were adopted attributing the policy of the Government “to the pernicious influence of stockholders.”  This was an echo of Jefferson’s views.  But the resolutions went on to declare:  “Our minds feel this with so much indignancy, that we are almost ready to wish for a state of revolution and the guillotine of France, for a short space, in order to inflict punishment on the miscreants that enervate and disgrace our Government.”  This was an echo of the talk in the political clubs that had been formed throughout the country.  The original model was apparently the Jacobin club of Paris.  The Philadelphia club with which the movement started, soon after Genet’s arrival, adopted the Jacobin style of utterance.  It declared its object to be the preservation of a freedom whose existence was menaced by a “European confederacy transcendent in power and unparalleled in iniquity,” and also by “the pride of wealth and arrogance of power” displayed in the United States.  Writing to Governor Lee of Virginia, Washington said that he considered “this insurrection as the first formidable fruit of the Democratic Societies.”

Hamilton moved warily, doing whatever lay in his power to smooth the practical working of the system in the hope of “attaining the object of the laws by means short of force.”  But such was the inflamed state of feeling in western Pennsylvania that no course was acceptable short of abandonment by the Government of efforts to enforce the internal revenue laws.  During 1793, there were several outrageous attacks on agents of the Government, and the execution of warrants for the arrest of rioters was refused by local authority.  People who showed a disposition to side with the Government had their barns burned.  A revenue inspector was tarred and feathered, and was run out of the district.  The patience with which the Government endured insults to its authority encouraged the mob spirit.  On July 16, 1794, the house of Inspector Neville was attacked by a mob, and, when he appealed to the local authorities for protection, he was notified that there was such a general combination of the people that the laws could not be executed.  Neville, a revolutionary veteran of tried valor, was able to obtain the help of an officer and eleven soldiers from Fort Pitt, but the mob was too numerous and too well-armed to be withstood by so weak a force.  After a skirmish in which the mob fired the buildings and the place became untenable, the troops had to surrender.  Soon after this affair, a convention of delegates from the four western counties of Pennsylvania was called to meet on August 14 to concert measures for united action.  Organized insurrection had, in fact, begun.