“We see not only the purse-strings of our nation in the hands of a Frenchified Genevan, but all our naval forces and all our militia placed under the control of this same foreigner, whom we cannot but think a satellite of Bonaparte.... In our opinion the national Cabinet has given to this country and the world the most indubitable evidence of their insincerity; that their great study has been to involve this country in a war with Great Britain, and of course to form a coalition with France, regardless of consequences. Their pledges to France of their willingness to submit to the wishes or mandates of the Corsican have been satisfactory.... We should deprecate a separation of the States, and would resort to every honorable means of redress before we would seek relief in a dissolution of the Union.... Our Administration can dissemble their real motives no longer; our dreadful forebodings prove realities; the expected blow has reached us, and by it has fled our liberty.” In quaint and pathetic phrases, the little town of Alfred, in Maine, sent to the general court a petition[361] which charged the national government with endeavoring “to provoke a ruinous and destructive war with England, to gratify the ambition and caprice, and augment the power, of the tyrant of France.” “We are the poor inhabitants of a small town,” continued the Alfred petition, “rendered poorer by the wayward, inconsistent policy of the general government; but life and liberty are as dear to us as to our opulent brethren of the South, and we flatter ourselves that we have as much love of liberty and abhorrence of slavery as those who oppress us in the name of Republicanism. We love liberty in principle but better in practice. We cling to a union of the States as the rock of our salvation; and nothing but a fearful looking for of despotism would induce us to wish for a severance of the band that unites us. But oppression did sever us from the British empire; and what a long and continued repetition of similar acts of the government of the United States would effect, God only knows!” These extracts showed the temper in which the Massachusetts legislature met. The Federalist leaders had more difficulty to restrain than to excite the people, and felt themselves strong enough to assume the air of cautious and conservative men. After an exchange of opinions between the Legislature and Levi Lincoln, who had become governor on the death of Sullivan shortly before, both Houses turned their attention to national affairs. The numerous petitions on the subject of the embargo were referred to committees. Without loss of time the Senate committee, February 1, made a Report recommending an Act to secure the people of the State from “unreasonable, arbitrary, and unconstitutional searches in their dwelling-houses;” to which was added a series of four Resolutions, closing with a formal adoption of the step so long desired by Senator Pickering.