the commissioners. But they did not dare to propose CHAPTER VII. what the commissioners had demanded, a pledge from the members of the committee themselves to submit to 1794. the law, and arrangements for obtaining, in primary meetings, a like pledge from the individual citizens. After appointing a new committee of conference, the committee of sixty adjourned without day. The new conferees asked of the commissioners further Sept. 1. delay till the 10th of October, to ascertain the sense of the people; but this was declined as being beyond their authority. They now required that meetings should be held in the several townships on the eleventh of September, any two or more members of the late committee of sixty, or any justice of the peace to preside, at which the citizens should vote yea or nay on the question of submitting to and supporting the law, all those voting in the affirmative to sign a declaration to that effect, which was to secure them an amnesty as to past offenses. The third day after the vote, the presiding officers were to assemble in their respective county court houses, to ascertain the number of votes both ways, and to declare their opinion in writing whether the submission was so general that excise inspection offices could be re-established with safety; all the papers to be forwarded to the commissioners at Union Town by the sixteenth of the month. Meetings were held under this arrangement in many Sept. 11. of the townships, but the result, on the whole, was quite unsatisfactory. Most of the more intelligent leaders were careful to provide for their own safety by signing the required submission; but many of those who had taken no active part in resisting the law refused to attend, or to pledge themselves to obedience. As they had committed no offense, such was their argument, they ought CHAPTER not to be required to submit-as if winking at the vio VII. lation of law and neglecting to assist in its enforcement 1794. were not among the greatest of offenses. In some town ships the meetings were violently broken up and the papers torn to pieces. Such was the case in the town in which Findley resided, who, it seems, was personally insulted on the occasion. From Allegany county no returns were received. The judges of the vote in Westmoreland expressed the opinion that excise inspection offices could not be safely established in that county. In the other two counties the expression of any direct opinion was avoided; but these counties had always been more violent than Westmoreland. The better disposed part of the population had begun to form associations for mutual defense, and the opinion among them was quite universal that the presence of the troops was absolutely necessary. Notwithstanding the timidity and alarms of Randolph and others, real or pretended, the president's call for militia, as on the former appeal to the people in the case of Genet, had been responded to with a spirit that gave new strength and confidence to the government. The Pennsylvanians at first were rather backward, and a draft ordered by Mifflin seemed likely, by reason, it was said, of defects in the militia laws, to prove a failure. But the Legislature, on coming together, having first denounced the insurgents in strong terms, to save the Sept. 19. delays attendant on drafting, authorized the government to accept volunteers, to whom a bounty was of fered. As if to make up for his former hesitation, and with a military sensibility to the disgrace of failing to meet the requisition, Mifflin, in a tour through the lower counties, as in several cases during the Revolutionary struggle, by the influence of his extraordinary popular eloquence, soon caused the ranks to be filled up. As a CHAPTER VII. further stimulus, subscriptions were opened to support. the wives and children of the volunteers during their ab- 1794. sence. The quotas of the other states were promptly furnished, composed in a large part of volunteers. The troops of Virginia, led by Morgan, and those of Maryland by Smith, the Baltimore member of Congress, forming together the left wing, assembled at Cumberland, thence to march across the mountains by Braddock's road; those of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, led by Governors Mifflin and Howell in person, and forming the right wing, had their rendezvous at Bedford, to cross the mountains by the northern or Pennsylvania route. The command-in-chief of the expedition was given to Governor Lee, of Virginia. The commissioners having returned to Philadelphia and made their report, the president the next day issued Sept. 24. a new proclamation, giving notice of the advance of the troops which, in anticipation of the failure of the mission, had already been put in motion-and commanding submission to the laws. There was the more need of decisive measures, as the spirit of disaffection was evidently spreading. At Greensburg, in Westmoreland county, a house in which the state commissioners lodged on their way home had been assailed by a mob, who demanded entrance, broke the windows, and were only driven away by threats of being fired upon. The same feeling had also spread to the east side of the mountains. At Carlisle, while on their way home, Judges M Kean and Yates had required bonds of certain persons charged with seditious practices in erecting whisky or liberty poles. Hardly had they left the town, when two hundred armed men marched in, and, being disappointed in seizing the judges, burned them in effigy, VII. CHAPTER and committed other outrages. There were also signs of similar disturbances in the neighboring counties of 1794. Maryland; but these were soon suppressed by a party of horse, who made more than a hundred prisoners, most of whom were committed to Hagerstown jail. Calmer thoughts, and the news that the troops were marching against them, soon produced a change of feeling in the western counties. Bradford and others of the more violent fled the country. Encouraged by these symptoms of returning reason, the better disposed caused Oct. 2. a new convention to be held at Parkinson's Ferry. Res. olutions of submission were passed, and a declaration was agreed to, that the late failure in obtaining written pledges was principally owing to want of time and information, to a prevailing sense of innocence, and to the idea that to sign the pledge required would imply a confession of guilt. Findley at last had mustered courage to take a decided part on the side of order; and he was dispatched, with one Redick, to convey these resolutions to the president, and to stop, if possible, the march of the troops. At Carlisle these commissioners encoun tered the advance of the right wing, five or six thousand strong. Findley, who has left us a very labored apology for himself and his political friends, under the title of a "History of the Insurrection," found the troops, as he tells us, in a high state of excitement against the rebels. Two persons had been killed already; a man, run through the body by a soldier, whose bayonet he had seized when ordered to arrest him for insulting an officer, and a boy, accidentally shot by one of a party of light horse sent to arrest those concerned in the late riot at Carlisle. But in both these cases-and this was the only blood shed during the expedition-the parties concerned had been delivered over to the civil authorities for trial, and every VIL effort was made by the president and the Secretary of CHAPTER the Treasury, both of whom had followed the troops to Carlisle, to preserve the strictest discipline, and to im- 1794. press the necessity of avoiding all unnecessary violence and harshness. Findley, however, who was but just beginning to recover from the terror of having his buildings burned, or being himself tarred and feathered, by men whose violence he had found it much easier to stimulate than to control, seems to have been not a little frightened, on the other hand, at the swagger, bluster, and loud words of some of the militia officers against the whisky rebels, whose insolent resistance to the laws had made necessary so long and fatiguing a march. The president treated Findlay and his brother embassador with courtesy, and admitted them to several interviews; but did not see fit, from any evidence which they exhibited, to countermand the march of the troops. They hastened back, therefore, to procure more general and unequivocal assurances, which they hoped to transmit to Bedford, where Washington was again to meet the right wing, after inspecting the troops on the left. The Parkinson Ferry Convention, augmented by many discreet citizens, was again called together for the third time. Oct. 24. Resolutions were passed declaring the competency of the civil authorities to enforce the laws, recommending all delinquents who had not already secured an indemnity to surrender for trial, and expressing the conviction that offices of inspection might be opened with safety, and that the excise duties would be paid. Findley hastened back with these resolutions, but before he reached the army the president had already returned to Philadelphia Hamilton, however, remained behind, and was believed to act as the president's deputy. The troops crossed the Alleganies in a heavy rain, up to their knees in mud, |