NOTE TO PAGE 136.
"For the news had come that Shays' men would cover their front with the captives."
The exhaustion occasioned in Massachusetts by her struggles to support the revolutionary contest, in which her efforts were, at least, equal to those of any other state, and the taxes, which, at the close of the war, were necessarily imposed upon the citizens by the state government, were the principal causes of the disturbances in 1786–7, which are now talked of by some of the older inhabitants, and particularly in the western part of the commonwealth, as the "Shays war." It was so called from Daniel Shays, one of the principal insurgents, and now (1822) a peaceable citizen and revolutionary pensioner in the western part of the state of New-York.
This rebellion is certainly a stain upon the character of Massachusetts—almost the only one. It may, nevertheless, serve to exhibit in a favourable light the humane and orderly character of her inhabitants. If there were no wrongs to be redressed, there were heavy sufferings and privations to be borne. The stimulus of the revolutionary war had not wholly subsided, and the vague and fanciful anticipations of all the blessings to be conferred by "glorious liberty," had passed away. The people found that they had liberty indeed, but it was not what they had painted to their fancies. They enjoyed a republican government, but with it came increased taxation, poverty, and toil. Their means were rather straightened than enlarged. From the embarrassment and confusion of the times, debts had multiplied and accumulated; courts were established, and the laws were enforced.
The organization of courts and the collection of debts, formed one of the principal grounds of discontent. The
