Thomas Handasyd Perkins, Harrison Gray Otis, and William Sullivan, delegates to the Hartford Convention, were appointed by Governor Strong to go to Washington to persuade the Madison administration to fund the defense of Massachusetts. The "ambassadors" arrived in Washington at the same time as news of the Treaty of Ghent and Battle of New Orleans, and were shown in this Republican cartoon, sailing in a chamber pot:

"Damn me, Tom, she's sprung a leak!" cries Otis, and Perkins replies, "Whose afraid? Did you ever know a ship like ours fill from her own bottom?" Sullivan adds, "Keep the flag up Harry, you wasn't born to be drown'd—sink or swim, there's no flinching now."