Notwithstanding the large rewards offered for Allen and his associates, they do not appear to have been in any real danger of being apprehended under the governor's proclamation. The terror which their threats, backed as they were by the known power and determination of the Green Mountain Boys, produced among their adversaries, and the general sympathy felt for them by the people of the province, were sufficient to prevent any serious attempts to capture them.1 Further protection against invasion of the territory by "the Yorkers" was, however, provided by the erection of two forts near the outskirts of the settlements; one at New Haven falls, on Otter creek, in the neighborhood of Col. Reid's patent, and the other on Onion run, at Colchester. Information of the erection of these fortresses, and of the continued hostility of the settlers being laid before the New York council, that body on the 1st of September, 1774, advised Lieut. Gov. Colden to apply to Gen. Gage, then military commander-in-chief, for the aid of regular troops. With this application Gen. Gage declined to comply, on the ground that a similar application had been previously denied by the British ministry, and also for the reason that Gov. Tryon had been called home to give light on the points in dispute concerning the New Hampshire lands, upon which a final decision might soon be expected. An appeal from this decision of Gen. Gage having been made by Lieut. Gov. Colden to the English ministry, Lord Dartmouth, with strong assurances of regard for the loyal conduct of the New York government, informed him that he did not "at present see sufficient ground for the adoption of such a measure." Thus ended the third and last abortive effort of the New York land claimants to have their titles enforced by the aid of the king's regular troops.?

1

1 Two attempts to arrest Allen were made at an earlier date, under a previous proclamation, for an account of which see biographical notice of Allen, Appendix.

2 Benjamin Hough's petition and accompanying affidavits and proceedings of the council thereon, and Lieut. Gov. Colden's correspondence with Gen. Gage and Lord Dartmouth.-Doc. Hist. N. Y., vol. 4, p. 875 to 890. Vermont Quarterly Magazine, p. 69. Ira Allen's Hist., p. 42.

CHAPTER XVII.

PUNISHMENT OF YORKERS, AND THE WESTMINSTER MASSACRE.

1774-1775.

Ludicrous punishment of Dr. Samuel Adams, a Yorker-Trial and corporal punishment of Benjamin Hough for petitioning the New York Assembly, and advocating the passage of the act of outlawry against Allen and others, and for acting as a magistrate under New York-Uprising of the people of Cumberland county in March, 1775, and the Westminster Massacre Action of the New York Assembly thereon, and the case of Hough-A convention of Committees of Cumberland and Gloucester counties, resolve to petition the king against the New York government, and to be either annexed to another government, or formed into a new one-Col. Skene's project of a new province-The battle of Lexington gives a new direction to these affairs.

AFTER the passage of the New York act of outlawry, all attempts of the Yorkers to obtain possession under their patents were unsuccessful. Although the Green Mountain Boys were ready, whenever necessity required it, to resort to severe measures against their adversaries, they were not unwilling to try the effect of milder means. Ridicule, as well as violence, was sometimes used. An example of a mixture of both may be found in the case of Dr. Samuel Adams of Arlington. He held lands under the New Hampshire title and up to the close of the year 1773, he had been an advocate of that title. But after the promulgation of the riot act, he for some unexplained reason, began to talk in favor of the New York title and advise his neighbors to purchase it. This open desertion of their cause was very distasteful to the New Hampshire men, and he was repeatedly warned to desist from such discourse. But he persisted in his offensive language, in consequence of which he was arrested and taken to the Green 'mountain tavern at Bennington, for trial. There the committee of safety heard his defence, which not being satisfactory, he was sentenced "to be tied in an armed chair, and hoisted up to the sign (a catamount's skin stuffed, sitting upon the sign post, twenty-five feet from the ground, looking and grinning towards New York), and there to hang two hours, as a punishment merited by his enmity to the rights and liberty of the inhabitants of the New Hampshire Grants." The sentence was exccuted, to the no small merriment of a large concourse of people. The doctor was then let down and dismissed by the committee, with an admonition

to sin no more. "This mild and exemplary disgrace," says Ira Allen, in his history, "had a salutary effect on the doctor and many others." 1

From this period, there do not seem to have been many occasions for the exercise of violent measures against the New York claimants, they in general, being unwilling by new efforts, to incur the further displeasure of the Green Mountain Boys. To this submission to their power, if not to their authority, a notable exception was found in the case of Benjamin Hough. He not only occupied land under the odious patent of Socialborough, but had, during his residence there, from early in the year 1773, been an open and troublesome advocate of that title, although he claimed to have also agreed for that of New Hampshire. It was on his petition that the resolutions of the assembly, offering the rewards for Allen and the seven others, and the act for hanging them without trial, had been passed. He had spent the winter in New York, advocating their passage, and had come back to his residence with a commission as justice of peace, bearing date the 12th of March, three days after the consummation of those obnoxious measures. He was loud in his denunciation of rioters, and active in the exercise of his office as magistrate. He was formally served with a copy of the resolution of the convention held at Manchester, on the 12th and 13th of April, 1774, certified by Jonas Fay, clerk, by which it was declared that whoever should, in the then situation of affairs, "until his majesty's pleasure in the premises should be further known," presume to take a commission of the peace from the New York government, should "be deemed an enemy to their country and the common cause.” He was also verbally warned to desist from the further exercise of his official authority, and threatened with punishment if he persisted. To these warnings he paid no heed, but continued as active and troublesome as ever. The indignation against him became very great, and it was resolved to make such an example of him as would not only effectually silence him, but, deter others from the commission of like offences. He was accordingly seized by a body of his neighbors, placed in a sleigh and carried south about thirty miles, to Sunderland, where he was kept for three days under strict guard until Monday, the 30th of January, 1775, when the leading Green Mountain Boys being assembled, he was brought to trial for the offences before mentioned. The court appointed for that purpose, consisted of Ethan Allen, Seth Warner, Robert Cochran, Peleg 1 Ira Allen's History, p. 46. Vt. Quarterly Magazine, p. 126. Slade, p. 36. B. Hough's affidavit, Doc. Hist. N. Y., p. 897-8.

Sunderland, James Mead, Gideon Warren and Jesse Lawyer. His judges being seated, he was put upon his defence, which being held insufficient, he was found guilty and sentenced" to be tied to a tree and receive two hundred lashes on the naked back, and then as soon as he should be able, should depart the New Hampshire Grants and not return again till his majesty's pleasure should be known in the premises, on pain of receiving five hundred lashes." This sentence was read to him from a paper by Allen, and was put in immediate exec tion with much severity. For his protection against further punishment for the same offences, and to show their fearless and defiant contempt for the government officers at New York, whither he was going, Allen and Warner gave him a certificate and pass in the following words:

"Sunderland, January 30th, A.D. 1775. This may certify to the inhabitants of the New Hampshire Grants, that Benjamin Hough hath this day received a full punishment for his crimes committed heretofore against this country, and our inhabitants are ordered to give him the said Huff free and unmolested passport towards the city of New York, or to the westward of our grants, he behaving as becometh. Given under our hands the day and date aforesaid. ETHAN ALLEN, SETH WARNER,

per

This chastisement of Hough seems to have been the last act of sonal violence to which the claimants under New York as such were subjected by the New Hampshire men, during the colonial period; the open resistance to their authority ceasing from that time. It was undoubtedly the most severe and painful injury which had ever been inflicted on any of the Yorkers.

Hough departed the next day for New York, where he made an affidavit before Chief Justice Horsmanden, giving an account in detail of the abusive and cruel manner in which he had been treated, and he petitioned the council for protection against the rioters. The council, after due deliberation, declared they were powerless to furnish such protection; but on his subsequent representation, in connection with one Daniel Walker, Jr., that they had been "expelled from their habitations by the Bennington rioters, and were destitute of the means of support and had been involving themselves in debt for the necessaries of life," it was ordered "that a brief be issued in favor of the petitioners," by which they were allowed to solicit contributions from the public, or in other words were permitted to beg for their livelihood. It would seem that the wealthy New York land

claimants, among whom were the lieutenant governor, several members of his council, and other prominent government officers, might have spared this mortification to their friend Hough, who had been so great a sufferer in their behalf.1

Before the deliberations of the lieutenant governor and his council on this affair of Hough had terminated, information was laid before them of a most alarming outbreak against the authority of the New York government, on the east side of the Green mountain, no less than that of the breaking up of the session of the county court of the county of Cumberland by mob violence, and the arrest and imprisonment of the sheriff and judges by the rioters. Of this event it is necessary to give some account.

It has been herein before mentioned that the order of the king in council of 1764 for annexing the territory of the New Hampshire Grants to the province of New York, was connected with, and subordinate to the plan then forming by the British ministry for raising a revenue from the colonies by parliamentary taxation. In pursuance of that plan numerous acts of parliament had been passed, which had met with such determined opposition from the inhabitants of the colonies as to render them nearly or quite inoperative. The oppressive character of those acts, and of the means used to enforce them, had. served to alienate the affections of the people from the mother country, and to engender a bitter animosity towards the king's government. Riotous resistance to the officers of the crown, as violent and disorderly as any that had been made to those of New York by the New Hampshire settlers, had become common throughout the country; and the whigs concerned in making such resistance were as loudly denounced by the king's government, as the Green Mountain Boys had been by that of New York. In September, 1774, a congress of delegates from twelve of the colonies assembled at Philadelphia, and agreed to suspend all commercial intercourse with the mother country until the obnoxious acts of parliament should be repealed. This and other measures of opposition, were embodied in the form of an agreement or association, subscribed by all the delegates, and recommended for adoption in all the colonies. One of the articles of agreement was that they "would have no trade, commerce, dealings or intercourse whatsoever with any colony or province in North America which should not accede to, or should violate the association, but would hold them unworthy of the

1Doc. Hist. N. Y., vol. 4, 891-903, 916. Council Minutes, 1765-1783, p. 422. Ira Allen's History, p. 44.