ecutive; and that they may know our situation, we will communicate our sentiments for the revision of the court."

There was a curious sequel to the appointment of a committee of correspondence by the Massachusetts legislature. On 11th September 1783, Mr. Gerry, in behalf of the delegates, addressed a long letter to the committee upon the arrangements proposed in congress concerning the old emissions of paper money, the half pay and commutation, and the reduction of the civil list, with a summary of the arguments in congress on both sides of the propositions before them. In this letter he further states that in 1780, congress finding that their bills of credit had depreciated, ascertained their value, made an apportionment for the express purpose of sinking them, and assessed this on the several states; that such an apportionment was in effect as far as it went, an apportionment of the national debt. That Massachusetts complied with the requisition, and had thereby paid this part of their quota; and if other states had done the like, the depreciation could never have gone beyond seventy-five for one; that at that rate the money was current a day or two in Massachusetts, and large quantities were received from the inhabitants of other states without notice of its failure, the loss of which fell on our own citizens, and therefore the delegates distinctly intimate that whatever may be the abstract

propriety of an impost for supplying the continental treasury; yet as the only mode for one state to secure redress for grievances by the union was to withhold supplies, it was prudent to delay the proposed impost until arrangements were effected, and that they had given such opinion to congress.

This letter, which was strictly official, was yet written with the freedom and fulness, which became the agents of the state in their address to the body which appointed them, and was received by the committee in due course of mail, but never communicated to the legislature.

The omission at first subjected the delegates to reproof for neglect, but when the truth was made known the whole legislature were in a flame. A committee of investigation was appointed, who summoned the delinquent committee before them. These were Mr. Adams the president of the senate, Mr. Appleton and Mr. Roe, members of the house from Boston.

Mr. Roe denied all knowledge of the delegates' letter, and it appearing that it had never been in his hands, he was exonerated from any blame. Mr. Adams, as a reason for not communicating the letter, which he acknowledged that he had received, alleged his feeble health, the pressure of business upon him as president of the senate, and the recent examination of Mr. Higgenson, which he thought superseded the necessity of any further information. Mr. Appleton admitted that he had

read the letter, which was handed to him by Mr. Adams, but the committee never having been together, when he had read it he put it in his pocket and thought no more about it! He did not conceive it was incumbent on him to communicate the letter to the house, but that the chairman, Mr. Adams, to whom alone he was answerable, would take proper measures for its publication.

The house voted Mr. Appleton's excuse unsatisfactory, and at the ensuing election he lost his seat. The friends of Mr. Adams barely succeeded in saving him from reproof. There was a debt of gratitude due to him for past services, which was allowed to satisfy the penalty of this offence. But it was with much difficulty that he maintained his place in the senate.

The subject was used with great effect at the polls of the following year, but independently of the neglect of duty, which the house had great reason to blame, the suppression does not appear to have produced any material consequence.

Mr. Higgenson, giving an account of the matter to Mr. Gerry, says, "The suppression of our letter has produced a great fermentation. It has much hurt our friend Mr. S. Adams and ruined Mr. Appleton's public course. I thought it very imprudent and unfair in them, and told them so; but they were afraid it would have hurt their darling child, the continental impost bill. Many of the members say, that had it not been suppressed the

act would not have passed. Mr. S

declares

he should have opposed it had the letter been communicated; but I do not believe him, having heard him deliver two very serious and opposite opinions before, on the same question."

Mr. Adams himself thus explains it to Mr. Gerry. "Your letter of 11th September, directed to the committee, was through mere forgetfulness omitted to be communicated in season. This was attributed to an abominable design to withhold from the court the sentiment of the delegates respecting the expediency of refusing to yield supplies to the continental treasury till justice should be done with regard to the old money now in our public treasury and private hands. I could not help diverting myself with the ebullition of apparent zeal for the public good on this occasion; and upon its being said by a gentleman in senate that it was the subject of warm conversation among the people without doors, I observed that the clamour would undoubtedly subside on the afternoon of the first Monday in April next."

The return of peace, grateful as it must have been to the wearied citizens of the United States, did not bring with it an exemption from anxiety.

The people of Massachusetts found cause of alarm in that article of the treaty which related to the refugees; in the proceedings of the officers of the army establishing the society of Cincinnatus; in the propositions before congress for maintaining

a military force, although it was limited to the mere preservation of the forts, arsenals, public property and the personal security of agents to the Indian tribes; in the unsettled, perplexed and disheartening condition of the public credit; in the unequal operation of means for supplying the national treasury, and the reluctant efforts by which they were called forth. These various subjects and others connected with them, excited in a greater or less degree similar feelings of apprehension in every part of the confederacy. Fearful and portentous clouds still lowered in the political sky, filling the minds of intelligent patriots with solicitude and alarm.

When the provisions of the treaty of peace concerning refugees and the confiscation of property came to be better understood, the faith of the nation was in no respect violated by any act of Massachusetts.

A committee had in the first instance reported, that none who had borne arms against the United States, or lent money to the enemy to carry on the war, should ever be permitted to return into the state; but a spirit of greater indulgence finally prevailed.*

A more debatable and angry subject of alarm existed in the institution of the Cincinnati. This convention of military citizens, which at the pre

* Report on the files of the general court, March 16th, 1784, Samuel Adams, chairman.