Ottoman Algeria in Western Diplomatic History with ... - Bibliothèque

On the Dey’s right hand is the large divan where the four Turkish
Hodges or Secretaries of State sit and where archives of the nation are
kept, which consists [sic] of a few large books and papers, the whole not
comprising as much paper as would be found in the office of a country
attorney. 118
Furthermore, the very nature of the early American system of
government as established under the Continental and Confederation congresses
contributed to those early difficulties. The diplomatic papers of the
Confederation period attest of a total lack of a firm and coordinated decisionmaking
process—if not total failure: the Commissioners kept referring matters
to the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, the Secretary to Congress, and
congressional delegates would not act without referring to their respective
states; and all that was carried out on a background of capricious transatlantic
communications, unsafe mail, and political and social uneasiness in the USA.
The accountability of ministers, agents, and a host of special envoys to
foreign countries to Congress generated a considerable amount of diplomatic
correspondence that either waited for instructions, approval, funding, or the
like from the central government, i.e.: Congress. But the latter, lost in an
irresponsible bureaucracy and administered by incompetent government
officials, 119 was extremely handicapped by the Articles of Confederation. Each
state retained “its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power,
jurisdiction and right” which the states refused to concede to the union
118 Cathcart, The Captives, p. 195. It is to be noted that in addition to the Turkish secretaries (Khodjas),
the Deys also kept a Christian clerk at their service. Cathcart occupied that job from 1792 to 1796.
119 USRDC, 3:288, Lovell to A. Lee, Aug. 6, 1779. Lovell was a member of the CFA; he wrote: “But
there is really no Such Thing as a Committee of foreign affairs existing, no Secretary or Clerk, further
than I persevere to be one and the other. The Books & Papers of that extinguished Body lay yet on the
Table of Congress, or rather are locked up in the Secretary’s private Box.”
197