“Your petitioners are at present captives in this city of bondage, employed daily on the most laborious work, without any respect to persons.… They pray you will take their unfortunate situation into consideration, and adopt such measures as will restore the American captives to their country, their friends, families, and connections.”[260]
The country was now aroused. A general contribution was proposed. People of all classes vied in generous effort. Newspapers entered with increased activity into the work. At public celebrations the toasts, “Happiness for all,” and “Universal Liberty,” were proposed, partly in sympathy with our wretched white fellow-countrymen in bonds. On one occasion, at a patriotic festival in New Hampshire, they were distinctly remembered in the toast: “Our brethren in slavery at Algiers. May the measures adopted for their redemption be successful, and may they live to rejoice with their friends in the blessings of liberty!”[261] The clergy, too, were enlisted. A fervid appeal by the captives themselves was addressed to ministers of the Gospel throughout the United States, asking them to set apart a special Sunday for sermons in behalf of their enslaved brethren. Literature added her influence, not only in essays, but in a work, which, though now forgotten, was among the earliest of the literary productions of our country, reprinted in London at a time when few American books were known abroad. I refer to the story of “The Algerine Captive,” which, though published anonymously, like other similar works at a later day, is known to have been written by Royall Tyler, afterwards Chief Justice of Vermont. Slavery in Algiers is here delineated in the sufferings of a single captive,—as Slavery in the United States has been since depicted in the sufferings of “Uncle Tom”; but the argument of the early story was hardly less strong against African Slavery than against White Slavery. “Grant me,” says the Algerine captive—who had been a surgeon on board a ship in the African slave-trade—from the depths of his own sorrows, “once more to taste the freedom of my native country, and every moment of my life shall be dedicated to preaching against this detestable commerce. I will fly to our fellow-citizens in the Southern States; I will on my knees conjure them, in the name of humanity, to abolish a traffic which causes it to bleed in every pore. If they are deaf to the pleadings of Nature, I will conjure them, for the sake of consistency, to cease to deprive their fellow-creatures of freedom, which their writers, their orators, Representatives, Senators, and even their Constitutions of Government, have declared to be the unalienable birthright of man.”[262] In such words was the cause of Emancipation pleaded at that early day.
From his distant mission at Lisbon, Colonel Humphreys, yet unable to reach Algiers, joined in this appeal by a letter to the American people, dated July 11, 1794. Taking advantage of the general interest in lotteries, and particularly of the custom, not then condemned, of employing these to obtain money for literary or benevolent purposes, he suggests a grand lottery, sanctioned by the United States, or particular lotteries in individual States, to obtain the means required for the ransom of our countrymen. He then asks:—
“Is there within the limits of these United States an individual who will not cheerfully contribute in proportion to his means to carry it into effect? By the peculiar blessings of freedom which you enjoy, by the disinterested sacrifices you made for its attainment, by the patriotic blood of those martyrs of Liberty who died to secure your independence, and by all the tender ties of Nature, let me conjure you once more to snatch your unfortunate countrymen from fetters, dungeons, and death.”
Meanwhile the Government was energetic through all its agents, at home and abroad; nor was any question raised with regard to constitutional powers. In the animated debate which ensued in the House of Representatives, an honorable member said, “If bribery would not do, he should certainly vote for equipping a fleet.”[263] At last, by Act of Congress of the 20th March, 1794, a million dollars was appropriated for this purpose, being the identical sum now proposed for a similar purpose of redemption; but it was somewhat masked under the language, “to defray any expenses which may be incurred in relation to the intercourse between the United States and foreign nations.”[264] On the same day, by another Act, the President was authorized “to borrow, on the credit of the United States, if in his opinion the public service shall require it, a sum not exceeding one million of dollars.”[265] The object was distinctly avowed in the instructions of Mr. Jefferson, 28th March, 1795, “for concluding a treaty of peace and liberating our citizens from captivity.” In other instructions, 25th August of the preceding year, the wishes of the President are thus conveyed:—
“Ransom and peace are to go hand and hand, if practicable; but if peace cannot be obtained, a ransom is to be effected without delay, … restricting yourself, on the head of a ransom, within the limit of three thousand dollars per man.”[266]
The negotiation being consummated, the first tidings of its success were announced to Congress by President Washington in his speech at the opening of the session, 8th December, 1795.
“With peculiar satisfaction I add, that information has been received from an agent deputed on our part to Algiers, importing that the terms of a treaty with the Dey and Regency of that country had been adjusted in such a manner as to authorize the expectation of a speedy peace, and the restoration of our unfortunate fellow-citizens from a grievous captivity.”[267]
The treaty was signed at Algiers, 5th September, 1795. It was a sacrifice of pride, if not of honor, to the necessity of the occasion. Among its stipulations was one even for annual tribute to the barbarous Slave Power.[268] But, amidst all its unquestionable humiliation, it was a treaty of Emancipation; nor did our people consider nicely the terms on which this good was secured. It is recorded that a thrill of joy went through the land on the annunciation that a vessel had left Algiers having on board the Americans who had been captives there. The largess of money, and even the indignity of tribute, were forgotten in gratulations on their new-found happiness. Washington, in his speech to Congress of December 7, 1796, thus solemnly dwelt on their emancipation:—
“After many delays and disappointments, arising out of the European war, the final arrangements for fulfilling the engagements made to the Dey and Regency of Algiers will, in all present appearance, be crowned with success,—but under great, though inevitable, disadvantages in the pecuniary transactions, occasioned by that war, which will render a further provision necessary. The actual liberation of all our citizens who were prisoners in Algiers, while it gratifies every feeling heart, is itself an earnest of a satisfactory termination of the whole negotiation.”[269]