the presence of the defendant on that day; but the witnesses were examined, and it was resolved, "that it appeared from their evidence, that Capt. Goodrich, in his late conduct, had acted inimical to the cause of these States."

An "advertisement" was offered by the committee, and approved by the town. And thus the quarrel continued to be waged in "The Hartford Courant;" for the assailed was not one to suffer in silence what he considered a wrong.

But at Christmas, 1778, the lucky thought-inspired, perhaps, by the season consecrated to peace on earth and good will among men — occurred to some sensible fellow to get the controversy terminated by arbitration. On the 1st of January, 1779, the plan was adopted, and the following gentlemen, all eminent for integrity and good sense, were selected as referees: Col. Job Safford of Cheshire, Col. William Whiting of Great Barrington, and Gen. John Fellows of Sheffield; with James Harris, Esq., of Lanesborough, to fill the place of either of those first named who might fail to serve.

One of the conditions of the reference was, that the party which was found to have wronged the other should pay the costs of arbitration.

The arbitrators met at Col. Easton's tavern on the 8th of January; all the gentlemen named, including Mr. Harris, being present. Valentine Rathbun, Capt. James Noble, and Deacon Josiah Wright managed the case for the town. "After due investigation," says the award, it was decided that the parties had mutually wronged each other; but that as, on the whole, Capt. Goodrich had been the worst aggressor, he should be adjudged to pay the entire costs, which were taxed at £35. 9s. 6d." This decision practically recognized the rightfulness of the Berkshire opposition to the existing State government; for otherwise Capt. Goodrich would have been entirely justified, the town entirely in the wrong. While admitting the right of the county to oppose the non-constitutional civil administration, the coincident right to enforce that opposition followed of necessity; and the only ground of complaint which remained to Capt. Goodrich was the unjust imputation | upon his character as a patriot. The publications on behalf of the town in "The Hartford Courant," so far as they related to his case, were not only unjust, but disingenuous, weak, and quibbling; placing the defence of the committee's action upon the lack of

unessential formalities on the part of the legislature, and denying statements which the writers well knew to be substantially correct, because their allegations were made without technical precision. The style of composition, the logic, and the spirit of the committee's articles, all show that minds were engaged in the management of the case of a very different cast from those whose arguments, clearly stated, and founded upon great principles, have been quoted in our discussion of the Berkshire troubles.

The result of the arbitration was acquiesced in by both parties, apparently without objection; and the reconciliation which followed was cordial. Capt. Goodrich received honorable trusts from the next and following town meetings, and lived long, a respected citizen of the town. From 1781 to 1788, he was a judge of the county Court of Common Pleas. Thirty-three years after the termination, in 1778, of his political vexations, he held the plough at the first cattle-show of the Berkshire Agricultural Society. In 1815, he died at the age of ninety-six, and lies buried in the Pittsfield cemetery.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE SHAYS REBELLION.

1781-1786.

Its Causes. Taxes. - Private Debts, -Harsh Laws and Customs.- County Conventions. Popular Outbreaks. - Organized Rebellion. - The Peculiar Course of Berkshire County. — Convention at Lenox. - Courts obstructed at Great Barrington. - Gen. Lincoln establishes Headquarters at Pittsfield. — The Rebellion suppressed.

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HIE Constitution of 1780 was not permitted to have a fair trial before it was assailed by an opposition which, in 1786, culminated in the Shays Rebellion, a popular convulsion which, although some of its features gave it a vraisemblance to the Berkshire troubles of 1775-80, essentially differed from them in principle and character; the earlier agitation having, in behalf of constitutional liberty, resisted the imposition of a government without basis or limitation, while the latter sought, by force of arms, to reform real or supposed grievances, for which the Constitution just established by the people provided a sufficient remedy through ordinary legislation.

The one movement was an attempted imitation of the other by men who entirely mistook its spirit and justification, or by demagogues who took advantage of the ignorance of others. But the resemblance of the two in some non-essentials, together with their proximity in time, will only serve to throw into stronger relief their intrinsic dissimilarity of character.

The popular ferment which prompted the Shays Rebellion had its origin chiefly in the circumstances of the Commonwealth at the close of the Revolution with regard to public and private indebtedness; aggravated by the harshness with which, by law and custom, debts and taxes were at that time collected. The acts in which

that feeling manifested itself were the result of a false interpretation of precedent, and of the crude political knowledge of men who perceived clearly-what the experience of every day taught them that they and their fellows were harshly dealt with, but who had not learned to trace effects to their causes with statesmanlike sagacity, and who did not comprehend that the same means which, in default of better, are legitimate for the overthrow of an oppressive government, become heinous offences when applied to the reform of even oppressive laws under the plastic institutions of a republic.

The financial situation of the Commonwealth was indeed most distressing, and such as, even in the most hopeful view, could find no perfect relief, except in long years of toil, endured by its people under the depressing influences of debt and enormous taxation. It seemed inevitable that the greater portion of the generation then living must go down to their graves in poverty, leaving the same bitter heritage to their children.

The debt of the State, contracted in its own name, was $4,333,000, exclusive of $833,000 due to the officers of the Massachusetts contingent in the army, which was as just a liability, to say the least, as any other. The Commonwealth's proportion of the national debt, for which, under the Confederation, it was specifically responsible, was not less than $5,000,000; making an aggregate of considerably over $10,000,000.

Besides this, every town was heavily indebted for money expended in local exigencies, such as filling quotas of men, demands for military supplies, &c. The payment of the interest alone upon this crushing accumulation of liabilities was an undertaking which might well have daunted the financiers of the impoverished State, even at a time of happier promise for the future; but the unwise impatience of the people, dissatisfied with paying interest, which was compared with a canker which consumed their substance without lessening their burdens, led to the imposition in 1784 of a tax of $466,000, and in 1786 of $333,000 additional, for the purpose of sinking that amount of the army debt.

As might have been expected, all the taxes were soon found to be largely and hopelessly in arrears, notwithstanding the depreciation of the certificates of indebtedness issued by the State treasury, which were made receivable for them.

But the tax-gatherer was not the only unwelcome visitor that

was wont to haunt the doors of the citizens of Massachusetts in those unhappy days: the tap of the sheriff or the constable was no less familiar. Private debts which had, for various reasons, been postponed during the war, had accumulated fearfully, and a mania for bringing suits upon them seemed to possess creditors; so that the courts were fairly clogged with business.

No condition of things could have been imagined more unfavorable to the imposition of heavy taxes, and the collection of longstanding debts, than that which then existed in Massachusetts. A paralysis seemed to have struck the young vigor of the Commonwealth, for whose cure time, and a process quite other than depletion, were required. The febrile symptoms which manifested themselves everywhere were the pure results of exhaustion.

The sanctity of property and the obligations of contracts had become impaired, not from the license of the people, nor because courts were obstructed in Berkshire or elsewhere, but from the unsettling of values through the excessive, however unavoidable, emission of paper money, and from the legislation which vainly attempted to sustain its credit. Gold and silver had, long before the war closed, disappeared as a circulating medium; and the faith of the nation, which has since been found to furnish a not entirely inadequate substitute, was without the basis to do so then. The Continental currency, despite the exhausting efforts of Massachusetts to redeem her proportion of it, was fast sinking to an unappreciable value, and encumbered rather than facilitated. the course of trade, until the only practicable relief was found in the formal recognition of its entire worthlessness.

Under circumstances of such overwhelming depression, manufactures, which, under the stimulus of the war, had attained a somewhat vigorous growth, now languished; the fisheries, fearfully narrowed in their markets, ceased to be that source of wealth which had enriched the Province; agriculture afforded but a scanty subsistence to farmers without the means of improving or stocking their lands, which were, indeed, in many cases, hopelessly mortgaged; while commerce had come to be little more than the means of draining what little of hoarded treasure yet remained in the State in payment for goods imported from markets which required few of the productions of Massachusetts in return.

We should fail to complete the picture of desolation without adding, that thriftless habits acquired in camp-life found little in