Declaration of the General Court that a Rebellion Exists

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General Courts
Declaration that horrid
and unnatural Rebellion
exists within this Common=
=wealth
Feb^y 4' 1787
Published
P299 &[?] ^a ex.^d

Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Whereas the doings of the General Court at their last session, relative to
the Insurgents against the Government and Authority of the State, in several
Counties within this Commonwealth; were lenient and mercifull, were
intended to quiet the minds of the disaffected, and ought to have had the
effect they were design,d to produce

and Whereas every complaint of Grievance was carefully attended to with a
disproportion to grant all that relief which could be afforded, consistant
with equal justice and the dignity of Government; and measures
were adopted accordingly and the General Court so far as they were
A. able adopted measures accordingly -- A
And Whereas a full and free pardon, for all the outrageous proceedings
against the Government, whereof the Insurgents had been guilty, was
tender,d them upon this mild condition alone; that they should be guilty
of such outrages no more, and as evidence of their intentions to demean
themselves in future, as good and faithful ^ Citizens subjects, should before the first
day of January AD 1787 take and subscribe the oath of Allegiance, ^B And
B as a full and clear information was given to them Insurgents as well as others of the general situ
=ation of public affairs, and that everything had been done for their
relief consistent with the safety and justice of the State ^C it manifestly
appears, from the subsequent conduct of the ^ leaders of the Insurgents, that their opp
=osition to Government has not arisen, from a misapprehension, as to
the views and disposition of Government; as from a temporary invit
=ation, arising from the pressure of supposed grievances, or from a
misguided zeal to promote the public happiness, as has been insidiously
asserted; but from a settled determination to subvert the Constitution
and put an end to the Government of this Commonwealth. --it is also
abundently manifest, that the conduct of the Insurgents, in Stopping the
Courts of Justice in the Counties of Worcester, and Hampshire in Assemb
=ling in Arms avowedly to commit the same outrages in the County of
Middlesex, in calling upon the Towns in some Counties, to furnish
themselves with Arms and ammunition - in appointing Committees
to form them ^ their adherents into regular military Companies properly Officer,d, Thereby
to establish within this Commonwealth, a standing Force, beyond the
controul of, and for the express purpose of apposing in arms, the Consti
=tutional government of the State -- in endeavouring to increse the
Commotions in the Counties aforesaid, by publicly inviting and allowing
others to throw off their allegiance and join their body; in Subversion