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.

In 1790, this subject was laid before Congress fully, and at the late session, monies have been provided, and authority given to proceed to the ransom of our captive citizens at Algiers, provided it shall not exceed a given sum, and provided also, a peace shall be previously negotiated within certain limits of expense.  And in consequence of these proceedings, your mission has been decided on by the President.

Since, then, no ransom is to take place without a peace, you will of course take up first the negotiation of peace; or, if you find it better that peace and ransom should be treated of together, you will take care that no agreement for the latter be concluded, unless the former be established before or in the same instant.