But the commissioners, unfortunately, were not favorably impressed with the reception they met with or the scenes they witnessed on their western mission. They had heard of Bradford's threat to establish an independent government west of the mountains, and they had seen a liberty pole raised upon which the people with the greatest difficulty had been dissuaded from hoisting a flag with six stripes--emblematic of the six counties represented in the committee. The flag was made, but set aside for the fifteen stripes with reluctance. This is Findley's recollection, but Brackenridge says that it was a flag of seven stars for the four western counties, Bedford, and the two counties of Virginia. This, he adds, was the first and only manifestation among any class of a desire to separate from the Union. But here his memory failed him. Hamilton had long been impatient. Again, as in old days, he presented his arguments directly to the people. Under the heading, "Tully to the people of the United States," he printed a letter on August 26, of which the following is a passage:-- "Your representatives in Congress, pursuant to the commission derived from you, and with a full knowledge of the public exigencies, have laid an excise. At three succeeding sessions they have revised that act ... and _you_ have actually paid more than a million of dollars on account of it. But the four western counties of Pennsylvania undertake to rejudge and reverse your decrees. _You_ have said, 'The Congress _shall have power_ to lay _excises_.' They say, 'The Congress shall _not have_ this power;' or, what is equivalent, they shall not exercise it, for a _power_ that may not be exercised is a nullity. Your representatives have said, and four times repeated it, 'An excise on distilled spirits _shall_ be collected;' they say, 'It _shall not_ be collected. We will punish, expel, and banish the officers who shall attempt the collection.'"