Kitabı oku: «The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 3 (of 9)», sayfa 37

CIRCULAR TO THE AMERICAN CONSULS

Philadelphia, May 31, 1792.

Sir,—Congress having closed their session on the 8th instant, I have now the honor to forward you a copy of the laws passed thereat. One of these, chapter twenty-four, will require your particular attention, as it contains such regulations relative to the consular office, as it has been thought proper to establish legislatively.

With respect to the security required by the sixth section, I would prefer persons residing within the United States, where the party can procure such to be his security. In this case, his own bond duly executed may be sent to me, and his sureties here may enter into a separate bond. Where the party cannot conveniently find sureties within the United States, my distance and want of means of knowing their sufficiency, oblige me to refer him to the minister or chargé des affaires of the United States, within the same government, if there be one, and if not, then to the minister of the United States, resident at Paris. The securities which they shall approve, will be admitted as good. In like manner, the account for their disbursements, authorized by this law (and no other can be allowed), are to be settled at stated periods with the minister or chargé within their residence, if there be one, if none, then with the minister of the United States at Paris. The person who settles the account is authorized to pay it. Our consuls in America are not meant to be included in these directions as to securityship and the settlement of their accounts, as their situation gives them a more convenient communication with me. It is also recommended to the consuls to keep an ordinary correspondence with the minister or chargé to whom they are thus referred; but it would be also useful, if they could forward directly to me, from time to time, the prices current of their place, and any other circumstance which it might be interesting to make known to our merchants without delay.

The prices of our funds have undergone some variations within the last three months. The six per cents were pushed by gambling adventurers up to twenty-six and a half, or twenty-seven and a half shillings the pound. A bankruptcy having taken place among these, and considerably affected the more respectable part of the paper holders, a greater quantity of paper was thrown suddenly on the market than there was demand or money to take up. The prices fell to nineteen shillings. This crisis has passed, and they are getting up towards their value. Though the price of public paper is considered as the barometer of the public credit, it is truly so only as to the general average of prices. The real credit of the United States depends on their ability, and the immutability of their will to pay their debts. These were as evident when their paper fell to nineteen shillings, as when it was at twenty-seven shillings. The momentary variation was like that in the price of corn, or any other commodity, the result of a momentary disproportion between the demand and supply.

The unsuccessful issue of our expedition against the savages the last year, is not unknown to you. More adequate preparations are making for the present year, and in the meantime, some of the tribes have accepted peace, and others have expressed a readiness to do the same.

Another plentiful year has been added to those which had preceded it, and the present bids fair to be equally so. A prosperity built on the basis of agriculture is that which is most desirable to us, because to the efforts of labor it adds the efforts of a greater proportion of soil. The checks, however, which the commercial regulations of Europe have given to the sale of our produce, have produced a very considerable degree of domestic manufacture, which, so far as it is of the household kind, will doubtless continue, and so far as it is more public, will depend on the continuance or discontinuance of the European policy.

I am, with great esteem, Sir, your most obedient humble servant.

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 commission, 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. Vincents, 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.

In 1790, this subject was laid before Congress fully, and at the late session, moneys 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.

As to the conditions, it is understood that no peace can be made with that government, but for a larger sum of money to be paid at once for the whole time of its duration, or for a smaller one to be annually paid. The former plan we entirely refuse, and adopt the latter. We have also understood that peace might be bought cheaper with naval stores than with money; but we will not furnish them with naval stores, because we think it not right to furnish them means which we know they will employ to do wrong, and because there might be no economy in it as to ourselves, in the end, as it would increase the expenses of that coercion which we may in future be obliged to practise towards them. The only question then, is, what sum of money will we agree to pay them annually, for peace? By a letter from Captain O'Bryan, a copy of which you will receive herewith, we have his opinion that a peace could be purchased with money, for sixty thousand pounds sterling, or with naval stores, for one hundred thousand dollars. An annual payment equivalent to the first, would be three thousand pounds sterling, or thirteen thousand and five hundred dollars, the interest of the sum in gross. If we could obtain it for as small a sum as the second, in money, the annual payment equivalent to it would be five thousand dollars. In another part of the same letter, Captain O'Bryan says, "if maritime stores and two light cruisers be given, and a tribute paid in maritime stores every two years, amounting to twelve thousand dollars in America," a peace can be had. The gift of stores and cruisers here supposed, converted into an annual equivalent, may be stated at nine thousand dollars, and adding to it half the biennial sum, would make fifteen thousand dollars, to be annually paid. You will, of course, use your best endeavors to get it at the lowest sum practicable; whereupon I shall only say, that we should be pleased with ten thousand dollars, contented with fifteen thousand, think twenty thousand a very hard bargain, yet go as far as twenty-five thousand, if it be impossible to get it for less; but not a copper further, this being fixed by law as the utmost limit. These are meant as annual sums. If you can put off the first annual payment to the end of the first year, you may employ any sum not exceeding that, in presents to be paid down; but if the first payment is to be made in hand, that and the presents cannot by law exceed twenty-five thousand dollars.

And here we meet a difficulty, arising from the small degree of information we have respecting the Barbary States. Tunis is said to be tributary to Algiers. But whether the effect of this be, that peace being made with Algiers, is of course with the Tunisians without separate treaty, or separate price, is what we know not. If it be possible to have it placed on this footing, so much the better. In any event, it will be necessary to stipulate with Algiers, that her influence be interposed as strongly as possible with Tunis, whenever we shall proceed to treat with the latter; which cannot be till information of the event of your negotiation, and another session of Congress.

As to the articles and form of the treaty in general, our treaty with Morocco was so well digested that I enclose you a copy of that, to be the model with Algiers, as nearly as it can be obtained, only inserting the clause with respect to Tunis.

The ransom of the captives is next to be considered. They are now thirteen in number; to wit, Richard O'Bryan and Isaac Stevens, captains, Andrew Montgomery and Alexander Forsyth, mates, Jacob Tessanier, a French passenger, William Patterson, Philip Sloan, Peleg Lorin, James Hall, James Cathcart, George Smith, John Gregory, James Hermit, seamen. It has been a fixed principle with Congress, to establish the rate of ransom of American captives with the Barbary States at as low a point as possible, that it may not be the interest of those States to go in quest of our citizens in preference to those of other countries. Had it not been for the danger it would have brought on the residue of our seamen, by exciting the cupidity of those rovers against them, our citizens now in Algiers would have been long ago redeemed, without regard to price. The mere money for this particular redemption neither has been, nor is, an object with anybody here. It is from the same regard to the safety of our seamen at large, that they have now restrained us from any ransom unaccompanied with peace. This being secured, we are led to consent to terms of ransom, to which, otherwise, our government never would have consented; that is to say, to the terms stated by Captain O'Bryan in the following passage of the same letter: "By giving the minister of the marine (the present Dey's favorite) the sum of one thousand sequins, I would stake my life that we would be ransomed for thirteen thousand sequins, and all expenses included." Extravagant as this sum is, we will, under the security of peace in future, go so far; not doubting, at the same time, that you will obtain it as much lower as possible, and not indeed without a hope that a lower ransom will be practicable, from the assurances given us in other letters from Captain O'Bryan, that prices are likely to be abated by the present Dey, and particularly with us, towards whom he has been represented as well disposed. You will consider this sum, therefore, say twenty-seven thousand dollars, as your ultimate limit, including ransom, duties, and gratifications of every kind.

As soon as the ransom is completed, you will be pleased to have the captives well clothed and sent home at the expense of the United States, with as much economy as will consist with their reasonable comfort. It is thought best, that Mr. Pinckney, our minister at London, should be the confidential channel of communication between us. He is enabled to answer your drafts for money within the limits before expressed; and as this will be by re-drawing on Amsterdam, you must settle with him the number of days after sight, at which your bills shall be payable in London, so as to give him time, in the meanwhile, to draw the money from Amsterdam.

We shall be anxious to know as soon and as often as possible, your prospects in these negotiations. You will receive herewith a cypher, which will enable you to make them with safety. London and Lisbon (where Colonel Humphreys will forward my letters) will be the safest and best ports of communication. I also enclose two separate commissions, for the objects of peace and ransom. To these is added a commission to you as consul for the United States, at Algiers, on the possibility that it might be useful for you to remain there till the ratification of the treaties shall be returned from hence; though you are not to delay till their return the sending the captives home, nor the necessary payments of money within the limits before prescribed. Should you be willing to remain there, even after the completion of the business, as consul for the United States, you will be free to do so, giving me notice, that no other nomination may be made. These commissions, being issued during the recess of the Senate, are in force, by the Constitution, only till the next session of the Senate. But their renewal then is so much a matter of course and of necessity, that you may consider that as certain, and proceed without any interruption. I have not mentioned this in the commissions, because it is in all cases surplusage, and because it might be difficult of explanation to those to whom you are addressed.

The allowance for all your expenses and time (exclusive of the ransom, price of peace, duties, presents, maintenance and transportation of the captives) is at the rate of two thousand dollars a year, to commence from the day on which you shall set out for Algiers, from whatever place you may take your departure. The particular objects of peace and ransom once out of the way, the two thousand dollars annually are to go in satisfaction of time, services, and expenses of every kind, whether you act as consul or commissioner.

As the duration of this peace cannot be counted on with certainty, and we look forward to the necessity of coercion by cruises on their coast, to be kept up during the whole of their cruising season, you will be pleased to inform yourself, as minutely as possible, of every circumstance which may influence or guide us in undertaking and conducting such an operation, making your communications by safe opportunities.

I must recommend to your particular notice, Captain O'Bryan, one of the captives, from whom we have received a great deal of useful information. The zeal which he has displayed under the trying circumstances of his present situation, has been very distinguished. You will find him intimately acquainted with the manner in which, and characters with whom business is to be done there, and perhaps he may be an useful instrument to you, especially in the outset of your undertaking, which will require the utmost caution and the best information. He will be able to give you the characters of the European consuls there, though you will, probably, not think it prudent to repose confidence in any of them.

Should you be able successfully to accomplish the objects of your mission in time to convey notice of it to us as early as possible during the next session of Congress, which meets in the beginning of November and rises the 4th of March, it would have a very pleasant effect.

I am, with great esteem, Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant.