Timothy Pickering Timothy Pickering ( July 17 , 1745January 29 , 1829 ) was a politician from Massachusetts who served in a variety of roles , most notably as the third United States Secretary of State , serving in that office from 1795 to 1800 under Presidents George Washington and John Adams . Pickering had previously served in the Massachusetts militia and Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War . He is often remembered for his Anglophile attitudes , and pushed for pro - British policies during his political career . Pickering famously describing the country as " The World ' s last hope - Britain ' s Fast - anchored Isle " during the Napoleonic Wars . He later became involved with the Hartford Convention , and along with many other Federalists opposed the War of 1812 . Early life . Pickering was born in Salem , Massachusetts to Deacon Timothy and Mary Wingate Pickering . He was one of nine children and the younger brother of John Pickering ( not to be confused with the New Hampshire judge ) who would eventually serve as Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives . He attended grammar school in Salem and graduated from Harvard University in 1763 . Salem minister William Bentley noted on Pickering : " From his youth his townsmen proclaim him assuming , turbulent , & headstrong . " After graduating from Harvard , Pickering returned to Salem where he began working for John Higginson , the town clerk and Essex County register of deeds . Pickering was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1768 and , in 1774 , he succeeded Higginson as register of deeds . Soon after , he was elected to represent Salem in the Massachusetts General Court and served as a justice in the Essex County Court of Common Pleas . On April 8 , 1776 , he married Rebecca White of Salem . In January 1766 , Pickering was commissioned a lieutenant in the Essex County militia . He was promoted to captain three years later . In 1769 , he published his ideas on drilling soldiers in the Essex Gazette . These were published in 1775 as " An Easy Plan for a Militia . " The manual was used as the Continental Army drill book until replaced by Baron von Steuben ' s Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States American Revolutionary War . Salem Incident . In February 1775 men under Pickering ' s command were involved in a bloodless confrontration with a detachment of British regulars under Alexander Leslie who had been despatched from Boston to search Salem for contraband artillery . Two months later , Pickering ' s troops marched to take part in the Battle of Lexington and Concord but arrived too late to play a major role . They then became part of the New England army assembling outside Boston to lay siege to the city . Adjutant General . In December 1776 , he led a well - drilled regiment of the Essex County militia to New York , where General George Washington took notice and offered Pickering the position of adjutant general of the Continental Army in 1777 . In this capacity he oversaw the building of the Great chain which was forged at the Stirling Iron Works . The chain blocked the Royal Navy from proceeding up the Hudson River past West Point and protected that important fort from attack for the duration of the conflict . He was widely praised for his work in supplying the troops during the remainder of the conflict . In August 1780 , the Continental Congress elected Pickering Quartermaster General . Rise to power . After the end of the American Revolution , Pickering made several failed attempts at financial success . In 1783 , he embarked on a mercantile partnership with Samuel Hodgdon that failed two years later . In 1786 , he moved to the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania where he assumed a series of offices at the head of Luzerne County . When he attempted to evict Connecticut settlers living in the area , Pickering was captured and held hostage for nineteen days . In 1787 , he was part of the Pennsylvania convention held to consider ratification of the United States Constitution . After the first of Pickering ' s two successful attempts to make money speculating in Pennsylvania frontier land , now - President Washington appointed him commissioner to the Iroquois Indians ; and Pickering represented the United States in the negotiation of the Treaty of Canandaigua with the Iroquois in 1794 . Cabinet member . Washington brought Pickering into the government , as Postmaster General in 1791 . He remained in Washington ' s cabinet and then that of John Adams for nine years , serving as postmaster general until 1795 , Secretary of War for a brief time in 1795 , then Secretary of State from 1795 to 1800 . As Secretary of State he is most remembered for his strong Federalist Party attachments to British causes , even willingness to wage war with France in service of these causes during the Adams administration . In 1799 Pickering hired Joseph Dennie as his private secretary . Middle years . After a quarrel with President John Adams over Adams ' s plan to make peace with France , Pickering was dismissed from office in May 1800 . In 1802 , Pickering and a band of Federalists , agitated at the lack of support for Federalists , attempted to gain support for the secession of New England from the Jeffersonian United States . The irony of a Federalist moving against the national government was not lost among his dissenters . He was named to the United States Senate as a senator from Massachusetts in 1803 as a member of the Federalist Party . Pickering opposed the American seizure and annexation of Spanish West Florida in 1810 , which he believed was both unconstitutional and an act of aggression against a friendly power . He lost his Senate seat in 1811 , and was elected to the United States House of Representatives in the 1812 election , where he remained until 1817 . His congressional career is best remembered for his leadership of the New England secession movement ( see Essex Junto and the Hartford Convention ) . Later years and Legacy . After Pickering was denied re - election in 1816 , he retired to Salem , where he lived as a farmer until his death in 1829 , aged 83 . In 1942 , a United States Liberty ship named the SS " Timothy Pickering " was launched . She was lost off Sicily in 1945 . Until the 1990s , Pickering ' s ancestral home , the circa 1651 Pickering House , was the oldest house in the United States to be owned by the same family continually .