1791.]

years,

the Indians on the frontiers were creating great alarm amongst the distant settlers. The Creeks, under the direction of a chief of white descent, desolated the remoter parts of Georgia, whilst the North-west was kept in a state of constant terror by the demonstrations of other tribes. Against these barbarians it became necessary to take decisive measures, and the President, directing his attention in the first place towards the Creeks, who seem to have enjoyed some degree of support from Spain, endeavoured to bring about an amicable arrangement with them. The attempt proved abortive, but was renewed in 1790, when Gillivray, the ruler of the Creeks, was induced to proceed to New York, and conclude a treaty. Similar overtures made to the Indians beyond the Ohio were altogether without result. These tribes appear to have been influenced by an impression that the British Government was taking steps for bringing back its former colonies to the allegiance they had shaken off, and that, if renewed hostilities should break out, their services would be required again, as they had been before. Sir John Johnson, whose relations with the native tribes were always such as to create apprehension on the part of the Americans, was the British Agent on that frontier, and Sir Guy Carleton, now Lord Dorchester, had been re-appointed to the Governorship of Canada. These facts may have had some effect on the minds of the savages; but the latter were never without grievances, real or imaginary, which influenced them much more. Whatever the causes of their present action, they exhibited a very rebellious spirit in the spring of 1790. General Harmer was accordingly sent into the Indian country, north of that which is now the State of Cincinnati, at the head of fifteen hundred men. Ascending the river Wabash, he burnt some Indian villages; but here his successes ended. On October 17th and 22nd, 1790, he was twice defeated, with considerable loss, near the present village of Fort Wayne, in Indiana. Other expeditions were sent out in the following year; but ill-luck still pursued the American troops.

General St. Clair, at that time Governor of the North-west Territory, sustained a very severe re. pulse while encamped in Ohio, although he was in command of an unusually large force. He had marched into the wilderness, in October, 1791, with nearly two thousand men; but, by desertion and detachments, the army was reduced to fourteen hundred. On the 3rd of November they encamped a few miles from the villages on the Miami, with the intention of remaining there until they were rejoined by their comrades; but, before sunrise on

521

the following morning, the troops, just arter being dismissed from parade, were suddenly and violently attacked by the Indians. It unfortunately happened that the front ranks of the American army consisted of raw levies. Struck with dismay, they fell back in confusion on the others, who were thus thrown into temporary disorder. Recovering themselves, they advanced against the savages, who retired from covert to covert, but returned to their former positions as soon as the troops were recalled from pursuit. General St. Clair, being ill at the time, was unable to take the command in person, and, after a contest of three or four hours, he resolved to call off his men, seeing that they had suffered severely. But to retreat is sometimes more difficult than to advance. As soon as the retrograde movement began, the troops, who had until then fought with resolution, were incapable of restraining themselves from flight. four hours they were chased by the Indians a distance of thirty miles, though it is supposed they were not out-numbered by the adversary; and their camp was afterwards plundered and destroyed. The loss of nearly nine hundred men, in killed, wounded, and missing, was the price which St. Clair had to pay for his want of skill, vigilance, or good fortune.

This disaster threw the whole North-western frontier into dismay. The Federal Government was urgently petitioned for assistance, and Commissioners were appointed to treat with the Indians, who, with the indolence peculiar to their race, excepting in moments of great excitement, forbore from following up their advantage. General St. Clair was now succeeded by General Wayne, an officer who had distinguished himself in the War of Independence; and the military force of the Republic was raised to five thousand men, though with great difficulty, owing to the extravagant jealousy of a standing army felt by the AntiFederalists. Not waiting for the negotiations to be brought to a conclusion, and divining that they would probably fail, and be followed by renewed attacks on the part of the savages, Wayne marched into the Indian country in the autumn of 1793. The winter was spent by him near the place of St. Clair's defeat, where he built a fort; and in the summer of 1794 he pushed still further into the west, building forts as he proceeded. On the 20th of August he inflicted a severe defeat upon the Indians; then, laying waste their country, retired into winter quarters at Greenville, after a campaign of about ninety days. The tribes were now thoroughly cowed, and, on the 3rd of August, 1795, eleven hundred chiefs and warriors met a body of Commissioners from the United States, concluded

1794.]

daring character, their vehement temper, and their tendency to a certain lawless freedom.

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Act of 1791 was superseded by another, passed in 1794; but this gave no greater satisfaction than

Western Pennsylvania was in 1794 troubled by a popular outbreak known as "the whiskey insurrection." This was provoked by the Excise law which had proved so extremely unpopular. The

the first. The officers sent by Congress to enforce the law in the western districts of Pennsylvania were violently resisted by the people. The insurrection soon became general; outrages of an

extreme kind were committed in the neighbourhood of Pittsburg; buildings were burned, mails were robbed, and the Excise officers were handled with great roughness. Between six and seven thousand insurgents were under arms, and the local militia could do nothing.

Indeed, many members of that body had enrolled themselves among the rebels. Even the adjacent counties of Virginia were infected, and the President found it necessary to adopt measures for crushing the disorder. Two proclamations which he issued-one on August 7th, and another on September 25th-having been entirely disregarded, a large body of the militia of Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, was ordered to march into the insurgent district, under the command of General Henry Lee, the Governor of Virginia. These forces appeared there in October, and speedily restored order, without the necessity of any active operations. The ringleaders were afterwards tried and found guilty of treason, but ultimately pardoned on their professing repentance. The military measures of the President, in sending to one State the militia of others, were decried as unconstitutional; but it is plain that he had no other means of suppressing a dangerous movement, and of asserting a rightful authority.

The insurgents appear to have had the support of the Anti-Federalists, who would doubtless have

been delighted to tie the hands of the President and his Government in every possible way. The tendency of such principles is towards endless disintegration. The objection to a central power might be carried so far as to render even municipal rule impracticable. Every parish might lay claim to independence; and it is hard to see where these political theories could logically cease, short of the right of each individual to do exactly as he likes, without any reference to the collective good of the community. Men of large ability and unimpeachable honour, like Jefferson, cannot, of course, be suspected of a desire to push their opinions to such insane lengths; but inferior members of the party seem scarcely, as far as their aspirations went, to have stopped this side of a condition which would have been nothing less than permanent anarchy. The weak point in the politics of the Southern States of America has always been systematic rebellion against a strong Federal Government; and, while calling themselves Democrats, they have made it but too evident that their views are in every way opposed to the actual nature and tendencies of Democracy. The rule of the people is not the rule of sections, not the rule of special interests or of local peculiarities; but the will of the nation itself, firmly compacted-able to protect the wellbeing of all, strong to repel and to subdue whoever may have the daring to attack its sovereignty.

EVERY day, the difficulties of the United States, consequent on the French Revolution, increased in gravity. It was natural for the American people to cherish a sentiment of gratitude towards the people of France for the aid which they had rendered to the cause of Independence. It was equally to be expected that they should feel flattered at the homage to their own political principles which was implied in the French adoption of Republican forms, as the result of that great rising against the

misrule of Bourbons and nobles which gave so wid a character to the departing eighteenth century. For the same reasons, it is easy to understand that the democrats of Paris considered they had a claim on the citizens of the United States, and looked with confidence for their sympathy, and, if need were, for their support. But the case was in fact nothing like so simple as these conditions seem to suggest. The relations between countries are always compli cated and uneasy in periods of general disturbanc;

as generally understood and practised, was English Constitutionalism carried to its legitimate conclusions in a land where there could be neither monarch nor aristocracy-where neither existed, and neither was desired. The Republicanism of France was as much social as political-a wild and passionate attempt at the entire reconstruction of society, threatening the existence of property, of the family, of historic religion, and of transmitted morals. The English blood was too strong in the American people, the English soberness of character was too much an inherited condition of their minds, the English love of slow and cautious change was too much a habit of their political existence, for these tendencies of the emancipated French intellect to be otherwise

with French and American flags, placed on a car drawn by sixteen horses, and paraded through the streets, followed by carts bearing bread and hogsheads of punch, which were distributed among the people. A civic feast was held at Faneuil Hall, over which Samuel Adams presided. The anniversary of the French alliance was celebrated in several places, and the progress of freedom in France was identified with the political ideas of America in a way which shows how completely enthusiasm had got the better of judgment. When the Minister appointed by Louis XVI. was recalled, his successor, Edmond Charles Genet, was greeted with the warmest expressions of friendship. He arrived at Charleston, South Carolina, in April, 1793. Louis had been