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.