Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 4.djvu/194

184 despatch to Canning, he mentioned that Congress contained one tailor, one weaver, six or seven tavern-keepers, four notorious swindlers, one butcher, one grazier, one curer of hams, and several schoolmasters and Baptist preachers.

The most aristocratic American of the twentieth century will probably agree with the most extreme socialist in admitting that Congress, in 1808, might with advantage have doubled its proportion of tailors, butchers, and swindlers, if by doing so it could have lessened the number of its conspirators. To the latter class belonged Senator Pickering, whose power for mischief and whose appetite for intrigue combined to make him a valuable ally for Rose. Within forty-eight hours after Rose's arrival, the senator from Massachusetts had fallen under the fascination of the British envoy's manners and conversation. January 18 he wrote to his nephew Timothy Williams, —
 * "I now take up my pen merely to mention an unexpected interview with Mr. Rose. I met him last Saturday [January 16] at Georgetown, at the table of Mr. Peter, whose lovely wife is a granddaughter of Mrs. Washington.  Mr. Rose's face is indicative of a placid temper, and his conversation confirms it.  He possesses good sense and a disposition perfectly conciliatory.  Such also is the disposition of the minister, Canning, by whom he was selected for this mission.  Canning was his school-fellow and intimate friend.  It seemed to me a sort of friendly compulsion that sent him hither.  It was