From Crisis Management towards a Mediterranean Model? Maritime Quarantine in the Austrian Netherlands, c. 1720-1795

Most historians agree that quarantine practices in the Mediterranean Sea played a pivotal role in the disappearance of plague from Western Europe. Although maritime quarantine originated in the Middle Ages, its importance increased during the seventeenth and eighteenth century when centralising states, guided by ‘populationist’ ideas of statecraft doctrines like mercantilism, began to develop and enforce isolation periods more elaborately. While extensive scholarship has explored maritime quarantine in Mediterranean port cities, little attention has been paid to the harbours of northwestern Europe. This study aims to fill this gap by examining maritime quarantine practices in the Austrian Netherlands during the eighteenth century. I survey measures taken in the region’s coastal area between 1715 and 1795 and examine if these precautions were influenced by theories of statecraft or prophylactic policy evolutions in the Mediterranean world. I argue that central involvement in maritime quarantine increased during the eighteenth century, driven by the growing influence of populationism in government circles as well as a heightened focus on commercial development.


Introduction
On 5 October 1779, captain Gerrit Claassen left the port of Ostend in the Austrian Netherlands in order to deliver a cargo of wool and tobacco in Genoa and Livorno. After a strenuous journey, he finally arrived in Genoa on 26 November. In a letter sent back to Ostend, Claassen reported on what happened to him and his crew: At Lizard Point I was robbed by a Dover Privateer, who broke the Hatches and emptied and took with him three Cases and two Bales; on 28 October, at Cape  In this article, I aim to bridge the gap in knowledge between northern and southern maritime quarantine by examining practices in the Austrian Netherlands during the eighteenth century. I re-evaluate the general image and evolution of northern precautions against plague and other epidemic diseases in port towns. As elsewhere in northwestern Europe, maritime quarantine in the Southern Netherlands has suffered from a lack of scholarly interest, with Muls' study of almost a century ago as a notable exception. 9 Nevertheless, the Austrian Netherlands presents a very interesting case study.
On the one hand, it was a region geographically located in northern Europe with a strong tradition of urban particularism, and thus on paper prone to  pannier necessitated the use of alternative sources. At the same time, the adoption of a varied and often overlapping set of material allows me to cross-check information and identify potential author biases.

Crisis management in the sea ports
On the early morning of 4 November 1757, the Two Brothers, an Austrian Netherlands' ship, arrived just outside the port of Locmaria on the small French island of Belle-Île-en-Mer (see Figure 2). The ship had left Ostend on 17 October to deliver fish, flax, and yeast to Nantes. Entering the Bay of Biscay, however, the Two Brothers had encountered fierce winds which had sent the vessel off-course all the way to Spain before the crew could finally regain their original path. At Belle-Île, Pieter Feliers, the 28-year old captain, intended to hire a pilot to navigate his ship safely into the Loire River. As was customary, the Two Brothers hoisted a flag indicating their need for a pilot. Hours passed, and soon a whole day, but no pilot appeared. Out of desperation, Feliers and two of his men finally decided to row to shore in order to fetch a pilot themselves -an attempt which they only barely survived, as violent waves shattered the sloop on Belle-Île's rocky shores. After reaching Locmaria, the three men learnt that a plague epidemic in Lisbon had caused the town to ignore them. To safeguard the country from contagion, the French government had swiftly banned all contact with foreign vessels. 10 If Feliers had set sail from Ostend scarcely ten days later, he would not have been surprised (and almost killed) by the staunch health measures put in place by the French government. In the Austrian Netherlands' port cities, too, policies to curb the import of epidemic disease similar to those in France were installed in 1757. As Table 1 shows, they were repeated at least one time every decade during the eighteenth century.
What were these specific measures implemented in Ostend and Nieuport to prevent the spread of epidemic diseases? First of all, as described above, Austrian Netherlands' pilots and fishermen were prohibited from boarding foreign vessels, even in emergency situations. 11 Additionally, a vessel was stationed in front of Ostend and Nieuport, manned with pilots or unemployed fishermen who would interrogate incoming merchant vessels day and night. 12 This practice was also customary in the Channel ports of

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France, but unknown to the port cities of the Mediterranean, making it the most notable difference in sanitary measures between northern and southern European ports, according to Françoise Hildesheimer. 13 When a merchantman approached, the pilots were ordered to question the captain about his place of origin, his past communications at sea, and the health status of his crew.
As a proof of the latter, the crew were to appear on deck in full, to allow comparison with the official muster list. If the questionnaire produced any information that raised suspicion about the health of the ship, the pilots were ordered to hoist a red flag, while an imperial flag was raised if the vessel was deemed safe to enter the port. 14 Understandably so, the interviews at sea did not always go seamlessly. In October 1780, for instance, the Galleon of Amsterdam attempted to enter Ostend during a heavy storm. Due to the severe weather, the pilots misunderstood that the Galleon was coming from 'Salou', a small port town near Barcelona, instead of the actual 'Salonique' (Thessaloniki), which was a possibly contaminated region. Only when the ship was already in port, the authorities realised their mistake and sent the Galleon into quarantine still. 15 Usually the deciding factor was the perceived 'infected' origin of an arriving ship. Vessels hailing from the epicentre of an epidemic were usually banned outright, such as the Ambitious in 1720, which came from In Ostend, vessels suspected of being infected were directed to the Gouweloze Creek (see Figure 3). 20 There the crews were guarded on both sides by soldiers, often disabled veterans of the local regiment. 21 While far from an ideal location, the Gouweloze Creek was the best available option for most of the century. The creek was relatively isolated from the regular docks and the local population, and shipping traffic towards Bruges did not have to pass through it. On the other hand, ships condemned to quarantine first had to pass through the entire port before they could reach the creek. Additionally, the shallow depth of the Gouweloze Creek meant that potentially infected vessels arriving during low tide inevitably mixed with regular ships while waiting to enter the creek. 22 Larger vessels were unable to enter it safely at all, and had to quarantine at the salt docks (see Figure 3) -dangerous still, as  pannier 'healthy' ships from southern Europe delivered their cargoes of salt there. 23 The lack of docks in the creek meant that ships were exposed to the elements and risked collision with the banks during storms. Finally, the area was swarmed by local fishermen, whose activities could be restricted only to a limited extent without harming their livelihoods. 24 At the quarantine site, the town officials collected crew, passenger, and cargo lists, as well as bills of health. Conceived and since long used in the Mediterranean, bills of health were official certificates issued at the port of embarkation to declare that the city was free from infection. Quarantine length, however, was ultimately primarily determined by the ship's cargo. As was the case throughout Europe, commodities such as wood, iron, stone, and salt were considered unlikely to contract infection.
The Swedish crew of the Orient, for example, was discharged after only one week, partly because of the length of their journey, but also because their cargo consisted of timber, iron, tiles, and whetstones (see Annex pannier Joseph was allowed to unload its cargo of timber prior to the end of its threeweek quarantine. 35 The relationship between public health, economy, and politics was more tense still because most members of the city council of port cities  pannier

Crisis management in the wider coastal area
Unlike many other countries, the coast of the Austrian Netherlands was almost exclusively comprised of dunes. Land merged into sea without radical demarcations such as cliffs. Thus, the region's 65-kilometer shoreline did not constitute a natural barrier for those who sought to reach land by boat, for example in order to flout the prohibitions issued in the port cities. Also presenting communicable disease risks were the merchandise and sailors (alive or dead) which frequently washed up on the beach after a shipwreck, especially during storms when the Flemish banks invariably caused casualties.
As a result, local authorities did not only have to keep an eye on the sea ports; thorough measures had to be taken in the dune region and the coastal towns as well to prevent the import of epidemics.

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To protect the guards from the elements, cabins were constructed on the beach on several occasions during the eighteenth century. Such was the case in 1743 and 1751, and during the sanitary emergency of 1770-1772, the line of barracks built during the Seven Years' War (1756-1763) to prevent a British invasion was recommissioned and expanded (see Figure 4). As Patrice-François de Nény, the director of the Austrian Netherlands' Privy Council, put it, if the danger of a British invasion had been somewhat imaginary, that of the plague was all the more real. 47 Yet, even such an imposing line of guards had its loopholes. In December 1770, the French sailor Pierre Le Febvre was found floating on a piece of driftwood at sea, and put ashore by a British ship.
Le Febvre was able to walk the beach unnoticed towards Blankenberghe, which was kilometres away from his place of landing. 48 Nonetheless, the Le Febvre case seems to have been an exception; in most cases, stranded sailors were intercepted by the guards. In the extreme event that a plague-infected person did manage to wander inland, a plan was ready to establish a second emergency cordon using the series of canals that traversed the countryside between Veurne and Sluis (see Figure 4). 49 In 1770

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The scale of quarantine How many ships and people were subjected to the quarantine system of the Nevertheless, I was able to identify at least 60 ships and crews that underwent quarantine during the period under consideration. As Table 2 and the Annex show, one-third of these vessels were detained for a week or less, the time necessary for the city council to report their arrival to the Privy Council and agree on an appropriate quarantine length. For these 18 cases, there were seemingly enough mitigating circumstances to warrant early discharge.
Thus, the number of ships performing quarantine in Ostend or elsewhere was generally low.
Quarantines were most plentiful during the crisis of 1770-1772, when every ship returning from the Baltic Sea or the White Sea was suspicious of infection (see Figure 7 and Annex). Still, the amount of quarantined vessels was small, and negligible compared to the total volume of shipping traffic: the 6 detained ships in 1770, for example, constituted 1.5 per cent of all vessels  article -artikel respect borders, port authorities around the North Sea took to international coordination and cooperation, much like health boards in the Mediterranean, to maintain a mutually assured protection -and to give no state cause for retaliation.

Central action: sanitary protection or economic policy?
During the early modern period, many European states embarked on a process of centralisation. In addition, it appears that Brussels increasingly valued the implementation of bills of health, a practice commonly used in the Mediterranean.
Furthermore, the Privy Council wished to be updated on anything that happened in the port cities: its councilors requested a report on every suspicious ship's arrival, including the name of the captain, the size of the crew, the cargo, the date of departure, and the date the vessel had arrived in the Austrian Netherlands. 108 This information was used to determine an appropriate detention period, which the Privy Council had the final say on.
The central government also wanted to be informed on other events along the coast such as the Le Febvre case or the stranding of the Orient. When the Franc of Bruges tasked one of its deputies to monitor three guarding Despite the fact that local and regional governments continued to bear a lot of responsibility (especially financial), the central government increasingly intervened in warding off disease in the Austrian Netherlands' It should come as no surprise that a concern for commercial development was accompanied by growing interest in quarantine practices.

Acknowledgements
The author thanks the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful and constructive comments. As mentioned in the introduction, the city archives of Ostend, with its admiralty and city council documents supposedly the most valuable source of information regarding maritime quarantine in the Austrian Netherlands, were lost during World War ii. Additionally, because quarantine measures touched upon many aspects of society (health, economy, public works) and different levels of government, remaining traces of isolated ships are spread across various archival locations. Without doubt, some of these are missing here, and the number of vessels included here and condensed into