Pirates et corsaires, un aléa limité par la Levant Company pour les marchands battant pavillon anglais

National audience ; Hazards and maritime transport are intimately linked, which is why the first insurance contract, the big adventure loan, was born in the context of the naval transport of goods. Among the list of perils that threaten traders traveling by sea, piracy is a historical constant. From the capture of Julius Caesar in 75 BC to the Maersk Alabama hostage taking in 2009. Faced with this threat, States, commercial companies and merchants are adapting in order to maintain trading activities. In the 17th century, England, still not very present in the Mediterranean, particularly in the eastern Mediterranean, was forced to delegate the management of this risk to one of its chartered companies, the Levant Company. It is up to this mercantile structure to face the many corsairs and Barbary pirates, Turkish, Spanish, French… Who then infest the waters of the Mediterranean sea.What are the means implemented by the Levant Company to allow the management of the hazard of piracy?The study of the Levant Company is only possible thanks to the archive fund SP105 of the british national archives present in Kew, in west London. The sources allowing the presentation are therefore in their majority directly taken from the minute books and the correspondence of the British trading company. This information makes it possible to see how this hazard management is organized by following the point of view of the main actor. The first contribution of this documentation is to establish the complete autonomy of the Levant in the management of this risk. In the golden age of piracy, the commercial structure is therefore alone, and forced to put in place measures a priori, to avoid pirate attacks, but also a posteriori to limit the consequences of said attacks. A priori measures are of two types. Diplomatic, through the English ambassador within the Ottoman Empire, but also through the consuls appointed by the company. These actors must remind the Ottoman sultans that the capitulations between the two states must be respected. ...