Flattery like this was rare in Pickering’s toilsome career; and man, almost in the full degree of his antipathy to demagogy, yearns for the popular regard he will not seek. Pickering’s ambition to be President was as evident to George Rose as it had been to John Adams. “Under the simple appearance of a bald head and straight hair,” wrote the ex-President,[346] “and under professions of profound republicanism, he conceals an ardent ambition, envious of every superior, and impatient of obscurity.” That Timothy Pickering could become President over a Union which embraced Pennsylvania and Virginia was an idea so extravagant as to be unsuited even to coarsely flavored flattery; but that he should be the chief of a New England Confederation was not an extravagant thought, and toward a New England Confederation events were tending fast. The idea of combining the Eastern States against the embargo,--which if carried out put an end to the Union under the actual Constitution,--belonged peculiarly to Pickering; and since he first suggested it in his famous embargo letter, it had won its way until New England was ripe for the scheme. One by one, the Federalist leaders gave their adhesion to the plan. Of all these gentlemen, the most cautious--or, as his associates thought, the most timid--was Harrison Gray Otis, President of the Massachusetts Senate. Never in the full confidence of the Essex Junto, he was always a favorite orator in Boston town-meeting, and a leader in Boston society; but he followed impulses stronger than his own will, and when he adopted an opinion his party might feel secure of popular sympathy. Dec. 15, 1808, Otis wrote from Boston to Josiah Quincy at Washington a letter which enrolled him under Pickering’s command.[347] “It would be a great misfortune for us to justify the obloquy of wishing to promote a separation of the States, and of being solitary in that pursuit.... On the other hand, to do nothing will seem to be a flash in the pan, and our apostate representatives will be justified in the opinions which they have doubtless inculcated of our want of union and of nerve. What then shall we do? In other words, what can Connecticut do? For we can and will come up to her tone. Is she ready to declare the embargo and its supplementary chains unconstitutional; to propose to their State the appointment of delegates to meet those from the other commercial States, in convention at Hartford or elsewhere, for the purpose of providing some mode of relief that may not be inconsistent with the Union of these States, to which we should adhere as long as possible? Shall New York be invited to join; and what shall be the proposed objects of such a convention?”