harged with breaking the law. He chose his time unwisely, for the
farmers were in the midst of harvesting, and liquor was circulating
freely among the laborers. In serving his last writ, he was threatened
by a number of reapers. This was the spark needed to start a
conflagration. On the next morning the house of a revenue inspector,
Neville, was attacked and blood was shed. A small detachment of soldiers
from Fort Pitt was stationed at the house; but on the following day they
were fired upon and forced to surrender, and the house of the inspector
was burned. The marshal and the inspector fled the country. Matters went
from bad to worse. The mail was robbed; the militia was summoned to meet
at Braddock's Field for the avowed purpose of attacking the garrison at
Fort Pitt; but there the courage of the leaders evaporated. The attack
upon the garrison was commuted into a boisterous march through the
streets of Pittsburg, whose citizens purchased immunity by liberal
donations of whiskey to the thirsty rioters.

On August 7, 1794, the President issued a proclamation commanding the
insurgents to disperse, and summoned twelve thousand militia from the
adjoining States to hold themselves in readiness for active service on
the 1st of September. Meanwhile, earnestly desiring to avoid the use of
force, Washington sent three commissioners to the scene of the riots in
the hope of appealing to the sober sense of the people. They held
protracted negotiations with representatives of the people in the
disaffected district, but were unable to persuade them to deliver up the
ringleaders of the revolt. On September 24, the President issued a
second proclamation and set the troops in motion. Under the command of
"Light Horse Harry" Lee, now Governor of Virginia, the army marched west
in two divisions, but encountered no resistance. Many arrests were made
and eighteen alleged leaders of the insurrection were sent to
Philadelphia for trial. Only two of these, however, were convicted of
treasonable conduct, and they were pardoned by the President. Some
twenty-five hundred troops were quartered near Pittsburg for the winter;
but rebellion did not again lift its head.

The utter collapse of the Whiskey Rebellion made the whole affair seem
ridiculous to those who gathered in the coffee-houses to hear the tales
of the militiamen but the importance of the episode was not slight.
Hamilton is said to have remarked on one occasion that a government can