USA > Pennsylvania > Colonial records of Pennsylvania, Vol. XIII > Part 54
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The acts for suppressing auctions, and those for imposts on goods, wares and merchandizes imported, require a revision.
There are several cases where, by former laws, proceedings were to be had before the Mayor and Aldermen, and similar powers have not yet been given to other Magistrates in their place.
The institution of a Chamber of Commerce would probably be attended with utility, in disputes among merchants ; and perhaps the integrity and experience of many worthy and well informed citizens might thereby be more particularly engaged than they otherwise can be to aid Government in affairs of trade and finance.
The passage of the river should be cleared, by removing the chevaux de frize. We have directed proposals to be received, but did not choose to proceed further without your approbation.
The highways are in bad condition, and the mode pointed out by law for mending them is judged by us exceedingly inadequate to the purpose of securing the best benefits that may arise from their being kept in good order.
What canals can be advantageously made, and how far the Dela- were, Schuylkill, and Susquehanna may be rendered more naviga- ble. are matters worthy of much consideration.
The fortifications and banks on Mud Island, and the hospitals and wharves on State Island, want many repairs.
An act of Assembly is immediately required to ascertain the ex- tent of the port of Philadelphia, and to prevent insults and distur- bances therein, as also to define the powers of the Sheriff as Water Bailiff.
The western boundary of the State should be precisely deter- mined.
Arrangments should be made for giving the utmost force and speediest effect to the exertions of the militia.
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Humanity, and a regard for the precepts of religion, dictate a desire that the Legislature of Pennsylvania may every year appoint a standing committee to visit all prisons, and to report minutely in writing the treatment given the unhappy persons confined in them.
A power is vested in us to sell the lot of the old prison ; but we think a power to rent it would be more advantageous, unless it may be thought fit to appropriate it for an exchange, which, considering its situation and other circumstances, would perhaps be the most useful and honorable purpose to which it could be applied.
By a memorial that will be herewith, it appears that no proper provision is made for the measuring of grain and salt.
Since your recess, we have diligently endeavoured to forward the collection of publick taxes, of which we hope your Honourable House will be convinced by the inclosed papers. The deficiencies in several parts of the State are still considerable.
We have pursued the measures that appeared to us most prudent for carrying into execution the law intitled "An Act for the sale of certain lands therein mentioned, for the purpose of redeeming and paying off the certificates of depreciation given to the officers and soldiers of the Pennsylvania line, or their representation, and for appropriating certain other lands therein mentioned, for the use of the said officers and soldiers, to be divided off to theth severally at the end of the war," so far as relates to the surveying and lay- ing out in lots the tract therein first described. The peculiarly uncertain state of public affairs for some time after the last sessions, obliged us to proceed with caution; and we took every previous step we could think of to facilitate the business and secure success. Our instructions, and several letters relative to that subject, will be presented by the Secretary. Captain Robinson's and Captain Schrawder's companies are stationed at Wyoming. We inclose a letter from the latter, containing intelligence of importance. The other companies of Rangers, which were very incomplete, we have thought it most advisable to discharge.
Considerable difficulties have occurred upon the laws of trade, concerning the payment of the duties of whole cargoes, where the importers were desirous after their arrival here of exporting part ; and also upon the late law for the payment of interest on certain certificates by the Continental Loan officer. The papers now trans- mitted will afford the necessary information in these cases.
Mr. Marbois, as Consul General of France, has made repeated applications to us, representing, as you will perceive by his memo- rials, the injuries done to the commerce of that kingdom, by the interposition of the civil authority in disputes between masters of vessels and their seamen. From respect for his Most Christian Majesty, we should be glad that a remedy might be provided for this particular grievance, even before a convention for regulating consular offices is agreed upon, as we believe the desired effect might be given without any inconvenience.
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Many of the points which we now offer to the consideration of your honorable House are of such a nature that they could not be treated more fully in this message, without extending it to too great a length; but while such a harmony as the present subsists be- tween the Legislative and Executive powers, any further commu- nications that may be thought necessary can readily be made.
Gentlemen, as it is a duty in rulers to inculcate and establish principles and habits of the most favourable influence upon society and government, we do not doubt but part of your attention, now relieved from the distresses of war, will be particularly engaged in such salutary carcs and endeavours. It being the unanimous sense of the best and wisest men, that no regulations can have such a direct tendency to produce these happy effects, as those that pro- mote the good education of youth, we are persuaded that semina- ries of learning will find in your honorable body the patronage and . encouragement that always reflect a lustre upon Legislators, by be- ing in a distinguished manner beneficial to a State.
JOHN DICKINSON.
COUNCIL CHAMBER, Philadelphia, August 18th, 1783.
A message from the President and the Supreme Executive Council to the General Assembly :
GENTLEMEN :- We think it our duty to lay before you an ac- count of the late disturbances among the soldiery in this State.
On the nineteenth day of June we received the inclosed letters from Colonel Richard Butler and William Henry, Esquire, of Lan- caster, and immediately transmitted them by our delegates to Con- gress.
In the conference with the committee appointed on these letters, some of them proposed the stopping the soldiery from Lancaster, by a detachinent of the militia to be instantly called out. We informed the committee that Lieutenant Butler, who brought the, late dispatches, had represented to us that the soldiers had behaved very regularly upon their march ; that they said they were coming to have their accounts settled ; that they must then be near the town, and that it was very improbable a sufficient force could be collected in time to intercept them.
The case appeared so delicate and difficult, that the committee themselves seemed to doubt the propriety of opposing the soldiers by force and compelling them to return, and one of them said that " in all cases in which he could not determine precisely what to do, it was a maxim with him that the better way was to do nothing."
On the same day orders were issued from the War office, that these soldiers should be received into the Barracks and supplied with rations.
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On Saturday the twenty-first day of June, a party of thirty armed soldiers marched from the quarters in the Barracks, and parading before the State House, where we were then met in Coun- cil, sent up to us by the Secretary the following message in writ- ing :
May it please your Excellency :
We the non-commissioned officers and soldiers now in this city, demand of you and the Honorable Council, authority to appoint commissioned officers to command us, and redress our grievances, which officers to have full power to adopt such measures as they may judge most likely to procure us justice. You will immedi- ately issue such authority and deliver it to us, or otherwise we shall instantly let in those injured soldiers upon you and abide by the consequence. You have only twenty minutes to deliberate on this important matter. The officers in general have forsaken us and refuse to take any further command. This I presume you all know. We are, in behalf of ourselves and the men,
Yours, &ca., &ca.
The immediate object of this message, the terms in which it was expressed, and the further design of the insurgents to procure a sanction for their future proceedings by an authority to be derived from us, determined us unanimously to resolve that the demands contained in it should be rejected.
In the meantime a larger number of soldiers in arms advanced, and soon joined their companions, making in the whole a body of about three hundred men of the Pennsylvania line, under the direc- tion of Serjeants. They paraded also before the State House ; a party of fifteen or twenty men took post in the yard opposite to the south windows of the Council Chamber, and Centinels were fixed at the doors of the State House, but people still kept continually going out and coming in without being stopped by them.
We remained in the Council Chamber for more than an hour after the receipt of the message before mentioned, and then sent the Secretary to inquire if that message to the Council was approv- ed by the soldiers in general. He reported to us that he was answered insolently by some of the leaders-"it was approved by them, and that we should hear more from them."
While these things past, most of the members of Congress as- sembled, but not in sufficient number to form a Congress. That Honorable body stood adjourned from Friday till the following Monday, Saturday being a day of usual recess, but upon the alarm the members were specially suinmoned by their President, and at the place to which the soldiers were moving.
For what purpose they were so summoned, we have not been informed.
The President of this Board went to these gentlemen and com- municated the message of the soldiery and the resolution of Coun-
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cil. He then returned to the Council Chamber. No further mea- sure was decided upon till General St. Clair came up and expressed his hopes that the soldiers might be prevailed upon to return peaceably to their quarters, if Council would consent to a con- ference with a committee of either commissioned or deranged officers, to be appointed by them, on the state of their affairs. The President of this Board again went to the Congress room, and asked the President of Congress in the presence of several other members, if it was agreeable to them that Council should hold the conference proposed through General St. Clair. He was answered by the President, that "they most cheerfully agreed to Council's holding such a conference ; for that he and the members of Con- gress, had impowered General St. Clair to settle the matter with the soldiers, in such manner as he should judge most proper."*
We assented to the proposal About three o'clock the members of Congress left the State House. We have heard that their Presi- dent was stopped for a few moments in Chesnut street by some soldiers, but that one of the leading Serjeants coming up, apolo- gized for what had happened, reproved the soldiers, and took them away.
We continued in Council 'till four o'clock, when the soldiers were on their return to the Barracks. That evening Colonel Ham- ilton and Mr. Elsworth, of a Committee of Congress, called upon the President, and read to him a resolution which had been just passed by that Honorable body. The President then told them he would summon a Council to take it into consideration, and to con- fer with the Committee the next morning at nine o'clock. We met accordingly at the President's house, on Sunday, June the twenty- second, and the following resolution was read to us by the Com- mittee :
By the United States in Congress assembled, June. the 21st, 1783 :
Resolved, That the President and Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania be informed that the authority of the United States having this day been grossly insulted by the disorderly and mena- cing appearance of a body of armed soldiers about the place in which Congress were assembled, and the peace of this city being endangered by the mutinous disposition of the said troops now in the Barracks, it is the opinion of Congress, necessary that effectual measures be immediately taken for supporting the publick au- thority.
*Several members of Congress say that General St. Clair was called in to the Congress room, and as well as the members can recollect, addressed by the President in these words : " Sir :- You are impowered by the mem- bers of Congress here present to go among the soldiers & take such mea- sures as you shall judge most proper."
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Resolved, That the Committee on a letter from Colonel Butler, be directed to confer, without loss of time, with the Supreme Execu- tive Council of Pennsylvania, on the practicability of carrying the preceeding resolution into effect.
The Committee then gave us the explanation, as they termed it, of the foregoing resolution. By effectual measures, Congress mean that the militia of the State be immediately called forth. in suffi- cient force to reduce the soldiers to obedience, disarm, and put them in the power of Congress.
We observed that this was indeed a matter of great moment, and to obtain the desired effect, without producing unhappy consequen- ces, must be conducted with much prudence ; that to call the militia into service without an assurance of a sufficient force being imme- diately collected, would be an act of irritation that might provoke the soldiery to excesses which they otherwise might decline; that we would take immediate steps to consulting the Colonels of the regiments of militia for discovering the disposition of the militia, and the state of preparation in which they were, in order to ascer- tain the practicability of adopting the effectual measures recom- mended by Congress, in such a manner as would give a reasonable expectation of success ; that the State Magazine was in the hands
. of the soldiery, and the Commissary of Military Stores had but a very inconsiderable quantity of fixed ammunition in his possession ; that difficulties might arise from the militia law itself; that in the present situation of affairs, delay was of the greatest advantage to us, as the soldiers were ready to act ; that they had put themselves in a train of negotiation, which, if properly improved by us, might afford us opportunity to prepare everything for reducing them, and to avail ourselves of every circumstance that might occur for ma- xing proper impressions on their minds; that this was not so much to be considered as an insurrection of citizens of Pennsylvania as a mutiny of Continental troops; that if the rest of the army, or a sufficient part of them, could be relied on, it appeared to us ad- viseable that intelligence of this disturbance should be immediately dispatched to the Commander-in-Chief, and a body of men put in motion towards this city; that this measure might, in a few days have a very favorable effect upon the soldiers, or if they should take any resolution from despair, on receiving notice of it, we should then be in a better condition to resist their outrages ; that we would immediately make every effort in our power to answer the wishes of Congress.
The committee replied that there was great weight in these ob- servations ; that prudence required that means should be used for ascertaining the temper of the citizens, and what degree of assu- rance might be placed in their exertions ; that this should be done with profound secrecy, to prevent the soldiery from discovering what was in agitation ; that if, upon making all the inquiry which might be consistent with the secrecy with which this business VOL. XIII .- 42.
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should be conducted, Council should not think it practicable to draw forth an adequate force immediately, it would be more adviseably, & intirely the sense of Congress, that none should be drawn forth ; for Congress were determined to proceed by coercion, and expected soon to have a force that could be depended on; that the army might be relied on, and that proper representations had been made to the Commander-in-Chief; that as to the want of ammunition, we might be assured that we could be supplied with any quantity of musquet and cannon cartridge in fifteen minutes, one of the com- mittee having pointed his inquiries to that subject, and his informa- tion being derived from a person whose business it was to know. We then desired that the ammunition mentioned by the committee might be secured, least it might be discovered and seized by the soldiers.
The committee agreed to confer with us again next morning, and then withdrew .*
* The committee of Congress, in their report, have fallen into several mistakes by confounding facts and sentiments, and representing them as happening, or expressed, at times when they had not happened, or were not expressed. These mistakes were owing, no doubt, to the quick succession of circumstances, and the ideas that, without noticing dates, in consequence took possession of the mind. The obvious construction of the first report is, that the committee informed Council " of the letter to Congress from the Board of Serjeants," tho' not a single member of Council, nor the Secre- tary, has any remembrance of its being mentioned by them, nor does any member now know what that message was. The argument annexed to it in the report is no more recollected. .
The committee say that Council informed them, "the exertions of the militia were not to be expected from the repetition of the insult which had happened," tho' the Council only said "they could not be sure that such an- other insult would produce those exertions."
In short, to shew the extreme inaccuracy with which these reports, to be entered upon the minutes of Congress, and preserved among the archives of the Empire, have been composed, it is necessary only to attend to that part where the committee say that "represented to Council, that Congress would probably continue to pursue the object of having the soldiers in their power, unless it should be superceded by unequivocal demonstrations of submission on the part of the mutineers ; that they had hitherto given no satisfactory evidence of this disposinon, having lately presented the officers they had chosen to represent their grievances, with a formal commission in writing, enjoining them to use compulsory means for redress, and mena- cing them with death in case of their failing to execute their views."
The conference in which the committee say they made this representa- ยท tion, was held, according to their own report, on the twenty-third day of June. It began at ten o'clock in the morning. The commission from the mutineers to the officers bears date, and was presented to the officers on that day, abont eight o'clock in the morning. It is highly improbable that the committee should have discovered its contents in the two bours that in- tervened between is being presented and their meeting the Council ; and the improbability is increased by this circumstance, that not a man who was in Conncil knew anything of the commission, nor remembers to have heard a single syllable respecting it mentioned by the committee during the whole conference.
The first knowledge Council had of the commission was on the twenty- fourth, when they received the letter from Captain Christie, and that same day they sent a copy of it to Congress by their Secretary. .
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After the committee had withdrawn, we resolved, that every member of Council use the utmost diligence to inform himself as to the practicability of collecting a sufficient force immediately to carry the resolution of Congress into execution ; and that the com- manding officers of regiments, and Captain Morris, of the Light Horse, be consulted on the subject.
The next morning, Monday, June the twenty-third, we met in the Council Chamber, and the President laid before Council the following letter :
PHILADELPHIA, June 23rd, 1783.
SIR :- We have the honor to inclose for your Excellency and the Council, a copy of the resolutions communicated in our confer- ence yesterday. Having then fully entered into all the explana- tions which were necessary on the subject, we shall not trouble your Excellency with a recapitulation. But as the subject is of a delicate and important nature, we think it our duty to request the determination of the Council in writing. We have the honor to be, with perfect respect,
Your Excellency's most obedient servant, A. HAMILTON.
After considering this letter, and agreeing to a resolution upon it, the committee came in. We began the conference by saying, that we had used all the industry we could the preceding day and that morning, to inform ourselves as to the practicability of collect- ing a sufficient force immediately to carry the resolution of Con- gress into execution in the best manner; and that all the com- manding officers of regiments, except one, had been consulted by us on that subject ; that the result of our inquiries was, that the citizens were impressed with an opinion of the pacific disposition of the soldiery in the Barracks, and that they would be satisfied with what was just and reasonable; that the officers also declared the militia were not prepared for service; and that it would be very imprudent to call them into immediate action under these impres- sions, and in such a situation.
. We desired the committee would be pleased to consider the diffi- culties under which we laboured in collecting and equipping a suffi- cient body of men upon such an occasion, and that time might be allowed for communicating the proper information, and urging the proper motives to bring the minds of our fellow-citizens into a cor- respondence with the views of Congress, and for preparing them to act ; that to make an attempt too hastily for the purpose of execu- ting their resolutions, or to give assurances that it should be exe- cuted without a reasonable persuasion that we should not be mis- taken, would, instead of evidencing our reverence for Congress, be
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to betray them ; that therefore, we should confide in the candor of the committee, and in the magnanimity of Congress, to put a just construction upon our conduct ; that the soldiers had behaved very peaceably since Saturday, had appointed their committee to confer with us, and seemed to rely upon the negotiation which they had been induced to commence, with the concurrence of the President and the members of Congress themselves, who had sent General St. Clair to treat with them, and which we had agreed to proceed in, with the approbation and advice of the President of Congress, and the members who had been spoken to on the occasion; that in this state of affairs, any movement to collect the militia might be re- garded by the soldiery as an act of treachery, and unless it should be rapid and efficient, would at once expose Congress, Council, and our fellow-citizens, and endanger the city.
That as to the letter of the committee requesting the determina- tion of the Council in writing, it appeared to us an unusual mode of proceeding in conferences between committees of Congress and the Council of this State; that this mode did not seem to be in- tended by Congress ; that if they had made the request, we should cheerfully have granted it ; if they should now make it, we should not hesitate to comply ; that we had received from the committee a verbal and most tmportant explanation of the resolution delivered by them, fully confiding in the honor of those by whom it was given; and that if the committee were apprehensive of any mis- take, we wished them to reduce our answer to writing immediately, and we would repeat the several parts of it, to prevent any error.
The committee said they were sensible of the difficulties that occurred ; that they did not mean that the conference intended be- tween Council and the committee of the soldiery should be pre- vented ; that collecting an adequate force in readiness to act, would not be inconsistent with this proceedure; that as to the conse- quences of such an attempt being made and not immediately suc- ceeding, it was suggested that even small bodies of militia might seize certain points where resistance could be made untill the rest. of the citizens should come to their aid; that as to our answer, they acknowledged we had thro' this whole business, acted with great candor towards them, but they conceived themselves clearly justifiable in requesting our determination in writing, and instanced the case of inferior and accountable officers, who often ask and sel- dom are denied such an answer; and that the reason was much stronger that it should be given to a committee of Congress.
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