1. For background to this letter, see H to Tench Coxe, September 1, 1792; H to George Washington, September 1, 8, first letter of September 9, September 11, 22, 26, 1792; H to John Jay, September 3, 1792; “Draft of a Proclamation Concerning Opposition to the Excise Law,” September 7, 1792; Jay to H, September 8, 1792; Edmund Randolph to H, September 8, 1792; Washington to H, September 7, two letters of September 17, September 21, October 1, 1792; George Clymer to H, September 28, 1792; Rufus King to H, September 27, 1792; Washington to Thomas Mifflin, September 29, 1792.

2. See Clymer to H, September 28, 1792.

3. For the proceedings of August 20–21, 1792, see H to Coxe, September 1, 1792, note 5.

4. Alexander Addison was presiding judge of the County Court of the western district of Pennsylvania.

5. Addison’s letter to Clymer of September 29, 1792, reads as follows:

“Your letter of yesterday from Pittsburgh states to me that among other objects of your journey to this country one is to take Depositions respecting the persons who in various ways have obstructed the revenue laws of the united states, and have those depositions and some of the best informed witnesses sent to York before the 11th Octr. when the Circuit federal court will begin its session, that you have been induced to fear it is much too hazardous for you to attend to this business in person; and therefore request that I will execute this part of your commission and transmit the Depositions to you at Pittsburgh.

“I am convinced Sir, that your information or suspicions of personal danger in the execution of this commission at this place have no real foundation. For your coming here is not to set up an office of Inspection in this county and fix on the distillers the penalties of the Revenue Law; and it is against this that the passions of the people are directed. If however my opinion should fail to give you confidence, several Gentlemen of this town and county, who, having been members of the Pittsburgh Committee, may be supposed to have influence with the opponents of the duty, will be in Pittsburgh in a few days; in whose company, you will not doubt, you may come safely, and who, I am confident, will pledge their word for your security.

“If after all this you should believe there is danger in the business, you must believe it owing to some very deep rooted resentment in the minds of the people, and that the object of this resentment is not the person but the thing. Do you believe that your person can be liable to danger from any inhabitant of this county except in so far as your presence here opposes their interests, or opinions? Or do you believe that any respectability of person or character will save a man from dislike, if his office or employment obstruct the interests or opinions of those among whom he is? Ask General [John] Nevill. If therefore it be true (and you cannot doubt it) that it is the measure, and not the man, that the people hate, is it proper for you who have accepted this commission from the President of the united States to devolve the execution of it on one in whom no confidence is placed by it? Or is it proper, if the measure be odious in this corner of the country to require the exercise of it from an inhabitant of this corner, every day exposed to the passions of the people in it, and who, from the nature of another office with which he is honoured, ought, if possible, to possess the affection, the esteem, and the confidence of those among whom he is? And is it not more reasonable, if this measure be necessary that it should be effected by a man not resident here, in whom the confidence of this people is not necessary, and to whom their opinions of him is of no immediate concern? I am persuaded, Sir, you did not see these things in the light in which I do.

“But I have more important reasons for declining this commission. It is my fixed opinion that the judicial system of the United States is impracticable, unless it is intended to sacrifice to it the essential principles of the liberty of the citizens, and the just authority of the state courts. As a citizen and as a judicial officer, it is my duty to preserve both. As you state therefore that the object of this enquiry is to found a prosecution in the federal courts, if even you had authority to delegate your power (of which I doubt) and it were my duty to execute this delegated authority (which is not hinted) I should do it with reluctance, because I should be serving a cause, which I think unfavourable to liberty and the just authority of the state Courts. As it is, I shall certainly not be a volunteer in this affair. I consider the Laws of Congress as the rules of judgement in the state Courts and the citizens as punishable in the state courts for their infraction, as much as the respective state laws. I have taken and shall continue to take all such measures as appear to me proper to bring to justice in the proper Courts of Pennsylvania those persons of whose violence it is the object of your mission to enquire. But this is all that is to be expected of me untill I am convinced that it is my duty to do more.…” (ALS, Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford.)

6. Faulkner kept a tavern at Washington. Addison’s charge to the Grand Jury at the September session of the County Court describes the incident as follows: “… in Washington, in the evening of the 24th of August last … About thirty men, armed and blacked, rode through the streets; surrounded, entered, and searched, the house of William Faulkner, with a design to seize and punish the Inspector of Excise, who had advertised an Inspection office at that house” (Alexander Addison, Charges to Grand Juries of the Counties of the Fifth Circuit, in the State of Pennsylvania [Washington: Printed by John Colerick, 1800], 50).

7. John Neville was inspector of the revenue for Survey No. 4 in the District of Pennsylvania.

8. DS, Pennsylvania Miscellany, Whiskey Rebellion, Vol. 1, Library of Congress.

Seven individuals are mentioned in Faulkner’s deposition as having threatened him directly. David Hamilton, one of the seven, was justice of the peace for Nottingham township in Washington County (Pennsylvania Archives, 9th ser., I description begins Pennsylvania Archives, 9th ser., I (n.p., 1931). description ends , 331).

9. The deposition of Peter Myers is dated September 29, 1792 (D, Pennsylvania Miscellany, Whiskey Rebellion, Vol. 1, Library of Congress). Meyers’s mark was subscribed to before John Gibson, one of the judges of the Court of Common Pleas for Allegheny County.

10. Alexander Berr and William Kerr, cited in Meyers’s deposition, were the two men against whom proceedings were instituted in the Middle Circuit Court which met at York, Pennsylvania, on October 11, 1792.

11. See Clymer to H, September 28, 1792.

12. William Cushing, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and Richard Peters, judge of the District Court of Pennsylvania, presided over the meeting of the Circuit Court at York, Pennsylvania, on October 11, 1792.

13. Josiah Tannehill’s deposition has not been found. The meeting of August 20–21, 1792, was held at his tavern. See H to Coxe, September 1, 1792, note 5.

14. See note 5.

15. Clymer’s letter to Addison, of October 1, 1792, reads as follows:

“I am favoured with yours of the 29 Sept. and am sorry to observe in it several grounds of objection to a compliance with the request made in mine of the 28th.

“I did not mean you should act under a delegated powers having no powers myself but to point out to the magistrate certain witnesses who might be examined by him: this Sir I presumed might have been done by me as well at a distance of twenty miles as in your immediate presence—that presence nevertheless I should have sought but for an opinion of personal danger founded on the general apprehension here, and which you will pardon me in saying your letter is by no means fitted to remove—for if in the performance of a judicial duty not voluntarily engaged in but properly called to, you who stand so well with your people could not hope to escape the popular odium, what ought the prompter himself, and one too in my predicament, to expect? something beyond the passiveness of hatred. Neither to avoid this hazard would I so much affront my character as a publick agent as to accept the protection which you say may be had, of any of those persons composing the Assembly at Pittsburgh, who in putting the officers of the revenue under the ban of society, by which they must necessarily cease to act and a law to operate, have in fact undertaken to annul the law itself, for the law exists but through its Officers and in its execution—thus beginning the measures of opposition where the most decided enemies of government would have ended, in a bold and open hostility to its authority.…

“I am not so competent to examine the constitutional reason assigned for declining my request—a doubt entertained of the judicial rights of a federal court in this business: ’tho I can discover in it another battery raised against the United states—but it must seem plain to the plainest understanding that it must be an indispensable of any government to have the cognizance of crimes committed against itself, and not to be obliged to devolve upon any other the case either of its honour or of its defence. Neither do I well comprehend why an offence against the Union can be an Offence only as it may happen to disturb the peace or order of any of its component members, for on this ground can the pretensions of the States individually to such exclusive jurisdiction only rest.

“But Sir were my personal apprehensions got over to what purpose does your invitation tend, for proposing to act only through you as the most reputable magistrate how could the shortening any distance between us change any of the circumstances which have disinclined you to serve me.” (ALS, marked “copy” by Clymer, Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford.)

16. On September 11, 1792, Knox wrote to Major General Anthony Wayne requesting that he provide any necessary protection to Clymer on his return and that “in doing this, you will be careful to keep yourself within the limits of the law; and will doubtless act with all due caution and circumspection” (Knopf, Wayne description begins Richard C. Knopf, ed., Anthony Wayne: A Name in Arms; Soldier, Diplomat, Defender of Expansion Westward of a Nation; the Wayne-Knox-Pickering-McHenry Correspondence (Pittsburgh, 1960). description ends , 92).