storm, writes serenely from his retirement at Monticello, to his friend Tench Coxe, at Paris: "Your letters give a comfortable view of French affairs, and later events seem to confirm it Over the foreign powers I am convinced they will triumph completely, and I cannot but hope that that triumph, and the consequent disgrace of the ir vading tyrants, is destined, in order of events, to kindle the wrath of Europe against those who have dared to embroil them in such wickedness, and to bring, at length, kings, nobles and priests to the scaffolds which they have been so long deluging with human blood. I am still warm whenever I think of these scoundrels, though I do it as seldom as I can, preferring infinitely to contemplate the tranquil growth of my lucerne and potatoes. I have so completely withd myself from these spectacles of usurpation and misrule, that I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a mon11; and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it."* CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE James Monroe appointed Minister to France in place of Gouverneur Morris recalled-His Reception-Pennsylvania InsurrectionProclamation of Washington-Perseverance of the Insurgents -Second Proclamation-The President proceeds against them -General Morgan--Lawrence Lewis-Washington arranges a Plan of Military Operations-Returns to Philadelphia, leaving Lee in Command-Submission of the Insurgents-The President's Letter on the Subject to Jay, Minister at London THE French government having so promptly complied with the wishes of the American government in recalling * Works, iv. 104. Citizen Genet, requested, as an act of reciprocity, the recall of Gouverneur Morris, whose political sympathies were considered highly aristocratical. The request was granted accordingly, but Washington, in a letter to Morris, notify. ing him of his being superseded, assured him of his own undiminished confidence and friendship. James Monroe, who was appointed in his place, arrived at Paris in a moment of great reaction. Robespierre had terminated his bloody career on the scaffold, and the reign of terror was at an end. The new minister from the United States was received in public by the Convention. The sentiments expressed by Monroe, on delivering his credentials, were so completely in unison with the feelings of the moment that the President of the Convention embraced him with emotion, and it was decreed that the American and French flags should be entwined and hung up in the hall of the Convention, in sign of the union and friendship of the two republics. Chiming in with the popular impulse, Monroe presented the American flag to the Convention, on the part of his country. It was received with enthusiasm, and a decree was passed that the national flag of France should be transmitted, in return, to the government of the United States. Washington, in the meantime, was becoming painfully aware that censorious eyes at home were keeping a watch upon his administration, and censorious tongues and pens were ready to cavil at every measure. "The affairs of this country cannot go wrong," writes he ironically to Gouverneur Morris; "there are so many watchful guardians of them, and such infallible guides, that no one is at a loss for a director at every turn." This is almost the only instance of irony to be found in his usually plain, direct correspondence, and to us is mournfully suggestive of that soreness and weariness of heart with which he saw his conscientious policy misunderstood or misrepresented, and himself becoming an object of party hostility. Within three weeks after the date of this letter, an insurrection broke out in the western part of Pennsylvania on account of the excise law. We have already mentioned the riotous opposition this law had experienced. Bills of indictment had been found against some of the rioters. The marshal, when on the way to serve the processes issued by the court, was fired upon by armed men, and narrowly escaped with his life. He was subsequently seized and compelled to renounce the exercise of his official duties. The house of General Nevil, inspector of the revenue, was assailed, but the assailants were repulsed. They assembled in greater numbers; the magistrates and militia officers shrank from interfering, lest it should provoke a general insurrection; a few regular soldiers were obtained from the garrison at Fort Pitt. There was a parley. The insurgents demanded that the inspector and his papers should be given up; and the soldiers march out of the house and ground their arms. The demand being refused, the house was attacked, the outhouses set on fire, and the garrison was compelled to surrender. The marshal and inspector finally escaped out of the country; descended the Ohio, and, by a circuitous route, found their way to the seat of government; bringing a lamentable tale of their misadventures. Washington deprecated the result of these outrageous proceedings. "If the laws are to be so trampled upon with impunity," said he, "and a minority, a small one, too, is to dictate to the majority, there is an end put, at one stroke, to republican government." It was intimated that the insurgent district could bring seven thousand men into the field. Delay would only swell the growing disaffection. On the 7th of August Washington issued a proclamation, warning the insurgents to disperse, and declaring that if tranquillity were not restored before the 1st of September, force would be employed to compel submission to the laws. To show that this was not an empty threat, he, on the same day, made a requisition on the governors of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia for militia to compose an army of twelve thousand men; afterward augmented to fifteen thousand. In a letter to the Governor of Virginia (Light-horse Harry Lee), he says: "I consider this insurrection as the first formidable fruit of the Democratic Societies, brought forth, I believe, too prematurely for their own views, which may contribute to the annihilation of them. "That these societies were instituted by the artful and designing members (many of their body, I have no doubt, mean well, but know little of the real plan), primarily to sow among the people the seeds of jealousy and distrust of the government, by destroying all confidence in the administration of it, and that these doctrines have been budding and blowing ever since, is not new to any one who is acquainted with the character of their leaders, and has been attentive to their maneuvers. I early gave it as my opinion to the confidential characters around me, that if these societies were not counteracted (not by prosecutions, the ready way to make them grow stronger), or did not fall into disesteem from the knowledge of their origin, and the views with which they had been instituted by their father, Genet, for purposes well known to the government, they would shake the government to its foundation." |