the year 1800.

I think it was during this stay at Alexandria, that Prince Jerome
Bonaparte had an interview with the Emperor, in which the latter
seriously and earnestly remonstrated with his brother, and Prince Jerome
left the cabinet visibly agitated. This displeasure of the Emperor arose
from the marriage contracted by his brother, at the age of nineteen, with
the daughter of an American merchant.

His Majesty had this union annulled on the plea of minority, and made a
decree forbidding the officers of the civil state to receive, on their
registers, the record of the certificate of the celebration of the
marriage of Monsieur Jerome with Mademoiselle Patterson. For some time
the Emperor treated him with great coolness, and kept him at a distance;
but a few days after the interview at Alexandria, he sent him to Algiers
to claim as subjects of the Empire two hundred Genoese held as slaves.
The young prince acquitted himself handsomely of this mission of
humanity, and returned in the month of August to the port of Genoa, with
the captives whom he had just released. The Emperor was well satisfied
with the manner in which his brother had carried out his instructions,
and said on this occasion, that "Prince Jerome was very young and very
thoughtless, that he needed more weight in his head, but that,
nevertheless, he hoped to make something of him."

This brother of his Majesty was one among the few persons whom he really
loved, although he had often given him just cause for anger.