or life which was first voted. The army, in consequence,
became very unpopular. A great clamor was raised against the Cincinnati
Society, and factious patriots pretended to see in it the foundation of
an hereditary aristocracy. The public irritability, excited by pretexts
like these, broke out into violence. In Connecticut, mobs collected to
prevent the army officers from receiving the certificates for the five
years' pay, and a convention was assembled to elect men pledged to
non-payment. Shay and Shattuck headed an insurrection in Massachusetts.
There were riots at Exeter, in New Hampshire. When Shay's band was
defeated and driven out of the State, Rhode Island--then sometimes
called Rogue's Island, from her paper-money operations--refused to give
up the refugee rebels. The times looked gloomy. The nation, relieved
from the foreign pressure which had bound the Colonies together, seemed
tumbling to pieces; each State was an independent sovereignty, free to
go to ruin in its own way. The necessity for a strong central government
to replace English rule became evident to all judicious men; for, as one
Pelatiah Webster remarked, "Thirteen staves, and ne'er a hoop, cannot
make a barrel." The Hartford Wits had fought out the war against King
George; they now took up the pen against King Mob, and placed themselves
in rank with the friends of order, good government, and union. Hence the
"Anarchiad." An ancient epic on "the Restoration of Chaos and
Substantial Blight" was dug up in the ruins of an old Indian fort, where
Madoc, the mythical Welsh Columbus, or some of his descendants, had
buried it. Colonel Humphreys, who had read the "Rolliad" in England,
suggested the plan; Barlow, Hopkins, and Trumbull joined with him in
carrying it out. Extracts from the "Anarchiad" were prepared when
wanted, and the verses applied fresh to the enfeebled body politic. They
chanted the dangers and difficulties of the old Federation and the
advantages of the new Constitution. Union was the burden of their song;
and they took a prophetic view of the stormy future, if thirteen
independent States should divide this territory between them.

"Shall lordly Hudson part contending powers,
And broad Potomac lave two hostile shores?
Must Alleghany's sacred summits bear
The impious bulwarks of perpetual war?
His hundred streams receive your heroes slain,
And bear your sons inglorious to the main?"

We, _miserrimi_, have lived to