RC (DLC:Jefferson Papers); internal address: “The President of the Senate.”

For the plight of the American sailors seized and held in Algiers since 1785, see the indexes to vols. 17, 18, and 19. Jefferson tackled the question of their ongoing imprisonment early in his tenure as secretary of state, passing along advice to George Washington on 12 July 1790 that a show of force was needed to deter captures by Barbary corsairs. He renewed his proposal on 28 Dec., submitting a report to the president. Jefferson focused on the state of American trade in the Mediterranean, and the second offered an analysis of the Algerian captives’ ordeal. Jefferson outlined in detail the failed missions to liberate them, undertaken by John Lamb and members of the Mathurin order. He also raised questions about the constitutional powers in play, especially how the president and Congress might cooperate in order to set ransoms, pay tributes, and declare war. Finally, Jefferson cautioned that Americans needed to raise a fleet of their own: “Should the United States propose to vindicate their Commerce by Arms, they would, perhaps, think it prudent to possess a Force equal to the Whole of that which may be opposed to them. What that equal Force would be, will belong to another Department to say.”

Jefferson then sent this letter to JA, who laid it before the Senate with multiple enclosures on 21 Jan. 1791. He included copies of three letters written by one of the captives, Capt. Richard O’Bryen, from May to July 1790, that documented Lamb’s mismanagement of 464 the negotiations with Mohammad ibn Uthman, dey of Algiers. O’Bryen supplied intelligence on the size and scope of the Algerian fleet, recommending that the U.S. government “embrace every opportunity of trying for a Peace” in order to safeguard trade and to stabilize skyrocketing insurance rates. The Senate resolved on 1 Feb. 1791 that the president should “take such measures as he may think necessary for the redemption of the citizens of the U.S. now in captivity at Algiers,” although they capped the total expenses at $40,000. The president agreed on 22 Feb., promising to move forward “so soon as the monies necessary shall be appropriated by the legislature,” but no further steps were taken toward the Algerian captives’ emancipation until March 1792 (Jefferson, Papers , 18:403, 414, 428–429, 431–433, 437, 439, 443, 444–445).