A fundamental grievance of the "Regulators" was the new requirement that all debts- importantly, taxes- be paid in hard money, not with personal notes, or promissory notes. This law was very much in the interest of the Boston merchants. The Colonies had borrowed hugely for the Revolutionary War, and the merchants' European trading partners were increasingly unwilling to extend them any credit. The law was therefore intended to wring more hard money out of the Massachusetts population. But it fell very hard on the western MA farmers and local merchants, who were both faced with heavy taxes and an economic depression. There had been a hard currency shortage, typical to most of the Colonies, and using personal notes and carrying debts and credits on their books was very common, especially by farmers. But in the depressed economy they used this even more: essentially, creating an alternate currency. Requiring hard currency was a major problem , for when a farmer couldn't pay his taxes, the court could order his property seized and sold for whatever hard currency could be found for it- often for a fraction of what its value ought to have been. In the summer of 1786 the first target of the Regulators, therefore, were those courts. The armed Regulators prevented them from opening.

There was, therefore, no support from the court system. The government was pretty firmly serving the interests of the Boston merchants and there was also no sympathy there. The Governor declared a rebellion was in progress and took steps to put it down by military force, and it was quickly put down ( though, that military action was not, as such things go, very punitive, many of the soldiers having fought with the Regulators in the Revolution and quite aware of their grievances) . That action did lead to the Governor not being re-elected, and popular sympathy for the Regulators can be seen in the fact that most of them were pardoned after symbolically taking a loyalty oath.

A nice site on Shay's Rebellion, with period source documents and artifacts, has been put up by the Springfield Technical Community College here., and among them is a worm's-eye-view recollection of events by Park Holland, who reluctantly was part of the military response to the rebellion.