Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Western Mediterranean in the Age of Revolutions

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
France, Britain, and the Struggle for the Revolutionary Western Mediterranean

Part of the book series: War, Culture and Society, 1750-1850 ((WCS))

  • 300 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter offers a brief overview of the Western Mediterranean from roughly 1769 to 1789. The purpose of it is to demonstrate the relative stability of the region within the Old Regime balance-of-power system of international politics. The sale and conquest of Corsica in 1769 is the first example of this, followed by the marginalization of the region during the War of American Independence. The turning point of the chapter is the introduction of the French Revolutionary attack on international stability and the practice of diplomacy. It concludes by putting this Revolutionary destabilization into a specifically Mediterranean context through a close examination of the actions of the British and the French representatives in Tuscany following the outbreak of the French Revolution.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Molly Greene, Catholic Pirates and Greek Merchants: A Maritime History of the Mediterranean (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010); Lauren Benton, Law and Colonial Cultures (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Peter Sahlins, Boundaries: The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989).

  2. 2.

    Thadd E. Hall, France and the Eighteenth Century Corsican Question (New York: New York University Press, 1971). Rousseau first mentioned Corsica in The Social Contract, but expounded more fully on his ideas in The Constitutional Project for Corsica. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Alan Ritter, and Julia Conaway Bondanella, Rousseau’s Political Writings: New Translations, Interpretive Notes, Backgrounds, Commentaries (New York: W.W. Norton, 1988), 54; this is the reference to Corsica in The Social Contract, while the “Projet pour la Corse” can be found on 324.

  3. 3.

    René Boudard, Gênes et la France dans la Deuxième Moitié du XVIII Siècle (Paris: Mouton, 1962). See also Hall, Chap. 5

  4. 4.

    The purchase of Corsica would later create some tension between Revolutionary France and Genoa and continue even into the nineteenth century. Rene Emmanuelli, L’Equivoque de Corse, 1768–1805 (Ajaccio: La Marge, 1989), traces in detail the discussions between France and Genoa concerning the island.

  5. 5.

    Hall’s book remains the best account for both the event and the literature surrounding it, but see also René Boudard, Gênes et la France; Louis Villat, La Corse de 1768–1789, 2 vols. (Besancon: Millot Frères, 1924–1925).

  6. 6.

    James Boswell, An account of Corsica: The Journal of a tour to that Island; and Memoirs of Pascal Paoli (London: Edward and Charles Dilly, 1768); Richard Cole, “James Oglethorpe as revolutionary propagandist: The case of Corsica, 1768,” The Georgia Historical Quarterly 74, no. 3 (1990): 463–474.

  7. 7.

    British National Archives at Kew (BNA hereafter), SP 78/275 fol. 60, Rochford to Shelburne, 2 June 1768; N. Tracy, “The Government of Duke Grafton and the French Invasion of Corsica in 1768,” Eighteenth-Century Studies (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press), 1974: 169–182; Hall, France and the Eighteenth Century Corsican Question; Black, Debating Foreign Policy in Eighteenth Century Britain, 177.

  8. 8.

    BNA SP 78/277, fol. 67, Harcourt to Weymouth, 18 Jan., 8 Feb., 7 Dec. 1769. Also see BNA, SP 78/277, fol. 11, 279, 192–3.

  9. 9.

    Thadd E. Hall, “Enlightened Thought and Practice in Corsica,” American Historical Review 74, no. 3 (1969): 880–905.

  10. 10.

    Étienne Taillemite, Histoire Ignorée de la Marine Française (Paris: Perrin, 2003), 177–178, 199; Patrick Villiers, La Marine de Louis XVI (Grenoble: J.P. Debbane, 1983); William Cormack, Revolution and Political Conflict in the French Navy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

  11. 11.

    Maurice Loire, La Marine Royale en 1789 (Paris: A. Colin, 1892), 1, lists the goal stated in 1786, which was not yet attained in 1789: 81 ships of the line, 81 frigates, etc. Jonathan Dull, The French Navy and American Independence: A Study of Arms and Diplomacy, 1774–1787 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975), 337–338; this book traces this new level to Castries’ proposals of 1781.

  12. 12.

    Cormack, 23. The expansion of the navy in the 1780s did not solve the problems with the French navy, with a lack of materials and men continually stymying successful expansion.

  13. 13.

    Black, Debating Foreign Policy; John C. Clarke, British Diplomacy and Foreign Policy, 1782–1865 (London: Unwin Hyman Ltd, 1989). Chaps. 1, 2.

  14. 14.

    GW Rice, “British Foreign Policy and the Falkland Islands Crisis of 1770–1771,” International History Review 32, no. 2 (2010): 273–305.

  15. 15.

    Linda Colley, Britons, Forging the Nation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009).

  16. 16.

    Quoted from Stuart Woolf, A History of Italy 1700–1860: The Social Constraints of Political Change (London: Methuen & Co, 1979), 41.

  17. 17.

    For excellent details on this process, see the entirety of Woolf, A History of Italy, but especially the first chapter.

  18. 18.

    Adrian Tinniswood, Pirates of Barbary: Corsairs, Conquests and Captivity in the Seventeenth-Century Mediterranean (New York: Riverhead Books, 2010); J. S. Bromley, Corsairs and Navies, 1660–1760 (Hampshire, UK: Hambledon Press, 1987); Henry Laurens, Les Origines Intellectuelles de l’Expédition d’Egypte: L’Orientalisme Islamisant en France (Editions Isis, 1987).

  19. 19.

    Minorca was reclaimed by the Treaty of Versailles in 1783, while Gibraltar remained British. Desmond Gregory, Minorca, The Illusory Prize: A History of the British Occupations of Minorca between 1708 and 1802 (Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1990).

  20. 20.

    G. T. Garratt, Gibraltar and the Mediterranean (Coward-McCann, 1939); Ernle Bradford, Gibraltar: the history of a fortress (London: Hart-Davis, 1971); Sir William Jackson, The Rock of the Gibraltarians (Madison, NJ: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1987); Allen Andrews, Proud Fortress: the fighting story of Gibraltar (Dutton, 1959); George Hills, Rock of Contention: A history of Gibraltar (Hale, 1974).

  21. 21.

    Credit for this framework goes to Bailey Stone, Reinterpreting the French Revolution: A Global-Historical Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

  22. 22.

    Stone, 114.

  23. 23.

    J. Ehrman, The British Government and Commercial Negotiations with Europe, 1783–1793 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962).

  24. 24.

    Orville T. Murphy, The Diplomatic Retreat of France and Public Opinion on the Eve of the French Revolution, 1783–1789 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1998).

  25. 25.

    J. Black, Debating Foreign Policy; Jennifer Mori, Britain in the Age of the French Revolution; John C. Clarke, British Diplomacy and Foreign Policy, 1782–1865; Linda Colley, Britons, Forging the Nation. C. A. Bayly, Imperial Meridian: The British Empire and the World, 1780–1830 (Reading, MA: Longman, 1989); Charles Middleton, The Administration of British Foreign Policy (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1977), 21–23; D. B. Horn, Great Britain and Europe in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), 378–379.

  26. 26.

    Mori, 15. There is a considerable body of work on Burke and his relationship with the French Revolution, including David Armitage, “Edmund Burke and Reason of State,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 61, no. 4 (2000) 617–634; Jennifer Pitt, A Turn to Empire (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005).

  27. 27.

    Linda and Marsha Frey, “The Reign of the Charlatans Is Over: The French Revolutionary Attack on Diplomatic Practice,” The Journal of Modern History, vol. 65, no. 4 (Dec. 1993), 706–744; Philippe Joseph Benjamin Buchez and Prosper Charles Roux, eds., Histoire Parlementaire de la Révolution Française (Paris, 1834), 6:65, Goupil de Prefeln, May 27, 1790.

  28. 28.

    Moniteur 4 (1790), 389–91.

  29. 29.

    Felix Gilbert, “The ‘New Diplomacy’ of the Eighteenth Century,” World Politics, 4, no. 1 (Oct. 1951), quoted on page 36.

  30. 30.

    Louis Marie Prudhomme, Révolutions de Paris, no. 92 (Paris, 16 April 1791)

  31. 31.

    Rabaud in Archives Parlementaires de 1787–1860: Recueil Complet des Débats Législatifs et Politiques des Chambres Françaises, Première Sérié (1787–1799) (Paris, 1878), 17:396, 28 July 1790.

  32. 32.

    Linda and Marsha Frey, “‘Courtesans of the King’: Diplomats and the French Revolution,” Proceedings of the Western Society for French History, vol. 32, 2004; http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.0642292.0032.007.

  33. 33.

    See Pasquale Villani, “Francois Cacault decano dei diplomatici francesi in Italia durante la rivoluzione,” Studi Storici, anno 42, no. 2 (Apr.–Jun. 2001), pp. 461–501; Villani, “Agenti e diplomatici francesi durante la rivoluzione. Eymar e la sua missione a Genova (1793)” Studi Storic, 36, no. 4 (Oct.–Dec. 1995), 957–975.

  34. 34.

    Richard Long, “The Relations of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany with Revolutionary France, 1790–1799,” Florida State University Dissertation, 1972; Giovanni Lampredi, Juris Publici Universalis sive Juris Naturae et Gentium, Livorno (1776–1778)

  35. 35.

    Lampredi, Del Commercio dei Popoli in Tempo di Guerra (Florence, 1788), I, 26–27, 28ff, 38–39.

  36. 36.

    BNA FO 528 are the Hervey papers with much of his correspondence, both official and personal.

  37. 37.

    BNA FO 528/21 contains the papers concerning “Nugent, the Irish Madman.” FO 528/17 contains the letters concerning Hervey’s court case against his noisy neighbors.

  38. 38.

    See example in BNA FO 528/5 of Hervey smoothing over a contentious situation involving John Udney, consul in Livorno, and a breach of neutral etiquette. Hervey was commended for his efforts in this situation by Grenville. See BNA FO 528/1, Grenville to Hervey, 22 November 1791.

  39. 39.

    Niccolo Rodolico, Le Reggenza Lorenese in Toscano (Prato, 1908); Giuseppe Conti, Firenze Dopo i Medici: Francesco di Lorena, Pietro Leopoldo, Inizio del Regno di Ferdinando III (Florence, 1921).

  40. 40.

    BNA, FO 79/6, Hervey to Leeds, 28 February 1790; 20 March 1790.

  41. 41.

    Ibid., 2 February, 1790.

  42. 42.

    Elizabeth, Lady Holland, Journal of Elizabeth Lady Holland, 1791–1811, ed. Earl of Ilchester (London, 1909), I, 55.

  43. 43.

    BNA FO 79/6, Hervey to Leeds, 8 September 1789.

  44. 44.

    Ibid., Hervey to Leeds, 20 October 1789.

  45. 45.

    Ibid., 15 June, 1790.

  46. 46.

    It was the opinion of Francesco Maria Gianni in “Memoria sul tumlto” (211–224) that the reactions of 1790 were basically reactions against the economy reforms. Many sources including Eric Cochrane, Tradition and Enlightenment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961) have questioned in light of contemporary observers who stressed the religious aspects of the rebellion.

  47. 47.

    Zobi, Storia civile della Toscana, III, 84. See also BNA FO 528/10, Manfredini to Hervey, 22 June 1793.

  48. 48.

    Ministre Affaire Etrangers (hereafter MAE), Mémoires et documents, XI, Italie: Dépêches et Mémoires, 1494–1793, Unsigned report, July 1793, 238; MAE, Corr. Polit. 145bis, Toscane, La Flotte to Lebrun-Tondu, 4 January 1793.

  49. 49.

    Pasquale Villani, “Francois Cacault decano dei diplomatici francesi in Italia durante la rivoluzione,” Studi Storici, Anno 42, No. 2, 2002, 461–501.

  50. 50.

    MAE, Corr. Polit. (Naples) 38 (1793–1805), 11, 29 January 1793.

  51. 51.

    Annual Register, Volume 34, 325.

  52. 52.

    See Niccolo Niccolini, La Spedizione Punitiva di La Touche-Treville ed Altri Saffi Sulla Politica Napoletana alla Fine del Secolo XVIII (Florence, 1937), and Francois A. Aulard, ed, Recuel des Actes du Comite de Salut Public avec la Correspondance Officielle des Représentât en Mission et la Registre du Conseil Exécutif Provisoire (Paris, 1891–1910), I, 19ff, 42, 165–168, 188–190.

  53. 53.

    MAE, Corr. Polit. (Naples) 38 (1793–1805), 11, 29 January 1793.

  54. 54.

    Angus Heriot, The French in Italy (Chatto & Windus, 1957), 83.

  55. 55.

    See Frederic Masson, Les Diplômâtes de la Révolution: Hugo de Basseville à Rome, Bernadotte à Vienne (Paris, 1877), 15–145.

  56. 56.

    Interestingly, one of the stipulations of the Treaty of Tolentino in 1797 was provision for Basseville’s family.

  57. 57.

    BNA FO 79/8, Hervey to Grenville, 10 March, 1793. The draft of this letter is in BNA FO 528/4.

  58. 58.

    MAE, Corr. Polit, Toscane, 145bis, Toscane, Lebrun Tondu to La Flotte, 5 February 1973, 22 February 1793. Also, BNA FO 528/3, Hervey to Greenville, 9 November 1792.

  59. 59.

    MAE, Corr. Polit, Toscane, 145bis, Toscane, Lebrun Tondu to La Flotte, 2 April 1793.

  60. 60.

    On the offer of use of the diplomatic pouch, see MAE, Corr. Polit, Toscane, 145bis, Toscane, La Flotte to Lebrun-Tondu, 6 February, 1793. On the offer of arbitration, see ibid., Manfredini to La Flotte, 18 February 1793.

  61. 61.

    See Giusseppe Nuzzo, Italia e Rivoluzione Francese, la Resistenza dei Princip, 1791–1796 (Naples, 1965), 24, 73.

  62. 62.

    BNA, FO 79/8, Hervey to Grenville, 10 March 1793.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Northwest University, Kirkland, WA, USA

    Joshua Meeks

Authors
  1. Joshua Meeks
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Meeks, J. (2017). The Western Mediterranean in the Age of Revolutions. In: France, Britain, and the Struggle for the Revolutionary Western Mediterranean. War, Culture and Society, 1750-1850. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44078-1_2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44078-1_2

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-44077-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-44078-1

  • eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation