nd all commercial intercourse with New York.
Every merchant signed an agreement, under penalty of $250 for the first
offence, not to send any goods whatever into the hated state for a
period of twelve months. By such retaliatory measures, it was hoped that
New York might be compelled to rescind her odious enactment. But such
meetings and such resolves bore an ominous likeness to the meetings and
resolves which in the years before 1775 had heralded a state of war; and
but for the good work done by the federal convention another five years
would scarcely have elapsed before shots would have been fired and seeds
of perennial hatred sown on the shores that look toward Manhattan
Island.

[Sidenote: Disputes about territory; disasters in the valley of Wyoming,
1784.]

To these commercial disputes there were added disputes about territory.
The chronic quarrel between Connecticut and Pennsylvania over the valley
of Wyoming was decided in the autumn of 1782 by a special federal
court, appointed in accordance with the articles of confederation. The
prize was adjudged to Pennsylvania, and the government of Connecticut
submitted as gracefully as possible. But new troubles were in store for
the inhabitants of that beautiful region. The traces of the massacre of
1778 had disappeared, the houses had been rebuilt, new settlers had come
in, and the pretty villages had taken on their old look of contentment
and thrift, when in the spring of 1784 there came an accumulation of
disasters. During a very cold winter great quantities of snow had
fallen, and lay piled in huge masses on the mountain sides, until in
March a sudden thaw set in. The Susquehanna rose, and overflowed the
valley, and great blocks of ice drifted here and there, carrying death
and destruction with them. Houses, barns, and fences were swept away,
the cattle were drowned, the fruit trees broken down, the stores of food
destroyed, and over the whole valley there lay a stratum of gravel and
pebbles. The people were starving with cold and hunger, and President
Dickinson urged the legislature to send prompt relief to the sufferers.
But the hearts of the members were as flint, and their talk was
incredibly wicked. Not a penny would they give to help the accursed
Yankees. It served them right. If they had stayed in Connecticut, where
they belonged, they would have kept out of harm's way. And with a
blasphemy thinly veiled in phrases of pious unction, the desolation of
the val