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 mean while, 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 cipher,
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 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