Congress was slow to take action of any kind. In January, 1791, Maclay
noted that a committee had decided that the Mediterranean trade could not
be preserved without an armed force to protect it, and that a navy should
be established as soon as the Treasury was in a position to bear the
expense. Meanwhile the President began fresh negotiations, which were
attended by singular fatality. Thomas Barclay, who had some diplomatic
experience, was commissioned to go to the Emperor of Morocco. When Barclay
reached Gibraltar, he was taken ill, and, after being removed to Lisbon,
he died. Admiral John Paul Jones was then appointed special commissioner
to arrange for the ransom of the captives. As he had then left the Russian
service and was living in Paris, it was supposed that his services would
be available, but he died before the commission could reach him. The delay
caused by these events was made so much worse by the slow transmission of
intelligence that two years elapsed before a fresh start was made by
placing the conduct of matters in the hands of Colonel David Humphreys,
then Minister to Portugal. Humphreys had gone as far as Gibraltar on his
mission when he learned that a truce had been suddenly arranged between
Portugal and Algiers.
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