Militia Member Fighting the Whiskey Rebellion Fined for Selling Unlicensed Whiskey

[Whiskey Rebellion]: Cable, Jacob:

[Autograph Document Signed from Jacob Cable, Whiskey Rebellion Militia Member, to Maryland Governor John Hoskins Stone, Asking for Relief from a Fine Imposed on Him for Selling Liquor Without a License].

[N.p., likely Maryland]: January 20, 1795. [2]pp., with integral leaf addressed and docketed. Old mailing folds, minor unobtrusive chipping to edges, some old tape repairs, some toning. Margins of address leaf reinforced with later sheet. Overall good condition. Item #13033

A document of almost pure irony, in which a Maryland militia member who served for the government during the Whiskey Rebellion petitions the governor of Maryland for relief from a fine of 600 pounds of tobacco levied on him and his wife for...selling whiskey without a license. Apparently, during the time in which Cable "was drafted to go against the insurgents and during his absence," Cable's wife "sold liquor for the support of her family to wit 3 small children." Upon his return from service, and during the January 1795 term of the Baltimore County court, Cable "was presented for selling liquors without license and was fined 600 lbs of Toba for said offence." Here, Cable asks Governor Stone and the "Home Council" for forgiveness of the fine.

It worked. According to a note on the verso signed by three "Justices of Baltimore County Court," they found "compassion" for Cable "in remitting the fine imposed as stated in the within Petition." Though the central issue of the Whiskey Rebellion was the 1791 excise tax on whiskey, which angered farmers in western Pennsylvania enough to violently resist it, it is some level of irony that Cable asks for mercy from the court for selling liquor without a license incurred while he was fighting the farmers resisting the whiskey tax.

Price: $2,250