as the nation state took on a more complete role. Here we take as our example Livorno, the multi-ethnic free port of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, and the particular circumstances in which it reasserted its neutrality and declared its determination not to lose 11. AHN, E, 2878, cc. n.n. 12. On the Ginori family, which numbered amongst Francesco’s contemporaries also the Tuscan consul to Lisbon, a role carried out from 1676 by the Senator Lorenzo Ginori and then by Francesco himself, see Luigi Passerini, Genealogia e storia della famiglia Ginori (Florence: Cellini, 1876), 71 and the essay by Francisco Zamora in this volume. 13. AHN, E, 661, ins. 26, box 2, minute of the Consejo de Estado of 28 May 1712. 14. AHN, E, 2878, ul. ins.

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its extremely favourable position as the emporium commerce in the Mediterranean. Although Livorno’s geography made it an atypical case, the presence of substantial foreign communities that had made their home there also means that the city can be viewed as an excellent research laboratory within which several methods of interaction with local power can be observed. The foreign consuls, working under Tuscan jurisdiction, were not recognised as public ministers, nor did their actions carry any juridical weight as regards people or goods, or even their co-nationals. Legal power resided entirely in the civil and military governor, the emissary in loco of the Grand Duke’s sovereignty.15 Nevertheless, when, on the many occasions that war broke out in Europe between the end of the fifteenth century and the War of the Spanish Succession, the governor of Livorno was faced with the task of formalising the city’s neutrality with a treaty, he would proceed by assigning the consuls with the crucial task of representing their sovereigns and agreeing the form and content of the document.16 These treaties, or conventions, reiterated three brief articles to be observed, further reducible to a ban on committing hostile acts in the Grand Duchy’s ports or on its shores, and compliance with an admittedly shortterm truce between ships passing through Livorno and secondary Tuscan ports. However, there was always abundant room for manoeuvre and interpretation, which often led to disagreements and disputes and just as many compromises to be arbitrated by the governors of Livorno. The first treaty of neutrality, that of 9 October 1691, ratified “the observance of neutrality and security of all those in the port and on the shores of Livorno” and was concluded by the governor Alessandro Del Borro with the consuls of Spain, Britain, France and the United Provinces.17 Not without some difficulty, the consuls had been invested with special powers of proxy by their states, as would then happen every time an outbreak of war necessitated the renewal of the neutrality pact: during the War of the Spanish Succession, in 1718 during the Iberian-Habsburg conflict, in 1727, and yet again in 1740. The most interesting feature of these agreements is that the negotiations, which, entirely overseen on the Tuscan side by the governor of Livorno (and not of the Grand Duchy), saw the consuls taking a dual role. On the one hand they were representatives of the belligerent forces, but on the other they were also the official ‘representatives and defenders’ of the interests of the cities and the nations18 which carried trade on their behalf, and this ensured an impartial balance between all interested parties. On such occasions, the consuls reassumed the status of representatives of 15. ASLi, GCM, 968, cc. 24r-42v, Giurisdizione del Governo sopra le persone e bastimenti stranieri. On the system of government in the free port of Livorno, see Marcella Aglietti, I governatori di Livorno dai Medici all’Unità d’Italia. Gli uomini, le istituzioni, la città (Pisa: ETS, 2009). 16. ASLi, GCM, 1025, ul. box, “Osservazioni sopra la neutralità”, anonymous and undated, but written up by a collaborator of the governor of Livorno in the years immediately following 1764. 17. Aglietti, Governatori di Livorno, 80-82 and AGS, E, 3625, inss. 92-95.

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their states, from which they received all due permissions and powers. Yet they also had to avoid neglecting the interests of their resident mercantile community, in much the same way as the governor had to balance the negotiations with the belligerents that preceded the signing of the treaty with the need to declare and assert the authority of the Grand Duchy. This procedure survived until, faced with the failure of preliminary talks between the consuls of France and Britain during the Seven Years’ War and in the wake of a series of reforms aimed at reinforcing sovereign authority, the then Grand Duke and Emperor Francis Stephen of Lorraine “decided for the first time to publish the neutrality law to be observed in his Tuscan States independently of the consensus of the warring nations”.19 The edict of neutrality of 5 February 1757, broader and more detailed than the treaties which had preceded it, announced the neutrality of Livorno, Portoferraio and the Tuscan coastline without having sought the endorsement of or any participation from the consuls, who were invited to sign the document without being given any leeway for negotiation. The 1778 Edict of Neutrality proclaimed the validity of the ruling for all the Tuscan territory, shores and seas, thus disempowering forever a significant consular prerogative and putting in its place a new principle of sovereignty, re-established over and above every possible particularism.20 Between state and nation: the debate on the consul’s nationality In the middle of the eighteenth century a heated debate erupted regarding the need to standardise the criteria relating to who would be allowed to take the role as foreign consul. The new set of rules, which were at first fragmented and in places contradictory, brought about comprehensive and unifying legislation within a few decades. The process of their initial formulation seems highly significant as it took shape simultaneously in most of the Italian States in the western Mediterranean, from Genoa to Naples, where there was the highest concentration of foreign consuls, as well as important free ports. 18. The term here does not refer to the nationality of the consul, but rather to the mercantile community established in the city and whose interests were prioritised. One should also remember that the ‘nations’ of Livorno did not match precisely with the homogenous groups of foreigners who all belonged to the same country, but represented something much more complex and articulated. Some ‘nations’ could include subjects belonging to different states or have as their distinguishing characteristic a common religious confession, as in the case of the Jewish ‘nation’. See Carlo Mangio, “Nazioni e tolleranza a Livorno,” Nuovi studi livornesi 3 (1994): 11-21 and Andrea Addobbati, Commercio, rischio, guerra. Il mercato delle assicurazioni marittime di Livorno (1694-1795) (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2007), 17-46. 19. ASLi, GCM, 1025, “Osservazioni sopra la neutralità”. 20. On this point, I refer the reader to the convincing analysis by Jean Pierre Filippini, “La graduelle affirmation de la souveraineté du Grand-Duc sur le port de Livourne: les édits de neutralité de la période des Habsbourg-Lorraine”, Nuovi Studi Livornesi 16 (2009): 22-32 and the essay by Franco Angiolini in this volume.

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The order not to recognise any new consular licence that had been conferred on a Spanish native clearly existed in Spain at around the beginning of the eighteenth century, albeit in very general terms and with a great many exceptions. It could be found within a wide-ranging regulation which, in the absence of specific inter-state treaties defining these matters, also ruled what authority and possible privileges were inherent in such an appointment. In particular, it stated that it was undesirable for any individual to serve as consul for a sovereign other than his own, basing this assertion on the principle that a consul was duty-bound to defend the members of the nation he represented even in disputes with, amongst others, the inhabitants of his home nation. Moreover, his duties also obligated him to disclose to the sovereign for whom he acted all the hidden-most secrets that might be of interest, even if these obviously conflicted with the rights and interests of the subjects and sovereign of his country of origin. Such appointments, then, were clearly against the unconditional loyalty that every citizen owed to his lord and homeland.21 Judging from the available archival sources, it seems that no similar systems were in place in the Italian States and that there was no advice given against acting as consul to a prince other than one’s own. It was not until the 1850s that the states began to consider the matter, presumably because of the urgency of tightening up entrance regulations in order to restrict the number of foreign consular representatives on their territory. The presence of these consuls was perceived to be increasingly invasive since it no longer simply responded to the needs of a foreign mercantile community well integrated locally, but rather to the commercial interests and information-gathering of states not necessarily well intentioned towards the host nation. Furthermore, there was an exponential rise in legal arguments caused by the difficulty of managing a tangle of exemptions and privileges which had been won by the consuls over the years and which were at odds with a growing number of fiscal and administrative demands. The situation was even more intolerable when the person in office was a co-national. Therefore, driven by these specific problems, the Italian states were obliged to enforce the principle of the consular institute belonging to a nation, in many cases suggesting for the first time – even from a theoretical point of view – what the link between the exercise of the office and the sovereignty of the state that the consul was called to represent should be. The proposed solutions all adhered to a similar and apparently simple logic: a subject of a state could no longer be consul for another state’s sovereign, as had happened in the past. The application of this principle was fraught with difficulties. First of all it was necessary to define when the subject should consider himself a genuine “citizen or subject” (according to the formula used during this period). The task was by no means simple in multi-ethnic urban settings, such as those of the ports of Naples, Livorno and Genoa. Here, in fact, the majority of the popula21. AHN, E, 608, box 2, ins. 19.

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tion formed a stable community that had been in place for no more than a generation and many of those people had maintained close ties with their countries of origin. As a consequence their sense of belonging, both individually and collectively, to one nation or the other was, to say the least, fluid and intermittent. Similarly, it appeared equally hard for governments to fix legally unequivocal terms for the process of naturalisation of foreigners.22 Furthermore, there were many complaints from countries that were finding it impossible to find suitable candidates to take up consular duties having discounted candidates whose links to the intended destinations were so close as to make their nationality unclear. The primary requirement when selecting a new consul was to choose a subject who was an expert on the location, who could speak its language and understood its customs, and who was sufficiently well known to be certain of exerting a worthwhile influence. It should also be kept in mind that, with the lack of an official cursus honorum set up for the development of the functionary, and in the absence of guaranteed wages, two methods of assigning the role were widely applied. In those instances where a replacement was needed, the office would often be entrusted to the outgoing consul’s son who, having previously helped his father, would have gained a certain level of experience and a vast amount of information on the location that would otherwise be hard to preserve.23 This method ensured that an office which had proved its worth would continue to function efficiently, but there was also the disadvantage that the incoming consul might have been born in the city and thus been naturalised or might choose to become a citizen of his adopted state.24 For newly established consulates (whose numbers increased during the middle of the eighteenth century as political and commercial interests were renewed), even those in a place where there was no established community of resident co-nationals, the person chosen was usually someone 22. Interesting contributions to this issue, which was common throughout Europe in the period, can be found in: Charlotte Wells, Law and Citizenship in Early Modern France (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995); Daniel Statt, Foreigners and Englishmen. The Controversy over Immigration and Population (1660-1760) (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1995); La Monarquía de las naciones: patria, nación y naturaleza en la Monarquía de España, eds. Bernardo José García García and Antonio Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño (Madrid: Diputación San Andrés de los Flamencos, 2004); Marco Rovinello, Cittadini senza Nazione. Migranti francesi a Napoli (1793-1860) (Florence: Le Monnier, 2009), 23-56. 23. Family dynasties were very common among consuls. Amongst the more well-known cases were: the Gavi, consuls for the Republic of Genoa to Livorno; the Spanish de Silva family, consuls for the Spanish crown and the Kingdom of Naples, once more to the port of Livorno, from the end of the seventeenth century to the beginning of the nineteenth; but also the dynasties of the San Pedros, to Nice, and the Arpe, to Genoa, both consular representatives for the Kingdom of Spain. 24. Thus the succession of Giovanni Antonio Gavi to his father’s role in the Genoese consulate in Livorno was opposed by the Lorrainese Regency because Giovanni Antonio was born in Livorno and could consider himself to all effects a Tuscan subject, although he had never enrolled to the ranks of the Livornese citizenship. In ASFi, SME, 2303, ins. 24, “Ammissione di Giovanni Antonio Gavi per console della Repubblica di Genova in Livorno (1763)”.

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with the appropriate skills, perhaps someone who had already served as consul to a friendly state.25 Thus, for example, the Habsburg Empire, which was among the states that invested most in the expansion of their consular network – partly with the objective of increasing traffic to the free ports of Trieste and Fiume – preferred to make use of vice-consuls rather than consuls. With this approach, in fact, it was easier to find expert merchants who were better equipped to investigate and intervene; they could also work “with foreign princes without any hustle and bustle to obtain new exemptions and privileges, or at least a certain leniency from the collector of taxes.”26 As for the consulates in the Levant, the counsellor of commerce in the Suprema Cesarea Regia Intendenza Commerciale di Trieste (Supreme Cesarean Royal Superintendence of Commerce), Giuseppe Pasquale Ricci, demonstrated the importance of renewing the consular body by substituting the functionaries then in service with Austrian or Tuscan subjects. In that way he intended not only to favour the opening of new business houses in that region by co-nationals, but also to put an end to the practice of entrusting such duties to subjects of other nations who, evidently, concentrated their attentions on their own national interests rather than on Habsburg ones, which then in fact often finished up prejudiced.27 In 1757 the court of Rome became the first in Italy to refuse an application for the licence to nominate pontifical subjects as consuls of foreign states. However, not unlike what happened elsewhere, once the rule was introduced so too were exceptions to it. Responding conciliatorily to remonstrations made by the Spanish throne, which had designated a Roman subject, namely Romolo Pucitta, to the post of consul at Civitavecchia, the decision was taken to change his title, from ‘consul’ to ‘agent’.28 In the Kingdom of Naples a fairly identical approach was adopted, rigidly denying subjects access to foreign consulates, but not vice-consulates, which were however subjected to a regio exequatur that specifically excluded reaping the benefits of exemptions or privileges.29 25. Thus, for example, the Papal State had asked the Sardinian consul to become a representative for their petitions to the free port of Livorno. This was evidently a mostly strategic role as the presence of both Papal and Sardinian subjects in Tuscany was practically non-existent. Other consuls based in Livorno had also taken on several roles, including the French consul who also acted for Sweden, or – in very different circumstances – the Spanish consul who also took the role for the Kingdom of Naples. In ASTo, ME, 65, ul. box, letter from the Sardinian consul Antonio Rivarola, 20 July 1765. 26. ASTs, IC, 272, cc. 21r-22v, 10 March 1757, from Naples. 27. On Ricci see Maria Grazia Biagi, Giuseppe Pasquale Ricci funzionario imperiale a Trieste (1751-1791). Primi risultati di una ricerca (Pisa: ETS, 1986). 28. ASGe, GM, 10, ul. box, “Relazione dell’Eccellentissima Giunta di Marina riguardo ai consoli e viceconsoli di Principi esteri” forwarded on 25 September 1767 to the Minor Council of the Republic of Genoa. 29. Charles proposed important legal interventions relating to maritime law, an area in which the consular institution was usually included. The regulations of 1741 and 1751 and the edict of 1759 were particularly important. On the Naples codification the work by Cesare Maria Moschetti, Il codice marittimo del 1781 di Michele de Jorio per il Regno di Napoli: introduzione e testo annotato (Naples: Giannini, 1979) remains essential.

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Around the same time, the Tuscan government of the Lorraine Regency actively opposed the admission of consuls for states that had not previously placed representatives in the Grand Duchy. In some cases there was a desire to avoid entrusting the role (the precise responsibilities of which were however clearly spelt out) to a persona non grata, perhaps one burdened by heavy debts or an emissary from a country then out of favour. Thus the appointment of a consul for the Papal States was refused twice (on the first occasion in 1740, because of the assumed unsuitability of the proposed candidate; the second time the matter dragged on from 1742 to 1746, under the pretext that the consular licence contained two styles of handwriting).30 A request from the Grand Master of Malta was also rejected.31 The acceptance of a new consul was by no means a mere formality, due to specific reasons of state that reflected complex political strategies and the need to maintain political balances, as well as the possibility of disagreements between the centre of power and outlying areas. Thus on 15 January 1753 the British consul to Livorno nominated Filippo Betterini, a subject of the Grand Duchy, vice-consul of Portoferraio. At the request of the Regency Council, the Grand Duke Francis Stephen of Lorraine “expressly ordered that in future none of his subjects, under any pretext, would be permitted to serve foreign powers in similar positions”, a ruling that was difficult to observe given that many Tuscans had served and still served in such positions. A case in point, known to everyone, was that of Giovanni Sebastiano Bichi, a subject of the Grand Duchy and consul for the republic of Venice from December 1699, “with concession of the licence of arms”, whose appointment was reconfirmed in 1714, in 171732 and, this time with the ratification and dispatch from the Grand Duke, also in 1754. The sovereign had no choice but to retreat at least partially and to allow Betterini’s nomination to proceed.33 Even the auditor Assunto Franceschini, “speaking in the abstract and in general”, claimed to have nothing against recognising “consuls from any power”. Indeed, the greater the number of consuls in Livorno, the better it would be for trade development and for making known how rigorously sanitary laws were applied there, thereby hopefully reducing the incidences of ships from Livorno being placed in quarantine. Much less, he continued, was there reason to fear any form of “subjection” regarding the admittance of subjects representing other powers: the fact that the Grand Duke was also the Emperor was the strongest possible guarantee.34 As the years passed the exceptions multiplied, so that the consulate of Ragusa was administered by Tommaso Batacchi, the Austrian consulate by Giuliano Ricci and the Russian consulate by Pietro Calamai, 30. ASFi, SME, 2360, ins. 10 and 12. 31. Ibid., ins. 18. 32. ASFi, SME, 2303, ins. 2. 33. Ibid., ins. 16. 34. Ibid., the auditor Franceschini to Pandolfini, 1 July 1757.

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all Tuscans.35 With Peter Leopold Habsburg-Lorraine this practice would become accepted, without however becoming a milder application of otherwise growing links between subjects and state. The Tuscans admitted to holding foreign consulates, subject to the prior approval of the Grand Duke and to the jurisdiction of Tuscan courts, were entitled to bear the coat of arms and wear the uniform of the state they served, but by doing so they lost their rights to Tuscan nationality and nobility, unless prescribed otherwise by special grace of the sovereign.36 When, in June 1766, the Republic of Genoa also began to examine the need to bring in similar restrictive laws, it decided to seek the authority of the “ancient decrees banning subjects from the exercise of the role of Minister or similar for foreign Princes”, recalling an exclusive conception of the principle of sovereignty. In truth the principal motive was to avoid “disorders” due to the “greater animosity” of the Genoese who held the office, an animosity which was consistent with their demands for exemptions and privileges, material or personal, as well as their desire to “remain excluded from municipal offices as befitted their station”.37 The incompatibility between Genoese citizenship and acting as consul for a foreign sovereign became law on 8 August 1766, after the Minor Consiglio (Minor Council) had modified the reference to belonging to another “prince” or “power” (as called for in the draft prepared by the Giunta di Marina (Marine Committee) to “nation”, thereby bearing witness to an important evolution in the terminology of the subject. In a similar way to what happened at Civitavecchia, at Genoa there was also an immediate need to find a possible escamotage: after the King of Sweden refused a consul licence to the Genoese Girolamo Marchelli, the credential of chargé d’affaires was recognised, and in the same way Abbot Bollo, a Ligurian, was permitted to serve the King of Poland. Soon after, the problem resurfaced on account of the vice-consular representations of the Kingdoms of Spain, France and Britain, which were vacant and could not be filled simply by making minor exceptions. The consuls of those countries complained about the impossibility of fulfilling the demands of the law “since it was not possible, particularly in coastal areas, to appoint people there who were not subjects of the Republic for whom the tenuity of the office would not provide the means of support they need”.38 It was the French consul, supported by the official envoy of the Crown, who remonstrated more strongly than any other, obliging the Republic to restate its position to avert an international incident. Fortified by the example of other Italian States that had introduced similar rules, the Republic 35. Respectively ASLi, GCM, 963, c. 199v, 20 April 1767; ibid., 958, c. 235v, 14 December 1781 and the Grand Duke’s rescript of 14 December 1782. 36. Ibid., box 235v. 37. ASGe, GM, 10, ul. box, report on the regulation relating to consuls and vice-consuls from 1766 to 1768. 38. Ibid.

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vigorously contended for a principle of uniformity on the issue, which it held to be valuable, desirable and necessary,39 and at the end of September 1767 the Minor Consiglio rejected the first proposal to derogate from the law.40 Only later, in view of objective difficulties in applying it, were corrective measures put in place: on the one hand, limiting the number of foreign consuls to the city of Genoa alone, and on the other, recognising the right of the council body to provide for possible exceptions by majority vote. “To compensate then for the abuse caused by admitting vice-consuls in certain cities and in parts of the Dominion where they are completely useless for the purposes of trade and shipping”, a limited list of places where vice-consulates could be established was drawn up. The offices were also open to Genoese subjects “with the condition, however, that it was not permissible for them to raise arms at home or in any other place, it being clearly understood that they can never attach, in accordance with them not having any reason to do so, any legal exemption, nor any other prerogative whatever, pretext or motive, and that they must bear all the burdens, costs of real and personal damages and offices of their respective communities and situations.”41 Conclusion: Towards a uniform system The cases examined here provide confirmation (however brief) of how the changes brought to the consular institute from the middle of the eighteenth century were driven, on the one hand, by impulses that varied according to the interests, practices and customs of each individual state and, on the other, by the perhaps even greater external pressures that required an ever-increasing standardisation of the office and the imposition of the right of sovereignty. However, this metamorphosis went through indicative fluctuations following the dialectic between commercial needs, the protection of which was always given priority, and the new circumstances which came about by dirigisme, in the search of a compromise that sometimes resulted in economic convenience being preferred to a rigorous application of the rules. In short, the Italian states acquired greater understanding regarding the role that the consular system could play once it was made subject in an effective manner to the service of the nation, progressively reducing the bounds of legal autonomy and of residual arbitrariness, and regulating in detail how the office might be a new way of delegating sovereign power, both native and foreign. 39. Ibid., “Proposizione, o sia legge, che i sudditi non esercitino il consolato o viceconsolato di alcuna Potenza”, approved on August 1768. 40. Ibid., report on the regulation regarding consuls and vice-consuls from 1766 to 1768. 41. Ibid., “Proposizione riguardo a consoli e vice-consoli”, approved by the Minor Council on 29 April 1768.

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Thus the consuls came to be the object of navigation and trade treaties, as well as of targeted legal study,42 and to be bound by rules that controlled their operations, freeing the institution from the plethora of regulatory resolutions decided at territorial level. They were given precise institutional responsibilities, a fixed salary, defined prerogatives and powers recognised internationally, finally becoming, bit by bit, legitimate representatives of their nation and public functionaries of the state.

42. For instance the French Ordonnance sur les Consulats of 3 March 1781, the general law relating to the Genoese consular law of 1786, the new regulations for Habsburg consuls of 1758, and the legislative corpus relating to maritime law produced in Italy and Europe in these years. See the essay by Daniele Edigati in this volume.

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War, trade, products and consumption patterns: The Ginori and their information networks* Francisco Javier Zamora Rodríguez

Introduction: the limits of consular latitude The differences between the theory and practice of political and commercial consular activities during the seventeenth century can best be understood when they are premised on the fact that, by the middle of that century, consuls were already fully established foreign institutions in commercial harbours. In this regard, Nys has noted how their positions were an exception within the larger framework of the state’s territorial jurisdiction.1 As agents acting in the service of their governments, consuls became potential channels for inter-state relations and, most especially, sources of reliable information for governments. Their position thus underwent a general, multifarious, progressive process from its mostly commercial origins towards one of diplomatic and political activity. Four distinct factors had a bearing on the activity, authority and legal definition of a consul: his state of origin, his state of destination, his personality, and the community or nation he represented. However, it must be pointed out that, even if most states with overseas consulates practised trade, due to the mercantilist nature of capitalism in the early modern period this was not always the case. The consul’s legal framework was thus determined by the interests – sometimes divergent and sometimes shared – of all concerned parties, the position held by each state on the international scene, the influence of internal factions, local considerations, and the presence or otherwise of hierarchically superior agents near or in the same harbour that might condition the consul’s freedom of action. * Regarding American products, this paper draws on the data compiled by the author for the I Coloquio of the Research Group “New Atlantic products, science, war, economy and consumption in the Old Regime: the Case of Andalusia, 1492-1824”, HUM-5330, directed by Bartolomé Yun Casalilla. This essay has been translated by David Govantes-Edwards. 1. Ernest Nys, “La jurisdiction consulaire”, Revue de droit international et de législation comparée, 7 (1905): 239.

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The above-mentioned four factors could not always be applied all at once, but were generally subject to frequent reconfigurations. They constituted a precariously balanced system in constant evolution within the larger setting of negotiation typical of the ancien régime. Indeed, how the consuls’ positions were formulated depended on their home states’ ability to impose decisions over others, maintain their influence and enforce their jurisdiction. Consequently, there were as many ways to exercise a consulship as there were possible scenarios. Even so, in most cases the need to defend their commercial interests in their own harbours often led host states to limit the range of consular duties to that of representing merchants. The reason for this limitation was the twofold nature – political and commercial – of the consuls’ function and the reluctance of host governments to grant them representational powers that might result in requests being made for immunity or privileges. The concession of representational powers or franchises was in fact considered incompatible with a fair enforcement of port laws for it gave consuls, in their capacity as independent merchants, an undue advantage in lawsuits over other traders. On account of this, the port authority of Livorno established the legal position of consuls as follows: “they neither characterise, nor represent in any way the person or voice of their sovereigns, but are only the foremost merchants of their nations, negotiating just as everybody else. Many problems would ensue if they enjoyed the same exceptions and privileges as ambassadors and other ordinary and extraordinary envoys, because those who deal with them in business could not be sure of obtaining justice through the courts”.2 And the States-General’s request that their consul be recognised with ambassadorial privileges by the Genoese senate was rejected on the basis that: “He is not recognised as public minister; all they can wish for is to peacefully enjoy such rights and privileges as are customary for this kind of position: consuls are but merchants who, regardless of their role as judges in disputes that may arise between their co-nationals, maintain their trading activity and are subject to the civil and criminal laws of their host country; and this is incompatible with a position as public minister”.3 It was in fact not uncommon for other merchants to raise their voices in protest when consuls gained some sort of privilege or were conceded some sort of advantage. 2. ASFi, MP, 2215, letter from Del Borro to Panciatichi, 15 December 1694. See also BLLi, Fondo della Accademia Labronica, ms. 79, f. 106v, Sommario delle massime governative riguardanti i consoli esteri residenti in Livorno. This document insisted that in Livorno consuls were always considered to be merely representatives and leaders of their co-nationals, regardless of their persistent attempts to be assimilated into their state’s diplomatic mission and therefore to be recognised as public officials. 3. Quoted in Antonio Bernal de O’Reilly, Elementos para el ejercicio de la carrera consular (Bayona: Moncla, 1883), 205 and 206.

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According to Pradells, between 1700 and 1808, 38.32 per cent of Spanish consuls serving abroad were directly involved with trade.4 And the close connection between consuls operating outside their home state and commercial activity in the seventeenth century was the argument used by host governments not to grant them greater powers. For all that, the governments on which the consuls depended took advantage of the versatility and ambivalence of their position and, by increasing their control over them, used them to forward their own agenda, in a process parallel to that of the consolidation of the modern state itself. It is clear that, in practice, consuls engaged in activities that exceeded their commercial duties. Grendi has wondered whether the lateness of the arrival of the first British ambassador in Genoa might not have been caused by his already carrying out occasional diplomatic tasks on behalf of his government in that port.5 Hamilton and Langhorne have, for their part, exposed the possible diplomatic activity of the Venetian consul in Constantinople; they suggest that, although in theory not a diplomat, this official was indeed used for diplomatic purposes and could be the origin of the figure of the permanent ambassador.6 The case of the Spanish consul in Livorno was perhaps the most noteworthy, since for more than thirty years he was in practice the highest representative of the Spanish crown in Tuscany until the arrival of an official diplomatic envoy, the Dominican priest Ascanio, in 1709.7 The legal status of consuls depended on the importance accorded them by their governments. The Dutch Republic is a good illustration of this, since its consular network in the Iberian Peninsula took precedence over the establishment of a representative of the States-General in Madrid; the role of the first of these consuls, Baron Henrik van Reede van Renswoude, was eminently commercial in nature.8 But Trampus points out that foreign affairs were closely linked to trade policy, and that, for this reason, the earliest representatives of the Venetian Republic were not ambassadors, but consuls with commercial and administrative functions.9 In the same vein, Curtin has argued that the use of 4. Jesús Pradells Nadal, Diplomacia y comercio. La expansión consular española en el siglo XVIII (Alicante: University of Alicante, 1992), 95. 5. Edoardo Grendi, “Gli inglesi a Genova”, Quaderni Storici 115 (2004): 289. 6. Keith Hamilton and Richard Langhorne, The practice of diplomacy: its evolution, theory and administration (Oxon: Routledge, 1995), 34. 7. As developed in the author’s PhD thesis, La utilización de la institución consular: el caso de Andrés de Silva en Livorno (1677-1717). 8. Manuel Herrero Sánchez, “Las relaciones de dependencia económica entre la Monarquía Hispánica y las Provincias Unidas de 1648 a 1680. La red consular holandesa en los puertos españoles”, in: Espacios urbanos, mundos ciudadanos. España y Holanda (ss. XVI-XVII), eds. Alfredo Alvar Ezquerra, José Manuel de Bernardo Ares and Pere Molas Ribalta (Córdoba: University of Córdoba, 1998), 101. Van Reede was not declared official representative of the StatesGeneral in Madrid until 1656. The Dutch consular network was particularly active from 1648. 9. Antonio Trampus, “Le diplomate vénitien entre les XVIe et XVIIIe siècles: statut, rôles et functions”, in: Le diplomate en question (XVe-XVIIIe siècles), eds. Eva Pibiri and Guillaume

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consuls as diplomatic representatives and middlemen between governments probably went back to the late Middle Ages.10 According to Nicolini, the same applied to the Venetian consul in Puglia, who in practice enjoyed wide diplomatic powers.11 And Brancaccio has suggested that the Genoese consulship in Naples became, by virtue of the political and personal ability of the consuls, a representative diplomatic institution, a corporate body, a magistracy with its own legal structure: in short, a highly autonomous institution of considerable political significance.12 Margery Lane, on the other hand, has stated that consuls were “purely commercial agents, and only took part in politics in absence of a diplomatic representative”,13 an idea given weight by the case of the Spanish consul in Lisbon, who petitioned the Spanish government for an annual pension, with the argument that he had been carrying out ambassadorial duties for eighteen months in the absence of an official royal representative.14 For all that, the position of consuls remained unregulated until well into the eighteenth century, the only exception being the 1681 French attempt to formalise consular relations when, as part of the formulation and categorisation of all maritime trades, the French minister Colbert set forth a series of guidelines for the exercise of consular duties. For land-based trades, a similar regulation had been passed in 1673. In general, because of this lack of definition, consuls differed from ambassadors and other diplomats in their freedom and manoeuvrability. This fact allowed them to exercise certain functions without arousing suspicions between governments and thus it placed them in a crucial position for the service of the state. Most probably, then, the appointment of the Spanish consuls in Palermo and Messina in 1716 was driven by the need of strategic and political information conducive to the reacquisition of Sicily: “Because of the limited activity to be had there, due to the lack of Spanish traders in Sicily, [the two consuls’] main job will be to inform the King of all news with the utmost punctuality”.15 Also of significance, was the inexpensiveness of consuls as opposed to ambassadors; this was partly due to the fact that, until their office gained profesPoisson (University of Lausanne: 2010), 119-136. I would like to thank the author for giving me the initial draft for this work. On Venetian consuls see also Maria Pia Pedani, “Consoli veneziani nei porti del Mediterraneo in età moderna”, Mediterranea. Ricerche Storiche 7 (2006): 117-147. 10. Philip Curtin, Mercanti, commercio e cultura dall’antichità al XIX secolo (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 1988). 11. Nicola Nicolini, “Il consolato generale veneto nel regno di Napoli”, Archivio Storico per le province napoletane 13 (1927): 107. 12. Giovanni Brancaccio, ‘Nazione genovese’. Consoli e colonia nella Napoli moderna (Naples: Guida, 2001), 201. 13. The diplomatic service under William III, Royal Historical Society Transactions, Fourth Series, vol. X, (1926): 87-109, quotation taken from Gigliola Pagano De Divitiis, Il commercio inglese nel Mediterraneo dal ‘500 al ‘700. Corrispondenza consolare e documentazione britannica tra Napoli e Londra (Naples: Guida, 1984), 36. 14. He considered himself a ‘public official’. 15. AHN, E, 675, 5/3/1716.

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sional status, not all consuls received remuneration, which, in any case, was paltry. The financial compensation, when available, was justified in this way: “it is important to keep him in that port so he can continue to provide news of what is going on there”.16 The main economic benefits for the consul were those that he managed to obtain for himself by taking advantage of his privileged position (which obviously improved his socio-economic standing in the port), the trade activities of his co-nationals and his own commercial enterprises. One of the functions of consuls abroad was to act as a source of information. The dense international consular trade network – composed of agents, dependents, other consuls, mercantile colonies and correspondents17 – was one of the state’s most efficient channels for the transmission of reliable information. In other words, the consul’s commercial connections were considered by the appointing government to be directly proportional to the amount of information which the consul could potentially gather. This information, originally gleaned for reasons of trade, was thereafter used for diplomatic purposes.18 Paolo Preto, referring to the Venetian case, has analysed the role played by merchants in the collecting of intelligence and their exploitation by governments: they were in an ideal position to supply political, military and, obviously, commercial information.19 Case study: the Ginori brothers As already said, the acquisition and provision of information was a lateral and common element of consular activity. Consular licences repeatedly insisted on the consuls’ obligation to supply news from their point of destination. A study which compared the exercise of consular activities in Venice and the United Provinces revealed the governments’ constant demands for information.20 Through contacts with the perpetual influx of ship-owners and sea captains to 16. AGS, E, 3691, document 168, 28/6/1663. A letter from the viceroy in Naples to the Count of Peñaranda regarding a grant to the Spanish consul in Livorno, Antonio Borgi, for the usefulness of his remaining in the post. 17. Mario Infelise, “La circolazione dell’informazione commerciale”, in: Il Rinascimento italiano e l’Europa, vol. IV: Commercio e cultura mercantile, eds. Franco Franceschi, Richard Goldthwaite and Reinhold Mueller (Vicenza: Colla, 2007): 499-522. 18. Information played a crucial role in the English strive for hegemony in the Mediterranean in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As expressed in a letter of 1719 sent by Craggs, the Secretary of State, to Fleetwood, the English consul in Naples, his task was to pass on all news regarding captured enemy ships, giving details of names, cargo, value and port of origin. One of the main posts of the Naples-based network was Livorno, from where information was redistributed to other locations. See Pagano De Divitiis, Commercio inglese nel Mediterraneo, 38. 19. Paolo Preto, I servizi segreti di Venezia (Milan: Il Saggiatore, 2004); more recently, by the same author, see “Lo spionaggio economico”, in: Rinascimento italiano e l’Europa, vol. IV, 523-541. 20. Antonio Trampus, “La formazione del diritto consolare moderno a Venezia e nelle Provincie Unite tra Seicento e Settecento”, Rivista di Storia del Diritto Italiano 67 (1994): 317.

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harbours, the consuls were provided with plentiful first-hand information which was subsequently passed on to their governments. Through their presence in the harbours the consuls became knowledgeable about events, trends and prices and, additionally, they compiled intelligence through correspondence with agents stationed at the main commercial ports and, in the seventeenth century, they were permanently in touch with their governments, either directly or via the nearest embassies. Barker has highlighted how the consuls’ personal commercial interests were often a vital source of useful information.21 Our case study focuses on the Florentine consuls in the all-important Atlantic nodes of Cádiz and Lisbon, both of whom were members of the same merchant family, the Ginori, whose roots lay among Florentine nobility. Not much is known about Lorenzo Ginori, the consul in Lisbon, though it seems likely that he was linked to Brazilian sugar concerns. However, Francesco Ginori, who maintained a limited partnership with the Marquis Rinuccini and Bernardo Cambi, is somewhat better known.22 His frequent presence in senatorial offices and his admission to the Order of St. Stephen during the eighteenth century is well documented.23 21. With the exception of the Venetian case, considered a model for the development of commercial information networks, consular correspondence has not received close attention. On this neglect see Theo Barker, “Consular reports: a rich but neglected historical source”, Business History 23 (1981/3): 265 and 266. The importance of consular correspondence to and from Cádiz, as an Atlantic node, has been highlighted in Emiliano Fernández de Pinedo, “Comercio colonial semiperiferización de la Monarquía Hispana en la segunda mitad del siglo XVII”, in: Desigualdad y dependencia. La periferización del Mediterráneo occidental (siglos XII-XIX), eds. María Teresa Pérez Picazo, Guy Lemeunier and Pedro Segura (Murcia: Áreas, Revista de Ciencias Sociales, 1986), 121-131. See also for the French case, Albert Girard, El comercio francés en Sevilla y Cádiz en tiempo de los Habsburgo. Contribución al estudio del comercio extranjero en la España de los siglos XVI al XVIII (Renacimiento: Centro de Estudios Andaluces, 2006). For the English case see Frédéric Mauro, “Moneda y finanzas de España vistas desde Londres (16701740)” in: Dinero y crédito (siglos XVI al XIX), ed. Alfonso Otazu (Madrid: Benzal, 1978), 173-186. 22. On Francesco Ginori in Cádiz and the difficulties experienced by his society at the beginning of the eighteenth century, see María Guadalupe Carrasco González, Comerciantes y casas de negocios en Cádiz, 1650-1700 (Cádiz: University of Cádiz, 1997), 56 and 57. Documents regarding the business activities of the Ginori brothers are to be found not only in Cádiz and Lisbon (Archivo Histórico Provincial and Torre do Tombo respectively) but also in the Notarile section of the ASFi. Some evidence points towards the frequent participation of Francesco Ginori in the insurance business in Cádiz between 1670 and 1700; see María Guadalupe Carrasco González, Los instrumentos del comercio colonial en el Cádiz del siglo XVII, 1650-1700 (Cádiz: Estudios de Historia Económica, no. 35, 1996), 171. 23. The gentry certificate of the Ginori dates to 8 August 1677, and mentions that the four Ginori brothers, Lorenzo, Francesco, Bartolomeo and Niccolò (sons of the senator Carlo and Fiammetta Oricellari) were dispersed throughout Europe highlighting the commercial origins of the family. See Franco Angiolini, I cavalieri e il principe. L’Ordine di Santo Stefano e la società toscana in età moderna (Florence: Edifir, 1997), 86. For a comprehensive view on this family see: DBI, 55 (2000), 26-53, and Marcella Aglietti, Le tre nobiltà. La legislazione nobiliare del Granducato di Toscana (1750) tra Magistrature civiche, Ordine di Santo Stefano e Diplomi del Principe (Pisa: ETS, 2000), 41 and 232.

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Francesco settled in Cádiz and Lorenzo in Lisbon, the latter to be later substituted by his brother Niccolò. The fourth brother, Bartolomeo, acted as consul in Seville, not as the representative of Florence, but of the Danish merchants, illustrating the trans-national nature of these figures and their role in facilitating trade between nations with markedly different linguistic and legal traditions. Thus the Ginori, acting as a family network between Lisbon, Cádiz, Seville and Florence – where the head of the family, Carlo Ginori, lived – served the agenda of the Florentine government by offering a water-tight source of information. A similar role was played by the Dutch Calchberner brothers in their consulships in Livorno and Aleppo, both very active ports throughout the seventeenth century. Another like case is that of the Venetian brothers, Bernardo and Andrea Bonenchi, who simultaneously occupied the Florentine and British consulships in the port of Cagliari.24 This strong institutional position was clearly beneficial to the private interests of these families. The Medici family built a specialised library in which to deposit documents about America, which were essentially the records of travellers such as Carletti in Panama and New Spain. Information regarding the East Indies, based on the writings of Filippo Sassetti, was stored in the same way.25 The Medici displayed an unfailing interest in American trade. Operating from Livorno, and with the cooperation of Pedro de Silva Enriques, agent of the Portuguese king and representative of the Brazilian General Company as well as of the latter’s contacts in Lisbon, they imported cargoes of Brazilian sugar into Tuscany. Indeed, later in the seventeenth century the Spanish crown complained that Portuguese (and Catalonian) merchants were trading in Livorno just as they had done before the revolt against Spain in 1640. Furthermore, the Grand Duke appointed a Portuguese national to the post of minister for Grascia, and one of the ships belonging to the Bonacorsi was reserved for the route between Livorno and Lisbon. According to Ciano, the Medicis understood that the garnering of exhaustive information was an essential for trading with certain overseas ports.26 Part of the information they required concerned the products and commercial possibilities offered by those other lands and in this the Florentine consuls in Lis24. ASFi, ASR, 281, Bernardo Bonenchi, of Venetian origins and appointed to the position of English consul in Cagliari by a dispatch of King James in 1686, once reported that “it is important to keep him in that port so he can continue to provide news of what is going on there” and requested the appointment of his brother, Andrea Bonenchi, as Florentine consul, who was “available for free to inform on His Highness’ behalf”. His brother was appointed on 26 May 1691, see ASFi, Auditore, 280. 25. These letters have often been published, for example in Francesco Carletti, Ragionamenti del mio viaggio intorno al mondo, 1594-1606 (Florence: Giuseppe Manni, 1701) and Ettore Marcucci, Lettere edite e inedite di Filippo Sassetti (1855) (Florence: Nabu Press, 2010). 26. Cesare Ciano, “Portogallo, Toscana e Livorno tra Medio Evo ed Età Moderna”, Studi Livornesi 4 (1989): 57-69. The author died while writing the article, the later sections of which are incomplete.

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bon and Cádiz played a determinant role, regularly reporting on the success enjoyed by Florentine wool and silk manufactures in their ports.27 According to Carrasco González, the idea of launching a trade company with the Spanish Americas, with bases in Cádiz and Lisbon, was entertained in Florence between 1666 and 1670.28 It seems clear that it was because of the encouraging information it had received, that the Florentine government decided to take steps to promote its industries by reaching an agreement with Madrid for the channelling of Tuscan products through Cádiz into Spanish and American markets. One of the two memoranda cited expressed high hopes for the success of the venture, hopes based on the belief that Spanish antipathy towards the French would prompt the government in Madrid to do business with the Tuscans instead,29 but the hopes were later unfulfilled. According to the memorandum sent in early 1670, the Spanish and French crowns had agreed that French merchants could send to Spanish ports two million textile pieces, on which a draconian twenty per cent tax would be imposed. Moreover, the pieces had to be exchanged for Spanish or American products and therefore no retail sale in exchange for cash was allowed. The agreement, however, was being violated not only because the French were sending more than the stipulated amount of goods, but also because they were being retailed in Spanish markets: “the French have waged war against the Spaniards with the Spaniards’ own money, with the profits of defaulting on the twenty percent tax and the gains of illegally selling their goods for cash”.30 The memorandum proceeded to explain the need for the agreement, adding that Cádiz and Livorno were strategically important and that the initial investment that was needed amounted to just a few escudos and three agents to control the route: one to supervise the manufacturing of products, another in Livorno for the loading of cargoes and another in Cádiz to receive them (with the consul no doubt also having a key role), to monitor their distribution in Spain and America, and to order more stock when necessary. An anonymous memorandum dating from the mid seventeenth century suggests that this plan was already being put into action, for a trading company was to be created in Florence and would operate its own ships from Livorno, also 27. Regarding news passed by L. Ginori see ASFi, MP, 5065, letters corresponding to the years 1678-1681. 28. Carrasco González, Comerciantes y casas de negocios en Cádiz, 37. The documents consulted by the author are under the ASFi, Segreteria Vecchia, 20. 29. ASFi, MP, 5062, ff. 21 y 22, “This kind of traffic could miraculously lift the silk and wool sector in the lands of the ‘serenisimo’ Grand Duke, the number of his subjects would soar and Tuscany would be a plentiful and a blessed country”, see also the memorandum sent Vieri di Castiglione, a knight in the Spanish court. The letter, sent from Pisa and dating to 18 January 1669 (Pisan year), explained that the information conveyed was to be passed to whoever necessary. 30. Ibid.

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allowing for trade elsewhere in Italy, Spain and Germany: “not having business elsewhere for now”.31 Initially intended to operate for nine years, the company welcomed the investment of Tuscans and other nationals, participants receiving an annual six per cent return on their capital. The company enjoyed several privileges and was exempt from duties and taxes and had a management board of eight members elected by stakeholders who had invested over 500 Spanish dollars. Their term of office lasted two years. The purpose of the company was to open a protected route with Spain and to formalise the commercial relationship between Florentine merchants and Andalusian harbours and thus extend the market to Atlantic and Tuscan products “hoping that this new company may be very beneficial for our state and for our neighbours”.32 As mentioned above, Lisbon and Cádiz were constantly under the commercial radar of the Medicis, and the Ginoris had an important function to fulfil in this, acting as a major source of information. The news they dispatched covered a wide range of issues. Letters sent from Florence reveal the avidity and impatience with which news, most particularly regarding new products and consumption patterns, was awaited by the government and the Tuscan elite, and the readiness with which it was supplied by the consuls. The correspondence reflects the fascination with products such as araticù, from Pernambuco, the fruit and seed of which were described and drawn in detail by Lorenzo Ginori himself.33 Sperienze Naturali (1671), by Francesco Redi, a physician and naturalist in the service of the Grand Duke, reproduced a letter from a Portuguese Jesuit which gave the same descriptions of the unusual wild soursop plant that Ginori had provided, and also described such exotic animals as the capricaia (a type of pig that is now extinct) and the talking parrot34, new ingredients for the preparation of chocolate, and novel recipes for sweets and egg and meat dishes.35 Other products, such as sweet oranges, cocoa, tobacco, nuts, bananas, black ebony and fig trees, were not only described, but also supplied by the consuls through the operation of commercial networks which had agents in America, Madrid (the destination of many American products),36 and contacts 31. ASFi, MM, 377, dossier 59. Although undated and unsigned, this proposal was presented to the Grand Duke Ferdinando II, so it must have been written in the mid seventeenth century. 32. Ibid. 33. ASFi, MP, 5063, 22 June 1671, letter from L. Ginori to Florence. 34. For example, the capricaia is mentioned in the letter referred to in the previous footnote. Regarding the talking parrot see ASFi, MP, 5063, 27 March 1673, letter from Florence to L. Ginori. 35. ASFi, MP, 5063, 17 December 1674, letter from Florence to F. Ginori, in Cádiz: “From the Spaniards and Portuguese in Livorno I have heard of three drugs used as ingredients for chocolate. They are as follows: Palomage, Mecachuches, Orejuelas”. The letter asked him to obtain these ingredients. 36. Madrid, seat of the Spanish court and Cádiz, the main commercial harbour, were permanently in contact. See Manuel Herrero Sánchez, “La Monarquía Hispánica y las comunidades extranjeras, el espacio del comercio y del intercambio en Madrid y Cádiz en el siglo XVII”, Torre de los Lujanes 46 (2002): 97-116.

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among the Jesuits. These information networks also included Father Mello, Florentine envoy to Lisbon, and Ridolfi and Castiglione, envoys to Madrid at different times. Both consuls also provided a constant flow of information about the political situation in America. Lorenzo Ginori confirmed public appointments, such as that of the new viceroy Francisco de Távora, adding that “a good government can be very beneficial to our nation and the Catholic faith”,37 and reported the conflict on the coast of Buenos Aires between Spanish and Portuguese in 1680 over the colony of Sacramento, and how the French had encouraged the colony to sever relations with Spain.38 In performing these tasks, Lorenzo Ginori took advantage of his good relationship with the Jesuits in Lisbon, who also supplied news from America. For his part, Francesco Ginori passed on information from Cádiz about piratical activities in the Caribbean and official appointments in Cádiz harbour.39 Of particular interest are his views on the appointment of Colomba as the new public prosecutor against contraband in 1692. He seemed to be more lenient than the previous one, Antonio Caballero, under whose mandate private correspondence regarding the illegal extraction of silver, the shipment of foreign goods to America and constant communication with the French, was intercepted.40 The Ginori family was involved in these cases, and their property in Cádiz and Seville was seized.41 From Florence, the opinion that this rigorous attitude would not encourage American trade was expressed as follows: “if the current policy hinders the Fleet and scares the merchants away, the government will see if it is convenient to keep such a rigorous system”.42 Using his sources in Madrid, Francesco Ginori alerted his government to rumours circulating in the capital, which seemed to point to an imminent increase of control over the American trade by changing the commercial nexus from Cádiz to Sanlúcar or 37. ASFi, MP, 5065, letter by L. Ginori, 1 April 1681. 38. This conflict was solved through a seventeen-article treaty recognising the excesses committed by the Spanish governor of Buenos Aires, reported to Florence by the Florentine representative in Madrid, Vieri di Castiglione, as follows: “News about the events in the new colony of Sacramento, in the Captaincy of St. Vicente, in the place called St. Gabriel near the shores of Río de la Plata and provisional treaty over the new incident caused by the governor of Buenos Aires, negotiated in this court of Lisbon between the Duke Iovenaso Prince of Chelemar Ambassador Extraordinary for the Catholic king and the representatives of His Highness: approved, endorsed and confirmed by both princes. Lisbon. 1681”. By virtue of this treaty, the Spanish crown recognised the foundation in January 1680 of the Portuguese colony of Sacramento, sanctioned by the governor in Rio de Janeiro, Manoel Lobo, ASFi, MP, 4982. 39. ASFi, MP, 5067, 18 May 1687. F. Ginori, on the arrival of fully loaded galleons from Buenos Aires, also informs about piratical activities. 40. ASFi, MP, 5068, letters between F. Ginori and the Florentine government, 16 October and 27 December 1692. 41. ASFi, MP, 5069, 13 April 1692, F. Ginori denounces the seizure of his property and that of his brother in Seville. 42. ASFi, MP, 5069, letter from the Florentine government to F. Ginori, 19 May 1692.

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Seville;43 this qualifies the view that insists on a foreign-controlled and fraudridden trade favoured by institutional neglect.The Florentine government made good use of the information generated by the consuls in Lisbon and Cádiz. Indeed, the former maintained contacts with individuals who were to become instrumental in the resolution of diverse problems affecting the Florentine state. In 1688, Niccolò Ginori, the then consul in Lisbon, received a comprehensive memorandum for presentation to the theologians at Evora and Coimbra universities. Written in order to block ecclesiastical interference in Livorno harbour, especially with regard to the Jewish community, it concerned the jurisdiction of princes over the Church, and the limits of the immunity due to Church members.44 Also in Lisbon, Lorenzo Ginori was commissioned with arranging the marriage of the children of Cosimo III, Anna and Ferdinando, with Peter II of Portugal and his only daughter, Isabel Luisa; only the second of these marriages could be arranged, though it never took place.45 The Lisbon consul was also tasked with finding a Portuguese letterato, a lawyer or physician, to cover a vacant position at the University of Pisa, which demonstrates how the Grand Duke held Portuguese scholars in high esteem; eventually, on the advice of local clergy, Ginori sent the Brazilian born doctor Diego Lopes de Ultroa.46 Apart from these reports on the Spanish and Portuguese courts, the consular correspondence also conveyed news about the conditions of hygiene in local harbours, ship movements and cargo arrivals. This commercial intelligence was complemented by reports in the consul’s letters on price oscillation, merchants, and trade routes served from the Atlantic harbours. As regards the Florentine consul in Lisbon, dispatches often notified of ships arriving from Mozambique and Goa. The consul in Cádiz also reported on the price of silver and the movements of fleets and galleons: the arribada of the Spanish fleet was eagerly awaited in Florence for its economic input, especially if it arrived later than normal “to offer this dejected Europe some respite with its cargoes”;47 these goods were later redistributed throughout Europe, helping to stimulate the economy of various regions: “the cargoes from the fleet have started to arrive in Livorno, allowing trade to breathe again”.48 43. ASFi, MP, 5067, 2 August 1687, letter from F. Ginori to Florence. The consul warned that Cádiz “will become nothing but a fort again, because trade will go wherever it is better treated”. 44. ASFi, MP, 5066, 14 May 1688. 45. See Luigi Passerini, Genealogia e Storia della famiglia Ginori (Florence: Cellini, 1876), 72 and 73; ASFi, MP, 5066. 46. ASFi, MP, 5065, letter between the consul and Florence between 1678 and 1681. 47. ASFi, MP, 5069, letter from Florence to F. Ginori, showing that trade greatly depended on the convoys arriving from America, 27 November 1691; ASFi, MP, 5067, 2 December 1685, F. Ginori on the forecasted drop in silver prices. The significance of consular news regarding the arrival of American silver has been surveyed by Michel Morineau, Incroyables gazettes et fabuleux métaux. Les retours des trésors américains d´après les gazettes hollandaises, XVI-XVIIIe siècles (Cambridge-Paris: Cambridge University Press, 1985). This information has also been used to adjust the official figures collected by Earl Jefferson Hamilton. 48. ASFi, MP, 5068, 22 February 1688. Letter from Florence to F. Ginori in Cádiz.

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Owing to the proximity of Cádiz to the north African coast, Francesco Ginori also gave his government news of that region. This included reports on the pressure applied by the Muslims and Algerian militias on Oran, in August 1688,49 the loss of Larache in October 168950 and, years later, the Muslim attempts to besiege Ceuta.51 Cádiz was clearly a hotspot of international intelligence, especially during the Nine Years’ War.52 From there the consul was able to inform on French movements not only around the city, but also in more distant regions, for instance, the Catalonian region of Ampurdan where the French laid siege to Rosas.53 Additionally, consuls reported on ongoing wars and, more crucially, gave warning of potential conflicts and blockades, thereby allowing new sea routes to be surveyed. For example, a letter sent by Fabio and Camilo del Vene’s company in Livorno, to Andrés de Silva, who was later to be appointed Spanish consul in that city but was then managing the family businesses in Naples, said: “there being no business to speak of, we shall have to report new wars”54. Andrés de Silva was then already an informant of the Crown and his letter passed on details about the French pressure and the military situation in Flanders, an area far away from the Mediterranean but logistically essential for the Spanish based in Milan and Naples. The state of war was a significant factor in the evolution of the consular office and its exploitation. In late 1711, after Florence had recognised the imperial consuls in her ports during the War of the Spanish Succession, Spain issued a decree ordering the expulsion of the Florentine consuls, thus theoretically terminating their activities. This severely threatened Francesco Ginori’s position as a source of information, but, as it happened, this source did not dry up thanks to the degree to which he had integrated with Cádiz society.55 Though his naturalisation was at one point in danger, he had qualified for different positions in the Casa de la Contratación, in Seville and also in America, so his request to remain as a private citizen was accepted, mirroring other cases of Italian 49. ASFi, MP, 5067. It appears that by December the pressure on this Spanish garrison had eased. 50. ASFi, MP, 5068, letters from F. Ginori to Florence in October 1689. 51. ASFi, MP, 5069, in 14 September 1692, F. Ginori reported that the Muslims were ready to attack Ceuta; ASFi, MP, 5070, 29 March 1695, from Florence to Ginori, where Ginori’s reports on the Muslim pressure on Ceuta is mentioned; 22 May 1695, F. Ginori had been informed that the Muslim plan to besiege Ceuta had been abandoned, ibid. 52. ASFi, MP, 5068, 3 April 1689, F. Ginori reported on the movements of the French fleet, in expectance of a declaration of war by the crown. French soldiers and officers passed from Gibraltar to Barcelona in four galleys; 29 May 1689, F. Ginori reported on the war declared against Christianity, ibid.; ASFi, MP, 5070, 5 July 1693, F. Ginori gave news on the allied ships attacked by the French navy in the Bay of Cádiz. 53. ASFi, MP, 5070, 7 July 1693, F. Ginori to Florence. 54. AHN, E, 4907 (I), Letter, 11 July 1672. 55. For a more detailed view on the expulsion decree, see the essay by Marcella Aglietti in this volume.

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consuls similarly affected by the expulsion. Thus the flow of information from Cádiz to Florence continued uninterrupted.56 As for Lorenzo Ginori, he was appointed Provveditore in Livorno’s custom house.57 The knowledge he had gained as the consul in Lisbon and his experience abroad were no doubt decisive in his promotion to this office, one of the most important in the Grand Duchy. Conclusion The figure of consul had a multifaceted nature because it was a hybrid politico-commercial position held by a man with private concerns and an extensive personal network of contacts. And that network was the reason for the consul’s appointment since it demonstrated his capacity to be a source of information for his government. These networks of contacts, in their function as suppliers of news, also provided the consuls themselves with enormous opportunities for socio-economic promotion, not only in their appointed ports (for example, Francesco Ginori) but also in government at home (for example, Lorenzo). This situation must be set against the background of a lack of definition, a blurring as to where the line lay between the theory of the institution and its practice. This vagueness increased the potential versatility of consular action, greatly enhancing the consuls’ usefulness as power and information tools for their governments.

56. AHN, E, 661 (II), 28 May 1712. Document treating F. Ginori’s – consul in Cádiz since 1679 – application to remain in Cádiz as a private citizen. 57. ASFi, MM, 414. “Teatro di grazia e di giustizia o vero formulario de rescritti a tutte le cariche, che conferisce il Ser. mo G. Duca di Toscana per via dell’Ufizio delle tratte. Dedicato da Niccolò Arrighi all’AR del Ser. mo Cosimo III suo clementissimo Signore. Parte Seconda che contiene gl’ufizi e cariche per fuori della città di Firenze”: Provveditore, ff. 99r-100r. This same document specifies that L. Ginori occupied this position between 28 February 1688 and 21 February 1694. His successor was Francesco Terriesi.

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The Tuscan Edict of 1748 and ancien régime maritime legislation Daniele Edigati

Introduction: ancien régime states and maritime law Between the end of the seventeenth century and the third quarter of the eighteenth the European states faced several common problems relating to trade and maritime institutions. These included the following: a reduction in trade and the spread of piracy, which called for the creation or reorganisation of merchant fleets; the increased incidence of desertions in the navy, to be addressed by better recruitment and disciplinary measures; the high port charges; the tangled jurisdictional mess that encumbered commercial cases. In the field of maritime law, the disjointedness and the dispersion of sources, which typified the whole legal panorama in the early modern era, was heightened by the purely customary nature of its regulations. The discipline of maritime navigation was sanctioned by custom and laws, in large part taken from the book Consolato del mare, which in the middle of the eighteenth century remained an indispensable benchmark for jurists and maritime courts. Certain decisions taken by Florence’s civil Ruota bore eloquent witness to this,1 but much more so did the esteem in which no less a figure than the lawyer Pompeo Neri held the book.2 Precisely because maritime matters were already covered by the Consolato he saw no need for his codification of Tuscan laws to deal with them. The response of the ancient Italian states was directed towards wide-ranging strategies, which in a legal-institutional setting envisaged the creation of chambers of commerce or authorities with extensive terms of reference. Their main purpose was to act as consultative bodies for the study of the unpredictable situation and to propose trade-stimulating measures. 1. Giovanni Paolo Ombrosi, Selectarum Rotae Florentinae decisionum thesaurus (Florence: Bonducciana, 1767-1787), III, 345 (decisio 46, Liburnensis Assecurationis super interesse et expensis of 14 September 1703 coram A. Farsetti, n. 7). 2. Marcello Verga, Da “cittadini” a “nobili”. Lotta politica e riforma delle istituzioni nella Toscana di Francesco Stefano (Milan: Giuffrè, 1990), 341.

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A second series of provisions was aimed at setting up compact regulatory bodies that could enact a maritime public law based on the principles of the police; usually the latter determined from the outset the roles of those involved in shipping, subjecting them to state control; it also sought to limit private negotiations and agreements, especially when these clearly touched the interests of the sovereigns. These, therefore, were not new initiatives but mainly the written codification of institutional mechanisms that had often already been tried out. The Venetian Capitoli di regolazione alla navigazion mercantile belonged to this type of expedient. Having been issued in 1682 in the wake of the French Ordonnance,3 though not officially promulgated, they were effectively in force until 1786. The Republic of Genoa’s Capitoli di leggi dell’Illustrissimo Magistrato de’ Signori Conservatori del mare, which dated back to August 1712 were similarly important. A further phase in which such compilations were issued took place just before and after the middle of the eighteenth century. In addition to the Tuscan measure of 1748, there were the Capitoli et ordini per l’uffizio e giudicatura del porto di Rimini (1745),4 the rulings of Charles of Bourbon in Naples (1741, 1751, 1759),5 the edict for the port of Nice in the states of Savoy (1749), followed by a steady flow of internal regulations from within the maritime sector.6 The political Edict of Trieste, issued in 1774, also belonged to this type of legislative work, despite it dating back to 1758 and being strongly connected to the Tuscan experience through Pasquale de’ Ricci.7 In this article I propose to take a look at the Tuscan edict of 1748, placing it in the same context as the provisions described above: far from attempting to advance real codifications or a complete overhaul of this branch of law – as had been done after great effort in France and Sweden8 – the Italian states9 occupied 3. Regarding which, in the absence of specific studies, see Jean Chadelat, “L’élaboration de l’Ordonnance de la marine d’août 1681”, Revue historique de droit français et étranger, 32 (1954): 74-98, 228-253. 4. Maria Lucia De Nicolò, Microcosmi mediterranei: la comunità dei pescatori nell’età moderna (Bologna: CLUEB, 2004), 265. 5. Domenico Alfeno Vario, Pragmaticae edicta decreta interdicta regiaeque sanctiones Regni neapoletani olim viri consultissimi collegerunt suisque titulis tribuerunt Prosper Caravita (...) (Naples: Cervoni, 1772), II, 582-614. 6. Gustavo Mola di Nomaglio, “La bandiera di Savoia sul mare”, Studi piemontesi 30 (2001): 397-415. 7. Francesco Basilio, Origine e sviluppo del nostro diritto marittimo (Trieste: Trani, 1914), but also Maria Grazia Biagi, Giuseppe Pasquale Ricci funzionario imperiale a Trieste (17511791). Primi risultati di una ricerca (Pisa: Ets, 1986), 24-28 and Antonio Trampus, Tradizione storica e rinnovamento politico: la cultura nel Litorale Austriaco e nell’Istria tra Settecento e Ottocento (Udine: Del Bianco, 2008), 228-230. 8. Regarding both see Domenico Alberto Azuni, Origine et progrès du droit et de la législation maritime, avec des observations sur le Consulat de la mer (Paris: Cérioux jeune, 1810) and Jean-Marie Pardessus, Collection de loix maritimes antérieures au XVIII siècle (Paris: Imprimerie royale, 1828-1845), III, 134-204; IV, 221-418. 9. In Italy the first systematic compilation, and the first to be relatively exhaustive in relation to maritime issues was the Venetian collection published in 1786, regarding which see Giorgio Zordan, Il codice per la veneta mercantile marina (Padova: Cedam, 1981-1987), 2 vols.

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themselves with reorganising the parts deemed most relevant to navigation. Their end goal was to re-launch maritime trade which had been hard hit by the conflicts that had played havoc in the Mediterranean between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The arrival of the House of Lorraine and the first interventions on maritime trade In the Medici era, the attention given to maritime law was somewhat limited and there were in fact only two notable interventions, both carried out under Cosimo III: a public edict that formed an ineffectual harbour police,10 and which was later also emanated by the Regency, as well as the creation – albeit with little impact – of a chamber of commerce.11 The Medici dynasty’s interest in the navy issue focused on the port of Livorno, which was run autonomously by a governor and was given free rein to encourage use by foreign merchants. Over the years shipping and all involved in it had become regulated by customs and procedures that in time became more clearly settled (as the notebook of the auditor Giuseppe Pierallini demonstrated in the mid-eighteenth century).12 Tellingly, the government had no intention to set these in writing lest by doing so they might hinder maritime trade. In contrast, the approach of the Lorrainese, influenced by the theories of the policy of public felicity, which implied direct state intervention to control and guide every sector of the economy, was expressed with greater clarity. The circulation of new ideas about trade that started in the early years of the Regency has already been written about,13 as has the debate concerning the setting up of an agency to control maritime traffic: the Council of Commerce (Consiglio di commercio), which got under way in 1746.14 10. Lorenzo Cantini, Legislazione toscana raccolta e illustrata (Florence: Fantosini, 18001808), XX, 321-326. 11. Daniele Baggiani, “Tra crisi commerciali e interventi istituzionali. Le vicende del porto di Livorno in età tardo medicea (1714-1730)”, Rivista storica italiana 104 (1992): 678-729. 12. On Pierallini: Calogero Piazza, Schiavitù e guerra dei barbareschi. Orientamenti toscani di politica transmarina (1747-1768) (Milan: Giuffrè, 1983), 18-83; Marcella Aglietti, “Il governo di Livorno: profili politici e istituzionali nella seconda metà del Settecento”, in: Livorno 1606-1806: luogo di incontro tra popoli e culture, ed. Adriano Prosperi (Livorno: Allemandi, 2006), 95-106. 13. Antonella Alimento, “Tra ‘gelosie’ personali e ‘gelosie’ tra gli stati: i progetti del governatore Carlo Ginori e la circolazione della cultura economica e politica a Livorno (1747-1757)”, Nuovi studi livornesi 16 (2009): 63-95. 14. Daniele Baggiani, “Livorno e la polizia del commercio. Formula politica, prassi istituzionale (1737-1748)”, in: Il Granducato di Toscana e i Lorena nel secolo XVIII, eds. Alessandra Contini and Maria Grazia Parri (Florence: 1999); Allen D. Thompson, “‘Progetti in vantaggio del Principe, del Publico, e del Commercio della Toscana.’ I mercanti di Livorno e l’economia toscana al momento della successione lorenese”, Critica storica 28 (1991): 427-488.

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The origin of the naval edict of 1748 was closely linked to this particular period.15 The first act, which revealed a clear will to issue an organic corpus of dispositions regarding shipping and maritime trade, went back in fact to the imperial dispatch of 10 October 1746.16 By this the Grand Duke stated that a ruling in support of growth of commercial traffic must be issued. What was more, he sent his ministers a detailed project of no fewer than fifty-eight articles for the Regency to use in the preparation of an edict addressing Tuscan needs. In other words, this was a process that differed from usual practice and was intended to lead to Tuscany making a proposal to be approved or revised by the imperial court. An examination of the edict officially promulgated in 1748 reveals that it differed from the original draft only in a few minor details, the main modification being made to the order of the regulations. These were laid out systematically under headings that clearly identified the subjects, a refinement that made the regulations much more usable. Looking at the model possibly followed by the compilers in Vienna, a first factor to consider is how much it was influenced by the maritime customs that the captain of the port of Livorno and others involved in its management followed. As demonstrated by the application of the edict, a series of rules within it essentially formalised the maritime customs which had evolved in the city. Despite this, without a shadow of a doubt a more consequential influence was exerted by the aforementioned Capitoli of the Republic of Genoa but not yet by the great ordinances of the eighteenth century. This had been pointed out, almost indignantly, by the Livornese shopkeepers in their “Observations” on the draft sent by the Regency; in effect eight of the first ten articles in the 1746 draft matched the Genoese text almost word for word. This is far from surprising, both because Genoa clearly served as a role model in the maritime world, and because the Capitoli had become more widely known thanks to being included in the commentary to the Consolato del mare – published in Florence in 1719 – written by a jurist, Giuseppe Casaregi, Ruota auditor in Tuscany.17 The edict’s priorities become clear when examining the range and limits of the Capitoli, which tallied with the objectives of Grand Duke Francis Stephen and of his cabinet as well as the Regency Council of Tuscany. The latter were 15. The preparatory notes are kept in ASFi, CR, 741, ins. 1. On the edict see Carlo Mangio, “Commercio marittimo e Reggenza lorenese in Toscana (provvedimenti legislativi e dibattiti),” Rivista storica italiana 90 (1978): 898-938; Mario Baruchello, Livorno e il suo porto: origini, caratteristiche e vicende dei traffici livornesi (Livorno: Soc. editrice riviste tecniche, 1932), 464467. 16. ASFi, CR, 105, dispatch of 10.10.1746, n. 1, with attachment. 17. Giuseppe Lorenzo Maria Casaregi, Il Consolato del mare (Lucca: Donati, 1720), 457485. On Casaregi: Vito Piergiovanni, “Dottrina, divulgazione e pratica alle orgini della scienza commercialistica: Giuseppe Lorenzo Maria Casaregi, appunti per una biografia”, Materiali per una storia della cultura giuridica 9 (1979): 289-326; Vito Piergiovanni, “La ‘Spiegazione’ del Consolato del mare di Giuseppe Lorenzo Maria Casaregi”, Materiali per una storia della cultura giuridica 36/1 (2006): 15-27.

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not so much motivated by a need to completely overhaul Tuscan maritime law, as by the desire, articulated in the preamble to the edict (and earlier still, in 1746, in the initial regulations of the Council of Commerce), to support and develop maritime trade. The naval edict, then, came into being as a strand of the reforms carried out by the Lorrainese government to halt the decline of Livornese commerce and as an (announced) corollary to the establishment of the Council of Commerce, to which in fact many of its rulings were addressed. As a result, without denying that the Ordonnance de la marine had been a point of reference for the compilers of the edict, its influence was in the end indirect and filtered through the Genoese Capitoli (which amounted to a passable vulgarisation of it), harmonised with the very different circumstances of a small state. A large part of the Lorrainese reform’s proposals would later be opposed by Ginori,18 before and after his arrival in Livorno, and would also be treated with great scepticism by Pompeo Neri. The Viennese draft was reworked for various reasons by the Consoli del mare, the auditor and chancellor of the Livorno customs, the community of Livornese merchants, the Council of Commerce, and the Regency. Stefano Bertolini also worked on it, at least from early 1748 onwards, and was assisted in Livorno by Pierre d’Iharce.19 With the conclusion of the process Tuscan law covered summarily only the first two parts of the French Ordonnance, not touching at all the other three which regulated maritime contracts, the policing of the ports, coasts and shores, and also fishing. But most importantly, the edict shied from defining the issues it dealt with and ordered juridically, beginning with the basic concept of the ship. This in fact had been the subject of academic and legislative debate as far back as Roman times and the French Ordonnance had placed it in the category of mobile goods. Similarly, Tuscan law did not avail itself of what Marville’s invaluable notes had to offer, and which the Ordonnance had included in editions published as early as the first half of the eighteenth century,20 thus determining, for example, the meaning of such terms as maître, capitaine and patron. Furthermore, although the third part of the edict dealt with the porzionevoli, it did not pass on the linear definition rendered by Carlo Targa. Taken as a whole, therefore, the new regulations not only had notable gaps in their contents, but also had technical deficiencies. These required those who interpreted them to do so in the light of legal doctrine and maritime custom.

18. Antonella Alimento, “Tra Bristol ed Amsterdam: discussioni livornesi su commercio, marina ed impero negli anni cinquanta del Settecento”, in: Dall’origine dei Lumi alla Rivoluzione. Scritti in onore di Luciano Guerci e Giuseppe Ricuperati, eds. Donatella Balani, Dino Carpanetto and Marina Roggero (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2008), 31. 19. ASFi, CR, 56, dispatch of 26 March 1748, n. 1, § 7. 20. Ordonnance de la marine du mois d’aoust 1681, commentée et conferée sur les anciennes Ordonnances, le droit romain, et les nouveaux reglemens (Paris: G. Cavelier, 1714).

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The 1748 Edict Fundamentally, the edict of 1748 turned on three grand themes.21 The first related to the question of jurisdiction and the decision of whether to grant jurisdictional capacity to the Council of Commerce. The Lorrainese idea was to establish a real tribunal within the Council and to give it incisive powers in procedural matters and the means of simplifying the executive process. In relation to the former, the draft edict provided for fixed judgments in these cases, whereas the latter provided for sentences without right of appeal and the privilege of esecuzione parata, the same as that provided in commercial law to holders of promissory notes. Many of these measures were removed after strong opposition by Tuscany which wished to maintain the numerous tribunals inherited from the Medici era, and because of worries about the Council itself, which had few members and none with legal expertise. In practice, then, the Council became the agency destined to oversee the entire sector of maritime trade and navigation; moreover, it was made subject to the exclusive authority of the Florentine Ministry of Finance that was headed by Richecourt and controlled by the Regency. However, in order to carry through a separation of powers, it was given a substantially reduced, but not exactly marginal, nucleus of jurisdictional authority, namely that of civil cases relating to the navy and merchant shipping of a value not exceeding 100 lira, or higher if the facts of the matter (and its pertinence to the issues covered by the edict) allowed it. Criminal or mixed cases that might lead to fines also came under its remit, while for everything else that went beyond the prescribed limits the previous arrangements applied. In short, the new agency was a hybrid: having in the main consultative powers besides policing and management ones, it had also to carry out judicial duties, despite not being composed of suitably trained members. It was neither a central trade tribunal, like that set up in Naples in 1739, nor a corporate chamber. It was able to issue sentences that other courts could not appeal against, yet which were nevertheless challengeable by recourse to the Finance Minister. It was precisely the failure to decide exactly what it was that made the Council vulnerable and that right from the start hampered the exercise of its few judicial powers. And another indignity was inflicted on it when many policing and control powers, by no means secondary, were retained by captain of the port of Livorno, who was obliged merely to send a report to the Council. In 1769 the impotency of the Council in this area of its jurisdiction became so evident that it was substituted by the same port captain. A second and important theme of the edict related to the regulations regarding captains and crews of ships. The magister, a key figure on board a ship, was also the exercitor and, though being an agent of the ship owner, he was in reality the person who actually did all the trading. Yet this fact only becomes clear by reading between the lines of the edict, which saw the owner as the sole person 21. It can be found in Cantini, Legislazione toscana, XXVI, 89-104.

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responsible for the ship and the one who maintained good order on it. Francis Stephen attempted initially to establish a strict hierarchical order for the ship’s complement, which was to be reflected in the subordination of all maritime trade activities to the interests of the state. This line of thinking led to the obligation to hoist the Tuscan flag; the ban on non-Tuscan nationals to command or serve on a ship without special dispensation from the Council of Commerce, a rule subsequently relaxed; the introduction of certain requirements (beginning with a minimum age) for becoming a captain, including a public exam designed to gauge, among other things, loyalty; the posting of surety in accordance with the exact orders from Grand Duke; the obligation of ensuring that two thirds of the crew were Tuscan subjects (an article later overturned yet still observed in practice) enforceable by fines and a ban on commanding ships belonging to the Grand Duke. In short, these protectionist rules, more emphatic than those of the 1681 Ordonnance, were meant to stimulate and encourage Tuscans to consider a career at sea; in the long run they would produce a genuine maritime guild, which required a special entrance registration. Necessary in times of war, these rules could be damaging in peacetime, in as much as there was a real risk of being unable to man the ships, given the scarcity of local human resources. The office of captain, on which legislation and the Lorrainese navy continued to focus their attention, as is shown by the attempt to invest it with dignity (with a law that meant that holding the post would not jeopardise an individual’s nobility),22 emerged in a rather limited and restrained form from a series of charges relating to navigation and mercantile activity. If the captain gained greater independence from the ship owners as regards the hiring of crew,23 he was per contra strongly penalised in his ability to negotiate, as not even the smallest expense was permitted without the owner’s consent. He was burdened with heavy responsibilities, restricted in his right to dismiss crew members, and placed under strict control thanks to the necessity of keeping an up-to-date log in which numerous items of information about the ship, the crew and voyage had to be entered. As for the ship’s crew, in keeping with the compilations of the Middle Ages and the ancien régime and a long-standing legacy that considered the nauta to be merely a workforce,24 the edict failed to specify any professional qualifica22. In line with the ideas of many thinkers and economists of the era [Giovanni Francesco Pagnini, “Saggio sopra il giusto pregio delle cose, la giusta valuta della moneta, e sopra il commercio de’ Romani”, in: Scrittori classici italiani di economia politica (Milan: Destefanis e Zeno, 1803), Parte moderna, II, 278-279 and above all Antonio Genovesi, Delle lezioni di commercio o sia d’economia civile da leggersi nella cattedra interiana (Naples: Fratelli Simone, 1765), 303306], but also with the regulations of Louis XV [Arthur Desjardins, Introduction historique a l’étude du droit commercial maritime (Paris: Durand et Pedone-Lauriel, 1890), 128, 175]. 23. Following the Genoese example and not the one used in France or outlined in the Consolato del mare, which called for the owners and captains to share the task of selecting their crew, when it was enlisted in the former’s place of residence. 24. Salvatore Corrieri, Il Consolato del mare: la tradizione giuridico-marittima del Mediterraneo attraverso un’edizione italiana del 1584 del testo originale catalano del 1484 (Rome: Associazione nazionale del Consolato del mare, 2005), 107-113, 477-478.

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tion for the cabin boys, sailors or officers. With the exception of the scribe, the members of the ship were unceremoniously lumped together in an equal state of subordination and were distinguishable only in relation to their inferiority to the role of master. Thus ample room was left for private contracts and still more for verbal agreements in which tradition played an important part. Clearly, the primary intention behind the edict was to keep track of a ship’s crew and make it as stable and unaltered as possible, and from this stemmed the decision to give the owner sole right to select the crew and to restrict the possibilities of dismissal. Safeguards were put in place against acts of fraud, such as that of allowing officers and seamen to join a ship under false pretences, either as passengers25 or as ‘fugitives’ from other vessels (the latter could in fact be accepted only by consent of the Council of Commerce). The regulation of the crew’s remuneration was considered separately, in the fifth section of the edict, with great meticulousness but scant clarity. The French Ordonnance had understood one of the more sensitive points, introducing written pay agreements because, as the commentator Marville observed, sailors would otherwise have found it hard to prove their right to their wages.26 But this did not happen in Tuscany since the edict formalised a two-faced, inconsistent regime. In fact, the only prescription that dealt with the subject recognised the possibility of derogating from the Grand Duke’s laws through agreements written exclusively for the contractual relationship in place between the owners and commanders of ships; it first, however, laid down the principle that the recompense of the latter was to be calculated from the handover of the vessel to the end of its unloading process and his term of employment. On the other hand, however, it is undeniable that the captain would have had to note the agreed pay in his journal and the scribe would also have had to record the terms negotiated with other paid workers. While this registration certainly represented an early public statement concerning labour on board ship,27 its incomplete nature precluded it from being considered an imposition tout court of written recruitment contracts. The relationship of subordination between the commander and the rest of the crew was set out in several regulations designed to prevent any situation that might undermine ship discipline. One regulation ratified a general duty of diligent collaboration for all necessary activities (from the loading and unloading of cargo to ballasting and careening) with penalties for offenders that gradually increased from deductions of pay to two years’ imprisonment. All complaints about the quality or quantity of victuals were forbidden, even if valid. Severe sanctions (up to the death penalty) were imposed for any injury caused 25. Although Livornese merchants underlined how often these subjects embarked as passengers, without specifying their normal roles, and how often their presence could be of great benefit in dangerous circumstances, such as in stormy seas. 26. Ordonnance de la marine, book 3, tit. IV, art. 1, 216 and the comment to § Seront rédigées par écrit, 217. 27. Corrieri, Consolato del mare, 496-497.

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to or rebellion against the master. However, it is noteworthy that the required obedience to his orders was defined with words that were at once unequivocal yet milder than the “blind obedience” called for in the first draft influenced by the Genoese Capitoli.28 Perhaps with some fine-tuning inspired by the work of Carlo Targa,29 the obedience required was in fact “without any exception or contradiction”, but only “exact” as was expected in a relationship of subordination more contractual than strictly personal. Nonetheless, obedience was called for to the point of helping the master in the lawful defence of the vessel when under attack by privateers or pirates, although the edict omitted to specify the criteria for engagement in the fight. Officers and sailors were duty-bound to be vigilant during the watches. For offences committed on board the disciplinary power of the captain did not go beyond putting the accused in irons, while the principle of the ius commune, for which jurisdiction belonged to the relevant land-based court, remained firmly in place.30 The requirement of Tuscan citizenship was also imposed on the ship owners, a rule that was challenged with ferocity by the Tuscans: with the aim of attracting foreigners to the port of Livorno so as to increase maritime traffic, merchants wished to give non-national owners equality with subjects of Tuscany by means of naturalisation and the simple consideration of their place of residence. This is what Ginori had written in 1749 when commending the Savoy regulation contained in the contemporary edict for the free ports of Nice and that of Saint Ospizio.31 Richecourt, on the other hand, commenting on Ginori’s ideas, pointed out the risks inherent in many people enjoying the benefits due to nationals in spite of living abroad. He was however inclined to reduce the ten years of domicile in the case of foreigners who acquired property in Tuscany, taking this to be a sign of their willingness to settle there. The regulation that made it a condition for one or more deputies to be assigned to ships of more than fifty tonnes, in the case of them having more than one owner, proved to be highly controversial. The article was once again borrowed from the Genoese Capitoli but, in contrast to them, did not indicate what powers the deputies would hold, leaving this matter to private contract and simply specifying that they should work for the good and faithful administration of the vessel in the common interest of all concerned.32 28. See article 52 of the draft in Casaregi, Il Consolato del mare, 468, ch. 29. 29. Carlo Targa, Ponderazioni sopra la contrattazione marittima ricavate dalla legge civile, e canonica, dal Consolato di mare, e dagli usi marittimi, con le formole di tali contratti, profittevoli non solo a’ praticanti nel foro, ma ancora ad ogni sorta di mercanti, e marinari (Genoa: Nella stamperia del Casamara, 1750), 35, ch. XVII. 30. Cesare Maria Moschetti, Questioni di diritto pubblico marittimo negli scritti dei giuristi napoletani della prima metà del Seicento (Naples: Giannini, 1984), 149-158. 31. ASFi, CR, 854, ins. 5: “Osservazioni di Carlo Ginori sull’editto pubblicato per il porto franco di Nizza e S. Ospizio del 12 marzo 1749”, see Alimento, “Tra gelosie personali”. 32. Cantini, Legislazione toscana, XXVI, 95 (tit. III, § 3). The fifth article of the chapters

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Again, this discipline was not appreciated by the merchants of Livorno not only because it appeared to encroach on a captain’s traditional areas of competence, but also because it split the tacit understanding of all the owners which ensured that, as could be read in the Ordonnance, “in all matters concerning the common interest of the owners the opinion of the majority will be followed”.33 The link between the owners and captains was the scribe, who was charged with the task of keeping a log in parallel with (but in greater detail than) that of the captain, to whom he allowed a perusal. However, there was no fixed principle given to the authority of the data provided by the man who the Consolato del mare called a cartolario. Apparently, the scribe had a notarial role, in as much as he was authorised to draft the will and testament of anyone on the ship who fell seriously ill. The most authoritative judgement of the time, described well by Loccenius,34 extended to men of the sea the same privileges enjoyed by the milites as to the distribution of their property in the event of death. Had it been adopted, the principle would have freed sailors from the formalities of ius commune, but this did not happen in Tuscany, where the scribe’s log was accorded the full value of a testament only in specific circumstances: the testator must have passed away within forty days of his return home and the will must have been signed before and witnessed by the master and two very senior crew members unrelated to the deceased. The Tuscan edict, in other words, revealed a certain reluctance to qualify the scribe as a notary, both because it did not confer formal public confidence on the documentation he kept, as was done in France,35 and because it stipulated that he should be accompanied by three others when drawing up a will.36 This tendency, at least as regards mortis causa deeds, would become more common in a number of states and would even be reinforced by regulations drawn up in the late eighteenth century.37 The third theme of the edict was the tiresome control mechanism for shipping, which was made final and complete with the introduction of passports and licences issued by the newly established Council of Commerce. This organisa-

of the Genevan Conservatori del mare di Genoa called for at least two deputies, given ordinary powers and without any distinction between ships (Casaregi, Consolato del mare, 460). 33. Ordonnance de la marine, 178 (book 2, tit. VIII, art. 5). 34. Johan Loccenius, De iure maritimo et navali libri tres, in: Scriptorum de iure nautico et maritimo fasciculus (Halae Magdeburgicae, sumptibus Orphanotrophi, 1740), 1009, book III, ch. 1, nn. 5-6. 35. See l’Ordonnance de la marine, 155 (book 2, tit. III, art. 6): “Le registre de l’Ecrivain fera foy en justice” and the observation by Marville relating to it: “l’ecrivain étant en cette partie personne publique”. 36. Here the edict follows the Ordonnance de la marine, 356 (book 2, tit. XI, art. 1), which called for the help of three witnesses (as opposed to the two required on the basis of the coutumes) to see that, as Marville wrote (ibid., 357), no abuses were committed. 37. See the Codice per la veneta marina mercantile approvato dal decreto dell’Eccellentissimo Senato 21 settembre 1786 (Venice: Per li figluoli del qu. Z. Antonio Pinelli, 1786), third part, tit. VII, 274-277.

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tion was extremely unpopular with the merchants, who would have much preferred the task to remain in the hands of the captain of the port. The edict, taking up on this point the French institution of the congé38 – which provided a means of reducing the risk of accidents, but especially of identifying ship owners and their plans and thus to ensuring respect for the national flag39 – called for ships of over fifty tonnes to obtain a licence before putting to sea and to submit a report on docking. Both documents, issued by and presented to the Council of Commerce would publish the name of the captain, the tonnage and cargo of the ship, as well as its ports of destination and provenance, all elements that risked compromising trade secrets. Even more bothersome for the merchants was the ‘on-board inspection’ of equipment, to be carried out by the captain of the port as a conditio sine qua non to obtaining the departure licence. The main aim of these rules was to ascertain the adequacy of the crew, the munitions and armaments for the voyage being embarked on, in particular so as to avoid easy capitulation to pirates. Apart from being a waste of time and money, these orders could result in the ships receiving uneven treatment compared to foreign ones, which were not subject to the rules by virtue of the privileges of the free port of Livorno, so jealously guarded by the Lorrainese.40 Other problems came about because of the article that quite literally blocked the ship, with its entire crew, once it berthed at Livorno, until the port captain had carried out the inspection to ensure yet again that the ship had its appropriate “sea and war munitions” and to check whether any irregularity or any unusual event had occurred during the voyage. Brief notes on the edict’s application By taking account of some moments in the practical application of the edict we will be able to understand more fully the objectives of the 1748 legislation and the impact made on them by the maritime customs observed at Livorno. The system of sea traffic supervision and, more generally, of the phenomenon of commercial shipping was managed by means of letters patent and passports. The issuing of such documents was imposed on Naples by Charles of Bourbon in 1741, while in the Grand Duchy there is evidence of them from 1742 onwards,41 though some sources claim that in 1748 passports replaced the old 38. Ordonnance de la marine, 87-93, (book 1, tit. X). 39. René-Josué Valin, Nouveau commentaire sur l’Ordonnance de la marine, du mois d’août 1681 où se trouve la conférence des anciennes ordonnances, des us et coutumes de la mer, tant du Royaume que des pays étrangers, et des nouveaux réglemens concernant la navigation et le commerce maritime (La Rochelle: J. Legier, 1766), I, 274. 40. On this point see Daniele Edigati, “Aspetti giuridici delle franchigie del porto di Livorno: l’immunità personale in criminalibus ed il problema dell’estradizione (secoli XVI-XVIII)”, Nuovi studi livornesi 17 (2010): 17-41. 41. ASLi, GCM, 960, c. 31r-v.

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health certificates obtainable from the customs of Livorno.42 Certainly this system was not an innovation precipitated by the edict, but an instrument introduced contextually with the regulations.43 The attention of the authorities was essentially focused on the nationality of owners, masters and crew. Moreover, the fact that the directive was deliberately written in a vague way, thereby making it easier to modulate the ruling later on, demonstrated that it was close to the heart of the Regency and the Grand Duke. Notwithstanding the absence of legislation, it was clear that foreign captains could not be allowed, which implied the need to detail the requisites for acquiring Tuscan citizenship. In 1749 people generally talked of citizenship by dint of ten years’ domicile (or at least residence) in Tuscany, but in 175744 the fictio of the Justinian code45 was accepted within the doctrine of ius commune46 (and implemented in support of the privileges of the free port), which considered the intention of establishing oneself in the Grand Duchy equal to ten years’ residence; the intention could be made known by the effective transfer of one’s family and assets or, even more leniently, by means of a surety guaranteeing this would be done. This did not alter the fact that the same animus was also considered conversely in order to revoke the passport of a person who, having given the appropriate assurances, then made his residence outside the Grand Duchy. The approach was less strict for ship owners: as the edict demanded the status of subjects, the rule was not rigorously applied and in time the authorities settled on the same criteria as that used for captains.47 Still more flexibility was given to sailors, for whom Richecourt wished to reduce the time span necessary for acquiring citizenship to four or five years.48 The requirement that two thirds of the ship’s complement be subjects of Tuscany was imposed in line with the experience of other countries and certain international treaties, but the captains were authorised to substitute deceased or injured sailors with foreigners, justifying this necessity before a consul.49 The regulation regarding the changes to the roles on board ship was scrupulously 42. ASLi, GCM, 958, c. 314r. 43. A letter from 1771 reveals that the Regency, wishing to put a mercantile navy on its feet, made obligatory, apart from the registration of the applicant, an examination of the ship’s property and the qualifications of those that commanded it. In a second instance, there was also a demand for information regarding the capacity, armaments, and numbers of the crew, which were obligatory, ibid., cc. 322v-323r. 44. Ibid., c. 316r, but see also ASLi, GCM, 960 (report by governor Filippo Del Monte of 3 April 1758). There is a mention of this in Piazza, Schiavitù e guerra dei barbareschi, 40. 45. See the lex Et in eodem loco in C, 10, 40, 7; whereas C, 10, 40, 2 called for 10 years of residence. 46. Paolo Grossi, “Domicilio (diritto intermedio)”, in: Enciclopedia del diritto, XIII (Milan: Giuffrè, 1964), 841-842. 47. ASLi, GCM, 960, cc. 34v-35v. 48. ASFi, CR, 854, ins. 5. In ASLi, GCM, 960, c. 36r there is mention of subjects who had been living with this aim with their families in Livorno. 49. Thus a motu proprio of 18 November 1756 (ASLi, GCM, 960, c. 28r-v).

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enforced, with the consuls being duty-bound to provide detailed and verifiable corroboration a posteriori as to why certain sailors had had to be replaced, proving that the reason had been “urgent or necessary.”50 The small ships that had previously been shown great tolerance were now burdened with a series of obligations, amongst which was that of communicating the composition of the crew prior to the start of every voyage; this would be registered by the Council of Commerce and other officials, who would have first checked the identity of the master.51 Conclusion In conclusion, it should be noted that the legislation of the Italian peninsula on maritime law between the seventeenth and eighteenth century does not seem to have been overly indebted to any theoretical or doctrinal model. Instead it brought together material taken from the main consolidations of rules prescribed in the Middle Ages and the early modern era – above all the Consolato del mare and the Ordonnance de la marine – with certain changes being made to suit the social and economic conditions of the place in question. As for Tuscany, a strong influence was exerted by Genoa, both on the level of ius proprium dispositions and that of the practical reworking of doctrine, such as that carried out by Targa. The collections of maritime law in ancien régime Italy are therefore an expression of a contingent regulatory power, targeted and rarely systematic. Such legislation was inspired by a conception of the policing52 of maritime trade as a means of controlling and directing it in accordance with the interests and wellbeing of the state. As a consequence, attention became fixed on a core of largely uniform maritime public law. However, in Italy control of the relationship between financiers/principals and merchants/agents was kept in the hands of the law, at least until the issuing of the Venetian Codice, which anyhow was an isolated example that remained in force for only a brief period of time. The strong point of the Ordonnace – “the masterpiece,” as René Josué Valin put it – was in fact the systematisation of the branch of private law contracts, previously completely neglected and abandoned to uncertainty and the contradictions of the law and of customs. This reorganisation would later be perfected by the clear and thorough eighteenth-century treatises of Robert Joseph Pothier 50. See the circular to the imperial consuls in the Council of Commerce of November 1758 (ibid., cc. 44r-46r). The regulation was repeated again in a notification of 28 September 1761 (ibid., cc. 49r-51r). 51. See the motu proprio of 19 May 1763 (ibid., cc. 58r-60r). Controls of the consuls of the places where the ships had been unloaded were also required. 52. For a deeper reflection on the concept of police: Paolo Napoli, Naissance de la police moderne: pouvoir, normes, société (Paris: La Decouverte, 2003).

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which dealt with the most important institutions, namely insurance, the chartering of ships and maritime exchange.53 The limits set in the Edict of Tuscany for the benefit of the state are conspicuous in several points that we will merely refer to here. First among these is the creation of the Council of Commerce that was given a variety of powers (consultative, controlling and partially jurisdictional), presided over by a political figure (the governor of Livorno) and directly accountable to the central Ministry of Finance. The imposition of Tuscan citizenship on the largest number possible of naval employees (above all, the key figures of masters and owners), the proliferation of on-board documentation,54 and the introduction of passports and letters patent all ran in the same direction. A still clearer example was the regime imposed on the captains, who had to sit an examination and, after acquiring a passport, were forced to swear an oath not to do anything that might bring into disrepute the imperial flag or trade and commerce. Furthermore, their conduct at sea was subject to controls, both with regard to their subordinates and to any event of importance to the state, such as encounters with pirates and privateers. Looking closely at the outcomes of the House of Lorraine’s maritime policy, one can concur with the historiography that has augmented Gianni’s criticisms of the conduct of Francis Stephen and Richecourt: in his opinion the Lorrainese wished to exploit Livorno solely as a source of income for the state treasury. This was the goal behind the plan – deemed by Gianni to be unworkable – for the Grand Duchy to build its own navy, something which Giuliano Ricci had also emphasised in 1757, pointing out the extremely high number of licences granted to non-nationals. Nevertheless, it is worth pointing out that the protectionist laws were not fictions, as evidenced by the discussions between ministers and the reiteration of the provisions in order to toughen penalties. Indeed, the increased access for foreigners was handled flexibly through an unbiased revision of the criteria for the concession of citizenship. However, any judgement on the lack of success of the planned setting up of a Tuscan national fleet must, in my opinion, be balanced by keeping in mind certain advantages, all of which are still to be investigated, that were brought about for Tuscan society by the implementation of policing measures included in the edict of 1748 as well as in the circulars, edicts and the pronouncements later issued by the Regency and by Peter Leopold.

53. Robert Joseph Pothier, Opere (…) contenenti i trattati del diritto francese (Livorno: Vignozzi, 1835-8), vol. II. 54. Apart from the captain and scribe’s journals which have already been mentioned, there was also that of the pilot, which contained technical information about the navigation, which would allow the Council of Commerce to acquire greater nautical awareness.

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From the neutrality of the port to the neutrality of the state: Projects, debates and laws in Habsburg-Lorraine Tuscany Franco Angiolini

Introduction: War clouds over the Mediterranean At the height of spring 1768 menacing war clouds massed on the horizon of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Having acquired Genoa’s rights to Corsica, which was in revolt, France sent its troops to the island to annex it to the Kingdom. In London it was feared that the French conquest of Corsica might radically change the strategic balance in the Mediterranean.1 Even in Tuscany the events were followed with great concern for the negative impact they might have for Livorno and its activities.2 The Tuscan port, already indirectly involved in the Corsican conflict,3 was at the centre of Grand Duke Peter Leopold’s thoughts not only because of its well-established role in the Mediterranean trade system, but also because Vienna was counting on it to help increase trade with Austrian Lombardy and the other hereditary Habsburg countries.4 Making the most deafening war noises was Count Saverio Rosenberg Orsini, the head of the Council of State, who instructed Filippo Bourbon del Monte, 1. Horace Walpole’s Correspondence with Sir Horace Mann, VII, ed. Wilmarth Shendon Lewis, Warren Hunting Smith and George L. Lam, with the assistance of Edwine M. Martz (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), 31, 36. 2. Horace Walpole’s Correspondence, 54, H. Mann to H. Walpole, Florence, 6 September 1768. On Tuscany’s interest in the revolt of the Corsicans, Franco Venturi, Settecento riformatore, vol. V, L’Italia dei Lumi (1764-1790). 1. La rivoluzione di Corsica. Le grandi carestie degli anni sessanta. La Lombardia delle riforme (Turin: Einaudi, 1987), 101-103. Regarding the concessions given to the Corsican rebels in Livorno, see Fabrizio Bernardoni, Livorno porto franco e neutrale sotto il governatorato di Bourbon del Monte (1757-1780) (Livorno: Bastogi, 1979), 19. 3. Calogero Piazza, Schiavitù e guerra dei barbareschi. Orientamenti toscani di politica transmarina (1747-1768) (Milan: Giuffrè, 1978), 126-129; Emiliano Beri, “‘Contrabbandieri, pirati e ladri di mare’. Bonifacini e napoletani nella marina di Pasquale Paoli (1756-1768)”, Società e storia 34, 132 (2011): 249-276. 4. Adam Wandruszka, Pietro Leopoldo. Un grande riformatore, Italian translation by Giuseppe Cosmelli (Florence: Vallecchi, 1968), 302-303.

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the governor of Livorno,5 to prepare a law on neutrality. Bourbon del Monte assigned the task to Giuseppe Pierallini who, setting to work at once, completed it by the second half of July.6 It was in these political circumstances that the law on Tuscan neutrality got under way before being enacted a decade later, in 1778, after an intensive, albeit not continuous, exchange of views and proposals between the members of the Grand Duchy’s government and senior authorities in Livorno. It was a law which, as we shall see, was planned in the light of the most recent theories of international law and which would immediately be seen as an early example of a codification aimed at establishing, once and for all, a set of foundational regulations for a neutrality no longer negotiated with warring forces through treaties, but unilaterally adopted by a state, in this case the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, which by its own political choice declared itself to be unrelated to the conflict and which made the strict observation of the rule of perfect impartiality towards belligerents the basis of those regulations. The journey from the initial plan to the law was not short and various obstacles were encountered along the way. A divergence of views between the two main authors of the text, Giuseppe Francesco Pierallini (1721-1805) and the abbot Pompeo Neri (1706-1776), which had its roots both in different cultural approaches and different political experiences, immediately blocked the process for a couple of years. When discussion of the project was re-launched at the start of 1771, it again quickly ran aground, perhaps because of the conflict that broke out between the government in Florence and the leading authorities in Livorno, namely governor Bourbon del Monte and Pierallini. The greatest obstacle was, of course, the hesitancy of Florence to promulgate a law of neutrality without seeking the prior consent of the interested powers, and without there being an imminent threat of war. Only when such a threat once more began to loom over Tuscany, in 1778, following France’s support for the American rebels, were the papers relating to the project dusted down, and made law within a few months. Giuseppe Pierallini’s bill Without doubt Giuseppe Pierallini had all the skills necessary for preparing a law on neutrality. Gaining his doctorate in utroque jure in 1741 at the University of Pisa, from 1752 in Livorno he was the Cancelliere Civile (Civil Chancellor) of the government and superintendent of Monte Pio, and, from 1758, 5. On the governorship of Bourbon del Monte, see Marcella Aglietti, I governatori di Livorno dai Medici all’Unità d’Italia. Gli uomini, le istituzioni, la città (Pisa: ETS, 2009), 118-159. 6. ASLi, GCM, 964, “Copialettere e minutari della Segreteria civile”, c. 218, F. Bourbon del Monte to Rosenberg, Livorno, 22 July 1768: he notes the sending of the project drafted by G. Pierallini; also ASFi, SS, 245, ins. no. 2, prot. 22_1778.

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was also secretary of the Consiglio di Commercio (Council of Commerce).7 Through the exercise of these offices he had acquired a vast, in-depth knowledge not only of matters concerning the commercial and maritime activities of Livorno, and their implications on the legal, political and diplomatic spheres, but also a broad familiarity with all the documentation which these had generated over the years.8 In 1764 the ‘secretary’ (as he was commonly called in correspondence between Livorno and Florence) had already distinguished himself by writing, at the request of the Grand Ducal government, a memorandum entitled Osservazioni sopra la Pace con gli Ottomani,9 in which he discussed the possibilities of agreeing a peace treaty with the Barbary regencies. He quickly followed this text with a draft treaty based on four points: peace, neutrality, free trade, and the role of consuls, accompanied by reflections illustrating the project. In 1767, he again gave proof of his ability by writing a long legal opinion on the legitimacy of a petition from the prosecutor of the Bey of Tunis, which called for a judgment in relation to a fugitive slave, Pietro Corso, who had stolen money from the bey. The work was called Sentimento sopra la questione se uno schiavo possa nel tempo della schiavitù rubare legittimamente al suo nemico vincitore, a question that Pierallini dealt with in the light of the following works: Samuel Pufendorf, De jure naturae et gentium; De officio hominis et civis, quoted in the French translation; Emer de Vattel, Les droits des gens (1758); Martin Hübner, De la saisie des bâtimens neutres (1759); and Joseph de Abreu y Bertodano, Tratado jurídico político sobre pressas de mar (1746). It found in favour of Pietro, rejecting the legitimacy of the Bey’s petition. It is therefore clear that when Pierallini faced the task of preparing a law of neutrality he was armed with a profound understanding of the problems that the state of belligerence placed on Livornese trade and a robust and up-to-date legal knowledge of its ramifications. Aware that his bill represented a totally new innovation, Pierallini believed it was appropriate to accompany it with an extensive series of Osservazioni sopra la neutralità10 with which he intended, on the one hand, to shed light on the main issues addressed in the past whenever the neutrality of Livorno had been proclaimed, and on the other, to explain the criteria employed in the formulation of the nineteen articles of the law he had proposed to the Grand Ducal government. 7. Piazza, Schiavitù e guerra dei barbareschi, 17-18, 31, 34. In early December 1768 Pierallini, having been appointed Auditor of the Government, left the above-mentioned duties; Ibid., 80. For Pierallini’s later career, Ibid., 80-81. 8. Piazza, Schiavitù e guerra dei barbareschi, 22-23. 9. Piazza, Schiavitù e guerra dei barbareschi, 61, 68, 69-72, 85-91. 10. ASLi, GCM, 964, cc. 218-239, “Osservazioni sopra la neutralità”; cc. 239-244 contains the neutrality bill. Another copy of the “Osservazioni”, ibid., 1025, “Ordini, rescritti, regolamenti. Relazioni e progetti”, ins. 8, “Osservazioni Sopra la Neutralità”, cc. 1r-24r. Bill and annexed observations, in original, in ASFi, SS, 245, ins. no. 2, prot. 22_1778.

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His reasoning and the regulation scheme he elaborated were grounded on two cardinal points. The first was that in 1757 for the first time the neutrality of Livorno and other ports and harbours in the Grand Duchy11 was declared without the consent of the belligerents. In fact, before this date, the rules that established Livorno’s exemption from military disputes were agreed with the consuls of the warring states and promulgated as law in the Grand Duchy only with their approval.12 The secretary, emphasising its relevance, grasped the importance of the change made in 1757 that removed Tuscany from the “subjection of depending on the consent of the Nations, and made a precedent that the Tuscan Sovereign would say which Law He believed to be best for the government of his States, and of the impartial observance of neutrality”.13 According to him, this break from a politico-diplomatic practice that went back to the end of the seventeenth century14 finally made it possible to formulate a law that was not only clear and precise in its provisions, but was also inspired by principles that were more solid and responsive to the needs of Livorno and Tuscany.15 The second point, which constituted the basic criterion that the new law had to adhere to, a criterion that Pierallini had taken directly from Hübner, was that neutrality was accomplished not only by imposing prohibitions on everybody, but also, and more easily, by allowing everyone the same things: neutrality is based on the perfect and punctilious impartiality of the neutral erga omnes.16 The best neutrality law for Tuscany would be that which most effectively guaranteed peace and tranquillity and was thus most favourable to both its own trade and that of all other nations, belligerent or not. Accordingly, the laws drafted by the secretary did prescribe certain prohibitions, but these were strictly limited to preventing acts of war, whatever form they might take, while for the rest, it was marked by the broadest possible permissiveness,17 as the governor Ginori, who had wanted to transform Livorno into a Sint Eustatius, had once requested.18 Pierallini would hold firm on this 11. Editto di neutralità del dì 5 Febbraio 1757, in: Legislazione toscana raccolta e illustrata dal dott. Lorenzo Cantini socio di varie Accademie (Florence: Fantosini, 1800-1808), XXVII, 121-122. 12. Jean-Pierre Filippini, “La graduelle affirmation de la souveraineté du Grand-Duc de Toscane sur le port de Livourne: les édits de neutralité de la période des Habsbourg-Lorraine”, Nuovi Studi Livornesi 16 (2009): 23-32. 13. ASLi, GCM, 964, c. 219. 14. Andrea Addobbati, “La neutralità del porto di Livorno in età medicea. Costume mercantile e convenzione internazionale”, in: Livorno 1606-1806. Luogo di incontro tra popoli e culture, ed. Adriano Prosperi (Turin: Allemandi, 2009), 71-85. 15. ASLi, GCM, 964, c. 220. 16. Martin Hübner, De la saisie des bâtimens neutres, ou du Droit qu’ont les Nations belligérentes d’arrêter les Navires des Peuples amis (La Haye: 1759), I, 31: “Toute Neutralité consiste dans une inaction entière relativement à la Guerre et dans une impartialité exacte et parfaite manifestée per les faits à l’égard des Belligérans”; see Piazza, Schiavitù e guerra dei barbareschi, 107-108. On Hübner see the essay by Eric Schnakenbourg in this volume. 17. ASLi, GCM, 964, cc. 220-221. 18. Antonella Alimento, “Tra Bristol ed Amsterdam: discussioni livornesi su commercio, ma-

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position in future years, giving criticisms and arguments from all quarters short shrift. The normative basis used by Pierallini for drafting the new law was provided by the Edict of Neutrality, of 1757, the articles of which he examined point by point, highlighting their discrepancies, both conceptual and practical. In reality, the rules laid down in 1757 essentially reproduced the text of the Edict of Neutrality19 of 28 December 1739, therefore Pierallini had in fact submitted the whole system to criticism, both theoretical and juridical, that had been followed in recent decades by the Tuscan government to save the Grand Duchy from the disasters of war. The discussion between Giuseppe Pierallini and Pompeo Neri The fruit of Pierallini’s labours was sent to Count Rosenberg Orsini20 on 22 July 1768 who forwarded it “confidentially” for examination to Pompeo Neri, a member of the Council of State and director, from 1765, of the Secretariat for Internal Affairs, and therefore, both because of his legal knowledge and his political experience, without doubt the most authoritative member of the Tuscan government.21 Neri wasted no time before, on 13 August, his observations were sent to Pierallini22 who, in replying was no less diligent: on 22 August a thick dossier containing his responses began its journey to Florence.23 Neri examined both Pierallini’s Osservazioni and the Progetto di legge (bill), with great attention,24 annotating all the articles on which his opinion was at variance with that of the Livornese secretary. Before looking closely rina ed impero negli anni Cinquanta del Settecento”, in: Dall’origine dei Lumi alla Rivoluzione. Scritti in onore di Luciano Guerci e Giuseppe Ricuperati, eds. Donatella Balani, Dino Carpanetto and Marina Roggero (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2008), 25-45. 19. Legislazione toscana, XXIV, 224-225. 20. ASLi, GCM, 964, c. 218, F. Bourbon del Monte to S. Rosenberg, Livorno, 22 July 1768. 21. Alessandra Contini, “Pompeo Neri tra Firenze e Vienna (1757-1766)”, in: Pompeo Neri. Atti del Colloquio di Studi di Castelfiorentino (6-7 maggio 1988), eds. Aldo Fratoianni and Marcello Verga (Castelfiorentino: Società Storica della Valdelsa, 1992), 305 and footnote; Vieri Becagli, “Pompeo Neri e le riforme istituzionali della prima età Leopoldina”, in: Pompeo Neri, 342. 22. ASLi, GCM, 6, Lettere al Governatore, c. 21r, S. Rosenberg to F. Bourbon del Monte, Florence, 13 August 1768. P. Neri “Osservazioni sopra il Progetto di Legge che viene proposto in materia della Neutralità”, in ASFi, SS, 245, ins. no. 2, prot. 22_1778 (two examples, one just the text, the other with attached copies of two documents consulted by Neri: a letter from the governor of Livorno of 28 May 1759; a letter from the Regency Council to the governor of Livorno of 23 January 1759). 23. ASLi, GCM, 964, c. 278; the original in ASFi, SS, 245, ins. no. 2, prot. 22_1778. G. Pierallini “Risposta alle Riflessioni sopra il Progetto di una nuova Legge di Neutralità” is in ASLi, GCM, 964, cc. 279-288. 24. In the preface to his considerations Neri writes that he had “[…] collated in this Secretariat all the papers that are cited and all those that I believed worth looking at when making a new Regulation”; ASFi, SS, 245, ins. no. 2, prot. 22_1778, “Osservazioni sopra il Progetto di Legge”.

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at the points of divergence between the two it is worth dwelling on what Neri thought of the project as a whole. He reproached Pierallini for having prepared a bill that contained “too many innovations over the old style”, in other words compared to the previous rules on neutrality formulated in Tuscany, while acknowledging that the project was based on “just and wise principles” that were “desirable” for the Grand Duchy.25 Compared to Pierallini, Neri had a diametrically opposed attitude regarding the evaluation of the political significance attributed to the 1757 Edict of Neutrality. For Pierallini this act was a turning-point in a decades-long process, and it was from it that the development of a new law of Tuscan neutrality had to start. But for Neri the edict, despite having been promulgated without involving the interested powers, was to be considered, in that regard, as a purely contingent act, a consequence of an extraordinary diplomatic situation that had prevented the belligerent nations from reaching a consensus within a reasonable timeframe. According to the abbot, however, the edict did not depart to any great degree from what had been established in 1739, in the early years of the Lorrainese principality.26 Although it was undisputed that the Tuscan sovereign had full right to enact a law that had not been agreed with other sovereigns via their consuls, Neri still maintained that the former, as the owners of the vessels that were supposed to submit to the neutrality law, would never respect it if they deemed it unfavourable. In other words, Neri began from the premise that a law of neutrality would only work if accepted by the belligerent powers which, because of their overwhelming naval forces, would decide whether to comply with such regulations on the basis of military power rather than their reasonableness or legal merit. Neri’s position was, in this case, marked by his political approach, which was to proceed gradually, avoiding abrupt changes of direction from what had been standard practice in the Regency over the years, and to be cautious about adopting jurisprudential formulas that were too innovative compared to the tradition initiated by Pufendorf in the area of international law.27 In short, Neri’s strongest criticism was reserved for two points of Pierallini’s bill. The first concerned the definition of the maritime area subject to Tuscan neutrality as the area over which the Grand Duke exercised sovereignty. The second, which appeared in several articles of the proposed law, concerned the treatment of anything in Livorno or other Tuscan ports and harbours that could be used for military purposes: men, ships, arms, munitions and victuals. On this issue the rules presented by Pierallini were consistent with his basic principle (of changing prohibitions into permissions) reiterated in its entirety in his reply to Neri: “neutrality consists of being impartial and can be observed just as eas25. ASFi, SS, 245, ins. no. 2, prot. 22_1778, “Osservazioni sopra il Progetto di Legge”. 26. Piazza, Schiavitù e guerra dei barbareschi, 64-65, 110. 27. On these traits of P. Neri, see Contini, Pompeo Neri tra Firenze e Vienna, 239-331.

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ily in permitting as in prohibiting”.28 The rules essentially equated the negotiation of what was necessary to the conduct of war to the ordinary, free business activities that were so important for Livorno.29 Neri did not share the concept of Article 16 of Pierallini’s draft: the freedom to load weapons, gunpowder, ammunition and rations in Livorno, items considered as goods like any other, a freedom granted to a warship or corsair. Furthermore, he noted a contradiction between that concession and the prohibition on merchant ships to reinforce their artillery, unless they paid an appropriate bond as a guarantee not to attack anyone while en route to their port of destination.30 The other question – that of how Pierallini had fixed the boundaries of Tuscan maritime sovereignty – was vigorously contested by Neri. The bill anticipated the neutralisation of the waters between the Tuscan coast and a line drawn as far as the islet of Meloria since they were subject to the sovereignty of the Grand Duchy. In essence, Pierallini proposed an extension of Tuscan waters up to five miles from the coast, challenging the policy, long accepted throughout Europe,31 that set the limit of territorial waters by the range of a cannon shot (that is, about three miles), a limit that was applied for the first time with the edict of 1757.32 Pierallini justified his position on the grounds that during the previous war (1756-1763) the earlier standard had led to accidents and disputes. First, in coastal places where there was no artillery it was assumed that hostile acts were permissible as far as the coast. Secondly, the range of a cannon shot varied according to the size of the gun. Thus, according to Pierallini, it was necessary to establish a fixed limit, and this was clearly measured by the distance between the coast of Livorno and the tower of Meloria, a body of water that needed to be neutral so as to keep the port of Livorno accessible and safe.33 Neri was not opposed to the principle of declaring this stretch of sea neutral because it manifestly came under the sovereignty of the Grand Duchy since, being enclosed within the intra munimenta, it constituted a rare case in which the territoriality of the waters could not be delineated by the range a cannon shot. The abbot, however, adamantly opposed the introduction of such a rule because he believed that it would never be accepted by the maritime powers, which were all in agreement on only recognising the validity of the 28. ASLi, GCM, 964, cc. 286, 287. 29. ASLi, GCM, 964, c. 286. 30. ASFi, SS, 245, ins. no. 2, prot. 22_1778, “Osservazioni sopra il Progetto di Legge”; on Article 16 of the bill, ASLi, GCM, 964, “Progetto”, c. 243. 31. Wyndham Walker, “Territorial Waters: The Cannon Shot Rule”, in: British Yearbook of International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1945), 210-231; Heinz Siegfrid Koplovitz Kent, “The Historical Origins of the Three-Mile Limit”, The American Journal of International Law, 48 (1954): 537-553. 32. Editto di neutralità, 121: “That in the jetty, ports and beaches in both Livorno and Porto Ferraio, and in any other places in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany within the range of a Cannon there will not be any act of hostility between the named Nations [France and England]”. 33. ASLi, GCM, 964, “Osservazioni”, c. 222.

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cannon-shot limit.34 Neri’s logic, which became both an argument for judging the value of the bill as well as a line to follow in the elaboration of a law that he considered effective and enforceable, was that during the drafting it was necessary to take into account the real balance of political power independently of the validity of the reasons, both legal and practical, that had determined the regulations he criticised. Using the same rationale he argued against Article 2 of the bill, which banned ships belonging to the warring powers from crossing within sight of Livorno, Portoferraio and the towers spread along the state’s coastline.35 The purpose of this rule was to prevent maritime traffic from being so deterred by the threat of attack from sailing to and from Tuscany that to all intents and purposes the port of Livorno was blockaded.36 His objection was that Pierallini was proposing a prohibition which, since it covered an overly extensive expanse of sea, was unlikely to be welcomed by warring states and would be hard for the government of Tuscany to enforce.37 Without doubt Neri, from his long experience in government, evaluated the rules written in Livorno in the light of the dominant forces in the Mediterranean during the second half of the eighteenth century, believing that, in the final analysis, the relationships between these set the boundaries within which a law of Tuscan neutrality could really be made to work. Neri also found fault with Article 9 of the draft. This allowed the belligerents the right to purchase or construct merchant ships in Tuscany, and to sail them, after having committed themselves, by means of paying adequate surety, to refrain from committing acts of aggression against anyone en route to the final destination of the cargo.38 In his opinion these vessels, having left a Tuscan port as such, could easily be transformed into privateers once at their final port of call. The abbot, while not denying that such a prohibition in the edict of 1757 had provoked protests and complaints, inflicting considerable damage on Livorno, argued that the new, opposite regulation, which could affect the balance between the belligerent powers, would cause even greater harm.39 Neri showed similar perplexity regarding Articles 17 and 18 of Pierallini’s bill. These articles prescribed the nullity of prey captured in violation of the law, giving the governor of Livorno the authority to decide an offence, with no possibility of appeal. The governor was also put in charge of adjudicating the legality of the sequestration of goods and merchandise on board Tuscan ships anchored at Livorno.40 These were two provisions that, according to Pierallini, 34. ASFi, SS, 245, ins. no. 2, prot. 22_1778, “Osservazioni sopra il Progetto di Legge”. 35. ASLi, GCM, 964, “Progetto”, c. 240. 36. ASLi, GCM, 964, “Osservazioni”, c. 223. 37. ASFi, SS, 245, ins. no. 2, prot. 22_1778, “Osservazioni sopra il Progetto di Legge”. 38. ASLi, GCM, 964, “Progetto”, c. 242. 39. ASFi, SS, 245, ins. no. 2, prot. 22_1778, “Osservazioni sopra il Progetto di Legge”. Neri expressed the same ideas in relation to Article 10, which permitted belligerents to arm a preyed ship in Tuscan ports (ASLi, GCM, 964, “Progetto”, c. 242). 40. ASLi, GCM, 964, “Progetto”, cc. 243-244.

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eliminated practices that were seriously damaging to the sovereignty of the Grand Duke, given that the first article brought to an end the right claimed by foreign judges to decide on the legality of prey seized in Tuscan waters: “an intolerable absurdity, that a foreign tribunal decides on actions carried out in the Grand Duchy and subject to the censure of the laws protecting it,” as Pierallini wrote in his Osservazioni.41 The second article removed from foreigners, who recognised only the authority of their home nation’s judges, the ability to keep ships flying the Tuscan flag confiscated in a Tuscan port on the pretext that they had in their holds goods destined for the enemy. “The absurdity is even greater in this case”, Pierallini commented, “as it is so unbecoming to the dignity of a Sovereign, that a covered Ship from his Pavillion should remain in a Port in his Domain under the power of a foreigner, without the Prince to whom he belongs […] being in a position to declare whether the arrest is just”.42 “Very fair regulations”, Neri’s note said, “but nevertheless contradicted by the other Powers”: when the governor had issued sentences in these cases, they had never been executed for fear of provoking uncontrollable reactions.43 Prudence, pragmatic realism, and minimal changes in relation to the rules in force in the recent past: ultimately, these were the cornerstones on which Neri would have liked to set a new law of neutrality. From a general point of view, Pierallini, drawing examples from past events, pointed out that the law he planned was not as new as it appeared to Neri. The innovations seen were in fact little more than the written exposition of practices that had long been adopted or were previous prohibitions changed into permissions, changes made necessary by the impossibility of enforcing the prohibitions.44 The promulgation of the law on neutrality in 1757 was defended by Pierallini precisely because it had not been agreed with the consuls, who might have been able to oppose the changes, as had happened before that year: “we have obtained the right not to seek their [the consuls’] endorsement, it seems right to keep it and publish the law that is thought to best conform to justice and the interests of Livorno”.45 In justifying the innovations nevertheless introduced in the law, he firmly restated the other foundation of his structure, which was the premise on which he based his conception of neutrality: “the incontrovertible principle that neutrality consists of being impartial and can be equally observed by permitting as by prohibiting”.46 All in all, Pierallini’s reply to Neri was an attempt to make him understand that, when all was said and done, his project did nothing but systematise, 41. ASLi, GCM, 964, “Osservazioni”, c. 238. 42. ASLi, GCM, 964, “Osservazioni”, c. 238. 43. ASFi, SS, 245, ins. no. 2, prot. 22_1778, Osservazioni sopra il Progetto di Legge. 44. ASLi, GCM, 964, “Risposta”, cc. 285, 287-288. 45. ASLi, GCM, 964, “Risposta”, c. 288. 46. ASLi, GCM, 964, “Risposta”, c. 287.

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through a well-structured, coherent and organic argument, a series of customs and concrete solutions that had been common practice for decades in Livorno, accepted by all interested parties without ever having raised significant objections or protests. Responding, in particular, to Neri’s observations on how to define the limits of the waters on which to apply neutrality,47 Pierallini reaffirmed the validity of the five-mile principle because the Grand Duke’s sovereignty on the sea relied on his dominion over a series of islands, Gorgona, Elba and Giglio that encompassed, along with the Tuscan seaboard, an even greater expanse of water. Furthermore, from a fiscal point of view, Tuscan sovereigns had for centuries exercised their jurisdiction over a much broader stretch by imposing a duty on all ships calling at Livorno after having passed above Meloria.48 Moreover, other princes, such as the Savoys in Villafranca and the Grimaldis at Monaco,49 collected duties based on a definition of territoriality of waters that covered vast areas. To adopt, as Neri suggested, a mixed system – in other words, the line drawn to Meloria in order to determine the neutral waters facing Livorno, and the cannon shot for the rest – would not eliminate the central problem of enforcing the rules in places where there was no artillery or where there were only small-calibre cannons. The proposed standard, Pierallini concluded, was not perfect, but at least it offered “a more tranquil navigation of our waters”, without causing more difficulties than the other solutions.50 Connected to the problem of delineating neutral waters was that of what limits to impose when prohibiting warships from crossing within sight. Pierallini, having recalled that Tuscany, from the late seventeenth century, had always treated this practice as a violation of neutrality and had used all possible means to ban it, confirmed the need to articulate in a clear rule what was deemed acceptable conduct. However, he declared himself willing to accept Neri’s position, restricting the ban on crossing to solely within view of Livorno “where the interests of trade most demand it”.51 Pierallini’s arguments, which were elaborated in the Osservazioni and in the Risposta alle Riflessioni of Neri, were doubtless fuelled by his knowledge of the more innovative works produced in the field of international law. Vattel and Hübner provided him with many of the basic principles on which he built his 47. ASLi, GCM, 964, “Risposta”, c. 80. 48. On this order, issued by Ferdinando I de’ Medici in 1599, and on the relatively long political contest regarding the rights of sovereignty of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany on the sea facing the Livornese coast, see Franco Angiolini, “Sovranità sul mare ed acque territoriali. Una contesa tra granducato di Toscana, repubblica di Lucca e monarchia spagnola”, in: Frontiere di terra frontiere di mare. La Toscana moderna nello spazio mediterraneo, eds. Elena Fasano Guarini and Paola Volpini (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2008), 244-297. 49. Cesare Maria Moschetti, Questioni di diritto pubblico marino negli scritti dei giuristi napoletani della prima metà del seicento (Naples: Giannini, 1984), 20-90. 50. ASLi, GCM, 964, “Risposta”, c. 281. 51. ASLi, GCM, 964, “Risposta”, c. 283.

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arguments, but these were enriched and made real by a wealth of examples from the past.52 Pierallini had a vast and profound knowledge of problems brought about by the application of rules that were either too vague or too severe, rules that in his opinion needed to be amended or scrapped if one wanted to create a law capable of protecting Tuscan trade in wartime. Even so, he was well aware that the force of law could do little when confronted by the force of arms. With a healthy realism he observed in his Risposta that the ban on crossing within sight, however fair or appropriate, would be worthless if a powerful navy were needed to administer compliance. But such an objection, he concluded, “could be made to all the dispositions that we might think to take relating to maritime neutrality, and it is no reason to abstain from imposing a law that is just, and best suited for trade and the freedom of the port, repeating that perhaps the main object of these laws is to be able to declare acts of transgression void when we have the ships in hand and we are capable of bringing about a trial and giving a sentence”.53 The bill under examination in the Council of State (1771) However, Pierallini’s attentive and punctilious replies to Neri’s Osservazioni remained at the bottom of a drawer in the State Secretariat, along with his bill. In 1769 the defeat of Pasquale Paoli and the final subjugation of Corsica by the French had dispersed the threatening war clouds looming over Tuscan waters, making the enactment of a law of neutrality for the Grand Duchy less urgent. It is not improbable that Neri himself – considering the changed politico-military circumstances in the Mediterranean and his strong position in the Grand Ducal government – having noted the tenacity and strength of argument with which the Livornese secretary defended his views, encouraged the shelving of the bill in order to avoid having his judgement repudiated or called into question. It was by the initiative of Peter Leopold that in 1771 the bill was finally submitted to the Tuscan government. His revived interest in a neutrality law was perhaps due to the great attention, not without concern, with which he looked on the naval policy of Russia, whose fleet had anchored in Livorno in those months, and to the Mediterranean ambitions of Catherine II.54 On 4 January 1771 Pierallini, responding to an order from the Grand Duke, whom he had met a few days earlier,55 sent Francesco Seratti, Secretary of the 52. On Pierallini’s reputation for his extraordinary knowledge of documents relating to economic, political, diplomatic and juridical issues in Livorno, see Francesco Maria Gianni, “Discorso sopra Livorno (1804)” in: Francesco Maria Gianni, Scritti di pubblica economia storicoeconomici e storico-politici (Florence: Niccolai, 1849), II, 314. 53. ASLi, GCM, 964, “Risposta”, cc. 282-283. 54. Wandruszka, Pietro Leopoldo, 303-306. 55. In the winter of 1770-1771, the Grand Duke, having returned from Vienna, stayed, as was his habit, in Pisa, also visiting Livorno; Wandruszka, Pietro Leopoldo, 280, 303.

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Council of State, all the documentation pertaining to the matter.56 On 19 January Seratti had the entire dossier on neutrality sent to all the councillors.57 Between the end of January and mid-February they – Francesco Siminetti, Tommaso Piccolomini, Vincenzo Alberti, Ferdinando Incontri and Pompeo Neri – delivered their verdicts on the question.58 The opinion of all the councillors, with the exception of Neri, who of course had already expressed his views in his notes, was broadly favourable to the solutions set out by Pierallini that, with the Risposta to Neri, had become even more convincing. Only on the first article did everyone agree on the cannonshot standard for the measuring of territorial waters. The general opinion however concurred with Neri on the point of crossing within sight (Article 2); in point of fact, Pierallini had himself come round to the same conclusion, namely that it was best to limit the prohibition to the port of Livorno alone. The differences in the positions were rather on the effectiveness of a law of neutrality as a means of protecting Livornese trade. Siminetti declared that to this end it might be better to begin negotiating bilateral treaties in the same way as the major trading nations. For his part, Alberti argued that corsairs should not be hindered, but that the conditions foreseen for merchant and war vessels should be extended to them: furthermore, Tuscan involvement in arming corsairs should be allowed in order not to deny Livorno a profitable source of income. Incontri and Alberti, finally, pronounced themselves in favour of the publication of the law without prior consent of the interested powers. Finally, Neri, writing on 12 February, gave an account of the outcome of the examination. Having taken note of the discussion that began in the summer of 1768 and of the opinions of the other councillors, he compiled a draft law in line with the conclusions of the debate to be assessed by the governor of Livorno, but in reality by Pierallini, the actual interlocutor. In particular, he stressed the importance of reflecting carefully on the possibility of treating privateer ships in the same way as other craft, a solution that would have avoided disadvantages for the corsairs and protests against the Tuscan government (Article 5), and on whether to allow the subjects and residents of the Grand Duchy to assist in arming foreign ships (Article 7). He also wondered if the project written in a different political climate should not be modified to reflect the changed international scene. Finally, despite the opinion of some councillors and the silence of others as to whether a neutrality law should be subject to the prior approval of the powers who might be involved in a war in the Mediterranean,59 56. ASFi, SS, 245, ins. no. 2, prot. 22_1778, G. Pierallini, Livorno, 4 January 1771. Pierallini once more sent to Florence his “Osservazioni”, his bill, the “Osservazioni” by P. Neri and his “Risposta” to Neri. 57. ASFi, SS, 245, ins. no. 2, prot. 22_1778, F. Seratti, Secretariat of State, Florence, 19 January 1771. 58. ASFi, SS, 245, ins. no. 2, prot. 22_1778. 59. This is what Vincenzo Alberti, the head of the War Secretariat, and Ferdinando Incontri stated, while Francesco Siminetti and Tommaso Piccolomini said nothing on the subject; ASFi, SS, 245, ins. no. 2, prot. 22_1778.

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he insisted on keeping the question open, as well as asking if it would be better to publish it in a time of peace or of war. Significantly, he thereby confirmed his attachment to a politico-diplomatic notion of neutrality that harked back to the decades of the de’ Medici Grand Duchy, and which had first been applied with the promulgation of the 1739 Edict. On 2 March Pierallini was already able to send Siminetti the Osservazioni sopra la minuta di una Legge di Neutralità proposta a Sua Eccellenza il Signore Abate Neri.60 Even this time Pierallini did not hesitate to amend the abbot’s draft, which had ended up following most of what the secretary had written. He proposed making substantial changes to a single article, the first. Neri’s formulation was too imprecise because it did not state clearly which waters east of Livorno were to be considered neutral. Pierallini put forward two versions, better constructed geographically, leaving the Council of State to decide the better option. As for Article 5, which regulated the exit of ships of warring nations from Livorno, he agreed, as the councillors had suggested, that corsair ships could also be included, which anyway were allowed to arm themselves and reinforce their crew at Livorno, although only with their commanders being required to provide suitable surety. Finally, on Article 7, which forbade the subjects and residents of the Grand Duchy from taking part in arming any sort of war or corsair vessel, whether in the state or abroad,61 he observed that the ban was directed at avoiding a violation of neutrality, preventing all Tuscans, subjects or residents, from helping to increase the strength of one of the belligerents. In the face of the doubts expressed by the members of the Council of State, who had not been persuaded by the extension of the ban to armaments made abroad, he openly suggested a formula that, ambiguously, made no comment on the merits of the location of such armaments.62 Last of all, Pierallini responded to the concluding questions raised by Neri. The end of the war in Corsica did not detract from the validity of the project drawn up in 1768, because “whatever situation the political system of Europe finds itself in, it seems all too necessary for the good of Tuscany that Livorno retains perfect neutrality, and in order to maintain it the rules that best provide for peaceful trade and the safe navigation of our seas, and which keep discussions, opinions and complaints at a distance will always be preferable, aims which seem best served by the present project, than by the earlier laws”.63 60. ASFi, SS, 245, ins. no. 2, prot. 22_1778, G. Pierallini to F. Siminetti, director of the State Secretariat for Internal Affairs, Livorno, 2 March 1771; copies of these “Osservazioni” and the accompanying letter to Siminetti are in ASLi, GCM, 966, “Copialettere e minutari della Segreteria civile”, cc. 41-46. From what Pierallini wrote, it was once more Peter Leopold who, during his visit to Livorno, gave him all the material on the law. 61. The integration proposed by Neri (ASFi, SS, 245, ins. no. 2, prot. 22_1778,”Osservazioni sopra il Progetto di Legge”) was fully accepted by Pierallini (ASLi, GCM, 964, “Risposta”, cc. 283-284). 62. ASLi, GCM, 966, cc. 45-46. 63. ASLi, GCM, 966, c. 46.

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With these words Pierallini reconfirmed in full not only his own conception of neutrality, but also, and above all, his own vision of Tuscany’s place in the international arena. The answer to the second question posed by Neri, which concerned the matter of when to promulgate the law and whether to submit it to any power that might be involved in an eventual war in the Mediterranean – or rather, it goes without saying, France and Britain – exhibited Pierallini’s political acumen. He did not even touch on the argument relating to the preliminary consent of the powers but instead focussed on when it might be most useful to establish the law, stating clearly “that regarding the time to establish the new Law, it would be desirable that this occurs in the midst of peace when the declarations it contains cannot seem either favourable or contrary to the particular circumstances of some power, but are seen to be driven, as they truly are, by a spirit of perfect impartiality”.64 However, the precise and articulated considerations carried out in Livorno on the draft law prepared by Neri became a dead issue. Once more in Florence the law of neutrality disappeared from the government’s agenda and, what is more (as a letter from the governor of Livorno Bourbon del Monte in 1778 reveals), the Council of State did not even consider Pierallini’s responses. In fact, when, in the spring of that year, the problem of the law of neutrality presented itself for the third time and, as was now the custom, Livorno was called on to give its opinion, it was sent the same draft prepared by Neri in 1771.65 Why was the law on neutrality subjected to another delay? Certainly it was not because of any irreconcilable differences between the arguments made about the law in Livorno and Florence’s thoughts on the subject. After all, in March 1771 the positions in Livorno and Florence on neutrality and its regulation had reached a settlement. Indeed, in 1778, when the elaboration of the law was resumed, all the results of the discussion of 1771 were accepted and included in the published text. It should therefore be ruled out that the block on the law had been caused by an irreconcilable legal-political difference between its main architects. It is instead more likely that Neri still felt cool towards a law whose foundations he did not entirely agree with and which, in any case, he wanted to have published only with the consent of the foreign powers. What is more, his standpoint regarding the advantage of promulgating the law only if war broke out had found support among the members of the Council of State66 and, strengthened by this consensus, he did not have to struggle unduly to ensure that this time, as in 1768, the bill and all its related papers ended up once more in the bottom drawer of a desk in the Secretariat of State, where it would 64. ASLi, GCM, 966, c. 46. 65. ASFi, SS, 245, ins. no. 2, prot. 22_1778, F. Bourbon del Monte to V. Alberti, Livorno, 17 April 1778. 66. V. Albertini was of this view, while Ferdinando Incontri expressed a more open opinion; ASFi, SS, 245, ins. no. 2, prot. 22_1778.

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languish until the spring of 1778. Furthermore, from early 1772 a separate and bitter disagreement erupted between Neri and Bourbon del Monte, supported by Pierallini, caused by the reform of the administration of justice desired by Neri, and held by the other two to be impossible to apply in Livorno and highly damaging to the port city’s particular circumstances.67 For these reasons up to 1774 the relations between the governments of Livorno and the Grand Duchy were tense and there can be no doubt that the ill feeling was related in some measure to the shelving of the bill on neutrality. Conclusion: From bill to law On 6 February 1778 France, having sided with the American rebels, declared war on Britain and, on 17 June, when in the English Channel the French frigate Belle Poule dismasted the British Arethuse, the naval war between the two powers began. It would quickly reach the Mediterranean. The speed of events did not catch the government of the Grand Duchy by surprise. Since its relationship with British manufacturing was the backbone of its economy, Tuscany was forced to respond to the Franco-British conflict by passing a legislative act that removed it from the field of conflict. Hence the law on neutrality was hastily exhumed. Count Alberti, the head of the War Secretariat, on 14 April 1778 again sent the governor of Livorno the draft prepared by Neri in 1771 with certain annotations made by the Council of State which, in substance, left aside the observations and suggestions made by Pierallini seven years earlier.68 Once more in Florence there was hesitation about promulgating a law of neutrality without informing the consuls of the belligerents in order to have their respective governments’ consent. And once more Bourbon del Monte repeated that, having been ignored in 1757, as regards this procedure, “it would not be very fitting to the dignity of the Sovereign for him to subject it to others once more”. Moreover, from a practical point of view, submitting the law to the consuls would have meant greatly lengthening the time needed for it to reach publication. In fact, according to the governor, the consuls would have sought the advice of their diplomatic representatives in Florence who would then have consulted with their sovereigns. Also, in his opinion, if one of the powers were to consider certain articles of the law detrimental to its interests, it would have delayed its response, thereby blocking publication. If one really wanted to involve the belligerents, he concluded, it was better to deal directly with their residents at the court of the Grand Duchy, without referring to the consuls in Livorno. The position of the governor, which was the same as Pierallini’s, and which was reaffirmed vigorously in 1778, was very clear. The law on neutrality was 67. Aglietti, Governatori di Livorno, 139-153. 68. ASFi, SS, 245, ins. no. 2, prot. 22_1778, F. Bourbon del Monte to V. Alberti, Livorno, 17 April 1778.

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and had to be a purely political act, rising from the full affirmation of Tuscan sovereignty, and not from a context determined by the commercial interests of the various “national” groups active in Livorno, of which the consuls were the representatives.69 The only point on which Bourbon del Monte referred the decision back to Florence was the presence on the scene of a new actor, the American rebels, which was the only real novelty compared to the political picture of 1771. From the summer of 1777 at Livorno, when rumours were heard about the presence of American corsairs in the Mediterranean, questions had been asked about how to behave towards them. The rule that had always been applied in Livorno was to welcome privateer ships as long as they carried a licence from their government to exercise their kind of warfare on the seas. In the case of the Americans, since they then had no recognised independent government, the principle on which the Livornese approach rested was lacking. The solution adopted in those months was to deny American privateers entry to the port, except when the ships needed urgent repairs, but to allow the merchant navy to enter, as long as its vessels first lowered the American flag.70 While at Livorno the governor was urged, especially by the French consul, to adopt neutrality, in Florence the government reassured Paris regarding its desire to maintain neutrality71 and proceeded to the development of the law. As we have seen, on the 14 April 1778 the bill that had been reworked by Neri in 1771 arrived at Livorno; it included the Observations made by Pierallini and the opinions put forward by the members of the Council of State. After three days, on 17 April, Bourbon del Monte sent the 1771 draft back to Vincenzo Alberti with notes in the margins regarding some articles of the law, notes which repeated, for the most part, what Pierallini had written seven years earlier.72 Of the nineteen articles that made up the draft law four were criticised by Livorno: Articles I, II, V and VI. The remaining articles were exactly as Pierallini had written them in his original project, with the exception of Article X, which, however, appeared as he had reformulated it in his Osservazioni of 1768. As for articles XVII and XVIII, following the reform of the provincial tribunals in 1772, Livorno requested clarification on how to apply them, given 69. Jean-Pierre Filippini, “L’attività dei consoli in Europa, nel Mediterraneo e a Livorno alla fine del Settecento e all’inizio dell’Ottocento”, in: Storia e attualità della presenza degli Stati Uniti a Livorno e in Toscana. Atti del Convegno Livorno 4-5-6 aprile 2002, eds. Paolo Castignoli, Luigi Donolo and Algerina Neri (Pisa: PLUS, 2003), 23; also Jean-Pierre Filippini, Il porto di Livorno e la Toscana (1676-1814) (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1998), II, 208-209. 70. Carlo Mangio, “Livorno e l’America settentrionale: dal “Magazzino italiano” al progetto di trattato commerciale fra gli Stati Uniti e la Toscana di Pietro Leopoldo (1752-1785)”, in: Storia e attualità della presenza degli Stati Uniti a Livorno, 127-129. 71. Luca Lo Basso, “Livorno, gli inglesi e la guerra corsara nel Mediterraneo occidentale nella seconda metà del XVIII secolo”, Nuovi Studi Livornesi 15 (2008): 156. 72. ASFi, SS, 245, ins. no. 2, prot. 22_1778, F. Bourbon del Monte to V. Alberti, Livorno, 17 April 1778.

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that in the past the sentences nullifying prey, and the controversies over sequestered goods on board Tuscan ships brought into Livorno, were issued by the auditor on behalf of the governor.73 Article I, which dealt with the neutral waters question, had been reformulated in 1771 by Pierallini, but in Florence it was not approved as it was too detailed. In 1778 Pierallini proposed a version that was simpler, albeit still clear in its delineation of the area concerned, and this was accepted. The stretch of sea facing Livorno, between the coast and Meloria, both to the west and east, was declared neutral, as were all the coastal waters of the Grand Duchy within cannon-shot range. As regards Article II, which prohibited warships from crossing in sight of Livorno and other Tuscan seaports, Pierallini took the opportunity to amplify it in accordance with what he had recommended years before, and included the reference to the “towers” and the “ports”. This suggestion was also included in the law to be sent to print. Article V was the subject of extensive debate at both Livorno and Florence. This was intended, in fact, to regulate entries to and departures from the Tuscan ports in times of war, without hindering commercial traffic. The sticking point was that of the privateers, since merchant ships and military ones could move freely, undertaking not to attack enemy ships in neutral Tuscan waters, giving guarantee with a surety and their word of honour. Denying the privateers this right would have led to them leaving Livorno and the consequent loss of the economic benefits they provided. But to what extent could one trust the word of honour of a privateer commander? Who would have paid a surety on his behalf? In the end the proposal was made at Livorno to resolve the problem by equating privateer ships with merchant ones, thus accepting the hypothesis that Neri had advanced in 1771. The next article was aimed at avoiding obstacles to the trade carried out by ships of reduced tonnage, but was also designed to prevent small armed vessels from slipping into the ports. Both in Florence and Livorno there was agreement on the contents of the article, and the final discussion centred on the clearest way to express it. In the end it was in Florence that the final version was produced. Other marginal adjustments were made to Article VII, in accordance with the discussions of 1771, without however changing the original structure. The law, to be observed in perpetuity, and which provided Tuscan ports and harbours with “a perfect neutrality in any event of a maritime war between the powers of Europe”, was promulgated on 1 August 1778.74 Within a 73. ASFi, SS, 245, ins. no. 2, prot. 22_1778, Note in the margin of “Draft on the neutrality law” (attached to the letter from Bourbon del Monte to Alberti, Livorno, 17 April 1778). 74. Bandi, e Ordini da osservarsi nel Granducato diToscana pubblicati dal di VII di Gennaio MDCCLXXVIII al di XX dicembre MDCCLXXIX (Florence: G. Cambiagi, MDCCLXXX), IX, no. LI. The law is also reproduced in Giovanni Maria Lampredi, Del commercio dei popoli neutrali in tempo di guerra. Parte II (Florence: 1788), 206-215.

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matter of days it was sent to Livorno and to all the other seaports of the Grand Duchy.75 The law of 1778, which would be republished in 1792 (when the French Revolution set Europe ablaze)76 in accordance what was noted in Livorno towards the end of the century, acquitted itself well: although it was occasionally transgressed by a few corsairs, it was never violated by any belligerent power, and was taken as a model for similar laws ratified by other states of the peninsula.77 In fact between September 1778 and September 1779 the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the Papal State, the Republic of Genoa, and the Republic of Venice78 enacted similar measures, none of which, however, argued with the same force as the Tuscan law the principle that neutrality could be guaranteed just as well “in the equality of permissions as in the equality of prohibitions”, as long as all nations received the exact same treatment.79 This principle, put forward and argued by Vattel in his Le droit de gens in the middle of the century, and taken to heart by Pierallini, was first applied definitively in the Tuscan law of neutrality.80 Along with the profile of the Swiss jurist, in the law of 1778 – again thanks to Pierallini – we see that of the Danish jurist, Hübner. He was present not only as a convinced supporter of the thesis of neutrality as exact impartiality between belligerents, but also as an ardent defender of the right of neutrals to enjoy the widest freedom of trade,81 an objective which was explicitly declared on several occasions in the ten-year discussion of the law and which was just as forcefully stated in its final wording. The taking of Vattel and Hübner as theoretical reference points, as Pierallini had done in his project, and the referring to them again during the ensuing discussions, marked an important departure in the prevailing legal culture in Florence of those years. This choice naturally provoked the opposition of Neri who, belonging to another age, for the most part continued to follow the teachings of 75. ASFi, SS, 245, ins. no. 2, prot. 22_1778, F. Bourbon del Monte, Florence, 4 August 1778; F. Bourbon del Monte to V. Alberti, Livorno, 7 August 1778. 76. ASLi, GCM, 961, cc. 194r-197v. 77. ASLi, GCM, 961, cc. 221v. 78. The texts of these laws are in Lampredi, Commercio dei popoli neutrali in tempo di guerra. Parte II, 216-251. 79. These words summarise the underlying principle of the law in an anonymous note entitled “La nuova legge di neutralità differisce dalle precedenti. No. 2”, attached to the papers sent along with the law (4 August 1778); ASFi, SS, 245, ins. no. 2, prot. 22_1778. On this characteristic of Tuscan law see Gianfranco Miglio, La controversia sui limiti del commercio neutrale fra Giovanni Maria Lampredi e Ferdinando Galiani (Milan: Ispi, 1942), 179. 80. Emer de Vattel, Le droit des gens, ou principes de la loi naturelle, appliquée à la conduite et aux affaires des nations et des souverains (Leyde [Neuchâtel], 1758), book III, ch. III, § 111: Du Commerce des Nations neutres avec celles qui sont en guerre; § 118, Offices impartiaux des peuples neutres; see also Miglio, La controversia, 48-53, 179 and the essay by Antonio Trampus in this volume. 81. Martin Hübner, De la saisie des bâtimens neutres, ou du droit qu’ont les nations belligérantes d’arrêter les navires des Peuples amis (La Haye, 1759).

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Pufendorf.82 The politico-legal debate that took place in Livorno and Florence between 1768 and 1771, influenced as it was by different cultural approaches, caused the bill of neutrality to be delayed by several years, but in the end, when events in America turned Peter Leopold’s attentions back to the imperative of saving Tuscany from the disasters of a war, the project became law in line with the intentions of Pierallini. The Tuscan law on neutrality was a law intended to be “perpetual” and valid for any naval war that might break out in Europe, and was quite unlike the short-term measures that, in the past, had been put forward at the outbreak of a war to serve for only as long as the hostilities lasted. It was a law that, published without first seeking the consent of the interested powers, declared in a forthright manner that the neutrality of Tuscany was established, once and for all, according to the criteria of impartiality and of the equal treatment erga omnes, by the unilateral will of the state itself. The law of 1 August 1778 represents a decisive turning point in the evolution of the international law of neutrality, and is the primary example of an organic codification of maritime neutrality, and, more importantly, one that served as the template for the laws then enacted in rapid succession by the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the Papal State, Genoa and Venice.83

82. For a comprehensive view, Richard Tuck, The Rights of War and Peace: Political Thought and the International Order from Grotius to Kant (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); also Carl Schmitt, Il nomos della terra nel diritto internazionale dello “Jus publicum Europaeum”, Italian translation by Emanuele Castrucci, ed. Franco Volpi (Milan: Adelphi, 1991): 196-201. 83. Alberto Miele, L’estraneità ai conflitti armati secondo il diritto internazionale. I. Origini ed evoluzione del diritto di neutralità (Padova: CEDAM, 1970), 179-180, 193-195; and also Philip C. Jessup, Francis Deák, Neutrality. Its History, Economic and Law, I, The Origins (New York: Octagon Books, 1976).

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Legislation and trade: Reflections from the margins Mario Montorzi

In the early nineteenth century, the Austrian cameralist, Joseph von Sonnenfels,1 provided a brief conceptual composition of the issue of international trade, framing it first in the illustrious tradition of physiocratic thought, then in the current of neo-Colbertism. In considering the organic and rational treatment of this theme he demonstrated, with respect to the natural economic divisions of import and export, the existence of a third branch of mercantile practice, identified as Wiederausfuhr (or re-exportation). This began with the importation of primary materials into the territory of individual states, continued with their reworking by manufacturers, and concluded with their exportation as manufactured industrial goods. Trade, he seemed to say, was not only the outcome of a merely bilateral relationship – the natural and physical meeting of seller and buyer – but of necessity was also involved the proficiency of a superior and differentiated multilateral production process. In short, it existed not only within the private and national sphere, but also involved an exchange planned and realised extra moenia.2 Thus with Sonnenfels and cameralist thought, the categories for a new form of social theorising began circulating just when it seemed to be firmly grounded on the development of a similarly renewed regulatory strategy, directed ultimately at a prudent legislative and technical approach3 to social reform and regulation: therefore in the offices of princes and their ministers and officials the process began of designing a new institutional organisation and, in connection with it, more sophisticated regulatory and legislative mechanisms.4 1. Joseph von Sonnenfels, Grundsätze der Polizey, Handlung und Finanz (Vienna: 1819-22; republished Rome: Bizzarri, 1970), I, 2. 2. Sonnenfels, Grundsätze, II, 19, § 14. 3. Formal procedures of legal technique and writing in Sonnenfels, I, 206-7, § 161. 4. Even if he did not stop himself from occasionally polemicising, sometimes strongly, with the rationalism that came from certain more radical arguments within the doctrine, which were often too rigidly formulated on the ascetic and elementary logic (and were thus not applicable to

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Placed within this comprehensive process, Sonnenfels approached trade without overlooking the shopkeepers and small retailers who were in fact the first protagonists in mercantile activity. However, he also took care to include the prince and his ministers within the exclusive environment of trade politics, seeing them as an integral part of a general interrelationship of government that bound them to their subject population. The issue of trade became part of a distinctive view of political relationships: no longer was it seen as a simple projection of relations between private individuals or, conversely, as an activity generated between subject and sovereign in the exclusive sphere of the reason of state and the system of political domination. Rather, it was the focal object of an astute, carefully gauged administrative project which was primarily an opportunity for reflection on the aims and methods of the modern science of legislation.5 This, Sonnenfels argued, was because the overall aim of trade treaties should be placed in close relation with the particular purposes and interests that, from time to time, come to compose a particular manoeuvre,6 such as the relocation, the extraction and the transportation of goods.7 In this way, a series of operations that appeared to be merely the result of the mutual gain and self-interest of the contracting parties, rather than of the overall management of higher administrative interests, obtained specific political status. In reality, even if private interest alone might theoretically have sufficed to fulfil, stabilise and perfect trade agreements and exchanges, constituting thereby a legal tie (Band) that ensured the compliance of the parties concerned,8 ultimately only the Klugheit, the political wisdom of legal entities, would have determined the adoption of the necessary public guarantee of inter-state treaties. In this way events that were seemingly established on the basis of ad hoc and, so to speak, ‘natural’ agreements, in keeping with the wishes of the contracting parties, were moved once and for all to within the ‘artificial’ positive and state province of the legislator.9 In this regard, Sonnenfels’ motion undoubtedly found widespread support from the tradition of previous administrative and economic literature. I think in particular of the essay by Jean François Melon,10 a mercantilist favourably different periods of history) of natural law. As conservatives like Johann Georg Schlosser, Briefe über die Gesetzgebung überhaupt, und den Entwurf des preußischen Gesetzbuchs insbesondere (Frankfurt: im Verlag bei Johann Georg Fleischer, 1789), 12, evidently terrified by contemporary French upheavals, had good reason (but little historical sense and even less political acumen) to object that the simplification of the law served only the cause of despots. 5. Sonnenfels, Grundsätze, II, 517, § 352. 6. Sonnenfels, Grundsätze, II, 517, § 352. 7. Sonnenfels, Grundsätze, II, 515, § 351. 8. Sonnenfels, Grundsätze, II, 517-8, § 352. 9. Sonnenfels, Grundsätze, II, 519-20, § 353. 10. Jean François Melon, A political essay upon commerce. Written in French by Monsieur M*** Translated , with some annotations, and remarks, by David Bindon, Esq, Dublin, 1738, (1st French edition, 1736).

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disposed towards agrarianism, whose work quite clearly influenced the line of argument followed first by Forbonnais and then by Sonnenfels.11 His methodical Leitfaden, in particular, showed from the start that it was not organised and developed on the basis of earlier banal empirical appreciation, but rather was produced coherently in accordance with lucid, categorical theory. In fact, despite proceeding from apparently abstract arguments of natural law,12 Melon immediately arrived at giving a first realistic definition of the notion of trade, so that it was available for his analysis, political and public, that was especially useful in the drafting of regulations. Indeed, he came very quickly to a general and categorical definition of commerce itself, namely that, “Commerce is the Permutation of what is superfluous or superabundant, for what is necessary”.13 This was a formula that, with its rigorously rational and logical structure (represented by the dialectical nexus ‘superfluous/necessary’), revealed that it was naturally intended for use in places where legal judgements were made: rather than describing a system of data and empirical problems of interest to legislators, it recognised a logical, universal and abstract classification.14 It was therefore not by chance that the definition reached Sonnenfel’s work via the prestigious and illustrious handbook of Jakob Friedrich von Bielfeld,15 which ensured that it was given its rightful place among the works used in the network of administration and chambers. Thus right from the outset the topic of trade found its setting, almost by logical necessity, within the formal categories of legislative practice and the analysis of economic policy. The casual negotiation between private individuals was of no interest since the act of trade was always necessary, even if the fact that it was carried out specifically to balance the differing needs and interests of the contracting parties and what they bought and sold made it appear merely occasional.16 Later François Véron Duverger de Forbonnais17 provided a precise and radical in-depth analysis of Melon’s definitions:18 agriculture, he opined, is never a discipline concerned with subsistence, aimed at consumption, but is necessarily destined to contribute decisively to production for trade. Thus the idea of the production system assumed a rational basis and a strong economic motiva11. See for example, Sonnenfels, Grundsätze, I, 47. 12. Melon, Political essay, in particular 3. 13. Melon, Political essay, 8. 14. Melon, Political essay, 30. 15. Jakob Friedrich von Bielfeld, Institutions politiques (La Haye: Gosse, 1760-72), I, ch. XV, § 6, 272. 16. Melon, Political essay, 12. 17. Nouvelle Biographie Générale, publiée par MM. Firmin-Didot frères, sous la direction de M. le Dr. Ferdinand Hoefer (Paris: 1856-66), 46, 24-7. For a more complete biography see the still useful Gabriel Fleury, François-Véron de Forbonnais, sa famille, sa vie, ses actes, ses oeuvres, 1722-1800 (Le Mans: A. de Siant-Denis, 1915). 18. “Thus, Corn is the Basis of Trade, because it is the necessary Support of Life, and the providing thereof, ought to be, the first Care of the Legislature”, Melon, Political essay, 4.

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tion:19 agriculture, in short, by qualifying as part of the social process of wealth creation and trade, became a political object, in other words natural material for Gesetzgebung. It was no coincidence, then, that in 1766, speaking in fact of félicité publique, that is of Wohlfarth and the social production of wealth, the Frenchman Beardé de l’Abbaye, in response to a question from the Academy of Saint Petersburg, opened a new and decidedly political front by declaring with vigorous arguments that “the tranquility of the state depends on farmers being the owners of the land that they cultivate”.20 Shortly thereafter, in 1769, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Peter Leopold of Habsburg-Lorraine, a young sovereign who had been schooled in cameralist teaching, launched a reform of the long-term leases in his state,21 the political objectives of encouraged the idea that this would aid the emergence of a class of small landowners that could act as a political focal point for the reform process then under way. However, as indeed we know, this illusion would be dramatically exposed in 1799 by the tumultuous results of the Grand Duke’s entire policy of economic liberalisation and cultural secularisation. Nonetheless, by then a principle was fixed in the common ideological debate: social welfare (Wohlfarth) had become the object and political goal of a deliberate, well-informed administrative strategy. Thus one can certainly consider the Gesetzgebung to have been the expression of a conscious political intervention, fundamentally subversive, by the enlightened and reformist sovereign, and it is precisely in the context of this line of reasoning that the cornerstones of all Sonnenfels’s political thinking can be found. First among these was the theme of populationism and the planning of population growth,22 typical of the internal political debates of absolutist states: through the wealth generated by trade, an ever-growing mass of subjects emerges and multiplies, that is to say, mouths that eat and arms that produce and work.23 While the private trader pursued his own personal interest, there was another category of trade, that of “political commerce”,24 which did not work against private interest but rather used it as if it were a true and proper instrument of the public interest, subordinated to the collective and ultimate 19. François Véron Duverger de Forbonnais, Éléments du commerce, 2nd edn, (Paris: Briasson et al., 1754), I, 112. 20. La félicité publique (Lausanne: Grasset, 1770); the text by Beardé de l’Abbaye is in part II, 1-104. 21. Grand Duchy of Tuscany, Legge sopra le Mani Morte del 2. Marzo 1769, see Lorenzo Cantini, Legislazione Toscana raccolta e illustrata dal dottore Lorenzo Cantini, digital edition ed. Mario Montorzi (Pisa: ETS, 2006), XXIX, 220. 22. That Joseph von Sonnenfels saw exclusively from the point of view of a development, more qualitative than only quantitative, of the political and social device (Sonnenfels, I, 26-7, § 26, letter q). Civil wellbeing is a comprehensive and general social aim, of which the increase in the population is only half of a subordinated instrument. 23. Melon, Political essay, 32. 24. Sonnenfels, Grundsätze, II, 1.

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benefit of the state.25 So it was the subject of the selection and arrangement of the bona, of private interests and the public bodies that manage and organise them, that became crucial and decisive in the public debate. The government of the people became the strategic centre of an overtly utilitarian perspective, largely unrelated to the old conceptions de bono communi (the corporate and private good of individuals and specific groups, of the specific corporations in well-defined territoria), and from then on was firmly directed at realising an essentially state objective, that of collective public benefit: in other words, mainly concerned with the bono publico. It is perhaps appropriate to distinguish bonum commune, the interest of corporations and groups, or those that are here and now, from the bonum publicum, which instead is concerned not only with the present but also the future, not only of those who are but also those who will be; the good, in other words, of the political institution, or the welfare and the interest of the state. Trade, then, was no longer a purely internal reality of territorial communities, but was above all a political problem, of states and national institutions. Trading in foreign markets and territoria suggested in fact the existence of a public interest and the political function of generalised and meta-territorial institutional entities. Prior to Sonnenfels similar implications had been postulated by one of the more influential and prestigious cameralists, the Huguenot Duke of Sully, Massimiliano di Béthune. His teaching was initially diluted by his descriptive and largely dispersive Mémoire26 but by the middle of the eighteenth century it was published as a practical synthesis in a pamphlet entitled Esprit de Sully,27 which was a concise manual of the science of policy, conceived as a quick-reference compendium of practical approaches that included a commentary designed to be regularly updated and applied to the world of action and public affairs. The problem was, in fact, essentially institutional since the financial policy of the state was, by manipulating the tax levy, to regulate the settlement assets of the market and of trade.28 The state defined itself, therefore, as a regulative entity that acted as a reference point and which was not only an instrument, but also and primarily the formal source of legitimacy for transactions between private individuals, the true ministerial source (of regulation and legitimisation) of international trade agreements and negotiations. These could thereafter be conducted within a legal channel that was delineated by precise positive laws, deposited forever in a system unique in itself, yet for itself absolute and abstract 25. Sonnenfels, Grundsätze, II, 3. The politician uses private trade as an instrument, but he subordinates it to the ultimate aim of what is useful to the state. 26. See for example Mémoires de Maximilien de Béthune, duc de Sully, (Geneva: chez Barrillot et fils, 1752). 27. Esprit de Sully ou extrait de tout ce qui se trouve dans les mémoires de Béthune, duc de Sully, principal ministre de Henri le grand, concernant son administration des finances et ses maximes de police etc. (Dresden: Groell, 1768). 28. Esprit de Sully, 48.

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in the way of a codification or, at any rate, of a universal and abstract standardisation.29 These were new forms of regulation in their prescriptive aims: they were agreements between states (and no longer just private pacts between princes), the organic regulation of which was the international treaty, the contractual accord between states. And from this context emerged the definitive form of the state that was no longer the often indistinct and multiform sum of different territoria that were once called upon to compose, by dint of juxtaposition, the body, more forensic than mystical, of the Jurisdiktionsstaat. In fact it had become, in the meantime, the sovereign identity of an entity of legislative authority that was the source of rules and regulations for its subjects yet, at the same time, deeming itself to be and acting as a legal subject that had to comply with legal obligations. The state was by this time seen only as a vehicle – as once again the Austrian-German jurists tell us –30 that had to be driven and steered intelligently to produce wealth, wellbeing and peace. At this even certain Italian Enlightenment figures raised their voices. In the words of Ferdinando Galiani: “Our forefathers did not see the problem of grain if not through the eyes of politics, while we today do not want to see it as anything other than an object of trade”.31 Galiani wished to link once and for all the problem of trade, and only trade, to that of interstate relationships and of the neutrality that was consequently required for good business practice to prosper, and wanted to do away once and for all with all the misleading political filters that forget this link and allow the practice and lay reality of the economy to be hidden and lost within the folds of the specious and misleading arguments of politics and the reason of state.32 Commerce secularised because it led to communication between cultures; it enriched because it encouraged the production of goods and merchandise; it increased the population because it required neutrality and peace for the increase of trade. At the same time the state entity grew in its institutional awareness, and at last started to include a Wohlfarth strategy in its action plan, a strategy that had public benefit as its end goal and was no longer reserved exclusively for the bonum principis. 29. Thus amongst other things, there came about in this definite way a new literary form and a real editorial form which, for example, through judges and practitioners of law, such as Charles Jenkinson, produced in Great Britain A collection of all the treaties of peace, alliance, and commerce, between Great-Britain and other powers, from the treaty signed at Münster in 1648, to the treaties signed at Paris in 1783. To which is prefixed, a discourse on the conduct of the government of Great-Britain in respect to neutral nations, which was published in London in several volumes through the presses of J. Debrett in 1785. 30. Johann Georg Schlosser, Briefe über die Gesetzgebung überhaupt, und den Entwurf des preußischen Gesetzbuchs insbesondere (Frankfurt: im Verlag bei Johann Georg Fleischer, 1789), 12. 31. I use the editio princeps of 1770: Ferdinando Galiani, Dialogues sur le commerce des bleds (London [actually Paris: Merlin], 1770). 32. Galiani, Dialogues: “Our ancestors did not consider grain except in the light of politics and the Reason of State, today we do not want to see it as anything except an object of trade”, 33.

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Commercial treaties and the harmonisation of national interests: The Anglo-French case (1667-1713) Antonella Alimento

Introduction In a series of stimulating essays, John Vincent Nye has disputed what he called the “fable of commercial prosperity and international integration through free trade”;1 in particular, Nye has contested the conventional wisdom that Great Britain created the conditions for the birth of the European integrated market by being the first state to adopt a policy of free trade. Having produced statistical evidence, the American scholar reached the conclusion that “French average trade levels were lower than, and at worst comparable to, those of Great Britain for virtually the whole of the nineteenth century and particularly for the first part of the century and for the late Second Empire”. In order to understand the genesis of the myth “of Free-Trade Britain”, which developed in spite of the fact that France was far from being a protectionist “fortress”, Ney studied the political and economic debates that in both countries accompanied the signing of the commercial treaty of 1860 and formed the opinion that the British reduction of duties on French wines, which were discussed in connection with the question of the abolition of the Corn Laws, became seen as a victory of free trade principles, without its supporters ever criticising the tariff system in its entirety. By contrast, in France, where the protectionist approach had largely been dismantled by Napoleon III, the debate concentrated on the dangers linked to the opening to British manufactures, thus giving credence to its fortress image.2 What is relevant here is that the 1860 treaty had a direct precursor in the Commercial Treaty of Utrecht of 1713. Published at the same time as the peace 1. John Vincent Nye, “The Myth of Free Trade Britain and Fortress France: Tariffs and Trade in the Nineteenth Century”, Journal of Economic History 51 (1991): 23-46. 2. John Vincent Nye, “Changing French Trade conditions, naval welfare, and the 1860 Anglo-French Treaty of Commerce”, Explorations in Economic History 28 (1991): 460-477; John Vincent Nye, “Guerre, commerce, guerre commerciale: l’économie politique des échanges franco-anglais réexaminée”, Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations 47 (1992): 613-632.

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treaty that brought an end to the War of the Spanish Succession, it, apart from considerably lowering tariffs, re-established freedom of trade between the two countries and included a clause by which they recognised each other as the most favoured nation. Owing to these features, the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht has also long been presented as the first victory of the free trade principle, the direct forerunner of the 1860 one.3 In reality, these were not the only two trade treaties that France concluded with Britain:4 the two nations also put their pens to those of 17865 and 1802,6 and to those of 1713 and 1802, which were signed but never came into force. There were also several abortive efforts to reach commercial agreements: these included the negotiations of 1674; those of 1697 which were resumed in 16991700 and abandoned definitively in May 1702 because of Britain’s entry into the War of the Spanish Succession; those of 1752, engulfed by the outbreak of the Seven Years War;7 and the French overtures of 1840 made with a view to a bilateral liberalisation of trade.8 The subject of Anglo-French trade treaties is particularly interesting because of the way the two “Natural and Necessary Enemies”9 that launched the socalled “Second Hundred Years War”10 repeatedly sought to open up their mar3. Jacob Viner, Studies in the Theory of International Trade (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1965, 1st ed. 1937); Joseph Alois Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis (London: Allen and Unwin, 1954), 351. 4. Philippe Sagnac, “La politique commerciale de la France avec l’étranger de la paix de Ryswick à la paix d’Utrecht”, Revue historique 104 (1910): 279-284: 272, Gabrielle Cadier, “Les conséquences du traité de 1860 sur le commerce franco-britannique”, Histoire, économie et société 7 (1988): 355-380. 5. Pascal Dupuy, Image et Images des Traités, in: Le négoce de la paix. Les nations et les traités franco-britanniques (1713-1802), eds. Jean-Pierre Jessenne, Renaud Morieux and Pascal Dupuy (Paris: Société des études Robespierristes, 2008), 111-124, with a rich and up-to-date bibliography. On the role that Vergennes, the architect of the friendship and commercial treaty of 1778 that liberalised trade in sugar from French colonies to the United States, played in the 1786 Treaty, see Paul Cheney, “A False Dawn for Enlightenment Cosmopolitanism? Franco-American Trade during the American War of Independence”, The William an Mary Quarterly 63 (2006): 1-31: 12. 6. Matthieu De Oliveira, “Le négoce nordiste d’un traité franco-anglais à l’autre. Attentes, réception et aménagements (1786-1802)”, in: Négoce de la paix, 165-187, with an extensive bibliography. 7. Antonella Alimento, “Competition, true patriotism and colonial interest: Forbonnais’ vision of neutrality and trade”, in: Trade and War: The Neutrality of Commerce in the Inter-State System, ed. Koen Stapelbroek (Helsinki: Collegium for Advanced Studies, 2011), 61-94. 8. Arthur L. Dunham, The Anglo French Treaty of Commerce of 1860 and the Progress of the Industrial Revolution in France (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1930). 9. Jeremy Black, Natural and Necessary Enemies: Anglo-French Relations in the Eighteenth Century (London: Gerald Duckworth, 1986) and more recently Robert Tombs and Isabelle Tombs, That Sweet Enemy: The French and the British From the Sun King to the Present (New York: Knopf, 2007). 10. Jean Meyer and John Bromley, “La seconde guerre de Cent Ans (1689-1815)”, in: Dix siècles d’histoire franco-britannique. De Guillaume le conquérant au marché commun, eds. Douglas Johnson, François Bédarida, François Crouzet (Paris: Albin Michel, 1979), 153-190,

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kets. The study of conventions that were actually finalised, and of those that remained mere projects, allows us to investigate the long term strategies created by two states whose economies were simultaneously complementary and competing for global markets. In particular, the analysis of the initial phase of this long history, from 1655 to 1713,11 allows us to put forward some initial considerations on the use that the two nations made of bilateral trade agreements. Were negotiations of Anglo-French commercial treaties an expression of the logic of power politics, a means, that is, of “making war without making it”, as Colbert put it? Or did they result from the conviction that the reopening of trade between the two nations would have created a balance of power in Europe capable of eradicating war? The examination of the political contexts in which the treaties took place compels us to assert that the Anglo-French treaties under examination responded to a variety of interests; they were certainly not alternatives to war, as all the accords in question were in fact signed after the restoration of peace. Marine and commercial treaties, and neutrality The observation made by Montesquieu, that the British “supremely jealous with respect to trade [...] bind themselves but little by treaties, and depend only on their own laws”,12 had its merits when applied to navigation treaties; in fact Britain was never willing to extend to neutral nations the ‘free ships, free goods’ clause that it had recognised for the United Provinces in 1674 by signing a navigation treaty. Reluctant to accredit, by concluding navigation treaties, broad rights to the neutral nations of the North, especially Sweden,13 the British government instead tried tenaciously to reach trade agreements with the European monarchies endowed with colonies with the intention of subordinating their economies to its own. One thinks of the Treaty of Methuen of 1703 which transformed the Portuguese economy into a veritable British outpost.14 and François Crouzet, “The Second Hundred Years War: some reflections”, French History 10 (1996): 432-450. 11. Charles M. Andrews, “Anglo-French Commercial Rivalry, 1700-1750: The Western Phase”, The American Historical Review 20 (1915): 539-556 and 761-780. 12. Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu, The spirit of laws, where he notes that: “The Tariff, or customs of England, are very unsettled, with respect to other nations; they are changed, in some measure, with every parliament, either by taking off particular duties, or by imposing new ones. They endeavour by this means still to preserve their independence. Supremely jealous with respect to trade, they bind themselves but little by treaties, and depend only on their own laws” (London: 1750), 2 vols., 2, book 20, ch. 6, 7. 13. On the Anglo-Swedish treaty of 1661 that called for the issuance of passports, see the fundamental study by Richard Pares, Colonial Blockade and Neutral Rights, 1739-1763 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1938), 175-180. 14. On this treaty, which transformed Portuguese winemaking into a “almost colonial English outgrowth”, see François Crouzet, La guerre économique franco-anglaise au XVIIIe siècle

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If their requested terms appeared difficult to obtain, the British negotiators were not slow to resort to other short-term strategies: in October 1712, they did not insist on being given most favoured nation treatment by Spain because they believed that “the right to be treated as the most favoured nation would be contested, and it could not be denied either to the Dutch or the French”, while “we will certainly gain more by contraband”.15 However, this concern did not stop them from pursuing, unknown to France, negotiations with Spain and obtaining, on 26 March 1713, the Asiento de negros contract, which excluded the Dutch; significantly, the contract, which secured for Britain the right to supply Spanish American colonies with African slaves, was included in the Peace Treaty of Utrecht as an exception to the rule, because all the signatory nations reciprocally awarded themselves the most favoured nation clause16. But the trade agreements that Britain sought to conclude with France responded to a different logic because the French negotiators consistently clung to the principle that the signing of treaties must be “on the basis of reciprocal concessions”, as Forcade La Roquette, one of the fathers of the 1860 treaty, maintained when he came forward to defend it in 187217. Thus the achievement of reciprocity was the non-negotiable requirement set in the instructions observed by Fénelon and Anisson, who had been sent to London in 1713 to settle the problems that remained outstanding despite the treaty having already been signed.18 To fully appreciate the purpose of the Anglo-French treaties signed between 1667 and 1763, it is important to remember that they were a piece of a larger puzzle in as much as both countries negotiated their bilateral conventions in conjunction with others.19 Only by investigating their wider interconnection to the small and middle-sized powers, and also to Spain, is it possible to understand what was really at stake in their bilateral agreements; a thorough look at the respective réseaux, as well as at the political contexts in which the negotiations took place, enables us to appraise why the two “Natural and Necessary

(Paris: Fayard, 2008), to be compared with John Vincent Nye, War, Wine, and Taxes: The Political Economy of Anglo-French Trade, 1689-1900 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 49-55. 15. Quoted in Léon Vignols, “L’asiento français (1701-1713) et anglais (1713-1750) et le commerce franco-espagnol vers 1700 à 1730”, Revue d’histoire économique et sociale 17 (1929): 403-436: 412. 16. While France, with Article 6 of the peace treaty with Britain of 11 April 1713 was committed to not gaining advantages in commerce with the Spanish colonies, Britain was not subjected to an equal obligation; on 12 June the ‘ship of Permission’ was added to the Asiento. 17. Adolphe de Forcade La Roquette, Défense du Traité de commerce avec l’Angleterre (Paris: Guillaumin, 1872), 15 and 45. 18. The Projet d’instruction pour les Sieurs Anisson et Fénelon (July 1713), in AN, G/7/1699, ff. 107-108. 19. Spain’s importance in Anglo-French relations has been pointed out by Hamish M. Scott, “The Second Hundred Years War, 1689-1815”, The Historical Journal 35 (1992): 443-469: 446.

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Enemies” ended up putting their signature to treaties that had in view the integration of the two economies and not their subordination. In this regard we must distinguish between the treaties intended to regulate navigation from those that contained measures relating to commerce. Both Britain and France individually signed marine treaties to secure contracts for the shipping of foreign products and goods and also the exporting of their own by neutral fleets that could guarantee this service in wartime. The right of belligerents not to have their enemy supplied with arms and contraband goods was protected by the treaty as was that of neutral nations to transport their own goods or those of the enemy to neutral or enemy ports. The treaty that Britain agreed with the Dutch in 1674 was in fact the model used by France when it signed its own treaty with them in 1699. It should nevertheless be underlined that Britain drew up its treaty at the end of the second war that it had fought against the United Provinces and had done so because on that occasion it was itself the neutral nation set to enjoy the freedom to trade with France: in 1674 the Republic was in fact busy defending itself from attacks launched by Louis XIV. Only later, did this treaty become a powerful tool in the hands of the Dutch who, in fact, used it to assert their political autonomy against an ally that during the War of the Spanish Succession had shown itself to be concerned only with its own pursuit of power, as the events of the Barrier Treaty of 1709,20 as well as the Asiento de negros contract and the so-called ‘ship of Permission’ amply demonstrated. Trammelled by the respect of the Treaty of Alliance signed with Britain in 1678 and the possibilities provided by the marine treaty of 1674, the Dutch claimed their commercial neutrality with such force in 1756 that in practice they violated the terms of their alliance with Britain.21 Thanks to the renewal of interest in the strategies implemented by the neutral nations, exemplarily analysed by Pares from as far back as the 1930s, we know that France’s behaviour was inspired by criteria very different to those of Britain.22 While the latter pressured the neutral nations to adhere strictly to the rights required by the navigation treaties which they had signed, France gradually abandoned its initial stringent position and supported neutral efforts to obtain recognition of their right to transport and protect under their flag products and goods on behalf of third parties. In effect, during the eighteenth century French naval and foreign ministers pressured those neutral nations that had come to terms with Britain in order to encourage them to react against attacks 20. Roderick Geikie and Isabel A. Montgomery, The Dutch Barrier, 1705-1719 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1930). 21. Cesa Marco, Alleati ma rivali. Teoria delle alleanze e politica estera settecentesca (Bologna: il Mulino, 2007), 147-189, with an extensive bibliography and the essay by Koen Stapelbroek in this volume, along with its rich and up-to-date bibliography. 22. Pares, Colonial Blockade, 167, 171-172 and 295 and Eric Schnakenbourg, “From “hostile infection” to “free ships, free goods”: Changes in French neutral trade legislation (1689-1778)” in: Trade and War: The Neutrality of Commerce in the Inter-State System, ed. Koen Stapelbroek (Helsinki: Collegium for Advanced Studies, 2011), 95-113.

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and seizures carried out by the British, who accused them of carrying contraband goods and of behaving disloyally. The most notorious case was of course that suffered by the Dutch during the Seven Years’ War because the famous ‘Rule of War of 1756’ was elaborated in relation to it, determining, amongst other things, that a neutral country which did not trade with a country in peacetime could not do so in times of war.23 As for this problem, it is noteworthy that from the early years of the eighteenth century the French ministers decided to use the option of retaliation, treating neutral nations in the same way as Britain did. Furthermore, they claimed to be ready to revoke privileges given to the neutrals with which France had signed navigation treaties if they, through “want of courage or by connivance”, failed to defend their right to transport enemy goods in their own ships, thereby safeguarding the ownership of the cargo entrusted to them.24 France, which since the last years of Louis XIV’s reign had practically forsaken the project conceived by Colbert to build its own merchant navy25, used this strategy to obtain even in wartime shipbuilding materials, products of its own colonies (given the failure of the convoy strategy), and also goods needed by its manufacturers. This action led to treaties with the Hanseatic cities, Denmark, Sweden and the United Provinces (periodically renewed during the eighteenth century), to which was added in 1778 the treaty of friendship and commerce with the neutral United States of America.26 However, the signing of the commercial treaty that France negotiated with the Dutch in 1699, which recognised the principle of ‘free ships, free goods’, also met other needs: by the time France decided to play the part of a territorial and maritime power, it maintained a very cautious attitude towards the Republic. Dutch ships, on which it depended for imports of goods needed by its manufacturers as well as for the marketing of its domestic and colonial products, could be made available to Britain in the event of war. To prevent the Dutch navy from being used to swell the British navy, French governments adopted the policy of economic concessions, sometimes signing particularly favourable trade deals, at other times proposing the creation of privileged trading com23. Pares, Colonial Blockade, 290-295. 24. AAE, MD, Angleterre, 9, Du droit que les Puissances neutres ont de commercer dans les ports de France pendant qu’elle est en guerre avec l’Angleterre. Du droit que les Anglois ont pendant ce meme tems de troubler le commerce que les puissances neutres font dans les ports du Royaume, et du droit que la France a sur les puissances neutres dont les anglois troublent le commerce qu’elles font en France pendant qu’elle est en guerre avec l’Angleterre, cc. 82r-87r ms. in which it is emphasised that treaties exist precisely to “explain the trade that a neutral nation could have with the enemies of another nation without being opposed. By these conventions a state waives the right to transport certain goods to the enemies of the nation with which it is contracted, and which undertakes not imposed any other limit to the navigation of the other”, c. 83. 25. James Alan, The Navy and Government in Early Modern France, 1572–1661 (London: Royal Historical Society, 2004); James S. Pritchard, In search of Empire: The French in the Americas, 1670-1730 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 268; Jonathan R. Dull, The French Navy and the Seven Years’ War (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005), 9. 26. Cheney, “False Dawn for Enlightenment Cosmopolitanism?”, 26-28.

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panies using joint Franco-Dutch capital. The objective of this strategy was to win over the goodwill of the factions that guided the Republic’s foreign policy in the direction of peace, and therefore of commercial neutrality, and to counter those policies oriented on reinforcing the Protestant alliance.27 This policy, which would create profound divisions in French society during the War of the Austrian Succession,28 reached its climax in 1699 when, with the commercial treaty, the Dutch obtained the same privileges as the French with regard to navigation matters as well as a lowering of duties imposed on their goods by the tariff of 1667. These concessions were added to those obtained with the Treaty of Ryswick of 21 June 1697, which had exempted the Dutch from paying the droit de fret, a tax of fifty sols per tonne of cargo transported on non-French ships, exacted both on entering French ports and on leaving.29 Commercial treaties with France from a British perspective In order to counteract the preferential treatment in trade and tariffs reserved for the Dutch, the British governments in office after the Restoration repeatedly played the card of commercial agreements with France. The tariff and duty barrier that was an obstacle to the legal trade between Britain and France up to the 1860 treaty had a long history behind it. It went back to the 1660s, when the French government, in response to the enactment of the Navigation Act of 1661, introduced significant changes into its commercial relationship with Britain, regulated by the treaties of 1606 and 1655 that had assured both nations access to their respective ports on payment of an import duty.30 The French government, which during the second Anglo-Dutch war had sought to arbitrate between the two sides, in 1664 adopted a particularly punitive measure: the Tariff of 1664, designed by Colbert to unify the French territory shifting the collection of duties to the frontiers,31 created a list of goods whose import was subject to high tariffs. 27. Charles-Edouard Levillain, Vaincre Louis XIV, Angleterre-Hollande-France. Histoire d’une Relation Triangulaire 1665-1688 (Paris: Seyssel, 2010), 76-127 with an extensive and up-to-date bibliography. 28. Alimento, Competition, true patriotism and colonial interest, 68-79. 29. Paul Walden Bamford, “French Shipping in Northern European Trade, 1660-1789”, The Journal of Modern History 26 (1954): 207-219: 208-209 which interprets this concession as a victory of land interests over maritime interests. 30. Pierre de Ségur-Dupeyron, Histoire des négociations commerciales et maritimes de la France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Paris: E. Thorin, 1867-1873), I: 240-246 and Vivienne Barrie, “La prohibition du commerce avec la France dans la politique anglaise de la fin du XVIIe siècle”, Revue du Nord 234 (1977): 343-364: 344. 31. The “Tarif” lowered the customs duty on the importation of primary materials and the export of French manufactured goods (linens, cloths, silks, lace, paper), Simon Elzinga, “Le tarif de Colbert de 1664 et de 1667 et leur signification”, Economisch Historisch Jaarboek 15 (1929): 221-273 and Thomas J. Schaeper, The French Council of commerce 1700-1715. A study of Mercantilism after Colbert (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1983).

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As in the United Provinces, in Britain these measures were considered to be extremely discriminatory,32 a situation that explains why, as of that date, France and Britain had a stop-and-go policy of high duties33 that escalated for the first time in 1667 when Colbert adopted a measure with an explicitly protectionist objective. In effect, the tariff of 18 April 1667 increased duties by 100 per cent on fifty-seven British products included on a new list that was added to that of 1664. This provision, which provoked a strong reaction from the Dutch, linked to France by the Treaty of Guarantee of 1662, revived the “old hatred of the English” towards the French monarchy and this emerged in the form of even higher tariffs, culminating in the 1670 Bill. On this point, it is important to note that while Louis XIV pursued the goal of turning France into a naval and commercial power, having designs on the Spanish Low Countries in the name of the right of Devolution, on 23 May 1667 Charles II countersigned a convention of renewed peace, alliance and commerce with Spain.34 In spite of this undoubted success, the following July he was forced to sign the Treaty of Breda with the Dutch: after the military defeat of Chatham, he had had to accept yet another defeat, because Article 19 of the Treaty did not afford the Britain the maritime rights that were at the root of the clash with the Republic. Only by keeping in mind the humiliation that the Republic inflicted on British aspirations, and Britain’s consequent desire to increase its trade at the expense of its rival, is it possible to understand the nature of the political rapprochement between France and Britain that was sealed on 31 July 1667 by the signing of a free trade and free navigation treaty, even though its application was deferred until after further talks had taken place. In this regard, it is significant that in September of the same year, Charles II made it known to the Marquis de Ruvigny that a political alliance between the two countries, despite being destined to remain secret, had to include harmonisation of tariffs. The French counterpart was not unsympathetic to this offer because the Cedula of 26 August 1667 precluded it from trading with Spain, but what really made the road to economic agreement feasible was the defensive alliance, known as the Triple Alliance, which Britain concluded in January 1668 with the United Provinces and Sweden. The rapid invasion of Flanders during the War of Devolution – the fall of Charleroi into French hands occurred in 1667 – had made the United Provinces move closer to Britain. Fearing this rapprochement, the Marquis de Ruvigny in mid-January 1668 had advocated the idea of creating “a trade community” between Britain and France because, to his mind, this was the surest way of forestalling the Anglo-Dutch alliance. Encouraged by 32. Levillain, Vaincre Louis XIV, 146. 33. Donald Cuthbert Coleman, “Politics and Economics in the Age of Anne: the Case of the Anglo-French Trade Treaty of 1713”, in: Trade, Government and Economy in Pre-Industrial England. Essays presented to F.J. Fisher, eds. Donald Cuthbert Coleman and Arthur Henry John (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1976), 187-213. 34. Allan Christelow, “French Interest in the Spanish Empire during the Ministry of the Duc de Choiseul, 1759-1771”, The Hispanic American Historical Review 21 (1941): 515-537: 518.

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these overtures, Charles II continued the negotiations and in July 1668 assured Louis XIV of his desire to arrive at “a perfect union”, despite “the great effort that the French are making to create a commercial nation and to be a major maritime power; this is a great source of sorrow for us, as we will not be of any importance without our commerce and our forces at sea”.35 Consistent with this arrangement, in signing the secret Treaty of Dover of 1670, Charles asked that the duties created with the 1667 tariff be lowered. In this regard it must be remembered that in 1669 the British monarch had authorised the Secretary of State Arlington to send Croissy a draft trade agreement which in fact foresaw a reduction of French duties to the level of 1664 and the abolition of the droit de fret, in exchange of which the British negotiator proposed the abolition of the tonnage duty of five shillings.36 Since the French negotiator deemed the offer to be insufficient for ensuring reciprocity, the negotiations broke down in the same year, 1669, the year in which Britain secured a renewal of its commercial accord with Spain;37 following the failure of these negotiations, in 1670 the British Parliament adopted the Bill that increased tariffs on imported French wines which were levied not according to their alcohol content or value but by volume. The resumption of negotiations with France occurred, significantly, in 1674, when Charles II, who, without consulting Parliament, entered into the third war against the Dutch, was forced to sign a separate peace with them.38 The result of the peace was the maritime and commercial treaty of the same year that ensured both parties the ‘free ships, free goods’ clause; this was a choice, as has already been said, that was entirely to Britain’s advantage because the war unleashed in 1672 by France against the United Provinces did not end until 1678. Not surprisingly, therefore, in this situation of extreme vulnerability, the United Provinces signed the treaty of defensive alliance with Britain which committed it to send troops and ships in the event of an attack. But Britain, too, was also in a delicate situation and needed new alliances, hence its approaches to France. In contrast to what had happened in 1669, when it had been the French that had interrupted negotiations, the overtures made by the British government to France in 1674 eventually stalled on account of internal opposition. Fourteen merchants, amongst the most influential of London’s Whig business community, delivered to Parliament a ‘Scheme of Trade’ in which they demonstrated that the trade balance with France was detrimental to Britain by as much as £965,126. In fact, beginning with the enactment of the tariffs of 1664 and 1667, they had 35. The letter by Charles II to Henrietta Maria in Levillain, Vaincre Louis XIV, 150. 36. Ségur-Dupeyron, Histoire des négociations, 246. 37. Spain only ever gave France a generic promise to give it the status of most favoured nation, Christelow, French Interest, 518. 38. With the Treaty of Westminster of 9 February 1674, Charles was awarded the honour of the flag from the Cape of Finistère up to Van Staten in Norway. The thorny question of herring fishing was not touched upon. An arbitration board was established to regulate issues between the East Indies Companies and compensation was awarded to the British for leaving Surinam.

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complained about a constant deterioration of the trade balance with France:39 backed up by the data presented in the Scheme40 the signatories adamantly took a stand against the possible reduction of duties on luxury goods and French wines which had grown with the 1670 Bill. There are two elements in this episode that need emphasising for they would come into play later on, making it impossible to open the two economies before 1860, notwithstanding the important agreement reached in 1786 which liberalised their relationship for the next ten years. In 1674, the British government had for the first time to recognise the presence of a number of recently formed social groups grown up in the shadow of the high customs duties, such as brewers, alcoholic drink producers and silk manufacturers, who were strong enough to oppose a tariff reform that brought into question the country’s socio-economic equilibrium. This fact is particularly important in as much as the basic composition of the British state budget would not change in the future: the same interests that were hostile to the 1674 treaty mobilised themselves again in 1713 to block the application of the Treaty of Utrecht, even though it had already been ratified. As a matter of fact, as soon as there was a hint that the Board of Trade was negotiating a commercial agreement with France, between the 11 May and 14 June 1713 forty separate petitions were delivered to Parliament: the manufacturers, whose businesses had prospered thanks to tariff protections, in particular those of flax, silk and paper, and also distillers, were joined by merchants who, because of the trade agreements with Spain and Portugal, enjoyed favourable conditions and feared reprisals; in addition there were the producers and processors of wool textiles sold mostly on the Iberian market, who were afraid that this might dry up as a result of the treaty with France; and even traders who exported cloths to the Levant and imported raw silk used by the struggling industry in England sided with the others in defence of protectionist measures against the possible influx of French silks.41 As Nye has persuasively demonstrated, these social groups, in order to defend their oligopolistic position, pressed the British governments to extract revenue not from direct taxes but by indirect levies, especially by hitting consumers with high alcohol duties and excises42. 39. Margaret Priestley, “Anglo-French trade and the unfavourable balance controversy 16601685”, The Economic History Review 4 (1951): 37-52. 40. Priestley, “Anglo-French trade”, analysing the data for 1662-1663 and 1668-1669 reached the conclusion that between 1662 and 1669 Britain lost a considerable part of its trade with France as exports were reduced by 70 per cent. However, the first figure was exaggerated due to huge purchases of brass, and the second represented a return to normality: the data confirm that the exports of linens, always Britain’s strength, decreased by 27 per cent between 1662 and 1669. 41. The high duties that continued to be imposed on imports in France of British woollen goods did not, on the other hand, raise many protests. Wools, together with sugar, salt-fish and whale products (the four products that were the object of later negotiations), in fact were not included in Article 9 of the treaty that re-established the tariff of 1664, but were instead subject to that of 7 December 1699. 42. Nye, War, Wine, and Taxes, 72.

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The main obstacle to the normalisation of commercial relations with France was the fact that still throughout the nineteenth century the British state budget depended almost exclusively on excises rather than customs; one thinks of the events of 1840, when the British government rejected French offers of talks as it was unable to lower excise duties on French liquors because of the unsustainable effect that this would have had on state finances; and it should not be forgotten that tariffs on French wines were still levied, as they were throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, by volume and not alcohol content or value. During the opposition of 1674, as in that of 1713, an important role was also performed by descendants of Huguenot families who had found refuge in England where they had set up manufactures which were shielded from competition by the prohibition of French luxury goods. Among the chief opponents to the treaty of 1713 was Nathaniel Torriano, son of George, one of the signatories of the 1674 Scheme of Trade. Giving voice to the interests of the London merchants who traded with Portugal, Spain and Italy, Nathaniel took up the theme of overbalance used by his father and asked to be shown statistics that compared the amount of trade between the two nations in the years 1668-69 and 1685-88. Although the customs commissioners pointed out its inconsistencies,43 the Scheme of Trade played a far from secondary part in the rejection of the 1713 treaty. At least three other signatories to the 1674 Scheme of Trade had Huguenot origins: two were Thomas Papillon and Sir Theodore Janssen, to whom the General Maxims on Trade, particularly applied to the Commerce between Great Britain and France have been attributed, a work that was reprinted in The British Merchant, the periodical that from August 1713 to July 1714, the date of its closure, carried numerous articles by Nathaniel Torriano objecting to the treaty.44 The third man of Huguenot origin was John Houblon, who in 1694 had the satisfaction of seeing his son appointed as the first governor of the Bank of England.45 It is possible that these figures, all deeply concerned over the situation of their fellow Huguenots in France, saw that the high duties and prohibitions against their country of origin were in fact a weapon used to combat, in England, the absolutist inclinations of the pro-French and pro-Catholic Charles 43. All the data referred to quantity and not quality. The data from 1698-9 prove the argument of Davenant in his first Report, namely that the trade balance was entirely to Britain’s advantage. See Douglas Coombs, “Dr Davenant and the Debate on Franco-Dutch Trade”, The Economic History Review 10 (1957): 94-103: 95-98. This should be compared to Doohwan Ahn “The Anglo-French Treaty of Commerce of 1713: Tory Trade Politics and the Question of Dutch Decline”, History of European Ideas 36 (2010), special issue Dutch Decline in Eighteenth-Century Europe, ed. Koen Stapelbroek, 167-180. 44. The periodical to which Henry Martin, who as a Whig nominee succeeded Devenant in the role of inspector-general in November 1714, contributed, appeared only from August 1713, in other words after the Commons blocked the ratification of the treaty. It was republished by Charles King, and was printed in three editions, that of 1721, which included the essay by Janssen as an “Introduction”, and that of 1743, and of 1748. 45. Priestley, “Anglo-French Trade”, 209.

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II; and it is probable that the maintaining of high duties was seen by them as a reaction to the religious war desired by Louis XIV.46 What is certain is that, thanks to the 1674 Scheme of Trade, the opposition of the London business community forced Charles II not only to abandon the treaty but also to enact in 1678 a bill that prohibited the import of all major French goods for a period of three years on the grounds that their purchase took money out of the country and lowered the value of “native commodities and manufactures”, generally impoverishing the nation. Thwarted in his attempt to enter into a commercial agreement with France, on 24 February 1676 Charles managed to sign a navigation treaty with Louis XIV through which the two nations guaranteed each other free trade,47 a goal pursued by all the governments in office after the Glorious Revolution. Both the Whig and Tory governments in fact aimed to increase British trade with France in the hope of removing it from Holland, an ally that was growing rich by virtue of its commercial neutrality recognised by the treaty of 1674: hampered by duties and tariffs of every kind, bilateral Anglo-French trade in fact increasingly took place with the United Provinces acting as go-between. The reopening in 1676 of trade between France and Britain did not, however, last long because with the Nine Years’ s War the prohibition was resumed and extended in 1689 to all French ports. In the same year, the United Provinces and Britain drew up a convention that provided for a complete embargo of French commerce by the neutrals and their allies. The agreement, which hit the neutral countries hard, gave rise to complaints from Sweden and Denmark and in 1693 their right to trade with France was recognised, with the obvious exception of contraband. The strength of the political alliance between Britain and the United Provinces, guaranteed by the presence of William III on the English throne, explains why British diplomacy did not object to the special treatment that France, at the end of the war, reserved for the Republic in its role as intermediary, exempting it with the 1697 Treaty of Ryswick from payment of the droit de fret. While France conceded nothing to Britain,48 this treaty granted the Dutch the same privileges given to the French and lowered the protective tariff of 1667 as it applied to them. And not only that: with the commercial treaty of 1699, they were granted the ‘free ships, free goods’ provision. 46. Levillain, Vaincre Louis XIV, 229. 47. On the basis of Article IV, non-contraband goods could be transported not only from a neutral port to another and from a neutral to an enemy but also from an enemy port to their enemy. For this reciprocal concession, see A general treatise of naval trade and commerce, as founded on the laws and statutes of this realm, 2nd edn, (in the Savoy [London]: H. Lintot, 1753, 2 vols., 1st edn, 1739), II, 290-299. 48. Having failed to reach an agreement, during the brief interval of peace from 1697 to 1702, France’s imports had been put under pressure by duties that exceeded 50% of value. See Coleman, Politics and Economics in the Age of Anne and George Norman Clark, The Dutch Alliance and the War against the French Trade, 1688–1697 (New York: Russell & Russell, 1971).

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It was probably this further concession that prompted the British government to reopen relations with France, as confirmed by the negotiations in which Count Tallard, the French ambassador to London, was involved in 1699-1700.49 With the death of Charles II of Spain and the entry of Britain (as decided by Queen Anne in May 1702) in the War of the Spanish Succession, contacts between the two nations broke down once more, and even the Anglo-Dutch entente began to deteriorate: in 1704 the Republic began to question the embargo measures against France that the British government had imposed on it in 1703 and returned to transporting goods on behalf of the Bourbon monarchy. In addition to the traditional causes of the Anglo-Dutch rivalry other issues came into play: because of the war, much of Anglo-French trade had reverted to passing through Amsterdam; there was also friction relating to the different tariffs obtained by the Dutch, entirely to Britain’s detriment, for their southern cities thanks to the Barrier Treaty of 1709;50 and, finally, some English merchants began to complain about the Franco-Dutch Treaty of 1697. In 1709, to counter the criticism and to restore the fortunes of British trade, talks were reopened with France intent on arriving at a new trade agreement. The latter, partly because of a year of bad harvests, was changing its strategy towards the Republic: as would be seen later, in the Conseil du commerce a hard line was taken against “these republicans”, and, consequently, a resumption of trade with Britain was seen as the better option and was sanctioned by the embargo of 30 December 1710 against the Dutch. The impression that resuming trade with France was seen to respond to the goal of increasing British trade at the expense of the United Provinces is reinforced by the fact that the negotiations gained momentum in 1711, at the very time that the Board of Trade began to receive numerous complaints about the Dutch stealing a march on British trade. St John, the architect of the treaty with France, articulated these grievances and helped Swift to write the well-known pamphlet, The Conduct of the Allies (27 November 1711) in which the Dutch were denounced for not having adequately helped Britain during the war.51 The United Provinces, subjected to intense pressure by Britain (which, unknown to them, had examined the French peace proposals in April 1711) and having had their interests hurt by the French embargo of 1710, in November 1711 yielded to the British government’s ultimatum. Thus the way was opened to the peace conference and the ratification of the Peace Treaty and Commercial Treaty of Utrecht of 31 March 1713 between Britain and France. Preparing and processing the treaty involved the government, in the persons of St John and Harley, the Board of Trade and the London merchants. The 49. See the letter of 28 April 1700 by Tallard to Chamillart in AN, G/7/1686. 50. Geike and Montgomery, Dutch Barrier, 193-4 and 311-13. 51. At the same time that Davenant occupied himself with this matter in the Second Report; the same subject was present in The Examiner of 13 December 1713. See Coombs, “Conduct of the Dutch”, 279 and Ahn “Anglo-French Treaty of Commerce of 1713”, 169-172.

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Board of Trade, which was dominated by Tories, in December 1711 dusted off the draft that it had prepared in 1709 when it had been under Whig control and sent it to St John who, after passing it to the French negotiators for perusal, returned it to the Board for further clarification. The secretary of the Board then decided to involve the merchants and, in March 1712, sought their opinion. The few who replied requested that French duties be lowered to the level of 1664 and asked for equal treatment with the Dutch, in other words that the conditions which the Dutch enjoyed thanks to the 1699 commercial treaty with France be extended to the British. However, they made no suggestion as to what compensation the British might offer the French negotiators, who at Utrecht had asked that the question of prohibitions be considered separately from that of duties. The draft, amended only by the insertion of clauses regarding imports of tobacco and salt-fish into France, was sent to St John who, in July 1712, forwarded it to the Board for further comments. The Board, by then completely Tory, examined the latest draft but the final word went to Arthur Moore, one of its influential members, a merchant of Irish origin and a member of the East Indian, Royal African and South Sea Companies. He corrected the draft and returned it directly to St John, who was in France for negotiations. We do not know if it contained Articles 8 and 9, but what is certain is that it was the final version of that the Board had seen before it was submitted to Parliament. Since Robert Harley and St John had by then been elevated to the House of Lords, as, respectively, the Earl of Oxford and the Viscount of Bolingbroke, the task of presenting the measure to the Commons fell to Arthur Moore.52 As mentioned, the outcome of the ratification was negative: on 18 June 1713 the House of Commons voted by a margin of 194 votes (including at least forty or so from the Tories) to 185 to reject the bill that acknowledged Articles 8 and 9 of the Commercial Treaty of Utrecht, rendering it void.53 It is noteworthy that during the effort to have the bill passed, the Tory government did not disdain the help of the French negotiators: Anisson and Fénelon contributed by writing in Mercator, a periodical that was published three times a week between 26 May and 20 July 1714, and whose 181 issues carried numerous interventions in support of the treaty, including the famous An Essay on the Treaty of Commerce with France (London, 1713) by Daniel Defoe.54 On the other hand, Harley had made no secret of his coolness towards the treaty: the real objective of his negotiations with France was in fact to obtain 52. See John Carswell, The South Sea Bubble (London: Cresset Press, 1960), 282. 53. David A. E. Harkness, “The opposition to the 8th and 9th Articles of the Commercial Treaty of Utrecht”, The Scottish Historical Review 21 (1924): 219-226. 54. For the contribution by Anisson and Fénelon, see the letter by Anisson to Desmaretz on 9 July 1713 in AN, G/7/1699, f. 59; for the contribution by Daniel Defoe, Ahn, “Anglo-French Treaty”, 174-178, Perry Gauci, The Politics of Trade: Overseas Merchant in State and Society, 16601720 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 234-270 and Tony Claydon, Europe and the Making of England 1660-1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 200-209.

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privileged commercial accords with the Spanish Antilles;55 having helped to set up the South Sea Company, whose foundation was approved by the British Parliament in June 1711, he managed to obtain French concessions that directly affected Dutch interests. The instructions that, in 1711, Harley had given the negotiator Matthew Prior, a member of the Board of Trade from 1700 to 1707 and customs commissioner from 1711, were extremely vague with respect to the allies’ desires, but they contained precise instructions from the British: these included requesting France to obtain from Spain the protection of British commercial transactions in the Spanish Antilles and the allocation of the Asiento de negros, a contract that had, as has been said, been inserted as an exception in the peace treaties of 1713. It should therefore be duly noted that just a few months after the Commons rejection of the navigation and trade treaty with France the Tory government strengthened its relations with Spain and, on 28 November 1713, signed a trade agreement that confirmed those signed earlier by Charles II of Habsburg56. Commercial treaties with Britain from a French perspective In Britain the ratification of the treaty, which negotiators had hoped would increase British intermediary trade at the expense of the Dutch, was blocked by the desire to defend the interests of the manufacturers who had grown up under the protection of prohibitive tariffs and favourable trade agreements with Spain, as well as by the speculation about the founding of the South Sea Company. Even in France the negotiations with Britain were tied up with the Dutch problem; but, in contrast with the British government, which basically wanted to eliminate competition from the Republic, the French government used the rivalry between the two allies to harmonise the interests of its different economic sectors. In fact, when signing the treaty with Britain, the French government did not forget the end goal of realising a state of coequality among all the nations engaged in trade on behalf of third parties so as to make them compete and thereby create better conditions for the exporting and importing of goods required by its manufacturers. In 1711, Pontchartrain, Secretary of State for the Navy, asserted that, once peace was restored, it was imperative to bring about “equal conditions for free trade between all nations”.57 Tellingly, the second 55. Brian W. Hill, “Oxford, Bolingbroke, and the peace of Utrecht”, The Historical Journal 16 (1973): 241-263: 246-7. 56. Jean Olivia McLachlan, Trade and Peace with Old Spain, 1667-1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1940). For the conflict that this treaty brought about between Bolingbroke and Oxford, and for the scandal linked to the profits promised by the Asiento, in which the Queen, Bolingbroke and Arthur More were implicated, see Harry T. Dickinson, “Politique britannique et luttes de partis dans les négociations du Traité d’Utrecht”, Négoce de la paix, 1546: 39-42. 57. Quoted in Jehan Maintrieu, Le traité d’Utrecht et le polémiques du commerce anglais

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article of the London Preliminaries of 8 October 1711 called for a trade agreement to be brokered between France and all its enemies58. The negotiations opened in 1712 by the French government with the aim of producing such an agreement with the Hanseatic cities (Hamburg, Lübeck and Bremen) that were concerned with receiving the same treatment enjoyed by the Dutch as regards duties and navigation, were part of this strategy; the treaty was effectively enacted on 28 September 171659, following the signing by France of a trade and friendship treaty with Persia in August 1715. Alongside the achievement of this first objective, the French government wished to create a situation of equal duties among its enemies, for, here again, the application of the tariff of 1664 to Britain would also bring its goods into competition with Dutch ones. It was not by chance that Nicolas Mesnager, the French representative at Utrecht and member of the Conseil du commerce for Rouen, who had always disapproved of giving the United Provinces preferential treatment, declared himself in favour of the reinstatement of the 1664 tariff provided that it applied to both nations.60 Finally, the French negotiators at Utrecht insisted on the need to respect reciprocity as a non-negotiable condition to the ratification of the treaty: in March 1712, after Britain presented again the scheme developed by the Board of Trade in 1709, they asked not only for prohibitions and duties to be examined separately, but also made the granting of the most favoured nation provision contingent on the observance of reciprocity. Contrary to what is generally maintained, French commercial interests were in fact represented in the negotiations conducted first at Utrecht and then in London to resolve the outstanding questions (Articles 8 and 9 of the treaty), in so far as Louis XIV, like the British government, integrated the commercial world into the process of political decision-making.61 Indeed, Louis had (Paris: Pichon et Durand-Augias, 1909), 50; on the Pontchartrain family see Sara Chapman, Private Ambition and Political Alliances in Louis XIV’s Government: the Phélipeaux de Pontchartrain Family, 1650-1750 (Rochester, NY: Boydell and Brewer, 2004) and Charles Frostin, Les Pontchartrain, ministres de Louis XIV. Alliances et réseau d’influence sous l’Ancien Régime (Rennes: PUR, 2006); for his support for the commercial treaty with England as a weapon against the Dutch, see Dale Miquelon, “Envisioning the French Empire: Utrecht, 1711-1713”, French Historical Studies 24 (2001): 653-677: 660. 58. Maintrieu, Traité d’Utrecht, 28. 59. Eric Schnakenbourg and Marie-Louise Pelus-Kaplan, “Le Roi soleil et les villes Marchandes. Les enjeux du traité de commerce franco-hanséatique de 1716”, Francia 37 (2011): 131-147. 60. Albeit with “some exceptions and restrictions”, according to the Précis sur le traité de commerce franco-anglais de 1713, ms. quoted in Eric Schnakenbourg, “Les interactions entre commerce et diplomatie au début du XVIIIe siècle : l’exemple du traité de commerce francoanglais de 1713”, Histoire Economie Société 3 (2004): 349-365: 350. 61. On integration as an instrument of government used by Louis XIV, see Jay M. Smith, The Culture of Merit: Nobility, Royal Service, and the Making of Absolute Monarchy in France, 1600-1789 (Ann Arbor: Michigan Press, 1996) and Kammerling Smith, “Structuring Politics

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responded to the overtures of William III by consulting, on 8 June 1701, the newly-created Conseil du commerce. The eleven members who attended at the meeting on behalf of the interests of cities with chambers of commerce recommended signing the treaty. Four of them asked for unilateral measures, such as lowering the tariffs, in exchange for concluding the treaty; but the other seven were in favour of tougher customs measures: by blocking the entry of all their manufactured goods, they could force the British to negotiate. Since the Conseil du commerce adopted the majority view, on 6 September 1701 the government issued an arrêt that remained in force until the 1786 Treaty of Eden, when Vergennes, without consulting the world of commerce, liberalised AngloFrench trade.62 The 1701 law, passed when Britain had not yet officially entered the War of the Spanish Succession, banned the import of textiles, alcohol and spices from Britain; it increased the duty on thirteen commodities that it was authorised to export to France, including glass bottles, dried meat and fish; and it hit Britain’s intermediary trade by raising to three livres and ten sous the droit de fret on the cargo of British ships. It is important to stress that these measures were taken while the Dutch continued to receive special treatment. Only the signing of the convention between Britain and the United Provinces on 1 June 1703, which required the Republic to suspend its trade with France for one year, convinced the deputies of the Conseil du commerce to endorse the arrêt of 28 August 1703 which, as a reprisal, prohibited any trade with enemy powers. Following this measure, which implied a broadening of the concept of war in that it was now focused on destroying not only enemy armies but also their economies, the French government promoted direct economic contacts with non-belligerents. As part of this strategy, overtures were made in 1703 and March 1704 to the neutral northern nations of Denmark and Sweden about Baltic trade and, after the start of the Northern War in 1710, there were approaches to the neutral states of Venice and Genoa, and also the granting in 1706 of passports for the marketing of Bordeaux via the cities of Hamburg, Lübeck and Bremen. Between 1705 and 1706, Pontchartrain carefully assessed the proposal to reach a trade agreement with the Tzar of Moscow; at the same time he made overtures to Ireland63 and Scotland and from 1706 onwards urged the Conseil du commerce to examine the question of resuming direct trade with Britain, even if this step would involve recognising the “princess of Denmark”, in Early Eighteenth Century France: The Political Innovations of the French Council of Commerce”, The Journal of Modern History 74 (2002), 490-537. 62. See De Oliveira, Négoce nordiste, 171 and the chapter that Jeff Horn, The Path not Taken: French Industrial Policy in the Age of Revolution, 1750-1830 (Cambridge, MA: Mitt press, 2006) dedicates to the treaty. 63. On the complex interplay of public and private interest and its relationship with colonial trade policies that characterised the relationship between Ireland and France, see Bertie Mandelblatt, “A Transatlantic Commodity: Irish Salt Beef in the French Atlantic”, History Workshop Journal (2007): 18-47.

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as Queen Anne was called by Louis XIV who hosted the Stuart Pretender in France.64 The moves made towards Britain were accompanied by overtures towards the United Provinces: in 1707 Nicolas Mesnager, a member of the Conseil du commerce who had strong ties in the government and the court to the extent that he would later be used in the Utrecht negotiations,65 was sent on a secret mission to Holland while another French envoy, Helvétius, was handling the establishment of a mixed trade company.66 As those missions were ongoing, the Conseil du commerce had begun to issue British vessels with passports for the supply of wool, coal and lead to French manufacturers. These initiatives reflected the various interests represented within the Conseil du commerce: the prevailing opinion, at least until 1709, when Louis XIV rejected the terms of the Peace of The Hague proposed in June by Holland, declaring them to be humiliating, was that France depended on Dutch trade to sustain its own economy, and therefore traditional prudence had to be maintained. This approach led to attempts to prise the Republic away from its alliance with Britain and to reach a separate peace.67 Debating the question of whether to reopen trade with Holland occupied a large part of the Conseil du commerce’s meetings between 1705 and 1710: in 1708 alone the problem was discussed as many as 121 times.68 Only after the French success at Malplaquet (1709), which led some Dutch provinces to sue for peace, did the Conseil du commerce reach the decision that it was necessary to destroy Dutch trade and shipping in order to force France’s enemies to accept peace; in keeping with this reasoning, on 11 July 1710 the Conseil submitted to the king a memorandum which demonstrated that owing to the bad harvests of 1709 it was possible to suspend the issuing of passports by which Dutch trade had flourished: between 1702 and 1712 more than 4,000 Dutch ships had docked at Bayonne, Bordeaux, La Rochelle, Nantes and SaintMalo; in Bordeaux alone in 1706 and 1707 more than 500 had arrived. Without passports, the memorandum argued, the Dutch would have to rely on convoys to defend themselves against French privateers69. 64. Edward T. Corp et al., A Court in Exile: The Stuarts in France, 1689–1718 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 65. Lucien Bély, Espions et ambassadeurs au temps de Louis XIV (Paris: Fayard, 1990), 577-597: 592 and Schaeper, French Council, 40-41; for the role played by Mesnager, a client of Pontchartrain, in the negotiations concerning the Acadia, see Miquelon, “Envisioning the French Empire”, 655-656 . 66. Paul Cheney, Revolutionary Commerce. Globalization and the French Monarchy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 238. 67. See the despatches between Chamillart, Torcy, d’Avaux, and Hennequin (Alderman of Rotterdam), in the Correspondance diplomatique et militaire du duc de Marbourough, du grand pensionnaire Heinsius et du trésorier général des Provinces Unies Jacques Hop, ed. George Willem Vreede (Amsterdam: Schleijer, 1850). 68. Schaeper, French Council, 123. 69. Eric Schnakenbourg, “L’indispensable ennemi: le gouvernement français et le commerce

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It was within this context that the renewal of contacts to reach a new commercial agreement with Britain and the drafting by the Board of Trade of the 1709 plan that served as a basis for the Treaty of Utrecht should be placed. The decision to exclude the Dutch from all trade with France, by refusing all passports (19 November 1710), was followed by the passing of the arrêt of 30 December 1710 that created a list of ninety British products to be admitted, including some that had been prohibited by the arrêt of 1701. The duties created in 1701 were also abolished, while the droit de fret and the ban on importing British manufactured goods into France remained in place. This political strategy was strongly contested by the merchants of Bordeaux whose exports of wine and brandy relied on Dutch ships; and the fermiers des gabelles, the directors of the Asiento de negros, and the tobacco company, who also hired Dutch vessels to move between one French port to another, all made known their objections to the embargo. Following these complaints, the Conseil du commerce resumed the issuing of passports as did Pontchartain, the Navy Secretary who had to ensure the supply of the colonies. Because of this conflict of interests between major sectors of the French economy, the embargo against Holland was not total, even though between 1711 and 1712 the Dutch had to disguise their ships as Hanseatic, Danish and Swedish ones. Not surprisingly, the French government followed the commercial treaty it concluded with Britain on 31 March 1713 with a commercial treaty signed with the United Provinces on 11 April 1713, alongside one of peace. From the French perspective, the two treaties made it possible to harmonise the needs of the Norman manufacturing districts of calico printers, who feared competition from English weavers, with the needs of Guienne, Saintonge and Britanny, which depended on the raw materials and semi-finished products imported from Holland. Signing the two treaties would protect wine producers, who exported Bordeaux and brandy to northern Europe and at the same time support manufacturing in Provence which received its raw materials from Holland. Even the needs of the free port of Marseilles were supported because the Dutch could continue to supply it with the spices, cloths, and finished goods that it traded in the Levant70. Conclusion: commercial treaties and the harmonisation of national interests It is possible to draw some initial conclusions from this close analysis of the contexts that led to the bilateral treaties between Britain and France. In the first hollandais pendant la guerre de Succession d’Espagne, 1702-1713. Approche politique et diplomatique”, Histoire. Nord de la France. Belgique. Pays-Bas 91 (2009): 85-101. 70. On the different economic circumstances present in France, see Guillaume Daudin, Commerce et prospérité: la France au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Presses de Paris-Sorbonne, 2005) and Renaud Morieux, Une mer pour deux royaumes. La Manche, frontière franco-anglaise (XVIIeXVIIIe siècles) (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2008), 260 and 281.

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instance, the treaties, although preceded by overtures in times of war, were all signed after peace had been restored, as occurred in 1786 when the Treaty of Eden followed the 1783 Peace of Paris. Even the 1802 trade treaty had been ushered in by the Peace of Amiens and its non-implementation was a result of Napoleon’s decision to return to war. Secondly, it is clear that Britain was open to negotiations with France when it was in a position of weakness or when it was attempting to create new alliances. In this regard it is also possible to draw analogies with subsequent treaties: after the 1783 peace Britain, debilitated by the loss of its American colonies, launched an imposing diplomatic initiative, negotiating with eight countries but succeeding in signing only one trade agreement, that with France. Welcomed by Vergennes as a means of modernising the French textile sector by putting it in competition with the British, and by Dupont de Nemours as an aid to eliminating contraband, the 1786 treaty guaranteed the interests of French wine exporters and manufacturers who were not in competition with British producers. The treaty of 1802 also kept to this pattern: after the 1801 peace between France and Austria, Britain was isolated and of necessity had to turn to new alliances. Moreover, the ratification of treaties presupposed and implied the harmonisation of economic interests not only between the two nations but also within each country where regional and national pressure groups emerged in support of or in opposition to the treaty: the British negotiators of the 1674 and 1713 treaties were open towards the French mainly in order to safeguard the interests of the country’s intermediary trade to the detriment of the Dutch; in this regard it is worth noting that the normalisation of trade relations with France by means of the restoration of free trade never implied the abolition of the Navigation Act. It was precisely this lack of reciprocity that stiffened the French resolve not to accommodate the request, which came directly from the British business community, to apply the 1664 tariff to all British goods without subjecting the four products (wool, salt-fish, whale meat and sugar) that were most in competition with France to the 1669 tariff. The firmness with which the French negotiators stood by the accord reached in 1712, which deferred the decision on the taxation of those products to a later negotiation, was the main cause of the British failure to ratify the treaty. Another point should also be noted: the British government’s overtures of 1674, like those that resulted in the signing of the Commercial Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, were opposed by a substantial section of the British business community made up of Whigs who had grown up under high duties and who had become sufficiently powerful to resist a change of fiscal policy that had a serious socio-economic impact. The high tariffs on French wines had been of particular benefit to brewers of English beer, and had favoured Spanish and Portuguese goods in which British merchants had a direct interest, to the complete disadvantage of commodities from Bordeaux and Burgundy. The same groups that blocked the 1674 negotiations in fact prevented the implementation of the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht. 126

As the collapse of the 1669 negotiations showed, in order for France to bind itself to Britain with a commercial agreement, reciprocity in tariff matters had to be respected. Furthermore, specific political conditions had to be in place: free trade between the two competing nations was in fact particularly appreciated in France by lobbyists interested in trading directly with the Baltic, dispensing with Dutch intermediaries. The aspirations of this lobby, particularly active in the free port of Dunkirk, were constantly frustrated by important sectors of French society: dependent on Dutch imports, the city of Marseilles, which was very influential in Versailles, was not willing to sacrifice Provençal manufacturers for the sake of the British alliance, or to put at risk its export trade in the Levant; Bordeaux wine producers were likewise reliant on the Dutch fleets. The endeavour to induce the neutral countries to compete with one another, which was made during the War of the Spanish Succession, was not supported by several cities which feared that Swedish and Danish fleets were not capable of carrying out this vital go-between role. In order to make sure that the Protestant axis did not consolidate, the French governments accepted to tie their interests to Britain. However, during all the negotiations that they carried out in the period here under review, it never questioned the privileged relationship that bound them to the United Provinces. Significantly, the Treaty of Utrecht, signed on 31 March 1713 with Britain, led to the 11 April 1713 commercial treaty with the United Provinces that acknowledged the contents of the separate article of the peace treaty signed the same day with the Republic. Thanks to this article, Dutch ships were exempt from paying the fifty sols that were required of all other foreign ships. But it must be noted that, unlike the treaty with Britain, which never came into force because the British Parliament refused to ratify it, the trade agreement with the United Provinces was instead renewed by Fleury in 1739, albeit with conditions that the Dutch did not consider satisfactory.71 Only when France sought, in the 1750s, to revive the Colbertist project, was the usefulness of the commercial treaty with the Republic publicly questioned. As the debate, which ran from 1747 to 1760, on the uses of a Navigation Act demonstrated, linked to the discussions was a request to conclude treaties with those countries, such as Russia and the Ottoman Empire, which could directly supply the goods needed by France without going through Dutch middlemen.72 71. Norris Arthur Brisco, The economic policy of Robert Walpole (New York: Columbia University Press, 1907), 295 and Arthur McCandless Wilson, French Foreign Policy during the administration of cardinal Fleury. 1726-1743. A study in Diplomacy and commercial development (Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 1972). 72. On the circumstances that in 1745 led to the non-renewal of the commercial treaty between France and the United Provinces, see Alimento, “Competition, true patriotism and colonial interest”; on the French debate about the adoption of a Navigation Act, see A. Alimento, La concurrence comme politique moderne: la contribution de l’école de Gournay à la naissance d’une sphère publique dans la France des années cinquante et soixante du XVIIIe siècle, in L´économie politique dans le débat des Lumières, eds. Jesús Astigarraga and Javier Usoz, Casa de Velázquez, to be published shortly.

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Britain, instead, resorted to signing a trade agreement with France whenever it found itself in positions of inferiority in relation to the United Provinces: in this case the reinstatement of free trade met the need of reviving the British economy by obviating the intermediary role played by the Republic; therefore we can agree with Coleman, who said that the 1713 treaty was not a victory for free trade principles, but rather “the old mercantilist wolf in sheep’s clothing”.73 Another factor strengthens the hypothesis that the trade agreement with France was a way of reducing the role performed by the Republic: Britain always accompanied its negotiations with France with the signing of trade agreements with Spain, treaties that from 1713 allowed it gradually and definitively to displace the United Provinces as most favoured nation.74 In contrast, France, notwithstanding the promises of receiving the most favoured nation provision – first made by the Habsburgs and then from 1713 by the Bourbons – until 1768 never managed to sign a single trade agreement with Spain, although there were dynastic ties between them. As is known, even the 1768 Franco-Spanish trade agreement did not fulfil the expectations of Choiseul, who had wanted to create a single free market between France, Spain and its American colonies, to promote the exporting of French manufactured goods in exchange for the import of raw materials.75

73. Coleman, Politics and Economics in the Age of Anne, 202. 74. McLachlan, Trade and Peace with Old Spain. 75. Pierre Muret, “Les papiers de l’abbé Béliardi et les relations commerciales de la France et de l’Espagne au milieu du XVIIIe siècle”, Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine 4 (1941): 657-672 and Hamish M. Scott, “Choiseul et le Troisième Pacte de Famille”, in : La présence des Bourbons en Europe (XIVe-XIXe siècles), ed. Lucien Bély (Paris : PUF, 2003), 207-220.

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The emergence of Dutch neutrality: Trade, treaty politics and the peace of the Republic Koen Stapelbroek

Introduction1 The first half of the eighteenth century is a period in Dutch history that by comparison has not drawn much scholarly attention. This is a curious fact considering that precisely in these years – I will argue – a transformation took place that turned the Dutch Republic into a neutral state, that is, a potential forerunner of the kind of identity that early twentieth-century Dutch writers have assigned to the Netherlands and projected onto its past: that of being a Gidsland, a moral agency guiding the order of global politics and directing it towards perpetual peace.2 The purpose in this chapter is not to argue that the United Provinces was in fact a precursor to that kind of state, but to suggest that a better understanding of the eighteenth-century Dutch debates about trade, neutrality and treaty politics might well have prevented if not the emergence then at least the extended shelf-life of this peculiar late nineteenth and early twentieth-century idea. I will come back to this argument at the end of this text. At this point it is important to indicate what is meant by a neutral state. The notion of a neutral state used in this text is a minimal definition, meaning a state, which, faced with the dilemma’s pertaining to the eighteenth-century complex 1. A preliminary version was presented at the Pisa conference Relazioni commerciali, accordi politici, neutralità nell’Europa d’Antico Regime of 16-18 December 2010 as “I trattati politici e commerciali delle Province Unite dal 1713 al 1746 (ed oltre): la genealogia ed il significato della neutralità olandese.” I am grateful to the participants at the conference for their comments. This text is a first step towards a further redevelopment of the eighteenth-century history of the Dutch attitude towards commercial treaties and the idea of neutrality within a broader framework of relations with France and Britain. 2. Only in the last decades, particularly since the genocide disaster of Srebrenica and the resignation of the Dutch cabinet in 2002 – which accepted political-military responsibility (but not the blame) for the events – has this discourse disappeared from Dutch politics. The principles of its original development are discussed below. A wider historiographical discussion is included in Koen Stapelbroek, “Dutch decline as a European phenomenon”, History of European Ideas 36 (2010): 139-152.

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of political and economic issues, opted to automatically refrain from immersion in military conflict.3 This idea needs to be distinguished from the more casual idea of neutrality as the option that was open to any state, which, faced by the prospects of entering a particular conflict, could decide to stay out. Whereas the latter idea of neutrality had a much longer history, the former was a typical product of eighteenth-century political reality. Furthermore, the idea of a neutral state needs to be distinguished from different specific contents that might be given to the idea of neutrality: a state could, whichever side of the spectrum was more in line with its commercial identity, either claim maximal neutral rights in order to exploit the possibilities to gain from trade with belligerents in wartime, or close itself off and enter the realm of passive neutrality – that is, the traditional position of the neutral who committed himself, in Grotius’s words, to “sitting still”.4 In between these poles various degrees of active neutrality could be determined and aligned both with a policy line on foreign trade and arguments about the nature of interstate commerce deriving from moral philosophical principles about the progress of humankind. The latter variety of positions on neutral trade reflected the more general and highly charged debate about the long-term prospects of ‘neutralising’ eighteenth-century commercial rivalry and the reform of the interstate system.5 In this way the law of neutrality could be (and often was from the mid eighteenth century) connected to debates about inequality, luxury and the neutrality of trade as a requirement for establishing a lasting peace among European nations.6 However, it is important not to transpose these outlooks onto the reality of early eighteenth-century politics. When the Dutch state became a neutral state in the – first – sense mentioned above, these debates had not crystallised. Yet, the factors that would give rise to the debates from the 1740s or 1750s onwards were already present in an embryonic form. The process of the creation of the new character, or political identity, of the Dutch Republic as a neutral state took place during the second Stadholderless period, which lasted from the death of William III in 1702 until 1747. Under the direction of four Grand Pensionaries of the province of Holland7 – tradition3. Likewise the Granduchy of Tuscany became a neutral state in 1778, as was argued at the Pisa conference and in other contributions to this volume. 4. Hugo Grotius, The Rights of War and Peace, ed. Richard Tuck (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005), vol. 3, 1525. 5. See Koen Stapelbroek, “The Rights of Neutral Trade and its Forgotten History”, in: Trade and War: The Neutrality of Commerce in the Inter-State System, ed. Koen Stapelbroek (Helsinki: Collegium for Advanced Studies, 2011), 3–13 and other contributions to the same volume. 6. For these connections, see Istvan Hont, Jealousy of Trade: International Competition and the Nation-State in Historical Perspective (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2005) and Istvan Hont, “The Early Enlightenment Debate on Commerce and Luxury”, in: The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought, eds. Mark Goldie and Robert Wokler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 379-418. 7. In fact more than four persons occupied this office during the period, yet the four figures discussed here were its most prominent holders.

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ally the office within the Republic responsible for the shaping and execution of Dutch foreign policy – the Republic developed its new identity without this being the intention or explicit goal. The modes of this transformation were intimately connected to the ratification of commercial and political treaties. It might be thought, as indeed I have believed myself for a while, that the differences in actions taken by Heinsius, Hoornbeek, Slingelandt and van der Heim were more or less direct consequences of their various interests, visions and formative personal experiences. At this stage I think that external factors were of greater importance. Even if there were differences in strategy or vision between successive Grand Pensionaries, their objectives were largely the same. The following argument will (for lack of space) provide a tentative outline of the dimensions that were relevant for the transformation of the Dutch Republic into a neutral state in the early eighteenth century. In other words, the focus here lies on the main contours of the process, whereas the various intellectual, diplomatic and fiscal elements that did or did not influence Dutch state-building in the long run can be worked out in more detail in future research. The Republic and its treaties around 1713 Rather than to speak directly about the foreign politics of these four Grand Pensionaries, that is, the concrete itinerary of the political construction of Dutch neutrality it is first important to clarify the relation between neutrality and treaties. However important the Dutch case may be for understanding the genesis of the eighteenth-century debate about commercial neutrality, the idea of neutrality itself in the sense it later acquired did not yet exist and thus was not an identifiable objective of Dutch politics, precisely in the period in which it became a neutral state. The situation in 1713, following the peace of Utrecht that ended the Spanish Succession War, was dominated by the inheritance of the defensive AngloDutch alliance that had been launched at the end of the seventeenth century in the aftermath of the first three Anglo-Dutch Wars and that had been consolidated as a result of the events involving the rise to the British throne of the Dutch Stadholder William of Orange. Following a period in which for various motives (such as the protection of the Protestant religion) the Anglo-Dutch alliance was of primary importance in Dutch foreign politics, towards 1713 certain events and specific circumstances put this alliance under pressure. In England the transition to a Tory government and the initiative led by Bolingbroke and Charles Davenant to establish an Anglo-French commercial treaty had been regarded from the United provinces with great apprehension.8 Following the War of the Spanish Succession, the 8. See Doohwan Ahn, “The Anglo-French Treaty of Commerce of 1713: Tory Trade Politics and the Question of Dutch Decline”, History of European Ideas 36 (2010): 167-180.

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Dutch also felt dissatisfied by the terms of the Utrecht peace – which, famously, in the words of the French diplomat Melchior de Polignac, had been negotiated on Dutch soil “de vous, chez vous, sans vous”. While the English were confirmed as the great victors, the Dutch were made to pay for the allied victory, or so was the Dutch perception. The only consolation that remained was the advantageous commercial treaty with France that was also concluded in 1713. There were other concrete circumstances that ate away at the alliance, such as the separate peace concluded by Britain with Spain in 1709 – along with a trade treaty. In general one can say that the continuous jealousy between the Dutch and the English, fuelled also by the decline of Dutch commerce, was stronger than the will to merge the political visions of the two states. Under these conditions of eroding trust it was difficult to decide who was to pay for political projects like the Austrian-Netherlandish Barrier. In consequence, the successive Anglo-Dutch Barrier Treaties of the early eighteenth century (from 1709 to 1713 and 1715) progressively shifted the relative investment towards the Dutch.9 It was equally difficult, especially in a trade republic where merchants held political sway, to justify any policy that created space for an economic rival – Britain – to develop its commerce. Only in cases of direct mutual interest, like the suppression of the Ostend Trade company, did Britain and the United Provinces act as allies.10 Rethinking foreign trade The commercial jealousy that was the main cause of the disintegration of the Anglo-Dutch alliance was fuelled by the extreme volatility of international diplomacy and domestic politics within Europe’s dominant states after the War of the Spanish Succession. British domestic politics remained restless owing to questions related to the Hanoverian succession and the failed Tory attempt to create commercial ties with France. Simultaneously, Spain was agitated by Britain and Austria after the Utrecht Treaty, which, it ought not to be forgotten, had not been signed by both Spain and Austria. Schemes for dynastic marriages involving the Spanish throne as well as the death of Louis XIV in France added to the general confusion and post-war financial crises across Europe. 9. The Dutch Grand Pensionary Heinsius was seen as one of the main architects of the Barrier Treaty. According to Jean Thomas La Fargue, Beschryvinge van het recht en de gesteltenisse der Barrière (The Hague: 1746), the real inventor of the idea of the Barrier had been Johan de Witt. See also George Norman Clark, The Dutch Alliance and the War against the French Trade,1688–1697 (New York: Russell & Russell, 1971) on the earlier difficulties of shaping a coordinated Anglo-Dutch strategy for suppressing French trade. 10. Numerous British and Dutch pamphlets were written on the occasion, among which Jean Barbeyrac, Defense du droit de la Compagnie hollandoise des Indes Orientales contre les nouvelles pretensions des habitans des Pays-Bas autrichiens (The Hague: 1725).

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Tense relations among Europe’s main territorial states and trade rivalry with Britain, combined with new commercial competition from Sweden and Denmark, affected the status of Dutch diplomacy and ultimately forced Dutch statesmen to rethink the future prospects of the Republic.11 A case in point was the Barrier arrangement, which had been under pressure from the start and Heinsius was even personally identified with the Anglo-Dutch scheme, up to the point that it was deemed a supra-national private interest of certain British and Dutch individuals. Opponents of the Anglo-Dutch alliance during the first half of the eighteenth century on either side of the channel were always quick to suspect political figures of promoting personal rather than the national interest.12 Likewise, the failure to create a general peace at Utrecht inspired political writers in other states to rethink the institutional and commercial characteristics of interstate relations. The abbé de St. Pierre’s Project for Perpetual Peace is now often called an early version of the European Union, but it was based on a diagnosis of the problems of the past and the threat of universal monarchy that were discussed around 1713.13 In much the same way, Montesquieu’s early writings engaged with the impossibility of establishing universal monarchy through trade, while Voltaire – taking up the same set of issues – a decade later redeveloped Henri IV’s Grand Design and explored the geopolitical characteristics and territorial redistributions that he felt (in opposition to Fleury’s foreign politics) were required to make the world safe for commercial modernity.14 The first half of the eighteenth century in this way was pervaded with an awareness of the challenges that the War of the Spanish Succession with its incomplete ending had brought to light. The main political questions of international politics that British and French writers discussed in the first half of the eighteenth century revolved around the relation between principles of empire building and of trade: Tory writers opposed the manner in which British empire building had progressed under previous government as partially self-defeating. And Montesquieu judged, implicitly questioning the long-term viability of global trade expansion, that the manner in which the Dutch Republic – an exceptional political entity – had developed as a commercial player on a global scale could not be a model for Europe as a whole.15 The Dutch version of the French debate of the 1710s to the 1740s 11. Adriaan Goslinga, Slingelandt’s efforts towards European Peace. Part I (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1915), 48-51 and Johan Aalbers, De Republiek en de vrede van Europa (Groningen: Wolters Noordhoff, 1980). 12. Anonymous, An epistle from Mr. H--s, p--y of H--d, to Mr. W--, concerning his conduct in the ensuing P---m---t, especially with relation to the bill of commerce (London: 1713). 13. For comparison Jean Dumont, Les Soupirs de l’Europe à la vue du projet de paix contenu dans la harangue de la Reine de la Grande-Bretagne à son Parlement (s.l.: 1712). 14. Michael Sonenscher, Before the Deluge: Public Debt, Inequality, and the Intellectual Origins of the French Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 108-20. 15. Doohwan Ahn, “Anglo-French Treaty of Commerce of 1713” and Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws (London: 1752), book 23, 115.

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about regime change, German unification and the European order revolved around the relation between trade and British and French empire building. It has not really been recognised hitherto that Dutch pamphlets in response to the collapse in 1720s of financial speculations inspired by John Law’s ideas,16 about the Southern-Netherlandish Barrier treaties, and commercial relations with France and Britain were public discussions about rival principles of commercial empire and interstate trade relations and their impact on the kinds of policies Dutch statesmen would have to develop in order to increase the survival chances of the state. Tying in with these discussions, the Korte Schets, a pamphlet published in 1714, considered the wider consequences of the Anglo-Spanish commercial treaty of 1709, the proper government of the Dutch Indies companies and the terms of the Peace of Utrecht in light of the fact that the Dutch state relied for its survival on the degree of freedom left by other states to profit from carrying their goods. The Korte Schets to some extent echoed the clearheaded views put forward by Pieter De la Court since the 1660s. De la Court had, in fact, argued that the maxims of a trade republic did not fit with a foreign policy built on treaty constructions. Instead, its security depended on its capacity to carry the goods of other states and thereby make themselves an ally of all other states through trade, rather than through diplomacy. That was the way in which a non-territorial state in between Britain and France could retain its independence from the struggle for hegemony between Europe’s dominant states and simultaneously, precisely by appropriating trade as its own domain, restrict the dimensions of competitive politics (i.e. prevent commerce from becoming an object of political rivalry). De la Court’s was a thoroughly fundamental and visionary version of the eighteenth-century theory according to which the most effective remedy against conquest was wealth. Yet, the problem of Dutch politics in the years after 1713 was not the question of how to realize De la Court’s vision.17 16. In 1720 a flurry of pamphlets was published about the Windhandel (literally “Air-trade”), the decline of the staplemarket and the rise of financial speculation were put into general discussion. John Law resided in the United Provinces between 1702 and 1713 and tried to get Hoornbeek on his side in 1712 to start up a great lottery scheme. Christian Hendrik Slechte, “Een noodlottig jaar voor veel zotte en wijze”. De Rotterdamse windhandel van 1720 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1982) and Simon Vissering, “Het Groote Tafereel der Dwaasheid”, 11 De Gids (1856): 643-84. 17. Anonymous, Korte Schets Van ‘sLands welwezen door de laatste Vrede, Nevens eenige Aanmerkingen op het stuk van de commercie en Barriere (s.l., 1714) and Pieter de la Court, The True Interest and Political Maxims of the Republick of Holland and West-Friesland (London: 1702 [1st Dutch edn. 1662]). See for a longer discussion of these texts Koen Stapelbroek, “The Dutch debate on commercial neutrality (1713-1830)” in: Trade and War: The Neutrality of Commerce in the Inter-State System, ed. Koen Stapelbroek (Helsinki: Collegium for Advanced Studies, 2011), 114-42. This outlook on Dutch politics is fundamentally different from the idea of the Dutch Republic as a diplomatic “balancer” of Britain and France, such as put forward by Alice Clare Carter, Neutrality or Commitment: The Evolution of Dutch Foreign Policy. 16671795 (London: Arnold, 1975). The Anglo-Dutch satirical writer and moral philosopher Bernard Mandeville displayed an acute sense of the indelible mark that Anglo-Dutch relations in the

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The United Provinces, Britain and France in the 1740s Instead, and in complete contradiction to this vision, the challenge of the early eighteenth century had become how to control British and French claims over Dutch politics and retain the commercial privileges that were guaranteed by commercial and political treaties with these powers. Trade, in other words, was accepted by the Dutch as the proper object of treaty politics and diplomacy.18 It was from this challenge and the practical political dilemmas it created that the character of Dutch neutrality would emerge. During the War of the Austrian Succession the dilemma was whether to send 6,000 auxiliary troops to Britain – the obligation of ‘secours’ that had been stipulated in defensive treaties with England since the late seventeenth century – and by consequence lose the advantages arising from the 1739 Franco-Dutch commercial treaty that had been renewed by Fleury (with modifications that, according to some, made it less attractive from a Dutch perspective compared with the 1713 original);19 or to opt for the refusal of the ‘secours’ and attempt to secure the British guarantee to Dutch territorial integrity following alternative paths. Ultimately, the States-General of the Republic decided to send the 6,000 soldiers, while, at the same time, the Grand Pensionary van der Heim put his efforts in concluding a separate peace with France that included the reactivation of the 1739 commercial treaty. In 1746 a French incursion into Dutch territory took place with the precise objective to put pressure on the Dutch to indeed conclude a separate peace with France that excluded the commercial treaty and to force the Dutch to break its alliance with England. Instead, the Dutch response to this crisis was the reinstatement of the Stadholder, a person and institution that signified enmity towards France, while peace would only be restored through the 1748 treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. Following the ratification of the peace in 1748, the Dutch tried with ever more energy to renew the Franco-Dutch commercial treaty. Yet, the French increasingly appeared, in the eyes of Dutch diplomats, merely to feign interest in this project. At this point it is important to avoid the simplification that there was only one French position in foreign politics regarding the Dutch durinterval between 1672 and 1713 had left on the predicament of the Dutch state. This is discussed in Stapelbroek, “Dutch decline as a European phenomenon”, 139-43. 18. Johan Aalbers, “Het machtsverval van de Republiek der Verenigde Nederlanden 17131741”, in: Machtsverval in de internationale Context, eds. Johan Aalbers and A. P. van Goudoever (Groningen: Wolters Noordhoff, 1986), 29, notes that the Republic knew its first notable enjoyments of neutral trade in 1719 and 1729. E. E. de Jong-Keesing, De economische crisis van 1763 te Amsterdam (Amsterdam: Intern. Uitgevers en Handelsmaatschappij, 1939), suggested that the Seven Years’ War did not increase Dutch trade volumes which at the outset of WWII triggered discussion. 19. Johannes Hovy, Het voorstel van 1751 tot instelling van een beperkt vrijhavenstelsel in de Republiek. (Propositie tot een gelimiteerd porto-franco) (Groningen: Wolters Noordhoff, 1966), 317-22 treats Dutch discussions comparing the 1713 and 1739 treaties (and the 1717 additions to the 1713 text).

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ing the 1740s. Recent research has suggested that in this decade the Intendant de Commerce Vincent de Gournay and the political writer Forbonnais (who amongst themselves held somewhat different views on the future of French trade politics) actively sought to prevent any particular state from entering into a privileged position concerning the trade of French goods and instead widen the range of neutral states that France could call on to carry its goods at their own risk.20 To complicate matters, the British too had been uncomfortable with the Dutch privileges which they themselves had played a role in creating when in 1697 at the Treaty of Ryswick, at the point when the Anglo-Dutch alliance was at its strongest. Whereas British diplomacy had supported the extension of Dutch rights to trade in French goods at the time, from 1713 onwards a series of British initiatives would be launched to acquire the same rights. Thus, both Britain and France were striving to alter the configuration of European trade relations and shift power away from the Dutch. Parallel to these skirmishes regarding trade, it was not long before the Austrian-Netherlandish Barrier collapsed, following a period – particularly after 1748 – during which no state within the Barrier Alliance was prepared to invest in the maintenance of the garrisons. At the exact moment in which Britain replaced its alliance with Austria for a connection with Prussia, the Dutch lost their political relevance for Britain. In consequence, from 1756 onwards Britain would not any longer guarantee Dutch territorial integrity, while the French would never speak again about the renewal of the Franco-Dutch commercial treaty. Four Grand Pensionaries The actions of the four Dutch Grand Pensionaries in the early eighteenth century were determined in large part by the opportunities that arose to consolidate treaties with France and Britain. It would be impossible to even start to explain their actions without recognising that maintaining treaties with France and Britain was much more fundamental than party allegiances (which had a lot to do with noble privileges, stadholderly power and the influence of the cities in the provincial estates) or the kind of French or British sympathies discussed below that developed in the 1770s.21 Van der Heim for instance was a born and bred Orangist who continued the political vision of Slingelandt, whom he succeeded, but at the same time set great store by concluding a separate peace 20. See Antonella Alimento, “Competition, true patriotism and colonial interest: Forbonnais’ vision of neutrality and trade”, in: Trade and War: The Neutrality of Commerce in the Inter-State System, ed. Koen Stapelbroek (Helsinki: Collegium for Advanced Studies, 2011), 61-94. 21. For background on domestic debates see Jan Arie Frederik de Jongste, “Een bewind op zijn smalst. Het politiek bedrijf in de jaren 1727-1747”, in: Algemene Geschiedenis der Nederlanden, vol. 9 (Bussum: Unieboek, 1980), 44-59.

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with France in 1746 in order to salvage the commercial treaty.22 Stadholder William IV himself, in 1748, desired that the renewal of the commercial treaty with France would be included in the peace of Aix-La-Chapelle and was highly disappointed when this proved impossible. It was important especially for the same Stadholder in the years after 1748 to renew his treaty, which according to Dutch historiography was primarily of interest to the anti-Stadholder party. Therefore, and many other examples could be given, acknowledging the significance of the trade treaty with France as a given across-the-board has a certain revisionist explanatory power within Dutch historiography of the eighteenth century until the Seven Years’ War. One can roughly distinguish at least three options for conducting treaty politics that Dutch politicians, faced with external pressures, could choose between and which the actions of the Grand Pensionaries of the province of Holland acted upon. Each of these options represented an antidote to the prospect that a state without territory might lose its viability in international politics. The first option was to practice abstinence from active participation in the Balance of Power and follow the spirit of the aforementioned Korte Schets and other pieces published around 1713.23 The author of one of these pamphlets, Pieter Burman, held that the violent aggrandising custom of monarchies had contaminated the Republic’s political spirit. While those diplomats who had laboured to create peace were to be praised, the Dutch should now take an extra step in abstaining from concluding the kind of treaties that, Burman believed, spread war. Rather than to adopt the new means that had been fitted to let conquest spill over onto the terrain of trade, Dutch statesmen instead should focus on the restoration of Dutch trade without creating triggers for commercial rivalry. Burman suggested that the Southern-Netherlandish Barrier would cause war, rather than prevent it. The Dutch interest in interstate affairs was precisely not to subscribe to the prevailing logic of war and trade that Europe’s territorial states tended towards, but to take trade out of the equation of political rivalry through a suitable domestic economic and fiscal reform internal and withdrawal from the Balance of Power.24 These ideas had some impact on the actions of Isaac van Hoornbeek, who served as Grand Pensionary between 1720 and 1727 and whose political hinterland lay in the merchant and banking community of Amsterdam. The author of the Korte Schets in the process adopted the idea that stemmed from the time of de De Witt brothers that the Dutch state itself was a barrier that protected the trade of Holland. Flooding the lands surrounding the trade cities could turn the Republic, if necessary, into an island fortress whose 22. Hovy, Het voorstel van 1751, 240. 23. Korte Schets Van ‘sLands welwezen, Pieter Burman, Redevoering over den vrede, gesloten tusschen den allermagtigsten koning van Vrankryk en de Staten der Verenigde Nederlanden (Utrecht: 1713) and his earlier Redenvoering over den gelukkigen krijgstocht dezes jaar (Utrecht: 1706). 24. Burman, Redevoering over den vrede, passim.

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primary security still resided in its capacity to separate trade from territorial wealth and power and employ trade to connect territorial states. Hoornbeek was the successor of Anthonie Heinsius,25 who is known as the last of the Williamites and who from the late seventeenth century in various offices strengthened the defensive Anglo-Dutch alliance in order to contain France. At the basis of his views lay the principle that as maritime powers (and as protestant nations) Britain and the Republic held shared political interests. Next to the challenge of permanently consolidating belief in this shared interest, a main issue was how to determine the respective shares of the costs of the alliance that were to be shouldered by each state: who benefitted most from the Barrier – the commercial super power or the vulnerable trade Republic? – and was to pay for its maintenance? How could the just price of commercial compromises be determined and justified in political terms? Because of these inherent difficulties the ‘old system’ of Heinsius in which defensive alliance treaties were central and mutual commercial arrangements secondary26 soon became hard to maintain, both within Anglo-Dutch relations and domestically within both states where Tory and ‘States’ opinions gained ground around 1710 and amplified sentiment of mutual commercial jealousy.27 Until 1746, the Grand Pensionaries Slingelandt and van der Heim went into the direction of a third alternative. Rather than to retreat from the Balance of Power or opt for the primacy of a defensive treaty alliance with Britain,28 they attempted to promote the creation of something of a general treaty shell for peace and trade in Europe: a network of defence and commercial treaties with as many states as possible. Within this network equal relations would develop in which Dutch trade would stand a better chance of survival. Statesmen like Slingelandt and François Fagel had learned that withdrawal from the Balance of Power shut the Dutch out from European high politics. The establishment of the Ostend Company might have been prevented, for instance, had the Dutch participated more actively in international diplomacy.29 Slingelandt’s general 25. On Heinsius see Jan Arie Frederik de Jongste and Augustus Johannes Veenendaal jr. eds., Anthonie Heinsius and the Dutch Republic 1688-1720. Politics, Finance & War (The Hague: ING, 2002), De briefwisseling van Anthonie Heinsius 1702-1720, 1976, 19 vols., eds. Augustus Johannes Veenendaal and Carla Hogenkamp (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1976-1995) and Bert van ‘t Hoff ed., The correspondence, 1701-1711, of John Churchill, first duke of Marlborough and Anthonie Heinsius, grand pensionary of Holland (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1951). 26. In the 1740s and 1750s the pamphleteer Jean Thomas La Fargue still emphasised defensive treaties with Britain as essential to Dutch security and displayed outright distrust of commercial treaties (with France). Whereas Burman (in the texts cited above) saw republican virtue as the only reliable principle of European resistance to French universal monarchy (rather than defensive alliances), Fargue preferred treaty alliances and considered political virtue a safety-net principle that had proved itself useful in the past but could be relied on no longer. 27. E.g. John Oldmixon, The Dutch barrier our’s: or, The interest of England and Holland inseparable (London: 1712). 28. The second option had lost support after Heinsius’s failed reliance on Britain during the Utrecht negotiations. 29. Aalbers, “Het machtsverval van de Republiek”, 21.

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aim between 1727 and 1736 was to ‘put the peace of Europe on a lasting foundation’30 and restore the Republic’s trade and prestige through mediation in the construction of a general peace. While Slingelandt has often been seen as proEnglish and his plan might be understood as a return to the ‘old system’, historians have expressed reasonable doubt about this.31 Slingelandt’s approach to the Dutch interest derived from his general view, which justified combining a defensive alliance with England with a commercial alliance with France.32 In this way, out of different approaches to treaty politics and a concern with the fate of Dutch trade, grew the idea that had become ingrained by the beginning of the Seven Years’ War (and arguably in the course of the War of the Austrian Succession) that ‘neutrality’ was part of the Dutch identity. Neutrality in the meaning it thus assumed did not have a clear provenance, but became a proxy for the Dutch challenge to reconcile minimal involvement in power politics with focus on the Dutch role in interstate relations as a commercial mediator. The United Provinces and the neutrality of international trade Following the aforementioned French incursion, the return of the Stadholder and the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle that did not bring a renewal of trade privileges with France, the development of the Dutch neutral identity was further developed by the new Dutch regime. Next to a series of mainly abortive institutional reforms led by Willem Bentinck, and a series of financial and colonial economic reforms, the period saw the development of the single most important political economic project as a spin-off from disappointing commercial treaty negotiations in Paris.33 Between the merchants and diplomats who returned from Paris 30. Goslinga, Slingelandt’s efforts towards European Peace, 262. 31. Goslinga, Slingelandt’s efforts towards European Peace, 130 and passim argues that Slingelandt’s closeness to Townshend never tended to a return to the “old system” as Fénelon feared. See also Johan Adriaan van Arkel, De Houding van den Raadpensionaris Simon van Slingelandt tegenover het Huis van Oranje (Amsterdam: Paris, 1925). 32. Slingelandt’s views have been a reference point for Dutch constitutional analysis from the late eighteenth century: Albertus Gerardus Waelwyk, Vaderlandsche remarques volgens en op de staatkundige geschriften van Mr. Simon van Slingelandt, over de oude regeering van Holland, onder de graaven en de verandering daar in gevallen zeedert de troublen (The Hague: 1787) and as such have been given a historiographical function, as in Isidore Leonard Leeb, The Ideological Origins of the Batavian Revolution (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973), 40-57. Possibly, relating Slingelandt’s diplomatic efforts to his constitutional ideas as well as his fiscal and economic writings might de-isolate Slingelandt from diplomatic and constitutional history and reveal a more comprehensive perspective on Dutch politics. 33. Discussed in Hovy, Het voorstel van 1751 and Koen Stapelbroek, “Dutch commercial decline revisited: The future of international trade and the 1750s debate about a limited free port”, Annali della Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli 43 (2009), 193-221. Whether these institutional reforms, a financial scheme developed by Isaac de Pinto, the reform of the VOC and WIC and the fiscal plan here discussed formed an integral reform project in my view deserves to be addressed by future research.

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and Willem Bentinck van Rhoon (despite never fully trusting the Holland merchants’ motives34) emerged a shared awareness that in order to restore French interest in the Dutch Republic as a commercial-political partner the restoration of the Dutch capacity to function as an international staple market was required. Through the involvement of a widening circle of politically minded traders, the key figures Isaac de Larrey, Jan and Dirk Marselis and Thomas Hope an ambitious fiscal reform plan took shape. Initially developed to save the renewal of the treaty and to avoid ‘concurrence’ with other states aspiring to become carriers of the world’s goods, this project’s recommendations effectively embodied a return to the grand vision of the late seventeenth century of De la Court – even if the aim of the project was not to get rid of treaties as a basis for the Republic’s viability, but precisely to regain a lost treaty agreement. Upon his return from Paris, de Larrey advised in his report addressed to Bentinck that in order for the Dutch to become indispensable again in the eyes of the French it would be necessary to realise a fiscal, financial, and an institution reform along with a reorganisation of the Dutch trade companies. These reforms were seen by Dutch statesman not as an alternative to the strategy of obtaining a commercial treaty with France, but as a direct means for salvaging the renewal of this very treaty and the unique privileges of Dutch merchants to trade French goods with enjoyment of the same rights as French citizens. The treatise that accompanied the ‘Proposal’ clarified the reasons for the reform proposal. Although itself a fiscal reform plan, the aim of the design was to ‘unite’ the United Provinces as an economic entity. The key argument in this text was that a great reorganization of the structure of Dutch foreign commerce not only would have consequences for the Republic, but would also stabilise the interstate system. While the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century owned the world’s trade, but did not have a solid plan, now that the Dutch Republic’s staple market had declined it was possible to see that Dutch trade actually prevented trade-based rivalries among territorial states. The restabilisation of Dutch commerce and the partial resolution of jealousy of trade among states were supposed to take place emphatically not through commercial of political agreements but precisely because Dutch commerce, that is, the commerce of a non-territorial state, would be capable of unifying the interests of other states. The formula that was used in the accompanying treatise after 1751 proposal declared that Dutch trade by its nature was a “part of” the trade of other states and their territories.35 Even if the 1751 fiscal reform proposal was not implemented, the ‘Proposal’ was a watershed in the Dutch eighteenth-century debate about political economy. A few years later, at the outset of the Seven Years’ War the Dutch political debate about neutrality had also decisively changed character. The fundamental principle of neutral politics no longer related to the question how to control and 34. Hovy, Het voorstel van 1751, 323. 35. Stapelbroek, “Dutch commercial decline revisited”, 131-7.

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combine British and French claims, but how to trade neutrally in wartime. The pamphlets of the reception of the peace of Utrecht of 1713 and the debate of the 1740s concerned the same issues: either one recommended the choice for the territorial security guaranteed through a defensive treaty with Britain, or one advocated French commercial privileges, or one considered the option of having it both ways while staying neutral.36 Following a transitional period during the War of the Austrian succession, from the neutrality debate of 1756 onwards until 1780 – when Britain declared the fourth Anglo-Dutch War – the central question would be how much freedom of commerce a neutral could claim according to the law of neutrality. Polarisation of the Dutch neutrality debate in the 1770s Important in this debate was the fact that there were two rival conceptions of the same form of Dutch neutral commerce; two alternative interpretations of the same facts. On the one hand there was the idea that Dutch merchants thanks to a political treaties of the late seventeenth century with England – which contained the famous article of “free ships, free goods” – had a perfect right to trade in goods of states that were at war with Britain. Morally it was also right, an increasing amount of Dutch writers argued, that the Dutch in international politics combated Britain’s commercial empire. On the other hand there was the idea that Dutch neutral commerce itself had prolonged the duration of warfare, was inspired only by motives of gain, and in fact was not impartial but provided a great help to France in its battle to challenge British hegemony.37 Not only in pamphlet debates but also in the field of international diplomacy a clash between two irreconcilable visions was prominent. The French and British plenipotentiaries in the Hague, D’Affry (later replaced by Vauguyon) and Yorke published their various memorials to the States General also in the form of pamphlets in order to influence public opinion.38 The British party spoke of Dutch contraband while the French offered accidental privileges (not through the official political treaties, but, in 1778 by means of directly offering several 36. See Koen Stapelbroek, “Economic reform and neutrality in Dutch political pamphlets, 1741-1779”, in: Pamphlets and Politics in the Dutch Republic, eds. Femke Deen, David Onnekink & Michel Reinders (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 173-204. 37. See Ibid. and Stapelbroek, “The Dutch debate on commercial neutrality”, Koen Stapelbroek, “Neutrality and Trade in the Dutch Republic (1775-1783): Preludes to a Piecemeal Revolution”, in: Rethinking the Atlantic World. Europe and America in the Age of Democratic Revolutions, eds. Manuela Albertone and Antonino De Francesco, (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009), 100-119. 38. On Yorke’s perspective on the Dutch, Hamish M. Scott, “Sir Joseph Yorke and the waning of the Anglo-Dutch Alliance, 1747-1788”, in: Colonial Empires Compared: Britain and the Netherlands, 1750-1850, eds. Bob Moore and Henk van Nierop (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), 11-31.

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Dutch cities commercial privileges outside the political process, thereby disregarding Dutch sovereignty) and insisted that the Dutch had a perfect right to neutral commerce. In this way it did seem that in 1756 and in 1758 – and again between 1778 and 1780 – the Franco-Dutch political dynamic continued along the same lines as those of the earlier eighteenth century, whereas in reality its form had fundamentally and decisively changed from the period between the late 1740s and the beginning of the Seven Years’ War in which the nature of the political importance of the Dutch Republic both for France and for England had changed: the United Provinces no longer were a crucial ally, but a useful instrument in inflicting damage onto rivals through neutral trade in wartime.39 While the polarised debate between the French and British parties reached its climax, new ideas of neutrality had also emerged. There was a certain dynamic in the understanding of the idea of neutrality that may well have been inspired by and certainly combined well with the development of the political vision of trade in the 1751 ‘Proposal’. This dynamic gave rise to a series of more sophisticated reform outlooks for the Republic in the second half of the eighteenth century that would, however, not ultimately be successful in guiding the reform of the Republic. One of these new ideas of neutrality seemingly was closer to the British perspective and particularly the legal view of the British Admiralty, but in fact had Dutch roots. Bynkershoek in particular had reasoned (in fact much like Emer de Vattel, though based on different philosophical premises and inspired by great scepticism about the legal validity of commercial treaties), that bilateral agreements could not form an obligation for other states. ‘Just commerce’ should be based on complementarity between states and their natural resources. Commerce should repair a certain scarcity. Thus, the degree of justice of commercial neutrality in Bynkershoek’s view depended on the nature of the exchange.40 This basic conception of Bynkershoek, who published his treatise on public law in 1737, the year in which Slingelandt passed away, directly influenced the British Admiralty Court and the British outlook on commercial neutrality. Inspired by Bynkershoek’s opinions British lawyers and pamphleteers construed what is now customarily called “the neutral rights revolution of the Seven Years’ War”.41 Within the Dutch context it took somewhat longer for the legal ideas of Bynkershoek to be included into wider political and economic perspectives 39. There is a real continuity in the republications in 1756, 1757 and 1778 of a pamphlet from 1741: Louis-Joseph Plumard de Dangeul, Lettre écrite à un Seigneur du gouvernement par un Patriote Hollandois, Au sujet des Conjonctures présentes (s.l., 1741). What remained constant from the 1730s was a French disposition to portraying the Anglo-Dutch alliance of the past as a British ploy to defeat Dutch commerce. 40. Stapelbroek, “Dutch debate on commercial neutrality”, 121-5. 41. The term is used by Tara Helfman in her, “Commerce on Trial: Neutral Rights and Private Warfare in the Seven Years’ War”, in: Trade and War: The Neutrality of Commerce in the InterState System, ed. Koen Stapelbroek (Helsinki: Collegium for Advanced Studies, 2011), 14-41.

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that resembled De la Court’s views. During and following the Seven Years’ War there were writers who use the legal vision of Bynkershoek about trade to intervene in the debate between two opposed visions on the rights of neutral commerce based on treaties between two sovereigns. Writers like Jean Thomas La Fargue and Onno Zwier van Haren, both changed their position from supporters of an Anglo-Dutch alliance to advocates of “strict neutrality” [stipte neutraliteit] – the term they used to signal what they saw as a new meaning of neutrality. In a similar way the writings of the Amsterdam financier and political economist Isaac de Pinto,42 the views of the founder of the main Dutch economic society Herman Hendrik van den Heuvel,43 and even the reform views of the figurehead of Dutch patriotism Joan Derk van der Capellen44 are not to be understood as simply representing Orangist or patriot political ideas advocating either a defensive alliance with England or traditional pro-French Holland mercantile ‘neutralism’, but were all built on the further development of ideas about neutrality and trade and geared towards a transition of the Republic’s fundamental character onto principles that suited the interstate reality of the late eighteenth century, making previous partisan conceptions look rather outdated. Conclusion: The legacy of Dutch neutrality and the idea of Nederland Gidsland The development of a new array of ideas about trade and the Republic went along with the creation of new connotative understandings of the nature of trade in the relations between Carthage and Rome in antiquity and new outlooks on constitutional issues and economic (in)equality.45 Nonetheless, owing to foreign immersions in Dutch discussions the public debate had polarised to such a degree that these sets of ideas did not take hold. Following the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War and the collapse of the Republic in 1795, however, the line of thought developed earlier in the century was recovered, notably through the discourse of statistics developed by Adriaan Kluit and his pupils and successors. As I have argued elsewhere, the idea of the ‘intrinsic power’ of the Republic that was adopted by early Dutch statisticians relied on the conceptual innovations in ideas about Dutch trade and interstate relations most clearly expressed in 1751. In this way Gijsbert Karel Hogendorp and Johan Rudolph Thorbecke, 42. Stapelbroek, “The Dutch debate on commercial neutrality”, 125-9. 43. Stapelbroek, “The Dutch debate on commercial neutrality”, 129-31. 44. I am planning a chapter on van der Capellen’s political thought to be published in a volume co-edited with Hans Willem Blom. 45. References to Carthage and Rome can be found throughout the late seventeenth and eighteenth century. It depended on how one understood the Republic’s character whether Britain or France represented Rome. The relation between Dutch constitutional debate and inequality in the 1780s and 1790s is a current object of my research.

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the architects of the Dutch constitutional monarchy that exists until this day, saw the identity of the Dutch Republic.46 In the current historiography of the Dutch eighteenth century, these continuities and conceptual developments have received scant attention. The main reason for this, I suspect, is the emergence of an intellectual movement at the University of Leiden in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Within the specific political and cultural climate of the period a number of historians and lawyers (of which Robert Fruin, Cornelis van Vollenhoven and Herman Theodoor Colenbrander may be mentioned here) developed a highly influential form of creative history writing.47 In a period in which the idea of active neutrality had lost both its practical value and theoretical significance in interstate relations, and in which Dutch politics was characterised by party divisions, the idea arose that the earliest republican identity of the Dutch state could be reanimated to inspire a revival of the Dutch state on the international scene as a legal-moral guide. Probably inspired by Robert Fruin’s three stages of Dutch history, Cornelis van Vollenhoven developed parallel manifestos for the Unity [Eendracht] of the Dutch state and the creation of an international legal order in his Three Stages of International Law.48 In both realms the key inspirational figure was Grotius, who acted as the father of international law as well as of the unified Dutch state as a disinterested non-territorial apologist for the reform of international power relations. Meanwhile neutrality (commonly associated with weakness and lack of interest in international affairs) and eighteenth-century politics were negative points of reference. For all its creative merits, sophistication and visionary efforts to develop a new identity for the Dutch state in the world, the rhetorical and intellectual constructs thus created not only inspired twentieth-century justifications of European cooperation and unification,49 but also came at the cost of a dual historical 46. See Stapelbroek, “Dutch decline as a European phenomenon”, 145-50 and Koen Stapelbroek, Ida Harmina Stamhuis and Paul M. M. Klep, “Adriaan Kluit’s statistics and the future of the Dutch state from a European perspective”, History of European Ideas 36 (2010): 217-235. 47. See Jo Tollebeek, De toga van Fruin. Denken over geschiedenis in Nederland sinds 1860 (Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek, 1990), Petrus Benedictus Maria Blaas, “De prikkelbaarheid van een kleine natie met een groot verleden: Fruin’s en Blok’s nationale geschiedschrijving”, Theoretische Geschiedenis 9 (1982): 271-303, Piet de Rooy, Republiek van Rivaliteiten, Nederland sinds 1813 (Amsterdam: Mets & Schilt, 2002). 48. Robert Fruin, “De drie tijdvakken der Nederlandsche geschiedenis”, De Gids 29/4 (1865): 245-271, Johan Christiaan Boogman, “De Nederland-Gidsland-conceptie in historisch perspectief”, Ons Erfdeel 27 (1984): 161-170, Cornelis van Vollenhoven, De Eendracht van het Land (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1913), The three stages in the evolution of the law of nations (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1919 [Dutch original, 1918]). See also Jo Tollebeek, De toga van Fruin, 149-150. The establishment of the international court of justice at the Peace Palace in The Hague was a fruit of this enterprise and part of the international movement whose roots are discussed in Martti Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations. The Rise and Fall of International Law 1870-1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 49. See the review by Ernst Heinrich Kossmann, “De deugden van een kleine staat”, in: Politieke theorie en geschiedenis (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 1987), 388-94 of Joris Jacob C.

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falsification: one, it distorted eighteenth century Dutch political economic debate and the idea of commercial neutrality. In the evolution of neutrality from a non-existent foreign policy position in 1713 into an outlook on the creation and maintenance of peace and the embodiment of a set of preferences for the future of European politics the United Provinces contributed to global politics, an episode that was thus omitted from Dutch history.50 Two, the original eighteenthcentury problem of pacifying international relations was reduced to the dangers emanating from a lawless international order – dangers that could be eliminated through the ratification of international treaties; while for Hogendorp the main threat to peace (and the viability of the Republic) still had been the nationalisation of trade as an effect of commercial rivalry51 – a condition requiring solutions of an entirely different order, today as much as in the eighteenth century.

Voorhoeve, Peace, Profits and Principles. A study of Dutch foreign policy (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1980) for a taste of continuity since, say, J. A. van Hamel, Nederland tusschen de mogendheden; de hoofdtrekken van het buitenlandsch beleid en de diplomatieke geschiedenis van ons vaderland sinds deszelfs onafhankelijk volksbestaan (Amsterdam: Holkema, 1918), in which it is a “grondstelling” that “Nederland handelsstaat” relies on the existence of an international legal order. 50. Ernst Heinrich Kossmann, “Dutch Republicanism” in: Political Thought in the Dutch Republic (London: Edita, 2004), 167-8 (first published in 1985 in a Festschrift for Franco Venturi), instead started from the idea of Dutch neutrality as a choice of weakness. While Kossmann in many ways was still heavily indebted to the liberal historiography that emerged from the late nineteenth century, recently Nicolaas Cornelis Ferdinand van Sas and W. W. Mijnhardt have “rehistoricised” the role of the eighteenth century in Dutch history, but not yet focused on issues of political economy. 51. Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp, Bijdragen tot de Huishouding van staat in het Koningrijk der Nederlanden (vol 1,1818, The Hague: Allart), 98: “What a deadly condition threatens the whole of Europe, if all the nations lock themselves up within the boundaries of their territory, to possess everything in themselves!”

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The capture of the Thetis: A cause célèbre at the Madrid Council of War (1780-1788) Andrea Addobbati

Introduction Domenico Azuni expounded the tenets of the rights of neutral states in a long article in his Dizionario della Giurisprudenza Mercantile (1786-88), reviewing the major international treaties and the teachings of the most important experts in public law, from Grotius to Vattel, to the two Cocceius (father and son), Heineccius, Bynkershoek, Wolff and so on.1 He criticised Martin Hübner, the first to write a treatise devoted specifically to the argument (De la saisie des bâtimens neutres, 1759) for his “great obscurity”, while the author who he believed deserved to be followed as a guiding star was, somewhat surprisingly, Ferdinando Galiani, who was not a lawyer by profession, but a brilliant polemicist, capable of disarming raids in the disciplines of others. Hardly any mention was made of Galiani’s great opponent, the Tuscan Giovanni Maria Lampredi, author of the Juris pubblici universalis sive juris naturae et gentium theoremata (1778) and the Commercio dei popoli neutrali (1788). He was remembered by Azuni for only one of his minor works, the Parecer sobre la presa de la Fragata La Teti, written by request of the Grand Duke of Tuscany in occasion of a reversal of judgement in a prize case brought before the Madrid Council of War.2 In fact, the capture of the Thetis was the start of a famous controversy. Because of its implications for insurance it was discussed even by the Admiralty in London, which, under the chairmanship of Lord Mansfield, ruled in favour of the ship owner, absolved the captain of all responsibility and ordered City insurers to pay damages.3 1. Domenico Alberto Azuni, Dizionario universale (Livorno: Masi, 1822), III, 114-29. 2. Giovanni Maria Lampredi, Parecer sobre la presa de la Fragata La Teti (Rome: Desideri, 1785). On this minor work see Paolo Comanducci, Settecento conservatore: Lampredi e il diritto naturale (Milan: Giuffré, 1981). I am grateful to Professor Comanducci for having procured me a copy of this work. 3. Reports of Cases Argued and Determinated in the Court of King’s Bench (London: Frere and Roscoe, 1831), IV, 224-33.

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The Thetis affair entered the annals of jurisprudence because of its controversial features, the solution of which would help decide exactly where the dividing line lay between the neutral’s right to trade and the contrasting right of a belligerent to prevent the reinforcement of its enemy. Lampredi’s Parecer and the Salucci vs Johnson case in the British Admiralty served as secondary sources for the law; and the paradox is that while from then on they were considered touchstones for all similar future cases, at the time they counted for very little in the dispute that brought them about. The British ruling after all related to the insurance aspect of the capture and made only an incidental pronouncement as regards its legitimacy, while the Parecer was no more than a partial account and, what was more, one that failed to convince the judges. Joseph Kaunitz Rietberg, Austrian Plenipotentiary to Madrid, was among those who took the matter to heart. In the spring of 1783, when he began to suspect that illegal collusions between the judges and the owners of the corsair might be behind the failure to return the Tuscan ship to its owner, Vincenzo Salucci, he sent an indignant secret memoir to Peter Leopold and his powerful father, Anton Wenzel Kaunitz, the Prime Minister in Vienna: “All the neutral Nations”, wrote Kaunitz‘s favourite son, “have experienced more or less during this war the sad effects of the bad faith and greed of the Spanish privateers. All have had reason to complain of unfair confiscation pronounced by the Courts of the Kingdom against their ships and their cargoes; but of all these confiscations the most important, and perhaps the most unfair, is that of the Tuscan frigate, the Thetis”.4 Spain and the emergence of armed neutrality Had it not been for the Family Pact and Louis XVI’s promise to help him recapture the Rock of Gibraltar and the island of Minorca, Charles III would not have gone to war against Great Britain and thereby indirectly helped the rebel colonies of America whose example was in danger of upsetting the stability of all colonies. As it was, on the day after the declaration of war on 22 June 1779, the Rock was placed under siege from land and sea; and the fear that the besiegers might receive outside help made the crossing of the Strait for all European sea trade (which in the meantime had passed for the most part under neutral flags) particularly risky. On 1 July 1779 Spain published its rules of warfare, but right from the early stages of the conflict it was clear that the limits imposed on the actions of privateers would be all too easily ignored. The Madonna di Montenero e S. Vigilia, the first Tuscan vessel to attempt to sail through the Strait after the declaration of war, was intercepted and captured for the simple fact of being bound for London. The Plenipotentiary Kaunitz then lodged an official protest and the 4. ASFi, SME, 927, no. 53.

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Spanish agreed to release the ship, without however recognising the rights due to the neutral flag. The captain was allowed to resume his journey only because at the time of his departure the news of Spain’s entry into war had not been made public, “which would indicate”, the governor of Livorno, Bourbon del Monte, observed “that any neutral ship leaving Livorno for London after the declaration of war may be subject to confiscation. And this finally demonstrates that Spain, having certain ships to block Gibraltar claims to have blocked the Strait and consequently intends to extend the Blockade to all the British Isles and other English Possessions in the Ocean, and to have prevented the use of the sea which by law of nature should be free to all”.5 In reality, the mistrust of neutral shipping was common to all belligerents, but was inversely proportional to the benefits that each of them could obtain from them. As a maritime power might be inclined to make use of them, even more so might it be inclined to consider neutral ships as an auxiliary resource of its enemies. It was therefore Great Britain, the holder of maritime hegemony, which was most prejudiced against neutrals and regularly tried to curb their rights and to impose its point of view on the rest of Europe. The doctrine of hegemonic power was established irrevocably on the old principles of maritime custom that sanctioned the right of belligerents to take possession of all enemy goods wherever they were found, agreeing to do no more than pay reparations to the neutral captains for the loss of their fee. This rigid attitude had been aggravated in the course of the last war by the rule of 1756, which declared a state of blockade on all enemy ports whether they were actually blocked or not, authorising on this basis the capture of any ship en route to them. However, France and the other enemy powers that depended a great deal on the neutral fleets were a little more amenable to their demands. Already the Franco-American treaty of alliance of 6 February 1778 had put in writing an early recognition of the ‘free ships, free goods’ principle. But it was a new rule of the French privateers (of 26 July of the same year) that made this a general rule, albeit with its adoption being conditional on Britain’s reciprocal acceptance of it within six months.6 London quickly announced its opposition, but the question of neutral shipping had by then been placed on the international diplomatic agenda, and with France and Spain guaranteeing external support all that was needed was for an authoritative neutral voice to speak up and place Britain in serious difficulty. As is well known, that voice belonged to Catherine II. After she made her pronouncement in February 1780 almost all of neutral Europe rallied around her, beginning with Denmark, Sweden, and Prussia ready to support the inter5. Ibid., 922, no. 6. Bourbon del Monte to Seratti, 13 August 1779. 6. Eric Schnakenbourg, “From ‘hostile infection’ to ‘free ship, free goods’: Changes in French neutral trade legislation (1689-1778)”, in: Trade and War: The Neutrality of Commerce in the Inter-State System, ed. Koen Stapelbroek (Helsinki: Collegium for Advanced Studies, 2011): 96-113.

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ests of neutrals with force of arms, and they were later joined by Austria and Portugal. The United Provinces did not respond to the appeal, as they were dragged into war by Britain before being able to ratify the treaty. The principles advocated by the League of Armed Neutrality – that the neutral cargo, with the exception of wartime contraband, was to be considered untouchable, and the rejection of the British stratagem of sham blockades – were welcomed by France and Spain, and dismissed by Britain. In practice this action achieved little: the forces that stepped forward were not up to the task, so much so that the Empress herself, once the war was over, renamed her alliance the “armed nonentity”. Yet, at least one result, and a very important one, was obtained. The rights of neutrals were fused to the international legal consciousness and were perceived thereafter to be an issue of essential justice that required the community of states to rethink the foundations of maritime law.7 The complicated diplomatic events that led to the constitution of the League have been reconstructed in an admirable way by Isabel de Madariaga.8 For our purposes it suffices to mention some background issues. The universalist inspiration that brought about the alliance and made it a demarcation line in the history of international law was not due to Catherine, but to the Danish minister Andreas Peter von Bernstorff. There were in fact two ways of looking at the problem of protecting neutral traffic. The Russians’ main concern was to guarantee access to their Baltic ports, and thus they leaned towards a regional alliance that ensured free export of national products, especially wood and naval supplies. However, the Danes, who wished to succeed Holland as the great carriers of the sea, had in mind a wider initiative aimed at building a broad consensus between European states that would quash British resistance. The entrance of Spain in the war had the effect of unblocking the situation. In order to rebalance the forces in play Britain attempted to drag Russia into the war, offering in exchange its support for the Empress’s expansionist designs on Turkey. Catherine declined the invitation, but also continued to resist the Danish request to place Russia at the head of a united neutral front, which ran the risk of appearing openly anti-British. The episode that permitted Bernsforff and the Imperial Chancellor, Nikita Panin, to overcome the Empress’s indecision was the capture by the Spanish of two neutral ships hired by grain exporters from the Baltic port of Archangel. Spain replied to Russian protests by claiming to share the Empress’s concerns, but being unable to act differently as long as Britain rejected the neutral cargo principle. Even so, Prime Minister Floridablanca and the Minister for the Navy, Castejon, at least needed to make a gesture of goodwill, so on 13 March 1780 they put their signatures to a Declaracìon de varios punctos sobre el registro y apresiamento de embarcaciones neutrales (Declaration of various points on the perquisition and arrest of 7. Ernest Nys, La guerre maritime (Brussels: Merzbach et Falk, 1881), 105. 8. Isabel de Madariaga, Britain, Russia and the Armed Neutrality of 1780 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962).

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neutral ships) which integrated the rules of the previous year, offering greater guarantees to neutrals that kept to the instructions formulated specifically for the crossing of the Strait.9 After France had welcomed “with real satisfaction” the Russian pronouncement of mid-February, Spain also declared its acceptance, but not without repeating its complaints regarding the intransigence of the cabinet in London.10 A few years later Floridablanca claimed for himself all the credit for the alliance “that has been called armed neutrality” by virtue of which “England lost [...] the help of other maritime powers, even Holland, it’s old ally. Allow me, Your Majesty”, the Murcian wrote, “to recall here the management that we held to bring off this coup, which although attributed to Russia and and firmly supported by her, had its beginning in the political cabinet of Your Majesty, and the maxims that you adopted and you wisely know to carry out”.11 Between the devil and the deep blue sea Anton Francesco Salucci & Sons, a company which, along with other Livornese firms, was part of a kind of Tuscan active trade lobby that sometimes supported the neo-mercantilist initiatives of the Habsburgs, such as the East India Company of Ostend, and at other times promoted ownership initiatives of its own, was attempting to carve out a niche in non-European markets for national products. Already well established in the 1750s, the firm became more dynamic under the leadership of Vincenzo Salucci, to whom his elderly father had handed the reins of command in 1777. At the beginning of the American crisis, Vincenzo was among the first to recognise the great commercial opportunities offered by the rebellion of the English colonies and, with the support of Benjamin Franklin, representative of Congress in Paris, tried to start a direct shipping line between Livorno and North America. The first shipment of goods to Boston was, however, intercepted by the Royal Navy, so the project was held in abeyance, only to be re-launched with increased determination at the end of the war. In the meantime the Salucci company, and other Tuscan houses that were trying their hand at shipping, set about deriving maximum advantage from the war by replacing the British flag in trade within Europe.12 9. BNE, Recoletos, VC/51/3. 10. “Reponse de la Cour d’Espagne à la déclaration de sa majesté impériale de toutes les Russies presentée le 15 avril 1780”, in: Giovanni Maria Lampredi, Del commercio dei popoli neutrali (Florence: 1788), II, 59-60. 11. “Memorial presentado al Rey Càrlos III”, in: Obras originales del Conde de Floridablanca y escritos referentes a su persona (Madrid: Atlas, 1952), 309. 12. Andrea Addobbati, “Oltre gli intermediari. La Anton Francesco Salucci & figlio alla conquista dei mercati americani (1779-1788)”, in: Storia e attualità della presenza degli Stati Uniti a Livorno e in Toscana, eds. Paolo Castignoli, Luigi Donolo and Algerina Neri (Pisa: Plus, 2003), 145-83.

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In the late summer of 1780 the Thetis, a 280-tonne frigate from the Salucci fleet, sailed towards the Atlantic with a cargo of oil, wine, silks and other Tuscan goods destined for London. Having reached Cape Tenes at dawn, the lookout spotted a privateer xebec, which soon after hoisted the British flag and fired a salvo from the cannon; “thereafter it fired on the ship Thetis with many more cannonballs”. Captain Monteverdi, then, “ordered the hoisting of the Tuscan flag and fired a warning shot leeward”, but the privateer continued to fire. The Tuscans had a sudden realisation: it could not be an British ship, but was a Barbary corsair, so they had to fire back if they did not want to end up in chains! While the two ships exchanged volleys at a distance, the corsair lowered the flag, and hoisted the Spanish one: it was certainly a Barbary ship! The chase continued for four hours. Then, finally, the Tuscans could see the faces of their pursuers: they were not Algerian pirates. The Gazzetta Universale of Florence stated that: “Then Captain Monteverdi ceased firing, sent the Pilot on board the Corsair, the Corsair requested that the Captain and all his papers be bought on board to be held with the Captain, whose ship was caught and led to Cartagena [...] It was then revealed that the Spanish Corsair was the xebec S. Teresa di Gesù, from the island of Ibiza, Captained by Antonio Ferrero with 18 nine pound cannons and 102 crew members. It was incredible that in this conflict there were no dead or injured on either side”.13 The important role of naval protocol At the admiralty of Cartagena, the corsair ship Ferrero and its owners, the brothers Josef and Jaime Roquerols, claimed that the prize was legally theirs because its commander, the Elban Monteverdi, had resisted by force the right of examination, losing ipso facto the immunity due to his flag. The right of belligerents to confiscate ‘contraband of war’ – in other words, all goods of use in war carried by neutral ships – had been recognised by the ancient rules of the Consolato del Mare, and clearly implied the right to board ships to ascertain the nature of its cargo. It was the French Ordonnance de la Marine of 1681 that had first stated this right explicitly, adding that any ship which offered armed resistance was “fair prey”. René Valin, the most well-known commentator of the Ordonnance, gave credence to an interpretation of the rule that was more favourable to belligerent forces, arguing that even without fighting, any resistance – for example, flight – should be considered sufficient motive to authorise capture.14 The Spanish regulation was not so different: when a ship that was told to submit to an inspection if it “put up resistance”, the 1779 ordinance stated, “would be captured and declared legitimate prey”. It should be noted, 13. Gazzetta Universale, no. 86 (24 October 1780), 683-84. 14. René Josué Valin, Traité des prises (La Rochelle: Legier, 1763), I, 79-82.

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however, that the possibility of lawful resistance was also allowed, in the event that the privateer “had provided a motive... for this action”.15 The inspection was therefore a right of belligerents that could hardly be contested. However, the privateer intending to exploit it had to observe special recognition procedures established in maritime tradition, and whose rituals had been developed over time in line with tactical needs and a military code of honour that did not rule out stratagems aimed at surprising the enemy. One of the most common ploys was the flying of false flags, a wartime practice dating back at least to the War of the Austrian Succession. However, the law had reacted to this naval tactic and, to clamp down on the unscrupulousness of privateers, a precept on the obligation always to disclose one’s true nationality before taking an authoritative action, such as ordering compliance, was established. Valin himself recognised the right of the “Ship-owners to carry whatever Flags they see fit”, but also explained that “what is forbidden [...] is to fire a safety or warning shot under a Foreign Flag”.16 The hunt could also be carried out with false flags, but once the merchant ship had been reached, the privateer had to identify itself by hoisting its own flag and confirm its veracity by firing blank shots or even a harmless shot leeward.17 Antonio Ferrero had fired the first shot under the British flag and for such behaviour would have faced a charge of piracy in other courts. Be that as it may, the offence for which the Spaniard was responsible – having hoisted a false flag – did not in itself excuse the Tuscan’s reaction, for in principle he was obligated to consent to any request for inspection, without making a distinction between British and Spanish. But Captain Monteverdi claimed that his reaction had been justified by the notoriety of the particular stretch of sea in which the two parties had exchanged fire. The waters facing North Africa were the hunting grounds of pirate navies from Algeria and Tunisia, whose indifference to the ius publicum europaeum was well known. He had therefore been navigating extremely perilous waters and would not have made such an error of judgement if Ferrero had acted in a less unprofessional manner. It had also to be taken into account that the Thetis was not carrying any prohibited goods, so the possibility that the Tuscan had responded to fire because it had something to hide had to be discounted.18 Exploiting the form and substance of maritime documentation Another point of order of which the Spanish ship-owners took advantage to obtain the award of prize concerned the certification of the cargo’s national15. Quoted in Lampredi, Parecer, 7. 16. Valin, Traité, I, 41. 17. Felix Joseph De Abreu y Bertodano, Tratado juridico-politico sobre pressas de mar (Cadiz: Imprenta R. de Marina, 1746), 230. 18. Reports of cases, IV, 230.

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ity. According to the maritime law then in force, a neutral captain who wished to ply his trade unimpeded had to provide satisfactory proof not only of the nationality of his ship and crew, but also of the goods he transported. This rule had naturally been adopted by Spanish decree, which, in article 16 prescribed what proof their courts required. The captains had to exhibit “the Ship’s Cartapartidas or Charter party… as well as the authenticated documents and the bills of lading”.19 Before he set sail Monteverdi had been given all the usual documentation by Salucci who, as an extra precaution, had even arranged for the ship’s manifest to be countersigned by a public official and accompanied by safe-conduct passes signed by the French and Spanish consuls in Livorno. The papers held by the Tuscan were therefore far more than what the regulations decreed. The problem, however, was their format. No cartapartida, or charter partie was found among the ship’s papers and a manifest did not make up for this lack, at least not in the opinion of the court that found against the Tuscan. The cartapartida was nothing more than a freight contract, so called because it was originally divided into two parts, one of which was given to the captain while the other was sent to the purchaser to use when checking the delivery. In the general mercantile practice of the time, the canonical cartapartida was used only in certain particular cases, such as when the entire cargo belonged to a single owner. Instead, since it was more usual for cargos to be divided alla balla (that is, between more than one owner-sender), it was standard practice, especially in the Mediterranean, to substitute the several cartapartidas that would otherwise have been needed with a single manifest which identified the owners and underwriters of the different parts of the cargo. In his Parecer Lampredi made great efforts to demonstrate that there was no essential difference between the cartapartida and the manifest held by Monteverdi, and that “the different name does not change the fact that in substance it was the same thing”.20 However, the Spanish courts, with a single exception, refused to produce a reasonable judgment to settle the formal contradictions between positive Spanish law and mercantile practice. Joseph Kaunitz saw this, and he traced the judge’s rigour back to a flaw in the original wording of the law and to the high price, political and financial, which Spain would have had to pay if it set about amending it. The French Ordonnances had also named the charte-partie as a means of proof, but no interpreter, from Valin onwards, had ever considered this to be a strict requirement that disallowed any other equivalent document. The Spanish legislation, however, had authorised the capture of all ships that did not have “these exact instruments”, without taking mercantile practice into account. According to Kaunitz, such a massive error was “due to a lack of knowledge and experience of navigation” and making amends would not be simple: “the damage is already deeply rooted”. From the beginning of the war, in fact, the victims of article 16 19. Quoted in Lampredi, Parecer, 7. 20. Ibid., 12.

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had been so numerous that a sentence departing from it, accepting substitute forms of proof, would result in the Spanish courts of appeal being inundated.21 In reality, however, it was not so impossible to obtain a sentence that diverged from the norm. This was demonstrated when the judgment was reviewed and the arguments of the Tuscans won out. Without that reversal the Thetis affair might have been concluded more quickly, but instead it took several years. The Roquerols, owners of the privateer ship, had to bribe several judges and witnesses, intimidate the attorneys of their opponents, and falsify the evidence before getting their own way. The devil’s meal In the autumn of 1782, after the third review judgment, the case seemed to be over. Two matching sentences had been given, and for Spanish law this was sufficient to execute them. Then it happened that Isabella Brigidi, an Italian actress, appeared in court exhibiting a bill of exchange for 5,000 duros that had not been honoured to demand that an enforcement writ be issued against the Roquerols. The debtors attempted to oppose this by asking for an injunction, but after more thorough enquiries had been made an embarrassing truth came to light: the 5,000 duros were part of the payment agreed to persuade the beautiful actress to seduce certain judges in the Council of War, and convince them to alter the sentences. The Corregidor who handled the evidence also came to know the names of some of the corrupt: he was so alarmed that he chose to file the acts in an attempt to hush the matter up. Brigidi, however, seeing that justice had shut the door in her face, went to spill the beans at the Austrian Embassy, thereby placing a formidable weapon in the hands of Kaunitz. The King was prevailed upon to reopen the case and did so, though without saying why. Thus there came to be a fourth and then a fifth review, both at the Council of War, augmented for the occasion by members of the Councils of the Indies and of Castille, but without passing a definitive sentence for several reasons, which in the end were reduced to just one: the Council was the judge, but felt it was also the defendant. The hearings were turbulent, encumbered by suspicions and conditioned by a battle between golillas – the ruling party of the lawyers and officials, men often of modest origins, such as the Murcian Moniño who Charles III had invested with the title of Count of Floridablanca – and the aragones – the opposition whose support came from among the aristocracy and the military.22 In the meantime, Kaunitz left the stage. Worn out by a painful illness, he died in Alicante at the early age of 39. The task of sorting out the affair then fell on the shoulders of the person directly involved, the owner Salucci, who moved to Spain in 1785 armed with letters of recommendation from the Grand Duch21. ASFi, SME, 927, no. 53. 22. AHN, C, 2511, nos. 26-28.

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ess, the beloved daughter of King Charles. Apart from working for a successful conclusion to the case, he opened extrajudicial talks to obtain compensation directly from the Crown, knowing full well that the case itself, whatever the outcome, could not reimburse him for his losses, as it was to be assumed that the opposition had already shared out the spoils of the Thetis among those who had assisted in the victory of the third review. Finally, in 1787, the findings of the fifth revision was submitted to the King for ratification, findings which once again revealed a conflict between the robed judges, the majority of whom were favourable to the Tuscans, and the military judges, who supported the privateers. The latter managed to prevail by committing abuses which, if revealed, would have invalidated the whole proceedings. Considering the delicacy of the case, the King ordered a sixth, secret, review, without the participation of the parties, and then awarded final victory to the owners of the privateer ship. The two Roquerols brothers had little to celebrate, however, given that some time earlier, at the request of Antonio Valdes, the new minister of the navy and enemy of Floridablanca, the trial against them for the affair of the bill of exchange had been reopened. And so there came about the strange paradox of a King who upheld a sentence whose beneficiaries were at the time in prison charged with having bought it. Even the extrajudicial talks did not achieve the desired outcome. They dragged on with promises and reassurances galore, but without ever reaching a concrete agreement, until the heavily indebted Tuscan owner ran out of money; by 15 September 1788 Anton Francesco Salucci & Son became insolvent with debts of 220,000 pezze.23 Soon afterwards the elderly Charles III ended his days, and his passing opened a period of great political instability which restored the hope of the Tuscan. Salucci was convinced that he had been the victim of a monstrous conspiracy orchestrated by the prime minister himself. He had even written a memorandum based on the Roquerols’ criminal trial and which, although not supported by conclusive proof, nevertheless advanced a rather persuasive theory aimed at demonstrating that the great political protector referred to as ‘Mecenas’ in the letters seized from the defendants was none other than Count Floridablanca, whose position in the meantime was looking very insecure. The creation of a Junta de Estado designed to centralise administrative reforms had earned him a reputation for ministerial despotism, and his restrictive ruling on honours had antagonised almost all the generals in the army. Even though just before his death Charles III had ordered his successor to reaffirm Floridablanca’s position, the opposition immediately began to busy itself to unseat him. Meanwhile the Spain of “prudent and gentle” reforms was marking time, looking incredulously at events in France. These were the years of “the panic of Floridablanca”, which rallied the police, censors, and even the inquisition in an effort to stem the revolutionary contagion.24 Salucci, somewhat recklessly, believed he could profit from the mounting climate of hostility towards the minis23. Addobbati, Oltre gli intermediari, 177.

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ter and reach the new King without using him as an intermediary as he had had to do during his earlier failed negotiation. He was just waiting for an answer from Queen Maria Luisa with whom he had requested an audience when, on the night of 29 May 1789, he and the Marquis of Manca and two other Italians, Giovanni del Turco and Luigi Timoni, were placed under arrest; all were accused of having concocted a defamatory libel against Floridablanca, which had been sent anonymously to Don Manuel Godoy, the palace bodyguard, and to Carlos Ruta, head of the wardrobe. We will not follow Salucci in this new process, which was much more famous than that of the Thetis because it contributed, to an extent still uncalculated, to the undoing of the powerful prime minister.25 We will simply state that the police superintendent, who was following Floridablanca’s directives, failed to prove the guilt of the accused. The Council of Castille had to acknowledge their innocence, even if half the judges seemed unconvinced. To soften the humiliating blow that the President of the Council, Pedro Rodriguez Campomanes, had inflicted on him, Floridablanca ensured that the King’s order to release the accused was passed off as an act of clemency. Salucci and his partners were freed after two years, with orders to leave Spain. Yet in the end Salucci had his revenge. In 1792, after Floridablanca’s downfall, the new minister, the Count of Aranda, intent on totally destroying his opponent politically, granted the three Italians and the Marquis of Manca a retrial, which they came out of with honour restored and full financial compensation. When he was summoned to appear at the bar Floridablanca had argued that Salucci was merely a slanderer, a “rancorous and spiteful man” in the grip of a “hallucination”.26 Who was right? Had the Tuscan succumbed to a paranoid delirium or had all the others, including the minister, been corrupted? During the Roquerols trial five or six judges were exposed as corrupt, but, accepting that there were probably many more (it was estimated that around 80,000 pezze were spent on bribes),were these corrupt judges enough to decide the result of an exceptionally long trial, debated on seven different occasions? Could the conspiracy have continued to operate even after it had been uncovered? And finally, could it really be that Floridablanca was implicated in the web of corruption from the beginning? It is not easy to answer all these questions. Certainly the revelations of Brigidi greatly embarrassed both the curial class, 24. Juan Hernandez Franco, “Floridablanca entre reacción y la revolución (1787-1792)”, Estudios románicos 6 (1987-89): 1659-71. 25. On the fall of Floridablanca: Obras originales del Conde de Floridablanca; Cayetano Alcàzar Molina, “España en 1792. Floridablanca. Su derrumbamiento del gobierno y sus procesos de responsabilitad politica”, Revista de Estudios Polìticos 71 (1953): 93-138; Juan Hernandez Franco, La gestion politica y el pensamiento reformista del Conde Floridablanca (Murcia: Universidad de Murcia, 1984), 549-70. The great number of documents on the trial in AHN, C, 2354, 2505-2514, 11929, 17716, 17734. For the Tuscan reaction: ASFi, SME, 937, no. 21. On Giovanni del Turco: Franco Venturi, Settecento riformatore. III. La prima crisi dell’Antico Regime (17681776) (Turin: Einaudi, 1979), 74-89. 26. “Defensa legal” in: Obras originales, 374.

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which was led to entrench itself in the defence of the honour of the corporation, the government and the monarchy, which, though unable to disregard Kaunitz’s requests, did all it could to defuse the explosive scandal. Nevertheless, despite the widespread convergence of interests, the impression is that the abuse which stained the Spanish justice system would not have been perpetrated with such impunity if, apart from the corrupt and colluding parties, others had not also decided to support the claims of the privateers in good faith. Conclusion: thirst for revenge Anti-Habsburg sentiment was a key ingredient of nascent Iberian patriotism, as was anti-Italian sentiment, at least from the famous mutin de Esquillance onwards – and that is not to mention anglophobia. With the war these hostilities grew stronger, something that was obviously inevitable as far as the British were concerned, but less so as regards Austria and Tuscany, which had after all remained neutral. However, in the eyes of the Bourbons, that neutrality was simply a way for them to join in the dispute without putting themselves at risk. The dirty game of Livorno was the best example of this. From the start of the siege of Gibraltar and Minorca, the port belonging to the Grand Duke of Tuscany and the Archduke of Austria served as the main logistics hub of the British in the Mediterranean. Most of the reinforcements of arms, provisions and men that streamed into the besieged towns came from Livorno by means of xebecs fast enough to elude the French and Spanish; and Mahonese privateers, sailing under the British flag, had made the Tuscan port their base well before the fall of Minorca.27 The diplomatic standoff that ensued lasted for the duration of the conflict, but it is enough at this point to mention the events of the summer of 1782. To stop the influx of reinforcements to the besieged, the French Navy, at the request of Madrid, sent two ships to criss-cross in front of Livorno, outside territorial waters. Count Mercy d’Argenteau, ambassador to Versailles, complained on behalf of the Grand Duke to the minister Vergennes, arguing that for all practical purposes this represented a blockade, and that the French were violating neutrality. Vergennes at first tried to extricate himself with a joke, but when the Count insisted, was forced to give him a strong reprimand: “he changed his tone”, de Mercy wrote, “and made his own very strong complaints about frequent expeditions originating from Livorno in favour of the English first towards Minorca, and now for Gibraltar [...] and that the King of Spain had denounced this abuse to his Most Christian Majesty in the strongest terms, and said that it was natural to prevent such abuse by the means indicated by the circumstances and necessary for the Armed Success of Allied Powers”.28 27. Jean Pierre Filippini, Il porto di Livorno e la Toscana (1676-1814) (Naples: ESI, 1998), II, 215-44. 28. ASFi, SME, 925, no. 14. De Mercy to Piccolomini, 12 June 1782.

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The success of the Minorca siege did not compensate for the frustration of the failed one at Gibraltar. Even after the end of the war, Spanish resentment of the British and all the neutrals that had cooperated in the defence of the Rock did not abate. The most disloyal neutrals had in fact been the Tuscan states, which, not content with sending all manner of help to the besieged, even dared to open fire on a Spanish privateer! This indignation was very much alive among the judges of the Council of War, especially the military ones who were not able to disentangle themselves too well from legal issues yet rushed forward as one whenever an appeal to injured national pride was made. This explains why a few corrupt councillors could win the majority of votes in every review. The findings, representative of the court hearings, which were sent to the King clearly illustrated this point: after the trial was unexpectedly reopened following Kaunitz’s complaint, it only took the repeated ringing of the patriotic bell to condemn the Tuscans. We see this by looking, for example, at comments made at the start of the examination of the crews’ evidence in the fourth review: “The first thing we must consider”, councillor de Lema began, “is to know which witnesses are held in the best light and enjoy the most complete reputation. And do neutrals and especially citizens of Livorno who, during the last War, have committed under the veil of friendship the most outrageous frauds imaginable against the Spanish nation, enjoy a more complete reputation and are they held in higher opinion than the Spaniards, especially the corsair Ferrer who has given such incontestable signs of his honesty, his sincerity and good faith without causing any damage nor any unjust extortion towards the neutrals, who certainly do not deserve such respect and fairness?”29 More examples of this kind could be given. It was, however, during the fifth review that unimaginable paroxysm was reached. Francisco Treviño y Davila, one of the additional councillors, gave a glaring demonstration of how patriotic poison can cause the grotesque clouding of a mind that is already unbalanced. Addressing the court, he argued that the fine oil from Lucca, the exquisite oil that the corsair had found in the hold of the Thetis, had not in fact been destined for the tables of well-to-do London families, as the Tuscans wanted the court to believe. Not at all! The oil was bound for another place: it had been sent “to freshen the guns of Gibraltar”!30 Alarmed by what he had heard, Humborg, the secretary of the Habsburg Embassy, sent a message to Florence the very next day: the hearing had been chaotic, orchestrated by a “frenzied party”. “I cannot hide”, he wrote, “that I was scandalised not by the bias shown, but by the most incensed passion, let me say, of the fury towards the Tuscans”. The councillor Francisco Perez de Lema, head of the “frenzied”, had “seriously repeated against the Salucci, a list of absurdities that have already been refuted more often and more completely than they merit; and he crowned them with his own argument, well worthy of him, ‘that the Salucci should be condemned because during the last war the Livornese were lacking in their duties towards Neutrality and favoured the English’”.31 29. AHN, C, 2511, no. 28, cc. 79 r-v. 30. Ibid., c. 133r. 31. ASFi, SME, 927, no. 53. Houmborg to Alberti, 15 September 1787.

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The Thetis affair was more unique than rare, but nonetheless was representative in its singular exasperation both of the gulf that still existed between the considered judgments of the law and ‘justice’ – all emotional – made in the courts, and the inability to find an acceptable point of balance between the rights of neutrals and those of belligerents outside the theatre of politics and war. The League of Armed Neutrality struggled a great deal to prove its equal distance from the warring parties, and apparently in the end managed to do so only at the cost of great hypocrisies and by giving centre stage to the Tsarina Catherine II, who could not be accused of any notable anti-British animosity. With the exception of Portugal and Austria, which anyway stuck to a cautious position, avoiding too close an involvement with the alliance, all the other countries that joined the league did so with secret satisfaction – in the case of Frederick II not even particularly well hidden – of constructing in this way a solid bulwark against the British superpower. This is not to speak of the French and Spanish monarchies, whose allegiance to the principle of the freedom of the seas amounted to little more than a propaganda weapon, and then only in so far as it was useful to their economic and military interests.32 Floridablanca himself, who claimed the credit for being the indirect architect of the neutral alliance, then spurred on the ruthlessness of the Spanish corsairs with the intention of “achieving one of two things: either containing English conduct towards the neutral flag, or compensating by means of reprisals the loss that we suffered through the larger losses of our enemies”.33 The ethical-juridical principle was placed on the same level as material advantage and when taken into account it was only because the British would be first to pay the consequences. The subordination of the rights of neutrals to the cold logic of the conflict made it impossible for the belligerents to recognise the equal dignity of neutral countries. In other words, there was a good neutral: the one that ensured the pursuit of domestic trade; and a bad neutral: the disloyal one that feigned impartiality while continuing to serve the interests of the enemy. Only patriotic partisanship could place these different positions in a discriminatory ‘good’ and ‘bad’ moral order; but what actually divided the neutrals in a distinct way was the different logic of economic integration, and the historical political ties that derived from it. From the Spanish point of view, the Thetis clearly belonged to the enemy camp, and all claims to the rights of neutrality, made in the vain attempt of obtaining its release, simply confirmed the opportunistic nature of Tuscany and deserved to be thwarted in every possible way, even at the cost of provoking a diplomatic incident. But we would be mistaken to think that such a prejudiced attitude belonged uniquely to the Spanish. Comparable cases to that of the Thetis, though perhaps not as sensational, also occurred on the other side. It is enough to think of the treatment that the Admiralty in London reserved for Dutch ships, Britain’s own ‘bad’ neutrals. 32. Schnakenbourg, “From ‘hostile infection’”, 112. 33. “Memorial presentado al Rey Càrlos III”, in: Obras originales, 309.

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The “intervention practices” of the late ancien régime: Notes on the institutional and mercantile spheres of eighteenth-century Europe Biagio Salvemini

The title of the section to which these notes refer: “intervention practices”, and the time period generally adopted by authors of this and the other sections of the conference held in Pisa, the late ancien régime, allude to territorial states engaged in producing ‘active trade’, starting from very different positions of strength and ending by differentiating them further. Because the aim of state intervention became that of increasing both the glory of the prince and the happiness of his subjects, it can be accommodated in the great narrative of Western civilisation and its uneven progress. However, I believe that the aim of the scholars present here, and the research project to which this symposium belongs, is not to add any footnotes to the grand narratives, but instead to look closely at certain real processes and their contradictions. Taking account in particular of the French example, I will attempt to follow their lead by drawing attention to a number of themes that have circulated more or less explicitly in the presentations and discussions of this meeting. I refer straight away to a general issue that has remained in the background, but which appears to me to be indispensable for bringing into focus discussions and arguments about the practice of public intervention, namely the changing role and meaning of trade. There can surely be no doubt that the late ancien régime was one of those phases in which the link between land and sea was tightened, in which maritime trade and the economies and social organisations of the hinterlands tended to interpenetrate. In comparison to the great mass of goods produced and consumed within the catchments of the short and not always monetized distribution chains, long-distance trade no longer involved marginal surpluses but became a factor that mobilised and modified the resources and ways of life of vast territories. The interplay of trade did not take place, or no longer took place, on the outer fringes of introverted social groups, and it no longer brushed gently against the margins, leaving ideas and protagonists largely unchanged: rather, it collided with and disrupted regions and societies to varying but always incisive degrees. If the model of Polanyian ports 160

of trade had ever worked, it certainly did not do so in the seas and lands of the eighteenth-century West. The major ports became less the places designed to monitor and regulate the contacts between the “free” – and therefore dangerous and “corrupting”1 – sea and the “servile” land, and more channels for the inflow of goods, people and cultures, who brought with them unforeseen dynamics that impacted on both production and consumption. At the same time the free ports, studied earlier in this project, were no longer maritime trading hubs relatively detached from their hinterlands. Rather they took on a mixed role, as warehouses, outlets and supply stations. The consequence of all of this was that the stakes of intervention practices were raised and the goals against which they were measured became more ambitious, matters of contention grew in number, and the grounds on which conflicts between states and countries could break out expanded. The jealousy of trade widened the potential fault lines between political formations. The intervention practices giving support to active trade were employed competitively, but by no means was all-out war to be the fate of this type of mercantile growth. While the number of conflicts multiplied they became, in a sense, more trivial, losing any relation to the fault lines between civilisations and religious affiliations, becoming negotiable and not necessarily taking place in the clear light of day. And all of this was connected to the disappearance of the compactness of, so to speak, classical mercantilism and to the emergence of profound ambiguities in the procedures, institutions and doctrines of late mercantilism. Let us look at the protagonists of these conflicts, the states. Their ability to mobilise and deploy the men and resources available to them in compact, orderly ways so as to compete successfully was very much in doubt. Their actions ought to reveal the unambiguous direction – from the top down – presupposed in the concept of ‘reform’ commonly used by the protagonists and historians. On the other hand, this was a controversial concept that hid inconsistencies not easily resolved, such as the age-old question of the necessary link between the legitimacy and limitation of political power. The fact that a power not based on outright coercion must make its boundaries clear and give its subjects ‘freedom and immunities’ was certainly not resolved by the interventionism of late mercantilism, and it later re-emerged from within it in a specific and particularly acute form. The creation of public happiness through the promotion of trade became the responsibility of the prince and it legitimised his role. Its fundamental premise was that it was possible to lead the mercantile sphere back to the political arena, or, more precisely, to within the jurisdiction of the sovereign. His territory, in which internal divisions were weakened and the borders to the outside reinforced, coincided with the area subject to calculation by the new methods of accounting – for example, the French Balance du Commerce – designed to 1. I refer to Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell, The Corrupting Sea. A Study of Mediterranean History (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000).

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guide the intervention, grounding it firmly on arithmetic. But this ‘national’ calculation was the sum of the actions of individuals who had by then been entirely legitimised and, in turn, calculated independently from public happiness. There was an underlying inconsistency between the collective dimension of the happiness to be attained and the private dimension of the subjects on whom it was ultimately bestowed. After experiencing mixed fortunes on its journey through the centuries, the figure of the merchant was reclassified as the foundational character of the political community. His individual action and its related rights, starting with the right of property, became, in a sense, sanctified. Seen from this perspective, trade between nations could not be other than a natural right, a pre-political sphere that the prince could regulate and facilitate, but could neither create nor destroy. Moreover, the aspect of trade that went beyond national boundaries, the fabric of words and rules (the lingua franca,2 the lex mercatoria) of a universal approach rooted in the great trading centres of the commercial revolution of the late medieval and early modern ages continued. Indeed it adapted to the times and found philosophers and administrators with views that contradicted some of the general assumptions of royal interventionism. In these visions the new trade that acted in the interests of the home nation did not necessarily bring about ‘passive commerce’ elsewhere; the exchange of essentially ‘natural’ goods for those resulting from human labour was not necessarily a sign of inferiority; the static conception of the amount of wealth available globally began to coexist with dynamic ideas, and the notion of development moved on, laboriously but effectively. Mercantile competition supported by power politics intermixed with the search of more or less asymmetrical economic cooperation among countries and nations. The international division of labour – formalised in privileges and treaties, such as the paradigmatic one described in Manuel Herrero Sanchez’s report, and classically exemplified by the Treaty of Methuen – was treated with suspicion and criticism by the protagonists even before the historians. But I believe that the arrogance of the stronger partners and the resignation of the weaker to the treaties’ iniquitous and oppressive clauses should be read against the backdrop of the intellectual and factual changes that involved both parties, and cannot always be interpreted through the dualistic (and therefore simplistic) models that oppose development and underdevelopment head-on. I would in any case avoid judging these choices with the condescension of those who have the benefit of hindsight. These opposing legitimacies and visions generated some heated paper wars in the republic of letters, and impacted heavily on the diplomatic and military battles between states. They also penetrated ‘national’ structures, fuelling a confrontation on tortuous lines, doubtful interventionist practices, and hesitant positioning on the field of international conflicts. It is in no way possible, as has sometimes been tried, to establish a direct link between the different politi2. See Jocelyne Dakhlia, Lingua Franca. Histoire d’une langue métisse en Méditerranée (Arles: Actes Sud, 2008).

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cal and economic actors and their intellectual options – in particular, to align the public players with the interventionist camp and the private ones with the anti-state camp. The support of merchants and producers for the decisions of their sovereigns was, in the day-to-day life of trade, entirely hypothetical: the “négociant patriot”3 was a somewhat elusive ideal figure. At the same time their allegedly precocious economic liberalism was equally dubious. Endless and loud complaints were made against those who took advantage of the king’s protection while simultaneously frustrating his endeavours to promote active trade by disregarding the national dimension. The breaking of rules that typified eighteenth-century positive law – for instance, the rules relating to the nationality of a ship, of the captain and crew, or the obligation to charter domestic vessels even when foreign ships offered a better deal – resonated through the corridors of power, from the outer fringes to the top, filling the archives. But once the individual calculation and its role as a generator of public welfare was legitimised, it was no longer practical to systematically turn the vast range of actions resulting from mercantile opportunism into formal transgressions to be punished according to the letter of the law: it was the ministers themselves who made a plea for flexibility and caution on the part of judicial and administrative bodies that interpreted literally the written rules.4 Internalised within mercantile praxis, this approach became the “laissez nous faire et protégez nous beaucoup”5 that presupposed and fostered intervention practices based on management, negotiations and compromise. More than the judicial system, the ‘administration’ was the body that, in this context, could act effectively for the collective good. Even the “député du commerce de Marseille à Paris” in 1778, in the exercise of his duties as the representative of retailers, had to recognise its fundamental role: “This is (it must be said) that the commercial spirit always careful to calculate its own self-interest, penetrates all the deliberations of assemblies composed of traders. The interest of the state is left out. It wishes to be a stranger when the stranger’s lot is beneficial, and it wants to enjoy the rights of nationals when those rights are useful [...] is up to the administration to maintain the balance”.6 Thus an enormous pile of incentives and a vast patriotic pedagogy sought to “maintenir l’équilibre” between private misconduct 3. I refer here to [Bedos], Le négociant patriote, contenant un tableau qui réunit les avantages du commerce, la connoissance des spéculations de chaque nation; et quelques vues particulieres sur le commerce avec la Russie, sur celui avec le Levant, et de l’Amérique Angloise: ouvrage utile aux négociants, armateures, fabriquants et agricoles (Amsterdam: 1779). 4. There are a few examples to support this in Annastella Carrino, “Tra nazioni e piccole patrie. “Padroni” e mercanti liguri sulle rotte tirreniche del secondo Settecento”, Società e storia 131 (2011): 53-54. 5. See Jean-Pierre Hirsch, Philippe Minard, “‘Laissez nous faire et protégez-nous beaucoup’: pour une histoire des pratiques institutionnelles dans l’industrie française, XVIIIe-XIXe siècles”, in: La France n’est-elle pas douée pour l’industrie?, eds. Louis Bergeron and Patrice Bourdelais (Paris: Belin, 1998), 135-58. 6. AN, AE, B/III/189, Députés du commerces de Marseille à Paris, cc. 15-16, letter of 3 June 1778.

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and public virtue, drawing the ‘administration’ into an interventionist spiral, in a swelling mass of rules and institutions. In the final analysis this interventionism was unsuccessful not so much for being inherently contradictory as for being integrated in the particular state system of the late ancien régime. The reshaping of public institutions in keeping with what is often defined as the modern state was certainly considerable. In the context of what concerns us here, this was particularly evident in the increasing use of positive law and bureaucratic machinery established by the sovereign, which tended to infiltrate all aspects of the production chain and trade. The point is that, in the main, this was a process of addition rather than substitution; in other words, many obsolete normative and institutional compositions were left in place, and would not lay dormant or be easily marginalised. In particular, as regards the rules on trade and shipping, the dispute surrounding the legality and the binding nature of acts decreed by the sovereign had unclear results. The prince himself sometimes paid tribute to the persistent power of the old jus by couching entire bodies of regulations developed over centuries of mercantile practice in the language of positive law – for example, with regard to transactions, in the 1681 French Ordonnance de la marine. On the other hand, the rules of positive law, even when settled in the new codes, could be less coercive than the supranational ones linked to the jus gentium, Roman law, and natural law. At times the same legislator might actually compromise the sanctity and legitimacy of his will incorporated in law, by overdoing production: contradicting his expressed will in one given moment, updating and modifying it with other acts, so that he ended up depriving it of a legal basis that still enjoyed unquestioned prestige: that of long duration. Finally, as we have seen, government practice often presupposed the negotiability of positive law, the creation, along with a new law, of a ‘sense of the state’ and of a functioning of the administrative machine based more on the management of the rules, than on their implementation. In this regulatory and institutional gridlock, typical of the late ancien régime, the administrative nexus – understood as increasing control over people not legally entitled to resist – and the certainty of law, far from advancing in step with the claims of state, were lost in widespread conflicts that were both juridical and honorific. They included those of the ordinary justice against expeditious mercantile justice, of customs officers and contractors against maritime health, and of city magistrates against the intrusion of central ones. In this setting, areas of resistance were concealed within corporate practices and institutions, sometimes strengthened by being allowed to participate officially in the decision-making process: for instance, the Chambres de commerce of the large French cities represented in the Bureau du commerce that received their proposals at court. Thus – here I refer to certain apt observations by Antonella Alimento – even where there was no parliament to act as a lawful and public place in which to weigh and balance interests, there emerged a kind of agorà: a semi-official forum for discussion and negotiation in which wars of mémoires 164

and pamphlets intertwined with the coming and goings of petitions and protests, and the actions of individuals and groups, all bound by various corporate ties within areas of influence centred on the dynasties of ministers and senior officials.7 The intervention practices on economies, their development and, to some extent, even their implementation were not the exclusive preserve of men of state: men of the market also played a leading part. This was also because – and I would particularly insist on this point – this was not a game that eighteenth-century administrators and merchants played having organised themselves as ‘domestic’ teams within the juridical and political stadium of their home state. The obsessive insistence of eighteenthcentury accounting and issuing of rules on the ‘nationality’ of economies (together, I would add, with the extraordinary influence of nineteenth-century statism on historiographical discourse in general) gives the impression of a mercantile sphere composed of highly regulated and completely enclosed areas whose boundaries matched those of the sovereign states, separated by areas generally lacking any form of regulation at all. In this vision, the latter spaces, be they wide expanses of sea or areas whose land borders had not been properly fixed, were sometimes under the jurisdiction of intermittent rules of war and diplomacy and were the subject of a painstaking attempt to build a ius publicum europeum to control them, an effort that was pursued through procedures which have been described very effectively by Guillaume Calafat and Andrea Addobbati, but which did not yield fruit until the next century. I venture to say that this vision is in a sense victim of the ‘classification violence’ of the archives (or, rather, a section of the archives), and of the processes that produced them. Of course, in times of peace or mutual non-aggression there was a complex of treatises and negotiated and formalised reciprocal privileges (which have been the subject of the research project carried out by the University of Pisa in the second workshop held in Seville) to make up for the intermittent nature of the rules governing land beyond state boundaries. However, one must take due account of another aspect of the legal and institutional fabric, territorialised in a very approximate way and incompatible with political divisions, that awaits closer investigation. This emerges clearly if the intervention practices are considered from the standpoint of their recipients, the merchants.8 I will briefly elaborate this point by way of a conclusion to these notes. 7. See Charles Frostin, Les Pontchartrain, ministres de Louis XIV. Alliances et réseau d’influence sous l’Ancien Régime (Rennes: PUR, 2006). 8. On this point there is an ongoing research project coordinated by me, which has similarities with that of Pisa. It is entitled, “On the fringes of the institutions. Powers, actors and mercantile practice in Mediterranean Europe (XVII to XIX century)”. Certain themes are anticipated in Biagio Salvemini, “Innovazione spaziale, innovazione sociale: traffici, mercanti e poteri nel Tirreno del secondo Settecento”, in: Lo spazio tirrenico nella “grande trasformazione”. Merci, uomini e istituzioni nel Settecento e nel primo Ottocento, ed. Biagio Salvemini (Bari: Edipuglia, 2009), V-XXX.

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The consul, as presented here by Francisco Zamora and Marcella Aglietti, was a figure who, through the profoundly uneven passage of times and processes, made the transition from being a representative of a body to being a link in the public apparatus. But this occurred in a particular way that complicated his position, namely the fact that he performed this new role on behalf of a territory other than his own: this is where jurisdictional conflicts were played out, as he tried, with the support of his own prince, to secure influence and prerogatives from a host of competing local magistrates. His main task, which became clear at the same time as the processes of territorialisation championed by his prince advanced, became that of reintroducing elements of extraterritoriality, of arguing for the suspension of the validity of laws in the territory of the sovereign who welcomed him, granting him the exequatur. The calibre of the consuls was also measured by this standard. In official correspondence they boasted, as evidence for deserving promotion within the administrative hierarchy, of the various ‘stings’ that they had successfully carried out: essentially crimes that normally incurred severe punishments but were perpetrated with impunity in favour of merchants of their own ‘nation’. They included allowing a quarantined boat to escape ‘under cover of darkness’, and providing cover for the secret export of grains in a period of crisis rationing and restraint of trade.9 These were obviously not official acts but were tolerated by each side and often negotiated between institutions and individuals located astride the borders of sovereign territories. This, so to speak, murky and relatively hidden dimension of mercantile competition and the relational framework of its daily life is, I believe, a crucial issue. In any case, it is a level of intervention practice absolutely central to the world of business in all its forms. There was a vast area of important but minute decisions of a procedural nature that merchants had to take into account every time they were faced with rules officially or unofficially delegated to the peripheral positions of bureaucratic machines engaged in a highly complex game of relations and conflicts. This involved such issues as: the area of operations of customs officials sometimes dependent on arrendatori and landowners; the classification of goods subject to taxation, which opened the door to arbitrators of all kinds; the oppression of the courts and the consequences of their authority being ill defined; the checking of the nationality of ships and merchants and the authenticity of documents on board; health certification, which, far from following rigorous and objective criteria, as a recent book has imagined,10 were processed in a setting of retaliation and favours documented by extensive and eloquent correspondence: beyond its use for documenting outbreaks of the plague and the measures for the prevention of contagion, this resource should 9. The article to be published shortly by Annastella Carrino and Biagio Salvemini, “Sur les espaces pluriels du marché: les trafics tyrrhéniens au XVIIIe siècle”. 10. John Booker, Maritime Quarantine. The British Experience, c. 1650-1900 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007).

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be widely exploited in order to understand the real institutional story that anyone involved in maritime trade had to keep in mind when making judgements and choices, especially in the short and very short term.11 This vast terrain of confrontation and conflict became central as the competition for “active trade” soured but, partly for reasons related to political balance, it could not always be played out at higher and more official levels with the moves and countermoves of incisive and discernible economic politics or waged warfare. The periods of peace did not put a halt to mercantile conflict, nor were official allies always trade allies. There was an everyday routine to intervention practices consisting of a reciprocal and continuous harassement made possible by the lowering of the standards and positions of decision-makers, and by the constitution, on the fringes of institutions and in the market place, of an area that was at once highly regulated and opaque. It was a sort of limbo land thronged by agents and institutes of many sovereigns, poised between different systems of rules and territorial spaces, in which state institutions tended to lose the public role assigned to them by the processes of nationalisation. This is not the umpteenth description of the famed opposition between rules and practices, which can be applied to any time and context. The reciprocal harassement did not happen out of the sight of sovereigns but it became a constituent part of their late mercantilism. The same producers and guardians of the rules of the great economic and political powers participated actively in the vast negotiating concert that assumed the relative weakness of their powers of coercion and the failure to absorb the mercantile sphere into that of territorialised politics. And, by so doing, they ended up welcoming many of the minor and marginal powers of the European political concert, allowing them to undertake roles in the world of trade from which their inferior military power, capital and knowledge should have precluded them. The wealth of places, protagonists, levels and forms of the eighteenth-century market and, conversely, the inability to take these into account, which affects the dualistic narratives that openly contrast powerful developed countries with marginalised weak ones, should also be read in the context of this particular type of intervention practice. However, these did not bring about a world with neither rhyme nor reason, without order and hierarchy, which was an enigma even to those who worked there. The institutional situation encountered by merchants imposed constraints and provided resources that they did not control but which, working from their ‘irregular’ position in the political arena, they tried to reassemble as an aid to successful business. Consequently, the intervention practices did not build a framework of rules that were ‘external’ to their actions and 11. An idea of this can be gleaned from Daniele Andreozzi, “‘L’anima del commercio è la salute’. Sanità, traffici, rischio e dominio sul mare in area alto adriatica (1700-1750)”, in: Istituzioni e traffici nel Mediterraneo tra età antica e crescita moderna, ed. Raffaella Salvemini (Naples: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche – Istituto di Studi sulle Società del Mediterraneo, 2009), 225-246.

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within which they made their decisions, but were a part, together with prices, the quality of goods, and the trustworthiness of partners, of the range of opportunities in which they moved every day. In the personal development of the merchant, in his knowledge, his skill and ethics, this familiarity with the extraordinary multitude of institutions that passed through, and in its own way shaped the mercantile sphere, became central. But obviously this was not the only possible world, as the imminence of the great events of the end of the century reminds us. The heated anti-restrictionist statements about the congestion of structures and rules that marked this late phase of the ancien régime, are, from the point of view adopted here, most telling. However, such statements argued controversially not so much against an abstract economic protectionism as against the Muratorian “defects of legislation” that caused the law and the state to be regarded with contempt and risked turning economic life into an area in which opportunism and immorality were necessary qualities for those wishing to build successful careers. Therefore they should be contextualised in the particular configuration that the intervention practices went on to assume, rather than anchored exclusively to the doctrinal matrices that anticipated the nineteenth century. The history of economic liberalism evidently began much earlier, but I happen to think that this is part, so to speak, of another story.

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Part II

Neutrality and the reception of theoretical models

Ottoman North Africa and ius publicum europaeum: The case of the treaties of peace and trade (1600-1750)* Guillaume Calafat

Introduction When historians examine diplomatic relations between European states and the Ottoman Empire, they usually focus on the Capitulations (Imtiyāzāt), the commercial and religious privileges granted by the Sultans to European merchants in the ports of the Levant.1 Historians have, however, paid less attention to the legal dimension and diplomatic importance of the treaties made with the Ottoman Regencies of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli from the seventeenth century onwards. This tendency probably comes from prejudices inherited from the early modern time and reinforced during the colonial period, according to which the so-called ‘Barbaresques’ did not respect treaties anyway.2 Nonetheless, the agreements ‘of peace and trade’ made between North African governments and European States provide precious information about both the Ottoman administration of the provinces of the Empire and the balance of forces between European powers in the Mediterranean. From the beginning of the seventeenth century, Tunis, Algiers and, later, Tripoli – which displayed increasing autonomy from the control of the Sublime Porte – signed direct agreements with France, the Dutch Republic and Britain. Indeed, as Jörg Manfred Mössner explained in a seminal article: “for about 300 years, the Barbary Powers were connected * I thank Marc Lenormand for his translation and Matthew Armistead for his proofreading. 1. Halil İnalcık, “Imtiyāzāt,” in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, eds. P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, and W. P. Heinrichs (Leiden: Brill, 2011) ; Susan A. Skilliter, William Harborne and the Trade with Turkey: 1578-1582. A Documentary Study of the First Anglo-Ottoman Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977); Alexander H. de Groot, The Netherlands and Turkey: Four Hundred Years of Political, Economical, Social and Cultural Relations (Istanbul: Isis Press, 2008); Géraud Poumarède, “Jalons pour une nouvelle histoire des capitulations franco-ottomanes,” in: L’invention de la diplomatie: Moyen Âge- Temps modernes, ed. Lucien Bély (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1998), 71-85. 2. Christian Windler, “Diplomatic History as a Field for Cultural Analysis,” The Historical Journal 44 (2001), 79-106.

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with European states by commercial and treaty relations or by waging war. But they were obviously on the fringe of the European legal order, as seen from both the geographical and the juridical point of view”.3 This “fringe” status of the North African countries – in reality, more of a marginalization – found its clearest expression in what is usually known as the ius publicum europaeum of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which originated from the wars of religion. This was a new context, in which states were now personae morales that considered war with another country to be the means to a political end, within a general ‘European balance of power’ where each state was regarded as a free persona moralis.4 What was the role of the North African powers in that system? The term ‘Barbaresque’ that was used to describe them suggested incompatible legal standards, a complete otherness that put the North African states firmly on the side of savagery (barbarism).5 However, the number of treaties between European and North-African states (as shown in the table below) demonstrates that it is impossible to write a history of European diplomacy in the early modern period without bearing in mind the complex negotiations with the Ottoman Regencies in the Mediterranean, for otherwise one would have to ignore the close links between diplomacy and commerce which characterised alliances between the Muslim and Christian worlds, beyond their economic, political, military and symbolic dimensions,6 and to refuse to take into account actual diplomatic practices in the early modern period and how they shaped the law. States regarded as hostes humani generis The 1605 treaty of peace and trade between Tunis and France marked a new era in diplomatic relations between the European states and the North African Regencies. The French had become accustomed to asking the Porte to intervene in the resolution of conflicts which arose in the Maghrib, since Ottoman suzerainty and sovereignty extended theoretically to the coast of North Africa. The Capitulations granted in 1604 by Sultan Ahmed I to King Henry IV of France reaffirmed, besides the privileges granted in the Levant, that the kingdoms of 3. Jörg Manfred Mössner, “The Barbary Powers in International Law (Doctrinal and Practical Aspects)”, in: Grotian Society Papers: Studies in the History of the Law of Nations, ed. Charles Henry Alexandrowicz (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1972), 197-221: 198. 4. Reinhart Koselleck, Critique and Crisis: Enlightenment and the Pathogenesis of Modern Society (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1988), 41-50; Carl Schmitt, The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum (New York: Telos Press, 2003), 140-151. 5. Peter Fitzpatrick, The Mythology of Modern Law (London: Routledge, 1992), 72-87; Ann Thomson, Barbary and Enlightenment: European Attitudes Towards the Maghreb in the 18th Century (Leiden: Brill, 1987); Windler, “Diplomatic History”, 79-80. 6. Poumarède, “Jalons pour une nouvelle histoire”, 72.

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Algiers and Tunis were under the jurisdiction of the Empire.7 However, Ottoman control appeared increasingly ineffective as French ambassador Savary de Brèves, who negotiated the renewal of the Capitulations in 1604 and the peace agreement with Tunis in 1605, underlined: “The corsairs from Barbary have become used to forcing the captains of French ships which they encounter at sea to confess that the goods they carry belong to their enemies […]. [They] abide by treaties and Capitulations only at will”.8 The ineffectiveness of the complaints presented to the Sultan led to a change of strategy: negotiations had to be conducted directly with the ‘Barbary’ states. It is difficult to establish whether the Sublime Porte sanctioned the actions of the Maghribi powers or whether it was actually incapable of imposing its will on them. Turkish pashas were still being sent to the North African provinces, but real power lay with the Janissaries, with the taifas of the Rais and with the bey and dey dynasties.9 The direct negotiation of treaties with Tunis, Algiers and Tripoli, which was a pragmatic decision of the European countries, confirmed the relative autonomy of the Regencies, albeit the Ottoman suzerainty over these areas was legally acknowledged in the preambles of the treaties, which mentioned the Capitulations specifically.10 The interest of such bilateral relations was twofold: on the one hand, they limited the corsair operations of signatory states, and, on the other – and this has often been underestimated by historians – they provided merchants with trade outlets. Indeed, the Maghrib could provide European markets with many sought-after products, such as olive oil, leather, wax, chickpeas, dried meat, capers, saffron and couscous. It was possible to buy large quantities of wool in Tunis and Tripoli, wheat and barley in Tunis and sugar in Algiers. Ivory, ostrich feathers, myrrh, incense, precious minerals, even gold and diamonds, were imported to Tripoli and Tunis by caravans from Sudan. In exchange, European ships brought dried fish, calves, manufactured goods and textiles, coins, sometimes building materials and metals, in spite of the Pope’s interdict expressed in the In Coena Domini bulls, which only Spain and the 7. I. (Ignaz) Freiherr von Testa, Recueil des traités de la Porte ottomane avec les puissances étrangères depuis le premier traité conclu en 1536, entre Suléyman I et François I, jusqu’à nos jours (Paris: Amyot [then] Leroux, 1864-1911), vol. 1, 146 (art. 21). 8. François Savary, comte de Brèves, “Notes sur quelques articles du precedent Traicté,” in: Id., Relation des voyages de Monsieur de Brèves, tant en Grèce, Terre Saincte et Aegypte qu’aux royaumes de Tunis et Arger, ensemble un traicté faict l’an 1604 entre le roy Henry le Grand et l’empereur des Turcs, et trois discours dudit sieur, le tout recueilly par le S. D. C. (Paris: N. Gasse, 1628), 29, 31. 9. Sadok Boubaker, La régence de Tunis au XVIIe siècle: ses relations commerciales avec les ports de l’Europe méditerranéenne, Marseille et Livourne (Zaghouan: CEROMA, 1987); André Raymond, Tunis sous les Mouradites: la ville et ses habitants au XVIIème siècle (Tunis: Cérès, 2006); Lemnouar Merouche, Recherches sur l’Algérie à l’époque ottomane, 2: La course, mythes et réalité (Saint-Denis: Bouchène, 2007). 10. For instance, in the treaties between Tunis and France in 1604, between Algiers and France in 1690, and between Tripoli and France in 1729. See Charles Henry Alexandrowicz, The European-African Confrontation: A Study in Traty Making (Leiden: A.W. Sijthoff, 1973), 146.

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Italian states complied with.11 From a commercial point of view, the treaties assured privileges to the European merchants settled in North Africa (theoretically the system of Capitulations allowed for such privileges to be reciprocated by the Europeans) and,12 from that perspective, a number of French merchants in particular concluded agreements about the concessions of companies based in the North African trading posts (Bastion de France, La Calle, Le Cap Rose…). From a military, political and strategic perspective, the peace treaties served several purposes: besides putting an end to maritime conflict, defining the rights and privileges of representatives, and arranging for the restoration of goods and nationals captured during raids, they aimed at establishing rules of navigation and for the inspections of ships. What value did these treaties have in the law of nations? Montesquieu famously wrote in L’Esprit des lois (1748-1750) that “all countries have a law of nations. Even the Iroquois, who eat their prisoners, have one. They send and receive ambassadors. They are acquainted with the laws of war and peace”.13 Still, this could not justify alliances with Infidels. For instance, Alberico Gentili, in his De Iure belli (1598), considered that “Commerce with Infidels is not forbidden; the law of God does not bid us withdraw from the world, and the law of man commands commerce among all men […] I say that a general agreement concerning commerce is lawful, and also a special treaty for that purpose.”14 Treaties of peace and trade were not prohibited by Gentili, unlike treaties of military alliance, whether the latter were against Infidels or Christians. Gentili specifically used the example of Capitulations: “I do not approve the treaty of the King of France with the Turks, because of which once so many thousands of men, boys and women were captured, and led off into everlasting and intolerable servitude. Moreover, you cannot trust the infidels”.15 However, the treaties with the North African states had not only trade elements, but also provided for what were objectively military alliances. The contracting parties were obligated to give one another protection in the ports, thus ignoring calls for solidarity among Christians (between European states) or Muslims (between the Regencies). Attempts at establishing a clear-cut opposition between Islam and Christendom in the Mediterranean are therefore completely misleading: in military as in political terms, alliances were both cross-religion and variable. 11. Géraud Poumarède, Pour en finir avec la Croisade. Mythes et réalités de la lutte contre les Turcs aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2009), 314-18. 12. Charles Henry Alexandrowicz, An Introduction to the History of the Law of Nations in the East Indies (16th, 17th and 18th centuries) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), 97-128. 13. Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu, Oeuvres complètes (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1964), 531. 14. Alberico Gentili, De Iure belli libri tres (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933), 2, 401. See also: Alberico Gentili and the Justice of Empire, eds. Benedict Kingsbury and Benjamin Straumann (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). 15. Gentili, Iure belli, 2, 402.

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In Hispanicae advocationis libri duo, which was published posthumously in 1661, Gentili further detailed his views about the “Barbary” states. He reused a syllogism regarding piracy that he had employed in his former work: “Pirates are the common enemies of all mankind and therefore Cicero says that the laws of war cannot apply to them”.16 And further down: “It is right to make war upon pirates […] Piracy is contrary to the law of nations and the league of human society. Therefore war should be made against pirates by all men, because in the violation of that law we are all injured.”17 Gentili used the classical image of ‘pirates’ as hostes humani generis, enemies of mankind, of nature, and more generally ‘enemies of all’.18 Such a premise was repeated in his defence of Spain, in which Gentili likened pirates to wild beasts, which natural law allowed to be ‘hunted’: “To pirates and wild beasts no territory offers safety. Pirates are the enemies of all men and are attacked by all men with impunity etc. Similarly the hunting of wild beasts is unrestricted.”19 From such a viewpoint, signing treaties with pirates seemed completely absurd. The North African states, whose fleets were active in the Mediterranean and as far as the Atlantic Ocean, were often considered as ‘pirate’ states by theologians, jurisconsults and diplomats. Savary de Brèves explained that he “had the Sultan accept that it would be lawful for the king to prevent [the Barbary corsairs] from using its ports, and to have them hunted like breachers of the public peace”,20 a phrase which was used explicitly in the 1604 Capitulations and which was directly borrowed from the vocabulary that the law of nations applied to hostes humani generis. The North African corsairs were described as pirates (piratas, ch. XV) by Gentili, which explained his assertion in De Iure belli that “With the Saracens (who are Turks) we have an irreconcilable war”, where the phrase “irreconcilable war” suggested a relentless fight.21 He also remarked – without necessarily sharing that view, as is shown further down – on the way the Venetians regarded the North African Regencies: “[Englishmen] have their trade with Tunis, Algeria and many another state taken from them by this claim of the Venetians that those states are nothing but piratical retreats and that there is none in them but pirates and that the very magistrates in them are pirates too”.22 16. Gentili, Iure belli, 2, 24. 17. Gentili, Iure belli, 2, 124. 18. Daniel Heller-Roazen, The Enemy of All: Piracy and the Law of Nations (New York: Zone Books, 2009), 105-7, 110 (and, more broadly, the whole chapter entitled “Younger Antagonists”); Peter Schröder, “Vitoria, Gentili, Bodin: Sovereignty and the Law of Nations,” in: Kingsbury and Straumann, Alberico Gentili, 163-186; Dan Edelstein, “War and Terror: The Law of Nations from Grotius to the French Revolution,” French Historical Studies 31, 2 (2008): 229-62: 232-47. 19. Alberico Gentili, Hispanicae advocationis libri duo (New York: Oxford University Press, 1921), 2, 18. 20. Savary de Brèves, “Notes”, 31. 21. Gentili, Iure belli, 56. 22. Gentili, Hispanicae advocationis, 2, 113.

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However, should one conclude that the North African states were granted no sovereignty by Gentili?23 Indeed, this is what Cornelius van Bynkershoek, who was influenced by Grotius, thought: “Albericus Gentilis, and several other writers are of the opinion, that those nations of Africa, whom we call Barbarians, are to be considered as pirates, and that captures made by them, work no change of property; but that opinion cannot be defended on any rational principle”.24 However, the issue of the sovereignty of the North African states in Gentili’s writings is more complex than might appear when reading chapters 15 and 23 of Hispanicae advocationis, which at first sight introduced rather similar cases.25 In the first case, Englishmen bought goods seized from the Spaniards by Barbary ‘pirates’. According to Gentili, these merchants knew what they were doing and, acting in bad faith, tried to erase all evidence of Spanish ownership. This act alone would have been enough to nullify the purchase, but Gentili added two other arguments: firstly, the English probably purchased the goods directly from the pirates and therefore, according to him, the local authorities gave official cover to what was actually the handling of stolen goods; secondly, by thus encouraging the North Africans to raid Spanish ships, the merchants’ action put Spain at direct risk and implicitly contravened the rules of neutrality established by the treaties; “if this legal principle is set up to govern the treasury of that land, the pirates will have indicated to them a very convenient place, which is quite close to the Spanish lines of trade and occupied by English merchants, where they may distribute their booty among their confederates. Does this make for trade?”26 Chapter 23 showed that what applied to Spanish goods, namely that the capture by pirates did not change their ownership and did not apply to all nations. For instance, the British bought from “the highest Tunisian officer” goods taken from Venetians. The case was different here since, whereas in Chapter 15 ‘Barbary’ and Spain were at war, the Ottoman Empire and Venice had diplomatic relations formalised in treaties. Venice should therefore have complained to the Sultan, since it could not complain about trade between Britain and the Barbary states. Although this contradicted somewhat the conclusions drawn in Chapter 15, Gentili now considered that the goods taken by 23. Jörg Manfred Mössner, Die Völkerrechtspersönlichkeit und die Völkerrechts-praxis der Barbareskenstaaten, Algier, Tripolis, Tunis, 1518-1830 (Berlin: W. de Gruyter und Co., 1968), 150. He wrote: “Es dürfte feststehen, daß Gentili eine Völkerrechtspersönlichkeit der Barbaresken ablehnte.” 24. Cornelius van Bynkershoek, Quaestionum juris publici libri duo [1737] (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930), ch. 17 . 25. On both cases, see: Lauren A. Benton, A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400-1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 125-128 (here, attention was drawn to the issue of the freedom of the seas); for elements of context about the pleas see: Alain A. Wijfells, “Sir Julius Caesar and the Merchants of Venice,” in: Geschichte der Zentraljustiz in Mitteleuropa: Festschrift für Bernhard Diestelkamp zum 65. Geburstag, eds. Friedrich Battenberg and Filippo Ranieri (Weimar: Böhlau, 1994), 195-219. 26. Gentili, Hispanicae advocationis, 2, 71-2.

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enemy pirates – “Infidels”, moreover – were lost and became the property of the pirates, which meant that nothing prevented other merchants from buying them.27 He then used Ottoman suzerainty over North Africa to embarrass the Venetians: “These pirates are enemies, as I say, and the Turk along with them is an enemy of the Venetians, since he protects those pirates openly everywhere and always”.28 Gentili therefore acknowledged both the possibility of lodging a complaint with the “Turks”, and the existence of a local tradition in Tunis of a local power (an administration and a treasury) which could appropriate (and therefore change the ownership of) goods seized at sea. At the time Gentili was making his case, only the French had tried to deal directly with the North African provinces (namely Tunis and Algiers), and Ottoman sovereignty over North Africa still seemed real, at least to European eyes. The Regencies became increasingly assertive in the first thirty years of the seventeenth century, seen as a true ‘golden age’ for what Michel Fontenay has called the Mediterranean corso (corsairing).29 The situation had therefore changed when Hugo Grotius wrote De juri belli ac pacis (1625). France and the Dutch Republic now had direct relations with Algiers, although raids which contravened the treaties – and ensuing ‘breaks of the peace’ – were numerous on both sides. Grotius mentioned a judgment by the Paris Parliament, of which he approved, about the seizure of a French ship by Algerian corsairs, “a people always engaged in predatory and maritime warfare with all other countries”.30 The French took the ship back and, as was the case for Gentili, the issue was that of the change of ownership or not of the ship which had been taken back (the right of post liminium, inherited from Roman law). The Parliament of Paris considered that the goods “had changed masters through the law of war” (capta belli iure mutasse dominium).31 This amounted to acknowledging a form of sovereignty to Algiers,32 in so far as the term “war” suggested legal enmity. Inter27. Gentili, Hispanicae advocationis, 2, 113 “[These pirates] are left beyond the reach of any public complaint. Accordingly, they are left in the general law which deals with infidelity and hostility.Then, too, no difficulty is presented by the fact that goods seized by pirates do not become their property; because this is true only of pirates who are not enemies, and not of pirates who are likewise enemies.” It should be noted that this distinction between “enemy” and “non enemy” pirates is not clear in view of the definitions given elsewhere by Gentili. This explains Bynkershoek’s perplexity at Gentili’s position: “What Alberico Gentilis has written on all these subjects is full of obscurity and confusion.” Bynkershoek, Quaestionum, ch. 12. 28. Gentili, Hispanicae advocationis, 2, 113. 29. Michel Fontenay, La Méditerranée entre la Croix et le Croissant: Navigation, Commerce, Course et Piraterie (XVIIIème-XVIIIème siècle) (Paris: Éditions Classiques Garnier, 2010), 212-75. 30. In Latin: “populo praedationibus maritimis in omnes alios grassari solito” (Hugo Grotius, De jure belli ac pacis, libri tres (Paris: apud Nicolaum Buon, 1625), 658). The word ‘pirate’ did not appear: the French translation by Barbeyrac was not accurate and created deceitful ambiguity: “people accustomed to carrying out acts of piracy on everyone else” (Hugo Grotius, Le droit de la guerre et de la paix (Amsterdam: Chez Pierre de Coup, 1729), 2: 366). 31. Grotius, Jure belli, 658. 32. Mössner, Völkerrechtspersönlichkeit, 148-49; Mössner, “Barbary Powers”, 199-201; Alexandrowicz, European-African Confrontation, 19.

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estingly, Jean Barbeyrac noted at the bottom of the paragraph that Heinrich von Cocceji referred in his Dissertatio de postliminio in pace et amnestìa (1752) to the pirates as being outside of the law of nations, and therefore “thought this decision to be irrelevant and unjust, for the law of war d[id] not apply to pirates.” However, Grotius specifically “supposed that [the Algerians] be not considered as pirates”,33 and therefore it was possible to establish diplomatic relations with them and to sign treaties according to the rules of the law of nation. The jurisprudence of treaties Although the recognition of the autonomy of the Barbary remained implicit in the writings of Grotius, it became an increasingly pressing question for law of nations scholars as the number of treaties signed between the Europeans and the Regencies increased. The Irish lawyer Charles Molloy was probably one of the first jurists to articulate the problem explicitly. In De jure maritimo, he used the notion of the pirates as hostis humani generis to question, as his predecessors had done, how the law of war applied to the “enemies to all”.34 After a first edition was published in 1676, Molloy added a new paragraph between the third and fourth paragraphs of the chapter entitled “Of Piracy” in the third edition in 1682.35 This new paragraph was entitled “Whether capable of the Solemnities of War, and Right of Legation”36 and it focused on the North African states, including the Kingdom of Salé, which was outside of the Ottoman Empire. It deserves extensive quotation: Again, Pirates that have reduced themselves into a Government of State, as those of Algier, Sally, Tripoli, Tunis, and the like, some do conceive ought not to obtain the rights of solemnities of war, as other towns or places: for though they acknowledge the Supremacy of the Port, yet all the power of it cannot impose on them more than their own wills voluntary consent to. […] Notwithstanding this, Tunis and Tripoli and their Sister Algier do at this day (though Nests of Pirates) obtain the right of Legation, and Sir John Lawson did conclude a Peace between his now Majesty by the Name of the most Serene and Mighty Prince Charles the Second by the Grace of God King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, defender of the Faith etc. and the most Excellence Signors Mahomet Bashaw, the Divan of the Noble City of Tunis, Hagge Mustapha Dei, Morat Bei, and the rest of the Souldiers in the Kingdom of Tunis; and with them of Tripoli by Sir John Narborough by the Name of the Halil Bashaw,

33. Grotius, Droit de la guerre, 2: 365-6. 34. Charles Molloy, De Jure Maritimo et Navali: or, a Treatise of Affaires Maritime, and of Commerce in Three Books (London: John Bellinger, 1676), 34; Heller-Roazen, Enemy of All, 113. 35. The second edition, which was published in 1677, is a re-edition of the first edition, without significant changes. 36. Charles Molloy, De Jure Maritimo et Navali: or, a Treatise of Affaires Maritime, and of Commerce in Three Books (London: John Bellinger, 1682), 54.

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Ibrahim Dey, Aga, Divan, and Governours of the Noble City and Kingdom of Tripoli in Barbary. So that now (though indeed Pirates) yet having acquired the reputation of a Government, they cannot properly be esteemed Pirates but Enemies.37

The right of legation obtained de facto by the Regencies demonstrated that Ottoman control was only partial. It further indicated a change of status: the North Africans were no longer ‘pirates’ (enemies of mankind) but ‘enemies’. One should act with them in accordance with the rules prescribed by the law of war and peace and the law of nations. Molloy substantiated his case with two treaties signed between Britain and North African powers. The first was an agreement with Tunis, signed on 5 October 1662 by Sir John Lawson and Hammūdah Pasha (“Mahomet Bashaw” in the text).38 Its text explicitly mentioned the existence of a “Kingdom of Tunis” ruling over “dominions” and the last paragraph explained that its provisions should not contravene the Capitulations granted by the Sultan.39 In spite of this final reference to Ottoman suzerainty, the treaty confirmed the authority and international recognition of the Regency of Tunis. Indeed, Hammūdah Bey, the son of Murād Bey Qursū and founder of the Muradid dynasty, asked the Porte to grant him the title of pasha, which he obtained in April 1658.40 Although Molloy did not draw attention to it, it is worth mentioning that the treaty between Britain and Tunis was not an isolated case in this period: Hammūdah also signed a treaty with the Dutch Republic on 20 September 1662 and another with France on 25 November 1665.41 The European states demanded that such “treaties of peace and trade” be ratified in order to limit raids by the Tunisians that explain the shows of force by the European fleets arriving to ‘negotiate’ such treaties. Nevertheless they still contributed to the increasing autonomy of the Regency from the Porte, and were part of the Regency’s diplomatic strategy, which took advantage of the military and political competition between European states in the Mediterranean to achieve favourable treaties. For instance, the secret conventions of 26 November 1665, settled by the French and the Tunisians, indicated the price to pay for buying back French captives (175 piasters), “supposing the English did not pay less”.42 Besides payments for captives, the conventions could also provide for the shipping of weapons, building materials or even cannons to the Regencies. Such shipments and exchanges drew criticism from competing European states, and also from Spain, Venice and other states at war with the 37. Molloy, Jure Maritimo, 54-5. 38. For the English version of the treaty, see: George Chalmers, A Collection of Treaties between Great Britain and Other Powers (London: John Stockdale, 1790), 2, 391-4. 39. Chalmers, Collection, 394. 40. Raymond, Tunis sous les Mouradites, 36-37. 41. See the table; see also Raymond, Tunis sous les Mouradites, 34. 42. E. (Edgard) Rouard de Card, Traités de la France avec les pays de l’Afrique du Nord: Algérie, Tunisie, Tripolitaine, Maroc (Paris: A. Pédone, 1906), 125.

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‘Barbaresques’.43 Molloy also mentioned the agreement signed on 1 May 1676 with Tripoli.44 The British were indeed the first Europeans to conclude a peace separately with the Regency of Tripoli.45 In his presentation of the two treaties, Molloy also showed the plurality of the sources of power in the Regencies – what the Europeans called the ‘powers’ (pasha, dey, bey, divan…). Besides, the mention of the date of the Hijra in the margin of Molloy’s text suggests a form of equivalence in the ratification of the treaty. It should, however, be noted that the recognition of the Barbary states in the law of nations did not completely erase the images of ‘Barbaresque’ corsairs and more generally of the major North African ports, still described as “nests of pirates.”46 Molloy did not grant a priori sovereignty and moral personality to the North African states. Both stemmed from the treaty, from a positive development in the law of nations (and, subsequently, from all the treaties ratified by the European states which formed one of the sources of the law of nations). This pragmatic ‘jurisprudence of treaties’ can be found in other texts published after De jure maritimo, which was one of the great publishing successes of the period. Abraham de Wicquefort, for instance, in the last part of the chapter he devoted to the study of modern treaties (section XIV), used as examples the 1662 agreements between Britain and the “African corsairs”, including the 5 October agreement mentioned by Molloy. He also mentioned several treaties with the “King of Morocco” as well as the Capitulations with the Porte, to which he gave the same status. He further alluded to the treaties between the Dutch Republic and Algiers signed on 26 March and 2 November 1662, while indicating that negotiations in 1674 only led to an agreement about payments for slaves on 25 September 1677.47 Pufendorf’s perspective was different. In book VIII of his writings about the law of nations, he did not accept positive sources and treaties as fundamental sources. As his predecessors, he considered that “bodies and clans of pirates and robbers”, who violated the law of nature, also stood outside of the law of nations. However, he offered a nuance which referred implicitly to the North African “corsair-States”: “But where States and Commonwealths are so Partial, as to be Just in the Observation of compacts 43. The 1680 treaty between Algiers and the Dutch was a good example. The Algerians waited for the delivery of a shipment of cannons by the Dutch to implement the terms of an agreement signed a year earlier. See: Gerard van Krieken, Corsaires et marchands: les relations entre Alger et les Pays-Bas, 1604-1830 (Saint-Denis: Bouchène, 2002). I am currently writing an article about this specific treaty. 44. About the treaty, see Chalmers, Collection, 411-418. 45. See the table. These two treaties were also mentioned in James Edward Geoffrey De Montmorency, “The Barbary States in International Law”, Transactions of the Grotius Society 4 (1918), 87-94: 90. 46. Mössner, “Barbary Powers”, 205. About later uses of the image of the “pirates’ nest” in the accounts which followed the 1830 French conquest of Algeria, see Merouche, Recherches sur l’Algérie, 12-13. 47. Abraham de Wicquefort, L’Ambassadeur et ses fonctions (The Hague: Jean & Daniel Steucker, 1680), 2, 374. Our table suggests different dates.

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with some particular Allies, but to all other their Neighbours, or at least to certain Nations, show little Regard in the Observation of the Law of Nature, and scruple not, without just Provocation, to break it. Their credit, it is evident, must very much sink, but it would be too severe to deny them every degree of Esteem”.48 This estime simple, which is emphasised by Barbeyrac in his 1706 French translation,49 included peoples who had made alliances with only a tiny part of Europe under the law of nations, no matter what actions they had committed towards other states. Cornelius van Bynkershoek most certainly gave the clearest indication of the place of the North African Regencies in the law of nations.50 It is not irrelevant to point out that his Quaestionum juris publici was published in 1737, six years after the release of the last volume of Jean Dumont’s Corps universel diplomatique.51 Dumont’s wide-ranging compilation was an answer to pressing requests: in 1680, Wicquefort had written that “a collection of the treaties signed since the beginning of the century would be a most excellent and useful work”.52 The very title of Dumont’s book illustrated the assumed universality of the law of nations, the centre of which was Europe, but whose reach had no bounds. Dumont could therefore grant treaties signed with Algiers, Tripoli and Tunis as well as Morocco, the same status as those concluded between European states. 1694 saw the release of the Recueil des traités de paix, de trève, de neutralité, which brought together the treaties signed between the King of France and “all the princes and potentates of Europe and elsewhere”. This “elsewhere” included the “Barbaresques” and the Iroquois mentioned by Montesquieu, who were “granted” a series of “peaces” by Louis XIV in 1666.53 Bynkershoek’s reference was Cornelis Cau’s Groot Placaat-Boek, which he used to substantiate historically and positively the existence of the treaties.54 More than a century after Gentili, the context was very different and a whole series of cases encouraged Bynker48. Samuel Freiherr von Pufendorf, Of the Law of Nature and Nations [1672] (Oxford: L. Lichfield, 1710), 653. 49. Samuel Freiherr von Pufendorf, Le droit de la nature et des gens, ou Système général des principes les plus importans de la morale, de la jurisprudence et de la politique (Amsterdam: G. Kuyper, 1706), 1, 384. 50. Mössner, Die Völkerrechtspersönlichkeit, 150-2. 51. Jean Dumont, baron de Carlscroon, Corps universel diplomatique du droit des gens; contenant un recueil des traitez d’alliance, de paix... de toutes les conventions... & autres contrats, qui ont été faits en Europe, depuis le regne de l’empereur Charlemagne jusques à présent ; avec les capitulations imperiales et royales... & en général de tous les titres... qui peuvent servir à fonder, établir, ou justifier les droits et les interets des princes et etats de l’Europe... (Amsterdam: P. Brunel, R. et G. Wetstein, 1726-1731). 52. Wicquefort, Ambassadeur, 2, 331. 53. Frédéric Léonard, Recueil des traitez de paix, de trêve, de neutralité, de confédération, d’alliance, et de commerce: faits par les Rois de France, avec tous les princes, et potentats de l’Europe, et autres depuis près de trois siècles (Paris: 1693), 5, last part (Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, Morocco, Iroquois). 54. Cornelius Cau, Groot Placcaet-boeck, vervattende de placaten... van de... staten generael der Vereenighde Nederlanden (s’Gravenhage: 1658-1664).

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shoek to diverge explicitly from Gentili: “I do not think that we can reasonably agree with Alberico Gentili and others who class as pirates the so-called Barbary peoples of Africa, and that captures made by them entail no change in property”.55 Bynkershoek was referring here to the case dealt with in Chapter XV of Hispanicae advocatio and to the issue of the right of post-liminium. This remark was followed by the clearest recognition of the sovereignty of the North African states ever articulated by a theorist of the law of nations: The peoples of Algiers, Tripoli, Tunis, and Salee are not pirates, but rather organized states, which have a fixed territory in which there is an established government, and with which, as with other nations, we are now at peace, now at war. Hence they seem to be entitled to the rights of independent states. The States-General, as well as other nations, have frequently made treaties with them, and I may refer to our treaties of April 30, 1679, and May 1, 168056, by way of example. Cicero defines as a regular enemy “one that has a commonwealth, a senate, a treasury, the unified support of its citizens, and that shows some respect for treaties and covenants of peace when an occasion is offered to make one”. All these requirements they satisfy.57

Bynkershoek unambiguously recognized the legal personality of the North African states, and went as far as releasing them from Ottoman control and granting them a form of independence (although there is nuance in his assertion). Besides the multiplication of treaties since the second half of the seventeenth century, the context was favourable to such a change of view about the ‘Barbaresque’ rais, as North African ships had considerably reduced their raids in comparison with the previous century and had partially reoriented their activities towards overseas trade.58 Still, as was already the case with Grotius and Molloy, Bynkershoek made use of what we might term a jurisprudential law of nations, with the positive law of nations integrating the North African Regencies into a community of sovereign states.59 55. Bynkershoek, Quaestionum, ch. 17. 56. See the table. 57. Bynkershoek, Quaestionum, ch. 17. 58. Merouche, Recherches sur l’Algérie, 253-269. 59. It should be noted that, although Emer de Vattel recognised the sovereignty of the North African states, he expressed no esteem for their corsairs, and did not hesitate to outlaw them by declaring them to be “pirates”: “The Christian nations would be no less justifiable in forming a confederacy against the states of Barbary, in order to destroy those haunts of pirates, with whom the love of plunder, or the fear of just punishment, is the only rule of peace and war […] To the same class belong almost all the expeditions of the Barbary corsairs: though authorised by a Sovereign, they are undertaken without any apparent cause, and from no other motive than the lust of plunder. These two species of war, I say – the lawful and the illegitimate – are to be carefully distinguished, as the effects and the rights arising from each are very different. […] At present, it would be in vain to claim back a ship taken by the Barbary corsairs, and sold to a third party or retaken from the captors; though it is very improperly that the piracies of those barbarians can be considered as acts of regular war”: Emer de Vattel, The Law of Nations, or Principles of the Law of Nature, Applied to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations and Sovereigns [1758] (Philadelphia: T. & J.W. Johnson, 1852), book 2, ch. 6, § 78 and book 3, ch. 4, § 67 and ch. 13, § 196.

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From the imposition of treaties to the “law of Barbary” Does this mean that the eighteenth century witnessed a ‘normalisation’ of the diplomatic relations between Ottoman North Africa and the European states?60 The form of the ‘treaty’ and its correlative pacta sunt servanda61 had by the late seventeenth century become both the justification for and the end of European naval operations in Barbary. So-called breaches of treaties by North African corsairs made it possible to justify extremely violent military interventions, such as the bombing of Algiers by French fleets in 1682, 1683 and 1688. The point here is not to suggest that the Algerian corsairs actually did abide by the treaties, but rather to note that breaches of the provisions of the treaties were numerous on both sides.62 For instance, the French consul in Livorno was authorised by his hierarchy to buy slaves from Algiers, at a time when the two countries were theoretically at peace.63 The military imbalance between North African and European states increased as the European navies were consolidating their strength (the invention of the bomb vessel was a decisive breakthrough).64 This was translated in diplomatic terms into the real imposition of treaties by the European states, particularly France and Britain: the treaties ratified by Sir John Lawson in 1662 with the three Regencies already fell into that category. The North African states were therefore only allowed partial sovereignty even if they were granted the right of legation. It should be noted that the law of nations as an autonomous legal category only applied to the relations between a European state and ‘another’ state in the eighteenth century. Diplomatic relations between North African states were, for instance, completely ignored in the law of nations, as was illustrated in the collections of treaties. The notion of having a version of jus publicum europaeum established for them by the European states began to be articulated more and more explicitly. The expression could be found in the very title of Mably’s Principes des négociations pour servir d’introduction au droit public 60. Merouche, Recherches sur l’Algérie, 256; Christian Windler, “De la ‘normalisation’ à la soumission. Les relations franco-maghrébines au XVIIIème et au début du XIXème siècle”, in: Le Commerce des captifs. Les intermédiaires dans l’échange et le rachat des prisonniers en Méditerranée, XVème-XVIIIèmesiècle, ed. Wolfgang Kaiser (Rome: École française de Rome, 2008), 345-63: 347. 61. For the equivalent in Ottoman law, see Viorel Panaite, The Ottoman Law of War and Peace: the Ottoman Empire and Tribute Payers (Boulder: East European Monographs, 2000), 284-86. 62. The prescriptions of the Qu’ran are very clear: “fulfill the covenant of Allah when you have made a covenant, and do not break oaths after making them” (Qu’ran, XVI, 91-92). Regarding Islam and treaties, see Majid Khadduri, The Law of war and peace in Islam, a study in Muslim international law. A dissertation... (London: Luzac, 1940), 82-98. 63. AN, AE, BI 697, f. 35r. 64. Géraud Poumarède, “La France et les Barbaresques: police des mers et relations internationales en Méditerranée (XVIème-XVIIIème siècles)”, Revue d’histoire maritime 4 (2005), 117-46: 137-46.

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de l’Europe (1757), one of the main legal textbooks in use in the eighteenth century.65 Similarly, Georg Friedrich de Martens opened his Recueil des principaux traités d’alliance… (1791-1801) with a Précis du droit des gens moderne de l’Europe.66 Although both texts did not focus exclusively on Europe, their titles illustrated the strictly European character of public law, as it was conceived at the time. What was the place of the North African Regencies in that system? In Chapter VI of his book Droit public de l’Europe fondé sur les traités, Mably dedicated a whole paragraph to the treaties concluded with the Ottoman Porte, and offered a brief history of the diplomatic relations between the major European powers and the Ottoman Empire, which he acquired from Sir Paul Rycaut’s Present State of the Ottoman Empire.67 In a passage about France, he noted that the Capitulations granted it by the Sultan in 1673 softened the terms of the 1604 treaty and the idea of ‘hunting’ pirates: “it is only written that France will punish them by depriving them of their ports”, and he believed that North African piracy was partly due to the naval weakness of the Ottoman Empire, and that European powers had to deal directly with Tunis, Tripoli and Algiers to make trade safer.68 He observed that the situation benefited the major European naval powers (mostly Britain and France) which did not suffer excessively from North African corsair activity and which, anyway, chartered ships from the merchant fleets of the “smaller States” which consequently were the ones who suffered most from “African banditry”.69 Mably further indicated that “a power who want[ed] to keep a consul in Tripoli, Algiers etc. specif[ied] that the law of nations applied and explain[ed] what was meant by that”.70 In the 1764 edition of his book, this was complemented with the following: “for the Barbaresques d[id] not have the same ideas as we d[id] about these matters”.71 65. Abbé de Mably, Des Principes des négociations, pour servir d’introduction au ‘Droit public de l’Europe fondé sur les traités’ (The Hague: 1757); Jochen Hoock, “Conflits religieux et droit public européen”, in: L’Europe en conflits. Les affrontements religieux et la genèse de l’Europe moderne vers 1500-vers 1650, ed. Wolfgang Kaiser (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2008), 411-25: 411. 66. G.F. (Georg Friedrich) de Martens, Précis du droit des gens moderne de l’Europe, fondé sur les traités et l’usage (Göttingue: J. C. Dieterich, 1789). 67. Rycaut regarded the North African Regencies as “almost independent […] because of late years the mutual Treaties with Barbary, and interchanges of War and Peace with those Countries hath made the State and condition of that people well known and familiar in England”: Sir Paul Rycaut, The History of the Present state of the Ottoman Empire, containing the maxims of the Turkish politie, the most material points of the Mahometan religion, their sects and heresies, their convents and religious votaries, their military discipline, with an exact computation of their forces both by land and sea, illustrated with divers pieces of sculpture, representing the variety of habits among the Turks... (London: Charles Brome, 1686), 102. 68. Abbé de Mably, Le droit public de l’Europe fondé sur les traitez conclus jusqu’en l’année 1740 (Amsterdam: M. Uytwerf, 1748), 1, 243-244. 69. Mably, Droit public, 245. 70. Mably, Droit public, 246. 71. Abbé de Mably, Le droit public de l’Europe fondé sur les traités (Geneva: La Compagnie des Libraires, 1764), 1, 399.

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Although he mentioned the de facto and de iure inclusion of the North African Regencies in the jus publicum europaeum, he also acknowledged the existence of a different notion of the “law of nations”, specific to the North Africans and the “Turks”. The accusation of disrespect for treaties was therefore repeated, but Muslim practices were held responsible for it.72 Martin Hübner’s approach,73 by contrast, reflected the recognition of a specific law – namely a maritime law – of the ‘Barbaresques’. In his book about the seizure of neutral ships, Saisie des bâtiments neutres, Hübner, a Dane, referred repeatedly to the North African corsairs. In the first volume, he considered, as Bynkershoek had, that the North Africans respected the law of nations only by waging war on their enemies (Portugal, Spain and other Christian states).74 He explained clearly that the “Barbaresques […] never engaged in hostile behaviour with friendly and neutral ships regarding the ownership of their cargos […] the Danish, French, Swedish, English and Dutch flags provide adequate protection for the cargos.”75 He considered that the right to board neutral ships should be restricted to the mere control of the documents, and again based his argument on the example of the North African corsairs (whom he still called disparagingly the “plunderers of the sea”), mentioning the fourth article in two treaties ratified on 8 September 1726 and 23 November 1757 between the Regency of Algiers and the Dutch Republic, which established the rules for simple formal visits.76 Indeed, there was more at stake, namely the protection of goods by the neutral flag, on which Hübner looked favourably, except of course in the case of smuggling.77 He then quoted extensively from a passage of articles 3 and 4 of the above-mentioned treaty of 8 September 1726, which specified that the flag protected all goods and passengers, wherever they came from.78 The ‘Barbaresques’ were of course extreme cases for Hübner, examples aimed at showing the acceptance of his ideas and the universality of the rules of 72. Mably, Droit public, 236, quoted extensively from Rycaut’s chapter about “The regard the Turks have to their Leagues with Foreign Princes”, in which he explained that the Turks “ought not to regard the Leagues they have with any Prince, or the reasons and ground of a quarell, whilst the breach tends to the enlargement of their Empire, which consequently infers the propagation of their Faith”: Rycaut, Present state, 180. 73. Regarding Hübner, see Koen Stapelbroek, “Universal Society, Commerce and the Rights of Neutral Trade: Martin Hübner, Emer de Vattel and Ferdinando Galiani”, in: Universalism in International Law and Political Philosophy, eds. Petter Korkman and Virpi Mäkinen (COLLeGIUM: Studies Across Disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences 4 (2008), 63-89. 74. Hübner merely repeated Pufendorf’s idea that no nation had the “right to consider as barbarians those whose mores and traditions” differed from its own: Martin Hübner, Essai sur l’histoire du droit naturel (London: 1758), 2, 58. 75. Martin Hübner, De la Saisie des bâtimens neutres, ou Du droit qu’ont les nations belligérantes d’arrêter les navires des peuples amis (The Hague: 1759), 1, 223-4. 76. Hübner, Saisie des bâtiments neutres, 2, 224-5. 77. Hübner, Saisie des bâtiments neutres, 2, 183-97 (chapter “if the goods are protected by the neutral flag, according to the conventions of the law of nations”). This principle was progressively established in the nineteenth century. 78. Hübner, Saisie des bâtiments neutres, 2, 196-7.

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maritime law which he defended. Even so, his text bore witness to the growing recognition by Europeans of the specific nature of the required norms and practices established progressively with the North African states through treaties of peace and trade.79 Conclusion Whether excluded from the law of nations by their description as hostes humani generis or included in it when positive law and treaties were regarded as the basis for the law of nations, the North African Regencies made it necessary to specify the boundaries and reach of European public law. From the right to trade with the Infidels to the recognition of the Infidels’ law, the positions of the theorists of the law of nations varied, differed strongly or overlapped, in accordance with the various schools of thought and theoretical inspirations. However, it appears that, on the whole, the North African states were regarded as fully-fledged sovereign states free from Ottoman control and possessing a right of legation. Nonetheless, in material terms, this new sovereignty was diminished by the increasing military imbalance with the European states, which was exacerbated during the revolutionary wars of the end of the eighteenth century.80 Similarly, in commercial terms, the North African merchant navy faced the hostility of powerful groups of European ship-owners who resented its development and did not hesitate to encourage raids and acts of piracy against it.81 This quick survey of the theoretical opinions of a number of jurists should therefore be complemented by an in-depth examination of the negotiations and debates which surrounded the ratifications of treaties with the Regencies,82 for these treaties shaped the diplomatic relations between Europe and North Africa for a long time, up to the colonial period.

79. Sartine, the French Secretary of the Navy, wrote to his colleague Vergennes, the Foreign Secretary, that it was a principle of “the maritime law of the Barbaresques” not to question “the right for the neutral flag to protect non-smuggling goods […] They recognise[d] that friendly flags protect[ed] enemy goods”; Windler, “De la ‘normalisation’ à la soumission”, 347. 80. Windler, “Diplomatic History”. 81. Jean Mathiex, “Sur la marine marchande barbaresque au XVIIIème siècle”, Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations 13 (1958): 87-93. 82. Concerning negotiations and Capitulations, see Poumarède, “Jalons pour une nouvelle histoire”.

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Table of the treaties of peace and trade, of the articles of peace and of the articles regarding concessions concluded between European and North African states (1600-1800)83

Tunis

Algiers

Tripoli

France 08/1605 21/03/1619 27/11/1681 25/11/1665 19/09/1628 29/06/1685 26/11/1665 1664 27/05/1692 28/06/1672 17/05/1666 04/07/1720 30/08/1685 23/04/1684 09/06/1729 4/09/1685 24/09/1689 30/05/1752 16/12/1691 15/07/1714 12/12/1774 10/06/1698 26/01/1718 30/06/1793 27/06/1699 7/12/1719 16/12/1710 20/02/1720 28/02/1713 16/01/1764 20/02/1720 20/05/1792 1/07/1728 15/02/1799 9/11/1742 13/11/1742 24/02/1743 21/05/1765 14/03/1768 25/08/1770 13/09/1770 03/06/1774 24/06/1781 8/10/1782 06/1790 25/05/1795 Britain 5/10/1662 1646 18/10/1662 4/02/1675 23/04/1662 5/03/1675 30/08/1716 11/06/1662 01/05/1676 19/10/1751 10/11/1662 10/04/1682 22/01/1762 30/10/1664 07/02/1686 6/10/1668 11/10/1694 29/11/1672 11/10/1696 1680 19/07/1716 10/04/1682 19/09/1751 15/07/1683 22/07/1762 05/04/1686 15/07/1700 08/04/1702 28/10/1703 26/02/1707 29/10/1716 03/06/1751 14/05/1762 03/08/1765 Dutch Republic 14/11/1622 20/09/1662 1713 07/1612 09/1616 05/1617 10/1622 30/01/1626 06/04/1662 22/11/1662 05/1677 04/1679 1/05/1680 04/1707 15/12/1703 18/06/1712 1713 08/09/1726 4/10/1728 24/08/1731 23/11/1757 26/05/1760 03/1795 Austria 23/12/1748 2/03/1727 1726 8/10/1748 27/01/1749 Sweden 23/12/1736 16/04/1729 15/04/1741 05/05/1792 Denmark 8/12/1751 10/08/1746 22/01/1752 17/05/1772 Hamburg 15/09/1751 Spain 19/12/1791 14/06/1786 10/09/1784 United States of America 08/1797 05/09/1795 04/11 1796 26/03/1799 Venice 1765 Portugal 14/05/1799

83. Mössner, Völkerrechtspersönlichkeit, 89-101; Krieken, Corsaires et marchands, 47; Chalmers, Collection, 360-430; Rouard de Card, Traités de la France; Tétot, Répertoire des traités de paix, de commerce, d’alliance, etc., conventions et autres actes conclus entre toutes les puissances du globe, principalement depuis la paix de Westphalie jusqu’à nos jours. Table générale des recueils de Dumont, Wenck, Martens... etc... 1493-1866 (Paris: Amyot, 1866).

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Stare pactis and neutrality. Grotius and Pufendorf in the political thought of the early eighteenth century Grand Duchy of Tuscany Emanuele Salerno

Introduction The question of independence and neutrality was central to the Italian small states that were historically exposed to the constraining influence of the great European powers, and historiography has approached those issues, particularly that of neutrality, either by focusing on their legal1 or political2 aspects. Although recent studies have reconstructed the debate on ‘Florentine liberty’3 and also the events relating to the Grand Duchy’s neutrality,4 the effort of studying in greater depth certain facets of the political culture, especially the justifications and argumentation of policies put forward by the Tuscan ruling class during the first half of the eighteenth century, is rewarding. To throw light on this political dimension I believe it is appropriate to study the reception given in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany to natural law theories, 1. Neutrality as a change in the legal position of a third state during an armed conflict is usually investigated by studies of international law and of history of treaties. In short, in order to speak of the law of neutrality, states – although having no part in a conflict – must be submitted to specific international norms, different from those imposed in peacetime by common law and ius commune. See Alberto Miele, L’estraneità ai conflitti armati secondo il diritto internazionale (Padova: Cedam, 1970), vol. 1, 4-116. 2. Neutrality in the practical political sense features mostly in the studies of small states, including: Maurizio Bazzoli, Il piccolo Stato nell’età moderna. Studi su un concetto della politica internazionale tra XVI e XVIII secolo (Milan: Jaka Book, 1990); Maurizio Bazzoli, Stagioni e teorie della società internazionale (Milan: LED, 2005); Il piccolo Stato. Politica storia diplomazia, eds. Laura Barletta, Franco Cardini and Giuseppe Galasso (San Marino: Aiep, 2003); Blythe Alice Raviola, L’Europa dei piccoli stati. Dalla prima età moderna al declino dell’antico regime (Rome: Carocci, 2008). 3. In connection with this debate let me refer the reader exclusively to Marcello Verga, Da “cittadini” a “nobili”. Lotta politica e riforma delle istituzioni nella Toscana di Francesco Stefano (Milan: Giuffrè, 1990). 4. On the neutrality of the port of Livorno and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany see the essay by Franco Angiolini in this volume, along with its rich and up-to-date bibliography.

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starting the observation from the intellectual context of the University of Pisa, but concentrating the analysis on some government and academic dissertations that circulated widely in European chancelleries during the first half of the eighteenth century. I will limit myself here to analysing certain significant reflections by the legal scholars and prominent members of the Tuscan ruling class, Niccolò Antinori5, Giuseppe Averani6 and Giuseppe Maria Buondelmonti,7 with the aim of demonstrating that the frequent citations from and the attention devoted to the fundamental texts of modern natural law scholarship8 reveal an outline of a specific reception. This was one that was no longer generically directed towards producing works aimed at adding to the corpus of new texts used for the education of legal practitioners,9 but instead had a distinct 5. Sponsored by Cosimo III himself, Niccolò Francesco Antinori (1663-1722) studied at the Universities of Salamanca and Paris, from August 1699 to January 1722, held the position of Auditor President of the Order of Saint Stephen, and in August 1700 became a member of the Florentine Senate, later becoming a Councillor of State. He was sent on several occasions as an envoy of the Grand Duchy to defend the autonomy of Tuscany during the War of the Spanish Succession. See the highly useful entries in the IBI and in the DBI. 6. Giuseppe Averani (1662-1738) gained a doctorate in utroque iure (civil and canon law) at the University of Pisa in 1684, made original contributions to the furtherance of humanistic jurisprudence, and from 1687 held the chair of Civil Law at the same university as a full professor, but ceased teaching for health reasons around 1724. Philosophically inspired by Platonic scholarship rather than the Cartesian-Malebranchian one, he was appointed Istruttore e Maestro (teacher) of the young Gian Gastone de’ Medici by Cosimo III for the subjects of law and physics. His fame drew students and scholars from Italy and abroad. Under his tutelage the Dutch jurist Hendrik Brenkman studied the Florentine manuscript of the Pandects of Justinian and later facilitated the publication, edited by the great legal scholar Gerard Noodt, of Averani’s Interpretationes Iuris, published in 1716 in Leyden, and as a posthumous work in Lyon in 1751. See ad vocem the IBI and the DBI; Davide Baldi, “Il Codex Florentinus del Digesto e il ‘Fondo Pandette’ della Biblioteca Laurenziana (con un’appendice di documenti inediti)”, Segno e testo 8 (2010): 99-186. 7. Giuseppe Maria Buondelmonti (1713-1757), a member of one of the oldest families in Florence, nephew of the Secretary of War Carlo Rinuccini (a grand commis in the Medici regime and later in the Lorraine Regency), studied under the professors of the University of Pisa at the time of its cultural renewal. As is well known, the Florentine abbot was entrusted with the official commemoration both of the last Medici sovereign, Gian Gastone (1737), and the last Habsburg emperor, Charles VI (1741). In 1755 – on the eve of the Seven Years War, and after a long period of wars of dynastic succession – he presented a dissertation with the significant title of Ragionamento sul diritto della guerra giusta. For an account of the intellectual biography of this member of the ruling class of the Grand Duchy, let me refer the reader to the bibliography in Emanuele Salerno, Giuseppe Maria Buondelmonti e il ceto dirigente toscano tra Medici e Lorena. Dal rinnovamento filosofico al “buon governo” politico, M.A. Thesis in Political Science, University of Perugia, 2006-2007. 8. See Norberto Bobbio, “Il Giusnaturalismo,” in: Storia delle idee politiche economiche e sociali (Turin: UTET, 1980), IV, 1, 491-558; Luigi Bonanate, Diritto naturale e relazioni tra gli stati (Turin: Loescher, 1986). 9. For the study of this kind of reception, among the most representative authors is Anton Maria Vannucchi (1724-1792), reader in Feudal Law for more than forty years at the University of Pisa. For Vannucchi the source of Roman law was definitively natural law. Apart from the notes on the biography and teaching of Vannucchi in the highly accurate studies by Niccola Car-

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political purpose. Within the more recent essays dedicated to the reception of modern natural law theories there are two facts worth keeping in mind as starting points. Firstly, in Europe the reaction to this scholarship occurred at very different times and involved many different choices relating to the intellectual and political contexts of individual countries; and secondly, a decisive turning point for the reception of natural law that adopted the so-called rational method (thought to be capable of reducing law, morality, and politics to an objective science) was promoted by Barbeyrac’s comments on and translations of the works of Grotius and Pufendorf.10 As we are aware, the chair of “Jus pubblico [sic], or of Law of Nature and of Nations” existed in the University of Pisa, albeit not continuously, well before the rest of the Italian peninsula:11 in 1728-29 it was entrusted to Pompeo Neri, in 1738-65 to Francesco Niccolò Bandiera and subsequently, in 1773-92, to Giovanni Maria Lampredi.12 The European success of the aforementioned editions by Barbeyrac of the main works of natural law is confirmed also in this cultural context13 and it is explicitly proved by the well-known “Lettera pedagogica” of ranza and Danilo Marrara, see the essay by Andrea Labardi, “Anton Maria Vannucchi, l’ultimo feudista dello Studio pisano. Lineamenti prosopografici”, Bollettino storico pisano (2003): 265316. 10. See Philippe Meylan, Jean Barbeyrac (1674-1744) et les débuts de l’enseignement du droit dans l’Ancienne Académie de Lausanne: contribution à l’histoire du droit naturel (Lausanne: F. Rouge, 1937); Massimo Panebianco, Ugo Grozio e la tradizione storica del diritto internazionale (Naples: ESI, 1974); Diego Quaglioni, “Introduzione,” in: Alberico Gentili, Il diritto di guerra (De iure belli libri III, 1598) (Milan: Giuffrè, 2008), XXX-XXXIII. Among the most significant contributions of the past five years are: Barbara Ann Naddeo, Vico and Naples. The Urban Origins of Modern Social Theory (Ithacha: Cornell University Press, 2011); Jon Parkin, Taming the Leviathan. The reception of the political and religious ideas of Thomas Hobbes in England, 1640-1700 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Guglielmo Sanna, “La fortuna di Pufendorf in Inghilterra: il contributo del clero anglicano nella prima metà del Settecento”, Rivista storica italiana 118 (2006): 81-124; John Robertson, The case for the Enlightenment. Scotland and Naples, 1680-1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Francis Oakley, Natural law, laws of nature, natural rights. Continuity and discontinuity in the history of ideas (New York: Continuum, 2005); Ian Hunter, “Conflicting obligations: Pufendorf, Leibniz and Barbeyrac on civil authority”, History of Political Thought 25 (2004): 671-699; Laurent Reverso, Les lumières chez les juristes et publicistes lombards au XVIIIe siècle: influence française et spécificité (Aix-en-Provence: Presses Universitaires d’Aix-Marseille, 2004). 11. The University of Pisa was at the forefront of thought in comparison with the other universities on the peninsula. Pavia established this chair in 1742, Napoli in 1750, Modena and Parma in 1768. 12. Regarding Italian legal culture in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries see: Giovanni Tarello, Storia della cultura giuridica moderna (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1976), 97-105; Adriano Cavanna, Storia del diritto moderno in Europa. Le fonti e il pensiero giuridico (Milan: Giuffrè, 1982-2005), vol. I, 369-377 and vol. II, 53-59; while for the history of the law school in Pisa, please see the essay by Enrico Spagnesi in this volume, along with its rich and up-to-date bibliography. 13. See footnote 18 for the early results of the examination of the University Library of Pisa’s collections.

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1741, written by Pisa’s former Professor of Civil Law, Bernardo Tanucci14. This primary source reveals that Tanucci, who was by that time minister in the court of Charles of Bourbon, prescribed the study of the classics of modern natural law scholarship for the instruction of a young noble preparing to enter public life and to take on administrative, political and diplomatic duties: to integrate the study of history Tanucci suggested Hobbes’s De cive and Pufendorf’s De officio hominis; as for public law, to be studied for the entire third year of the suggested study period in Pisa, he recommended Grotius, Pufendorf and Thomasius; as texts to take with him on educational visits abroad, Tanucci again advocated Pufendorf’s De officio hominis and Grotius’s De iure belli ac pacis complete “with the latest commentaries attached to them”,15 in other words – as will become clear in the discussion of an enquiry I conducted into the collection held in the library of the University of Pisa – the eighteenth-century comments and translations by Barbeyrac. The aim of this essay is to demonstrate that the penetration and reception of the theories of natural law were linked to the strategies implemented by a small state, whose survival seemed dependent on the application of a neutrality policy capable of safeguarding commercial activity,16 and somehow even on the evoked foundation of a federal system with other small states.17 Works by Antinori (1711) and Averani (1721-22) in particular and, most especially, those by Buondelmonti (1737, 1741 and 1755) reveal that a process of selecting 14. Bernardo Tanucci (1698-1783) was a student of the University of Pisa – Giuseppe Averani and Giovanni Bonaventura Neri Badia (see below) played a key part in his education – and as soon as he had gained a doctorate in utroque iure he was appointed lecturer in Civil Law (1719) and, having been promoted in 1723, retained the chair to the end of the 1732-33 academic year. In those years he was the uditore di camera of Charles of Bourbon and, moving with the infant sovereign to Naples, was made colonel of the Batavia regiment. He was later appointed councillor of the Collaterale, Minister of Justice, and (from 1755) Minister of Foreign Affairs and of the Royal House. As a Member of the Regency Council (from 1759), he was expelled in October 1776 as a result of influence brought to bear by the pro-Austrian Maria Carolina. 15. The letter to prince Bartolomeo Corsini (nephew of the recently deceased Pope Clemente XII) of 8 December 1741 is published in Bernardo Tanucci, Epistolario, I, 1723-1746 (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1980), 512-513; see also Sergio Lollini, “Consigli di Bernardo Tanucci per l’educazione di un giovane fiorentino,” in: Bernardo Tanucci e la Toscana (Florence: Olschki, 1986), 161-169; Lamberto Del Bianco, Momenti e aspetti della cultura di Bernardo Tanucci. Gli anni pisani (Pisa: Editrice Universitaria Felici, 1988). 16. Among the edicts proclaiming the neutrality of the ports and maritime towns of the Grand Duchy we should recall, for the early eighteenth century, that of 14 June 1702 and those of the following 24 July, 28 December 1739 and 5 February 1757; see the essay by Franco Angiolini in this volume, along with its rich and up-to-date bibliography. 17. The works of Montesquieu and Rousseau have been credited by the historiography with spreading an entirely positive image of the small state, see Giuseppe Giarrizzo, “L’ideale del ‘piccolo Stato’ dalla Ragion di Stato all’Illuminismo,” in: Piccolo Stato, 145-157. In the Buondelmonti library (the object of an article of mine, to be published shortly) Montesquieu is present in the Amsterdam edition of Lettres Persanes (P. Mortier, 1731), and in the Genevan editions of De l’esprit des loix and of the Defense (Barrillot & fils, 1750). However there does not seem to be any works by Rousseau.

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natural law theories was under way; balanced as a result of the expected European circulation of these Tuscan works, this selection process was sometimes politically oriented towards dealing with the questions of succession, at other times to drawing an up-to-date picture of civil society, and at still other times to advocating the neutrality option and a specific role for neutral nations in international relations. An early result that emerged from my research is that different members of the ruling class used Grotius’s teaching relating to international relations to promote and pay tribute to the Grand Duchy within the international political society. The image of the Tuscan Grand Duchy appears to have been founded on the ongoing public appreciation of the principle stare pactis: thanks to this norm of conduct, the Tuscan ruling class tried to earn their small neutral state a reputation for impartiality and, above all, trustworthiness. The inviolability of conventions with enemies: Grotius vs Pufendorf To reconstruct the intellectual framework in which the cultural development of the Grand Duchy’s ruling class was taking place, I have ascertained which major public and private libraries open to the students and academics of the University of Pisa (during the second half of the seventeenth century and up to the end of the eighteenth) held editions of the texts of Grotius and Pufendorf. This analysis attests that there was intense interest in Pisa for Grotius’s De iure belli ac pacis and Pufendorf’s De iure naturae et gentium, especially for its compendium. The eighteenth-century editions (in some cases in French) of these works were particularly well-used, for these were enriched by Barbeyrac’s wide-ranging annotations, full of significance because of their interpretative approach.18 The interest that academics had in Grotius, as regards the fundamental questions of international relations,19 seems to have been reasonably connected to the 18. What emerged from the first survey of the collections of the University Library of Pisa is of such interest that it deserves comparison with the collections of other cultural centres of the Grand Duchy. To summarise: in the University Library of Pisa there are three seventeenth-century editions of Grotius’s De iure belli ac pacis (one of which came from the Averani’s library) and eight eighteenth-century editions (four of which are French translations by Barbeyrac; those with verified provenance are the 1729 and 1746 editions from the Collegio Ferdinando (the college of law of the University of Pisa), and the 1720 edition from the collection of the natural philosopher and professor of mathematics (from 1714 to 1742) Guido Grandi). As for the works of Pufendorf, there are five eighteenth-century editions of De iure naturae et gentium (all annotated by Barbeyrac; those with verified provenance are the 1732 and 1744 editions from the Collegio Ferdinando, and the 1759 edition probably from Guido Grandi). There is one seventeenth-century edition of the De officio hominis et civis (the editio princeps of 1673) and four eighteenth-century editions (one verified as from Piazzini, and another as from Carrara, then belonging to a later period). 19. The interest in Grotius within the intellectual circles of the University of Pisa has conveniently been investigated in connection with the problem of hermeneutics, and ergo to the work

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political context emerging because of the War of the Spanish Succession (170213). Among the first texts that demonstrate this political connection is the De iure belli, et pacis disputatio of 170320, which is signed by an otherwise unknown pupil of Professor Giuseppe Averani, Philippus Willelmus Souterus21. This disputatio, which reflects on the international order, contains a particularly interesting eulogy of the governing sovereign, Cosimo III de’ Medici, who is praised for having maintained peace in the country and for his policy of neutrality: Most Serene Grand Duke, as I prepare to discuss the law of war and of peace, I am bound to reflect on your great qualities. […] But surely your virtue is too high to be touched by the turbulence or the flame of war, and, as one says Olympus steps over the clouds, so this virtue, greater than any human dignity, while everything around it is shaken and ravaged by a horrible tumult, enjoys perfect tranquillity. Nor do you have need for weapons, since you are sufficiently armed with a justice that, embracing peace, is united to it by an indissoluble pact; and you show with your example that the saying adopted by Agesilaus, the very strong and knowledgeable king, is most true, that if justice was cultivated by mortals, there would be no need for bellicose virtue.22

This ebullient celebration of the Medici sovereign’s policy of neutrality is accentuated still further by the author’s conception of war as the essential original fact of the law of nations; he returns to and enlarges on this idea in Thesis I, “Whether there be war or there be peace. The one is typical of natural law; the other is introduced by the law of nations.” So, since the very beginning, wars are deemed to break out between all nations by the ratio naturalis (natural reason), but are subject to regulation by the law of nations; nevertheless – the author underlines – the law of nations does not annul natural law, which is immutable.23 of professor Giuseppe Averani, Interpretationes iuris. See Enrico Spagnesi, L’insegnamento del diritto a Pisa dal principio del ’700 all’Unità (Pisa: SEU, 1999), 31-42. 20. Phillip Wilhelm von Sutter (Frenchified to De Souter), De jure belli, et pacis disputatio sub clementissimis auspiciis regiae celsitudinis Cosmi 3. magni Etruriae ducis in Pisana Academia publice propugnanda proponitur a Philippo Willelmo de Souter Germano sub praesidio Josephi Averanii in eadem Academia juris civilis professoris ordinarii (Florence: typis Regiae Celsitudinis, apud Petrum Antonium Brigonci, 1703). 21. The young Phillip Wilhelm von Sutter, born in Düsseldorf (and baptised there on 31 May 1681), crossed paths with Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici, wife of the prince-elector Johann Wilhelm II of Neuburg, when she moved to the Palatinate’s capital in July 1691 and remained there until October 1717. Phillip Wilhelm had contacts in the court – in virtue of his father, Johann Daniel von Sutter, being a highly placed state functionary (a member of the Council of War) in the Palatinate – and in 1704 appears to have had the title of Councillor of Court (Hofrat). He married one of the Electress Palatine’s ladies-in-waiting, of Turkish origin, baptised with the name Anna Maria Maddalena Luisa Medici. For information regarding the Sutter family see www.ahnenforschung.net. Archival research on Phillip Wilhelm’s journey to Italy is currently being carried out. 22. Ibid., 3-5 of the dedication written by the author to Cosimo III de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. 23. Ibid., 8-9, it should be noted that in support of thesis I the construction of citations is entirely classical: the passages chosen are mostly from the Justinian Corpus, Cicero’s Philippicae and De officiis, concluding with a citation of epistle 189 of Augustine to Optatus, Bishop of

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This conception is taken up once more in Thesis IX: “However, both the war commander and the private individual must maintain the trust given to the enemy”. Thesis IX opens with quotations from Augustine, Quintilian and Ambrose,24 followed by the author’s statement explaining how rights are shared by warring parties, and how they correspond to the law of nations. On the basis of Seneca, Quintilian, Demosthenes, Apuleius, Cornelius Nepos and Lactantius, the law of nations is considered common to all men. In this paragraph the law of nations seems to lose its conventional nature, but this appears to be related to the need to demonstrate that respect for pacts conforms with natural equality. And it is on this point that the author calls on the support of Grotius, among other jurists including Hotman, Hunnius and Vinnius, citing the famous chapter XIX of book III, of De iure belli ac pacis, dedicated to good faith between enemies. The question of the inviolability of conventions stipulated with the enemy is a highly controversial point among the authors of the law of nature and of nations: it is on this very subject that the teachings of the two greatest exponents of the school, Grotius and Pufendorf, are most clearly distinguished. In Grotius’s theory the solutions to the questions of the law of nations presuppose a foundation of validity, which for him is equivalent to the stare pactis principle of natural law.25 For Pufendorf, on the other hand, in the state of war it is necessary to have a dynamic conception of the interests of the state, so as to justify the unilateral denunciation of treaties and the switching of alliances.26 On a theoretical level, Pufendorf’s criticism of Grotius’s doctrine implies that there is no place for ethical considerations in international politics.27 It is highly significant that in von Sutter’s dissertation, written under the supervision of Averani, Pufendorf is never cited. The foundation of sovereignty of the people: Grotius and Pufendorf vs proimperial jurists Less than ten years later, the need for a selective response politically aimed at moderating the pressures applied by the European powers would instead lead Mileve, De natura et origine animae. 24. Ibid., 26, cites again the Augustine’s epistle 189 Ad Optatum episcopum Milevitanum, in which Augustine begs the question of whether a promise must be maintained with an enemy in war, one must keep it all the more with a friend for whom one fights. There is also a passage from the Declamationes by Quintilian, according to whom fides (trust) is the supreme bond of human affairs, and the praise of fides between enemies is sacred. Additionally there is a reminder that Ambrose believed that even in the state of war it is necessary to preserve trust and justice. 25. See Guido Fassò, Storia della filosofia del diritto. II, L’età moderna (1968), ed. Carla Faralli (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 2001), 77-81; Carlo Focarelli, Lezioni di Storia del Diritto internazionale (Perugia: Morlacchi, 2007), 64-65. 26. See Fassò, Storia della filosofia del diritto, 143. 27. See Pufendorf, De iure naturae et gentium, book VIII, ch. VII, par. 2, in which the German jurist explicitly cites the theory expounded by Grotius in the De iure belli ac pacis, book III,

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the senator Niccolò Antinori to quote Grotius and Pufendorf nearly always in conjunction in the same annotation, to support the same argument against proimperial jurists. A manuscript copy of Antinori’s work, Discorso sopra la successione della Toscana (1711),28 has been found bound together with printed copies of De libertate civitatis Florentiae ejusque dominii of 1722, and Mémoire sur la liberté de l’Etat de Florence, dated 1721 (both of which discuss the liberty of Florence).29 This suggests a moving back of the terminus a quo for the reconstruction of the history of the Medici succession, generally located in the signing by Great Britain, France, the United Provinces of the Netherlands, and the Empire of the Treaty of London of 2 August 1718.30 In fact even considering Leibniz’s brief Memorial of 20 December 171331 as the first imperial response to the motu proprio of Cosimo III in favour of the succession of his daughter Anna Maria Luisa (dated 26 November 1713, in clear connection with the Pragmatic Sanction of 19 April), Antinori’s Discorso predates it, having been written in 1711. In Antinori’s memoir the authority of the two masters of modern natural law is used extensively, mostly – and tellingly – in the third part of his dissertation, in which the issue of “what is best to do for the Good of the State in case of doubt” is tackled; in other words where justifications are sought to support the reasons of “public expediency”. For senator Antinori the legitimization of the succession has to presuppose the principle that: “of the Supreme Dominion conferred by the Republic on a certain family, as this one in Tuscany, the last Prince of the family cannot arbitrarily bestow it [as to say, the supreme dominion] on another, as he desires;32 because he does not own it as a Hereditary and alienable property, the right to transfer it to another family returned once more ch. XIX, judging it to be moralistic. 28. Niccolò Francesco Antinori, “Discorso sopra la successione della Toscana fatto, e presentato all’A.R. del Serenissimo Gran Duca Cosimo 3° dal Senatore Prior Niccolò Antinori Consigliere di Stato, e Presidente dell’Ordine Militare di S. Stefano l’anno 1711”. 29. ASFi, ASR, 236, Antinori’s manuscript is currently being transcribed in preparation for publication. 30. On article V of the Treaty of the Quadruple of 1718 see Marcella Aglietti, “Il Granducato di Toscana negli anni Trenta del Settecento. Il cambio dinastico e la difficile eredità medicea”, Ricerche storiche (2004): 259-325; Marcella Aglietti, “Tre documenti relativi a Bernardo Tanucci conservati presso l’Haus- Hof- und Staatsarchiv di Vienna,” in: Bernardo Tanucci nel terzo centenario della nascita (1698-1998) (Pisa: ETS, 1999); while for the withdrawal of the terminus a quo and the figure of Leibniz “Hofrath” see: Verga, Da “cittadini” a “nobili”, 27, and, by the same author, “‘Finis saeculi novam rerum faciem aperuit’ (Leibniz). Guerre di successione, stati, popoli e culture della rappresentazione nell’Italia del XVIII secolo”, Studia Borromaica 24 (2010): 7-17. 31. See Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Leibnizens Briefwechsel mit dem Minister von Bernstorff (Hanover: Hahn’sche Buchhandlung, 1882), 73 (document 46). 32. Antinori, “Discorso sopra la successione della Toscana”, the note to this paragraph refers the reader to Grotius’s De iure belli ac pacis (book I, ch. 3, par. 13, no. 1) together with Pufendorf’s De iure naturae et gentium (book VII, ch. 7, par. 12), and the work of Arnisaeus, De Republica. Seu

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to the People, which, as the given law and the limitation of the succession require, has so desired from the beginning”.33 In Antinori’s Discorso, the response to Grotius’s De iure belli ac pacis and Pufendorf’s De iure naturae et gentium provides fundamental support for the theory of sovereignty. In this paragraph the selection of the passages from the two principal works of the school of modern natural law accords with the historical context and the political and institutional system of the Grand Duchy in the early eighteenth century. Faced with the scenario of succession, certain exponents of the senatorial oligarchy thought it opportune to praise the representative function of the Florentine senate by invoking the sovereignty of the people. The Discorso thus appears to be an early example of the reception given to natural law theories in connection with the matters relating to the foundation of the state and of sovereignty, so revealing also the specific political function of such a reception. In the same historical and political context, and still in reference to the succession issue, another text supporting the Grand Duchy, the De libertate civitatis Florentiae ejusque dominii (1721-22)34 also contained a kind of genealogy of the libertas of the Florentine people attesting to the autonomy and independence of the Grand Duchy. In this memoir the preferred instruments are once more those of humanistic jurisprudence, and the legitimisation of sovereignty is supported chiefly by historical precedent. However, in the citations of the works of pro-imperial jurists, such as Besold, Conring and Arnisaeus, there is early evidence of sources being selected and distorted for political ends; indeed the Tuscan jurist cites specific passages in support of the Grand Duke’s thesis. An example of this comes from the paragraph dealing with the question of the title of protection established in the convention between Charles V and the Florentines, a title that the author of De libertate civitatis Florentiae argued could not attribute any jurisdiction to the Empire precisely for the reason put forward by Arnisaeus.35 Relactionis politicae libri duo (book II, ch. 2, sect. 14, no. 29). 33. Ibid., the corresponding note cites, in order: Pufendorf’s De iure naturae et gentium (referring to the same book VII, ch. 7 and par. 12 of the previous note, but adding par. 15); the same passage previously quoted from Arnisaeus, De Republica. Seu Relactionis politicae libri duo; Grotius’ De iure belli ac pacis (book II, ch. 17, par. 15); Fernando Vázquez de Menchaca, book 1, ch. 22, no. 3, III; the text by Miguel de Aguirre, Responsum de successione regni Portugalliae, pro Philippo Hispaniarum rege (pars 4, no. 40), and the work of Besold, Dissertationum Nomicopoliticarum Libri III. Ubi De Successione Quae Regni Fit Iure, & Electione Regia potissimum disputatur (book III, dis. 3, no. 14). 34. [Giuseppe Averani?], De libertate civitatis Florentiae ejusque dominii (Pisa: 1721); [Giuseppe Averani?] De libertate civitatis Florentiae ejusque dominii, (1722), except for the errata of 1721 edition, the two texts are the same; on this work, reasonably developed by several authors, including Giovanni Bonaventura Neri Badia, see Mario Benvenuti, “L’erudizione al servizio della politica: la polemica per la successione in Toscana”, Nuova rivista storica 42 (1958): 484506; Daniele Edigati, “Neri Badia, Giovanni Bonaventura,” in: Dizionario biografico dei giuristi italiani, ed. Italo Birocchi et al. (to be published shortly). 35. Ibid., LI, the long quotation of Arnisaeus is taken from De jure majestatis, ch. IV, no. 9 § Qua de causa. The imperial decree from Charles V is of 20 October 1530, the Tuscan decree of

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But it is in the last part of the memoir that the goal of demonstrating the freedom of the Florentine people becomes more specific, contesting arguments of ius publicum and taking advantage of the authority of the jurists beyond that of the historians. The section that deals with the matter of precedence between Cosimo I and the Duke of Ferrara is thus utilised to include Grotius’ argument in support of sovereignty of the people in the event of a change of political regime. The text states: “although the form of administration changes often and the authority of the Magistrates first grows, now diminishes, now fades, and those who have administered it for a long time are distanced from the government of the Republic [gubernaculis Republicae], the Republic however is eternal and remains the same and maintains its dignity and greatness, whoever rules it and in whatever way it is administered, so long as it is not subject to foreigners, and loses its full power [absolutam suam potestatem amittat], as Alberico Gentili and Grotius teach us, those great experts of this right”36. Although both Gentili and Grotius are mentioned in the text, the footnote cites only the Dutch jurist’s De iure belli ac pacis and even a passage from it (book II, ch. IX, par. 8) is quoted in order to show how the sovereignty of the people remains constant despite the changes of political regime: “Nor does it signify much, under what Government they [the people] are, whether Monarchical, Aristocratical, or Democratical. For the Romans were the same People under Kings, Consuls, and Emperors. Nay, tho’ the Government be never so absolute, yet the People are the same they were, as when they were free, whilst he who rules, rules as the Head of that People, and not as the Head of another”.37 As we are aware, the political history of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in the early 1730s corresponded in large part to that of the Medici succession, and the members of the ruling class who exerted themselves to defend the ‘liberty’ of the people in support of the independence of the state of Tuscany were many. The trait shared by the two works presented here resides in the exposition and enhancement of a distinct thesis of the relationship between populus and princeps. This harks back to the concessio imperii, namely a concession limited in time and scope, by which the people delegate to the prince the exercise, but not the ownership of power. In the presentation of this conception, which was substantiated mainly with historical arguments, legal texts from modern natural law scholarship were also present and – as I tried to demonstrate – efficiently used to defend the autonomy and independence of the Grand Duchy. reception is from 6 July 1531. 36. Ibid., LVII, footnote c, where only Grotius’s De iure belli ac pacis is cited, specifically book II, ch. XVI, no. 16 and ch. IX, par. 8 (the quotation in footnote c refers only to this latter chapter). 37. Ibid., in the editio princeps of De iure belli ac pacis of 1625, this passage is on page 248. This English translation is taken from Hugo Grotius, The Rights of War and Peace, edited by Jean Barbeyrac, translated by John Morrice (London: D. Brown, 1738; reprint, Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005), book II, 671-672. According to Richard Tuck the Morrice’s English translation of 1715 was mostly used also for the 1738 edition, please see “A note on the Text” by Richard Tuck

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Conclusion: The rights of just war, Grotius and Montesquieu vs Hobbes and Pufendorf Faced with meddling from the European powers, these two memoirs uphold the thesis that the ancient liberty of the Florentine people was not invalidated by either the entrenchment of the Medici dynasty or the constitutional reform of 1532. At the end of the 1730s, although the question of the succession of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany had been resolved in favour of Francis Stephen of Lorraine, some echoes of the arguments of the previous years were still being heard in the cultural and political debate. Historiography has reconstructed this debate, interpreting it as a process aimed mostly at securing a continued institutional role for the families of the Florentine oligarchy and a socio-political equilibrium that kept them in a pre-eminent position;38 but with the arrival of the new dynasty, the house of Lorraine, that was connected to the Empire, the Tuscan ruling class had also to consider the balance of power and the international order. In his funeral oration in memory of Gian Gastone de’ Medici in October 1737, Giuseppe Maria Buondelmonti appears to have acted as spokesman for the Florentine oligarchic families, traditionally proponents of taking a neutral line in foreign policy. The author was in fact careful to present a model of “good government” that, apart from being conducive to the common good and the observance of established laws, conformed to nature and the proper function of the Grand Duchy, that is to say of a small state. Buondelmonti praises the actions of the last Medici sovereign “not as clear exploits of a Hero of war, but as works of a wise and peace-loving Prince, who was able to preserve and increase public happiness with the honourable arts of peace”.39 Leaving aside the flattery that is typical of such rhetoric, there is here a prescriptive intent imposed by the circumstances of the dynastic succession. This explains why the author, in front of the Lorraine dynasty, lauds the “wise conduct” of the Medici sovereign that won the citizens of the Grand Duchy an “honourable and favourable peace”, thereby attaching “lasting glory” to himself and bestowing “a happy prosperity” on the state. Thus the Florentine abbot promotes a model in which “happiness” and “security of the Peoples and of Sovereigns” are tightly linked, and are together dependent on the honest relationship between the “prudent regulation” of “internal affairs” and “just measures” in “foreign affairs”: Since happiness, and the security of Peoples and Sovereigns depend not only on a prudent regulation and fortunate outcome of internal affairs, but it is also necessary that the right measures are taken towards foreign Powers, with which the State has some form of shared interests, his [Gian Gastone’s] government would not have been so good for us, if he had not in the mentioned Liberty Fund edition, xxxv-xxxvii. 38. See Verga, Da “cittadini” a “nobili”, 13-64. 39. Giuseppe Maria Buondelmonti, Delle lodi dell’Altezza Reale del serenissimo Gio. Gastone VII Gran duca di Toscana. Orazione funerale dell’abate Giuseppe Buondelmonti detta nelle Solenni Esequie celebrate in Firenze il dì 9 Ottobre 1737 (Florence: Stamperia di S.A.R., per

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conducted foreign affairs with sublime prudence, by which the happiness and security of his population were inseparably connected. Our Grand Duke had to bring about the fragile survival of Tuscany in the most difficult circumstances, in which we can imagine a small state being in relation to much stronger foreign powers; circumstances that could consequently have led to his and our ruin.40

The representative of the oligarchic families began by praising the positive effects – “public happiness” – of the Medici’s neutrality in foreign affairs and then, coming full circle, concluded by praising the virtue of the “sublime prudence” in the handling of “foreign affairs” of those small states, such as Tuscany, “in which errors elsewhere small, are great and disastrous”. Given the nature of the composition, the auctoritates are not mentioned, but the nexus between neutrality and the small state is made absolutely clear in order to highlight how the policy of impartiality benefited public happiness (suggesting that this would continue in the new regime), and Pufendorf’s doctrine of interests is corrected by the observation that a policy of neutrality had been the best choice for ensuring the security of a small state. On 16 January 1741 Pufendorf’s doctrine of interests was again publicly challenged when Buondelmonti read the official oration for the death of Charles VI, which he had written at the request of the Lorrainese authorities. In this dissertation the foreign policy of the deceased sovereign is brought to the fore to be used as a response to the serious international situation now made critical when the Austrian succession threw off balance the European order (17401748). By acclaiming the Pragmatic Sanction for Maria Theresa’s succession as the finest example of how treaties could be used to confront peacefully dynastic issues, Buondelmonti managed to achieve two aims: he supported the Empire and elevated treaties as legal sources that could be used to regulate international relations and thus defend the peace and stability of Europe. In fact, Pufendorf’s doctrine of interests is corrected by the rigorous Grotian principle of abiding by pacts in order to ensure international stability. For the security of the great empire, the Florentine intellectual recognises the need for the policy of alliances, whilst losing no opportunity to mention the need to focus on the underlying principle of Grotius’s stare pactis doctrine. The text states: “Our Sovereign knew that the security of his states, and the preservation of balance in Europe required him to procure Alliances, and to religiously observe all that he had promised his Allies”.41 In this oration the Florentine abbot concentrates on the theme of alliances, and the greatest glory of sovereigns is founded on their ability to “combine with admirable unity the reason of State and perfect justice” choosing the “friendly way of congresses, negotiations, and mediations instead of the uncertain and Gaetano Tartini e Santi Franchi, 1737), 3-4. 40. Ibid., 14-15. 41. Giuseppe Maria Buondelmonti, “Orazione Funerale dell’Ab. Giuseppe Buondelmonti in lode dell’Augustissimo Imperadore Carlo VI [1741]”, Nuova collezione di opuscoli e notizie di

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ruinous route of sieges and battles.” The model cited by Buondelmonti is the “famous project of the European Diet invented by Henry the Great [...]” which, the author affirms, “many treat as chimerical without having taken the trouble to examine it, or without having sufficient ability to make a judgement of it”.42 Dynastic despotism had been responsible for a long series of wars of succession for the entire first half of the eighteenth century, and it was precisely against the development of this consolidated direction of foreign policy that again, in the mid-1750s, there was a turn towards natural law theories. The Ragionamento sul diritto della guerra giusta, presented by Buondelmonti to the Accademia della Crusca (the most regarded scholarly Florentine society) in August 1755, should be considered – rather than as an original work on the bellum iustum and the ius belli – as an effective political synthesis of the most important works of natural law theorists. Apparently Buondelmonti had wanted to offer an audience larger than that of law scholars a full range of theoretical weapons with which to combat warmongering policies and to preserve the humanitarian praxis, “a subject that so concerns human happiness”.43 In this dissertation too the conceptual legacy of seventeenth-century legal scholarship is clearly evident, both as regards the idea of international relations (understood as the state of nature) and as regards the theories of justification and legitimisation of war. Therefore the originality of Buondelmonti has to be found in the argumentative-polemical nucleus that runs throughout his work: he notes a line of continuity between the theories of Grotius and Montesquieu that clashes with the continuity identified between the theories of Hobbes and Pufendorf. Buondelmonti states: Regarding the great number of Writers, who have spoken on Natural Law after Grotius, stands Pufendorf, a distinguished man who would have given more useful service to this science [...] if he had not had an excessive estimation for some of the false ideas of the irreligious and despotic Hobbes [...] Barbeirac has remedied many of the defects of this Work with his elegant translation and not least with his Notes which are partly philosophical and partly erudite; but he did not see everything, and did not note everything. On the right, which is born from the just war during the war, Pufendorf is not censured on some points by Barbeirac and moved away from Grotius’s ideas without reason [...]. President Montesquieu in the work I have already praised on the Spirit of the Laws, conforming to the sentiments of Grotius, affirms that in just wars Nations must do the least possible harm without damaging their real interests.44 scienze, lettere e arti (1820), 135-162, 155. 42. Ibid., 156-157. The reference is obviously to Henry IV, King of France, and the project by Maximilien Béthune, duc de Sully (1560-1641). See Sully’s grand design of Henry IV: from the Memoirs of Maximilien de Bethune, Duc de Sully, edited with an introduction by David Ogg (London: Sweet & Maxwell, 1921). 43. Giuseppe Maria Buondelmonti, Ragionamento sul diritto della guerra giusta letto nell’Accademia della Crusca dall’Illustrissimo Signore Giuseppe Buondelmonti, Patrizio Fiorentino e Cavalier Commendatore del Sacro Ordine Gerosolimitano (Florence: Andrea Bonducci, 1756), 7. 44. Ibid., 5-6. In the Buondelmonti library Grotius is present just in the Verona edition of De

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According to the Florentine legal scholar, Hobbes, and therefore his followers, deduced natural laws from the single principle of self-preservation which – the author underlines – can not always guarantee the “universal usefulness for the human being”. For Buondelmonti this universal usefulness could be realised only by the union of the principles of self-preservation and sociability. Moving from the state of nature between individuals to that between states, Buondelmonti intends to identify the twin aim of the just war precisely on the basis of the union of those two principles. The first such aim is to “obtain with force the justice which could not be obtained by gentler means”, and the second is “to reach a secure peace with the vanquished”, in other words without the vanquished suffering “destruction or slavery”. After discussing the legitimacy of war, the abbot goes on to address the ius belli (the norms that regulate conduct in a state of war, thus establishing the difference between a lawful or unlawful war: a lawful war has the law as its end but also as its form), considering primarily the principle of sociability, from which the natural law that forbade unjust injury descends. It is on the basis of this natural law that Buondelmonti, referring almost literally to the famous chapter III of book I of Montesquieu’s Esprit des Lois, establishes the natural right of the sovereign to inflict the minimum suffering – as opposed to the greatest possible suffering – that he judged useful for reaching a secure peace settlement with the losing side. Buondelmonti recognises that no tribunal on earth was equal to the task of adjudicating the controversies between different sovereigns and that, as a result, the “means to be used to achieve their goal [...] must always be regarded as just in the external Forum and by the neutral powers”; but at this point he interposes a critical proviso, namely that the external forum and neutral powers would consider lawful only the means chosen by the sovereigns: “whenever they are not against either the general laws of War established by the positive Law of Nations, or [...] particular conventions for which they [sovereigns] have renounced a part of the internal or external rights, which the state of war provides them”.45 On the one hand this exception recognises the right of neutral nations to pass judgement on the eventual violation of the ius belli and, on the other, it reveals how Buondelmonti was aware that natural law could not, beyond a certain limit, regulate the cruelty of war. And in the following passage he makes veritate religionis christianae (J. Vallarsi, 1729), Pufendorf instead is available in the Barbeyrac French editions of De officio hominis et civis (Amsterdam: P. de Coupe, 1718) and of De iure naturae et gentium (Amsterdam: P. de Coupe, 1734); of Barbeyrac there are also a copy of Recueil de discours sur diverses matières importantes (Amsterdam: P. Humbert, 1731) and of Traité du jeu, ou l’on examine les principales questions de droit naturel et de morale qui ont du rapport a cette matière (Amsterdam: P. Humbert, 1737). For the Genevan editions of Montesquieu’s works see footnote 17. Among modern authors present in this beautiful library, I should at least mention Bolingbroke, Burlamaqui, Bijnkershoek, Condillac, Diderot, Domat, Heineccius, Hume, Locke, Melon, Newton, Voltaire and Wolff.

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clear his thinking, on the rights of neutrals in particular, declaring that if the neutrals were given the “faculty of judging, and of acting in consequence of their judgement in favour of the party they believed to be the injured one, then wars, miseries and injustices would multiply ad infinitum, which is something absolutely contrary to natural law”46. Distancing himself from Grotius in this specific argument,47 and drawing attention to the total impartiality of neutrals, Buondelmonti continued to speak on behalf of the interests of the Tuscan ruling class which, mindful of their small state’s uniqueness and knowing how it operated, had always considered it best, as well as economically advantageous, for it to retain the status of neutrality. Buondelmonti used the modern natural law theories corroborated by his reading of Montesquieu, and thus rendered more specific and realistic, to oppose the self-interest of states and the dynastic despotism of his time. For him the laws of “good government”, which all his major works recommended to sovereigns, include both respect for the liberties of subjects and – perhaps in a more pressing way – the duty of guaranteeing them peace through a wise international policy based on diplomatic relations and respect for treaties. Stare pactis was not only a rule considered foundational by theorists of natural law, but additionally, for various members of the Tuscan ruling class, such as Antinori, Averani and Buondelmonti, it was in some way the guarantee that in the sphere of inter-state relations arbitrary power and brute force would not prevail.

45. Ibid., 10-11; the previous quotations should be referred to pages 8-10. 46. Ibid., 11. 47. Tara Helfman, “Neutrality, the Law of Nations, and the Natural Law Tradition: A Study of the Seven Years’ War”, Yale Journal of International Law 30 (2005): 549-586.

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From a right of war to a right of peace: Martin Hübner’s contribution to the reflection on neutrality in the eighteenth century Eric Schnakenbourg

Introduction From the sixteenth century onwards, the lot of neutrals in wartime featured as a recurring topic in the writings of the law of nations. The reflection was given greater weight in the eighteenth century by the works of Cornelius van Bynkershoek and Emer de Vattel, but it was only in the 1750s that the first book dedicated exclusively to the rights of neutrals was published. This was the work of the Danish jurist Martin Hübner (1723-1795), apparently a precursor in this field, but someone whose writings have yet to be the subject of serious investigation. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Danish historian Fredrik Bajer wrote three articles on Hübner’s long stay abroad from 1752 to 17651 and, more recently, Koen Stapelbroek included Hübner in a study of the cosmopolitan reflection and of the means of overcoming the predicaments of modern economic and political competition in the pursuit of global prosperity.2 Though it remains unstudied, Hübner’s contribution to the development of the reflection on neutrality can be examined, and evaluated, by using two sources. The first is his correspondence with the Danish minister of Foreign affairs, Johann Hartvig Ernst von Bernstorff,3 and the second is his own Essai sur le droit naturel (in two volumes published in 1757-1758) and, most importantly, his De la Saisie des Batimens Neutres ou du Droit qu’ont les Nations Belligérantes 1. Fredrik Bajer, “Af Martin Hübners breve i den ledreborgske håndskriftsamling”, Personalhistorisk Tidsskrift 4 (1903): 52-72; “Les entrevues de Martin Hübner avec le duc de Choiseul en 1759”, Revue d’Histoire Diplomatique 18 (1904): 408-424; “Fra Martin Hübners rejseår 17521765”, Historisk Tidsskrift 7 (1904-1905): 100-110. 2. Koen Stapelbroek, “Universal Society, Commerce and the Rights of Neutral Trade: Martin Hübner, Emer de Vattel and Ferdinando Galiani” in: Universalism in International Law and Political Philosophy, eds. Petter Korkman and Virpi Mäkinen (COLLeGIUM: Studies Across Disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences 4 (2008), 63-89, http://www.helsinki.fi/collegium/ e-series/volumes/volume_4/04_stapelbroek_2008_4.pdf 3. RA, TKUA, Alm. Del, Realia, 3-015, “Martin Hübners rejser” (1753-1764).

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d’arrêter les Navires des Peuples Amis (1759). These sources help us to understand the distinctiveness of his way of reasoning, the premise of which was a particular approach to the idea of neutrality. It should also be borne in mind that in order to assess Hübner’s contribution to the emergence of the modern conception of neutrality, the study of his thought on the rights and duties of neutrals should be placed in the context of a reflection on the law of nations at the time of the Seven Years’ War. The principles of natural right, the basis of Hübner’s reflection on neutrality In 1752 Martin Hübner left Denmark for a stay abroad lasting seven years, the main part of which (1754-1759) he spent in Paris where he paid increasing attention to trade and political economy. Thus it was that in a letter to Bernstorff at the beginning of 1757,4 the second year of the Seven Years War, he made his first observations on neutrality. He discussed a supposed convention concluded between Spain on the one hand, and France and England on the other,5 by which the belligerents pledged to respect the Spanish flag under which ships were allowed to transport enemy cargo, contraband excepted. Hübner observed that, because this agreement conformed to the principles of the law of nations, it was not necessary, yet he acknowledged that the recurrent menace of privateers could justify the precaution. Even so, he estimated that the progress of Spanish trade in the Mediterranean Sea would always be limited by the permanent state of war with the Barbary states (Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli), but the Danes, who had just signed a treaty with the Sublime Porte,6 had no need to fear this threat anymore, whereas they did have reason to fear the English and the French navies. This analysis combined legal considerations, diplomatic reflections and economic matters, and this way of approaching the question of neutral trade as a whole, looking at it from different points of view, is the hallmark of Hübner which characterised all his works. Hübner’s first publication on neutrality appeared in his Essai sur l’histoire du droit naturel. One of his goals was to denounce Hobbes’s conception of hu4. Hübner to Bernstorff, 3 February 1757, RA, TKUA, Alm. Del, Realia, 3-015. 5. From 1755, Abreu, the Spanish ambassador to London, tried to obtain an acknowledgement of the principle of ‘free ships, free goods’ from the British Government, according to Article 23 of the Anglo-Spanish Treaty of 1667. The English refused so as to avoid creating a precedent for other neutrals. In October 1756, the British Government issued new orders to its privateers not to seize Spanish ships unless they carried contraband. In effect, these orders were a concession on the covering of cargo by the flag. Jean O. McLachlan, “The Uneasy Neutrality. A Study of Anglo-Spanish Disputes over Spanish Ships Prized 1756-1759”, Cambridge Historial Journal 6 (1938): 56-61; and Richard Pares, Colonial Blockade and Neutral Rights, 1739-1763 (Philadelphia: Porcupine Press, 1975), 286-287. 6. On this treaty see Dan Andersen, “Denmark’s Treaty with the Sublime Porte in 1756”, Scandinavian Journal of History 17 (1992): 145-166.

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manity which made “war of all against all” the natural state of all men.7 Hübner believed, on the contrary, in the natural sociability of humankind: “incontestably the natural situation of civilian societies is fundamentally a peaceful situation & and a state of mutual agreement”,8 and since each power had to safeguard its own interests, a means of regulating international coexistence based on the imperative rules of natural right had to be found. Natural right, he held, was an ideal “which does not teach us what men are, it teaches us what sane reason would like them to do”.9 There was a moral exigency for sovereigns to restrain their tendency to place national self-interest before an acceptance of the rule of natural law which benefited all humanity.10 The law of nations fulfils the horizon d’attente of the Enlightenment since the observance of its rules should allow the furtherance of public happiness. Thus Hübner established a system in which each European power could protect its own interests while living at peace with all others. This was the ideological framework of the fifteen-page interpolation on neutrality which Hübner included in the second volume of his Essai sur l’histoire du droit naturel. In this he claimed that the rights and duties of neutral powers lay at the centre of the sociability of the European states since they concerned the obligation of all to avoid anything that might prolong war, thus delaying the restoration of the peace that is the natural state of international relations. He accepted that it was not permissible for neutrals to enter a blockaded harbour or to deliver armaments and ordnance to the warring nations,11 but this interdict had to be counterbalanced with the intrinsic entitlement of each pacific state to export its national produce and promote its sea trade in order to ensure its economic security. Neutrals had to live in wartime as they lived in peacetime, apart from the above-mentioned exceptions, which was why they were free to transport any innocuous merchandise to belligerents.12 Hübner also considered the tension that existed between the self-interest of each power and the universal principles of the law of nations. According to him, the objective of the English seizures of neutral ships was not only a temporary reduction of trade with their enemy, in the context of a particular conflict, but also the lasting reduction of all navies that were potential rivals in international commerce, to be achieved by the misuse of the right of war. These few pages on neutrality seemed to have attracted attention for they were republished in the November 1759 issue of the Journal de commerce (pages 39-66) under the heading “Reflexions impartiales sur le droit des nations 7. Ian M. Wilson, The influence of Hobbes and Locke in the shaping of the concept of sovereignty in eighteenth century France, (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1973), 187-188; and Yves Glaziou, Hobbes en France au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: PUF, 1973), 65-66. 8. Martin Hübner, Essai sur le droit naturel, vol. 2, (London: 1758) 170. 9. Ibid., 186. 10. Stapelbroek, “Universal Society, Commerce and the Rights of Neutral Trade”, 66-67. 11. Hübner, Essai sur le droit naturel, vol. 2, 118-120. 12. Ibid., 124-129.

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belligerantes de saisir les batimens neutres”. The line of arguments and the examples were the same – sometimes word for word – as the original. At that time, Hübner seems to have given much thought to the question of neutrality. In a letter of April 1758 he told of how a book on “the belligerents’ right to seize the neutral ships” was one of his chief projects13 and the next year he published his masterpiece: De la saisie des batimens neutres. De la saisie des batimens neutres: a global system of neutrality In the opening discourse of his book, Hübner revealed that he had received compliments for his article in the Journal de Commerce from “very intelligent and very learned persons”. It was this that induced him to make a written study dealing specifically with the topic of neutral trade, an undertaking that was to last two years14. To him this work seemed necessary on account of the prevailing ignorance on the respective prerogatives of belligerents and neutrals. He had the ambition that his book could be “useful to a large number of persons, and above all to those who are working in the business; either in the administration or in the negociations, either in the maritime justice, in the prize courts, or in the Admiralty courts”.15 Thus he was determined to write a book different from those of his predecessors, and especially of Grotius whose writings he deemed to be obfuscatory because of his confusing, heavy erudition.16 His desire to produce a useful book has to be placed in the specific context of the mid-eighteenth century, a time when jurists took great care when translating legal theories for practical application, as Paul Hazard noted.17 Principles based on the authority of religion or the ancients to be used as references when organising the interstate system were no longer accepted. Reason, the inspiration of natural right and the universal law of nations, became the base on which a society of European nations was founded. Linked to this approach was the general conviction that the law was a path to the betterment of the world, given that it safeguarded every nation. Hübner believed that the law of nations, like the civil law of the people, provided the means by which to resolve the tensions resulting from the confrontation between a state’s natural bias towards self-interest and the necessary equity on which the sociability of nations was based.18 This conception of what life between nations ought to be was a characteristic of the Enlightenment, in which Hübner was fully integrated as a “Citizen of the World. I consider all 13. Bajer, “Af Martin Hübners breve i den ledreborgske håndskriftsamling”, 67. 14. Martin Hübner, De la saisie des batimens neutres ou du Droit qu’ont les Nations Belligérantes d’arrêter les Navires des Peuples Amis (The Hague: 1759), vol. 1, iii. 15. Ibid., viii-ix. 16. Hübner, Essai sur le droit naturel, vol. 2, 37-39. 17. Paul Hazard, La pensée européenne au XVIIIe siècle: de Montesquieu à Lessing, (Paris: Fayard, 1963): 148. 18. Hübner, Saisie des batimens neutres, vol. 1, 7.

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men like my Brothers, and I would like them to be fair which would make them happy. If it is sometimes up to me to plead a cause it is always the one of Humanity as a whole, expecially when it seems outrageous to me; or that of Peace and neutrality”.19 Hübner started his work with a study of war. In accordance with its ability, each state could take whatever measures it chose to defeat its enemy, providing the neutrals suffered no damage as a result. Seen as a particular method of settling issues between two states, war should not go beyond its prescribed limit and, while it ran its course, the neutral states maintained their natural right to security and to the quest of prosperity in the usual way. Peace was seen as the rule and war as an exception subordinate to it. Hübner limited war to the field with which it was directly concerned, and thus considered it to have no connection with neutrals who were free to enjoy the same relations with the belligerents that they enjoyed in peacetime.20 From that perspective, treaties of neutrality, if not actually pointless, were measures of excessive caution given that when a war broke out the non-belligerent, by the very fact of his status, acquired the prerogatives of neutrality.21 Hübner went further on that point than most if his predecessors who instead devoted more attention to the treaties. For the German jurist Textor, at the end of the seventeenth century, treaties were insecure concessions granted by the belligerents to the neutrals in the knowledge that they could be withdrawn under certain circumstances.22 For their part, Christian Wolff and Emer de Vattel stated that the natural right of any state to remain neutral could be reinforced by concluding treaties of neutrality with the belligerent in order to clarify their mutual rights and responsibilities.23 Contrarily, Hübner wanted to determine those points by the application of the universal law of nations and, by consequence, he deemed them to be naturally granted to any neutral power independently of any particular treaty. There were four obligatory duties for a neutral: first, he must not supply a belligerent with anything that enabled him to sustain his war effort; second, he must renounce all communications with blockaded or besieged places; third, he must refuse to accede to the request from a belligerent to supply the sort of merchandise that he is not able to transport to his opponent; fourth, he must strive to restore peace as quickly as possible. As well as having these duties, the neutrals had two rights: a safeguard from any war damage, and a possibility to make reprisals against a belligerent who injured his rights, especially by dint of his privateers.24 Free trade was the main prerogative of neutrals, for they should be 19. Ibid., xvi-xviii. 20. “Neutrality consist of complete inaction concerning war and in an exact and perfect fairness”, Hübner, Saisie des batimens neutres, vol. 1, 31. 21. Ibid., 32-33 and 37. 22. Johan Wolfgang Textor, Synopsis juris gentium, 1680, Basel, English translation, (Washington: Carnegie Institution, 1916): 282. 23. Christian Wolff, Principes du droit de la nature et des gens, vol. III, (Amsterdam: MarcMichel Rey, 1758): 303 and Emer de Vattel, Le droit des gens ou principes de la loi naturelle, appliqués à la conduite &aux affaires des Nations & des souverains, vol. 2, (London: 1758): 81. 24. Hübner, Saisie des batimens neutres, vol. 1, 40-49.

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able to sail their ships and ply their trade peacefully without interfering with the conduct of the war. Hübner rejected the argument that the transportation of innocent merchandise could help the weaker belligerent on the seas because it made the stronger power dependent on the neutral carrier who could, if he so wished, raise his conveyance charges.25 Hübner began his defence of the covering of a ship’s cargo by its flag from a philosophical point of view: according to him, any argument that sought to justify the seizure of neutral ships in the name of the “hostile infection” must hinge on bilateral agreements and could never be supported by the universal principles of the law of nations. Then he adopted a more legal perspective by admitting the right of a belligerent to search neutral ships in conformity with his need to distinguish friend from enemy. The search had to be limited to verifying the ship’s neutral status and therefore could not extend to its cargo. Seeing as being suspect was equivalent to culpability, to escape the seizure the captain of the inspected vessel had to prove in an incontestable way his neutrality. Once the inspection was over, the neutrals who “attend to their ordinary business as in peacetime, without any worry about the others’ quarrels”26 could continue their mercantile activities provided they did not carry contraband. Hübner devoted a chapter specifically to this question which was a sensitive issue in the relations between Britain and the neutral powers in general and with the Scandinavian nations in particular. The British considered that any material directly or indirectly useful for the French war effort should be treated as contraband and accordingly could not be carried on neutral ships.27 In expressing his view on the subject, Hübner recalled the three-category distinction made by Hugo Grotius in his De jure pacis et belli (1625): first, military merchandise; second, goods usable in both war and peacetime (such as food supplies or naval stores); and third, all goods of no military use.28 Considering the rights and duties of neutrals, Hübner looked at the goods of the first category as always liable to sequestration, the “first class contraband”, whereas those of the second class, the “second class contraband”, were only considered contraband if they were being transported direct to a blockaded port or a belligerent army. This distinction did not really solve the problem seeing as Hübner did not define what constituted being transported direct. Did it mean to an arsenal? Or near to one? If the latter, how was the distance to estimated? Others authors, like the Dutch Bynkershoek and the Spanish Abreu, gave clearer answers. They deduced from the main international treaties that naval stores and food supplies were exempt 25. Ibid., 70-71. 26. Ibid., 147. 27. Heinz S. K. Kent, War and Trade in Northern Seas. Anglo-Scandinavian economic relations in the mid-eighteenth century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 86 and 139. 28. Hübner, Saisie des batimens neutres, vol. 1, 181-184; and Hugo Grotius, Le droit de la guerre et de la paix (Paris: 1625) (Paris: PUF, 2005), 584-585.

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from the category of contraband.29 Vattel, however, denied neutrals the right to carry any goods (such as naval stores) which could help an enemy to be “formidable”.30 Although at variance, these opinions at least fulfilled their purpose, in contrast to that of Hübner. The Danish jurist’s vagueness on the nature of contraband stemmed from his initial premise that clauses in treaties between states could not be used to nullify a right based on the law of nations. Thus his desire to fix the neutrals’ rights only on natural law displayed its limits, which was probably why he revisited the question of contraband in the second volume of De la saisie des batimens neutres where he studied the cases in which a neutral ship and its cargo were liable to seizure. This time, he had a clearer opinion which however differed only slightly from his earlier one: “neutrals ships are not liable to seizure for carrying contraband of the second class”. But Hübner acknowledged that when a country was at war, it had perforce to prevent its enemy receiving naval stores and so, in such a case, it was legitimate for the belligerent to seize such merchandise on condition that he compensated the captain.31 The re-purchase of the cargo therefore allowed the reconciling of the belligerent’s right to prevent delivery of strategic supplies to his enemy (provided they were not military ordnance which in any case were subject to sequestration) with the neutral’s right to export his national produce without hindrance. Nonetheless, the possibility of re-purchase should be restricted to exceptional cases and not be systematically adopted in the way the British admiralty had done.32 As he pointed out in his Essai sur le droit naturel, Hübner considered the seizure of neutral ships and their cargo not only in relation to the special constraints of war, but also in the wider perspective of international rivalry, the “Jealousy of Trade”.33 He explained the impounding of a hundred neutral ships in British harbours during the War of the Austrian Succession by “an excessive envy to thrive and develop their trade by violent means at the expense of everyone”.34 When he was in London in 1757, he noticed that a great number of neutral ships were held by the English navy under trivial pretexts. The nonbelligerents were thus forced to agree to deals with England in order to protect their flag. In reality, the problem lay in the relation between the flag of the ship and its cargo. According to Vattel, the nature of the merchandise depended upon 29. Cornelis van Bijnkershoek, Les deux livres des Questions de droit public, 1737, Leyden, ed. Dominique Gaurier (Limoges: Presses universitaires de Limoges, 2010): 121-122 and Felix Joseph de Abreu y Bertodano, Traité juridico-politique sur les prises maritimes et sur les moyens qui doivent concourir pour rendre ces prises légitimes, (Paris: veuve Delaguette, 1758): 140, first Spanish edition 1746, Madrid. 30. Vattel, Droit des gens, vol. 2, 87. 31. Hübner, Saisie des batimens neutres, vol. 2, 104-105 and 116-117. 32. Kent, War and trade in Northern Seas, 138-139. 33. Istvan Hont, Jealousy of Trade. International Competition and the Nation-State in Historical Perspective (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), 53. 34. Hübner, Saisie des batimens neutres, vol. 1, 205.

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the nationality of its owner,35 but for Hübner it was under the protection of the sovereign on whose territory it was stored. Even if several treaties acknowledged the ‘free ships, free goods’ principle, the Danish jurist, in keeping with this method, always looked for an explanation according to natural right. The comparison between a neutral ship and any other neutral place was for him a deciding factor: just as a neutral territory should be preserved from damage caused by belligerents, so the cargo of a neutral ship should be preserved from confiscation. The belligerents had to content themselves with establishing the neutral nature of the ship but could not go beyond examining its papers. Furthermore, as he wrote it in his second volume of his Essai sur le droit naturel, Hübner argued that the laws of universal justice upheld the right of each nation to safeguard its prosperity, including those nations whose main activity was maritime trade.36 In his quest for a delicate balance between belligerents and neutrals, Hübner devoted the longest chapter of his book to the issue of the inspection of ships, the issue which lay right at the point where the interests of both met. If he admitted that, within the context of hunting their enemy, belligerents were allowed to board neutral ships, they could do so only to ensure that its flag was not a camouflage but denoted the true status of the vessel. He added however that nothing less than “a clear suspicion” as to the authenticity of the papers could justify a “quick check-out on the ship and on its crew”.37 The only lawful justification for seizure was either the obviousness of a belligerent ship being disguised as a neutral or, despite the ship flying of an honest flag, its carriage of contraband goods. But in all cases, proof of neutrality should be obtained only by the examination of the ship’s documentation and not by the inspection of the goods in its hold. However, Hübner did not ignore how difficult it was to prove the true ownership of a ship and its cargo because the simple expedient of sailing under a neutral flag implied that ascertaining its real identity by examination of its papers was only a vain hope. The boarding of a neutral ship was just a transitional moment, because the vessel’s ultimate fate depended on the judgment of prize courts which had to consider whether or not it had been captured lawfully. To return a verdict, the court had to have due authority and had to state the legal basis of its decision: texts or jurisprudence. It was precisely on these points that Hübner, in the name of the “principles of the code of humanity and of the sovereign nations”,38 criticised the practices of the prize courts by taking as an example the affair of the 35. “It is not the place where one thing is which determines the nature of another, but the character of the person to whom it belongs; things belonging to neutral persons, which happen to be in an enemy’s country or on board an enemy’s ships, are to be distinguished from those which belong to the enemy”, Vattel, Droit des gens, vol. 2, 26. 36. See Hübner, Essai sur le droit naturel, 128-129 and Saisie des batimens neutres, vol. 1, 216-271. 37. Hübner, Saisie des batimens neutres, vol. 1, 239. 38. Ibid., vol. 2, 21.

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Silesian loan which opposed England and Prussia at the end of the War of the Austrian Succession.39 On the occasion of this disagreement over the seizures of his subjects’ ships, Frederick II denounced the double incompetency of the English courts. Firstly, they gave a judgment on a capture which took place on the high sea: which is to say, outside of their jurisdiction. Secondly, by their nature, such cases came within the competence of the states and should therefore be settled by diplomatic process.40 Hübner shared this position and suggested the creation of mixed courts with judges from the sides of both parties – the captor and the captive – in order to settle the fate of each ship. In every case the captor would have to provide evidence of the neutral’s fault, either by showing a flaw in his documentation or by proving unlawful conduct, like the running of a blockade.41 The last part of Hübner’s book considers the key issues previously mentioned (the right of seizure, contraband, the covering of cargo by the flag, the right to inspect neutral ships, the competency of prize courts, and the judgement of lawful prize) in the clauses of the treaties concluded between the European powers. This reintroduction of the conventional right following an exhaustive reflection based on natural right, allowed Hübner to emphasise once again the subordination of the first one to the second by examining the content of the agreements between the states and the universal principles of the law of nations.42 He declared that observance of the treaties was obligatory, even if not all of their clauses turned out to be favourable. Hübner’s participation in the general reflection on the rights of neutrals De la Saisie des Batimens Neutres was published in 1759 at the time of the Seven Years’ War in which the importance of the question of the belligerents’ and 39. The clauses of the treaty of Breslau (11 June 1742) which reappeared in the treaty of Dresden (25 December 1745) by which Maria-Theresa ceded Silesia to Prussia, stipulated the transfer to Frederick II of a debt formerly taken out by the Emperor Charles VI in England. In order to protest against the condemnation of the Prussian ships by the English courts and to compensate his subjects for the losses they had suffered, the King of Prussia refused to repay the Silesian loan. The affair was finally settled in 1756 by the payment of financial compensation from Britain to Prussia, see Ernest Satow, The Silesian loan and Frederick the Great (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1915). 40. Exposition des motifs fondés sur le droit des gens universellement reçu, qui ont déterminé le Roi de Prusse, sur les instances réitérées de ses sujets commerçants par mer, à mettre arrêt sur les capitaux que Sa Majesté avoit promis de rembourser aux sujets de la Grande-Bretagne en vertu des traités de paix de Breslau et de Dresde, et à procurer sur lesdits capitaux à ses sujets susmentionnés le dédommagement des pertes que leur ont causées les déprédations et les violences des armateurs anglois exercées contre eux en pleine mer (Berlin: 1752), in Satow, Silesian loan and Frederick the Great, 66-68. 41. Hübner, Saisie des batimens neutres, vol. 2, 84-88. 42. Ibid., 131-132.

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the neutrals’ respective rights at sea became clear to all, as testified by several publications of the day. These were: Felix Joseph de Abreu y Bertodano, Traité juridico-politique sur les prises maritimes et sur les moyens qui doivent concourir pour rendre ces prises légitimes, 1758, a translation of the Spanish version of 1746; Charles Jenkinson, A discourse on the conduct of the government of Great Britain, in respect to neutral nations, 1758; Emer de Vattel, le Droit des gens, 1758; Joseph Marriott, The Case of the Dutch Ships considered, London, 1759; Richard Lee, A treatise of captures in War, 1759, a translation of Cornelius van Bynkershoek’s Quaestiones Juris Publici, 1737. What, then, in this general context, was Hübner’s contribution to the general reflection on the rights of neutrals? The short answer is that there were no major new ideas on neutrality in Hübner’s writings, and some thoughts that he articulated had been expressed centuries earlier. For example, he followed an ancient tradition that came out of the Hanseatic cities which, since the Middle Ages, advocated the principle of ‘free ships, free goods’, as well as the idea that the status of contraband was conditional on the ship’s intended destination. Hübner could also be considered as an heir to the Swedish author Johann Gröning who published Navigatio libera in 1693. In this work Gröning denounced the seizure of neutral ships by the English and Dutch on the pretext that continued trade with France had been forbidden by London and The Hague. His argument was in line with the natural right of neutrals to keep trading with the belligerents, blockaded ports apart.43 Even if Gröning’s reflections were less developed than those of Hübner, their basis was much the same.44 In his book Hübner also made mention of a Prussian memorandum written in 1752 at the time of a disagreement between London and Berlin on the fate of the Prussian ships seized during the War of the Austrian Succession. It raised three important points: firstly, the belligerents’ limited right to search neutral vessels, which allowed them to do no more than verify the ships’ papers in accordance with the ‘free ships free good’ principle; secondly, the need to define the nature of cargo in the strictest sense, stating in particular what was contraband and what was military material; thirdly, given the incompetence of the prize courts, the necessity of settling the case of a sequestered ship by means of negotiation between states.45 The Prussians also defended the ‘territorialisation’ of ships as other thinkers, such as Veron de Forbonnais, had done.46 43. James Reddie, Researches, Historical and Critical in Maritime International Law, vol. 1, (Edinburgh: Thomas Clark, 1844), 134-139. 44. Even if Hübner did not quote Gröning as one of his sources, he was mentioned in a footnote to a letter sent by Pufendorf to the Swedish jurist concerning the freedom of navigation in wartime, Hübner, Saisie des batimens neutres, vol. 1, 66. 45. Exposition des motifs fondés sur le droit des gens universellement reçu, in Satow, Silesian loan and Frederick the Great, 56-67. 46. “It is a natural principle which derives from the Law of Nations that the neutral flag neutralises the cargo, since the ship is a part of the state-property, a colony of the nation which has fitted it out and sent it”, “Mémoire de M. de Forbonnais”, 1756, RA, TKUA, Frankrig, vol. 301.

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Finally, certain reservations expressed in the review of Vattel’s Droit des gens, published in May 1759 in the Journal de Commerce, showed that Hübner’s ideas were already shared by others; their author, Jacques Accarias de Sérionne,47 criticised Vattel for granting the belligerents too many entitlements and for disregarding the principles of natural right which should allow the neutrals to maintain their commerce and shipping in war as in peacetime.48 Nevertheless, even if the content of De la Saisie des Batimens Neutres can be found in other publications, the book remained a major milestone in the history of neutrality. The contribution of Hübner was not so much the ideas he articulated as the way he placed them all together in order to build a coherent framework. As he did in his Essai sur l’histoire du droit naturel, he grounded his reasoning firmly in the universal principles of the law of nations in order that he might consider neutrality in its entirety. For him those principles constituted the absolute reference for the questions that arose when reflecting on the rights and duties of neutrals and belligerents, and thus it was they that gave his thought coherence. It started from the basic idea that men were naturally sociable and desired to live together in peace; a harmonious state of relations was a prerequisite for happiness which was the end goal of everyone.49 It followed, then, that the prerogatives of belligerence should be kept subordinate to the peace which was the first and the natural condition of mankind, in the same way as the power had to withdraw when confronted to the law: “The rights of war [...] are always limited by those of peace, belonging not only to the neutral powers, but fundamentally to the whole human society”.50 With reasoning that recalled what Rousseau had written in 1762 on the “right of the strongest” in Du contrat social, Hübner added that “strength is never sufficient to give the right to impose any obligation to others. Men are not like animals. Strength does not give the authority to act as one wants”.51 Beyond the question of neutrality, Hübner drew a juridical framework in which states had to relate to one another. The echo of Hübner’s ideas The publication of Hübner’s book and the line of its arguments attracted a great deal of attention. De La saisie des Batimens Neutres was reviewed in February 1760 in the Journal de Trévoux; the writer underlined how the publication was timely and that it was needed in view of the general ignorance surround47. “Journal de Commerce”, in: Dictionnaire des journaux, 1600-1789, ed. Jean Sgard (Paris: Universitas, 1991), 577-579. 48. Journal de Commerce (May 1759), 41-60. 49. Hübner, De la saisie des batiments neutres, vol. 1, 132. 50. Ibid., vol. 2, 132. 51. Ibid., vol. 1, 126, could be compared with Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Du contrat social, book I, chapter III “Du droit du plus fort” 1762, Amsterdam, (Paris: Hatier, 1999), 13.

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ing the rights of neutral trade.52 A review in the Journal de Commerce (in the March, April and May issues of 1760) used the same tone when recommending the book to “anyone who wants to judge accurately and without bias the belligerents’ conduct towards the neutral nations, or who has to judge the fate of prizes, or those who claim them, could not find a more learned guide than M. Hübner. His book should be considered on the basis of that interesting subject, like the written reason”.53 Six years later the author of these lines, Accarias de Sérionne, heeded his own advice by summarising Hübner’s reflections in one of his books, albeit without naming him.54 However, Hübner’s ideas did not receive unanimous support. The French jurist René-Josué Valin (1695-1765), defender of the great ordinance of the Navy of 1681, denounced Hübner’s conception of the right to board and search neutral vessels (which, according to him, should have been limited to the examination of its papers) and also his support for the principle of ‘free ships, free goods’. He criticized Hübner’s method because “he firstly put forward the principles he considers as consistent, and then he draw the conclusions that suit him. This method is very inconvenient”.55 Valin then observed a contradiction in Hübner’s reflection: he acknowledged the right of a neutral sovereign to judge a prize seized on his territory, while denying the same prerogative to a belligerent prince.56 However, the harshest criticisms of Hübner, and also the most detailed, came from the English. The first was published during the War of American Independence, its anonymous author challenging from the outset Hübner’s postulate that men had a natural propensity to peace. In a logic akin to that of Hobbes’s state of nature, the author maintained that war, and not peace, was at the origin of the main changes and events in human history, and so he concluded: “Man seems born for war, rather than for peace”.57 There ensued a double denunciation of Hübner’s thought: for the assertion that every trade provided some form of rescue from its enemies, and for stretching his argument to its limits by pressing for the ‘territorialisation’ of neutral ships. Moreover, as the Danish author considered that a vessel was really a neutral territory, it followed that even the right of examining its documentation should not be allowed: after all, what sovereign would allow foreigners to set foot on his soil in order to control and inspect his subjects’ stored goods?58 52. Journal de Trévoux ou Mémoires pour l’histoire des sciences et des beaux-arts (February 1760), 393. 53. Journal de Commerce (March 1760), 89-126; (April 1760), 46-70 and (May 1760), 53-76. 54. Jacques Accarias de Serionne, Intérêts des nations de l’Europe dévelopés relativement au commerce (Leiden: 1766) vol. 2, 44-53. 55. René-Josué Valin, Traité des prises, ou Principes de la jurisprudence françoise concernant les prises qui se font sur mer…(La Rochelle: Jerôme Legier, 1763), 63. 56. Ibid., 235. 57. Doutes et questions proposées par Montanus à Batavus sur les droits de la neutralité par Hubner, avec des réflexions sur le nouveau système de la neutralité armée (London: 1781), 24-25. 58. Ibid., 24, 30-33, 46.

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The second important critic of Hübner was the English writer and politician Robert Plumer Ward who in 1801 published a treaty on the rights of neutrals and belligerents. In his response to Hübner he drew from other authors of the law of nations, such as Grotius, Bynkershoek and Vattel. Ward looked at neutrality from the belligerent’s point of view and not from the neutral one: “The question on the part of the Belligerent is not, as has grossly been supposed, whether he has a right to interfere with the Neutral; but merely whether he cannot prevent with the Neutral from interfering with him? In other words, whether, when the former extends the bounds of his trade, not with, but for the Belligerent”.59 He rejected the principle of ‘free ships, free goods’ because he accorded greater importance to the ownership of the cargo than to its means of conveyance. Ward maintained the full validity of the distinction between the flag and the cargo, in keeping with the Consolato del Mare and the conventional right.60 As well as attacking Hübner’s views, Ward also tried to discredit him by asserting that De la Saisie des Batimens Neutres was written in Paris in order to defend Danish ships seized by the French. Therefore, Hübner should be “considered as an Advocate pleading under particular instructions” and not as a reliable and objective author concerned with real rules of law.61 What stands out in the critics’ opposition to Hübner’s reflections on neutrality are the primacy reversal of war and peace, and also the practical assertion of the supremacy of the natural right principles over treaties and customs. Hübner was not just a theoretician for he stayed in London from 1761 to 1764 to fight the cause of his compatriots’ ships that had been seized by the English. Bernstorff, who was desirous to appease England in order to promote Danish shipping in the Mediterranean,62 commissioned him in 1762 to prepare a draft for a secret convention63 to be used as a reference when settling disagreements between Denmark and England regarding the rights and duties of the Danish flag. This document reveals what Hübner had to renounce in order to fulfil Bernstorff’s orders: on extending the notion of contraband, abandoning the ‘free ships, free goods’ principle, and recognising the authority of prize courts. These were the concessions that the theoretical reflection on neutrality had to make to the realpolitik of diplomacy which centred not on legal principles, but on the respective power of each state. 59. Robert Plumer Ward, A Treatise of the Relative rights and duties of belligerent and neutral powers in maritime affairs: in which the principles of armed neutralities and the opinions of Hubner and Schlegel are fully discussed (London: J. Butterworth, 1801), 4. 60. Ibid., 152. 61. Ibid., 153. The incorrect assertion which claimed that Hübner was a Danish diplomat in Paris when he wrote his book can also be found in Laurent-Basile Hautefeuille, Histoire des origines, des progrès et des variations du droit maritime international (Paris: Guillaumin, 1858), 457. 62. Kent, War and Trade in Northern Seas, 158. 63. “Plan d’une convention projettée”, Hübner, 21 April 1762, RA, TKUA, Alm. Del, Realia, 3-015.

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After returning to Denmark in 1764, Hübner played no further role in the direct defence of his country’s neutrality during the War of American Independence. But the principles he had established inspired Danish policy and were a principal constituent of the League of Armed Neutrality.64 Hübner was ahead of his time, as the French legal historian Eugène Cauchy declared when comparing his work with that of Vattel: to him they seemed to belong to two different centuries.65 But Hübner’s main contribution was probably that of going further than the matter of neutral rights in order to consider the state of neutrality as a whole. His ideas and reasoning formed a coherent system which fixed a dividing line – beyond the single question of neutral trade – between the right of war and the right of peace. He was the distant architect of the Declaration of Paris, 16 April 1856, the first real international agreement on neutrality, and as such received posthumous acknowledgment.

64. Jørgen Hornemann, Danmarks statsmand A.P. Bernstorff og hans samtid (Copenhagen: Borgen, 2001), 324. 65. Eugène Cauchy, Le droit maritime international considéré dans ses origines (Paris: Guillaumin, 1862), vol. 2, 82.

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The circulation of Vattel’s Droit des gens in Italy: the doctrinal and practical model of government Antonio Trampus

Introduction The international historiography of recent years has brought Le droit des gens, ou Principes de la loi naturelle, appliqués à la conduite et aux affaires des Nations et des Souverains (1758) by Emer de Vattel of Switzerland back to the centre of attention. This work is fundamental to understanding the evolution of the political debate, which began with the Seven Years War, on the system of international relations and the relationship between the interests of states and the interests of trade, and also related to natural law during the crisis of the ancien régime. Interpreters, be they Vattel’s contemporaries or more recent ones, have used the work in very different ways, sometimes regarding it as an effective reinterpretation of the tradition of natural law, and at other times a republican argumentation against despotism.1 What is certain, however, is that Vattel managed to offer a useful hypothesis with which to define a new function of natural law that could bring the traditions associated with Hugo Grotius and Christian Wolff into dialogue with the exigencies of the law of nations, a dialogue moreover that would lay the groundwork for a modern doctrine of the fundamental rights of individuals and states.2 1. Andrew Hurrell, “Vattel: Pluralism and its Limits”, in: Classical Theories of International Relations, eds. Ian Clark and Iver Neumann (Houndmills-New York: Palgrave, 2001), 233-255; Nicholas Grenwood Onuf, “Civitas Maxima: Wolff, Vattel and the fate of Republicanism”, American Journal of International Law 88 (1994): 287-296; David Boucher, Political Theories of International Relations. From Thucydides to the Present (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 255-268; Richard Tuck, The Rights of War and Peace. Political Thought and the International Order From Grotius to Kant (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 191-196; Albert Geouffre de Lapradelle, “Introduction” to Emer de Vattel, Le Droit des Gens ou principes de la loi naturelle appliqués à la conduite et aux affaires des nations et des souverains (Washington: Carnegie Institution, 1916), i-lv; Christoph Good, Emer de Vattel (1714-1767). Naturrechtliche Ansätze einer Menschenrechtsidee und des humanitäre Völkerrecht im Zeitalter der Aufklärung (Zurich: Dike Verlag AG, 2011). 2. Tuck, Rights of War and Peace, 191-196; Isaac Nakhimovsky, “Vattel’s Theory of the In-

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Because of these very qualities, Vattel’s work enjoyed widespread success, as is shown by its numerous editions and translations: twenty in France, ten in Britain, a dozen in the USA, as well as others in Italy, Spain and Latin America.3 The critical literature, often of high quality, has however tended to spotlight the theoretical dimension and the internal analysis of Vattel’s work, leaving some other important questions in the shade. The first relates to the different phases of the reworking and consolidation of the book. This long exercise began with the first edition that was published during the Seven Years War; it continued with the versions of the 1770s, rewritten even as the independence of the American colonies was being debated; and it finally drew to a close with the early nineteenth-century editions, during the pre- and post-Restoration period of international political balances. By contrast, the second question relates to how individual states used Vattel’s work to good effect in their political and institutional reform programmes and, also, to how it impacted on foreign policy procedure and international relations. The aim of this essay is to show what use was made of the Droit des gens in the specific context of the Italian peninsula during the eighteenth century when political conditions were almost ideal for testing the book’s hypotheses. The peninsula was very similar in some respects to Vattel’s Switzerland in so far as it was composed of small states, many of which were strongly oriented towards policies of economic and constitutional reform and the search for a new role to play on the international scene. The emergence of the constitutional state between the 1760s and the 1780s To understand the reasons for the interest and success of Vattel’s work in Italy it is important to have a clear idea of the circumstances that prevailed there during the modern era. Up to the unification of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 the peninsula was home to a number of small states, some the enduring legacies of the medieval and Renaissance eras, distributed in a fairly homogeneous way between monarchical and republican forms of government. This was the picture painted by Machiavelli in The Prince and the Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius, and which had remained largely unchanged until, in the eighteenth century, it was idealised by means of the ‘small state’ concept, seen as the model of virtue, both in international relations and in forms of government, and often associated with republicanism and the myth of ‘good governternational Order: Commerce and Balance of Power in the Law of Nations”, History of European Ideas, 33 (2007): 157-173; Richard Whatmore and Béla Kapossy, “Emer de Vattel’s Mélanges de littérature, de morale et de politique (1760)”, History of European Ideas 34 (2008): 77-103. 3. A new edition of Vattel’s first English translation (1760) is Law of Nations: Or, Principles of the Law of Nature, Applied to The Conduct and Affairs of Nations and Sovereigns, eds. Béla Kapossy and Richard Whatmore (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2009). All quotes are from this standard edition.

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ance’.4 The concept was also taken up in the late eighteenth century by Kant to resolve the confrontation between politics and morality. Indeed, in Perpetual Peace he explained that in international relations harmony between politics and morality is only possible through a federal union of small states, because only a federation that has the elimination of war as its main aim is compatible with their freedom. Accordingly, the disappearance of a small state or its absorption by a larger one is an example of poor politics and immorality. It was in the international context of the mid-eighteenth century that the works of Hume, On the Balance of Power (1752), and Mably, Principes des négociations (1757), appeared. Vattel intervened to explain that states and nations, as societies of men, have the same rights of freedom as the individual people who comprise them; they are naturally equal and – beyond their degree of power – possess all the same rights and obligations: just as a dwarf is equal in form to a giant, so a small republic cannot be considered less than a sovereign state or a powerful kingdom.5 In this way he renewed at depth the thought on the dynastic, economic and military interests that – through Pufendorf – had guided the politics of power in the modern age and placed the importance of the interests of society and its wellbeing in the foreground.6 In an age in which the debate on the purpose and usefulness of republicanism was reopened, the Droit des gens helped to make the case for the tradition of small states. Vattel’s position was even more important if one considers the conflicting opinion of Bielefeld, author of the Institutions politiques (1760) and advisor to Frederick II of Prussia, who believed the small state to be completely anachronistic in a world of large new powers. For him the only hope of survival for the small state consisted of perfect neutrality, the moderation and wisdom of its governors, and the politics of self-preservation; otherwise it would be part of a utopian world and be forced to choose, for safety’s sake, to abandon neutrality and nonalignment and to lean on the strongest. It is clear, then, that the Droit des gens was a valuable tool to employ when seeking to justify the continued existence of the small states and, more generally, for all European states which did not pursue power politics, preferring the status of neutrality. For that reason, Vattel’s work was not perceived as being only a textbook or a simple synthesis of the European natural law tradition, but assumed much greater importance. Vattel’s conception centred round the principle that defined all sovereign states as nations composed of societies of free men. Nations, or states, are po4. Maurizio Bazzoli, Il piccolo Stato nell’età moderna. Studi su un concetto della politica internazionale tra XVI e XVIII secolo (Milan: Jaca Book, 1990), 11-51; Small states in International relations, ed. Christine Ingerbritsen (Reykjavik: University of Iceland Press, 2006); Domokos Kosary, Les “petits Etats” face aux changements culturels, politiques et économiques de 1750 à 1914 (Lausanne: HU Jost, 1985); Kleinstaaten in Europa: Symposium am Liechtenstein-Institut zum Jubiläum 200 Jahre Souveränität Fürstentum Liechtenstein 1806-2006, ed. Dieter Langewi�� esche (Vaduz : Verlag der Liechtensteinischen Akademischen Gesellschaft, 2007). 5. Vattel, Law of nations, Preliminaries, § 18. 6. Nakhimovsky, “Vattel’s theory”, 157-173.

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litical bodies, each with their own interests and naturally disposed to take decisions together. The nation that becomes a state assumes the form of a moral person with its own intentions and will, and as such is able to fulfil obligations and observe rights. Each nation and each society of men united politically are, according to natural law, free and sovereign, irrespective of what degree of power or political and economic autonomy they possess. Even when they place themselves under the protection of another state, or find themselves in a situation of inequality (say, being military weak or geographically small), they still remain free and sovereign. This process is accomplished, Vattel claimed, when, in order to become relevant on the international stage, a state or nation has to become a constitutional state, with all that that entails. A constitution exists when there are laws made specifically with the public good in mind, such as those that relate to the body itself and the essence of society or the fundamental laws relating to the form of government and the organisation of powers: “those, in a word, which together form the constitution of the state, are the fundamental laws” (book 1, chap. 3, § 29). Vattel also postulated – and was perhaps the first in Europe to do so – the distinction between constituting power as political will and constituted power.7 As a consequence, “a nation has an indisputable right to form, maintain, and perfect its constitution”, while, as regards legislative powers, “the nation may intrust the exercise of it to the prince, or to an assembly; or to that assembly and the prince jointly”.8 This type of constitutional state was therefore the real subject destined to act in international politics to safeguard the natural rights of society and of individuals from within the system that presupposed the attainment of formal equality of all states, large and small. Moderation in the conduct of war (ius in bello) ensues from this, as does the notable importance attributed to the purpose of neutrality. The state must first promote the common good of its citizens, basing its authority on the consent of the governed and recognising the right of people to choose their own laws without outside interference. Needless to say, these were arguments that could be adapted to serve the reform policies of eighteenth-century Europe, in particular those aimed at advancing general wellbeing and public happiness.9 The common good of a nation, according to Vattel, was directly linked to the role of trade and political economy, which should not support politics of power but should look after the primary needs of the population, and agriculture rather than manufacturing. He believed that domestic monopolies damaged the rights of citizens, but accepted the use of monopolies 7. Vattel, Law of nations, book 1, ch. 31 and 34. 8. Emer De Vattel, Il diritto della natura e delle genti ovvero principii della legge naturale, opera recata nell’italiano da Lodovico Antonio Loschi (Lyon: 1781), vol. 1, 40. 9. Monarchism in the Age of Enlightenment. Liberty, Patriotism and Common Good, eds. John Christian Laursen, Hans Willem Blom and Luisa Simonutti (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007).

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at the international level – as a means of protecting a nation’s trade – as long as they were restricted to the need of sustaining the life of a population.10 The group of intellectuals associated with the Il Caffé magazine in Milan were among the first people in Italy to recognise the importance of this reflection. Pietro Verri, who owned the first edition of the Droit des gens used it from 1761 to 1762 in the first drafts of his Saggio della grandezza e decadenza del commercio di Milano to present an idea of trade based on free competition and the reduction of privileges and monopolies. Since the driving force of individual initiative is self-love, the art of the legislator should consist of directing the private interests of citizens towards the prosperity of the state. Vattel thus became an authoritative source for Verri’s contention that trade pursued with rigour and force never develops, but it does grow as a result of kindness, justice and good laws.11 And it was in that assessment that the notion of so-called absolute and relative goodness of laws emerged, an idea that would have great success in eighteenth-century Italy. It was, in fact, a concept dating back to the treatises of the late sixteenth century, which was revisited in the eighteenth century by Montesquieu, and was echoed in the Droit des gens. Later, in the manuscript of the second part of the Stato attuale del commercio di Milano (1762), Verri borrowed almost verbatim a long passage from Vattel that underlined the economic interdependence of European states at a time when Europe was seen as one nation made up of different families rather than a summation of different peoples.12 He used the natural law arguments found mostly in a section of the Droit des gens dealing with voluntary natural law, purposefully focussing on the first volume of Vattel’s work that discussed the principles and organisation of the state. The Milanese intellectual drew on the passages that recognised the individual’s freedom to renounce his ties with political society, and therefore with the nation, and which must force the government to commit itself to strengthening the ties within society through incentives and recognition of individual prerogatives, especially economic ones, in such a way as to allow a perceptible sense of homeland, justice and the laws’ protection.13 Trade, Verri declared, once more making a literal translation of Vattel, is a common good of the nation, irreconcilable with every kind of monopoly, and all citizens should rightfully benefit from it.14 These were assertions that apparently did not conflict with what Verri wrote about the duty of the prince to ensure the preserva10. Nakhimovski, “Vattel’s theory”, 168-170. 11. Carlo Capra, I progressi della ragione. Vita di Pietro Verri (Bologna: il Mulino, 2002), 172. The manuscript of the Saggio is in AVMi, ms. 375.2 (with reference to Vattel on fol. 119). 12. Vattel, book 1, ch. 8, § 98, quoted by Pietro Verri, “Stato attuale del commercio di Milano”, in: Opere, vol. 2/2 Scritti di economia, finanza e amministrazione, eds. Giuseppe Bognetti, Angelo Moioli, Pier Luigi Porta and Giovanna Tonelli (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2006), 203. 13. Vattel, book 1, ch. 19, § 223, ch. 6, § 73, and ch. 13, § 166, quoted by Verri, Stato attuale, 242, 244, 246. 14. Vattel, book. 1, ch. 8, § 97, and ch. 21, § 260, quoted by Verri, Stato attuale, 263, 705.

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tion of society and about the corollary of his right to raise taxes (in this case, on salt in Milan) to pay the troops and be more strongly protected against external threats or, again, when defending the right of the prince to dispose of public goods despite being simply the administrator of them and not their owner.15 As time passed Vattel remained a reference point for Verri’s work, being used in both theoretical reflection and in government practice. Between 1769 and 1770 he was cited as an authority, together with Grotius and Pufendorf, in a memorandum sent by Verri to the government of Lombardy to claim just compensation for those of its subjects whose money gifts it had arbitrarily expropriated.16 In the same period, he used Vattel in the manuscript annotations that he wrote in the margins of the edition of the Meditazioni sulla economia politica which appeared in Venice with a comment by Gianrinaldo Carli (1771). He referred to the Droit des gens yet again with regard to free trade, in the face of opposing opinions as to how extensive the “regulatory” role of the prince should be in relation to society. Carli, who inclined towards absolutist reformism, conceived the legislation and governmental control of the economy as a useful discipline tool to maintain the subjugation of the people. In contrast, Verri recalled the “spirit” of Vattel which he believed coincided with that of the “heart of the princes of Europe”, to maintain “order, peace, regularity” and “to give trade the greatest possible freedom and to remove the least amount of freedom as possible from artisans and merchants”.17 A similar positioning can be found in the Dei delitti e delle pene by Cesare Beccaria and this is not surprising; the text was drafted at the same time as Verri’s economic reflections and was a product of arguments and discussions that the two authors had shared. Beccaria held that the basis of the powers of political authority was contractual and therefore that the need to defend collective wellbeing from individual demands and abuses justified the right to punish. He again made reference to the first book of the Droit des gens in order to clarify that the legitimacy of punishments and the foundations of the right to impose penalties were grounded in the principle of the conservation of society.18 Indeed, modern commentators have rightly pointed out numerous implicit references and allusions to Vattel’s work throughout Beccaria’s essay.19 Often the use of the Droit des gens, which was again limited to the first volume, became more implicit, but it is important to note that, like Verri, Beccaria and the Il 15. Vattel, book 1, ch. 14, §§ 183 and 185, quoted by Pietro Verri, “Sul tributo del sale nello Stato di Milano”, in: Opere, vol. 2/2, 695. 16. Verri’s relation of 11 February 1770 in AVMi, no. 407, f. 420, quoted by Capra, I progressi della ragione, 311. 17. Annotazioni fatte al libro intitolato Meditazioni sulla economia politica con alcune brevi osservazioni, manuscript in AVMi, no. 321, f. 14. See also Franco Venturi, Settecento riformatore, V/1, L’Italia dei Lumi (Turin: Einaudi, 1987), 552. 18. Vattel, book 1, ch. 13, § 171, quoted by Cesare Beccaria, Dei delitti e delle pene, in: Opere, critical edition by Gianni Francioni, (Milan: Mediobanca, 1984), vol. 1, § 11. 19. Gianni Francioni, “Nota al testo”, in: Beccaria, Dei delitti e delle pene, 215-368.

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Caffé group used Vattel to adhere to a theory of sovereignty that, because of its roots in natural law, appeared superficially to offer support to the enlightened despotism and absolutism of the Habsburgs, but in reality prepared the way for a profound renewal of society. It was via this route that, through the translations of the Dei delitti e delle pene, the Droit des gens gained a new wide readership in Spain, and many admirers of Beccaria clamoured for the abolition of the death penalty, endorsing the most human Vattel. Amongst them was the lawyer from Valtellina, Alberto De Simoni, author of Del furto e sua pena (1776).20 The diffusion of Vattel’s work in Lombardy then and in the following years has been well documented: for instance, lawyers of the Fiscal College used it when, on 26 March 1776, they responded to Kaunitz’s request for their view on the advisability of abolishing torture.21 In the 1780s Vattel’s success added to the consequences of the American Revolution caused the attention of Italian culture to move more towards his reflections on the structure of society, on the nature of nations and the rights of the people who comprised them. In this sense the Droit des gens is also to be found in the Scienza della legislazione by Gaetano Filangieri. The clearest references, albeit not explicit, are contained in the fourth volume devoted to criminal law (1781-1782), where the ideas of Vattel emerge in relation to the question of proportionality between punishment and crime,22 of infamy and crimes against the state.23 Filangieri introduced a particular category of crimes, namely those towards society and the state made up of citizens. The words of the Neapolitan thinker were entirely in keeping with Vattel: “Every civil society supposes the existence of a constitution and of a legal entity that represents sovereignty. Whatever this constitution may be, whoever this representative of sovereignty is, every newborn citizen is charged with the duty to preserve unharmed the constitution of the government and to defend the legal entity that represents sovereignty”.24 This was a language taken up throughout the Italian peninsula thanks to the extraordinary spread of Scienza della legislazione, which revealed an evolutionary use of Vattel’s work, more in line with the need to justify and legitimise the political changes made during the crisis of the ancien régime. There was a similar trace of Vattel in, for example, the Italian manuscript translation of an ar20. Alberto De Simoni, Del furto e sua pena, trattato con alcune osservazioni generali in materia criminale (Lugano: Agnelli, 1776), 13; Renato Pasta, “Beccaria tra giuristi e filosofi: aspetti della sua fortuna in Toscana e nell’Italia centrosettentrionale”, in: Cesare Beccaria tra Milano e l’Europa, eds. Sergio Romagnoli and Gian Domenico Pisapia (Milan: Cariplo, 1990), 515. 21. Adriano Cavanna, La codificazione penale in Italia. Le origini lombarde (Milan: Giuffrè, 1987), 101. 22. Gaetano Filangieri, La scienza della legislazione. Edizione critica, vol. 4, Delle leggi criminali. De’ delitti e delle pene, eds. Gerardo Tocchini and Antonio Trampus (Venice: Edizioni della Laguna, 2004), 138. 23. Ibid., 43 and 159. 24. Ibid., 159.

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ticle entitled ‘Troubles de la République de Boulogne’ published in 1782 in the Journal des gens du monde in Frankfurt. It concerned the opponents to the court of the Pope, making reference to the “fundamental constitution of government” and the freedom of Bologna – free “as are the modern nations”. Even more explicit is Pietro Verri, in the capacity of a democrat and supporter of the Convention of Paris, who in 1792, just after the Revolution, wrote: “Vattel’s theories seemed true to me thirty years ago and I now persevere in the same opinion. No great change has ever occurred without a great shock and much disorder”.25 Small and medium-sized Italian states in the international politics of the 1770s and 1780s While in Italy in the 1760s and the early 1770s the use of the Droit des gens appeared to be substantially limited to the section on theories of sovereignty, which were useful for the study of internal dynamics as a function of reforms and of a renewal of their constitutional structure, the utilisation of Vattel changed at the end of that period, becoming more focused on issues of international politics. This marked a turning point in Vattel’s fortunes that was undoubtedly due to the great events of international politics caused primarily by the end of the Seven Years War and the birth of the United States of America, which also coincided with a new edition of the Droit des gens published in 1777. This was also the era of intense diplomatic efforts that changed the international balance of power and accompanied the drafting of the treaties of 1778-1779 between the United States and France, between Spain and Portugal, and the treaty of Teschen. Up to this time, Italian interest for the part of the Droit des gens relating to international relations was either slight or totally absent. A notable exception was an article published by Alessandro Verri in il Caffè (no. 32, 1766) which contained a reflection on the system of international politics and the legitimacy of wars of conquest. Alessandro Verri (who had pronounced legal interests and had written about Grotius) eulogised Vattel at length, describing him as one of the first writers to add depth to international political science by explaining “the true interests of nations”. He thus used Vattel to criticise Machiavelli’s political realism and to support the need for an international methodology which used wellbeing and trade, and not the force of arms, as the criteria for estimating the greatness of states. Restating Vattel almost word for word, he declared that Europe had already become one great nation in which there must no longer be a place for international intrigues, dynastic interests and the ambition of conquest.26 Another fairly isolated echo of Vattel’s work (though not a specific 25. Capra, Progressi della ragione, 562-563. 26. Alessandro Verri, “Di alcuni sistemi del pubblico diritto”, in: Il Caffè, no. 32 (1766); reprint in: Il Caffè 1764-1766, ed. Gianni Francioni and Sergio Romagnoli, vol. 2 (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 19982), 736-739.

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mention) can be found in the Lezioni di commercio (1768) by Antonio Genovesi, who addressed the problem of the function of the small state, explaining that small political bodies manage to survive only precariously and invited consideration of what role could be played by a medium-sized state (medio Stato). Evidently he had in mind the Kingdom of Naples which, though territorially large, was hardly a power in the international arena. Through Vattel, therefore, Genovesi adapted the theory of equality among nations to medium-sized states characterised by a reasonable ratio of population to the “right territorial extension”, as indicated by contemporary populationist theories.27 Ten years after the era of Genovesi and the Il Caffè group, and faced with the consequences of the American Revolution, many of the protagonists in those debates now occupied government positions in Italy and were busy directing the activities of princes and republican governments. This throws light on the new season in the success of Vattel’s work in the Italian peninsula as well as the more frequent publication of a series of works that took a closer look at the question of relations between states and nations, from the Jus publicum by Giovanni Maria Lampredi (1778) to the Scienza della legislazione by Filangieri (1780), and from the Italian translation of Vattel (1781) up to the essay by Ferdinando Galiani on Dei doveri de’ principi neutrali (1782). The Neapolitan context had apparently been favourable to the reception and discussion of the theories of the Droit des gens and natural law,28 as the writings of Genovesi showed. Vattel was used by Michele de Jorio in Naples in 1781 for the drafting of a project for a maritime code and then, in the Istruzioni particolari del Codice, he openly availed himself of Vattel’s preface to explain that the law was compulsory for nations, political society and individuals. According to Jorio, Vattel’s work was invaluable because in it he had not only applied the ideas he had taken from Christian Wolff to the actual behaviour of nations and rulers, but had also demonstrated how the principles of natural law were applicable – in addition to the public law of individual nations and among nations – even to the arts, agriculture and trade. Moreover, De Jorio opined, the lucidity of Droit des gens helped to identify the sources from which the rules of those highly important themes were derived.29 Ferdinando Galiani made a notable reference to Vattel in his De’ doveri dei principi neutrali (1782): he acknowledged that Vattel had grasped the importance of the issue of neutrality yet he rebuked him for keeping the discourse in general terms without straying too far from Grotius, Wolff and Coccejus, and 27. Antonio Genovesi, Delle lezioni di commercio o sia di economia civile, con Elementi del commercio, ed. Maria Luisa Perna (Naples: Istituto italiano per gli studi filosofici, 2005), 291 (part 1, ch. 1, § 31). 28. La ricezione di Grozio a Napoli nel Settecento, ed. Vittorio Conti (Florence: Centro editoriale toscano, 2002). 29. Il Codice marittimo del 1781 di Michele de Jorio per il regno di Napoli, ed. Cesare Maria Moschetti, vol. 1 (Naples: Giannini, 1979), 287, 1375-1376 (on maritime peace), p. 1325 (on neutrality).

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at times confusing the principles of justice with advice dictated by political prudence. According to Galiani, such an approach made it difficult to understand the chain of events.30 However, he accepted and drew on Vattel’s ideas when he defined the nation as a society of civilised men, irrespective of what form of government it had – monarchical, republican or mixed. What counted, indispensably, was that each nation was independent of the others and had the right to war, peace, and the free and spontaneous entitlement to decide whether to remain neutral.31 Far from belonging to the realm of utopian ideas and theories, Galiani’s essay was firmly linked to the geographical and cultural context in which it emerged. Furthermore, it was written against the background of the problems of piracy, pillaging, and the lack of free trade in the Mediterranean, which prompted Catherine of Russia to promote the League of Armed Neutrality and to extend Russian influence in that area. Galiani thus used, criticised, and elaborated Vattel’s ideas on neutrality and the equality of nations at the very time when, confronted with the fresh dangers of international politics, the Kingdom of Naples had to decide whether to join Catherine’s League.32 Neutrality and trade were the cornerstones of an idea of foreign policy that was based on a renewed and more modern conception of the principle of European stability. As Vattel himself wrote (book 3, ch. 3, § 47), Europe formed a political system interwoven by the relations and interests of the nations that no longer seemed to be isolated or self-contained units but rather the necessary components of a system within which they interacted vigorously. In eighteenthcentury Italian thought it was therefore often the “spirit of commerce” – to use the words of Antonio Genovesi – that pointed the attention of intellectuals and men of government towards Vattel’s book and his theories on the constitutional state, on the equality of nations and on neutrality. The Italian scene was, however, always dominated by a strong sense of realism, which led not so much towards the enlightened ideal of universal peace as towards the closer objective of promoting the efforts of enlightened governments in ensuring the balance between the states through a new trans-national political system characterised 30. Ferdinando Galiani, De’ doveri de’ principi neutrali verso i principi guerreggianti e di questi verso i neutrali ([Naples] 1782), 5. Gianfranco Miglio, La controversia sui limiti del commercio neutrale fra Giovanni Maria Lampredi e Ferdinando Galiani (Milan: Ispi, 1942); Paolo Comanducci, Settecento conservatore: Lampredi e il diritto naturale (Milan: Giuffrè, 1981). 31. Bazzoli, Piccolo Stato nell’età moderna, 62; Koen Stapelbroek, “Universal Society, Commerce and the Rights of Neutral Trade: Martin Hübner, Emer de Vattel and Ferdinando Galiani”, in: Universalism in International Law and Political Philosophy, eds. Petter Korkman and Virpi Mäkinen (COLLeGIUM: Studies Across Disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences 4 (2008), 63-89, http://www.helsinki.fi/collegium/e-series/volumes/volume_4/04_stapelbroek_2008_4.pdf. 32. Gennaro Maria Monti, La dottrina dell’abate F. Galiani sulla neutralità e l’adesione di Ferdinando IV alla Lega dei Neutri (Milan: Ispi, 1942); Ernest Nys, “Les droits et les devoirs des neutres par Galiani”, Revue de droit international et de législation comparée 31 (1899): 382-384. Stephen C. Neff, The rights and duties of neutrals: A general history (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000).

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by shared civil and political values and practices.33 Vattel was therefore more appreciated as an interpreter and populariser of Wolff, in particular as a critic of an abstract cosmopolitical model and as an advocate of overcoming a vision of the balance of power based on natural conflict between nations in favour of the duty of mutual assistance.34 Just as the Kingdom of Naples exemplified a medium-sized state much closer to the notion of a small one than that of a great power, so Milan with Austrian Lombardy, where Pietro Verri and the intellectuals of the Il Caffè magazine worked, was an example of a region with a medium-sized territory and limited sovereignty constantly stretched between the demands of old political freedoms and the rule of the House of Habsburg. More generally, because of the chronic weakness of the Holy Roman Empire and the Habsburgs’ efforts to transform their fragmented and uneven territorial units into a modern state, it was the Austrian monarchy with all its Italian possessions that proved best suited to the discussion of Vattel’s ideas. It can therefore be understood why the Droit des gens was so widely read and was used as a textbook both in the universities – beginning in Vienna –35 and in political and legal writings, as in the case of Sonnenfels from the 1760s.36 The publication and diffusion of Vattel’s book coincided with a change in Habsburg foreign policy, a profound transformation of the strategic alignments – the “renversement des alliances” planned for by Kaunitz in the context of the Seven Years War. This was a response to the failures of the War of the Austrian Succession and renewed conflict with Prussia, which led Kaunitz to abandon the old notion of power politics and a European balance of power to see an alliance with France as the starting point of a true system of peace (“ein wahres Friedens Systema”) based on the preservation of common interests.37 A direct influence of Vattel’s thinking is discernible in this stance, especially in the assertion that the European states, despite their opposing interests, were known to be closely dependent on one another and that anyone trying to impair this international order should be considered a public enemy.38 It was also at the time of the Seven Years’ War that Kaunitz changed his understanding of and the meaning of the term ‘convenience’ (droit de convenance), which up to that point had been linked to the outcome of the War of 33. Silvia Maria Pizzetti, “La costruzione della pace e di una società internazionale nell’Europa moderna fra jus gentium e cosmopolitismo (secoli XVII-XVIII)”, in: Con la ragione e col cuore. Studi dedicati a Carlo Capra, eds. Stefano Levati and Marco Meriggi (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2008): 213. 34. Ibid., 216-218. 35. Gigliola Di Renzo Villata, Formare il giurista: esperienze nell’area lombarda tra Sette e Ottocento (Milan: Giuffrè, 2004). 36. Keith Tribe, Governing economy: the reformation of German economic discourse 17501840 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 79. 37. Lothar Schilling, Kaunitz und das Renversement des alliances. Studien zur aussenpolitischen Konzeption Wenzel Anton Kaunitz (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1994), 335. 38. Vattel, Law of Nations, book 2, ch. 15, § 222 and book 4, ch. 1, § 5.

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the Spanish Succession39 and the concept of interest associated with Pufendorf.40 In his Einleitung zu der Historie der vornehmsten Reiche und Staaten (1682) Pufendorf distinguished between the states’ “imaginary interests” (or those that threatened the stability of European equilibrium) and “real interests”, which were subdivided between “temporary interests” (that is, contingent ones) and “perpetual interests”; it was in this interplay of interests that he believed the concept of European equilibrium was to be found.41 However, the new idea of convenience or interest (which also derived from Les intérêts présens et les prétensions des puissance de l’Europe, the celebrated essay of Jean Rousset de Missy, a Huegenot exile in Holland) rejected the hypothesis that interest was linked to a subjective perception of individual states; rather it resided in a natural order, linked to the empirical nature of the countries.42 Vattel, having been a diplomatic envoy to Dresden, was known to the Habsburg court and was cited in the correspondence between Maria Teresa and Princess Maria Christine,43 her fourth daughter and wife from 1766 of Albrecht of Saxe-Teschen. It is therefore easy to see why his work and the Droit des gens in particular circulated so widely in the Habsburg monarchy and served to explain the key part that this country, with its Italian offshoots, would come to play in the new international economic system of the 1760s. For the Habsburgs this would occur in the Mediterranean because of the determinant part played by the free port of Trieste, whose political and administrative structure was profoundly transformed in 1776. The government of Vienna gave Trieste special powers of control over the consular networks and placed Count Karl von Zinzendorf in charge of the administration. Zinzendorf, himself a native of Dresden, was aware how the court of Saxony valued the port’s geo-strategic role.44 The gradual predominance of commercial interests on the dynastic interests in European policy was felt sharply by the small states that found themselves at an economic disadvantage. In 1768, prior to the Austrian policy of Trieste, the government of the Republic of Venice had already bemoaned the start of a 39. Schilling, Kaunitz, 336. 40. Friedrich Kratochwil, “On the notion of “interest” in international relations”, International organizations, 36 (1982): 1-30. 41. Vittorio Emanuele Parsi, Interesse nazionale e globalizzazione. I regimi democratici nelle trasformazioni del sistema post-westfaliano (Milan: Jaca Book, 1998), 249. 42. Graham C. Gibbs, Some Intellectual and Political Influences of the Huguenot Emigrés in the United Priovinces c. 1680-1730, http://www.knhg.nl/bmgn2/G/Gibbs__G._C.__Some_intellectual_and_political_influences_of.pdf; Endre Ustor, “À la recherche de doctrines perdues”, in: Etudes de droit International en l’honneur du juge Manfred Lachs, ed. Jerzy Makarczyk (Prawa: Instytut Panstwa, 1984), 289-299. 43. Woldermar Lippert, Kaiserin Maria Theresia und Kurfuerstin Maria Antonia von Sachsen: Briefwechsel, 1747-1772 (Leipzig: Teubner, 1903). 44. Eva Faber, Litorale Austriaco. Das österreichische und kroatische Küstenland 1700-1780 (Graz: Steiermärchisches Landesrarchiv, 1995), 198.

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war “of industry” and “of commerce” against its manufacturers, with serious consequences for its sea trade with Puglia.45 The situation compelled the Republic to rethink and to attempt to reformulate the policy of ‘exact neutrality’ that it had pursued in Europe up to that time. Andrea Tron, a major exponent of institutional life in Venice and a former ambassador to The Hague, Paris, and Vienna, followed this line in his studies. His works of those years, most probably influenced by his reading of Vattel, showed how he endeavoured to comprehend the true nature of the European system and of the new concept of interests. He concluded that Venice must retain its old policy of neutrality after completely overhauling it. Hence it was transformed from passive or ‘perfect’ neutrality into active neutrality, no longer linked to contingent situations but directed in an ethical way so that, in its neutral status, the state used the benefits of trade to strengthen its independence and prestige.46 In this intellectual context the Italian translation of the Droit des gens was published in 1781 and intensified the interest of Venetian newspapers in international politics and the correlation of war, neutrality and peace. Ludovico Antonio Loschi, journalist and translator of Vattel, was particularly active in organising the circulation of books on the issue between Naples and Venice, sometimes by dint of contacts between Ferdinando Galiani and the Venetian senator Angelo Querini. A case in point was the Memoria riguardante il sistema di pace e di guerra che le potenze straniere praticano con le reggenze di Berberia (Messina: 1786) by Bartolomeo Forteguerri of Livorno,47 which Loschi received from Galiani via Querini and immediately republished along with other writings on Venice’s position in the international system.48 In Tuscany signs of the use of Vattel in government practice can be seen when the concept of territorial waters that gave states sovereign rights over areas that a cannon shot could cover was accepted even for a neutral power like Tuscany.49 These principles were translated into practical rules thanks to the measures taken by the Grand Duke of Tuscany to establish a ban, on 1 August 1778, prohibiting hostile acts between enemy nations in the port of Livorno and its adjacent waters, again up to a distance of one cannon shot, with the obligation on all nations to abstain from any plunder, pursuit, inspection or act 45. Ezio Godoli, Trieste (Rome: Laterza, 1984), 87. 46. Giovanni Scarabello, “Il Settecento”, in: La repubblica di Venezia in età moderna, dal 1517 alla fine della Repubblica, eds. Gustavo Cozzi, Michael Knapton and Giovanni Scarabello (Turin: Utet, 1992), 565-567. 47. ASMo, Letterati, Loschi, no. 37/14; Mirella Mafrici, Il mezzogiorno d’Italia e il mare: problemi difensivi nel Settecento, http://www.storiamediterranea.it/public/md1_dir/b703.pdf, 657-658. 48. ASMo, Letterati, Loschi, box 37/2, f. 34r e v: Memoire presenté par le Résident de Venise à L.H.P. et delivré à Vienne par son Ambassadeur aux Ministres étrangers; no. 58: Extrait de la Conjuration des espagnols contre la République de Venise en l’année MDCXVIII par Mr. l’abbé de S. Rent. 49. Vattel, Law of nations, book 2, § 289.

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of violence that might contravene the principle of equality between nations and the neutrality guaranteed by Tuscany.50 Vattel’s work began to circulate very early on in Savoyard Piedmont, thanks in part to its proximity to Switzerland. Sales of the Droit des gens took place between Geneva and Turin from 1759 by means of a library circuit that later went as far as the bookseller Gravier in Naples who in turn was in contact with the Gosse printers.51 Fifteen years later booksellers in Turin still continued to acquire Vattel’s “excellent treatise”52 from the Societé typographique de Neuchâtel. In Piedmont the importance of Vattel’s work was not limited to the realms of theory but had an influence on actual government practice. The Droit des gens became crucial to how diplomatic relations were conducted between states, and in particular between Turin and Geneva.53 The work, together with other classics on international law, was to be found in the library of Luigi Malabaila di Canale, ambassador to Vienna.54 In 1772 Carlo Ignazio Montagnini (1730-1790), later secretary of legation in Vienna, borrowed from Vattel when replying to the demands of the French ambassador to Turin who wished to have the same privileges that his predecessors had enjoyed, specifically that of exemption from taxes on meat. Vattel’s authority was used to argue that such privileges for diplomatic agents depended not on a right but on the simple will of the sovereign, namely his “civilité” and then on the discretion considered appropriate for representatives of other states.55 A later but very significant testimony was given by Gian Francesco Galeani Napione (1748-1830), who held important positions in the administration of Savoy finances. In 1799 he recollected how decades earlier many private tutors had utilised Grotius, Pufendorf, Bielfeld and Vattel when teaching public law: a use that, seen retrospectively in the light of revolutionary events, must have 50. Tullio Scovazzi, “The Evolution of International Law of the Sea: New Issues, New Challenges”, in: Recueil des cours. Collected courses of the Hague Academy of International Law, ed. Académie de droit international (The Hague: Nijhoff, 2001), 39-244 and the essay by Franco Angiolini in this volume. 51. Lodovica Braida, Il commercio delle idee. Editoria e circolazione del libro nella Torino del Settecento (Florence: Olschki, 1995), 259. 52. Ibid., 276. 53. Dino Carpanetto, Divisi dalla fede. Frontiere religiose, modelli politici, identità storiche nelle relazioni fra Torino e Ginevra (XVII-XVIII secolo) (Turin: Utet, 2009), 248-249. 54. Ada Ruata, Luigi Malabaila di Canale. Riflessi della cultura illuministica in un diplomatico piemontese (Turin: Deputazione subalpina di storia patria, 1968), 134. 55. ASTo, sez. I, Casa Reale, Cerimoniale ambasciatori ed inviati, mazzo 1, n. 14/II: Mémoire touchant les Franchises des Ministres Entragers. Dressé par Mons. r Montagnini Chargé des affaires de S. M. auprès de la Cour de Vienne. For this context Donatella Balani, Il vicario tra città e stato. Ordine pubblico e annona nella Torino del Settecento (Turin: Deputazione subalpina di storia patria, 1987), 230-232; Daniela Frigo, Principi ambasciatori e jus gentium. L’amministrazione della politica estera nel Piemonte del Settecento (Rome: Bulzoni, 1991), 248, 266.

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been considered dangerous for the government, especially when there was no control over the teachers in question.56 Conclusion: Vattel the revolutionary In effect, the consequences of the French revolution led Italians to interpret the Droit des gens in a new and evolutionary way, in the wake of the observations, for example, of Verri who – as we have seen – recognised in it an authoritative justification for democratic practices and for affirming the right of a people to choose its form of government. Almost at the same time as Verri’s reflections, in Naples the government censor Giovanni Francesco Conforti – who later, however, adhered to revolutionary ideals – suggested a ban on the distribution of the Droit des gens because it was an “incendiary” work that spread the same ideas that had led the “insane” philosophers to rebel against the hereditary monarchy. Vattel had to be condemned, Conforti said, because he proposed a completely inaccurate interpretation of the theory of popular sovereignty and of the recognition of the rights “of the whole body of the people.”57 Another sign of Vattel’s presence in Italy during the closing years of the eighteenth century can be found in the Sistema universale dei principj del diritto marittimo dell’Europa by the Sardinian lawyer Domenico Alberto Azuni, who later collaborated with Napoleon and was in charge of drafting the maritime and commercial code of 1808. Azuni had already come across Vattel’s work in his Dizionario universale ragionato della giurisprudenza mercantile (1786-1788), concurring with his idea that there was a voluntary natural law alongside the immutable law that derived from nature itself. He explained that in wartime neutral states had every right to continue trading with the belligerents, because this was consistent with the principle of independence and equality among all nations. Only the voluntary law of nations, arising from a convention or specific treaties, could bring about the opposite.58 In the second volume of the Sistema universale, published in Trieste in 1797, Azuni first criticised the weak points of Vattel’s work, especially with regard to neutrality, as his position seemed to cling too closely to the principles of Grotius, Gronovius, Barbeyrac, Coccejus and Heineccius, resulting in an excessive prudence, confusion and lack of clarity in the chain of events.59 As is evident, up to that point Azuni had simply reiterated the observations 56. Gian Francesco Galeani Napione, Del modo di riordinare la Regia Università degli studi, ed. Paola Bianchi (Turin: Deputazione Subalpina di Storia patria, 1993), 144. 57. Fabrizio Lomonaco, A partire da Giambattista Vico. Filosofia, diritto e letteratura nella Napoli del secondo Settecento (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2010), 195. 58. Domenico Alberto Azuni, Dizionario universale ragionato della giurisprudenza mercantile, vol. 1 (Livorno: Masi, 18222), 330. 59. Domenico Alberto Azuni, Sistema universale dei principi del dritto marittimo dell’Europa, vol. 2 (Trieste: Wage, Fleis & C., 1797), 7.

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made fifteen years earlier by Ferdinando Galiani. However, later in the text he expressed his appreciation of the contribution of Vattel’s work to the debate on neutrality, saying that thanks to the Droit des gens it had been possible to arrive at a clear definition of two types of neutrality: active neutrality, which occurs when the neutral state pursues trade in order to profit from a state of war between two nations; and passive or perfect neutrality, adopted in the past by many European states. As Azuni explained, Vattel’s work had by then received the ultimate accolade fully ten years after the death of its author. It was in fact the very model of neutrality described in the Droit des gens which was taken up in the new international politics of the latter half of the eighteenth century, and which was adopted with the manifesto of 1 August 1778 by Tuscany in the war between Britain and the American colonies, France, Holland and Spain, by Venice with the declaration of neutrality of 9 September 1779, by Naples with the royal edict of 19 September 1778, by Genoa with the declaration of 1 July 1779, and by the Papal State with the edict of 4 March 1779.60

60. Ibid., vol. 2, 29-30, 38.

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The trade of “neutral nations” as viewed by the publicist Lampredi Enrico Spagnesi

Introduction In a book published in 1942, while the storm of the Second World War still raged, the political scientist Gianfranco Miglio placed the Galiani-Lampredi controversy on neutral trade at the heart of his research.1 The reason for his interest was the uproar caused by the diatribe at the turn of the eighteenth century and the references made to it by later writers of treatises on neutrality, an issue vital to international politics that had been revived by the recent invention of the term and stance of non-belligerence which was later to be abandoned but which had in Italy precariously displaced the firmer and more traditional concept of neutralitas. However, the author made clear his intention to confront the subject without any consideration of current events, recreating the nub of the argument in a precise, scientific way, so as not to lose sight of the broader picture; indeed, according to him, “in order to understand the value of the theories put forward and critiqued by Lampredi and Galiani” in the controversy on the limits of neutral trade with belligerent powers it is necessary to “consider the relations that link them to the development of the pure science of international law”.2 The two contrasting writers are well known to historiography, but not to the same degree. The Florentine Giovanni Maria Lampredi3 was the most promi1. Gianfranco Miglio, La controversia sui limiti del commercio neutrale fra Giovanni Maria Lampredi e Ferdinando Galiani. Ricerche sulla genesi dell’indirizzo positivo nella scienza del diritto delle genti (Milan: ISPI, 1942). 2. Ibid., 15. 3. Lampredi was born in Rovezzano, Florence in 1731 to a Florentine family of average wealth. In 1756, after completing his degree in theology and canon law in the Collegium of Florence, he published his first work, the Saggio sopra la filosofia degli antichi Etruschi, which was the result of his interest in the Etruscans, and in 1760 he produced another small monograph to complement it, the Del governo civile degli antichi toscani, e delle cause della lor decadenza. The information given here is taken from Paolo Comanducci, Settecento conservatore: Lam-

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nent professor of law at the University of Pisa in the late eighteenth century. In his mature works he did not disdain to base many of his observations on historical research, which had been the approach normally used in his earlier works where the method gleaned from Montesquieu’s Esprit des lois was applied to intense research on the cause of the fall of the Etruscan state. The study of the past had much to offer: there was a prevalence of pessimistic comments on man’s ability to understand the complex causal relationships between events, but nevertheless it was possible to draw lessons so as to avoid political mistakes made in earlier years and to discover, perhaps by studying, with Polybius as a guide, how the wise legislators of Sparta and Rome had found the right balance between the powers of the monarchy, the senate and the people in order to guarantee their cities a long and happy life. The first of Lampredi’s ambitions in the world of education was achieved in 1763 when he was offered the professorship of canon law at the University of Pisa: he accepted in expectation of eventually acquiring the much-coveted chair of ius publicum, which in fact he was awarded in 1774. This allowed him to compete with the most notable and influential European writers on domestic and international public law, an intention he had already revealed in 1761 when, with two works of small size but impressive argument (the De maiestate Principis ad legem constituendam omnino necessaria and the De licentia in hostem), he refuted the model of lois-rapport defined by Montesquieu, which he ‘corrected’ without any qualms because, he claimed, when the French thinker spoke of “relations”, he did not mean “relationships”, but rather the “necessary attributes of created things”: God gave men equal rights and duties with the lex naturae, but once the ‘moral person’ of the state was formed by agreement, the exercise of its will did not require the consent of others. The existence of the society of nations demonstrated that there was no need for a superior to make international customs legally binding, for they were built not on the Grotian dream of the ius gentium volontarium, but rather on the ordinary rules of natural law or civil law. The second work refuted the ideas of Cocceius, or Samuel von Koch, erstwhile Chancellor of Frederick II, on the ius in bello: in the attempt to reject and condemn the so-called licentia infinita in hostem, in other words the right of belligerents to use unlimited violence, which the Prussian scholar supported, Lampredi identified the principle known as necessaria defensio, from which it was possible to deduce and justify criteria of a ‘humanitarian’ standpoint, applicable even during the dreadful events brought about by war. Lampredi went on to write, “particularly for the young people who come to the University”, the well-known Iuris publici universalis sive iuris naturae predi e il diritto naturale (Milan: Giuffrè, 1981); a later synthesis is given in Fabrizio Vannini, “Lampredi, Giovanni Maria”, in: DBI, 63 (2004), 259-63; for an overview of his position within the University of Pisa, see Enrico Spagnesi, “Il diritto”, Storia dell’Università di Pisa, 2, 17371861 (Pisa: Plus, 2000), 481-82 and 493-96.

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et gentium theoremata that was published in Livorno in 1776-1778 and then, as a corrected edition, in Pisa in 1782 (and reprinted without change in Florence in 1792-93, then popularised by Defendente Sacchi). The work, which addressed the principal problems of the highly delicate material dealt with by authors of the calibre of Leibniz and Wolff, was said to form a continuous link from “the principles of natural justice and injustice” to Roman law. It had ambitious goals, its three parts tackling, respectively, natural law, public law and the law of nations to achieve a precise result. Everyone involved with the law, from the student to the practitioner, from the government functionary to the sovereign, would find at their disposal “a unified, coherent and comprehensive code of laws”, the ius publicum universale, specifically designed to inform their choices in the drafting of rules and legal interpretation. On the political level, responsibilities and duties were shown to be derived from the network of inborn natural obligations, in particular that of pursuing the common good, or public wellbeing. The entire system of private law was built on the same basis, the mainstays being ownership and freedom of contract, and the prince was generally forced to respect it. However, any pronouncements he might have made in contradiction of the law of nature remained valid because there was a presumption that the ruled had irrevocably conferred their power to their rulers in some past beyond the realm of historical study. The Theoremata “despite the all-encompassing title focus on the ius naturae et gentium, more or less like the eighteenth-century treatises, from which they also took the overlapping of law and moral precepts”, stated the last judgement formulated on the work,4 albeit perhaps too concisely or, rather, too hastily. As for Galiani the details that need be given about him are of course brief, because, as the most notable southern Italian philosopher and economist of his time, he is well known and has been fully investigated. His early treatise Della moneta, published in 1751, and the brilliant Dialogues sur le commerce des bleds (1770), represent but one of the different facets of this polyvalent intellectual born in Chieti at the end of 1728. It is known that his interests “ranged from Latin literature to the Neapolitan dialect, from archaeology to international law, from classical comedy to political economy”.5 After his two stays in Paris – from 1759 to 1765 and from 1766 to 1770 – serving at the embassy of the Kingdom of Naples, he was recalled and worked in the judiciary and public administration, his position strengthened by the civil and canonical law degree he was awarded in 1765. These duties characterised “a new period, which in his own words was extremely boring”,6 and they vexed him, causing him to long for the salons he had frequented in Paris and the many stimulating friendships he had cultivated there among political and cultural figures. 4. Vannini, Lampredi, 261. 5. Riccardo Faucci, L’economia politica in Italia. Dal Cinquecento ai nostri giorni (Turin: UTET, 2000), 63. 6. Silvio de Majo, “Galiani, Ferdinando”, in: DBI, 51 (1998), 461.

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The controversy between Lampredi and Galiani The controversy began because some of Lampredi’s statements concerning the “passive trade in contraband”, expounded in the Theoremata, prompted Galiani to publish a book that he had been working on since 1780; it was entitled De’ doveri dei principi neutrali verso i principi guerreggianti and appeared anonymously in 1782. The work, said by the author to have been written quickly and “almost without help from books”,7 was referred to in confidence in a letter he sent to Federico-Melchiorre Grimm in December 1780: it “will be heavy to the point that people will think it was written by Volfius or Puffendorfius”. Galiani had written it purely for money; if it were to become successful in Naples he might earn 400 francs: “horribly little”, although he hoped to add another 600 by “finding some poor devil of a man of letters” to edit a French version.8 When Lampredi decided he had to reply, Galiani had already passed on, dying in 1787. The response was provided by a celebrated book – published in 1788 and later translated into French and German – about the “trade of neutral nations”. Apart from the circumstance of time, which must be borne in mind, also to be highlighted is another notable fact, namely that Galiani’s analysis of neutrality (made in a very polemical way against authors whose views were at variance with his) was the highly personal expression of an author who not only was not a jurist, but also had a totally unique conception of justice.9 Years ago, Paolo Comanducci illustrated every aspect of the figure of Lampredi in a series of essays and a book, but when he came to the controversy on neutrality he referred readers to the work by Miglio, “an indispensable tool and [...] hard to beat”.10 So, if there is nothing more to say, why go back to engage with a fully explored, almost precluded question? We can begin with the reason put forward by the shrewd professor of commercial law, Ercole Vidari, the first Italian to tackle the subject, which he did in 1868, in the first edition of the Archivio giuridico.11 For him Galiani, Lampredi, and Domenico Alberto Azuni were “three illustrious names, which Italy, too often oblivious to her glories, only just remembers”:12 over and above the 7. Miglio, Controversia, 113. 8. The letter is reported by Giovanni Santoponte, Il commercio dei popoli neutrali nella guerra marittima e i pubblicisti italiani del secolo XVIII (Galiani, Lampredi, Azuni). Cenni (Florence: G. Castj, 1897), 12-13. 9. Miglio, Controversia, 114-15. 10. Comanducci, Settecento conservatore, 276. 11. The journal, which later became famous, was founded by a criminal law professor named Pietro Ellero, but it was quickly acquired by the professor of Roman law Filippo Serafini, whose name was added to the masthead. 12. Ercole Vidari, “Ferdinando Galiani, Giovanni Maria Lampredi e Domenico Alberto Azuni”, Archivio giuridico di Pietro Ellero 1 (1868), 210. Vidari, a patriot and jurist from Pavia (1836-1916), can be considered as the first systematiser of Italian commercial law, which he taught at the University of Pavia from 1866.

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patriotic reasons he gave, it was deemed unacceptable to forget, at such a time, those important figures. But those reasons did not appear in another work expressly devoted to the theme, that of the little-known (and forgotten) Giovanni Santoponte, who, unaware of the earlier study, made a similar evaluation of the three authors.13 Since the analysis of the concept of neutrality led Miglio to write several happy pages, in a brief but effective overview of the general picture of the ius gentium of a crucial period, it is right to keep his considerations in mind. Let us recall some of the key points. As he underlined, neutralitas is a difficult concept to define from the juridical point of view. First of all it cannot arise until the particular institution of the state comes into being, and the entity of the civitas unfolds. And even when it emerges and is invoked it can do no more than make use of institutions established by the doctrine years, even centuries, before, at a time when “war contraband” was only “a matter of internal order” of large communities of christifideles, in which the legitimate power issued a ban on its subjects and demanded that it be respected. Thus the impossibility of trading in arms with infidels and the prohibition of providing goods for use in war was a discipline enshrined in canon law (and paralleled in the ius commune), and which found in Doctor Navarrus its greatest dissertator; while the next stage was made by Alberico Gentili, who in the De iure belli identified the magna quaestio of the conflict between the law of neutrals and the law of belligerents albeit without actually proposing solutions.14 Of decisive importance for the further discussion of trade was Grotius’s classification of goods into those that were useful only in war, those that were useful in both war and peacetime, and those that were of no use at all in war. This drew a clear line under the issue, but in effect it meant shifting the problem by referring it to the discretion of chosen classifiers, men whose level of authority and qualification for the task varied, and whose categorising was inevitably equally varied. The criterion designated by Grotius, namely the right of necessity, was vague and thus unsuited to the purpose: this fact allowed later writers of treatises, such as the celebrated Cocceius or the lesser known Buddeus, to put forward solutions that were essentially marked by their personal preferences and inclinations. A significant contribution was made, as always, by Cornelius van Bynkershoek, but it was above all with Emer Vattel (in other words, the voice that most represented perfect neutrality) that the specialists of the ius gentium subjected the terms of the problem to a definitive examination. In the Swiss jurist’s book a special chapter devoted to the conduct to be observed by neutral nations explained how to reconcile the rights of war with the rights of neutrality. It then offered those who espoused this conduct the possibility of 13. The author, who also wrote an essay entitled Sul socialismo cristiano. Appunti, justified his pages of “poor value” with the hope that a “expert of international law” might one day dedicate a monograph to the subject. 14. Miglio, Controversia, 23-31.

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engaging in passive trade, in other words selling to all not only foodstuffs but also arms and horses and other items of war: things generally classified as ‘contraband’. Also included was the right to deliver such materials, which would however obviously be subject to sequestration if intercepted by the enemy.15 Galiani’s position with respect to neutrality was determined by his insistence that removing the causes of war and attempting to stop its prosecution must be in harmony with nature: thus the “virtuous neutral” should refrain from any trade that might fuel the conflict. In this particular case, his argument against the Tuscan jurist specifically concerned the trade of whole ships: according to him, the opinion that Lampredi held was most odd, namely that neutrality was violated only when prohibited goods were transported all the way to a belligerent, whereas sales made by a neutral country to a belligerent on its own territory were lawful. Galiani asserted that this theory was contrary to the letter and spirit of treaties, universal practice, and the “general feeling”. But this theory was only a consequence – as Miglio pointed out quite effectively – of a concept of contraband that perceived the princes as participants, and which in turn led to a demand for them to take firm action to halt it. Beginning instead from another presupposition, namely the legality of trade in general, Lampredi rejected that specific observation, upholding his own position by pointing to a series of provisions taken by various states in this regard: he noted that only Venice had banned trade of this kind, whereas Tuscany had proved very liberal. It was therefore a perfect opportunity for presenting a series of important clarifications as to what things should be considered contraband: in place of the three categories of goods identified by Grotius, Galiani put forward only two, dividing everything according to whether it was immediately and directly useful to war. Equally significant was the reasoning on the contrariety and collision of two perfect natural rights, that of the neutral trade and that of the belligerent preventing trade which aided the enemy.16 Lampredi’s analysis was accurate, clear and balanced, making it easy to see why there was appreciation for the theory and praxis which condensed simple rules used in routine situations, for instance, the transport of enemy goods on neutral ships and of neutral goods on enemy boats. In the past, succinct formulas, such as “free ship, unfree goods” and “unfree ship, free goods”, had been created and circulated, then collated and enshrined in the Consolato del mare. These rules came to be rewritten over the years by the great maritime powers, including France, for which the enemy status of goods was transferred to the ship (confiscantur ex navibus res, ex rebus naves), and Holland, which advocated the maxims “free ship, free goods” and “enemy ship, enemy goods”, as opposed to England which supported the traditional system.17

15. Ibid., 35-53. 16. Ibid., 117-37; 163-92. 17. We take this information from Luigi Olivi, Diritto internazionale pubblico e privato (Mi-

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Trade and nations in Lampredi view It is time to abandon the main guide used up to now: Miglio, as said above, stressed the need to link the controversy on trade to the “development of the pure science of international law”. In fact, a considerable part of his work was devoted to the pursuit of this approach, which implemented an apparently flawless method of contextualisation. The need for investigations of this kind has been demonstrated by the successful results of recent research. For example, in relation to another crucial period, with attention fixed on Dionisio Anzilotti – a key figure in the rebuilding of the ‘internationalist’ science in Italy at the start of the twentieth century – it has been shown how, in a decisive moment of reflecting on the subject in a new way, he was influenced by the teaching of Heinrich Triepel: the ingenious theories of Anzilotti on the responsibility of states could not have been conceived without the Germanic ‘invention’ of ‘collective will’ (Vereinbarung), and of the interpretation of the “so-called dualism between international law and domestic law”.18 Nevertheless, it would be easy to surmise that, following similar guidelines and suggestions today, we should be lost in a labyrinth of interpretation owing to the quantity and quality of the studies and writings concluded in recent years that have called attention not only to new elements,19 but also to historiographical points that had already emerged prior to Miglio’s book and which should have been covered in his analysis. To limit ourselves to one example, the role played by Francisco de Vitoria as the founder of an innovative and modern ius gentium freed from medieval claims has recently been re-evaluated. The theologian from the School of Salamanca had conceived and hypothesised the existence of a natural society of sovereign states, within which a series of new laws would develop. Consequently, the Christian doctrine of the bellum iustum was reconfigured in his thought as the legitimate response to the iniuriae suffered: in other words, the implementer of the law of reparations.20 lan: SEL, 1902), 620-22, along with the obvious conclusion that this was a matter of a “battle of political and commercial interests rather than a peaceful struggle between princes”. 18. Laura Passero, Dionisio Anzilotti e la dottrina internazionalistica tra Otto e Novecento (Milan: Giuffrè, 2010), 7. For Triepel and Anzilotti’s ‘voluntaristic’ conception, see especially 190-246. 19. The dispute on the foundation of modern international law is always current. Aldo Andrea Cassi, “Lo ius in bello nella dottrina giusinternazionalista moderna. Annotazioni di metodo e itinerari d’indagine”, Quaderni fiorentini per la storia del pensiero giuridico moderno 38 (2009), 1141-68, sees above all four auctores to have been involved, namely Vitoria, Grotius, Gentili and Suarez; on the other hand Diego Quaglioni, “Guerra e diritto nel Cinquecento: i trattatisti del ‘ius militare’”, Studi di storia del diritto medioevale e moderno, 2, ed. Filippo Liotta (Bologna: Monduzzi, 2007), 191-210, puts forward many interesting considerations on the role to credit to writers like Pierino Belli and Balthazar Ayala. 20. Luigi Ferrajoli’s opinion is reported and commented on by Giuseppe Tosi, “La guerra giusta nel dibattito sulla conquista d’America (1492-1573)”, in: Dalla civitas maxima al totus orbis. Diritto comune europeo e ordo iuris globale tra età moderna e contemporanea, eds. Aldo Andrea Cassi and Alberto Sciumè (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2007), 86-91.

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Finally, not a few other important publications may be considered. However, our interest lies elsewhere, because the point on which to focus our attention was, from the beginning (as it still remains), a different one. In the controversy under discussion, the question of neutrality appears to be the main, if not the only, one, and in fact it was on this that the historiographical debate concentrated in order to shed light on the essence of this institution, its methods, and to declare which of the main interlocutors was in the right and portrayed it in its true form. Thus Vidari judged negatively the position of Lampredi (“it seems to me that the defence of the Tuscan expert in public law while, as always, very able, does not in fact stifle the voice of truth”21), and Santoponte went further, grouping the Pisan professor with those who subordinated all other interests to that of war.22 But leaving aside the matter of how many agreed with one or other of the disputants, one becomes aware from the reasoning of the aforementioned Vidari, Santoponte and Miglio that it was imperative to conduct further research in order to clarify the position of the other celebrated author, Domenico Alberto Azuni, who, in dealing with the same argument, was often placed beside the two main ones23 – and to do so not least to investigate and explain what remained fairly unexplored in their works, and should not have so remained, especially after the 1780 alliance of armed neutrality: for instance, questions pertaining to blockades – “one of the remarkable events [...] in the shipping business” – which had been examined quite inadequately.24 In fact, it was necessary to explore other areas too, especially those that come immediately to mind: the chief aspects of these investigations were named by Lampredi in the title and the opening of his book, where he placed trade on the one hand, and nations on the other at the centre of his treatment, beginning his work with the firm peremptory statement of the “general right of Nations to engage in trade”. The rights and duties of nations sprang either from the law of nature, or else “from their special or voluntary promises”; the natural child of property was in fact trade and the right and the duty to give proper guidance and set limits on this commercial activity belonged to the prince.25 It is necessary to clarify how these ideas related to those of physiocracy: or more accurately, one might need to pay attention to the different elements in play at the time, which sometimes acted in concert. The first element was the existence, in Tuscany, of a way of thinking that resembled that of the physiocrats but which was entirely independent of them. One example was that of Sallustio Bandini, whose analysis from the Sienese 21. Vidari, Ferdinando Galiani, 232-33. 22. Santoponte, Commercio, 17. 23. In the Sistema universale dei principi del diritto marittimo dell’Europa the jurist from Sassari “sides on several occasions with Lampredi’s theories”, also hoping, in a letter of 1795, “to have been able to discredit Galiani”: Luigi Berlinguer, Domenico Alberto Azuni, giurista e politico (1749-1827). Un contributo bio-bibliografico (Milan: Giuffrè, 1966), 132. 24. Vidari, Ferdinando Galiani, 232. 25. Miglio, Controversia, 154.

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Maremma became an important point of reference for all trade liberalism in the second half of the eighteenth century. Although the Sienese jurist and economist was chided “for not having deduced even more radical conclusions from his premises in support of free trade, starting with the total abolition of any type of state control on the grain trade”,26 he nevertheless was completely confident that the Maremma could become an exceptional place, unique in Europe owing to the “air of freedom” that might be breathed in by all businessmen thanks to its lack of prohibitions and regulations.27 Bandini’s Discorso, written in 1737, remained unpublished but became known through being circulated in manuscript form; it was eventually published in 1775 as a consequence of interest from within government circles, most probably that of Pompeo Neri, who, though certainly not sharing the ideas it expressed,28 would, like many other ‘enlightened’ people, have been won over by the civil passion that inspired the work, and by the author’s unshakable faith “in the nature and spontaneity of economic phenomena and the natural laws that regulate them”.29 The second point to examine concerns another interesting work of the period, the so-called Codice Ferdinando of maritime law, which featured ideas about trade. This work was attributed to the Neapolitan Michele de Jorio and published in 1781. Strictly speaking it was not a code, but rather a didactic overview of the whole sector, which the sovereign commissioned for its organic reorganisation.30 Passages from chapters XVII-XXX of the “Istruzioni generali del Codice” are illuminating: the confident, basic introductory statements (“What in the end is trade? It is the useful and necessary relationship of every social being with his peers. Whenever there are two men, a reciprocal trade of service and usefulness exists between them, and there has never been society without trade”; “man to man, trade created families: family to family, it created society: society to society, it united empires: empire to empire, it united the whole world”31) were developed logically (“trade is the exchange of goods 26. Faucci, Economia politica, 44. 27. Mario Mirri, “Bandini, Sallustio Antonio” in: DBI, 5 (1963), 729. 28. Ibid., 730. On Neri’s proposals regarding the Maremma, see Vieri Becagli, “Pompeo Neri e le riforme istituzionali della prima età Leopoldina”, in: Pompeo Neri. Atti del colloquio di studi di Castelfiorentino (6-7 maggio 1988), ed. Aldo Fratoianni and Marcello Verga (Castelfiorentino: Società storica della Valdelsa, 1992), 333-76. 29. Mirri, “Bandini”, 729. 30. The precise title was Codice marittimo compilato per ordine di S. M. Ferdinando IV. As soon as he believed he had completed the task given to him, the author ordered the printing of 25 copies of the mammoth book (four volumes each for a total of 2,400 pages), to be sent to various magistratures charged with examining the project. The work came to nothing as the Codice was not promulgated and it was only republished a few years ago by a historian of maritime law, Cesare Maria Moschetti, who added appropriate notes of commentary: see Silvio de Majo, “De Jorio, Michele”, in: DBI, 36 (1988), 270-73. 31. Cesare Maria Moschetti, Il codice marittimo del 1781 di Michele De Jorio per il Regno di Napoli. Introduzione e testo annotato, I (Naples: Giannini, 1979), 76-77. In citing the texts I have changed only the upper cases and the punctuation. I do not cite the numbers that distinguish the clauses of each individual paragraph.

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that Nature distributed in different places, and which mutual interest makes common to us”) and also based on history (see chapter XXIII “difference between the spirit of trade and military spirit”) to arrive at liberalist conclusions (“freedom is so essential to trade, that it deserves to be placed before security”; “the legislator protects the freedom of trade when he scales it down to legitimate trade, and when he restrains malpractice. Corruption in the heart is the unfailing ruin of trade”).32 Last but not least, one must take stock of the debt that both De Jorio and Lampredi owed to thinkers from beyond the Alps, especially Vattel, “the most important among Wolff’s disciples [...] for the object of his attentions”.33 The link and inspiration, if not the reproduction of individual ideas that captured the attention of Miglio and Comanducci,34 are important, but first and foremost the essential importance is how the parameters of the argument were set. The title of the Swiss intellectual’s key work was in fact “The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law applied to the Conduct and to the Affairs of Nations and of Sovereigns”. Nations and sovereigns. Certainly, there was a necessary relationship between the two, which can be expressed in the words of De Jorio dedicated to the right and duty of the legislator to protect free trade by means of rules which defined this natural faculty as legitimate trade.35 But, it seems to me that here begins the consideration of another horizon, that is, the respective positions of the two actors traditionally considered on the international scene, the princes and the peoples or nations. The titles of the two works underline the differences of the theses, with Galiani speaking of “duties of the princes”, be they neutral or belligerent, and Lampredi of “trade of [neutral] nations” in wartime. And this disparity is the logical corollary of a fundamental difference of views. Gianbattista de Luca summarised the viewpoint of the doctrine of ius commune when making a judgment for the Rota in a prize case concerning the seizure by pirates of goods belonging to Turkish ship-owners, the natural and permanent enemies of the Christian princes. At the end of his text, the jurist took issue with certain historians and scholars, whom he criticised for having debated ‘in Academia’ – in other words, superficially – de iure vel ratione belli and actually named Grotius, accusing him of presuming that there were limits to the natural right of princes to prevent trade, order reprisals and carry out acts of sequestration: such arguments, the acclaimed jurist contended, were simply academic and of no use in the real world.36 Around that time the Loix civiles was 32. Ibid., 79, 83, 86, 88. 33. Giovanni Tarello, Storia della cultura giuridica moderna. Assolutismo e codificazione del diritto (Bologna: il Mulino, 1976), 151. 34. For De Jorio, see Cesare Maria Moschetti, “Introduzione”, in: Moschetti, Codice marittimo, LX-LXI. 35. Dealt with particularly in chapter XXIV of the Istruzioni generali (Moschetti, Codice marittimo, 86-89). 36. Vito Piergiovanni, “Guerra commerciale e discriminazione religiosa in alcune sentenze in tema di pirateria (secoli XVII- XVIII)”, in: Studi in memoria di Mario E. Viora (Rome:

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being drafted in France by Jean Domat, who codified the fundamental division between, on the one hand, private law, which was outside the remit of the authorities, and, on the other, the mutable part – public law – in which the prince’s participation was not only allowed, but definitely required. Clearly, trade belonged in this second category, and was among those activities excluded by civil-natural law since they related “to the government and the general policy of the state” and established “artificial qualities” of the individual.37 Thus it was evident why, even when, as in the example of the wider perspective offered by Giuseppe Lorenzo Maria Casaregi, purely mercantile arguments won out and doing business with infidels was held to be permissible, the final decisions were left to the princes.38 And so, having reflected on these issues, one cannot but agree with a recent study of Anglo-Savoyard relations in the first half of the eighteenth century, which drew on sources produced within that “society of diplomats and statesmen” composed of sovereigns, governors and ministers, and ambassadors – in other words, a class apart. According to this research, these were the real ‘authors’ of international law and not the writers or doctores who reflected on the ius naturae et gentium, and therefore to understand the world of international relations it was necessary to enter the domain of custom, which held enormous legal power and passed over the criteria of objectivity and rationality, to root itself in the social life of those subjects.39 The European principalities’ apparatus of government was inhabited by gentlemen and aristocratic diplomats “symbolically carrying under their arms works on the level of L’Homme de qualité” by Giorgio Ponza, who in the Royal Academy of Turin in the late seventeenth century instructed young men on the requirements for success40 in a culture that placed “proprieties in general” above legal training and political preparation. Let us suppose – these are the bitter thoughts of the Piedmontese nobleman Carlo Luigi Caissotti, expressed in the 1770s – that an ambassador had “the most sublime knowledge of natural law and the law of nations” and “had studied in depth all the governments of Europe, and had discerned all the interests of the Princes” and so forth: “what might he hope to gain from his services if he was sent to a court riddled with intrigues?”41 Fondazione Sergio Mochi Onory, 1990), 592-96; Vito Piergiovanni, “La redemptio captivorum: spunti dalla scienza giuridica medievale e moderna”, in: Corsari e riscatto dei captivi. Garanzia notarile tra le due sponde del Mediterraneo. Atti del Convegno di studi storici, Marsala 4 ottobre 2008, ed. Vito Piergiovanni (Milan: Giuffrè, 2010), 208-209. 37. Francesco Galgano, Lex mercatoria. Storia del diritto commerciale (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1993), 72. 38. The famous commercial lawyer was “generally minded to safeguard free trade” (Piergiovanni, “Guerra commerciale”, 599), especially when Christian princes and their interests were involved. 39. Enrico Genta, Princìpi e regole internazionali tra forza e costume. Le relazioni anglosabaude nella prima metà del Settecento (Naples: Jovene, 2004), 1-10. 40. Ibid., 11-16. 41. For a report and commentary of Caissotti’s testimony, see Daniela Frigo, Principe, am-

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The belief that the law inter principes was the source of the contractual section of international law was supposed to stem from Grotius, and often the doctrine perceived “the most reassuring presence in the panorama of the ius inter gentes” to be the treaties, disregarding or downgrading the fact that they were drafted and packaged within the ‘society of the rulers and their ministers’ on the basis of ‘values’ established by custom, located and contextualised in specific places.42 The debate on this was extremely interesting, especially when the significant contributions of authors who tried to compile a complete societal inventory of that period were taken into account,43 but in particular it should be underlined how Vattel – while explicitly naming the two protagonists of international law, namely the princes and the nations, on a level of complete parity in the title of his work – had in fact suggested the notion and the appellation ‘societarie’ adopted for a Europe considered to be “a kind of Republic, whose members, who are independent but linked by common interest, come together to maintain order and liberty”.44 Certainly, the rhapsodic and partisan way in which Lampredi cited the Swiss author is in need of justification, and, I think, may be attributed to his professionalism as a lawyer, or rather as a jurist, in dealing with issues that were distasteful to the powerful, and material (such as the work of Vattel) that needed cautious handling. Here it is important to note that the balance between the two sides – nations and sovereigns – was not evaluated or broken by Galiani, who, in keeping with the rest of his views, placed on the shoulders of the principes, together with the bulk of international politics, the concept of neutrality itself, defined as: “the state of the Prince, who being once again in a state of calm, friendship, or alliance with other Princes, who are at peace among themselves, continues to remain in the same state towards them, even if disagreement or hostility arises between them”.45 These ideas were by no means uncommon, or destined to change quickly. The attitude commonly asserted by the sovereigns would, for example, form the basis of Article 5 of the Albertine Statute, according to which, after the drawing up of treaties of peace, alliance and trade, the King ‘could give notice’ to the Chambers, “as soon as the interest and security of the State allowed him, basciatori e “ius gentium”. L’amministrazione della politica estera nel Piemonte del Settecento (Rome: Bulzoni, 1991, 224-29), and Genta, Princìpi e regole internazionali, 16-17. 42. Ibid., 116-19. 43. I allude to the celebrated Cassaneus, regarding whom see Giovanni Rossi, “Il mondo in un libro: cultura giuridica e sapere enciclopedico nel Catalogus gloriae mundi di Barthélemy Chasseneux”, in: Il Rinascimento giuridico in Francia. Diritto, politica e storia, Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi (Verona: 29 June to 1 July 2006), ed. Giovanni Rossi (Rome: Viella, 2008), 252. 44. Genta, Princìpi e regole internazionali, 91, from which I take the quotations of Vattel. This might be of interest because of the coincidence in time between the publication of Galiani and the Italian translation of Vattel’s fundamental treatise. This appeared in 1781-83, bearing its place of publication as Lyon, although it was actually published in Venice. See the essay by Antonio Trampus in this volume. 45. Miglio, Controversia, 121.

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and opportune communications combined”. This power of discretion diminished only in the case of territorial changes or financial burdens to be borne by the state, in which case it was necessary to inform parliament and obtain its consent.46 Conclusion It can well be understood how, faced with the recognition of unquestioned and total ownership of certain functions by the princes, Lampredi had wanted to reaffirm quite different concepts, which entailed different practical consequences. From his earliest efforts as an historian of Etruscan civilisation he had shown himself to be an admirer and follower of Montesquieu, though not uncritically. Galiani, instead, was an opponent of the Esprit des lois because of the alleged abstraction and utopianism of the work, unable to condense the variegated reality of politics, and its support for the mixed government of monarchy and republic.47 Apart from that, there were clear signs that the Tuscan professor found the “master” insufferable. This deep antipathy was “never publicly confessed”, but it came through clearly in a letter of 1758: “our poor nature that has been made in independence trembles, and one must be very stupid for not knowing what it means to have a master”.48 This opens a discussion on a comparison of the two authors’ reaction to their respective experiences. Galiani was certainly right in thinking that Lampredi’s theoretical choices were undermined by partiality: that is to say, influenced by the practices then being applied in Tuscany. Confirmation of this was the neutrality of Livorno, the celebrated status of which led the way for others throughout the whole Grand Duchy,49 and a letter quoted by Comanducci corroborated this: the Tuscan jurist claimed to be aware of the help that his own theories had given to the cause of all neutral states.50 But Galiani was certainly not immune to the influence of the atmosphere in places of power reserved for the few, the courts and salons – the emblematic Parisian ones he had explored – where the fate of the world was discussed: a Eurocentric world, of course. 46. “The sovereign maintains, in substance, the power to decide the foreign policy of the state, as well as the power to choose between war and peace”, Isidoro Soffietti, I tempi dello Statuto albertino. Studi e fonti (Turin: Giappichelli, 2004), 44. In the proclamation of 8 February 1848, which had fixed the “bases” of the state charter promulgated less than a month later, Article 3 (ibid., 64) had no provision for giving “notice” or “appropriate communications” to the Chambers. 47. Faucci, Economia politica, 63. 48. I cite Vannini, Lampredi, 259; the letter was found and published by Maria Augusta Timpanaro Morelli. 49. Andrea Addobbati, “La neutralità del porto di Livorno in età medicea. Costume mercantile e convenzione internazionale”, in: Livorno, 1606-1806. Luogo di incontro tra popoli e culture, ed. Adriano Prosperi (Livorno: Allemandi, 2006), 71-85. 50. Comanducci, Settecento conservatore, 280.

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The auctoritas of the prince, assisted by the age-old consensus of authors and writers and renewed by the enticing snares of the centralising desires of the Sun King, readily extended its power within these circles. Many people gave in and accepted the prerogatives to the detriment of possible distinctions between ‘public’ and ‘private’51 and, above all, of the possible recognition of the rights of the people. In this sense, it could be said that once again trade, in particular maritime trade, with its various dimensions, from historical to literary, from juridical to economic, from theological to mythological, was a real Trojan horse for epochal changes. Consequently, the researcher should focus his attention not so much on reading between the lines of Lampredi’s Commercio dei popoli neutrali in the hope of discovering theses to be considered “as ideologies, such as the proposals of law policies relating to the sovereigns”, or interpretative doctrines on positive international law;52 as on, much more simply, satisfying himself with what is clearly present and how this was reported: the work proclaims the inviolability of the ius naturae, which in its irrefutable and irreplaceable nucleus of truth “summarises and represents the eternal problem and perennial exertion of human justice”.53 In other words, it is undoubtedly right to observe that the Tuscany of that time provided Lampredi with the ‘natural’ model of the citizen, and of his aspirations and his rights:54 but the fate of individuals, their lives and everyday characters at a certain point sublimate themselves, transcending events to create ideas capable of captivating their minds and those of others. As in this case. In the same state where Galiani lived there were already those, such as De Jorio, who turned their gaze away from the narrow corridors of the court to look towards the sea, the patrimony of a Mediterranean civilisation in whose midst unheralded skills were cultivated to conceive and connect such incontestable affirmations as: “Public happiness is the supreme law of every government. [...] The best government is that which makes people better and happier. [...] Freedom of trade can be allied with every form of government”.55 51. The themes and problems of nobles in the modern age are the subject of an interesting examination (beginning in the “Introduction” by the two editors) in Stringere la pace. Teorie e pratiche della conciliazione nell’Europa moderna (secoli XV-XVIII), eds. Paolo Broggio and Maria Pia Paoli (Rome: Viella, 2011). 52. These are the words of Comanducci, Settecento conservatore, 281, who then translated the “ideologies” underpinning Lampredi’s neutrality into clear statements. From this it follows, as a general conclusion, that he had a tendency “to [support] juridical positivism and the gradual marginalisation of natural law in the conceptualisations of jurists and court proceedings” (ibid., 283). 53. Miglio, Controversia, 212. 54. Comanducci, Settecento conservatore, 209: The Tuscan public lawyer makes use of “mankind’s clearly evident sociality” to “make an idealised XVIII-century bourgeois the prototype of every man who wanted to live according to justice”. 55. All the propositions cited are taken from chapter XXVI (the numbers are, respectively, 1, 2, 17) of the Istruzioni generali del Codice, entitled “Whether free trade is against the spirit of Monarchy”: Moschetti, Codice marittimo, 91 and 95.

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Natural law and the birth of political economy in the eighteenth century Niccolò Guasti

I wish to make my comment on the papers by Koen Stapelbroek, Emanuele Salerno and Enrico Spagnesi by looking at them from a somewhat “lateral” direction: that is, without conducting a detailed examination of the ideas of the Dutch and Italian authors they analyse, but instead providing a concise reconstruction – which I hope is not too rigid – of their doctrinal framework of reference, that is to say their complex epistemological and theoretical framework, and thereby keeping to the specific theme of the session (doctrinal models) held in the conference hosted in Pisa. The usefulness of such a perspective has its origins in two methodological assumptions, which a large part of recent historiography on eighteenth-century political culture has confirmed on more than one occasion: firstly, that during the eighteenth century political economy acquired its scientific status (through a series of epistemological revolutions) and also an academic one (thanks to the creation of the first university professorships, beginning with that of Naples held by Antonio Genovesi);1 secondly, that the content and purpose of this new science were of necessity connected to the contemporary political, philosophical, moral and theological thought, and thus to the development of the Enlightenment. To put it another way, during the eighteenth century, economic literature, in the broadest and fullest sense of the term, gradually took on a clear political dimension not only because it fulfilled a contingent function (to pursue a very definite economic policy or series of reforms), but also because 1. Franco Venturi, Settecento Riformatore, vol. 1 (Turin: Einaudi, 1969), 562-595; Eluggero Pii, Antonio Genovesi. Dalla politica economica alla “politica civile” (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1984); Le cattedre di economia politica in Italia. La diffusione di una disciplina “sospetta” (1750-1900), ed. Massimo M. Augello (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1988); Genovesi economista, eds. Bruno Jossa, Rosario Patalano, Eugenio Zagari (Naples: Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici, 2007); Jean-Claude Perrot, Une histoire intellectuelle de l’économie politique (Paris: Éditions de l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1992); Manuela Albertone, “Economia politica”, in: L’Illuminismo. Dizionario storico, eds. Vincenzo Ferrone and Daniel Roche (Rome: Laterza, 1998), 342-350.

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it fed on the debates, the key concepts and the doctrinal roots of the European Enlightenment. In particular, in recent years the historiography has insisted that the treatises of economic arguments contributed to the spread, especially in the second half of the eighteenth century, of the seventeenth-century tradition of natural law and of republicanism (whether Machiavellian, Stoic or ‘modern’). Thus an exhaustive examination of the political culture of the Enlightenment – and also of the anti-Enlightenment currents of thought – cannot help but take into account the development of political economy and treatises on economic themes.2 This obligation takes on a certain urgency for those who focus their attention on the so-called “peripheries” of the Enlightenment, as the persistent and somewhat misleading paradigm centred on France and Britain would call them. 3 John Robertson’s recent comparative study of the Scottish and Neapolitan Enlightenment and, above all, the rediscovery of the importance of the Neapolitan Enlightenment in Europe and South America by Vincenzo Fer2. John G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and The Atlantic Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975); Id., Virtue, Commerce and History. Essays on Political Thought and History, chiefly in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Albert O. Hirschman, The passions and the interests. Political arguments for Capitalism before its triumph (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977); Vincenzo Ferrone, Scienza natura religione. Mondo newtoniano e la cultura italiana nel primo Settecento (Naples: Jovene, 1982); Id., I profeti dell’Illuminismo. Le metamorfosi della ragione nel tardo Settecento italiano (Rome: Laterza, 20002); Id., La società giusta ed equa. Repubblicanesimo e diritti dell’Uomo in Gaetano Filangieri (Rome: Laterza, 2003); Terence Hutchinson, Before Adam Smith. The emergence of political economy, 1662-1776 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988); Simone Meyssonnier, La Balance et l’Horloge. La genèse de la pensée libérale en France au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Les Éditions de la Passion, 1989); Catherine Larrère, L’invention de l’économie au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1992); Republicanism, liberty and commercial society, 1649-1776, ed. David Wootton (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994); Philippe Steiner, La “Science nouvelle” de l’économie politique (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1998); Peter Groenewegen, Eighteenth century economics (London: Routledge, 2002); Till Wahnbaeck, Luxury an Public happiness. Political economy in the Italian Enlightement (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003); John Robertson, The Case for the Enlightenment. Scotland and Naples 1680-1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univesity Press, 2005); Istvan Hont, Jealousy of trade. International competition and the Nation-State in Historical perspective (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005); “Commerce and Morality in EighteenthCentury Italy”, ed. Koen Stapelbroek, monographic issue of History of European Ideas, 32, 4 (2006); Koen Stapelbroek, Love, self-deceit, and money. Commerce and Morality in the Early Neapolitan Enlightenment (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008); Antonella Alimento, “Ricchezza e lusso”, in: Illuminismo. Un vademecum, eds. Gianni Paganini and Edoardo Tortarolo (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 2008), 221-237; Modelli d’oltre confine. Prospettive economiche e sociali negli antichi stati italiani, ed. Antonella Alimento (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2009); Governare il Mondo. L’economia come linguaggio della politica nell’Europa del Settecento, ed. Manuela Albertone (Milan: Feltrinelli, 2009). 3. On the concept of “periphery” applied to the study and the periodisation of the Enlightenment see the reflections by Giuseppe Ricuperati, Frontiere e limiti della ragione. Dalla crisi della coscienza europea all’Illuminismo (Turin: UTET, 2006), 168-283; Peripheries of the Enlightenment, eds. Richard Butterwick, Simon Davies and Gabriel Sánchez Espinosa (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2008).

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rone (who followed the trail blazed by Franco Venturi),4 have challenged the hierarchical conception of the European and Atlantic Enlightenment, which has often been the result of an idealistic or purely “philosophical” interpretation. It is no coincidence, I think, that the most fruitful and interesting results of this reversal of perspectives are coming from scholars concerned with the late Iberian and South American Enlightenment.5 But returning to my main theme, there is no doubt that eighteenth century political economy, apart from pointing the way to a new economic policy, was greatly influenced by the political reflection of the period. Indeed it can be argued that, even after the epistemological revolution initiated by Physiocracy, the constitution of political economy as a science and discipline was derived directly from political theory and the discipline was considered to be an aspect of politics for the whole of the eighteenth century: a clear division between the laws of economics and of politics did not emerge until the next revolution was introduced by the classical political economics of the early nineteenth century and even then this was repeatedly called into question over the next two centuries.6 An early confirmation of this view comes from a somewhat late (and therefore even more significant) assertion by Dupont de Nemours, in which the great physiocratic thinker confirmed the political nature of economics to Jean Baptiste Say: “You have overly limited the scope of political economy by treating it only as a science of wealth. It is the science of natural law applied, as it 4. Venturi was in fact among the first scholars to include economic treatises in his analyses of the Enlightenment, thus inserting political economy by full right into the European reformist movement that the Enlightenment inspired. An example of this is the interpretation that the Turinese historian makes of Antonio Genovesi’s crucial move from metaphysics to economics: Settecento Riformatore, vol. 1, 552-664. In this reading the key elements of the recent historiographic tendency which insists on considering political economy as a repository of Enlightenment political thought are already present. 5. Jesús Astigarraga, “Victorián de Villava, traductor de Gaetano Filangieri”, Cuadernos Aragoneses de Economía 7 (1997): 171-196; Id. “The Light and Shade of Italian Economic Thought in Spain (1750-1850)”, in: From Economists to Economists. The International Spread of Italian Economic Thought, 1750-1950 ed. Pier Francesco Asso (Florence: Polistampa, 2001), 227-253; Jesús Astigarraga, “La prima versione spagnola della Scienza della legislazione”, in: Diritti e costituzione. L’opera di Gaetano Filangieri e la sua fortuna europea, ed. Antonio Trampus (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2005), 61-84; Jesús Astigarraga, Luces y republicanismo. Economía y política en las “Apuntaciones al Genovesi” de Ramón de Salas (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales, 2011); Jesús Astigarraga and Javier Usoz, “From the Neapolitan A. Genovesi of Carlo di Borbone to the Spanish A. Genovesi of Carlos III: V. de Villava’s Spanish translation of Lezioni di Commercio”, in: Genovesi economista, 193-220; José María Portillo Valdés, Revolución de nación (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales, 2000); Id., La vida atlántica de Victorián de Villava (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2010); Federica Morelli, “Filangieri e l’altra America: storia di una ricezione”, Rivista Storica Italiana 119 (2007): 88-111; Ead., “De la ‘Ciencia del Comercio’ a la ‘Ciencia de la Legislación’. La ruta napolitana hacia la reforma de la Monarquía (siglo XVIII)”, in: Las monarquías española y francesa (siglos XVI-XVIII). ¿Dos modelos políticos?, eds. Anne Dubet and José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 2010), 57-69. 6. Karl Polanyi, The great transformation (New York: Rinehart and Winston Inc., 1944).

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should be, to ordered societies. It is the science of constitutions, which learns and will learn not only what governments should not do for their own benefit and that of their nations, or of their wealth, but what they should not do before God, on pain of earning the hatred and contempt of men, the loss of their throne during their lifetime, and the bloody whip of history after their death”.7 In reality, Dupont de Nemours, as was the wont of the members of the “sect”, tended to ascribe to physiocracy merits that were not its own, as well as accrediting it with the ownership of ideas or concepts that had been in the public domain for some time. In fact, the conviction that political economy was a science of natural law applied to ordered societies had already emerged in the early part of the eighteenth century, when not a few “liberal mercantilists”, “planners” and political thinkers close to the Enlightenment movement (one thinks of Montesquieu, but also of the Neapolitan circles linked to Celestino Galiani) reworked the ideas of the seventeenth-century natural lawyers (Grotius, Pufendorf, Hobbes, Locke, Althusius, Thomasius, etc.), usually making a clear break away from the followers of the long tradition of the reason of state and the political theories of the second Scholasticism.8 All those commentators and interpreters of natural law active during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries contributed to this crucial transition: including Richard Cumberland, Jean Barbeyrac, Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui and Emer de Vattel.9 7. Pierre-Samuel Dupont de Nemours, “Correspondance avec J.-B. Say”, in: Les physiocrates, ed. Eugène Daire (Paris: Guillaumin, 1846), vol. 1, 397, letter of 22 April 1815 (also quoted in: Larrère, Invention de l’économie, 194). This assertion by Dupont de Nemours confirms Polanyi’s interpretation, according to which physiocracy (as also Smith), conceives economics through political coordinates, without bringing about that separation, which would instead belong to classical economics (that is from Malthus and Ricardo onwards): see Polanyi, The great transformation, 111-116. On the other hand, the physiocratic sect on the whole appears to be one of the gathering points for the reflection of the European natural law of the second half of the eighteenth century. In this regard see “Fisiocrazia e proprietà terriera”, Studi Settecentschi 24 (2004), ed. Manuela Albertone. 8. Of course the existence of this procedure does not mean that some authors of the second Scholasticism, such as Francisco Suárez, did not continue to stimulate reflection among those thinkers close to the Enlightenment, who ended up accepting the theoretical paradigms and epistemological theses of natural law. Among the first to insist on the links between the political thinking of the second Scholasticism (especially of Jesuit thought) and natural law was Quentin Skinner, The Fountations of Modern Political Thought. The Age of Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), ch. 5 and 6. 9. Richard Cumberland, De legibus Naturae disquisitio philosophica […] (London: typis E. Flesher, apud Nathanaelem Hooke, 1672); French translation by Jean Barbeyrac (Lousanne: chez Marc Michel Bousquet et Comp., 1744); Samuel Pufendorf, Le Droit de la Nature et des Gens, ou système général de la Morale, de la Jurisprudence, et de la Politique. Traduit du latin […] par Jean Barbeyrac, professeur en Droit et en Histoire à Lausanne. Avec des notes du traducteur et une préface qui sert d’introduction à tout l’ouvrage (Amsterdam: chez Henri Schelte and J. Kuyper, 1706); Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui, Principes du Droit naturel et politique […] (Geneva: Barrillot et fils, 1747); Emer de Vattel, Le Droit des Gens ou Principes de la loi naturelle appliqués à la conduite et aux affaires des nations et des souverains (Leiden: Aux dépens de la Compagnie, 1758).

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In comparison to the recent past, current historiography seems less attuned to accepting a deterministic interpretative scheme, the result of an ideological reading of the history of political thought which tended to overstate the part performed by British natural law: while agreeing that the role played by the works of Hobbes and Locke in the formulation of the heterogeneous political thinking of the Enlightenment was of undoubted importance (one thinks of Voltaire, but also of the heated debate and confrontation that Rousseau had, in all his works, with the two English thinkers), historiography in recent years seems far more inclined to analyse the eighteenth-century diffusion of continental thought on natural law. This is confirmed, to take a single significant example, by the research carried out in this direction by Catherine Larrère and Istvan Hont: the former demonstrated the importance of the contribution made by Pufendorf (and his interpreter, Barbeyrac) to the creation of the idea of trade as a socialising force, even at an international level.10 Hont, on the other hand, underlined the fact that Pufendorf, by means of an eclectic approach, “used Hobbes’s methodology to recreate in a new fashion the Aristotelian twinning of society and politics. Conceptually, this pseudo-Aristotelian move was the origin of the new science of political economy”.11 The idea that trade could produce not only wealth but also harmony between peoples and governments would be developed by a host of later Enlightenment thinkers: this was opposed both to the Machiavellian mercantilist approach of the late seventeenth to the early eighteenth centuries,12 and to the Catholic tradition of the reason of state that subordinated wealth to expansionist policies and to the attainment of universal monarchy.13 As we know, in addition to the epistemological revolution represented by the acquisition of the method and categories of natural law, Enlightenment political thought also absorbed other traditions or ways of thinking. If some scholars still seemed intent on emphasising the role of Spinoza and Spinozism in the development of the so-called “radical Enlightenment”,14 it seems to me that numerous researchers are now focused on examining the contribution stemming from Augustinianism (and therefore Jansenism), utilitarianism, Epicureanism, Stoicism and republicanism. In order to be brief, I limit myself to recalling the recent research by Vincenzo Ferrone who, in his Lezioni illuministiche took 10. Larrère, Invention de l’économie, 24-44. 11. Hont, Jealousy of trade, 46. 12. Pocock, Machiavellian Moment, vol. II, ch. 13 and 14. 13. Among the dozens of seventeenth-century texts belonging to the literature of the reason of state, which consider maritime trade as the basis of the monarchies’ military and political power, see Diego Saavedra Fajardo, Idea de un príncipe político christiano representada en cien empresas […] (Munich: Imprenta de Nicolao Enrico, 1640), 68. 14. Margaret C. Jacob, The Radical Enlightenment. Pantheists, Freemasons and Republicans (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1981); Jonathan Irvine Israel, Radical Enlightenment. Philosophy and the making of Modernity (1650-1750) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); Id., Enlightenment contested. Philosophy, Modernity, and the emancipation of man (1670-1752) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).

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inspiration from the ever-illuminating remarks by Peter Gay and stressed the key influence of Stoic and Epicurean thought (Epictetus, Cicero, Sallustius, Lucretius, Livius, Horace) on the birth of the political reflection of the European Enlightenment. Ferrone also confirmed the clear differences between Enlightenment and Renaissance humanism.15 John Robertson’s remarks are also interesting: in the course of his comparative examination between the Scottish and Neapolitan Enlightenment, the British scholar found confirmation that the central object of Enlightenment thought – in other words “the fundamentals of human sociability” – was expressed through an interpretative framework changed by “Augustinian moral rigorism and a revitalised Epicureism”.16 The examples of stimulating research on the doctrinal matrices, recalled above, that pervade the political thought of the Enlightenment and the economic reflection of the seventeenth century are now very numerous and can certainly not be developed further here.17 Undoubtedly one of the pre-eminent subjects of enquiry throughout the eighteenth century (even after the development of physiocracy) was that of the ‘commercial society’: the insistence of many authors on examining its historical evolution and its logic was connected not only to the structures of thought or to theoretical paradigms – in particular to stadial theory – that they employed, but also, perhaps even above all, to the political struggle waged by European reformist groups: that is, to the contingent need to change the ancien régime through adequate reforms. Speaking of the politics of grains, agricultural investments, public debt, fiscal systems, luxury, customs protectionism, neutrality, popular education, corporative regulations, trusts, mortmains, and so on was always meant to pursue reform of the society of corporations and ranks. Thus as became clear in the late Enlightenment thanks to the exceptional impetus of the American Revolution and modern republicanism, economic thought and the birth of political economy influenced the desire to build a society that was legally and socioeconomically more egalitarian. It was no coincidence that in many places, such as Naples and the Iberian peninsula, the latter discipline continued to define itself as ‘civil economy’ right up to the beginning of the nineteenth century.

15. Vincenzo Ferrone, Lezioni illuministiche (Rome: Laterza, 2010), 126-127. See also Peter Gay, The Enlightenment: an interpretation. The rise of modern paganism (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1966). 16. Robertson, Case for the Enlightenment, 46. 17. To cite only one significant example on the relationship between the birth of political economy and Augustinianism, see the pioneering work of Gilbert Faccarello, Aux origines de l’économie politique libérale: Pierre Boisguilbert (Paris: Anthropos, 1986).

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About the Authors

Andrea Addobbati is a researcher in Early Modern History at the University of Pisa; his most recent works include: Commercio, rischio, guerra. Il mercato delle assicurazioni marittime di Livorno (1694-1795) (Rome: 2007). Marcella Aglietti is a researcher in the history of political institutions at the University of Pisa; her most recent works include: I governatori di Livorno dai Medici all’Unità d’Italia (Pisa: 2009). Franco Angiolini is a professor of Early Modern History at the University of Pisa and a member of the Editorial Committee for the journal Società e storia. Guillaume Calafat, ancien élève de l’École Normale Supérieure de Paris and PhD candidate at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, is a current member of the École française de Rome. Daniele Edigati is a researcher in the history of Medieval and Early Modern Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Bergamo. His most recent works include: Gli occhi del Granduca. Tecniche inquisitorie e arbitrio giudiziale tra ‘stylus curiae’ e ‘ius commune’ nella Toscana secentesca (Pisa: 2009). Niccolò Guasti is a researcher in Early Modern History at the Department of Human Sciences, Territory, Cultural Heritage, Literature and Education of the University of Foggia. His most recent works include: L’esilio italiano dei gesuiti spagnoli (Rome: 2006). Manuel Herrero Sánchez is a full-time lecturer in Early Modern History at the Department of Geography, History and Philosophy of the University Pablo de Olavide and is a doctor in history and civilisation for the European University Institute in Florence. 253

Mario Montorzi is a lawyer and professor of the History of Medieval and Modern law in the Faculty of Jurisprudence of the University of Pisa, where he also teaches common law. His publications include: Diritto feudale nel basso medio evo. Materiali di lavoro... per l’esegesi della gl. ordinaria ai Libri feudorum (Turin: 1991). Emanuele Salerno graduated with a Master’s Degree in Political Science from the University of Perugia in 2007. In 2008 he was granted a scholarship for a PhD programme in “History and Sociology of Modernity” by the University of Pisa. Biagio Salvemini teaches Early Modern History in the Department of Philosophy, Literature, History and Social Sciences at the University of Bari and is the director of the Centro di Ricerca Interuniversitario per l’Analisi del Territorio (CRIAT). He is a member of the editorial committees of Quaderni storici, Storica and Meridiana. His most recent works include: Il territorio sghembo. Forme e dinamiche degli spazi umani in età moderna (Bari: 2006). Eric Schnakenbourg is maître de conférences in Early Modern History at the University of Nantes, and a member of the Institut Universitaire de France. He published La France le Nord et l’Europe au début du XVIIIe siècle (Paris: 2008) and La Scandinavie à l’époque moderne (Paris: 2010). Enrico Spagnesi has taught in Florence and Trieste and is now a professor of History of Italian Law in the Faculty of Jurisprudence of the University of Pisa. His most important publications are on Irnerius (1970), the University of Florence at the end of the fourteenth century (1979), the jurists of the University of Pisa from 1343 to 1861 (2000), the history of law in Italy (2010). Koen Stapelbroek is an Academy of Finland researcher at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies and Senior Lecturer in the history of political thought and public administration at Erasmus University Rotterdam. His most recent works include: Love, Self-Deceit and Money: Commerce and Morality in the Early Neapolitan Enlightenment. Antonio Trampus is associate professor of Early Modern History at the University Ca’ Foscari in Venice; his most recent works include Storia del costituzionalismo italiano nell’età dei Lumi (2009). Francisco Javier Zamora Rodríguez teaches Early Modern and Contemporary History of Spain at the University Pablo de Olavide in Seville. His PhD thesis was entitled The Spanish Consulate in Livorno: the Case of Andrés de Silva (1677-1717). 254

Index

Aalbers, Johan, 133, 135, 138. Abreu y Bertodano, Felix Joseph de, 84, 152n, 204n, 208, 209n, 212. Accarias de Sérionne, Jacques, 213, 214 and n. Addobbati, Andrea, 6, 17, 47, 85n, 146, 150n, 155n, 165, 245n. Aglietti, Marcella, 5, 12, 13, 41, 46n, 60n, 66, 70, 83n, 96n, 166, 195n, 253. Aguirre, Miguel de, 196. Ahmed I, Sultan of the Turks, 172, 173, 184. Ahn, Doohwan, 117n, 119n, 120n, 131n, 133. Alan, James, 112n. Alatri, Paolo, 16n. Alberti, Vincenzo, 93 and n, 95n, 96 and n, 97e n, 98n, 99n, 158n. Albertone, Manuela, 141n, 247n, 248n, 250n. Albrecht Kasimir, Duke of Saxe-Teschen, 228. Alcázar Molina, Cayetano, 156n. Alexandrowicz, Charles Henry, 173n, 174n, 177n. Alfonso II d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, Modena, and Reggio, 197. Alimento, Antonella, 5, 9, 15n, 16n, 17n, 70n, 72n, 76n, 85n, 107, 108n, 113n, 127n, 136n, 164, 248n. Alloza, Ángel, 28n. Althusius, Johannes, 250. Alvar Ezquerra, Alfredo, 57n. Álvarez Nogal, Carlos, 37n.

Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño, Antonio, 49n. Álvarez-Ossorio, Antonio, 28n, 39n. Ambrose, Saint, Bishop of Milan, 194 and n. Amerongen, Godard Adriaan van Reede, Baron de, 30. Andersen, Dan, 204n. Andreozzi, Daniele, 167n. Andrews, Charles M., 109n. Angiolini, Franco, 5, 17, 47n, 60n, 82, 91n, 188n, 191n, 230n, 253. Anisson, Jean, 110, 120 and n. Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici, Electress Palatine, 193n. Anne Stuart, Queen of Great Britain, 119, 121n, 124. Antinori, Niccolò Francesco, 17, 189 and n, 191, 195 and n, 196, 202. Anzilotti, Dionisio, 239 e n. Apuleius, 194. Aranda, Pedro Pablo Abarca de Bolea, Conde de, 156. Arkel, Johan Adriaan van, 139n. Arlington, Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of, 115. Armistead, David, 19. Armistead, Matthew, 19, 171n. Arnisaeus, Henning, 195n, 196 and n. Arpe family, 49n. Arquinto, Carlos, Conde de, 27. Arrighi, Niccolò, 67n. Ascanio, Salvador, 57. Astigarraga, Jesús , 127n, 249n. Augello, Massimo M., 247n. Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo, 193n., 194 and n.

255

Avaux, Jean-Antoine de Mesmes, Comte d’, 124n. Averani, Giuseppe, 189 and n, 191 and n, 192n, 193, 194, 196n, 202. Ayala, Balthazar, 239n. Azpilcueta, Martín de, 237. Azuni, Domenico Alberto, 69n, 146 and n, 231 e n, 232, 236, 240. Bacot, Bernard, 18n. Baggiani, Daniele, 70n. Bajer, Fredrik, 203 and n, 206n. Balani, Donatella, 72n, 86n, 230n. Baldi, Davide, 189n. Bamford, Paul Walden, 113n. Bandiera, Francesco Niccolò, 190. Bandini, Sallustio, 240, 241. Barbeyrac, Jean, 132n, 177n, 178, 181, 190 and n, 191, 192 and n, 197n, 200 and n, 201n, 231, 250 and n, 251. Barker, Theo, 60 and n. Barletta, Laura, 11n, 188n. Barrie, Vivienne, 113n. Baruchello, Mario, 71n. Basilio, Francesco, 69n. Batacchi, Tommaso, 51. Bazzoli, Maurizio, 10 and n, 188n, 219n, 226. Beardé de l’Abbaye, M., 104 and n. Beaurepaire, Pierre-Yves, 12n. Becagli, Vieri, 86n, 241n. Beccaria, Cesare, 15, 222 and n, 223. Bédarida, François, 108n. Bedos, (négociant), 163n. Béguard, Stéphane, 16 and n. Belissa, Marc, 14 and n, 16 and n. Belli, Pierino, 239n. Belmonte, Manuel, 39. Bély, Lucien, 13n, 15n, 23 and n, 28 and n, 124n, 128n, 171n. Ben Yessef, Yasmina, 26n. Bentinck van Rhoon, Willem, 139, 140. Benton, Lauren A., 176n. Benvenuti, Mario, 196n. Bergeron, Louis, 163n. Beri, Emiliano, 82n. Berlinguer, Luigi, 240n. Bernal de O’Reilly, Antonio, 56n. Bernardoni, Fabrizio, 82n. Bernstorff, Andreas Peter, 149.

Bernstorff, Johann Hartwig Ernst, Graf von, 203, 204 and n, 215. Bertolini, Stefano, 72. Besold, Christoph, 196 and n. Betterini, Filippo, 51. Beverningh, Hieronymus van, 30 and n, 33. Biagi, Maria Grazia, 69n. Bianchi, Paola, 231n. Bichi, Giovanni Sebastiano, 51. Bielfeld, Jakob Friedrich, Freiherr von, 103 and n, 219, 230. Bijnkershoek, Cornelis van, 142, 143, 146, 176 and n, 177 and n, 181, 182 and n, 185, 201, 203, 208, 209n, 212, 215, 237. Bitossi, Carlo, 26n, 34n. Blaas, Petrus Benedictus Maria, 144n. Black, Jeremy, 108n. Blom, Hans Willem, 143n, 220n. Bobbio, Norberto, 189n. Bognetti, Giuseppe, 221n. Bolingbroke, Henry St. John, Viscount, 120, 121n, 131, 201n. Bollo, Abbot, 52. Bonanate, Luigi, 189n. Bonenchi, Andrea, 61 and n. Bonenchi, Bernardo, 61n. Bonney, Richard, 23 and n. Boogman, Johan Christiaan, 144n. Booker, John, 166n. Borgi, Antonio, 59n. Bots, Johannes Hans Alphonsus, 31n. Böttiher, Nikolaus, 36n. Boubaker, Sadok, 173n. Boucher, David, 217n. Bourbon del Monte, Filippo, 46, 79n, 82, 83 and n, 86n, 95 and n, 96 and n, 97 and n, 98n, 99n, 148 and n. Bourbon, House of, 119, 128, 157. Bourdelais, Patrice, 163n. Braida, Lodovica, 230n. Brancaccio, Giovanni, 41n, 58 and n. Brasset, Henri, 38. Braudel, Fernand, 32n. Brenkman, Henrik, 189n. Brèves, François Savary, Comte de, 173 and n, 175 and n. Brigidi, Isabella, 154, 156. Brignole Sale, Antonio Giulio, 24, 25, 35. Brisco, Norris Arthur, 127n. Broggio, Paolo, 246n.

256

Brom, Gisbert, 38n. Bromley, John, 108n. Brun, Antoine, 26, 27 and n. Buddeus, Johannes Franciscus, 237. Buondelmonti, Giuseppe Maria, 17, 189 and n, 191 and n, 198 and n, 199 and n, 200 and n, 201, 202. Burlamaqui, Jean-Jacques, 201n, 250 and n. Burman, Pieter (the elder), 137n. Bynkershoek, see Bijnkershoek. Caballero, Antonio, 64. Cadier, Gabrielle, 108n. Caissotti, Carlo Luigi, 243 and n. Calafat, Guillaume, 6, 14, 15, 165, 171, 253. Calamai, Pietro, 51. Calchberner brothers, 61. Cambi, Bernardo, 60. Campomanes, Pedro Rodríguez, Conde de, 156. Cantini, Lorenzo, 70n, 73n, 76n, 104n. Capellen, Joan Derk van der, 143 and n. Capra, Carlo, 221n, 222n, 224n. Cárdenas, Alonso de, 28 and n. Cardini, Franco, 11n, 188n. Carletti, Francesco, 61 and n. Carli, Gianrinaldo, 222. Carpanetto, Dino, 16n, 72n, 86n, 230n. Carrafa, Carlos, 44n. Carranza, Niccola, 189n. Carrasco González, María Guadalupe, 60n, 62 and n. Carrino, Annastella, 163n, 166n. Carswell, John, 120n. Carter, Alice Clare, 18 and n, 134n. Casaregi, Giuseppe Lorenzo Maria, 71 and n, 76n, 243. Cassi, Aldo Andrea, 239n. Castañeda, José Antonio Funes de Villalpando y Climent, Marqués de Osera y de, 33. Castejón y Salazar, Pedro González de, 149. Castignoli, Paolo, 97n, 150n. Castrucci, Emanuele, 100n. Catherine II, Empress of Russia, 92, 148, 149, 159, 226. Cau, Cornelius, 181n. Cauchy, Eugène, 216. Cavanna, Adriano, 190n, 223n. Cesa, Marco, 111n.

Chadelat, Jean, 69n. Chalmers, George, 179n, 180n, 187n. Chamillart, Michel, 119n, 124n. Chanet, Jean-François, 12n, 40n. Chapman, Sara, 122n. Charles II, King of England, 114, 115 and n, 118. Charles II, King of Spain, 38, 119, 121. Charles III, King of Spain and Charles VII, as King of Naples and Sicily, 50, 69, 147, 154, 155. Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, 189n, 196 and n. Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, 44, 199, 211n. Cheney, Paul, 108n, 112n, 124n. Chièze, Sébastien, 30. Choiseul, Étienne-François, Duc de, 128. Christelow, Allan, 114n, 115n. Ciano, Cesare, 61and n. Ciasca, Raffaele, 24n, 25n, 29n, 34n, 35n, 37n. Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 175, 182, 193n, 252. Clark, George Norman, 119n, 132n. Clark, Ian, 217n. Claydon, Tony, 120n. Clement XI, Pope, 42. Clement XII, Pope, 191n. Cocceius, see Cocceji. Cocceji, Heinrich von, 146, 178. Cocceji, Samuel, Freiherr von, 146, 225, 231, 234, 237. Coccejus, see Cocceji. Colbert de Croissy, Charles, Marquis, 115. Colbert, Jean-Baptiste, 58, 109, 112, 113 and n, 114. Coleman, Donald Cuthbert, 114n, 118n, 128 and n. Colenbrander, Herman Theodoor, 144. Collado Villalta, Pedro, 32n. Coloma, Manuel, 33. Colomba family, 64. Colonna family, 38. Comanducci, Paolo, 146n, 226n, 233n, 236 and n, 242, 245 and n, 246n. Condillac, Etienne Bonnot de, 201n. Conforti, Giovanni Francesco, 231. Conring, Hermann, 196. Conti, Vittorio, 225n.

257

Contini, Alessandra, 70n, 86n, 87n. Cools, Hans, 36n. Coombs, Douglas, 117n, 119n. Corp, Edward T., 124n. Corrieri, Salvatore, 74n, 75n. Corsini, Bartolomeo, 191n. Cosimo I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, 197. Cosimo III de’ Medici, Grand-Duke of Tuscany, 44, 65, 70, 189n, 193 and n, 195. Cosmelli, Giuseppe, 82. Court, Pieter de la, 134 and n. Coymans, Balthasar, 39. Cozzi, Gustavo, 229n. Craggs, James the Younger, 59n. Crespo Solana, Ana, 33n, 36 and n. Croissy, see Colbert de Croissy, Charles, Marquis de. Crouzet, François, 108n, 109n. Cumberland, Richard, 250 and n. Curtin, Philip, 57, 58n. D’Affry, Louis Auguste Augustin, Count, 141. Daire, Eugène, 250n. Dakhlia, Jocelyne, 162n. Daudin, Guillaume, 125n. Davenant, Charles, 117n, 119n, 131. De Bernardo Ares, José Manuel, 57n. De Francesco, Antonino, 141n. De Jong-Keesing, Elisabeth Emmy, 135. De Jorio, Michele, 225, 241, 242 and n, 246. De Luca, Gianbattista, 242. De Majo, Silvio, 235, 241n. De Mari family, 39. De Monteagudo, Diego, 43n. De Montmorency, James Edward Geoffrey, 180n. De Nicolò, Maria Lucia, 69n. De Oliveira, Matthieu, 108n, 123n. De Silva Enriques, Pedro, 61. De Silva family, 49n, 61. De Silva, Andrés, 66. De Simoni, Alberto, 223 and n. De Távora, Francisco, 64. De Vadillo y Velasco, Manuel, 44n. Deák, Francis, 100n. Deen, Femke, 141n. Defoe, Daniel, 120 and n. Del Bianco, Lamberto, 191n.

Del Borro, Alessandro, 46, 56n. Del Nero, Nero Maria, 44. Del Turco, Giovanni, 156 and n. Del Vene, Camino, 66. Del Vene, Fabio, 66. Demosthenes, 194. Desjardins, Arthur, 74n. Desmaretz, Nicolas, 120n. Di Renzo Villata, Gigliola, 227n. Dickinson, Harry T., 121n. Diderot, Denis, 201n. Domat, Jean, 201n, 243. Don Carlos, see Charles III, King of Spain. Donolo, Luigi, 97n, 150n. Doria family, 39. Doria, Andrea, 34. Doria, Costantino, 36, 37 and n. Doria, Giorgio, 36 and n. Duke of Ferrara, see Alfonso II d’Este. Dull, Jonathan R., 112n. Dumont, Jean, baron de Carlscroon, 133n, 181. Dunham, Arthur L., 108n. Dupont de Nemours, Pierre Samuel, 126, 249, 250 and n. Dupuy, Pascal, 108n. Duroselle, Jean Baptiste, 18n. Ebben, Maurice, 30n, 34n. Echevarría Bacigalupe, Miguel Ángel, 30n. Edelstein, Dan, 175n. Edigati, Daniele, 5, 17, 54n, 68, 78n, 196n, 253. Elzinga, Simon, 113n. Eugenio, Prince of Savoy, 44n. Faber, Eva, 228n. Faralli, Carla, 194n. Fasano Guarini, Elena, 91n. Fassò, Guido, 194n. Febvre, Lucien, 14 and n, 15. Fénelon, Gabriel-Jacques de Salignac, Marquis de la Mothe-, 139n. Fénelon, Jean-Baptiste, 110, 120 and n. Ferdinand I, King of the Two Sicilies, 17. Ferdinand III, King of Castile, 32. Ferdinando I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, 91n. Ferdinando II de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, 63n.

258

Fernández de Pinedo, Emiliano, 60n. Ferrajoli, Luigi, 239n. Ferrero, Antonio, 151, 152. Ferrone, Vincenzo, 247n, 248n, 249, 251, 252 and n. Ferroni, Francesco, 36. Filangieri, Gaetano, 223 and n, 225. Filippini, Jean-Pierre, 47n, 85n, 97n, 157n. Firpo, Luigi, 24n. Fitzpatrick, Peter, 172n. Fleetwood, John, 59n. Fleury, André-Hercule de, 127, 133, 135. Fleury, Gabriel, 103n. Floridablanca, José Moñino y Redondo, Conde de, 149, 150, 154, 155, 156 and n, 159. Focarelli, Carlo, 194n. Fontana, Giovanni Luigi, 31n. Fontenay, Michel, 177 and n. Forbonnais, François Véron Duverger de, 103, 104n, 108n, 136 and n, 212. Forcade La Roquette, Adolphe de, 110 and n. Forteguerri, Bartolomeo, 229. Franceschi, Franco, 59n. Franceschini, Assunto, 51 and n. Francioni, Gianni, 222n, 224n. Francis Stephen, Grand Duke of Tuscany and Francis I as Holy Roman Emperor, 47, 51, 71, 74, 81, 198. Francisci, Isabella, 19. Franken, Martinus Antonius Maria, 29n. Franklin, Benjamin, 150. Fratoianni, Aldo, 86n, 241n. Frederick II, King of Prussia, 159, 211 and n, 219, 234. Frigo, Daniela, 24 and n, 29n, 38 and n, 230n, 243n. Frostin, Charles, 122n, 165n. Fruin, Robert, 144 and n. Gabba, Emilio, 10n. Galasso, Giuseppe, 11 and n, 188n. Galeani Napione, Gian Francesco, 230, 231n. Galgano, Francesco, 243n. Galiani, Ferdinando, 16, 106 and n, 146, 225, 226 and n, 229, 232, 233, 235, 236, 238, 240n, 242, 244 and n, 245, 246, 250.

Galluzzi, Jacopo Riguccio, 44 and n. Gamarra, Esteban de, 27, 30n, 38n. García García, Bernardo José, 49n. García Montón, Alejandro, 26n, 37n. García, Bernardo, 39n. Gauci, Perry, 120n. Gavi family, 49n. Gavi, Giovanni Antonio, 49n. Gee, Joshua, 16. Geikie, Roderick, 111n. Genovesi, Antonio, 74n, 225 and n, 226, 247, 249n. Genta, Enrico, 243n, 244n. Gentili, Alberico, 174 and n, 175 and n, 176 and n, 177, 181, 182, 190n, 197, 237, 239. Giaccherini, Enrico, 19. Gian Gastone de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, 44, 189n, 189, 198, 199. Gianni, Francesco Maria, 81, 92n. Giarrizzo, Giuseppe, 191n. Gibbs, Graham C., 228n. Ginori Carlo, senator, 60n, 61. Ginori family, 16, 45n, 55, 59, 60 and n, 61, 63, 64. Ginori, Bartolomeo, 60n. Ginori, Carlo, governor of Livorno, 13, 16n, 72, 76, 85. Ginori, Francesco, 45, 60 and n, 63n, 64 and n, 65 and n, 67 and n. Ginori, Lorenzo, 45n, 60 and n, 62n, 6367n. Ginori, Niccolò, 60n, 65. Girard, Albert, 60n. Glaziou, Yves, 205n. Glete, Jan, 12n. Godoli, Ezio, 229n. Godoy, Manuel Francisco de, 156. Goldie, Mark, 130n. Goldthwaite, Richard, 59n. Good, Christoph, 217n. Gordblatt, David, 14n. Goslinga, Adriaan, 133n, 139n. Gosse, Pierre, 230. Goudoever, Albert Peter van, 135n. Govantes-Edwards, David, 23n. Grandi, Guido, 192n. Grassi, Lorenzo Maria, 45. Gravier, Giovanni, 230. Greco, Gaetano, 24n.

259

Grendi, Edoardo, 57 and n. Grillo family, 39. Grillo, Domenico, 25 and n, 26n, 36, 37, 39. Grimaldi, Francesco Maria, 44. Grimaldi, House of, 91. Groenewegen, Peter, 248n. Gröning, Johann, 212 and n. Gronovius, Jakob, 231. Groot, Alexander H. de, 171n. Grosser, Pierre, 12n. Grossi, Paolo, 79n. Grotius, Hugo, 17, 130 and n, 144, 146, 175n, 176-178 and n, 182, 188, 190-192 and n, 194-200 and n, 202, 206, 208 and n, 215, 217, 222, 224, 225, 230, 231, 237-239n, 242, 244, 250. Guasti, Niccolò, 6, 9, 18, 247, 253. Guicciardini, Francesco, 11. Guidi, Alessandra, 19. Guzmán family, 37. Habsburgs, House of, 43, 44, 50, 128, 150, 223, 227, 228. Hagge Mustapha, Dey of Tunis, 178. Halil, Pasha of Tripoli, 178. Hamel, Joost Adriaan van, 145n. Hamilton, Earl Jefferson, 65n. Hamilton, Keith, 57 and n. Hammūdah, Bey then Pasha of Tunis, 179. Haren, Onno Zwier van, 143. Harkness, David A. E., 120n. Harley, Robert, see Oxford, Robert Harley, Earl of. Haro, Luis de, 30n. Hausberger, Bernd, 36n. Hazard, Paul, 206 and n. Heim, Anthonie van der, 131, 135, 136, 138. Heineccius, Johann Gottlieb, 146, 201n, 231. Heinsius, Anthonie, 131, 132n, 133, 138 and n. Held, David, 14. Helfman, Tara, 142n, 202. Heller-Roazen, Daniel, 175n, 178n. Helvétius, Claude-Adrien, 124. Hennequin, Alderman of Rotterdam, 124n. Henri IV, King of France, 133. Henrietta Maria, Queen Consort of Charles I, King of England, 115n. Hernández Franco, Juan, 156n.

Herrero Sánchez, Manuel, 5, 9, 12, 23, 26n, 28n, 31n, 33n, 34n, 36n, 37n, 38n, 39n, 57n, 63n, 162, 253, 254. Heuvel, Herman Hendrik van den, 143. Hill, Brian W., 121n. Hirsch, Jean-Pierre, 163n. Hirschman, Albert O., 248n. Hobbes, Thomas, 191, 198, 200, 201, 204, 214, 250, 251. Hoefer, Ferdinand, 103n. Hoff, Bert van ‘t, 138n. Hogendorp, Gijsbert Karel van, 143, 145 and n. Hogenkamp, Carla, 138n. Hohenzollern, House of, 39. Holenstein, André, 13n, 23n. Holsti, Kalevi J., 14 and n. Homacini, Ventura, 44. Hont, Istvan, 14 and n, 130n, 209n, 248n, 251 and n. Hoock, Jochen, 184n. Hoornbeek, Isaac van, 131, 134n, 137 Isaac, 138. Hope, Thomas, 140. Horden, Peregrine, 161n. Horn, Jeff, 123n. Hornemann, Jørgen, 216n. Hotman, François, 194. Houblon, John, 117. Hove, Jan van den, 31 and n. Hovy, Johannes, 135n, 137n, 139n, 140n. Hübner, Martin, 6, 15, 17, 84, 85 and n, 91, 99 and n, 146, 185 and n, 203-216. Humalda, Phillips Aebinga van, 30. Humborg, secretary of the Habsburg Embassy, 158 and n. Hume, David, 201n, 219. Hunnius, Helfric Ulrich, 194. Hunter, Ian, 190n. Hunting, Smith Warren, 82n. Hurrel, Andrew, 217n. Hutchinson, Terence, 248n. Ibarra, Antonio, 36n. Ibrāhīm, Dey of Tripoli, 179. Iharce, Pierre d’, 72. İnalcık, Halil, 171n. Incontri, Ferdinando, 93 and n, 95n. Infelise, Mario, 36n, 59n. Ingerbritsen, Christine, 10n, 219n.

260

Iovenaso, Domingo Iudice, Príncipe de Chelemar, Duque de, 64n. Isabel Luisa de Braganza, 65. Israel, Jonathan Irvine, 39n, 251n. Jacob, Margaret C., 251n. James Francis Edward Stuart, 124. James II, King of England, 61n. Janin, Françoise, 9. Janssen, Sir Theodore, 117 and n. Jenkinson, Charles, 106n, 212. Jessenne, Jean-Pierre, 108n. Jessup, Philip C., 100n. Johann Wilhelm II, of Neuburg, Elector Palatine, 193n. John, Arthur Henry, 114n. Johnson, Douglas, 108n. Jongste, Jan Arie Frederik de, 136n, 138n. Jossa, Bruno, 247n. Justinian I, Emperor of the East, 189n, 193n. Kaiser, Wolfgang, 9, 183n, 184n. Kant, Immanuel, 219. Kapossy, Béla, 218n. Kaunitz Rietberg, Joseph Wenzel, Count of, 147. Kaunitz-Rietberg, Anton Wenzel, Prince of, 147, 153. Keblusek, Marika, 36n. Kellenbenz, Hermann, 36n. Kelly, Dunkan J., 10n. Kent, Heinz Sigfrid Koplowitz, 88n, 208n, 209n, 215n. Khadduri, Majid, 183n. Kingsbury, Benedict, 174n, 175n. Klep, Paul M. M., 144n. Kluit, Adriaan, 143. Knapton, Michael, 229n. Kocka, Jürgen, 12n. Kosary, Domokos, 219n. Koselleck, Reinhart, 172n. Koskenniemi, Martti, 144n. Kossmann, Ernst Heinrich, 144n, 145n. Kratochwil, Friedrich, 228n. Krieken, Gerard van, 180n, 187n. La Fargue, J. T., 132n, 138n, 143. Labardi, Andrea, 190n. Lactantius, 194.

Lam, George L., 82n. Lampredi, Giovanni Maria, 6, 15, 16, 98n, 99n, 146 and n, 147, 150n, 152n, 153 and n, 190, 225, 233-236, 238-240 and n, 242, 244-246n. Lane, Margery, 58. Langewiesche, Dieter, 10n, 219n. Langhorne, Richard, 57 and n. Lapradelle, Albert Geoffre de, 217n. Larrère, Catherine, 248n, 250n, 251 and n. Larrey, Isaac de, 140. Laursen, John Christian, 220n. Law, John, 134 and n. Lawson, Sir John, 178, 179, 183. Lee, Richard, 212. Leeb, Isidore Leonard, 139n. Lefèvre, Joseph, 27n. Lefèvre, Placide, 27n. Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Freiherr von, 190, 195 and n, 235. Lema, Francisco Perez de, 158. Lemeunier, Guy, 60n. León, Virginia, 39n. Léonard, Frédéric, 181n. Levati, Stefano, 227n. Levillain, Charles-Edouard, 28n, 113n, 114n, 115n, 118n. Lewis, Wilmarth Sheldon, 82n. Lippert, Woldermar, 228n. Lira, Francisco Manuel de, 33. Lo Basso, Luca, 37n, 97n. Loccenius, Johan, 77n. Locke, John, 201n, 250, 251. Lollini, Sergio, 191n. Lomonaco, Fabrizio, 231n. Lopes de Ultroa, Diego, 65. Lopes Suasso, Antonio Isaac, 38, 39. Lorraine, House of, 11, 70, 198. Loschi, Ludovico Antonio, 229. Louis XIV, King of France, 14, 30, 38, 40, 111, 112, 114, 115, 118, 122 and n, 124, 132, 181. Louis XV, King of France, 74n. Louis XVI, King of France, 147. Mably, Abbé de, 183, 184 and n, 185n, 219. Machiavelli, Niccolò, 218, 224. Madariaga, Isabel de, 18n, 149 and n. Maddalena, Aldo De, 36n. Mafrici, Mirella, 229n.

261

Maintrieu, Jehan, 121n, 122n. Maissen, Thomas, 13n, 23n, 40 and n. Makarczyk, Jerzy, 228n. Malabaila di Canale, Giovanni, 230. Malmborg, Mikael af, 18 and n. Manca, Manuel Delitala, Marqués de, 156. Mandelblatt, Bertie, 123n. Mandeville, Bernard, 134n. Mangio, Carlo, 47n, 71n, 97n. Mann, Horace, 82n. Mansfield, William Murray, 1st Earl of, 146. Marchelli, Girolamo, 52. Marcucci, Ettore, 61n. Maria Carolina, Queen Consort of Ferdinand I, King of the Two Sicilies, 191n. Maria Christine, consort of Albrecht Kasimir, Duke of Saxe-Teschen, 228. María Luisa, Queen Consort of Charles IV, King of Spain, 156. Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria, 199, 211n. Marrara, Danilo, 190n. Marselis, Dirk, 140. Marselis, Jan, 140. Marsilio, Claudio, 37n. Martens, G. F. de (Georg Friedrich), 184 and n. Martin, Henry, 117n. Martz, Edwine M., 82n. Marville, Pierre, 72, 75, 77n. Mathiex, Jean, 186. Mattingly, Garret, 25n, 28n. Mauro, Frédéric, 60n. Maximilian Emmanuel, Elector of Bavaria, 26. McGrew, Anthony, 14n. McLachlan, Jean Olivia, 121n, 128n, 204n. Medici, Anna Maria Maddalena Luisa, 193n. Medici, House of, 11, 17, 44, 61, 63, 70, 73, 94, 193, 195, 197, 199. Medina de las Torres, Ramiro, Nuñez de Guzmán, Duque de, 35. Medina Simonia family, 37. Medinaceli family, 37. Mello, Jesuit, 64. Melon, Jean François, 102 and n, 103 and n, 104n, 201n. Mercy-Argenteau, Florimond-Claude, Comte de, 157 and n.

Meriggi, Marco, 227n. Merode, Johan van, 30. Merouche, Lemnouar, 173n, 180n, 182n, 183n. Mesnager, Nicolas, 122, 124 and n. Meyer, Jean, 108n. Meylan, Philippe, 190n. Meyssonnier, Simone, 248n. Miele, Alberto, 100n, 188n. Miglio, Gianfranco, 99n, 226n, 233 and n, 236-240 and n, 242, 244n, 246n. Mijnhardt, Wijnandus Wilhelmus, 145n. Minard, Philippe, 163n. Miquelon, Dale, 122n, 124n. Moioli, Angelo, 221n. Mola di Nomaglio, Gustavo, 69n. Molà, Luca, 31n. Molas Ribalta, Pere, 57n. Molinari, Carlo Bartolomeo, 43 and n, 44n. Molloy, Charles, 178 and n, 179 and n, 180, 182. Montagnini, Carlo Ignazio, 230. Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, Baron de, 109 and n, 133 and n, 174 and n, 181, 191n, 198, 200-202, 221, 234, 245, 250. Monteverdi, Giuseppe, 151, 152, 153. Montgomery, Isabel A., 111n, 119n. Monti, Gennaro Maria, 226n. Montorzi, Mario, 5, 9, 15, 101, 104n, 254. Moore, Arthur, 120. Moore, Bob, 141n. Morieux, Renaud, 108n, 125n. Morineau, Michel, 65n. Moschetti, Cesare Maria, 50n, 76n, 91n, 225n Carlo, 241n, 242n. 246n. Mössner, Jörg Manfred, 171, 172n, 176n, 177n, 180n, 181n, 187n. Mueller, Reinhold, 59n. Murād Qūrsū, Bey of Tunis, 179. Murād, Bey of Tunis, 178. Muret, Pierre, 128n. Musi, Aurelio, 11n. Naddeo, Barbara Ann, 190n. Nakhimovsky, Isaac, 217n, 219n, 221n. Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, 126, 231. Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, 107. Napoli, Paolo, 80n.

262

Narborough, Sir John, 178. Navarrus, Doctor, see Azpilcueta. Neff, Stephen C., 226n. Nepos, Cornelius, 194. Neri Badia, Giovanni Bonaventura, 191n, 196n. Neri, Algerina, 97n, 150n. Neri, Pompeo, 17, 68, 72, 83, 86-99, 190, 241 and n. Nevakivi, Jukka, 18n. Newton, Sir Isaac, 201n. Nicolini, Nicola, 58 and n. Nierop, Henk van, 141n. Noldus, Badeloch, 36n. Noodt, Gerard, 189n. Nye, Vincent John, 107 and n, 110n, 116 and n. Nys, Ernest, 55 and n, 149n, 226n. Oakley, Francis, 190n. Ogg, David, 200n. Oldmixon, John, 138n. Olivi, Luigi, 238n. Ombrosi, Giovanni Paolo, 68n. Onnekink, David, 141n. Onuf, Nicholas Grenwood, 217n. Optatus, Saint, Bishop of Mileve, 193n. Orange, House of, 39. Oricellari, Fiammetta, 60n. Oropesa, Manuel Joaquín Álvarez de Toledo y Portugal, Conde de, 33. Osiander, Andreas, 14 and n. Otazu, Alfonso, 60n. Oxford, Robert Harley, Earl of, 119, 120, 121 and n. Paets, Adriaen, 30. Pagano de Divitiis, Gigliola, 58n, 59n. Pagnini, Giovanni Francesco, 74n. Pallavicino, Giovanni Battista, 25, 35. Panaite, Viorel, 183n. Panciatichi, Francesco, 56n. Panebianco, Massimo, 190n. Panin, Nikita Ivanovich, 149. Paoli, Maria Pia, 246n. Paoli, Pasquale, 92. Papillon, Thomas, 117. Pardessus, Jean-Marie, 69n. Pares, Richard, 15n, 109n, 111 and n, 112n, 204n.

Parkin, Jon (Jonathan Bruce), 190n. Parri, Maria Grazia, 70n. Parsi, Vittorio Emanuele, 228n. Passerini, Luigi, 45n, 65n. Passero, Laura, 239n. Pasta, Renato, 223n. Patalano, Rosario, 247n. Pavia, Antonio, 45. Pedani, Maria Pia, 58n. Pelus-Kaplan, Marie-Louise, 122n. Peñaranda, Gaspar de Bracamonte y Guzmán Pacheco de Mendoza, Conde de, 30n, 31, 59n. Pérez Picazo, María Teresa, 60, 158. Perna, Maria Luisa, 225n. Perraton, Jonathan, 14n. Perrot, Jean-Claude, 247n. Peter II, King of Portugal, 65. Peter Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, 17, 52, 81, 82, 92, 94n, 100, 104, 147. Petralia, Giuseppe, 19. Petti Balbi, Giovanna, 31. Philip IV, King of Spain, 34, 36. Philip V, King of Spain, 26, 39, 44. Piazza, Calogero, 70n, 79n, 82n, 84n, 85n, 87n. Pibiri, Eva, 57n. Piccolomini, Tommaso, 93 and n, 157n. Pierallini, Giuseppe Francesco, 17, 70 and n, 83-100. Piergiovanni, Vito, 71n, 242n, 243n. Pietro, Corso [Corso Pietro], 84. Pii, Eluggero, 247n. Pinto, Isaac de, 139n, 143. Pisapia, Gian Domenico, 223n. Pizzetti, Silvia Maria, 227n. Plumard de Dangeul, Louis-Joseph, 142n. Pocock, John G. A., 248n, 251n. Poisson, Guillaume, 58n. Polignac, Melchior de, 132. Polybius, 234. Pomponne, Arnaud de, 34. Pontchartrain family, 122n. Pontchartrain, Jérôme Phélypeau, Comte de, 121, 122n, 123, 124n. Ponza, Giorgio, 243. Porta, Pier Luigi, 221n. Portocarrero, Luis Manuel, Fernández de Portocarrero-Bocanegra y MoscosoOsorio, Cardinal, 39.

263

Pothier, Robert Joseph, 80, 81n. Pötting, Franz Eusebius von, 30n. Poumarède, Géraud, 15n, 171n, 172n, 174n, 183n, 186n. Pourchasse, Pierrick, 12n. Pradells Nadal, Jesús, 41n, 57 and n. Prak, Maarten, 13n, 23n. Preto, Paolo, 59 and n. Priestley, Margaret, 116n, 117n. Prior, Matthew, 121. Pritchard, James S., 112n. Prosperi, Adriano, 70n, 85n, 245n. Pucitta, Romolo, 50. Pufendorf, Samuel, Freiherr von, 17, 84, 87, 100, 180, 181n, 185n, 188, 190-192 and n, 194-196 and n, 198, 199, 200 and n, 212n, 219, 222, 228, 230, 250 and n, 251. Puncuh, Dino, 26n. Purcell, Nicolas, 161n. Quaglioni, Diego, 190n, 239n. Querini, Angelo, 229. Quintilian, 194 and n. Quirós, Bernaldo de, 26, 39n. Ramires, Lopo, 39. Raviola, Blythe Alice, 10n, 188n. Raymond, André, 173n, 179n. Reddie, James, 212n. Redi, Francesco, 63. Redworth, Glyn, 28n. Reede van Renswoude, Hendrick van, 29, 30 and n, 57 and n. Reinders, Michel, 141n. Reverso, Laurent, 190n. Ricci, Giuliano, 51. Ricci, Giuseppe Pasquale, 50 and n, 69 and n, 81. Richard, Jacques, 27 and n. Richard, Vincent, 27. Richecourt, Dieudonné Emmanuel Nay, Count of, 73, 76, 79, 81. Ricuperati, Giuseppe, 248n. Ridolfi, Ludovico, 64. Rinuccini, Carlo, 189n, Rinuccini, Carlo, Marquis, 60. Rivarola, Antonio, 50n. Rivero, Manuel, 23 and n. Robertson, John, 190n, 248 and n, 252 and n.

Roche, Daniel, 247n. Rodríguez De Diego, José Luis, 23. Roggero, Marina, 16n, 72n, 86n. Romagnoli, Sergio, 223n, 224n. Ronquillo, Antonio, 33. Roorda, Daniel Jeen, 30n. Rooy, Piet de, 144n. Roquerols, Jaime, 151, 154-156. Roquerols, José, 151, 154-156. Rosa, Mario, 24n. Rosenberg Orsini, Saverio, 82, 83n, 86 and n. Rossi, Giovanni, 224n. Rouard de Card, E. (Edgard), 179n, 187n. Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 191n, 213 and n, 251. Rousset de Missy, Jean, 228. Rovinello, Marco, 49n. Rowen, Herbert H., 30n, 34n. Ruata, Ada, 230n. Ruta, Carlos, 156. Ruvigny, Henry Massue, 1er Marquis de, 114. Rycaut, Sir Paul, 184 and n, 185n. Sabbatini, Renzo, 42n. Sabinon, Juan Esteban, 45. Sacchi, Defendente, 235. Sagnac, Philippe, 108n. Salas, Juan Alonso de, 31 and n. Salerno, Emanuele, 6, 16, 188, 189, 247, 254. Salucci, Anton Francesco, 150. Salucci, firm, 147, 150, 151. Salucci, Vincenzo Sebastiano, 150, 151, 153, 154, 158. Saluzzo, Giacomo, 25 and n, 35n. Salvemini, Biagio, 6, 9, 17, 160, 165n, 166n, 254. Salvemini, Raffaella, 167n. Sanna, Guglielmo, 190n. Santoponte, Giovanni, 236n, 237, 240 and n. Sas, Nicolaas Cornelis Ferdinand van, 145n. Sasburg, Thomas, 30. Sassetti, Filippo, 61. Satow, Ernest, 211n, 212n. Savoy, House of, 11, 91. Scarabello, Giovanni, 229n. Schaeper, Thomas J., 113n, 124n.

264

Schiavone, Aldo, 10n. Schilling, Lothar, 227n, 228n. Schlosser, Johann Georg, 102n, 106n. Schmitt, Carl, 100n, 172n. Schnakenbourg, Eric, 6, 9, 15, 85n, 111n, 122n, 124n, 148n, 159n, 203, 254. Schöndove, Loeki, 38n. Schonemberg, Francisco de, 39. Schröder, Peter, 175n. Schumpeter, Joseph Alois, 108n. Schutte, Otto, 31n. Sciumè, Alberto, 239n. Scott, Hamish M., 110n, 128n, 141n. Scovazzi, Tullio, 230n. Segura, Pedro, 60n. Ségur-Dupeyron, Pierre de, 113n, 115n. Sempere y Guarinos, Juan, 33n. Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, 194. Serafini, Filippo, 236n. Seratti, Francesco, 92, 93 and n, 148n. Serra, Bautista, 26n. Silva family, see De Silva family. Siminetti, Francesco, 93 and n, 94 and n. Simonutti, Luisa, 220n. Siruela, Gabriel, De Velasco y la Cueva, VII Conde de Siruela, 33 and n. Skilliter, Susan A., 171n. Skinner, Quentin, 15n, 23n, 250n. Slechte, Christiaan Hendrik, 134n. Slingelandt, Simon van, 131, 136, 138, 139 and n, 142. Smith, Adam, 250. Smith, Jay M., 122n. Smith, Kammerling, 122n. Soffietti, Isidoro, 245n. Sonenscher, Michael, 133n. Sonnenfels, Joseph von, 101-105 and n, 227. Spagnesi, Enrico, 6, 9, 15, 190n, 193n, 233, 234n, 247, 254. Spinola Bassadona, Felipe, II Marqués de Los Balbases, 30. Spinola Doria, Pablo, III Marqués de Los Balbases, 27 and n, 28. Spinola family, 39. Spinola, Agostino, 25. Spinola, Ambrogio, 37. Spinola, Bartolomé, 36, 37n. Spinoza, Baruch, 251. Spruyt, Hendrik, 13 and n.

Stamhuis, Ida Harmina, 144n. Stapelbroek, Koen, 6, 9, 13, 17, 18, 108n, 111n, 117n, 129 and n, 130n, 134n, 135n, 136n, 139n, 140n, 141n, 142n, 143n, 144n, 148n, 185n, 203 and n, 205n, 226n, 247, 248n, 254. Statt, Daniel, 49n. Steiner, Philippe, 248n. Storrs, Christopher, 13n. Straumann, Benjamin, 174n, 175n. Stuart, House of, 39. Stuart, Pretender, see James Francis Edward Stuart. Subrahmanyam, Sanjay, 12n. Sully, Maximilien de Béthune, Duc de, 105, 200n. Sutter, Johann Daniel von, 193n. Sutter, Philip Wilhelm von, 193n, 194. Swetchinski, Daniel, 38n. Swift, Jonathan, 119. Tallard, Camille de La Baume d’Hostun, Comte de, 119 and n. Tanucci, Bernardo, 191 and n, 195n. Tarello, Giovanni, 190n, 242n. Targa, Carlo, 72, 76 and n, 80. Tasca, Paria, 32. Terriesi, Francesco, 67n. Testa, I. (Ignaz), Freiherr von, 173n. Textor, Johan Wolfgang, 207 and n. Thomasius, Christian, 191, 250. Thompson, Allen D., 70n. Thomson, Ann, 172n. Thorbecke, Johan Rudolph, 143. Tilly, Charles, 13n. Timoni, Luigi, 156. Timpanaro Morelli, Augusta, 245n. Tocchini, Gerardo, 223n. Tollebeek, Jo, 144n. Tombs, Isabelle, 108n. Tombs, Robert, 108n. Tonelli, Giovanna, 221n. Torcy, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Marquis de, 124n. Torriano, Gorge, 117. Torriano, Nathaniel, 117. Tosi, Giuseppe, 239n. Townshend, Charles, 2nd Viscount, 139n. Trampus, Antonio, 6, 9, 15, 57 and n, 59n, 69n, 99n, 217, 223n, 244n, 249n, 254.

265

Vitale, Vito, 29 and n, 34n. Vitoria, Francisco de, 175n, 239 and n. Vollenhoven, Cornelis van, 144 and n. Volpi, Franco, 100n. Volpini, Paola, 91n. Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet de, 133, 201n, 251. Voorhoeve, Joris Jacob Clemens, 145n. Vreede, George Willem, 124n.

Treviño y Davila, Francisco, 158. Tribe, Keith, 227n. Triepel, Heinrich, 239 and n. Tron, Andrea, 229. Tuck, Richard, 100n, 130n, 197n, 217n. Tursi, Duke of, 37. Urbina, Francisco de, 27. Usoz, Javier, 127n, 249n. Ustor, Endre, 228n. Valdés y Fernández Bazán, Antonio, 155. Valdés, José Maria Portillo, 249n. Valin, René-Josué, 78n, 80, 151 and n, 152 and n, 153, 214 and n. Van Gelderen, Martin, 23n. Vannini, Fabrizio, 234n. Vannucchi, Anton Maria, 189n, 190n. Vario, Domenico Alfeno, 69n. Vattel, Emer de, 15, 16, 17, 84, 91, 99 and n, 142, 146, 182n, 185n, 203 and n, 207 and n, 209 and n, 210n, 212, 213, 215232, 237, 242, 244 and n, 250 and n. Vauguyon, Paul François de Quelen de La, 141. Vázquez de Menchaca, Fernando, Vàsques, 196n. Veenendaal, Augustus Johannes jr., 138n. Velada, Marqués de, 31 and n. Venturi, Franco, 82n, 145n, 156n, 222n, 247n, 249 and n. Vera y Zúñiga, Juan Antonio de, 28 and n. Verga, Marcello, 68n, 86n, 188n, 195n, 198n, 241n. Vergennes, Charles Gravier, Comte de, 108n, 123, 126, 157, 186n. Verri, Alessandro, 224 and n. Verri, Pietro, 15, 221 and n, 222 and n, 224, 227, 231. Vidari, Ercole, 236 and n, 240 and n. Vieri di Castiglione, 62n, 64 and n. Vignols, Léon, 110n. Villani, Stefano, 41n. Vincent de Gournay, Jacques-Claude-Marie, 136. Viner, Jacob, 108n. Vinnius, Arnoldus, 194. Visser, Joseph, 16 and n. Vissering, Simon, 134n.

Waelwyk, Albertus Gerardus, 139n. Wahnbaeck, Till, 248n. Walker, Wyndham, 88n. Walpole, Horace, 82n. Wandruszka, Adam, 82n, 92n. Ward, Robert Plumer, 215 and n. Weiler, Antonius Gerardus, 31n. Weller, Thomas, 28n. Wells, Charlotte, 49n. Werner, Michel, 12n. Whatmore, Richard, 10n, 218n. Wicquefort, Abraham de, 30n, 180 and n, 181 and n. Wijffels, Alain A., 176n. William III, William Henry, Prince of Orange-Nassau, 118, 123, 130, 131. William IV, Willem Karel Hendrik Friso, Prince of Orange-Nassau, 137. Wilson, Arthur McCandless, 127n. Wilson, Ian M., 205n. Windler, Christian, 12 and n, 15n, 40n, 41n, 171n, 172n, 183n, 186n. Witt, Cornelis, 137. Witt, Johan de, 29, 38, 132n, 137. Wokler, Robert, 130n. Wolff, Christian, 146, 201n, 207, 217 and n, 225, 227, 235, 242. Wootton, David, 248n. Yorke, Sir Joseph, 141 and n. Yun Casalilla, Bartolomé, 37n, 55n. Zagari, Eugenio, 247n Zamora Rodríguez, Francisco Javier, 5, 12, 16 and n, 42n, 45n, 55, 166, 254. Zaugg, Roberto, 41n. Zimmermann, Bénédicte, 12n. Zinzendorf, Karl von, 228. Zordan, Giorgio, 69.

266

Storia/studi e ricerche fondata da M. Berengo e F. Della Peruta - diretta da G. Berta, C. Capra, G. Chittolini e F. Della Peruta

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ELENA DE MARCHI, Dai campi alle filande. Famiglia, matrimonio e lavoro nella "pianura dell'Olona" (1750-1850) (disponibile anche in e-book). ARTURO COLOMBO, Voci e volti dell'Europa. Idee, identità, unificazione. MARIA GRAZIA MERIGGI, La disoccupazione come problema sociale. Riformismo, conflitto e "democrazia industriale" in Europa prima e dopo la Grande guerra (disponibile anche in ebook). MARCO SORESINA, La periferia al centro. Figure e momenti di storia lombarda tra '800 e'900. ANTONIO LAZZARINI, Boschi e politiche forestali. Venezia e Veneto fra Sette e Ottocento. MARIA CONCETTA CALABRESE, I Paternò di Raddusa. Patrimonio, lignaggio, matrimoni (secc. XVI-XVIII). PAOLO FAVILLI, Riformismo alla prova ieri e oggi. La "grande riforma" tributaria nell'Italia liberale (disponibile anche in e-book). ROBERTO ROMANO, La modernizzazione periferica. L'Alto Milanese e la formazione di una società industriale 1750-1914. GIANNI CISOTTO, La "terza via". I radicali veneti tra Ottocento e Novecento. STEFANO LEVATI, LUIGI LORENZETTI (a cura di), Dalla Sila alle Alpi. L'itinerario storiografico di Raul Merzario. TOMMASO GALLARATI SCOTTI, Vita di Dante, a cura di Francesco Spera. GIOVANNA FIUME, Il Santo Moro. I processi di canonizzazione di Benedetto da Palermo (1594-1807). PAOLA SUBACCHI, La ruota della fortuna. Arricchimento e promozione sociale in una città padana in età moderna. EUGENIA TOGNOTTI, Per una storia della malaria in Italia. Il caso della Sardegna. ROBERTO ROMANO, I Caprotti. L'avventura economica e umana di una dinastia industriale della Brianza. GIORGIO DELL'ORO, Il Regio Economato. Il controllo statale sul clero nella Lombardia asburgica e nei domini sabaudi. ANTONELLO MATTONE, PIERO SANNA, Settecento sardo e cultura europea. Lumi, società, istituzioni nella crisi dell'Antico Regime. GIOVANNI TARANTINO, Lo scrittoio di Anthony Collins (1676-1729). I libri e i tempi di un libero pensatore. NADIA COVINI, La balanza drita. Pratiche di governo, leggi e ordinamenti nel ducato sforzesco. CARLA FORTI, Dopoguerra in provincia. Microstorie pisane e lucchesi (1944-1948). GIORGIO BIGATTI, SERGIO ONGER (a cura di), Arti tecnologia progetto. Le esposizioni d'industria in Italia prima dell'Unità. GINO BADINI, ANDREA GAMBERINI (a cura di), Medioevo reggiano. Studi in ricordo di Odoardo Rombaldi. EUGENIA TOGNOTTI, L'altra faccia di Venere. La sifilide dalla prima età moderna all'avvento dell'Aids (XV-XX sec.). ELENA VALERI, Italia dilacerata. Girolamo Borgia nella cultura storica del Rinascimento. NINO DEL BIANCO, Enrico Cernuschi. Uno straordinario protagonista del nostro Risorgimento.

NADIA MARIA FILIPPINI (a cura di), Donne sulla scena pubblica. Società e politica in Veneto tra Sette e Ottocento. MARIA LUISA BETRI, DANIELA MALDINI CHIARITO (a cura di), Scritture di desiderio e di ricordo. Autobiografie, diari, memorie tra Settecento e Novecento. EUGENIA TOGNOTTI, La "spagnola" in Italia. Storia dell'influenza che fece temere la fine del mondo (1918-1919). ROBERTO ROMANO, Fabbriche, operai, ingegneri. Studi di storia del lavoro tra '800 e '900. LUIGI POLO FRIZ, La massoneria italiana nel decennio post unitario. Lodovico Frapolli. ALBERTO MEROLA, GIOVANNI MUTO, ELENA VALERI, MARIA ANTONIETTA VISCEGLIA (a cura di), Storia sociale e politica. Omaggio a Rosario Villari. BARBARA ARMANI, Il confine invisibile. L'élite ebraica di Firenze 1840-1914. PAOLO SIMONCELLI, Fuoriuscitismo repubblicano fiorentino 1530-1554. Vol. I. 1530-1537. GIOVANNA ANGELINI, ARTURO COLOMBO (a cura di), Eretici e dissidenti. Protagonisti del XIX e XX secolo fra politica e cultura. PAOLA ZOCCHI, Il Comune e la salute. Amministrazione municipale e igiene pubblica a Milano (1814-1859). VITTORIO CRISCUOLO, Albori di democrazia nell'Italia in rivoluzione (1792-1802). ANGELA RUSSO, Nel desiderio delle tue care nuove. Scritture private e relazioni di genere nell'Ottocento risorgimentale. MONICA FERRARI (a cura di), I bambini di una volta. Problemi di metodo. Studi per Egle Becchi. STEFANO MESCHINI, La Francia nel Ducato di Milano. La politica di Luigi XII (14991512). ERCOLE ONGARO (a cura di), Il Lodigiano nel Novecento. La cultura. PIERO AIMO, Il centro e la circonferenza. Profili di storia dell'amministrazione locale. FRANCESCO CODELLO, La buona educazione. Esperienze libertarie e teorie anarchiche in Europa da Godwin a Neill. LETIZIA ARGENTERI, Tina Modotti. Fra arte e rivoluzione. PAOLO FERRARI (a cura di), L'aeronautica italiana. Una storia del Novecento. ANDREA GAMBERINI, Lo Stato visconteo. Linguaggi politici e dinamiche costituzionali. MARIA GRAZIA MERIGGI, Cooperazione e mutualismo. Esperienze di integrazione e conflitto sociale in Europa fra Ottocento e Novecento. WALTER PANCIERA, Il governo delle artiglierie. Tecnologia bellica e istituzioni veneziane nel secondo Cinquecento. ROBERTO MUSETTI, I Fabbricotti. Il volto di una dinastia del marmo tra '700 e '900 a Carrara. LUCIO CEVA, Teatri di guerra. Comandi, soldati e scrittori nei conflitti europei. MARIO INFELISE, ANASTASIA STOURAITI (a cura di), Venezia e la guerra di Morea. Guerra, politica e cultura alla fine del '600. CLELIA PIGHETTI, Il vuoto e la quiete. Scienza e mistica nel '600. Elena Cornaro e Carlo Rinaldini. ELISABETTA COLOMBO, Come si governava Milano. Politiche pubbliche nel secondo Ottocento.

FEDERICA AMBROSINI, L'eresia di Isabella. Vita di Isabella da Passano, signora della Frattina (1542-1601). LUIGI BLANCO (a cura di), Le radici dell'autonomia. Conoscenza del territorio e intervento pubblico in Trentino secc. XVIII-XX. FERDINANDO CRESPI, Ticino irredento. La frontiera contesa. Dalla battaglia culturale dell'"Adula" ai piani d'invasione. FRANCO DELLA PERUTA, Società e classi popolari nell'Italia dell'800. ANNA MILLO, Trieste, le assicurazioni, l'Europa. Arnoldo Frigessi di Rattalma e la Ras. FRANCO FANTONI, L'ircocervo possibile. Liberalismo e socialismo da "Critica Sociale" ai "Quaderni di Giustizia e Libertà". RICCARDO FUBINI, L'Umanesimo italiano e i suoi storici. Origini rinascimentali - critica moderna. LEONIDA TEDOLDI, Cittadini minori. Cittadinanza, integrazione sociale e diritti reali nella Brescia veneta secc. XVI-XVIII. MARIO SIRAGUSA, Baroni e briganti. Classi dirigenti e mafia nella Sicilia del latifondo (1861-1950). CARLO DE MARIA, Camillo Berneri. Tra anarchismo e liberalismo. PAOLO MILITELLO, L'isola delle carte. Cartografia della Sicilia in età moderna. FABIO TAFURO, Senza fratellanza non è libertà. Pacifico Valussi e la rivoluzione veneziana del Quarantotto. ROCCO D'ALFONSO, Costruire lo stato forte. Politica, diritto, economia in Alfredo Rocco. STEFANO MESCHINI, Luigi XII duca di Milano. Gli uomini e le istituzioni del primo dominio francese (1499-1512). FRANCESCO VIANELLO, Seta fine e panni grossi. Manifatture e commerci nel Vicentino. 1570-1700. ELENA PAPAGNA, Sogni e bisogni di una famiglia aristocratica. I Caracciolo di Martina in età moderna. ELISA NOVI CHAVARRIA, Monache e gentildonne. Un labile confine. Poteri politici e identità religiose nei monasteri napoletani secoli XVI-XVII. ANNA BRAVO, DANIELE JALLA (a cura di), La vita offesa. Storia e memoria dei lager nazisti nei racconti di duecento sopravvissuti. FULVIO CONTI (a cura di), Massoneria e società civile. Pistoia e la Val di Nievole dall'Unità al secondo dopoguerra. PIERANGELO LOMBARDI, L'illusione al potere. Democrazia, autogoverno regionale e decentramento amministrativo nell'esperienza dei Cln (1944-45). MICHELE ROMANO, Storia di una famiglia borghese. I Vallone di Galatina (secc. XVIIXX). ALESSANDRA PAGANO, Il confino politico a Lipari. 1926-1933. LUCA TOPI, C'est absolumment la Vandée. L'insorgenza del Dipartimento del Circeo (17981799). GIOVANNA ANGELINI, L'ideale e la realtà. L'itinerario politico e sociale di Gabriele Rosa. PERRY R. WILLSON, La fabbrica orologio. Donne e lavoro alla Magneti Marelli nell'Italia fascista.

MARCELLA CAMPANELLI, Centralismo romano e "policentrismo" periferico. Chiesa e religiosità nella Diocesi di Sant'Alfonso Maria de Liguori. ERCOLE ONGARO (a cura di), Il Lodigiano nel Novecento. La politica. CLAUDIA GORI, Crisalidi. Emancipazioniste liberali in età giolittiana (disponibile anche in e-book). GIUSEPPE GALASSO, ADRIANA VALERIO (a cura di), Donne e religione a Napoli. Secoli XVI-XVIII. GIUSEPPE GIARRIZZO, ENRICO IACHELLO (a cura di), Le mappe della storia. Proposte per una cartografia del Mezzogiorno e della Sicilia in età moderna. MARIA LUISA BETRI, DANIELA MALDINI CHIARITO (a cura di), Dolce dono graditissimo. La lettera privata dal Settecento al Novecento. PAOLO COLOMBO, Il re d'Italia. Prerogative costituzionali e potere politico della Corona (1848-1922). GIANFRANCO GALLIANI CAVENAGO, Quando il paesano rifiutò il pendìzio. Il ruolo della cooperazione nella trasformazione del contado di Cuggiono (1860-1915). GIUSEPPE CASARRUBEA, Portella della Ginestra. Microstoria di una strage di Stato. SAVERIO RUSSO, Tra Abruzzo e Puglia. La transumanza dopo la Dogana. MARIA GRAZIA MERIGGI, L'invenzione della classe operaia. Conflitti di lavoro, organizzazione del lavoro e della società in Francia intorno al 1848. FRANCO DELLA PERUTA, Uomini e idee dell'Ottocento italiano. DOMENICO LIGRESTI, Dinamiche demografiche nella Sicilia moderna (1505-1806). PAOLA BIANCHI, ANDREA MERLOTTI, Cuneo in età moderna. Città e Stato nel Piemonte d'antico regime. ALBERTO CASTELLI, Una pace da costruire. I socialisti britannici e il federalismo. MATTIA GRANATA, La Lombardia cooperativa. La Lega nazionale cooperative e mutue nel secondo dopoguerra. AURELIO ALAIMO, Un'altra industria? Distretti e sistemi locali nell'Italia contemporanea. FLAVIO BRAULIN, La questione sanitaria nella Trieste di fine '800. I caratteri antropologici della medicina ospedaliera sul Litorale austriaco. GERMANO MAIFREDA, Rappresentanze rurali e proprietà contadina. Il caso veronese tra Sei e Settecento. FRANCO DELLA PERUTA, Carlo Cattaneo politico. ANNA CAPELLI, RENATA BROGGINI (a cura di), Antisemitismo in Europa negli anni Trenta. Legislazioni a confronto. GIUSEPPE CARLO MARINO, Eclissi del principe e crisi della storia. Apogeo e tramonto della democrazia rivoluzionaria nel XX secolo. SANTO PELI, La Resistenza difficile. MARIA LUISA BETRI, La giovinezza di Stefano Jacini. La formazione, i viaggi, la "proprietà fondiaria" (1826-1857). MARCO SORESINA, Conoscere per amministrare: Luigi Bodio. Statistica, economia e pubblica amministrazione. CINZIA MARTIGNONE, Imprenditori protestanti a Milano. 1850-1900. GIOVANNA ANGELINI, ARTURO COLOMBO, VIRGINIO PAOLO GASTALDI, Poteri e libertà. Autonomie e federalisno nel pensiero democratico italiano.