To George Washington from Timothy Pickering, 23 January 1797
From Timothy Pickering
[Philadelphia] Jany 23. 1797.
The Secretary of State has the pleasure to present to the President a letter received this morning from Colo. Humphreys, by which it appears that Capt. OBrien & hands with the treasure are safe at Tripoli—and that the Dey of Algiers has demanded the delivery on pain of making war: there can be little doubt of the recovery of the money, seeing the Dey considers it as the property of the Regency.1
T. Pickering
ALS, DNA: RG 59, Miscellaneous Letters. No reply to Pickering from GW has been found.
1. The letter to Pickering from David Humphreys, U.S. minister to Portugal, has not been identified. However, it evidently pertained to Richard O’Bryen and the brig Sophia, which were bound for Algiers with funds that the United States owed Hassan Bashaw, dey of Algiers, to fulfill the terms of the 1795 treaty between the two powers. The letter may be the missive that GW’s secretary George Washington Craik returned to Pickering on 24 Jan. (see James Innes to GW, 17 Jan., source note). In a letter to Pickering dated 6 Oct. 1796 from Lisbon, Humphreys had expressed uncertainty about the fate of O’Bryen and the Sophia (see Pickering to GW, 31 Dec. 1796, and n.1).
O’Bryen and the Sophia had been captured several months earlier by Tripolitans. In a lengthy memorial to Pickering dated 18 Oct. 1796 from Algiers, Joel Barlow noted: “On the 1st of October OBrien arrived in Algiers, after having been taken and detained in Tripoli twelve days” (DNA: RG 59, Consular Despatches, Algiers). O’Bryen gained his release, and he later delivered the funds that were owed the dey. For more on the “treasure” that O’Bryen was charged with transporting to the dey, see Pickering to GW, 13 Oct. 1796, and n.8; see also Pickering to GW, 6 January.