Cabot’s argument shook none of Pickering’s convictions; but the practical difficulty on which the home Junto relied was fatal unless some way of removing it could be invented. During the month of February, 1804, when the impeachment panic was at its height in Congress, Pickering, Tracy, and Plumer received letter after letter from New England, all telling the same story. The eminent Judge Tapping Reeve, of Connecticut, wrote to Tracy:[106] “I have seen many of our friends; and all that I have seen and most that I have heard from believe that we must separate, and that this is the most favorable moment.” He had heard only one objection,--that the country was not prepared; but this objection, which meant that the disunionists were a minority, was echoed from all New England. The conspirators dared not openly discuss the project. “There are few among my acquaintance,” wrote Pickering’s nephew, Theodore Lyman,[107] “with whom I could on that subject freely converse; there may be more ready than I am aware of.” Plumer found a great majority of the New Hampshire Federalists decidedly opposed. Roger Griswold, toward the end of the session, summed up the result in his letter to Oliver Wolcott:-- “We have endeavored during this session to rouse our friends in New England to make some bold exertions in that quarter. They generally tell us that they are sensible of the danger, that the Northern States must unite; but they think the time has not yet arrived. Prudence is undoubtedly necessary; but when it degenerates into procrastination it becomes fatal. Whilst we are waiting for the time to arrive in New England, it is certain the democracy is making daily inroads upon us, and our means of resistance are lessening every day. Yet it appears impossible to induce our friends to make any decisive exertions. Under these circumstances I have been induced to look to New York.”