Barry was directed, when at St. John [San Juan], to write the Governor requesting that the American seamen who had collected there to return to the United States should be permitted to do so, but as the United States was at peace with Spain no hostile measures were to be taken to obtain them if the civil authorities should not produce them. Barry and Decatur sailed northward and off the coast of New England. On July 26, 1798, they sailed for the West Indies, the revenue cutter not being ready to proceed with them. The "United States" and the "Delaware" returned to Philadelphia September 21, 1798. Captain Barry had captured the French schooner "Le Jaleux," of 14 guns and 70 men and also the "San Pareil," of 10 guns and 67 men, belonging to Guadeloupe. The "San Pareil," in 1794, captured the vessel on which Charles and Catharine, children of Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, were returning from England. Proceeding to the West Indies the "San Pareil" fell in with the "Pallas" bound to the Kennebeck and compelled her to take the passengers and crew to Boston. [Rowland's _Carroll_ II, p. 200.]
Now Barry had captured the "San Pareil." The crews were imprisoned at New Castle, Del., until November 6th, where it was alleged, by opponents of the Adams administration, they were cruelly treated by being neglected and uncared for. "The government allowed nothing, though it furnished blankets. The French Consul had neither funds nor orders to give his countrymen relief." Secretary Stoddert, then resident at Trenton, New Jersey, because of the yellow fever, wrote President Adams, at Quincy, Massachusetts, that "Barry returned too soon. His reason, apprehensions from the hurricanes in the West Indies at this season. Upon the whole, it is better than to have kept the ships sleeping on our own shore, though the result of the enterprise falls very far short of my hopes."
Yet the Secretary had when reporting to the President that Barry had been sent to the West Indies "to be employed while the French have but little force" and that "the hurricane season" was near, had yet "hopes" that neither Barry nor Decatur had been able to satisfy. By direction of the President both were, on September 28, 1798, sent out again--"Decatur to cruise from the Delaware to Cape Henry and Barry to cruise from the Delaware along the eastern coast northward"--though the Secretary had informed the President "it is not to be apprehended that our coasts will be much molested by French cruisers," as they had no force in the West Indies equal to ours "and it was not probable they could send a force from Europe." Barry and Decatur were ordered to return about November 15th. Barry on the cruise was "to protect the trade from Delaware to New Hampshire, while Decatur did the same from New York to the Chesapeake."