The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was extremely active in the last couple of weeks for someone who is imminently leaving office. One major entry in his agenda was a stop in Libya, at the end of which a joint statement was issued to the media announcing a new stage in Libyan-British relations. These relations have been stormy, to say the least, for the last few centuries.

The British, or as generally referred to, the English, or the ‘Ingleez’ as they are called in Arabic, were among the first Europeans to ‘re-discover’ the shores of Tripolitania, in the early 18th century. As sailors, merchants, diplomat/spies, and later archaeologists, they left behind a very lively and interesting history of their interactions with Libyans. From the British and European viewpoint their ventures were based on both a humane and commercial principle: through ‘honest’ trade, they would rid the world of those ‘criminal’ Barbary pirates in the Mediterranean, and civilise the ‘Mohammedans’. They seem to have conveniently forgotten that piracy had been practiced by their own nations for centuries, was considered legal at the time, and an admirable part of naval warfare. So much so that everyone wanted a piece of the ‘business’.

In one historical account, English pirates are described as ‘more barbarous and sanguinary than the Barbaresques’. And according to another, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1, English pirates were condemned by all Europe as ‘disturbers of the world’. But of course, the English (and later, the Americans) became heroes when confronting the Barbary pirates who had the audacity to demand taxation on any European ship entering the Mediterranean and challenged the navies of the ‘civilised’ world by carrying out raids on the coasts of Italy, Spain, England, Ireland, and Denmark. These ‘pirates’ were actually sailors and appointed admirals of the Turkish fleet. Under the excellent seaman-ship of the Barbarossa brothers, they beat the Genoese and Spaniards in sea battles, and controlled the north African ports of Tangiers, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli.

These were local heroes whose behaviour does not seem to differ much from those of other famous seafarers, who lived during this period in history, described as ‘an age of celebrated cut-throats and bandits like Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake, who were also appointed admirals and left trails of death and desolation in various parts of the globe’.

Despite the obvious dangers and alleged savagery of the North African coast , life in the city of Tripoli in the 1800’s must have been appealing to some foreigners, to the extent that would lead them to a permanent change of life. One such person was a Scotsman, Peter Lyell -the mate of a merchant vessel who later became a Muslim. He was known as the High Admiral ‘Reis Morat’, in the service of the then reigning Pasha, Yusif Karamanli whom he served loyally, often acting as intermediary between the Pasha and envoys of the British throne. Another prominent ‘ingleezi’ at the time was the British Consul-General, Colonel Hanmer Warrington, who some historians claim was the real decision maker behind the unsteady throne of the Karamanlis. But that is a disputable point of view.

Other Europeans were rivals to the British in the race for exploration of the desert. They set off from Tripoli in search of the great African cities, crossing –or at least attempting to cross the Sahara. Many never returned alive. Major Alexander Laing, a British army officer travelling under the auspices of the ‘British Association for Discovering the Interior of Africa’, and ‘officially’ recognised as the first European to do so, survived the journey to Timbuktu only to die there. Other famous names are part of the history that made Tripoli the ‘Gateway’ or ‘Portal’ to Africa for ‘modern’ Europe. Other British expeditions in Libya were made to the eastern province of Cyrenaica, whose history was rich in ancient civilisations, but unknown to the recent West. A commendable record of these expeditions and the later archaeological discoveries is to be found in the select papers of the late R.G.Goodchild, ‘Libyan Studies’, and himself an ‘ingleezi’ who lived in Libya for many years and was the Controller of Antiquities for thirteen years. He is one Ingleezi I would have liked to meet.