This circumstance offended and inflamed the Constitutional Party, and as Mr. Wilson had become counsel for the defense of some suspected traitors, and had succeeded in winning their acquittal, it angered the militiamen of Philadelphia and led to a most serious outrage.
The consequences of a rapidly depreciating currency were distressing to many who were incapable of tracing them to their causes. For example, every tradesman who had engaged in a piece of work felt, when paid for it, that he did not receive, except in name, the amount he had contracted to receive.
Artful and designing incendiaries persuaded many of the sufferers that the evil was owing to the merchants, who monopolized the goods, and to certain lawyers who rescued the tories from punishment, by pleading for them in Court.
Mr. Wilson had become particularly obnoxious. He was in fact a most decided friend of the popular government. He was a native of Scotland, and a Presbyterian, which should certainly stamp him as a friend of those opposed to the British authority.
The affair of “Fort Wilson,” as his house was thereafter known, flowed from this mistaken opinion, of which those who concocted the disgraceful transaction took advantage for party purposes.
September 13, 1779, a committee appointed at a town meeting, regulated the prices of rum, salt, sugar, coffee, flour, etc., a measure which was strongly opposed by the importers.
Robert Morris, Blair McClenochan and John Willcocks and a number of stanch Whigs had a quantity of these articles in their stores which they refused to dispose of at the regulated prices.
About the last of the month, a great number of the lower class collected and marched through the streets, threatening to break open the stores, distribute the goods and punish those who refused to open their warehouses.
On the morning of October 4, placards were posted menacing Robert Morris, Blair McClenochan and many other merchants.
Mr. Wilson was proscribed by the mob for having exercised his professional duty as a lawyer, and the punishment decreed for his crime was banishment to the enemy, yet in New York. But this was not the real cause which produced so lamentable an instance of popular delusion. That was to be found in the superior talents and respectability of the Republican Party.