[38] "During the present paroxysm of the insanity of Europe, we have thought it wisest to break off all intercourse with her." (Jefferson to Armstrong, May 2, 1808, ib. 30.)
[39] "Three alternatives alone are to be chosen from. 1. Embargo. 2. War. 3. Submission and tribute, &, wonderful to tell, the last will not want advocates." (Jefferson to Lincoln, Nov. 13, 1808, ib. 74.)
[40] See Act of December 22, 1807 (Annals, 10th Cong. 1st Sess. 2814-15); of January 9, 1808 (ib. 2815-17); of March 12, 1808 (ib. 2839-42); and of April 25, 1808 (ib. 2870-74); Treasury Circulars of May 6 and May 11, 1808 (Embargo Laws, 19-20, 21-22); and Jefferson's letter "to the Governours of Orleans, Georgia, South Carolina, Massachusetts and New Hampshire," May 6, 1808 (ib. 20-21).
Joseph Hopkinson sarcastically wrote: "Bless the Embargo—thrice bless the Presidents distribution Proclamation, by which his minions are to judge of the appetites of his subjects, how much food they may reasonably consume, and who shall supply them ... whether under the Proclamation and Embargo System, a child may be lawfully born without a clearing out at the Custom House." (Hopkinson to Pickering, May 25, 1808, Pickering MSS. Mass. Hist. Soc.)
[41] Professor Channing says that "the orders in council had been passed originally to give English ship-owners a chance to regain some of their lost business." (Channing: Jeff. System, 261.)
[42] Indeed, Napoleon, as soon as he learned of the American Embargo laws, ordered the seizure of all American ships entering French ports because their captains or owners had disobeyed these American statutes and, therefore, surely were aiding the enemy. (Armstrong to Secretary of State, April 23, postscript of April 25, 1808, Am. State Papers, For. Rel. iii, 291.)
[43] Morison: Otis, ii, 10-12; see also Channing: Jeff. System, 183.
[44] Annals, 10th Cong. 2d Sess. 22.
The intensity of the interest in the Embargo is illustrated by Giles's statement in his reply to Hillhouse that it "almost ... banish[ed] every other topic of conversation." (Ib. 94.)
[45] Four years earlier, Pickering had plotted the secession of New England and enlisted the support of the British Minister to accomplish it. (See vol. iii, chap. vii, of this work.) His wife was an Englishwoman, the daughter of an officer of the British Navy. (Pickering and Upham: Life of Timothy Pickering, i, 7; and see Pickering to his wife, Jan. 1, 1808, ib. iv, 121.) His nephew had been Consul-General at London under the Federalist Administrations and was at this time a merchant in that city. (Pickering to Rose, March 22, 1808, New-England Federalism: Adams, 370.) Pickering had been, and still was, carrying on with George Rose, recently British Minister to the United States, a correspondence all but treasonable. (Morison: Otis, ii, 6.)