144 HISTORY OF OHIO. 



The bill was passed and became a law. St. Cliiir resign- 

 ed his military command, and General Anthony Wayne was 

 appointed commander-in-chief. This was in the spring of 

 1793. 



WAYNE'S WAR. 



Among the several considerations which now operated on 

 the mind of General Washington at this trying period of our 

 national history, which we are compelled to consider for a 

 moment, was the poverty of the nation, loaded with debt, with- 

 out much commerce, and the general poverty of the people. 

 The people of the east, looked upon this western war, as a bur- 

 den, which the western people ought to bear. Hence the duty 

 on distilleries, owned mostly in the west, which grew out of the 

 expenses of this Indian war. This tax, led directly to the whis- 

 ky insurrection, in Western Pennsylvania. And, it need not 

 be disguised, that the opposition to the present constitution, 

 laid hold of every thing within their reach, to render General 

 Washington unpopular. They pretended to fear, so large a 

 standing army, of five thousand four hundred men ! they saw 

 too, with alarm, Mrs. Washington's levees, and the pomp of 

 Colonel Pickering, General Knox, and other heads of Depart- 

 ments, with salaries of three thousand dollars a year! though 

 the compensation was so small, that they, and their families 

 could nol live decently on it. The French revolution too, was 

 raging, and Genet was busily engaged, in his endeavors to 

 draw us, into the vortex of European politics. General 

 Washington was beset on all sides ; French agents and partis- 

 ans, on the Atlantic border, were fomenting discontent; the 

 British and their Indians, were desolating our western frontier, 

 with fire and the tomahawk, and the war whoop waked the 

 sleep of the cradle. 



It was early in this year, we believe, that General Wash- 

 ington after appointing General Wayne and other officers to 

 command the western army, and doing all that he had the 

 power to do, made a tour to the Indians of Western New 



