118

TREATY OF PEACE.

was in session, where, in public audience, he resigned his commission as commander-in-chief of the American armies, on the 23d of December, after which he retired to his private seat at Mount Vernon.

Meanwhile, the different courts of Europe had acknowledged the independence of the United States-Sweden and Denmark, in February, Spain, in March, and Russia, in July. The final treaty of peace had been signed at Paris, on the third day of September, 1783, by David Hartley, on the part of George III., and by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay, on the part of the United States.

By the first article of this treaty, his Britannic majesty acknowledges the United States to be free, sovereign, and independent states; that he treats with them as such, and relinquishes for himself and his heirs, all claims to the government, propriety, and territorial rights of the same. The second article defines the boundaries of the states, and the third secures to them the right of fishing on the Grand Bank and other banks of Newfoundland, and other places in the possession of the British, formerly used by the Americans for fishing grounds. The fourth article secures the payment to creditors the debts heretofore contracted; whilst the fifth recommends to Congress the restitution of estates formerly belonging to British subjects, which had been confiscated. The sixth article prohibits any future confiscation. The seventh provides for firm and perpetual peace; the eighth secures the navigation of the Mississippi to both Englishmen and Americans. The ninth orders all conquests made after the treaty of peace to be restored; the tenth provides for the ratification of the treaty within six months from the signing thereof.

HE treasury of the United States, which was never full, was now completely exhausted; the responsibilities of the general government were daily increasing; the public faith of the nation was burdened with a national debt of forty-two millions; yet Congress seems to have remained unmoved by the symptoms of approaching ruin and decay. The legislature of New York first directed the public attention to the inefficiency of the confederation, in July, 1782, and among other things, pointed out the inability of the general government to provide itself with a revenue. In February, 1783, Congress passed a resolution," that the establishment of permanent and adequate

120

ESTABLISHMENT OF A REVENUE.

funds throughout the United States, were indispensable to do Justice to the public creditors." Resolutions were also passed asking power from the states for Congress to levy certain specified duties on various articles of importation. These were to continue for twenty-five years, and the revenue thus collected was to be applied to the payment of the principal and interest of the public debt. The collectors were to be appointed by the states, removable by Congress. Congress further proposed that other requisitions might be laid on the states, to establish a revenue for other purposes, according to a fixed quota. This system was to go into operation upon the consent of all the states.

These measures met with the cordial support of Washington, who publicly expressed himself in their favour; but the country was in no condition to respond to such a call. Even in 1786, when all the other states had agreed to the measure, it was lost by the refusal of New York alone. That state reserved to itself the right of levying duties, and refused to make the collectors amenable to, or removable by Congress. The obstinacy of the governor of that state, also, who refused to assemble the legislature to reconsider their vote upon the measure, although several times solicited to do so by Congress, was another bar to the final passage of the bill. Congress could therefore only make requisitions which were not complied with.

In Massachusetts, an insurrection, directed against the state government, took place. On the 22d of August, a convention | | of delegates from fifty towns in that state, met at Hatfield, and voted a censure upon various parts of the executive and judicial systems of the state as grievances and unnecessary burdens imposed on the people. Very soon after, a number of insurgents, supposed to be nearly fifteen hundred, assembled under arms in Northampton, took possession of the court-house, and prevented the sitting of the courts; and in the counties of Worcester, Middlesex, Bristol, and Berkshire, the people were more particularly exasperated. On the 23d of November, a convention of delegates from several towns in Worcester

SHAYS'S REBELLION.

121

county, sent out an address to the people. A number of the insurgents, headed by Daniel Shays, who had been a captain in the continental army, attempted to prevent the sitting of the supreme judicial court. The general court, at this period, passed three laws for easing the burdens of the people; an act for collecting the taxes in specific articles; an act for making real and personal estate a legal tender in the discharge of executions and actions; and an act for rendering law processes less expensive. They provided for the arrest and trial of dangerous persons; but tendered pardon to all the insurgents. Shays and his followers ascribed these measures to weakness, and as the courts were to sit at Springfield, on the 26th of December, he marched thither, at the head of three hundred rioters, and took possession of the court-house. A committee was sent to the court with an order not to proceed to business, couched in the form of a petition. After this, the mob retired.

A similar spirit was manifested in Exeter, New Hampshire; but the vigorous measures of the governor crushed the disturbances in their infancy. Eight of the rioters were tried for the offence, but none suffered capital punishment. But in Massachusetts, the insurgents being emboldened by success, continued to assemble, and endeavoured to impede the operations of the government by an armed force. Above four thousand troops were ordered out to support the authorities, and General Lincoln was appointed to the command of them. Previous to the marching of this body from Roxbury, General Sheppard, with twelve hundred men, took post at Springfield, near the arsenal. Shays advanced with eleven hundred men to attack this party, after being several times cautioned to desist and warned of his danger by Sheppard, who threatened to fire if they continued to advance. Braving his force, they marched on, when he fired a few muskets over their heads. They still advanced shouting, when Sheppard aimed his artillery against the centre of their column. A cry of murder arose from the mob, which retreated ten miles with the utmost precipitancy, leaving three dead and one wounded on the

VOL. II. 16

122

DEFEAT OF THE INSURGENTS.

field. They took post at Pelham, and addressed a petition to the general court; but during a conference of officers, the rioters retreated from Pelham to Petersham, where Lincoln determined to surprise them. He set his troops in motion at eight in the evening, and by nine in the morning they had reached Petersham, having marched thirty miles, through a violent storm of wind and snow. It was the 4th of February, when Lincoln suddenly appearing in the midst of the falling snow, completely surprised the insurgents, who quitted the town in great confusion, without firing a gun. Lincoln pursued them about two miles, taking one hundred and fifty prisoners. In March, three commissioners were appointed to grant indemnity to those concerned in the rebellion, upon certain conditions; and though fourteen persons received sentence of death, all were ultimately pardoned.

Meanwhile, some slight difficulties occurred in the completion of the articles required by the treaty of peace, and a legislative action upon it in the Virginia assembly, induced Congress to send Mr. Adams as minister to England, when the differences were arranged. Treaties of amity and commerce were concluded between the United States and the principal European powers. The confederation, among many other important errors, vested no power in Congress for the regulation of foreign and domestic commerce. The absence of any national provisions on the subject greatly embarrassed the commercial intercourse among the states, and operated disadvantageously on their foreign trade. An effort was made by the State of Virginia to remedy this defect, in a proposition for a convention of delegates for that purpose. This proposal was responded to by five other states, who sent delegates to a convention held at Annapolis, in September, 1786. Though deeply sensible that the national government was lamentably defective, this assembly did not feel themselves competent to undertake any alteration of its provisions. Yet they suggested to Congress a general convention, which should take into consideration the condition of the National Government, and make such provisions or alterations as