justice during the Revolution,
with the consequent increase of debts, to a rigid enforcement of
debtors' claims afterward. At this period men were imprisoned for debt,
and all prisons were frightful holes, which one would as lief die as
enter. Meetings were held to air the popular griefs, and grew violent.

In August the court-house at Northampton was seized by a body of armed
men and the court prevented from sitting. Similar uprisings occurred at
Worcester, Springfield, and Concord. The leader in these movements was
Daniel Shays, a former captain in the continental army. Governor Bowdoin
finally called for volunteers to put down the rebellion, and placed
General Lincoln in command. After several minor engagements, in which
the insurgents were worsted, the decisive action took place at
Petersham, where, in February, 1787, the rebels were surprised by
Lincoln. A large number were captured, many more fled to their homes,
and the rest withdrew into the neighboring States. Vermont and Rhode
Island alone offered them a peaceful retreat, the other States giving up
the fugitives to Massachusetts.

[Illustration: Crowd watching two men fighting.]
A Scene at Springfield, during Shays' Rebellion, when the
mob attempted to prevent the holding of the Courts of Justice.

The Shays commotion, for a long time shaking one of the stanchest States
in the Confederation, well showed the need of a far stronger central
government than the old had been or could be made. Other influences
concurred to the same conviction. Washington's influence, which took
effect mainly through his inspired letter to the States on leaving the
army, was one of these. National feeling was also furthered by the
spread of two religious sects, the Baptists and the Methodists, up and
down the continent, whose missionary preachers, ignoring State lines and
prejudices, helped to destroy the latter in their hearers.

[1785]

During the Revolution, American Methodism had been an appanage of
England. Wesley had discountenanced our effort at independence, and
when war broke out, all the Methodist preachers left the country, save
Asbury, who secreted himself somewhere in Delaware, waiting for better
days. But in 1784 this zealous body of Christians was organized as an
American affair, its clergy and laity after this displaying loyalty of
the most approved kind.

[Illustration: Portrait.]
John Wesley.

Schemes had been mooted looking to a changed political