Pickering structured his life in Washington as though determined to diminish the possibility that any of his misperceptions might be challenged. He seldom attended social gatherings where Jeffersonians might be present and exchanged views with members of the opposition only on the floor of the Senate. Living at Coyle's was in itself a defense against foreign ideas. There, the little group of embattled Federalists spent evenings by the hearthside reinforcing one another's prejudices.

—Gerald H. Clarfield, Timothy Pickering and the American Republic