‘The Queen of England wants to bombard Livorno’: The Anglo-Tuscan Crisis at the Turn of the 18th Century (1696–1707)

Abstract

The government of Cosimo III de’ Medici promoted diplomatic strategies that were essentially aimed at preserving the neutrality of his dominion, so as to protect the economic interests of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany from conflicts between the great European powers at the end of the seventeenth century. In 1696, this policy came into crisis when William Plowman, an English merchant active in Livorno at the end of the seventeenth century, plundered a number of French ships in the Levant, thus triggering a chain effect that caused the consequent Tuscan diplomatic crisis with England. The controversy, which went on for several years, became increasingly popular in English royal circles, until it reached its peak in 1704, when rumours spread in Livorno that the English fleet was ready to bombard the Medicean port. Drawing on sources preserved in Florence, Venice and London, as well as an unpublished correspondence collected by Giovanni Battista Adami, the Tuscan procurator involved in Plowman’s liberation in 1699, this article aims to analyse the policy of neutrality pursued by the Grand Duchy of Tuscany during the Nine Years’ War (1688–1697) through the international clamour provoked by the Plowman case.

Keywords:

• Nine Years’ War
• piracy
• Cosimo III of Tuscany
• Queen Anne of England
• Livorno

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The reference is to the following acts issued by William III and Queen Marie: ‘Trade with France Act’ of 1688, ‘Importation Act’ of 1689, ‘Admiralty Act’ of 1690, ‘Trade with France Act’ of 1692, ‘Navy Act’ of 1694, ‘Greenland Trade Act’ of 1695; as well as the ‘Correspondence with Enemies Act’ promulgated by Queen Anne in 1704. For an in-depth analysis of English maritime laws, see R. Merkin, Marine Insurance: A Legal History, Volume I (Cheltenham & Northampton, MA, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021), 1–100. On French trade at the turn of the eighteenth century, see V. Barrie, ‘La prohibition du commerce avec la France dans la politique anglaise à la fin du XVIIème siècle’, Revue du Nord, 59, no. 234 (July-September 1977), 343–364; D.K. Smith, ‘Structuring Politics in Early Eighteenth-Century France: The Political Innovations of the French Council of Commerce’, The Journal of Modern History, 74, no. 3 (September 2002), 490–537. On French maritime strategies in the years 1688-1713, see B. Darnell, ‘Naval Policy in an Age of Fiscal Overextension’, and C.H. Crowston, ‘Mercantilism, Corporate Organization and the Guilds in the Later Reign of Louis XIV’, in J.T. Prest and G.R. Rowlands (eds), The third reign of Louis XIV, c. 1682-1715. Politics and culture in Europe, 1650-1750, (Routledge: London-New York, 2016), 68–81 and 100–15. On the ‘commercial cold war’ that took shape from the 1690s onwards between England and France, see J. Shovlin, Trading with the Enemy: Britain, France, and the 18th-Century Quest for a Peaceful World Order (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 2021), 31–79.

2 The fundamental intuition was to associate the port with a new urban area. In Ragionamento sopra il commercio ordinato dal Granduca fra i suoi sudditi e la nazione del Levante, the merchant Filippo Sassetti (Florence, 1540–Goa, 1588) emphasised the need to conceive of Livorno as a warehouse-port where all sorts of goods could be found. V. Bramanti (ed.), F. Sassetti, Lettere da vari paesi (1570-1580) (Milano: Longanesi, 1970); On the free port of Livorno as a special economic zone in Mediterranean trade in early modern times, see C. Tazzara, The free port of Livorno and the transformation of the Mediterranean World, 1574–1790 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).

3 F. Trivellato, The Familiarity of Strangers: The Sephardic Diaspora, Livorno, and Cross-Cultural Trade in the Early Modern Period (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009).

4 F. Angiolini, ‘Il lungo Seicento (1609-1737): declino o stabilità?’, Storia della civiltà toscana, vol. III, E. Fasano Guarini (ed.), Il principato mediceo (Firenze: Le Monnier, 2003), 42–7.

5 L. Frattarelli Fischer, ‘Livorno 1676: la città e il porto franco’, in F. Angiolini, V. Becagli and M. Verga (eds.), La Toscana nell’età di Cosimo III, Atti del convegno, Pisa – San Domenico Fiesole 4-5 giugno 1990 (Firenze: Edifir, 1993), 51–2.

6 A. Addobbati, M. Aglietti (eds.), La città delle nazioni. Livorno e i limiti del cosmopolitismo (1566-1834) (Pisa: Pisa University Press, 2016).

7 A. Addobbati, ‘La neutralità del porto di Livorno in età medicea. Costume mercantile e convenzione internazionale’, in A. Prosperi (ed.), Livorno 1606 – 1806: luogo di incontro tra popoli e culture (Torino: Alimandi, 2009), 91–103.

8 G. Pagano de Divitiis, Mercanti inglesi nell’Italia del Seicento, navi, traffici, egemonie (Venezia: Marsilio, 1990), 132.

9 M. D’Angelo, ‘The British Factory at Leghorn: a kind of Chamber of Commerce cum Consulate’, in C. Vassallo (ed.), Consolati di Mare and Chambers of Commerce (La Valletta: Malta University Press, 2000), 113; A. Hirst, ‘La politica inglese dei convogli nel Mediterraneo tra fine ‘600 ed inizi ‘700 con particolare riferimento al porto di Livorno’, Nuovi Studi Livornesi, VI (1998), 56–7.

10 J. Palmer, ‘Letters from London to Leghorn, 1704-1705. The correspondence between Arthur Martyn and Francis Arundell’, Nuovi Studi Livornesi, XIV (2007), 53-94; G. Giusti, Il Granducato di Toscana e il “caso Plowman”: la difesa della neutralità e la crisi con l’Inghilterra (1696-1707) (Master thesis, University of Pisa, 2008), I thank the author for sharing his valuable information on William Plowman; T. M. Stein, The Mediterranean in the English Empire of Trade, 1660-1748 (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard, 2012), 128-40; lastly, in 2022 Dr. Ubaldo Morozzi has defended his doctoral thesis at Swansea University focusing on the case of William Plowman, U. Morozzi, ‘The Tuscan Contest: neutrality, trade and diplomacy between England and Tuscany (1696-1704)’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Swansea University, 2022).

11 A[rchivio] A[rcivescovile] Pi[sa], Tribunale dell’Inquisizione, 22, cc. n.n., e 30, c. 281, 14/04/1703. See also Stefano Villani’s article in which the author mentions the bigamy trial against William Ploman, S. Villani, ‘Donne inglesi a Livorno nella prima età moderna’, in L. Frattarelli Fischer, O. Vaccari (eds.) Sul filo della scrittura. Fonti e temi per la storia delle donne a Livorno (Pisa: Edizioni Plus, 2005), 377–99 (384).

12 The Case of Sir Alexander Rigby, William Shepard, and William Plowman: setting forth the damages they have suffer’d by the imprisonment of William Plowman; seizure of their effects, and other proceedings of the Grand Duke of Toscany, London, 1701, 1.

13 A[rchivio] S[tato] F[irenze], Mediceo del Principato, 2672, cc. n.n., memorial on the Plowman case in response to Lambert Blackwell’s memoir, point 4; Ibid., Mediceo del Principato, 2674, cc. n.n., Plowman’s memorial, 26/07/1697, and reply by Laurent D’Arvieux, 29/07/1697.

14 S. Villani, ‘Note su Francesco Terriesi (1635-1715). Mercante, diplomatico e funzionario mediceo tra Londra e Livorno’, Nuovi Studi Livornesi, X (2002-2003), 59–80.

15 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2217, cc. n.n., Panciatichi’s letter to the governor of Livorno Del Borro, 24/03/1696; Ibid., Mediceo del Principato, 2672, cc. n.n., Blackwell’s memoir on the Plowman case, point 3.

16 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2675, cc. n.n., Instructions to Zeffirini.

17 Cape Negro is located in northern Tunisia, not far from Tabarca.

18 The Case of Sir Alexander Rigby, William Shepard, and William Plowman: setting forth the damages, pp. 5-6; J.B Labat (ed.), Mémoires du chevalier d’Arvieux, envoyé extraordinaire du Roy à la Porte, consul d’Alep, d’Alger, de Tripoli et autres Échelles du Levant (Paris: C.J.B. Delespine, 1735), 596.

19 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2674, cc. n.n., D’Arvieux’s memoir, 29/07/1697.

20 The Answer of the Merchants-Petitioners, 69–73.

21 J. C. Appleby, ‘Pirates, Privateers and Buccaneers: The Changing Face of English Piracy from the 1650s to the 1720s’, in C. A. Fury (ed.), The Social History of English Seamen, 1650-1815 (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2011), 213-30. For a distinction between Piracy and Privateering, see B. C. Gounaris, ‘Unwanted Heroes? British Privateering, Commerce, and Diplomacy in the Mid-Eighteenth-Century Eastern Mediterranean’, Mediterranean Studies, XXII, 2014 (2), 135-65; P.T. Leeson, The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009).

22 S. Bono, Corsari nel Mediterraneo: cristiani e musulmani fra guerra, schiavitù e commercio (Milano: Mondadori, 1993), 61; G. Calafat. ‘Mercanti, corsari e investimenti devozionali in una città nuova. L’“altare dei Corsi” a Livorno nel Seicento’, Quaderni Storici, LIII, 2018 (3), 739–72.

23 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2672, cc. n.n., memoir, point 5.

24 The Case of Sir Alexander Rigby, William Shepard, and William Plowman: setting forth the damages, 6–8.

25 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2674, cc. n.n., Plowman’s letter to Terriesi from prison in Rome, 26/01/1697.

26 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 4236, cc. n.n., Pier Matteo Maggio’s memoir, 30/06/1702.

27 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2672, cc. n.n., Blackwell’s memoir, point 6.

28 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2674, cc. n.n., letter from Gibercourt, French Consul in Livorno, to Dupré, 04/02/1697.

29 F. Martelli, ‘«Nec Spes Nec Metus»: Ferrante Capponi, giurista ed alto funzionario nella Toscana di Cosimo III’, in La Toscana nell’età di Cosimo III, p. 154; L. Mannori, Il sovrano tutore. Pluralismo istituzionale e accentramento amministrativo nel principato dei Medici (secc. XVI-XVIII) (Milano: Giuffrè, 1994), 250n.

30 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2674, cc. n.n..

31 Mémoires du chevalier d’Arvieux, 589–90.

32 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2674, cc. n.n., Plowman’s memoir, 26/07/1697.

33 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2672, cc. n.n., Blackwell’s memoir, point 7.

34 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2213, cc. n.n., Del Borro’s letter, 28/06/1693.

35 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2674, cc. n.n.

36 The sentence is given in a bilingual version in the 1704 libel The Answer of the Merchants-Petitioners, and Trustees for the Factory at Legorn, to the Account of Damages laid to the Charge of the Great Duke of Toscany, by Sir Alexander Rigby, Mr. Will. Shepard, and Mr. Will. Plowman. Copies of the libel are in ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2674 e 4838.

37 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2674, cc. n.n., D’Arvieux to Plowman, 01/10/1697.

38 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, Plowman to D’Arvieux, 03/10/1697.

39 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, Pietro Angeli’s letter, 30/01/1698 and 14/02/1698.

40 The Case of Sir Alexander Rigby, William Shepard, and William Plowman: setting forth the damages, 15.

41 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 4247, cc. n.n., Thomas Platt’s letter, 10/08/1698.

42 The Case of Sir Alexander Rigby, William Shepard, and William Plowman: setting forth the damages, 19–20.

43 Ibid, 23-4; ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 4236, cc. n.n., letter dated 10/01/1699 and Consul Blackwell’s letter, 10/09/1699.

44 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2672, cc. n.n., ‘Istruzioni al cavalier Jacopo Giraldi’. S. Tabacchi, Giacomo (Jacopo) Giraldi, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI), 56, 2001.

45 A[rchivio] A[dami] L[ami], Florence (Italy), Lettere, informazioni e documenti riguardanti la liberazione e interessi dei signori Pawman, trattati dal signore Giovanni Battista Adami, 323, 25. On Giovanni Battista Adami and the Plowman case, ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2674, cc. n.n., Del Borro to Angeli, 09/10/1699, and Catelani to Del Borro, 17/10/1699; Mediceo del Principato, 4236, cc. n.n., Catelani to Cosimo III, 13/10/1699.

46 M. Calcagni, ‘Francesco Adami, a Young Livornese Merchant in London, 1673–1674’, Cromohs - Cyber Review of Modern Historiography, 22 (2019–2020), 17–41.

47 AAL, 323, 27, Matthew Plowman to Giovanni Battista Adami, no date.

48 Ibid, 9, William Plowman to Giovanni Battista Adami, no date.

49 Ibid, 7, William Plowman to Giovanni Battista Adami, 16/08/1699.

50 Ibid, 10, Catelani to Giovanni Battista Adami, 21/08/1699.

51 Ibid, 13, William Plowman to Giovanni Battista Adami, 02/09/1699.

52 Ibid, 323, 11, William Plowman to Giovanni Battista Adami, 22/08/1699.

53 Ibid, 323, 13, William Plowman to Giovanni Battista Adami, 02/09/1699.

54 ’My most beloved lord and master, I am anxiously awaiting news of your arrival here, which I am sure will not have been any less satisfying for my father, having embraced his liberator (…)’, Ibid, 323, 14, Matthew Plowman to Giovanni Battista Adami, 05/10/1699.

55 Ibid, 14, Matthew Plowman to Giovanni Battista Adami, 05/10/1699.

56 Ibid, 15, Giovanni Battista Adami to Matthew Plowman, 06/10/1699.

57 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2674, cc. n.n., letter dated 08/10/1699; The Case of Sir Alexander Rigby, William Shepard, and William Plowman: setting forth the damages, 25; The compensation amount was reduced to 60000 torniesi pounds, ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2674, cc. n.n., Gibrecourt’s note, 06/10/1699.

58 The Case of Sir Alexander Rigby, William Shepard, and William Plowman: setting forth the damages, 23.

59 AAL, 323, 26, Giovanni Battista Adami’s memoir.

60 The Case of Sir Alexander Rigby, William Shepard, and William Plowman: setting forth the damages, 3-8, 13-6, 27-8.

61 Ibid, 15-6.

62 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2672, cc. n.n..

63 Cruickshanks, Handley, Hayton (eds.), The House of Commons 1690-1715, ad vocem.

64 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 4215, cc. n.n., Giraldi’s letter, 08/09/1702.

65 Ibid, Giraldi’s letter, 23/06/1702.

66 Ibid, Giraldi’s letters, 27/10/1702 e 03/11/1702.

67 Ibid, Giraldi’s letters, 01/12/1702 e 22/12/1702.

68 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 1615, cc. n.n., Terriesi’s letter, 01/10/1703.

69 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 4216, cc. n.n., Giraldi’s letter, 19/10/1703; Mediceo del Principato, 1615, cc. n.n., Terriesi’s letter, 19/10/1703.

70 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 4236, cc. n.n..

71 B. S. Sirota, ‘The Church of England, the Law of Nations and the Leghorn Chaplaincy Affair, 1703-1713’, Eighteenth-Century Studies, XLVIII, 2015 (3), 283–306.

72 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 4236, Giraldi’s letter, 09/10/1703.

73 The Answer of the Merchants-Petitioners, 27–31.

74 A[rchivio] S[tato] V[enezia], Senato, Dispacci ambasciatori, Inghilterra, 77, cc. 313r-315r.

75 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 1619, cc. n.n..

76 Ibidem.

77 Addobbati, La neutralità del porto di Livorno.

78 The Answer of the Merchants-Petitioners, p. 96; ASVe, Senato, Dispacci ambasciatori, Inghilterra, 77, cc. 560r-565r.

79 The Answer of the Merchants-Petitioners, 4–10.

80 ASV, Senato, Dispacci ambasciatori, Inghilterra, 77, cc. 365–366.

81 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2674, cc. n.n., letter by the Dutch Consul in Livorno, 07/04/1704. On the threatened bombing of Livorno see H. A. Hayward, ‘The British Factory in Livorno’, in Atti del convegno di studi «Gli inglesi a Livorno e all’Isola d’Elba», 262.

82 The Answer of the Merchants-Petitioners, 97–103.

83 Dictionary of National biography, L. Stephen, S. Lee (eds.) (London: Smith, Elder, 1885–1903), ad vocem; R.C. Ritchie, Capitan Kidd e la guerra contro i pirati (Torino: Einaudi, 1988), 146–71.

84 On the complex party politics of Anne’s reign, see W.F. Lord, ‘The Development of Political Parties during the Reign of Queen Anne’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 14 (1900), 69–121; G.S. Holmes, British Politics in the Age of Anne (London: Hambledon Press, 1967).

85 La politica inglese dei convogli nel Mediterraneo, 49.

86 The Answer of the Merchants-Petitioners, 126.

87 Ibid, 99, the communication is dated 26 May 1704.

88 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2675, cc. n.n., Instructions to Ruberto Maria Zeffirini, Tuscan extraordinary envoy to Queen Anne, May 1704.

89 Ibid, cc. n.n., letter dated 25/10/1704.

90 The Case of Sir Alexander Rigby, William Shepard, and William Plowman: setting forth the damages, 13.

91 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 4216, cc. n.n., Giraldi’s letter, 11/11/1704; Mediceo del Principato, 1619, cc. n.n., Catelani’s letter, 09/12/1704.

92 Ibid, Giraldi’s letter, 11/11/1704; Cfr. ASV, Senato, Dispacci ambasciatori, Inghilterra, 77, cc. 771v-772r.

93 Dictionary of National biography.

94 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 4217, cc. n.n., Giraldi’s letters, 16-23-30/01/1705.

95 Ibid, Giraldi’s letters, 01/05/1705, 08/05/1705 e 17/07/1705; TNA, State Paper, 98/22, cc. n.n., Newton’s letter, 23/05/1705.

96 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 4217, cc. n.n., Giraldi’s letters, 27/07/1705 e 31/07/1705.

97 T[he] N[ational] A[rchives], State Paper, 98/22, cc. n.n., Newton’s letter, 29/08/1705. ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 4217, cc. n.n., Giraldi’s letter, 25/09/1705. On Coriolano Montemagni see V. Arrighi, Coriolano Montemagni, DBI, Volume 76 (2012).

98 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2675, cc. n.n., lettera, 02/10/1705.

99 In January 1705, a Genoese ship flying the Grand Duke’s flag, captained by Captain Prasca, was seized near the port of Cadiz. This ship, which had gone to load goods in Lisbon to transport them to Livorno, took on board as passengers, at the request of the King of Portugal, some Frenchmen who were to reach Cadiz. On its departure from the Spanish city, however, Prasca’s ship was reached and captured by the English fleet commanded by Admiral George Rooke, with the accusation that enemy goods were being transported on board. Arrived with the fleet in London, the ship was in the first instance declared free by the Admiralty Court, but then, under pressure from the Queen’s Council, the goods loaded on it were blocked. In order to regain the goods, which in total were worth the considerable sum of sixty thousand pounds, the claimants had to prove, item by item, that what they claimed did not belong to enemies of England. For the Venetian ambassador Mocenigo, who had followed the affair with interest, this decision would in fact have caused the loss of the cargo for the merchants involved, or of their earnings, but above all it was a poor example of how the English treated the vessels of neutral countries. With concern, the ambassador noted: ‘Thus the trade of the inferior remains impaired, and will always be impaired when power is not balanced, and the apprehension of prejudice is equal’. ASVe, Senato, Dispacci ambasciatori, Inghilterra, 78, cc. 80, 117–118; ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 4217, cc. n.n., Jacopo Giraldi’s letter, 10/12/1706.

100 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 4217, cc. n.n., Jacopo Giraldi’s letters, 20/11/1705, 11/12/1705 and 18/12/1705.

101 Reprisal was a form of compensation in the maritime world as early as the 13th century. Through it a subject, with the concession of his sovereign, could retaliate against enemies who had caused him damage in wartime. At the beginning of the 18th century, however, this practice was increasingly hindered in England, where it was preferred to give more space to diplomacy in order to avoid dealing with the numerous complications that generally arose after each act of reprisal. L. Lo Basso, In traccia de’ legni nemici. Corsari europei nel Mediterraneo del Settecento (Ventimiglia: Philobiblon, 2002), 108; R.C. Ritchie, Capitan Kidd, 168–9.

102 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 4217, cc. n.n., Jacopo Giraldi’s letters, 08/01/1706 and 22/01/1706; ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2675, cc. n.n., Jacopo Giraldi’s letter, 22/01/1706. Previously, Plowman asked and obtained an audience with the envoy Zeffirini. In the course of the conversation, the English merchant-pirate again demanded, to no avail, compensation, assuring that in return he would not proceed with the reprisal attempt against Prasca, ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2675, cc. n.n., Jacopo Giraldi’s letter, 12/12/1705.

103 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 4217, cc. n.n., ‘Memoria presentata dai Merchants trading to Italy’.

104 TNA, State Paper, 98/22, cc. n.n., Henry Newton’s letter, 04/09/1706; ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 4237, cc. n.n., Coriolano Montemagni to Henry Newton, 03/09/1706.

105 Ibid, Jacopo Giraldi’s letters, 28/01/1707 and 25/02/1707.

106 Ibid, Jacopo Giraldi’s letter, 10/06/1707.

107 La relazione inedita di Alvise Mocenigo sull’Inghilterra (1706), in L. Firpo (ed), Relazioni di ambasciatori Veneti al Senato. Tratte dalle migliori edizioni disponibili e ordinate cronologicamente (Torino: Bottega d’Erasmo, 1968).

108 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 4218, cc. n.n., Jacopo Giraldi’s letters, 03/11/1708 and 19/07/1709.

109 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 4226, cc. n.n., Pucci’s letter, 06/08/1725.

110 The four signatories of the document were the ‘Nation’s Deputies’ Francis Arundell, Thomas Balle, John Horsey and Edward Nelthorpe. ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2674, cc. n.n., 21/10/1704. The missive can be found in the libel ‘The Answer of the Merchants-Petitioners’ preserved inside the filza.

111 J.H. Plumb, The growth of political stability in England, 1675-1725 (London: Macmillan, 1967), 105.

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Matteo Calcagni

Matteo Calcagni works on trade, mobility and informal diplomacy in the early modern age, with a focus on the Tuscan merchant patriciate in the global economy of the long 17th century. He is currently researching the presence of Tuscan traders in the late seventeenth-century Eastern Mediterranean.