own countrymen. Supposing that their redemption,
clothing, feeding, and transportation should amount to five hundred
dollars each, there must be, at least, a sum of ten thousand dollars set
apart for this purpose. Till this is done, I shall take no other step
than the preparatory one, of destroying at Algiers all idea of our
intending to redeem the prisoners. This, the General of the Mathurins
told me, was indispensably necessary, and that it must not, on any
account, transpire, that the public would interest themselves for their
redemption. This was rendered the more necessary, by the declaration of
the Dey to the Spanish consul, that he should hold him responsible, at
the Spanish price, for our prisoners, even for such as should die. Three
of them have died of the plague. By authorizing me to redeem at the
prices usually paid by the European nations, Congress, I suppose, could
not mean the Spanish price, which is not only unusual but unprecedented,
and would make our vessels the first object with those pirates. I
shall pay no attention, therefore, to the Spanish price, unless further
instructed. Hard as it may seem, I should think it necessary, not to
let it be known even to the relations of the captives, that we mean to
redeem them.

I have the honor to inclose you a paper from the admiralty of
Guadaloupe, sent to me as a matter of form, and to be lodged, I suppose,
with our marine records. I enclose, also, a copy of a letter from the
Count de Florida Blanca to Mr. Carmichael, by which you will perceive,
they have referred the settlement of the claim of South Carolina for
the use of their frigate, to Mr. Gardoqui, and to the Delegates of South
Carolina in Congress.

I had the honor to inform you in my last letter, of the parliament's
being transferred to Troyes. To put an end to the tumults in Paris,
some regiments were brought nearer, the patroles were strengthened and
multiplied, some mutineers punished by imprisonment: it produced the
desired effect. It is confidently believed, however, that the parliament
will be immediately recalled, the stamp tax and land tax repealed, and
other means devised of accommodating their receipts and expenditures.
Those supposed to be in contemplation, are, a rigorous levy of the old
tax of the _deux vingtiemes_, on the rich, who had, in a great measure,
withdrawn their property from it, as well as on the poor, on whom it had
principally fallen. This will greatly increase the recei