142]. ANNUAL REGISTER, 1705. 
of the remaining four hundred and 
sixty prisoners, twenty only were 
acquitted; the others were either 
stripped of their propetty, expelled 
the city, or imprisoned. _ Geneva 
continued thus three months in a 
state of confusion and tyranny. The 
most prudent of the different par- 
ties found itnecessary, at length, to 
drop their feuds aad yen Neg 
and to unite for the preservation 
of their civil independence against 
the private intrigues of the }rench 
and their emissaries, to bring the 
city under subjection. After a mul- 
tiplicity of efforts to defeat these 
inimical projects, they succeeded so 
far as to obtain, from the convention 
at Paris, the eal of the French 
resident at Geneva, who had been 
at the bottom of the designs against 
its independence. They inflicted 
punishments adequate to their guilt 
on those who had been concerned 
in this treasonable business, 
alse reversed: those judgments pro- 
nounced by the revolutionary tribu- 
nal, which had been di¢tated mere- 
ly by the spirit of party. They laid 
an equitable assessment of taxes on 
the public: they prohibited party 
clubs, and threatened severechas- 
tisement to those who abused the 
liberty of the press by incendiary 
Pablications. 
But it was not only in the vicinity 
of France that the principles of re- 
sistance and innovation were felt : 
they extended their influence across 
the Atlantig, and excited dange- 
“rous commotions in the united states 
of North America. The necessities 
of the publi¢ had cbliged govern. 
ment to adopt several of those me- 
thods of levying money, that are 
practised in Europe. That which 
appeared the most odious of any 
was the excise, so long held in ab. 
They . 
horrence in all free states, notwith. 
standing the arguments not unjustly 
alleged for its propriety. A slight 
duty was imposed on the distilleries 
in the American states, by the con. 
gress that sat in 1790. It was sub. 
mitted to by the generality, without 
complaint or dissatisfaction ; but in 
the western parts of Pennsylvania it 
created discontents, that broke out 
into open resistance, in the course of 
1794. These parts werechiefly in- 
habited by emigrants from the High. 
lands of Scotland, and from Ireland. 
As they had left their native coun. 
try, in the hope of experiencing a 
happy and great change in their 
condition, which animates all*emi- 
grators from their native climes, and 
which, indeed is the only motive 
that induces men te relinquish the 
place of their birth, they saw with 
particular reluétance that mode of 
taxation exercised over them, which 
they had in their own conntry been 
taught to consider as highly tyran- 
nical and oppressive. irom mur. 
murs they proceeded to atual resist- 
ance, and not only refused obedi- 
ence to the laws enjoining the tax, 
but maltreated the officers that were 
employed to levy it. 
“Recalling to their minds the 
modes of resisting thestamp-act, and 
the other obnoxious methods of tax- 
ation that brought about the Ame- 
rican revolution, the opposers of the 
excise-duties exepéted that they 
would, in the present case, be at. 
tended. with the same syecess, and 
they adopted them accordingly. 
They assembled at Pittsburgh, the 
principal place in the distontented 
counties. Here they agreed on a 
general remonstrance to congress, 
and on the establishment of com- 
mittees of correspondence among 
themselves, They entered into reso. 
lutions 
