Early in the summer of 1794 operations commenced; Fort Recovery was attacked, and the Indians repulsed, although at the loss of 300 pack-mules and fifty men. In August, a reinforcement of 1,100 men having joined him, Wayne reached the confluence of the Au Glaize and the Maumee rivers, about thirty miles from a British post, where the whole force of the enemy, about 2,000 strong, was collected. Here, taken by surprise, they fled precipitately, and were pursued for two hours at the point of the bayonet. The country was finely cultivated and full of abundant crops. The American commander declared that he had never seen anything equal to it. The banks of those beautiful rivers appeared for many miles one complete village. At this point the conqueror built a strong fort called Fort Defiance, and a second called Fort Adams, to connect it with Fort Recovery.
Wayne offered to treat with the Indians, but they asked ten days for deliberation. This he would not grant, and followed them down the Maumee for two days; on the third he found them strongly encamped by the river, and a battle took place in which they were completely routed. The English lost 107 men; the loss of the Indians was never ascertained. The Indian corn-fields were ravaged up to the very walls of the British fort. Two British companies, it was asserted, with their faces painted to represent Indians, were in the fight; nevertheless, when the routed Indians fled to the fort for refuge, they were refused admittance, which treatment they never forgave; and Buckongahelas, the principal chief of the Delawares, immediately afterwards made peace with the Americans. The British influence over the savages was broken, and their confederacy dissolved. This victory insured peace and security to the whole settlements north-west of the Ohio, and even extended to Georgia.
On the 3rd of August, 1795, Wayne concluded a treaty of peace on behalf of the “Thirteen Fires,” as the federal states were called, with the Indians at Greenville. The principal chiefs, Tarhe, Buckongahelas, Black Hoof, Blue Jacket, and the Little Turtle, attended by 1,100 warriors, were parties to it. This treaty stipulated that the Ohio, with a few reservations, should thence become the boundary of the Indian territory. Besides the extent of country thus ceded, were several detached portions of territory, including the present or former sites of forts in the possession of the British, and about to be surrendered under a treaty with Great Britain, of which we shall speak anon, having, as regards these Indian affairs, somewhat advanced beyond the regular course of events. Among these cessions was a tract opposite Louisville, granted by Virginia to George Rogers Clarke and his soldiers for their services in the Illinois country; the ancient post of Vincennes and other French settlements; Fort Massac on the Ohio; and several other forts on different rivers with adjacent territory, Detroit, Mackinaw, and tracts at Sandusky, Chicago, and at the mouth and head of the Illinois river. The Indians received for these cessions 20,000 dollars worth of goods, with an annual allowance of about 10,000 dollars more.
At the exchange of prisoners which took place on this occasion, many affecting incidents occurred. The war, as against Kentucky, had lasted for about twenty years, during which time a great number of white people had been carried into captivity. Wives and husbands, parents and children, who had been separated for years, were now reunited. Many of the younger captives had quite forgotten their native language, and some of them absolutely refused to leave the savage connexions, into whose families they had been received by adoption.[[69]]
We now return to Congress and the affairs of the administration. On the 1st of January, 1794, Jefferson resigned his office as secretary of state, and was succeeded by Randolph; William Bradford, of Pennsylvania, supplying his place as attorney-general.
This year was rendered remarkable by an insurrection in Pennsylvania. In 1791, congress had enacted laws laying duties upon spirits distilled within the United States, and upon stills. The operation of these laws had from the first created dissatisfaction, and an organised system of resistance was formed in the four western counties, and especially among the anti-federal or democratic party, to resist and defeat them. Indictments were found against such as had neglected to enter their stills, and the marshal of the district, about to serve the thirtieth warrant near Pittsburg, was met by an armed force which put him and his men to flight. This was the signal for further and more determined violence. The next morning, the house of General Neville, the inspector of the revenue, who had been wounded the day before, was attacked by an armed force, under a man called Tom the Tinker, and entered. Several persons were wounded, and Neville compelled to enter into stipulations to desist from the execution of his office. The following day the attack was renewed by a still more formidable party, but Neville had then fled, and the buildings were burned to the ground by the infuriated mob, the garrison which was stationed there being compelled to surrender. The marshal and the inspector fled to Ohio, and embarking, descended to Marietta, and thence by land to Philadelphia. This was a great triumph to the malcontents; a meeting was held at Pittsburg, and corresponding societies established. The mail from Philadelphia was intercepted, and the letters examined to ascertain beforehand how their affairs had been taken up at head-quarters. These multiplied outrages appeared to the president as very alarming signs of the times, especially as the democratic societies of the West were beginning to affiliate with their ferocious brethren of Paris. Several of the cabinet agreed with Washington in the necessity of using very decided and summary measures, and it was proposed to call out the militia. Again the governor of Pennsylvania, this time Mifflin, doubted his authority to call them out, or their obedience if he did so, and Washington immediately issued a proclamation commanding the insurgents to disperse, and warning all persons against aiding, abetting, or comforting the perpetrators of these treasonable acts, and requiring all officers and other citizens, according to their respective duties and the laws of the land, to use their utmost endeavours to suppress these dangerous proceedings.
The insurgents were no way deterred by this proclamation, and meetings of delegates from all the disaffected districts took place under liberty-trees with liberty-banners floating around them. The president’s call for the militia was responded to; and quotas were sent in from Virginia under the old revolutionary officer Morgan, as well as from Maryland, while Mifflin, thinking better of his hesitation, made a tour through the lower counties, and using his extraordinary popular eloquence for the occasion, soon filled up the ranks. Again, on the 25th of September, the president issued a second proclamation, admonishing the insurgents, and forcibly stating his determination, after the spirit of defiance with which the former lenient treatment of the government had been received, to obey the duty assigned to him by the Constitution, and “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” and that he would proceed forthwith to reduce the refractory to obedience.
It was time that summary measures were taken, for disaffection and sedition were spreading in all directions; armed mobs were marching everywhere, erecting liberty-poles and committing deeds of violence. Fifteen thousand men were sent into the disaffected districts, under General Lee of Virginia. No sooner was the news abroad that this formidable army was advancing against them, than the tide of democratic violence began to ebb; liberty-poles were pulled down, and the armed insurgents dispersed. Several of the most active leaders were handed over to the civil authorities for trial, but were afterwards pardoned, as were also two others who were found guilty of treason. Morgan, however, remained in the disaffected counties through the winter, with a body of 2,500 men. The government was strengthened even by this outbreak; the decision and promptitude of the president won the respect, and his lenity the hearts of the country.
During this session an act was passed to raise a naval force consisting of six frigates, as a defence for American commerce against the Algerine pirates; no less than eleven merchant vessels and upwards of 100 citizens having been captured by those pests of the ocean. An act also was passed about the same time for fortifying the principal harbours, the more immediate cause for which was the apprehension of war with Great Britain, which at that time prevailed.
Ever since the treaty of peace in 1783, Great Britain and the United States had been mutually reproaching each other for having violated its conditions. The former complained that the royalists were prevented from recovering possession of their estates, and British subjects from recovering their debts. The Americans, on the other hand, complained that the British had carried away negroes at the close of the war, and that they still obstinately retained those military posts in the north-west, of which such frequent mention has been made. The excitement against Great Britain received, however, at this moment a great accession by two orders in council just issued, and by which all British cruisers were directed to stop and seize all ships laden with provisions bound for any French port, and to bring them for adjudication into the British courts of admiralty. These orders, which in fact went to destroy all neutral trade with the French colonies, produced the utmost excitement in Philadelphia, and for the moment nothing but war with Great Britain was talked of. Congress assembled, and a bill was passed laying an embargo for thirty days, which was again extended to a second thirty; and it was further debated whether all commercial intercourse with Great Britain and her subjects, as far as regarded all articles of British growth or manufacture, should not be discontinued, until she had acceded to their reasonable demands.