Town History.
73
that reviving order would rise from the confusion. But the insurgents, animated by temporary success, and mistaking the mildness of forbearance for weakness or fear, had extended their designs from present relief to permanent change. Their early movements were without further object than to stay that flood of executions which wasted their property and made their homes desolate. That portion of the community, who condemned the violence of the actors in the scenes we have described, sympathized in their sufferings, and were disposed to consider the offences venial, while the professed purpose of their commission was merely to obtain the delay necessary for seeking constitutional redress. All implicated, stood on safe and honorable ground, until the renewal on the 21st of November, of the opposition to the administration of justice. Defiance of the authority of the State could no longer be tolerated without the prostration of its institutions. The crisis had arrived, when government, driven to the utmost limit of concession, must appeal to the sword for preservation, even though its destroying edge, turned on the citizen, might be crimsoned with civil slaughter. Information was communicated to the executive of extensive levies of troops for the suppression of the judiciary, and the coercion of the Legislature. Great exertions were making to prevent the approaching session of the Court of Common Pleas in Worcester, on the first week of December. Gov. Bowdoin and the council, resolved to adopt vigorous measures to overawe the insurgents. Orders were issued to Major General Warner, to call out the militia of his division, and five regiments were directed to hold themselves in instant readiness to march. Doubts, however, arose, how far reliance could be placed on the troops of an infected district. The sheriff reported, that a
