committees of inspection, &c., met at Pittsfield, summoned, as Col. Ashley charged, by Mr. Allen and his associates, to hinder the session from taking place. "Mr. Allen," continues Ashley," although not a member of the convention, appeared as the chief agitator and spokesman, and, having read a pamphlet entitled Common Sense,' as his text, made great reflections upon the General Court as his doctrine and improvement, after which he produced a large number of resolves, by himself previously compiled, which were put and voted by a majority of those present." Paine's "Common Sense" had been issued from the press in Philadelphia three months previous to this convention; and it had evidently powerfully impressed Mr. Allen, confirming and advancing his opinions of republican polity. Adapted as it was, by the clearness and vigor of its style, to ready popular comprehension, it was a shrewd device in those. days, when the circulation even of political tracts was limited, to read and enlarge upon it in an assembly of leading politicians from all parts of the county. The old meeting-house under the elm that day sent out one of those influences of which it was prolific, and which are felt to this day in every nook and corner of Berkshire. It is likely enough, too, that, in addition to laying down and applying general principles, Mr. Allen may have said severe things of the Great and General Court, being more than ever convinced, that, having assumed power without sufficient warrant, it intended to perpetuate it. The influence of these harangues seems to have been as powerful with the people as with the convention; for Col. Ashley goes on to inform us that they "were so much influenced that no court was suffered to sit, and all commissions of civil officers upon which hands could be laid were taken away." The gentlemen of the Sessions went home unincumbered by the spoils of office, and holding that the county was reduced to a state of anarchy and confusion. The convention called it "a state of nature." It was, in fact, the somewhat arbitrary rule of townmeetings and revolutionary committees; something very different, to be sure, from the beneficent operation of established laws, but far removed also from anarchy, and that confusion which a relapse to unrestrained nature would entail. The story of the Courts of Common Pleas throughout the Commonwealth does not show so much haste in re-establishing the tribunals specially designed for the protection of property as, according to the Provincial Congress, the direful circumstances of |the Province demanded. In all the eleven counties of the State, except Worcester, impediments of one kind or another seem to have prevented the machinery of those courts from going into immediate operation; although in all, except Berkshire and Hampshire, commissions to the new judges were issued in October, 1775. In Worcester, the court sat promptly on the 5th of the ensuing December; in Suffolk, in April; and in Middlesex, in May, 1776. In Plymouth, there is no record of any terms held by the judges first appointed; and those appointed April 10, 1777, did not take their seats until December of that year. Dukes was without a Court of Common Pleas until March, 1777; and Nantucket until 1783. The records of Essex, Barnstable, and Bristol are imperfect, but indicate more or less delay. New judges for Hampshire were commissioned about the first of January, 1778, and probably took their seats in the course of the same year. No new commissions were issued for Berkshire until Feb. 26, 1779, when Col. John Ashley of Sheffield, John Bacon of Stockbridge, Col. William Whiting of Great Barrington, and Col. John Brown of Pittsfield, were appointed, but never attempted to hold courts. The impediments to the courts in Hampshire were identical with those existing in Berkshire: although in the former county they yielded to the promise of a constitution; in the latter, only to its actual establishment. How far delay in the other counties, or in any of them, indicated a public sentiment similar to that which prevailed in Western Massachusetts, we have not at hand the means of ascertaining; but it would have been very strange if in no other part of the State the opponents of the Congressional scheme had been ready to adopt the measures of those in the west, with whom they sympathized in feeling. In Berkshire, the ordinary channels of justice, obstructed, as we have seen, when the king's judges were crowded from their seats at Great Barrington in 1774, were not re-opened until the re-organization of the judiciary under the constitution of 1780; so that for six years no courts were held in the county. During the inter 1 Washburn's History of the Judiciary of Massachusetts. regnum, the local authorities preserved public order, and restrained crimes against person and property, far from perfectly, it is true, but less imperfectly than was to have been expected; and the want of the civil courts was not so severely felt in business relations as it would have been in communities with larger and more complicated mercantile interests. CHAPTER XIX. THE BERKSHIRE CONSTITUTIONALISTS (CONTINUED). [1775-1780.] Pittsfield challenges legislative Attention to its Recusance. - Second Memorial. Congress practically revokes its Advice. - Berkshire demands a Constitution, which the General Court neglects to provide. — Projected Constitution of 1777. -Pittsfield accepts it in Part, but the State rejects. - The Non-constitutionalists memorialize. - Their Statement. - The Legislature appeals to the People of Berkshire. Consequent Action.-Vote of the Towns still excluding the Courts. The County petitions for a Constitutional Convention. - Strong Language of the Petition. - The Legislature passes an act of Pardon and Oblivion. - Pittsfield denounces it as uncalled for and libellons.—The Legislature informs Berkshire of Measures towards complying with its Demands. — The County nevertheless excludes the Courts until the Constitution shall be actually adopted. Final Memorial to the Legislature. — Instructions of Pittsfield to its Delegate in the Constitutional Convention. Newspaper Libels. - Conclusion. W HATEVER have rendered tolerable the lack of civil may government in Berkshire, the General Court could not have passed over in silence the flagrant rebellion existing there against its own authority, which had not only been brought formally to its notice by the memorial of Col. Ashley, and by the complaint of Justice Goodrich, who had been roughly handled by the Pittsfield committees for attempting to act under its commission, but had been boldly announced by the town for the very purpose of challenging the attention of the legislature. A joint committee was therefore appointed to visit Pittsfield, and inquire into the causes of complaint, but did not do so; the desired information having come from other sources, among which the following paper from a Pittsfield town-meeting was prominent : TO THE HONORABLE COUNCIL and the HONORABLE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE COLONY OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY IN GENERAL ASSEMBLY MET AT WATERTOWN, MAY 29, 1776. The petition and memorial of the town of Pittsfield in said Colony humbly showeth, That they have the highest sense of the importance of civil and religious liberty, the destructive nature of tyranny and lawless power, and the absolute necessity of legal government to prevent anarchy and confusion. That they, with their brethren in the other towns in this county, were early and vigorous in opposing the destructive measures of British adminis tration against these Colonies; that they early signed the non-importation league and covenant, raised minute-men, agreed to pay them, ordered their public moneys to be paid to Henry Gardner, Esq., receiver-general, cast in their mite for the relief of Boston, and conformed in all things to the doings of the Honorable Continental and Provincial Congresses. That they met with the utmost opposition from an unfriend'; party in this town in every step, in every measure they pursued agree?e to the common councils of this Continent, which nothing but the most obstinate perseverance has enabled them to overcome and surmount, which, together with the inconveniences we have labored under, afford the true reason why we have been so behind in the payment of our public taxes. That they, with the other towns in this county, have come behind none in their duty and attachment to their country's cause, and have exerted themselves much beyond their strength on all occasions. A fresh instance of their zeal was conspicuous in our late defeat at Quebec, when a considerable number of men were raised and sent off in the dead of winter, and lay dying of sickness before the walls of Quebec, before any one man from this Colony had so much as left his own habitation for the relief of our distressed friends in Canada. That from the purest and most disinterested principle and ardent love for their country, without selfish consideration, and in conformity with the advice of the wisest men in the Colony, they ordered and assisted in suspending the executive courts in this county in August, 1774. That on no occasion have they spared either cost or trouble, without hope of pecuniary reward, vigorously and unweariedly exerting themselves for the support and defence of their country's cause, notwithstanding the most violent discouragements we have met with from open or secret enemies in this town and county, and in the neighboring Provinces. That, till last fall, your memorialists had little or no expectation of obtaining any new privileges beyond what our defective charter secured to us. That when they came more maturely to reflect on the nature of the present contest and the spirit and obstinacy of administration, what an amazing expense the United Colonies had incurred, and how many of our towns had been burnt or otherwise damaged, what multitudes had been turned out to beg, and how many of our valiant heroes had been slain in |