Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 4.djvu/265

1808. not as bread, but as sustenance for carriage-horses, draft-horses, etc., and the quantity consumed is really astonishing."

Sullivan admitted that the habits of the Massachusetts people, contracted under the royal government and still continued, led to the evasion of commercial laws; but he told the President what would be the result of an arbitrary interference with their supplies of food:—


 * "You may depend upon it that three weeks after these certificates shall be refused, an artificial and actual scarcity will involve this State in mobs, riots, and convulsions, pretendedly on account of the embargo. Your enemies will have an additional triumph, and your friends suffer new mortifications."

Governor Sullivan was a man of ability and courage. Popular and successful, he had broken the long sway of Federalism in Massachusetts, and within a few months had carried his re-election against the utmost exertions of the Essex Junto; but he had seen John Quincy Adams fall a sacrifice to the embargo, and he had no wish to be himself the next victim of Jefferson's theories. His situation was most difficult, and he warned the President that the embargo was making it worse:—


 * "The embargo has been popular with what is denominated the Republican part of the State; but as it does not appear from anything that has taken place in the European Powers that it has had the expected effect