TO JOHN PAUL JONES.
Philadelphia, June 1, 1792.
Sir,
The President of the United States having thought proper to appoint you commissioner for treating with the Dey and government of Algiers, on the subjects of peace and ransom of our captives, I have the honor to enclose you the commissions, of which Mr. Thomas Pinckney, now on his way to London as our Minister Plenipotentiary there, will be the bearer. Supposing that there exists a disposition to thwart our negotiations with the Algerines, and that this would be very practicable, we have thought it advisable that the knowledge of this appointment should rest with the President, Mr. Pinckney, and myself; for which reason you will perceive, that the commissions are all in my own hand-writing. For the same reason, entire secrecy is recommended to you, and that you so cover from the public your departure and destination, as that they may not be conjectured or noticed; and at the same time, that you set out after as short delay as your affairs will possibly permit.
In order to enable you to enter on this business with full information, it will be necessary to give you a history of what has passed.
On the 25th of July, 1785, the schooner Maria, Captain Stevens, belonging to a Mr. Foster, of Boston, was taken off Cape St. Vincent’s, by an Algerine cruiser; and five days afterwards, the ship Dauphin, Captain O’Bryan, belonging to Messrs. Irwins of Philadelphia, was taken by another, about fifty leagues westward of Lisbon. These vessels, with their cargoes and crews, twenty-one persons in number, were carried into Algiers. Mr. John Lambe, appointed agent for treating of peace between the United States and the government of Algiers, was ready to set out from France on that business, when Mr. Adams and myself heard of these two captures. The ransom of prisoners being a case not existing when our powers were prepared, no provision had been made for it. We thought, however, we ought to endeavor to ransom our countrymen, without waiting for orders; but at the same time, that acting without authority, we should keep within the lowest price which had been given by any other nation. We therefore gave a supplementary instruction to Mr. Lambe to ransom our captives, if it could be done for two hundred dollars a man, as we knew that three hundred French captives had been just ransomed by the Mathurins, at a price very little above this sum. He proceeded to Algiers; but his mission proved fruitless. He wrote us word from thence, that the Dey asked fifty-nine thousand four hundred and ninety-six dollars for the twenty-one captives, and that it was not probable he would abate much from that price. But he never intimated an idea of agreeing to give it. As he has never settled the accounts of his mission, no further information has been received. It has been said that he entered into a positive stipulation with the Dey, to pay for the prisoners the price above mentioned, or something near it; and that he came away with an assurance to return with the money. We cannot believe the fact true: and if it were, we disavow it totally, as far beyond his powers. We have never disavowed it formally, because it has never come to our knowledge with any degree of certainty.
In February, 1787, I wrote to Congress to ask leave to employ the Mathurins of France in ransoming our captives; and on the 19th of September, I received their orders to do so, and to call for the money from our bankers at Amsterdam, as soon as it could be furnished. It was long before they could furnish the money, and as soon as they notified that they could, the business was put into train by the General of the Mathurins, not with the appearance of acting for the United States, or with their knowledge, but merely on the usual ground of charity. This expedient was rendered abortive by the revolution of France, the derangement of ecclesiastical orders there, and the revocation of church property, before any proposition, perhaps, had been made in form by the Mathurins to the Dey of Algiers. I have some reason to believe that Mr. Eustace, while in Spain, endeavored to engage the court of Spain to employ their Mathurins in this business; but whether they actually moved in it or not, I have never learned.
We have also been, told, that a Mr. Simpson of Gibraltar, by the direction of the Messrs. Bulkeleys of Lisbon, contracted for the ransom of our prisoners (then reduced by death and ransom to fourteen) at thirty-four thousand seven hundred and ninety-two dollars. By whose orders they did it, we could never learn. I have suspected it was some association in London, which, finding the prices far above their conception, did not go through with their purpose, which probably had been merely a philanthropic one. Be this as it may, it was without our authority or knowledge.
Again Mr. Cathalan, our Consul at Marseilles, without any instruction from the government, and actuated merely, as we presume, by willingness to do something agreeable, set on foot another negotiation for their redemption; which ended in nothing.
These several volunteer interferences, though undertaken with good intentions, run directly counter to our plan; which was, to avoid the appearance of any purpose on our part ever to ransom our captives, and by that semblance of neglect, to reduce the demands of the Algerines to such a price, as might make it hereafter less their interest to pursue our citizens than any others. On the contrary, they have supposed all these propositions directly or indirectly came from us; they inferred from thence the greatest anxiety on our part, where we had been endeavoring to make them suppose there was none; kept up their demands for our captives at the highest prices ever paid by any nation; and thus these charitable, though unauthorized interpositions, have had the double effect of strengthening the chains they were meant to break, and making us at last set a much higher rate of ransom for our citizens, present and future, than we probably should have obtained, if we had been left alone to do our own work in our own way. Thus stands this business then at present. A formal bargain, as I am informed, being registered in the books of the former Dey, on the part of the Bulkeleys of Lisbon, which they suppose to be obligatory on us, but which is to be utterly disavowed, as having never been authorized by us, nor its source even known to us.