Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) a state of worry or alarm.

1840		T. Haliburton Clockmaker III 128: He was in a most awful feese.
1843		T. Haliburton Sam Slick in England I 22: When a man’s in a feeze, there’s no more sleep that hitch.
1848		Bartlett Dict. Americanisms 249: PHEESE. A fit of fretfulness. A colloquial, vulgar word in the United States.—Worcester. The adjective pheesy, fretful, querulous, irritable, sore, is provincial in England.—Forby. Also written feeze.