From Thomas Jefferson to Hammuda Pasha, Bey of Tunis, 16 July 1803
To Hammuda Pasha, Bey of Tunis
Illustrious Friend,
As we have desired Mr Lear who has lately been appointed our Consul General to the Kingdom of Algiers to attend to several of our special concerns in the Mediterranean we have among others charged him to present himself at your Court to arrange with you certain subjects which may more and more consolidate the peace and good intelligence which prevails between us. I therefore pray you to give him a kind reception and full credence to whatever he shall say to you on our behalf, especially when he shall assure you of the continuance of our friendship and good will.
Written at the City of Washington the Nineteenth day of July 1803.
Th: Jefferson
FC (Lb in DNA: RG 59, Credences); in a clerk’s hand; at head of text: “Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States of America, To the Most Illustrious and Most Magnificent Prince the Bey of Tunis, the abode of happiness”; below signature: “By the President” and “James Madison Secretary of State.” FC (Lb in DNA: RG 59, PTCC); dated 16 July. Tr (NHi: Gilder Lehrman Collection at the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History); dated 19 July. Not recorded in SJL.
to arrange with you certain subjects: in April, Madison had asked James Cathcart to negotiate with Tunis a system of regular payments by the United States, preferably on a biennial schedule, to replace the uncertainty of unpredictable demands such as Hammuda’s recent request for the gift of a warship. In his instructions to Tobias Lear on 14 July, Madison asked Lear to take over that negotiation. Madison still expected Cathcart to assume the regular consular duties at Tunis (, Sec. of State Ser., 5:178; TJ to Hammuda, 14 Apr.).