He wrote to Hamilton in August, 1792: "If, after
these regulations are in operation, opposition to the due exercise of
the collection is still experienced, and peaceable procedure is no
longer effectual, the public interests and my duty will make it
necessary to enforce the laws respecting this matter; and however
disagreeable this would be to me, it must nevertheless take place."
Meantime the disorders went on, and the officers were insulted and
thwarted in the execution of their duty. Washington's next letter
(September 7) has a touch of anger. He hated disorder and riot
anywhere, but he was disgusted when they came from the very people for
whose defense the Indian war was pushed and the excise made necessary.
He approved of Hamilton's sending out an officer to examine into the
survey, and said: "If, notwithstanding, opposition is still given to
the due execution of the law, I have no hesitation in declaring, if
the evidence of it is clear and unequivocal, that I shall, however
reluctantly I exercise them, exert all the legal powers with which the
executive is invested to check so daring and unwarrantable a spirit.
It is my duty to see the laws executed. To permit them to be trampled
upon with impunity would be repugnant to it; nor can the government
longer remain a passive spectator of the contempt with which they are
treated. Forbearance, under a hope that the inhabitants of that
survey would recover from the delirium and folly into which they
were plunged, seems to have had no other effect than to increase the
disorder.
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