t body.

On the 24th of November, Mr. Adams reported a bill on the British
outrages, and, on a motion to strike out of it a section providing that
"no British armed vessel shall be admitted to enter the harbors and
waters under the jurisdiction of the United States, except when forced
in by distress, by the dangers of the sea, or when charged with public
dispatches, or coming as a public packet." Mr. Adams, with twenty-five
others, voted in the negative. Messrs. Goodrich, Pickering, and
Hillhouse, the only three Federal senators, alone voted in the
affirmative. On the final passage of the bill, Mr. Adams voted with the
majority, in the affirmative, and the three Federal senators in the
negative.

On the 18th of December, 1807, Mr. Jefferson sent a message to Congress
recommending an embargo. A bill in conformity having been immediately
reported, a motion was made, in the Senate, that the rule which required
three different readings on three different days should be suspended for
three days. Violent debates ensued. On the vote to suspend, Mr. Adams
voted in the affirmative. His colleague and every other Federalist voted
in the negative.

On the final passage of the bill laying the embargo, and on the subject
of British aggressions, Mr. Adams again repeatedly separated from his
colleagues and the other members of the Federal party, and voted in
coincidence with the administration.

Newspaper asperities and severities in debate ensued, which he
supported, as he averred, in the consciousness that the course of the
administration was the only safe one for his country, and in the belief
that it would be justified by events, and receive the sanction of future
times. His course had been, however, opposite to that of the other
Federal members in both houses of Congress. On a subject so momentous to
the commercial states, his colleague, Mr. Pickering, thought proper to
justify to the people of Massachusetts the course and motives of the
Federal party, and on the 16th of February, 1808, addressed a letter to
James Sullivan, Governor of that commonwealth, stating what papers "had
been submitted to Congress by the President in justification of the
embargo," and endeavored to show, by facts and reasonings, that the
measure had been passed "without sufficient motive or legitimate object;
that the avowed dangers were imaginary and assumed; and that the real
motives for it were contained in those French dispatches which had been
co