ALLEN WITH GATES.--AT BENNINGTON.--DAVID REDDING.--REPLY TO
CLINTON.--EMBASSIES TO CONGRESS.--COMPLAINT AGAINST BROTHER
LEVI.--ALLEN IN COURT.
When Allen bade adieu to Washington at Valley Forge, he rode on
horseback to Fishkill with General Gates and suite, arriving at that
place on the 18th of May, 1778, the very day his brother Heman died
at Salisbury. The six or eight days occupied by the trip across New
Jersey seems to have been one of unalloyed enjoyment to the hero of
Ticonderoga. He tells us that Gates treated him with the generosity
of a lord and the freedom of a boon companion. That this intercourse
impressed Gates favorably with Allen his correspondence with General
Stark later demonstrates. On Sunday evening, the 31st of May, Allen
arrived at Bennington. The town being orthodox and Congregationalist,
Sunday is observed with Puritanic severity, but he finds the people
too jubilant for religious solemnity. The old iron six-pound cannon
from Fort Hoosac is brought out and fired in honor of the new state
of Vermont.
What changes have taken place during his three years' absence! His
only son is dead; his wife and four daughters are in Sunderland; two
brothers have become state officers. Levi Allen, one of the foremost
Green Mountain Boys in 1775, has now become a tory. Burgoyne has
swept along the western borders and has been captured. Allen's old
followers, under Seth Warner, have won renown at Quebec, Montreal,
Hubbardston, Bennington, Saratoga, and Ticonderoga. The constitution
has been formed and the state government organized. A legislature has
been elected, held one session, and adjourned to meet again this week.
One of the great spectacles of the Anglo-Saxon civilization had
been appointed for this time and place. A criminal, David Redding,
convicted of treason, was to be executed. Upon a petition for
rehearing on the ground that he had been convicted by a jury of only
six men, the governor had reprieved Redding until Thursday, the 11th.
The news of the reprieve, noised through the town, called together a
disappointed and angry crowd, in the midst of which Allen appeared,
mounted a stump, and cried: "Attention, the whole!" He then expressed
his sympathy with the people, explained the illegality of the trial,
and told them to go home and return in a week, and they "shall see
a man hung; if not Redding, I will be," and the appeased crowd
peaceably dispersed. In the next trial Allen was appointed state's
attorney to prosecute Redding, who was condemned.
Soon Allen's attention is called to the controversy between New York
and Vermont. In the preceding February, after the constitution was
adopted, before the government was inaugurated, Governor Clinton, of
New York, issued a proclamation ostentatious with apparent clemency
and generosity. Ethan Allen was selected as the proper man to expose
the pompous fraud. Clinton began by saying that the disaffection
existing in Vermont was partially justified by the atrocious acts
of the British government while New York was a colony, the act of
outlawry which sentenced Allen and others to death without trial, the
fees and unjust preference in grants to servants of the crown over
honest settlers, and he offered to discharge all claims under the
outlawry act, to reduce the New York quit-rents to the New Hampshire
rate, to make the fees of patents reasonable, and to confirm all
grants made by New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
Allen replied, in a pamphlet, that the British act of outlawry had
been dead by its own provision two and a half years, no thanks to
Clinton; that most of the grants of New Hampshire and Massachusetts
had been covered by New York patents, and that, as a matter of law,
it was impossible for New York to cancel her former patents and
confirm the New Hampshire grants, and he cited the opinion of the
lords of trade to that effect.
But Vermont was in a dangerous position in reference to New
Hampshire. A portion of that state had seceded and united with
Vermont. The two states had fought side by side, but now New
Hampshire had become unfriendly and remained so for years. The
governor and council, perplexed with the difficulty, appointed Allen
an agent to visit Congress and ask for advice. This is his first
embassy from Vermont to Congress. He reported that "unless the union
with New Hampshire towns is dissolved the nation will annihilate
Vermont."
His second embassy was with Jonas Fay, in 1779, to inform Congress of
the progress of affairs in Vermont.
His third embassy was in 1780, when he was chosen by the legislature
as the chairman of a very able and eminent committee, Stephen R.
Bradley, Moses Robinson, Paul Spooner, and Jonas Fay, to act as
counsel for Vermont before Congress against the ablest men of New
York and New Hampshire.
In 1779 he was sent to the Massachusetts court with a letter from the
governor asking for a statement of Massachusetts' claim to Vermont.
The reply was that Massachusetts claimed west from the Merrimac, and
three miles further north, to the Pacific. This included part of
Vermont.
It is noteworthy that Allen was elected a member of the legislature
from Arlington while his family lived in Sunderland, and he
called Bennington his "usual home." It is notable, also, that the
constitution required every member of the legislature to take an
oath that he believed in the divine inspiration of the Bible and
professed the Protestant religion, an oath which Allen refused to
take, and yet was allowed to act as a member.
It was in 1778 that Allen complained to the court of confiscation
that his brother Levi had become a tory; had passed counterfeit
Continental money; that under pretence of helping him while a
prisoner on Long Island, he had been detected in supplying the
British with provisions. He stated that Levi owned real estate in
Vermont and prayed that that estate might be confiscated to the
public treasury. For this act Levi afterward challenged Ethan to a
duel, but Ethan took no notice of the challenge.
In the spring of 1779 the Yorkers in Windham County wrote to Governor
Clinton that unless New York aided them, "our persons and property
must be at the disposal of Ethan Allen; which is more to be dreaded
than death with all its terrors."
In May the superior court sat at Westminster. Thirty-six Yorkers
were in jail. Their offence consisted in rescuing two cows from an
officer who had seized them because their owners had refused to do
military duty on the frontier or to pay for substitutes. Ethan Allen
was there by order of Governor Chittenden, with one hundred Green
Mountain Boys, to aid the court. Three prisoners were discharged
for want of evidence, three more because they were minors. Allen,
hearing of this, entered the court-room in his military dress, large
three-cornered hat profusely ornamented with gold lace, and a large
sword swinging by his side. Breathless with haste, he bowed to Chief
Justice Robinson and began attacking the attorneys. Robinson told
him the court would gladly listen to him as a citizen, but not as a
military man in a military dress. Allen threw his hat on the table
and unbuckled his sword, exclaiming: "For forms of government let
fools contest; whate'er is best administered is best." Observing
the judges whispering together, he said: "I said that fools might
contest, not your honors, not your honors." To the state's attorney,
Noah Smith, he said: "I would have the young gentleman know that
with my logic and reasoning from the eternal fitness of things, I
can upset his Blackstones, his whitestones, his gravestones, and his
brimstones." Then he continued:
Fifty miles I have come through the woods with my brave men
to support the civil with the military arm, to quell any
disturbances should they arise, and to aid the sheriff and court
in prosecuting these Yorkers, the enemies of our noble State. I
see, however, that some of them, by the quirks of this artful
lawyer, Bradley, are escaping from the punishment they so richly
deserve, and I find also, that this little Noah Smith is far from
understanding his business, since he at one moment moves for a
prosecution and in the next wishes to withdraw it. Let me warn
your honors to be on your guard lest these delinquents should
slip through your fingers and thus escape the rewards so justly
due their crimes.
Allen then put on his hat, buckled on his sword, and departed with
great dignity.