ad now passed and the period of probation seemed to have ended in the
ruin of national hopes. The events of the years 1786 made a profound
impression upon the minds of all responsible and conservative men. In
undisguised alarm, Washington wrote: "There are combustibles in every
State which a spark might set fire to.... I feel ... infinitely more
than I can express to you, for the disorders which have arisen in these
States. Good God! Who, besides a Tory, could have foreseen, or a Briton,
predicted them?" Rightly or wrongly, men of the upper classes believed
that the foundations of society were threatened and that the State
Governments would fall a prey to the radical and unpropertied elements,
unless a stronger Federal Government were created. "With this idea, they
are thinking, very seriously," wrote an interested observer at the seat
of Federal Government in New York, "in what manner to effect the most
easy and natural change of the present form of the Federal Government to
one more energetic, that will, at the same time, create respect, and
secure properly life, liberty, and property. It is, therefore, not
uncommon to hear the principles of government stated in common
conversation. Emperors, kings, stadtholders, governors-general, with a
senate or house of lords, and house of commons, are frequently the
topics of conversation." There were those who frankly advocated a
monarchical government as the only way of escape from the ills under
which American society was laboring. There is reason to believe that a
project was on foot to invite Prince Henry of Prussia to become the head
of a new consolidated government. The influence of the Order of the
Cincinnati was much feared by friends of republican institutions.
Individually members of the order did not hesitate to express their
impatience with popular government. What was to come out of this
political chaos, no man could tell.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The two most extensive histories dealing with the period of the
Confederation are George Bancroft's _History of the Formation of
the Constitution of the United States of America_ (2 vols., 1882)
and G. T. Curtis's _History of the Origin, Formation, and Adoption
of the Constitution of the United States_ (2 vols., 1854). In the
fourth volume of Hildreth's _History of the United States_ (6
vols., 1849-52), a concise but rather dry account of the
Confederation may be found. More en