Letters

What came instead seem’d at first another setback, but proved a blessing in disguise. A new French consul arrived in Algiers to replace the old, bringing with him a gift to the Dey of such opulence that “ours” (which Monroe & Barlow had thot daringly extravagant) was put in the shade. To point up this disparity — and to remind us further of our tardiness with the ransom — Hassan Bashaw open’d his hairy arms to France, & would have nothing to do with us.

Prest by the Dey to ask some favor in return for his gift, the new French consul requested a loan of $200,000 in gold from the royal treasury, to defray the expenses of the French consulate! We thot the request an effrontery — the man was borrowing back more than he’d given, at a time when gold was so scarce in Algiers that even the house of Bacri had none to lend — but the Dey (a pirate after all, not a banker) granted the extraordinary loan at once. Now, it happened that Bacri’s own assets, like Barlow’s, were largely invested in French government bonds; after sharing with us his surprise that the Dey had made so improbable a loan, & his interest in anyone who had such access to the Algerine treasury, Bacri hit upon the happy idea of claiming that same $200,000 from the French consulate, in partial payment of what the Directoire owed him on those bonds, reciprocating with credit in that amount for the consulate to borrow against in its routine operations! The Consul agreed, it being more convenient for him to work thro Bacri’s banks than to be, in effect, in the banking business himself; Bacri was delighted that the French government now owed money to the Dey instead of to him; and Barlow — who by this time was heartily sorry he’d volunteer’d for the Algerine service instead of improving his own fortune in Paris — wisht aloud & sincerely he’d been born a Jew instead of a Connecticut Yankee.

“Better Yankee than yekl,” Bacri replied, by way of cordial acknowledgement that some New England traders are sharp indeed, and some Jews dull.

Now, I much admired Joseph Bacri myself, as a shrewd but reliable fellow who took every fair advantage, but fulfill’d his obligations faithfully, & who in addition was a man of culture & political detachment (all governments, he was fond of declaring, are more or less knavish, but just that fact made the more or less of considerable importance). For some reason — perhaps because his smile included me amongst the “Yankees”—I was suddenly inspired to out-Bacri Bacri in our ongoing project to Burlingame the Bashaw. Here was our chance — I declared to Barlow when our friend had left, still exulting in his coup de maître—to discharge Bacri’s debt to us for removing Cathcart. Bacri — who understood credit as the Dey did not — was as confident as we that, despite all the delays, Baring & Company’s letter of credit to Humphreys in Lisbon against their banks in Madrid & Cadiz would eventually be transfer’d to Bacri’s office in Leghorn & thence to Algiers. In that sense, our personal “credit” with Bacri was good, especially in the light of our past favors to him. Against this credit, then, why ought we not to borrow at once from Bacri the entire same $200,000 that the French Consul had borrow’d from the Dey, & buy with it the immediate release of the prisoners?

Barlow was incredulous. Why should the Dey accept his own money, so to speak, for the sailors’ ransom, especially as he would be relinquishing his best leverage for delivery of the frigate & payment of the rest of his demands? He need not know the source of the money, I replied; ’twas Bacri himself who routinely assay’d & certified, for a fee, the Dey’s revenues. As for that leverage, it should be pointed out to him that the plague was reducing it every day: $200,000 for 100 sick Yankee sailors was not a bad price; the Dey could always capture fresh hostages if “we” defaulted on the rest of the treaty. But Bacri, Barlow protested, slightly less incredulous but still shaking his head: What was in it for Bacri? I admitted that to be the harder question, for while our friend was most certainly not just a Jewish banker, neither was he just our friend. The best I could suggest was that we charter from Bacri himself a ship to fetch the sailors home in, and route it to Philadelphia by way of Livorno & Lisbon, where the captain — or one of us — might expedite delivery of the promist gold. Beyond that, we must (and, I added earnestly, we should) simply trust to Bacri’s goodwill.