which has led them cheerfully to quit their families, homes, and the comforts of private life, to undertake and thus far to perform a long and fatiguing march, and to encounter the hardships and privations of a military life. Their conduct hitherto affords a full assurance, that their perseverance will be equal to their zeal, and that they will continue to perform with alacrity whatever the full accomplishment of the object of their march shall render necessary.

No citizens of the United States can ever be engaged in a service more important to their country. It is nothing less than to consolidate and to preserve the blessings of that revolution, which, at much expense of blood and treasure, constituted us a free and independent nation. It is to give the world an illustrious example, of the utmost consequence to the cause of mankind. I experience a heart-felt satisfaction in the conviction, that the conduct of the troops throughout will be in every respect answerable to the goodness of the cause and the magnitude of the stake.

There is but one other point on which I think it proper to add a special recommendation; it is, that every officer and soldier will constantly bear in mind, that he comes to support the laws, and that it would be peculiarly unbecoming in him to be in any way the infractor of them; that the essential principles of a free government confine the province of the military, when called forth on such occasions, to these two objects, first, to combat and subdue all who may be found in arms in opposition

to the national will and authority, secondly, to aid and support the civil magistrates in bringing offenders to justice. The dispensation of this justice belongs to the civil magistrate; and let it ever be our pride and our glory to leave the sacred deposit there inviolate. Convey to my fellow-citizens in arms my warm acknowledgments for the readiness, with which they have hitherto seconded me in the most delicate and momentous duty the chief magistrate of a free people can have to perform, and add my affectionate wishes for their health, comfort, and success. Could my further presence with them have been necessary, or compatible with my civil duties at a period when the approaching commencement of a session of Congress particularly calls me to return to the seat of government, it would not have been withheld. In leaving them I have the less regret, as I know I commit them to an able and faithful direction, and that this direction will be ably and faithfully seconded by all. I am, &c.1

1"I heard great complaints of Gurney's Corps (and some of the Artillery) along the road to Strasburgh.-There I parted from their Rout.-In some places, I was told they did not leave a plate, a spoon, a glass or a knife; and this owing, in a great measure, as I was informed, to their being left without Officers. At most if not all the encampments, I found the fences in a manner burnt up.-I pray you to mention this to Govr. Mifflin, (and indeed to the Qr. Mr. General) with a request (to the former) that the most pointed orders may be given, and every precaution used, to prevent the like on the return of the Army. If the Officers from impatience to get home, should leave their respective commands;-in a word, if they do not march with, and keep the soldiers in their ranks, and from straggling or loitering behind, the borderers on the road will sustain inconceivable damage from the disorderly Troops;

MY DEAR SIR,

TO JOHN JAY

[PRIVATE]

PHILADELPHIA, 1 November, 1794.

* As you have been, and will continue to be, fully informed by the Secretary of State of all transactions of a public nature, which relate to, or may have an influence on, the points of your mission, it would be unnecessary for me to touch upon any of them in this letter, was it not for the presumption that the insurrection in the western counties of this State has excited much speculation, and a variety of opinions abroad, and will be represented differently according to the wishes of some and the prejudices of others, who may exhibit it as an evidence of what has been predicted, "that we are unable to govern ourselves." Under this view of the subject, I am happy in giving it to you as the general opinion, that this event having happened at the time it did was fortunate, although it will be attended with considerable expense.

That the self-created societies, which have spread themselves over this country, have been laboring incessantly to sow the seeds of distrust, jealousy, whose names will be execrated for, and the service disgraced by such conduct."-Washington to Hamilton, 26 October, 1794. This letter was written while Washington was on the way from Bedford to Philadelphia.

"Press the governor to be pointed in ordering the officers under their respective commands to march back with their respective corps; and to see that the inhabitants meet with no disgraceful insults or injuries from them."-Washington to Hamilton, 31 October, 1794.

and of course discontent, thereby hoping to effect some revolution in the government, is not unknown to you. That they have been the fomenters of the western disturbances admits of no doubt in the mind of any one, who will examine their conduct; but fortunately they have precipitated a crisis for which they were not prepared, and thereby have unfolded views, which will, I trust, effectuate their annihilation sooner than it might otherwise have happened; at the same time that it has afforded an occasion for the people of this country to show their abhorrence of the result, and their attachment to the constitution and the laws; for I believe that five times the number of militia, that was required, would have come forward, if it had been necessary, in support of them.

The spirit, which blazed out on this occasion, as soon as the object was fully understood, and the lenient measures of the government were made known to the people, deserves to be communicated. There are instances of general officers going at the head of a single troop, and of light companies; of field-officers, when they came to the places of rendezvous, and found no command for them in that grade, turning into the ranks and proceeding as private soldiers, under their own captains; and of numbers, possessing the first fortunes in the country, standing in the ranks as private men, and marching day by day with their knapsacks and haversacks at their backs, sleeping on straw with a single blanket in a soldier's tent, during the frosty nights, which we have had, by way of ex

ample to others—nay more, many young Quakers, not discouraged by the elders, of the first families, character, and property, having turned into the ranks and are marching with the troops.

These things have terrified the insurgents, who had no conception that such a spirit prevailed, but, while the thunder only rumbled at a distance, were boasting of their strength, and wishing for and threatening the militia by turns; intimating that the arms they should take from them would soon become a magazine in their hands. Their language is much changed indeed, but their principles want correction.

I shall be more prolix in my speech to Congress on the commencement and progress of this insurrection, than is usual in such an instrument, or than I should have been on any other occasion; but, as numbers at home and abroad will hear of the insurrection, and will read the speech, that may know nothing of the documents to which it might refer, I conceived it would be better to encounter the charge of prolixity by giving a cursory detail of facts, that would show the prominent features of the thing, than to let it go naked into the world, to be dressed up according to the fancy or inclination of the readers, or the policy of our enemies.