The organization of courts and the collection of debts, formed one of the principal grounds of discontent. The court-houses were attacked and their session sometimes prevented. The party in favour of the State government, and, of course, of the support of the laws, was commonly called the court party. An Englishman might smile at such an application of the term.

The insurrectionary spirit was very general throughout the common. wealth; and it might be said that the western counties were in the possession of the rebels against republicanism. It endured, however, but for a few months, and was chiefly put down by the voluntary and spirited exertions of the peaceable inhabitants. While it lasted, there was, of course, a considerable degree of license, and occasional pilfering, for it could hardly be called plunder: but there was little destruction of property, and no cruelty. Sometimes a few individuals of the court party, and sometimes a few Shaysites were made prisoners; and in such cases they were shut up in rooms during the stay of the conquering party, and occasionally marched off with them on their retreat.

It is probable that about fifteen or twenty indivituals perished in battle during the Shays war. Not one suffered by the sentence of a civil magistrate.

The most severe engagement which occurred during the contest, took place in Sheffield, on the 27th of February, 1787. The government party was composed of militia from Sheffield and Barrington; in number about eighty men, and commanded by Colonel John Ashley, of Sheffield. This party, hearing that the rebels had appeared in force, in Stockbridge, where they had committed some depredations, and taken several prisoners, pursued them for some time without success, and did not fall in with them until their return to Sheffield, to which place the rebels had marched by a different route. The insurgents were more numerous, but possessed less confidence than the government party. This circumstance was every where observable during the contest. Upon this occasion, as the most effectual protection, they placed their prisoners in front of their line, and between themselves and their assailants. They probably expected a parley, and that the parties would separate without bloodshed. This had sometimes happened before, from the great reluctance which all felt to proceed to extremities against their neighbours and acquaintances. But Colonel Ashley was a man of determined spirit, and fully

convinced that energetic measures had besome necessary, he ordered his men to fire. They knew their friends, and remonstrated. The Colonel exclaimed, "God have marcy on their souls, but pour in your fire!" They did so, and after an engagement of about six minutes, the rebels fled. Their loss was two men killed, and about thirty, including their captain, wounded. The loss of the government party was two men killed, and one wounded. Of the former number, one was a prisoner who had been forced into the front of the rebel line.

If the remembrance of this commotion had not been preserved by the classical pen of Minot, its tradition would, probably, expire in one or two generations.

This is the only civil war which has ever been waged in our coun try, unless the war of the revolution can be so called.

MISCELLANIES.

A BERKSHIRE TRADITION.

AN old friend once described to me the following scene, of which, in his early boyhood, he was an eye-witness, and desired me to record it. He is, even now, but slightly bent under the weight of more than eighty years. He has a strong voice, a hearty laugh, a sound memory, and other healthful physical attributes, that as accompanying four-score, will be as incredible to the descendants of the present dyspeptic generation, as is the longevity of the antediluvians to our skeptical cotemporaries.

My friend belonged to one of the aristocratic families of Massachusetts. People then dared to boast that distinction. And even now he may claim a charter of nobility that none will dispute, for he bears a name illustrated by a progenitor who, when he wrote, had no rival, and even now has no superior, upon that topic on which he exercised his marvellous intellect.

It was on a Sabbath day, (I dare not, in this relation, use other than a Puritan term,) late in April, in 1776, that an unprecedented bustle occurred in one of the quietest villages of Berkshire. The stern, long Winter of our hill-country