In 1793, there were one hundred and fifteen American slaves in Algiers.[92] Their condition excited the fraternal feeling of the whole people, while it occupied the anxious attention of Congress and the prayers of the clergy. A petition dated at Algiers, December 29, 1793, was addressed to the House of Representatives, by these unhappy persons.[93] "Your petitioners," it says, "are at present captives in this city of bondage, employed daily in the most laborious work, without any respect to persons. They pray that you will take their unfortunate situation into consideration, and adopt such measures as will restore the American captives to their country, their friends, families, and connections; and your petitioners will ever pray and be thankful." But the action of Congress was sluggish, compared with the swift desires of all lovers of freedom. [Footnote 92: Lyman's Diplomacy, vol. ii. p. 359.] [Footnote 93: Ibid. p. 360.] Appeals of a different character, addressed to the country at large, were now commenced. These were efficiently aided by a letter to the American people, dated Lisbon, July 11, 1794, from Colonel Humphreys, the friend and companion of Washington, and at that time our minister to Portugal. Taking advantage of the general interest in lotteries, and particularly of the custom, not then condemned, of resorting to these as a mode of obtaining money for literary or benevolent purposes, he suggested a grand lottery, sanctioned by the United States, or particular lotteries in the individual states, in order to obtain the means required to purchase the freedom of our countrymen. He then asks, "Is there within the limits of these United States an individual who will not cheerfully contribute, in proportion to his means, to carry it into effect? By the peculiar blessings of freedom which you enjoy, by the disinterested sacrifices you made for its attainment, by the patriotic blood of those martyrs of liberty who died to secure your independence, and by all the tender ties of nature, let me conjure you once more to snatch your unfortunate countrymen from fetters, dungeons, and death." This appeal was followed shortly after by a petition from the American captives in Algiers, addressed to the ministers of the gospel of every denomination throughout the United States, praying their help in the sacred cause of Emancipation. It begins by an allusion to the day of national thanksgiving appointed by President Washington, and proceeds to ask the clergy to set apart the Sunday preceding that day for sermons, to be delivered contemporaneously throughout the country in behalf of their brethren in bonds.[94] "_Reverend and Respected_,-- "On Thursday, the 19th of February, 1795, you are enjoined by the President of the United States of America to appear in the various temples of that God who heareth the groaning of the prisoner, and in mercy remembereth those who are appointed to die.