In a letter written about the same period, Colonel Humphries, after stating his apprehensions that the insurgents would seize the continental magazine at Springfield, proceeded to add: "a general failure to comply with the requisitions of congress for money, seems to prognosticate that we are rapidly advancing to a crisis. The wheels of the great political machine can scarcely continue to move much longer, under their present embarrassment. Congress, I am told, are seriously alarmed, and hardly know which way to turn, or what to expect. Indeed, my dear general, nothing but a good Providence can extricate us from our present difficulties, and prevent some terrible conclusion. "In case of civil discord I have already told you it was seriously my opinion that you could not remain neuter; and that you would be obliged in self defence, to take part on one side or the other, or withdraw from the continent. Your friends are of the same opinion; and I believe you are convinced that it is impossible to have more disinterested or zealous friends, than those who have been about your person." "It is," said the general in reply, "with the deepest and most heartfelt concern, I perceive by some late paragraphs extracted from the Boston papers, that the insurgents of Massachusetts, far from being satisfied with the redress offered by their general court, are still acting in open violation of law and government, and have obliged the chief magistrate, in a decided tone, to call upon the militia of the state to support the constitution. What, gracious God, is man! that there should be such inconsistency and perfidiousness in his conduct. It is but the other day that we were shedding our blood to obtain the constitutions under which we now live--constitutions of our own choice and making--and now, we are unsheathing the sword to overturn them. The thing is so unaccountable, that I hardly know how to realize it; or to persuade myself that I am not under the illusion of a dream. "My mind, previous to the receipt of your letter of the first ultimo, had often been agitated by a thought similar to the one you expressed respecting an old friend of yours: but heaven forbid that a crisis should come when he shall be driven to the necessity of making a choice of either of the alternatives there mentioned."