lents and of rendering service to your country." Nothing
less was contemplated by the more extreme of these men than an attack
upon Fort Pitt and the sack of Pittsburgh. Thoroughly aroused at last,
the moderate men of Washington determined to breast the storm. A meeting
was held; James Ross of the United States Senate made an earnest appeal,
and was supported by Scott of the House of Representatives and Stokely
of the Senate of Pennsylvania. Marshall and Bradford yielded, and
consented to countermand the order of rendezvous. But the excited
population poured into the town from all quarters, and Bradford, who
found that he had gone too far to retreat, again took the lead of the
movement, already beyond restraint.

There are accounts of this formidable insurrection by H. H. Brackenridge
and William Findley, eye-witnesses. These supply abundant details.
Findley says that he knew that the movement would not stop at the limit
apparently set for it. "The opposing one law would lead to oppose
another; they would finally oppose all, and demand a new modeling of the
Constitution, and there would be a revolution." There was great alarm in
Pittsburgh. A meeting was held there Thursday evening, July 31, at which
a message from the Washington County insurgents was read, violent
resolutions adopted, and the 9th of August appointed as the day for a
town meeting for election of delegates to a general convention of the
counties at Parkinson's Ferry; Judge Brackenridge of Pittsburgh, a man
of education, influence, and infinite jest and humor, was present at
this meeting. Of Scotch-Irish birth himself, his sympathies of race were
with his countrymen, but in political sentiments he was not in harmony
with their leaders. They were nearly all Republicans, while he had sided
with the Federalists in the convention which adopted the new
Constitution of the United States. He was a man of peace, and of too
much sagacity not to foresee the inevitable ruin upon which they were
rushing. At Mingo Creek he had thwarted the plans of immediate
revolution. The evident policy of moderate men was to prevent any
violence before the convention at Parkinson's Ferry should meet, and to
bend all their energies to control the deliberations of that body. The
people of Pittsburgh were intensely excited by the armed gathering
almost at their doors.

Brackenridge felt that the only safe issue from the situation was to
take part in and shape the action of that gathe