While the militia, who had been detached, were
assembling at the places of rendezvous required,
one of which was at Boston, and the otner at
Springfield, the insurgents became alarmed by the
decisive conduct of government ; and they for-
warded a petition to the Supreme Executive, re-
questing the discharge of the prisoners in Boston,
a general pardon to all who had hitherto opposed
the government, and a suspension of the courts of
Common Pleas, until after a new choice of rep
resentatives, who, they probably supposed, would
be more ready to grant all their wisnes. But the
style of the application was not such as men in
their condition might properly address to the
lawful authority of the State. They had, also, on
former occasions, violated their express engage-
ments, made in a like situation of embarrassment
and fear ; and more than all, they had continued
in arms, and in opposition to the regular authority
of the government, long after the period when a
pardon had been gracious)y tendered them. The
memorial was considered, by the Executive, as an
improper address, highly reprehensible in itself
ana requiring an indulgence or an assurance, which
the governor and council were not authorized to
grant, after the recent decision of the legislature.
No promise could have been correctly made by
the Executive, that the conditions required by the
insurgents, on which their engagement to be obe-
dient and peaceable depended, would be fulfilled
by the General Court ; for they proposed in their
memorial, that some of the judicial courts should be
abolished : and besides all these objections to their



291

application, it purported to be from citizens, some
of whose names were not subscribed, and who
were not present at the meeting when it was pre-
pared.
