1. The letter to Pickering from David Humphreys, then U.S. minister to Portugal, written on 6 Oct. from Lisbon, enclosed two dispatches from Joel Barlow to Pickering. Humphreys wrote: “I can only notice some of the most interesting articles contained in those [dispatches] addressed to me. Among which articles, is Mr Barlow’s correspondence with Mr [Joseph-Etienne] Famin—in consequence whereof a Truce for six Months has been concluded with Tunis … and the Prisoners lately taken by a Tunisian Corsair in the Schooner Eliza (previous to that Truce) redeemed—For it should seem that the Bey had never heard of the Truce, which was pretended to have been made by his Agent … at Algiers. This Schooner … Mr Barlow has put into the Service of the U.S. by having sent her to Leghorn for the purpose of carrying our ransomed People to America if necessary.” Humphreys next addressed the fate of Capt. Richard O’Bryen, fearing that the captain’s brig Sophia may have been among several American ships captured by “a Corsair of Tripoli.” Humphreys’s only reassurance rested with the fact that the Sophia sailed “under the special Passport of the Dey,” which was regarded as “sacred with all the Barbary Powers.” Humphreys intended to convince Barlow to “impress upon” Hassan Bashaw, dey of Algiers, “the necessity of reclaiming his own property … and the impossibility of our attempting to send any farther Presents, naval Stores, &c. destined for him, into the Mediterranean unless we can know with certainty that they will be protected by virtue of his Passport, from every invasion or dentention by any other of the Barbary Powers” (DNA: RG 59, Despatches from U.S. Ministers to Spain). For more on the truce concluded with Hamuda, Bey of Tunis, see Pickering to GW, 5 Oct., and n.4.

The enclosed letters from Joel Barlow, the acting U.S. consul at Algiers, have not been identified, but Barlow provided a lengthy update on the Barbary powers in a memorial to Pickering dated 18 Oct. from Algiers (DNA: RG 59, Consular Despatches, Algiers). Barlow wrote that he had been communicating “the state of our affairs” to Humphreys since July. Barlow discussed the truce between U.S. officials and the bey of Tunis, the liberation of American prisoners in Algiers “in the midst of a desolating plague,” O’Bryen’s detention at Tripoli, and the efforts to deliver the tribute and military stores that the United States owed Algiers in order to implement the 1795 treaty between the two powers.

2. For the funds that Humphreys helped secure in London and elsewhere, and for the transportation of the money to Algiers aboard the Sophia, see Pickering to GW, 13 Oct., and n.8; see also Pickering to GW, 6 Jan. 1797; Pickering to GW, 23 Jan. 1797, and n.1 to that document; Pickering to GW, 20 Feb. 1797, and n.1 to that document.

3. Humphreys’s letter to Pickering of 28 Sept. has not been identified. The correspondence between Humphreys and Robert Montgomery, the U.S. consul at Alicante, also has not been identified.