If these pirates find that they can have a very great
price for Americans, they will abandon proportionably their pursuits
against other nations, to direct them towards ours. That the choice
of Congress may be enlarged, as to the instruments they may use for
effecting the redemption, I think it my duty to inform them, that there
is here an order of priests called the Mathurins, the object of whose
institution is to beg alms for the redemption of captives. They keep
members always in Barbary, searching out the captives of their country,
and redeem, I believe, on better terms than any other body, public or
private. It occurred to me, that their agency might be obtained for the
redemption of our prisoners at Algiers. I obtained conferences with the
General, and with some members of the order. The General, with all
the benevolence and cordiality possible, undertook to act for us if we
should, desire it. He told me that their last considerable redemption
was of about three hundred prisoners, who cost them somewhat upwards
of fifteen hundred livres apiece. But that they should not be able
to redeem ours, as cheap as they do their own; and that it must be
absolutely unknown that the public concern themselves in the operation,
or the price would be greatly enhanced.
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