stipulated. On Tuesday, about two o'clock, the efforts of the state authority being despaired of, and the reports from the barracks being unfavorable, the committee advised the president to summon Congress to meet at Trenton, which he did verbally as to the members present, leaving behind him a general proclamation for the press.
After the departure of Congress, the mutineers submitted, and most of them accepted furloughs under the resolution of Congress on that subject. At the time of submission, they betrayed their leaders, the chief of whom proved to be a Mr. Carbery, a deranged officer, and a Mr. Sullivan, a lieutenant of horse; both of whom made their escape. Some of the most active of the sergeants also ran off.50
Monday, February 19, 1787.[1]
Mr. PINCKNEY, in support of his motion entered on the Journal for stopping the enlistment of troops, argued that he had reason to suppose the insurrection in Massachusetts, the real though not ostensible object of this measure, to be already crushed; that the requisition of five hundred thousand dollars for supporting the troops had been complied with by one state only, viz. Virginia, and that but in part; that it would be absurd to proceed in the raising of men who could neither be paid, clothed, nor fed, and that such a folly was the more to be shunned, as the consequences could not be foreseen, of imbodying and arming men under circumstances which would be more likely to render them the terror than the support of the government We had, he observed, been so lucky in one instance—meaning the disbanding of the army on the peace—as to get rid of an armed force without satisfying their just claims; but that it would not be prudent to hazard the repetition of the experiment.
Mr. KING made a moving appeal to the feelings of Congress, reminding them that the real object in voting the troops was, to countenance the exertions of the government of Massachusetts; that the silent coöperation of these military preparations under the orders of Congress had had a great and double effect in animating the government and awing the insurgents; that he hoped the late success of the former had given a deadly blow to the disturbances, yet that it would be premature, whilst a doubt could exist as to the critical fact, to withdraw the cooperating influence of the federal measures. He particularly and pathetically entreated Congress to consider that it was in agitation, and probably would be determined, by the legislature of Massachusetts, not only to bring to due punishment the more active and leading offenders, but to disarm and disfranchise, for a limited time, the great body of them; that for the policy of this measure he would not undertake to vouch, being sensible that there were great and illustrious examples against it; that his confidence, however, in the prudence of that government, would not permit him to call their determinations into question; that what the effect of these rigors might be it was impossible to foresee. He dwelt much on the sympathy which they probably would excite in behalf of the stigmatized party; scarce a man was without a father, a brother, a friend, in the mass of the people; adding that, as a precaution against contingencies, it was the purpose of the state to raise and station a small military force in the most suspected districts, and that forty thousand pounds, to be drawn from their impost on trade, had been appropriated accordingly; that under these circumstances a new crisis more solemn than the late one might be brought on, and therefore to stop the federal enlistments, and thereby withdraw the aid which had been held out, would give the greatest alarm imaginable to the government and its friends, as it would look like a disapprobation and desertion of them; and, if viewed in that light by the disaffected, might rekindle the insurrection. He took notice of the possibility to which every state in the Union was exposed of being visited with similar calamities; in which event they would all be suing for support in the same strain now used by the delegates from Massachusetts; that the indulgence now requested in behalf of that state might be granted without the least inconvenience to the United States, as their enlistments, without any countermanding orders, would not go on whilst those of the state were in competition; it being natural for men to prefer the latter service, in which they would stay at home, and be sure of their pay, to the former, in which they might, with little prospect of it, be sent to the Ohio to fight the Indians. He concluded with the most earnest entreaties, and the fullest confidence, that Congress would not, at so critical a moment, and without any ne-
- ↑ From 1783 till this period. Mr. Madison was not a member.
