He did not realize that he was so broken in health, for he still clung to his tenuous connection with Russia, sending repeated letters to Catherine and Patiomkine, with demands, requests, and suggestions of various plans for service. Patiomkine, as usual, took no notice, but the last letter to Catherine having been forwarded through Baron Grimm, she directed him, rather curtly by the way, to inform Jones that if she had service for him she would let him know. After that Jones seems to have discontinued his letters to Russia. He found, however, two new outlets for his restless zeal. Early in 1792, chancing to meet an Algerian corsair, who had captured many Americans now held for ransom in Algiers, he learned much of the unfortunate condition of those unhappy sailors, to whose fate their country was apparently oblivious. The corsair informed him that if these captives were not ransomed promptly they would be sold into slavery. Jones wrote immediately to Jefferson, then Secretary of State, and with all his power urged that something be done for them, either by sending a force to compel restitution or by means of ransom. The letter, as we shall see, was not without result. The second object of interest was a claim which he entertained against the French Government for salary due him while in command of the Bon Homme Richard and the squadron. The United States had paid him his salary as an officer during that period, but he felt that since his services had been asked by France, and the squadron had been at the charge of the French Government, a further amount was due him from the French, and he wrote to de Bertrand, Minister of Marine, demanding the balance due. The claim was the subject of acrid correspondence, and the matter was pending when he died.[51] From the letters written during the last years of his life I quote portions of three--the first two to his sister, Mrs. Taylor, and the last one to Lafayette: "Amsterdam, _March 26, 1790_.