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 in 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 any body 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.
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