cil was also established, called the Council of Censors, who were chosen by the people, and directed to meet every seventh year, "And whose duty it shall be," says the constitution, "to inquire whether the Constitution has been preserved inviolate in every part, and whether the legislative and executive branches of the government have performed their duty as guardians of the people, or assumed to themselves, or exercised other or greater powers than they are entitled to by the Constitution. They are also to inquire whether the public taxes have been justly laid and collected in all parts of the Commonwealth; in what manner the public moneys have been disposed of, and whether the laws have been duly executed. For these purposes they shall have power to send for persons, papers and records. They shall have authority to pass public censures, to order impeachments, and to recommend to the Legislature the repealing of such laws as appear to them to have been enacted contrary to the principles of the Constitution."

This Council met in Philadelphia in the summer of 1784, and took up the case of the Wyoming settlers. The Assembly refused to obey their demand for the records of the disturbances, and all actions concerning it. Then the Censors made this declaration:

"It is the opinion of this Council that the decision made at Trenton early in 1783, between the State of Connecticut and this Commonwealth, concerning the territorial rights of both, was favorable to Pennsylvania. It likewise promised the happiest consequences to the confederacy, as an example was thereby set of two contending sovereignties adjusting their differences in a court of justice instead of involving themselves, and perhaps their confederates, in war and bloodshed. It is much to be regretted that this happy event was not improved on the part of this State, as it might have been. That the persons claiming lands at and near Wyoming, occupied by the emigrants from Connecticut, now become subjects of Pennsylvania, were not left to prosecute their claims in the proper course without the intervention of Legislature. That a body of troops was enlisted after the Indian war had ceased, and the civil government had been established, and stationed at Wyoming for no other apparent purpose than that of promoting the interests of the claimants of the former grants of Pennsylvania. That

these troops were kept up and continued there without the license of Congress, in violation of the confederation. That they were suffered, without restraint, to injure and oppress the neighboring inhabitants during the course of the last winter. That the injuries done to these people excited the compassion and interposition of the State of Connecticut, who thereupon demanded of Congress another hearing, in order to investigate the private claims of the settlers at Wyoming, formerly inhabitants of New England, who from this instance of partiality in our own rulers, have been led to distrust the justice of the State, when in the meantime numbers of these soldiers and other disorderly persons, in a most riotous and inhuman manner expelled the New England settlers before mentioned, and drove them towards the Delaware through unsettled and almost impassable ways, leaving those unhappy outcasts to suffer every species of misery and distress. That this armed force, stationed as aforesaid at Wyoming, as far as we can see without any public advantage in view, has cost the Commonwealth the sum of four thousand four hundred and sixty pounds and upwards, for the bare levying, providing, and paying of them, besides other expenditures of public moneys. That the authority for embodying these troops was given privately and unknown to the good people of Pennsylvania, the same being directed by a mere resolve of the House of Assembly, brought in and read the first time on Monday, the 22d of September, 1783, when, on motion and on special order, the same was read the second time and adopted. That the putting of this resolve on the secret journal of the House, and concealing it from the people after the war with the savages had ceased, and the inhabitants of Wyoming had submitted to the government of the State, sufficiently marks and fixes the clandestine and partial interests of the armament, no such condition having been thought necessary in the defence of the northern and western frontiers during the late war. And lastly, we regret the fatal example which this transaction has set of private persons, at least equally able with their opponents to maintain their own cause, procuring the interest of the commonwealth in their behalf, and the aid of the public treasury. The opprobrium which from hence has resulted to this State, and the dissatisfaction and prospect of dissension now existing with one of our sister States, the violation

of the confederation and the injury hereby done to such of the Pennsylvania claimants of lands at Wyoming, occupied as aforesaid, as have given no countenance to but on the contrary have disavowed these extravagant proceedings. In short, we lament that our government has in this business manifested little wisdom or foresight; nor have acted as guardians of the rights of the people committed to their care. Impressed with the multiplied evils which have sprung from the imprudent management of this business, we hold it up to public censure, to prevent, if possible, further instances of bad government which might convulse and distract our new formed nation."

Frederick A. Muhlenberg was President of the Council.

The Assembly disregarded this communication.

The conduct of Sheriff Antes, in the Wyoming affair, can now be judged as a matter of history. Then, in the thickest of the fray, he could not please both sides to the controversy. As an officer of Pennsylvania it was his duty to uphold the laws of the State, and yet he had no right to go beyond the plain legal requirements of the case. What this included was the question for him to meet before the Council of Censors, who would review his entire course. It is gratifying to know that he seemed to act on the line of their judgments, and not on the line of the Assembly, which was under the power and control of the great land speculators. After Antes had been so brutally defied by Patterson and his minions, came the episode of the Green Mountain boys, and the Pennsylvania land grabbers learned that the spirit of freedom, awakened and developed by the Revolution, was not diverted by the ending of the war, but was ready to flame up upon the least provocation. With the influx of such a class the question of subduing the Connecticut claimants was farther from settlement than ever. Nominally the laws of Pennsylvania were administered by the authorities from Northumberland, but in point. of fact the Wyoming people were left largely to manage their own affairs. This was the policy that Sheriff Antes pursued, and in it was justified by those most familiar with the case.

The Sheriff was not interested in the question from a financial standpoint. Thus he was not one of the involved participants, as were Justices Meade and Patterson. He was also well enough acquainted with the principles of law to comprehend the force of the issue, and the arguments of the Connecticut men for their perse