Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 4.djvu/247

1808. the government of the United States; and every person. . . who counsels, advises, or assists in any such correspondence, with such intent, shall be punished by a fine of not more than five thousand dollars, and by imprisonment during not less than six months, nor more than three years."

When Pickering defied fine and imprisonment under his own law, in order to make a concert of political action with George Canning to keep the British government steady in aggression, he believed that his end justified his means; and he avowed his end to be the bringing of his friends into power[.] For this purpose he offered himself to Canning as the instrument for organizing what was in fact a British party in New England, asking in return only the persistence of Great Britain in a line of policy already adopted, which was sure to work against the Republican rule. Pickering knew that his conduct was illegal; but he had in his hands an excuse which justified him, as he chose to think, in disregarding the law. He persuaded himself that Jefferson was secretly bound by an engagement with Napoleon to effect the ruin of England.

Then came Pickering's master-stroke. The April election—which would decide the political control of Massachusetts for the coming year, and the choice of a senator in the place of J. Q. Adams—was close at hand. February 16, the day when Rose's negotiation broke down, Pickering sent to Governor Sullivan of Massachusetts a letter intended for official