286 HISTORY OF contending that it was unequal and unjust, to require of tliem to encounter, in their persons, the labor and peril of enforcing the law against these armed combinations, of their own and the adjoining counties, and thereby subject the property of Dela- ware county only, to the taxation necessary to meet the ex- penses thus incurred ; and that the sheriff has been unable to organize a guard, under the second section of the act, of suffi- cient strength and permanency to enable him to execute the civil process placed in his hands, or calling for execution. " That the consequence of this state of things has been a substantial suspension, in the county of Delaware, of all pro- cess for the collection of rents, from the close of the serious disturbances there, in March last, until a very recent and very signal instance, to be hereafter particularly noticed ; the sheriff having undertaken, within that time, to execute and carry out such process in but one instance, and in that, a voluntary settlement between the parties relieved him before the point was reached, at which resistance has been usually met ; and he having, in numerous other instances, declined to receive and attempt to execute such process. '•^ That some time during the last month, pursuant to pro- ceedings by way of distress for rent, against a man by the name of Moses Earle, of the town of Andes, in the county of Delaware, the sheriff had appointed a day for the sale, upon the premises, of the property distrained, and upon the day of sale, attended at the place, and met a large collection of per- sons, whose appearance and conduct satisfied him that their ob- ject was to prevent his sale; not one of whom would make a bid upon any part of the property offered for sale, and from whom he learned that a disguised and armed force of some sixty men was secreted in the woods adjoining the field, where he was trying to sell the property; whereupon he adjourned the sale to the 7th day of the present month, at the same place. " That on the 7th day of the present month, the sheriff
