Among those who felt the importance of the crisis, and who earnestly wished that a free government, competent to the preservation of the union, might be established, there were some who despaired of a favourable issue to the attempt, and who were therefore anxious to rescue their general from the increased mortification which would attend its failure, should he be personally engaged in it.

They believed that all the states would not be represented in the convention.

In a letter of the 20th of January, 1787, Colonel Humphries, who was himself under this impression, thus accounts for the omission of the federal men in the assembly of Connecticut, to press the appointment of deputies.

"The reason," he said, "was a conviction that the persons who could be elected were some of the best anti-federal men in the state, who believed, or acted as if they believed, that the powers of congress were already too unlimited, and who would wish, apparently, to see the union dissolved.

These demagogues," continued the letter, "really affect to persuade the people (to use their own phraseology) that they are only in danger of having their liberties stolen away by an artful designing aristocracy.