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three laws for easing the burdens of the people: an act for collecting the back taxes in specific articles; an act for making real and personal estate a tender in discharge of executions and actions commenced at law; and an act for rendering law processes less expensive. They provided for the apprehending and trial of dangerous persons; but at the same time tendered pardon to all the insurgents. These lenient measures of government were ascribed, not to clemency, but to weakness or timidity. The judicial courts being adjourned by the legislature to the twenty sixth of December, to sit at Springfield; Shays with about three hundred malcontents marched into that town to oppose the administration of justice, and took possession of the court house. A committee was appointed to wait on the court with an order, couched in the humble form of a petition, requiring them not to proceed on business; and both parties retired."

"The insurgents in Massachusetts continuing to assemble, and to endeavour to impede the measures of government by an armed force; a body of troops, to the amount of above four thousand, was ordered out to support the judicial courts, and suppress the insurrection. The command of this respectable force was given by the governor to major general Lincoln, whose reputation and mildness of temper rendered him doubly capacitated for so delicate and important a trust.' The army reached Worcester on the twenty second of January; and the judicial courts set there without interruption. Previously to the marching of the troops from Roxbury, orders had been given to general Shepard to take possession of the post at Springfield, where was a continental arsenal. Here he accordingly collected about nine hundred men, who were afterwards reinforced with the addition of nearly three hundred of the Hampshire militia. To this post the insurgents directed their first attention, from a hope of carrying it before the arrival of general Lincoln. About four o'clock in the afternoon of the twenty fifth of January, general Shepard perceived Shays advancing on the Boston road toward the arsenal, with his troops (which amounted to eleven hundred men) in open column. The general sent one of his aids with two other gentlemen, several times, to know the intention of the enemy, and to warn them of their danger. Their answer purported, that they would have the barracks; and they immediately marched forward within two hundred and fifty yards of the arsenal. A message was again sent to inform them, that the militia were posted there by order of the governor and of congress; and that if they approached nearer, they would be fired on. "That," said one of the leaders, 'is all we want;' and they advanced one hundred yards farther. General Shepard now gave orders to fire; but he ordered the two first shot to be directed over their heads. This discharge quickening, instead of retarding their approach; the artillery was lev

elled against the centre of their column. A cry of murder instantly rose from the rear of the insurgents, and their whole body was thrown into total confusion. Shays attempted to display his column, but in vain. His troops retreated percipitately to Ludlow, about ten miles, leaving three of their men dead, and one wounded, on the field.

The main body of the insurgents took post at Pelham; from which place, on the thirteenth of January, their officers addressed a petition to the general court. On the third of February, while a conference was holding between one of their leaders and an officer of the army, the insurgents withdrew from Pelham to Petersham. General Lincoln, who was then at Hadley, receiving intelligence of their movement, put his army in motion, in pursuit of them, and made one of the most indefatigable marches, that was ever performed in America. His troops commenced their march at eight in the evening, and by two in the morning, reached New Salem. Here a violent north wind rose; the cold was extreme; a snow storm at once heightened the inclemency of the weather, and filled the paths; the route lay over high land, where the exposure was great; the country was thinly settled, and for many miles afforded them no covering. Exposed to all these evils, they advanced, without scarcely halting, the distance of thirty miles; their front reaching Petersham by nine in the morning, and their rear being five miles distant. A pursuit through so many difficulties being totally unexpected, the insurgents were completely surprised; and, scarcely firing a gun, quitted the town in great confusion. They were pursued about two miles, and one hundred and fifty of them were taken prisoners. Many of the fugitives retired to their own houses; and the rest, including all their principal officers, fled into the states of New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont. Some predatory incursions were afterwards made by them from their lodgments in the neighbouring states; but such decisive measures were taken, as obliged them to seek refuge in Vermont as their last resort."

"On the tenth of March the general court appointed three commissioners, whose duty it was, on certain conditions, to promise indemnity to those who were concerned in the rebellion. Seven hundred and ninety persons took the benefit of the commission. Fourteen persons, who were tried at the supreme judicial court, received sentence of death; but they were successively pardoned. Thus,' says the historian of the Insurrection,' was a dangerous internal war finally suppressed by the spirited use of constitutional powers, without the shedding of blood by the hand of the civil magistrate; a circumstance, which it is the duty of every citizen to ascribe to its real cause, the lenity of government, and not to their weakness; a circumstance too, that must attach every man to a constitution, which, from

a happy principle of mediocrity, governs its subjects without oppres sion, and reclaims them without severity.'"-Holmes' Annals.

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Inauguration of Washington at Federal Hall.

Inauguration of Washington.-"On the 3d of March, 1789, the delegates from the eleven States, which at that time had ratified the constitution, assembled at New York, where a convenient and elegant building had been prepared for their accommodation. On opening and counting the votes for President, it was found that George Washington was unanimously elected to that dignified office, and that John Adams was chosen Vice President. The annunciation of the choice of the first and second magistrates of the United States, occasioned a general diffusion of joy among the friends of the Union, and fully evinced that these eminent characters were the choice of the people.

On the 30th of April, 1789, George Washington was inaugu rated President of the United States of America, in the city of New York. The ceremony was performed in the open gallery of Federal Hall, in the view of many thousand spectators. The oath was administered by Chancellor Livingston. Several circumstances concurred to render the scene unusually solemnthe presence of the beloved father and deliverer of his countrythe impressions of gratitude for past service-the vast concourse of spectators-the devout fervency with which he repeated the oath, and the reverential manner in which he bowed to kiss the

sacred volume-these circumstances, together with that of his being chosen to the most dignified office in America, and perhaps in the world, by the unaninious voice of more than three millions of enlightened freemen, all conspired to place this among the most august and interesting scenes which have ever been exhibited on this globe.*

'It seemed from the number of witnesses,' said a spectator of the scene, to be a solemn appeal to heaven and earth at once. Upon the subject of this great and good man, I may perhaps be an enthusiast; but I confess I was under an awful and religious persuasion, that the gracious Ruler of the universe was looking down at that moment, with peculiar complacency on an act, which to a part of his creatures, was so very important. Under this impression, when the Chancellor pronounced in a very feeling manner, Long live George Washington,' my sensibility was wound up to such a pitch, that I could do no more than wave my hat with the rest, without the power of joining in the repeated acclamations which rent the air.'"

REMARKABLE EVENTS.

DISEASES, STORMS, UNCOMMON SEASONS, EARTHQUAKES, AND OTHER

REMARKABLE EVENTS.

Just before the arrival of the settlers at Plymouth, Mass. a very mortal disease swept off the greater part of the Indians in this part of the country. 66 As this is one of the most remarkable facts in history" (says Dr. Webster in his work on Pestilential Diseases, &c.) I have taken great pains to ascertain the species of disease, and the time of its appearance.

"Captain Dermer, an English adventurer, who had arrived in America in a fishing vessel a year or two before, passed the winter of 1618-19 in Mouhiggan, an Indian town on the northern coast. On the 19th of May, 1619, he sailed along the coast on his way to Virginia, and landed at several places where he had been the year before; and he found many Indian towns totally depopulated; in others a few natives remained alive but not free of sickness; their disease, the plague, for we might perceive the sores of some that had escaped, who described the spots of such as usually die.' These are his words. He found some villages which in his former visit were populous, all deserted; the Indians all dead ""-Purchas, vol. 4, 1778. "Richard Vines and his companions who had been sent by Ferdinando Gorges to explore the country, wintered among the Indians

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*Dr. Morse.

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during the pestilence, and remained untouched, the disease attacking none of the English."-Belknap's Life of Gorges, American Biography, vol. 1, page 355, but the year is not specified.

Gookin in his account of the Indians, (Historical Collections, p. 8,) places this pestilence in 1612 and 13, about seven or eight years before the landing of the English at Plymouth. But this cannot be accurate unless the disease began to rage for a number of years previous to 1618. Capt. Dermer's letter in Purchas is decisive of the time of the principal sickness, and fortunately we have another authority which is indisputable. A sermon was preached by Elder Cushman, at Plymouth, in 1620, just after the colony arrived, and sent to London to be published. In the epistle dedicatory, which is dated Dec. 21st, 1621, the author has these words: "They (the Indians) were very much wasted of late by a great mortality that fell among them three years since, which, with their own civil dissensions and bloody wars, hath so wasted them as I think the twentieth person is scarce left alive.-Hazard's Collection, vol. 1, p. 148.

This corresponds also with the accounts in Prince's Chronology from original manuscripts. This fixes the time in 1618, precisely agreeable to Capt. Dermer's account. This was the year of the principal mortality; but like other pestilential periods this continued for a number of years; for some of the Plymouth settlers went to Massachusetts (now Boston) in 1622, to purchase corn of the natives, and "found among the Indians a great sickness not unlike the plague if not the same." It raged in winter and affected the Indians only. (See Purchas, 4, 1858.--Prince's Chron. 124.)

The time then is fixed. The disease commenced, or raged with its

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