“I am almost without money, and much puzzled to obtain a supply. I mention this with infinite regret, and for no other reason than because it is impossible for me to transmit you a supply, under my present circumstances. This is my fifth letter to you since I left Paris. The two last were from France. But you say nothing of having received any letters from me. Summon, my dear friend, all your resolution. Exert yourself and plead your own cause. You cannot fail of success. Your cause would move a heart of flint. Present my best respects to your sister. You did not mention her in your letter. But I persuade myself she will continue her tender care of her sweet godson, and that you will cover him all over with kisses from me. They come warm to you both, from the heart.” While in New York he heard very ungenerous complaints that his charge for services in recovering the prize-money was exorbitant. Earnestly seeking the good-will of his fellow-citizens, these reproaches pained him. He wrote upon the subject as follows: “The settlement I made, with the court of France, had first Dr. Franklin’s, and afterwards Mr. Jefferson’s approbation, in every stage and article of the business. And I presume it will be found, so far as depended on me, to merit that of the United States. In France I was received and treated by the king and his ministers, as a general officer, and a special minister from Congress. The credit with which I was honored as an officer, in the opinion of Europe, and the personal intimacy I have with many great characters at Paris, with my exclusive knowledge of all circumstances relative to the business, insured me a success which no other man could have obtained. My situation subjected me to considerable expense. I went to court much oftener, and mixed with the great much more frequently than our minister plenipotentiary. Yet the gentlemen in that situation consider their salary of two thousand pounds sterling a year as scarcely adequate to their expenses.” His busy mind was ever fertile in expedients for the public welfare. In urging upon Congress immediate and effectual measures for the rescue of the unhappy American captives in piratic and barbaric Algiers, he had urged the establishment of a fund for that object. He also urged that, from this fund, a great national hospital should be established, for the benefit of invalid seamen, on the plan of the renowned Greenwich Hospital in England, and the still more far-famed Hotel des Invalides in Paris.