disagreements between Federalists and Republicans, he supported the policy of President Thomas Jefferson in embargoing trade with Great Britain and France, who were then embroiled in the Napoleonic Wars. The Embargo Act of 1807 had a significant negative impact on shipping interests based in Massachusetts ports, and Federalists sought to use this, and the threats of war emanating from the Jefferson administration, to unseat Sullivan in 1808. Federalist Senator Timothy Pickering wrote an open letter raising the specter of war and charging Jefferson with failing to publish critical documents in ongoing negotiations. He then asked Sullivan to formally send it to the state legislature, with the view that this would imply Sullivan's agreement with its content. Sullivan refused, after which Federalists used that fact to charge that Republicans generally were withholding damaging information. Sullivan's defense included letters by Senator John Quincy Adams countering the Federalist charges. While this was sufficient to ensure Sullivan's reelection in 1808, control of the legislature was returned to the Federalists. Republicans were unhappy with Sullivan's handling of the political attacks, and for his refusal to remove Federalists from patronage positions in the government. The Federalist legislature immediately launched attacks on Sullivan and the Republicans, which Sullivan was not immediately able to respond to. In the spring of 1808, before the May opening of the legislature, Sullivan's health began to decline (epilepsy and an "organic disease of the heart"), so he was unable to seize the initiative. When he finally made his speech to the assembly, he failed to respond to the political aspects of the dispute, and called for national unity in dealing with outside interests. His warnings to Jefferson on the nature of the contentious disputes going on in the state were attributed by Jefferson to his declining mental state. Cognizant of Sullivan's precarious health, the Federalists sought a delay in electing a slate of electors for the Electoral College in the 1808 presidential election. Sullivan, who would have vetoed a slate of Federalist electors (as they were then chosen by the legislature and not by popular vote, the Federalist legislative majority would have assured this), he acquiesced in the hopes that elective actions in other states would moot the decision made in Massachusetts. Sullivan also came under criticism by political partisans on both sides for issuing large numbers of exemptions to the embargo, ostensibly to avoid civil strife in the event of a