te 27: This requisition was afterwards augmented to
fifteen thousand.]

While steps were taking to bring this force into the field, a last
essay was made to render its employment unnecessary. Three
distinguished and popular citizens of Pennsylvania were deputed by the
government to be the bearers of a general amnesty for past offences,
on the sole condition of future obedience to the laws.

It having been deemed adviseable that the executive of the state
should act in concert with that of the United States, Governor Mifflin
also issued a proclamation, and appointed commissioners to act with
those of the general government.

Meanwhile, the insurgents omitted nothing which might enlarge the
circle of disaffection. Attempts were made to embark the adjacent
counties of Virginia in their cause, and their violence was extended
to Morgantown, at which place an inspector resided, who saved himself
by flight, and protected his property by advertising on his own door
that he had resigned his office. They also made similar excursions
into the contiguous counties of Pennsylvania, lying east of the
Alleghany mountains, where numbers were ready to join them. These
deluded men, giving too much faith to the publications of democratic
societies, and to the furious sentiments of general hostility to the
administration, and particularly to the internal taxes, with which the
papers in the opposition abounded, seem to have entertained the
opinion, that the great body of the people were ready to take up arms
against their government, and that the resistance commenced by them
would spread throughout the union, and terminate in a revolution.

The convention at Parkinson's ferry had appointed a committee of
safety consisting of sixty members, who chose fifteen of their body to
confer with the commissioners of the United States, and of the state
of Pennsylvania. This committee of conference was not empowered to
conclude on any thing. They could only receive and report the
propositions which might be made to them.

Men of property and intelligence, who had contributed to kindle the
flame under the common error of being able to regulate its heat, now
trembled at the extent of the conflagration. It had passed the limits
they had assigned to it, and was no longer subject to their control.

The committee of conference expressed themselves unanimously in favour
of accepting the terms offered by the government, and exerted
themselves in the