Urging his march with the utmost celerity, Lincoln soon came up; and, pressing the insurgent army, endeavoured, by a succession of rapid movements, in which the ardour of his troops triumphed over the severity of the season, to disperse, or to bring it to action. Their generals retreated from post to post with a rapidity which for some time eluded his designs; and, rejecting every proposition to lay down their arms, used all their address to produce a suspension of hostilities until an accommodation might be negotiated with the legislature. "Applications were also made," says General Lincoln, "by committees and select men of the several towns in the counties of Worcester and Hampshire, praying that the effusion of blood might be avoided, while the real design of these applications was supposed to be, to stay our operations until a new court should be elected. They had no doubt, if they could keep up their influence until another choice of the legislature and of the executive, that matters might be moulded in general court to their wishes. To avoid this, was the duty of government." In answer to these applications, Lincoln exhorted those towns who sincerely wished to put an end to the rebellion without the effusion of blood, "to recall their men now in arms, and to aid in apprehending all abettors of those who should persist in their treason, and all who should yield them any comfort or supplies." The army of government continued to brave the rigours of the climate, and to press the insurgents without intermission. At length, with the loss of a few killed, and several prisoners, the rebels were dispersed, their leaders driven out of the state, and this formidable and wicked rebellion was quelled. The same love of country which had supported the officers and soldiers of the late army through a perilous war, still glowed in their bosoms; and the patriot veterans of the revolution, uninfected by the wide spreading contagion of the times, arranged themselves almost universally under the banners of the constitution and of the laws. This circumstance lessened the prejudices which had been excited against them as creditors of the public, and diminished the odium which, in the eastern states, especially, had been directed against the order of the Cincinnati. But the most important effect of this unprovoked rebellion was, a deep conviction of the necessity of enlarging the powers of the general government; and the consequent direction of the public mind towards the convention which was to assemble at Philadelphia.