CHAPTER XXIV. FULL ORGANIZATION OF STATE GOVERNMENT. 1778. Military operations in 1778-Troops raised and forts built by Vermont to protect the frontiers - Alarms and ravages by the enemy Overtures by New York in relation to land titles - Their unfair character strengthens the opposition to New York-Election of state officers- Thomas Chittenden, governor, his character- Confiscation of tory lands- Return of Col. Ethan Allen from captivity — Trial of David Redding and his execution for "inimical conduct"-Union of sixteen New Hampshire towns with Vermont and its dissolution - Controversy with New Hampshire. THE HE military operations in the northern department during the year 1778, were not of great importance in the revolutionary struggle. A winter expedition was, indeed, planned by the board of war, of which Gen. Gates was president, and was sanctioned by congress, to destroy the enemy's shipping at St. Johns, and perhaps to advance farther into Canada. The command was at first assigned by congress to Gen. Stark, but Gen. Lafayette was afterwards selected by the board of war, and appears to have been assured by Gen. Gates that a force of not less than twenty-five hundred men, including a body of Green Mountain Boys, would be in readiness for him at Albany, properly prepared for the expedition. When he reached that place on the 17th of February, he found scarcely twelve hundred men, and those, from want of suitable clothing and supplies, were in no condition for a winter campaign. There being no prospect that the deficiency of men and means could be supplied in time to take advantage of the strong ice on the lake, the expedition, by general consent, was abandoned. Gen. Lafayette appears to have been dissatisfied with the manner in which he had been hurried into the command, when no adequate preparations for the expedition had been made; and there certainly appears to have been peculiar neglect, or ignorance of the actual state of things on the part of the board of war. Although the attempt upon the shipping at St. Johns had been contemplated early in December, it was not until the 10th of February that the council of safety of Vermont was informed of it and was requested to furnish aid. The council immediately issued orders for raising a battalion of six companies of fifty men each, under Col. Herrick, and offered extra bounties and pay for their speedy enlistment. Within two weeks afterwards, before the men could be mustered, notice was received that the project of invading Canada had fallen through, and the men who had been enlisted were employed in state service to guard the frontiers.1 The frontier position of Vermont rendered her territory liable to sudden incursions of the British and their savage allies, for which great facilities were afforded by their full command of Lake Champlain. A feeling of insecurity very generally prevailed, rendering precautionary measures indispensable. In April, Col. Warner's regiment was ordered to Albany, and the other regular troops at that place were sent to the south, leaving the inhabitants of the new state to their own resources for protection. As a means of defence, a stockade fort was erected at Rutland covering two or more acres of ground, with a block house of hewn logs forming one end of it, raised two stories high. At this fort a constant garrison was maintained, and from it scouts traversed the country to the northward. Reports of expected attacks by the enemy were not infrequent, when bodies of militia were called out and marched to the frontier, perhaps to find there had only been a false alarm. These alarms kept the people in constant uneasiness, and were extremely annoying and burdensome. The inhabitants who had settled to the northward of Rutland had generally withdrawn from their possessions on Burgoyne's invasion. Some of them had, however, returned, trusting for their security either to the promises or to the humanity of the enemy. In November, 1778, a large British force came up the lake in several vessels, and thoroughly scoured the country as far south as Ticonderoga. "Such of the men," says Judge Swift, in his History of Addison County, "as had the temerity to remain on their farms, they took prisoners, plundered, burned and destroyed their property of every description, leaving the women and children to take care of themselves as they could, in their houseless and defenceless condition. Not a town in the county, where any settlement had been made, escaped their ravages. The only building in Middlebury, not wholly destroyed, except two or three in the southeast part of the town, which they seem not to have found, was a barn of Col. John Chipman, which had been lately built of green timber, which they could not set on fire, and which they tried in vain, with their imperfect tools, to cut down. The marks of their Sparks's Washington, vol. 5, 1Secret Jour. of Cong., vol. 1, p. 57-61, 65. p. 264, 530. Sparks's Rev. Cor., vol. 2, p. 72. chap. 28 and 29. Minutes of Vt. Council, Feb. 10 and Feb. 25, 1778. Slade, p. 232, 233, 234. 1 hatchets on the timbers are still to be seen." This is believed to have been the last actual incursion of the enemy during that year.1 We now recur to the civil affairs of the new state. Hitherto the men in authority in New York had represented the conduct of the inhabitants who were disaffected towards her jurisdiction as altogether factious and unreasonable, styling their claims under the New Hampshire charters as "unjust and iniquitous," and their complaints against the colonial government of New York, as "frivolous pretences." Their unconditional submission to her authority, which carried with it a surrender of their lands to the New York claimants, had been uniformly demanded. But the approbation and applause with which the noble exertions of the people of Vermont, during the campaign of 1777, had been received in the other states, and the steadiness with which they were progressing towards the establishment of a regular independent government, produced an apprehension in New York that such unconditional submission was not likely to be obtained. This apprehension was manifested in February 1778, by the appointment of a joint committee of the senate and assembly of that state, to take into consideration "the unhappy situation of the good subjects of the state in the eastern district," and by the action of the two houses on the subject. This joint committee reported a series of resolutions, proposing certain terms of accommodation with the inhabitants of that district, in regard to their land titles, which terms were declared to be offered as an inducement to them to submit quietly to the jurisdiction of the state. The resolutions were adopted by both houses, and were made known to the inhabitants by proclamation of the governor bearing date the 23d of February, 1778. They were drawn up with great skill and ingenuity and with a seeming candor and fairness, well calculated to produce an impression on those not familiar with the subject, that New York had generously offered all that could reasonably be demanded of her, and that her proffers, if acceded to, would quiet the titles of all the settlers under New Hampshire charters. In this light they have been viewed by some modern writers. Thus Wm. L. Stone, in his Life of Brant, speaks of the proclamation of the governor reciting those resolutions, as "conceived in the most liberal spirit," and of the resolutions themselves, as offering to confirm all the titles which had previously been in dispute." 1 66 1 Minutes of Vermont Council. Pay Rolls in the office of the secretary of state, Montpelier. Swift's History of Addison County, chap. 8. But notwithstanding this appearance of liberality, the resolutions in reality offered no security whatever to the claimants under New Hampshire. They were preceded by a preamble in which the grievances under which the disaffected inhabitants had suffered by the oppressive acts of the colonial government in relation to their land titles, were either directly or tacitly admitted. The resolutions then contained proposals that confirmatory grants upon the payment of specified patent fees, should be issued by New York to certain classes of settlers under New Hampshire; but the language was so studied and so carefully guarded that the proposals only applied to a mere fractional part of the lands in controversy. The proposals did not purport to apply to any lands but such as were in the actual possession of claimants under New Hampshire. Of course all lands not yet occupied, however fairly or dearly they might have been purchased, would belong to the subsequent New York patentees. But the proffer to confirm the titles to lands, actually possessed, was limited to such as were so possessed at the time grants of them had been made by New York. Now, as most of the grants of New York had been made at an early day, and as settlements from that time up to 1778 had continued to be made under the previous grants of New Hampshire, notwithstanding such New York grants, the lands to which this proffer would apply, would be but a small portion of those in actual cultivation at the time of the passage of the resolutions. Not onetenth, perhaps not one-twentieth part of the lands actually occupied under the New Hampshire title in 1778 came within the scope of these resolutions. The other nine-tenths, or nineteen-twentieths, being unprovided for, would of course, with all their improvements, be taken possession of by the New York claimants, whenever the jurisdiction of that state should be established. But this is not all. There was an inherent defect in the resolutions which rendered them utterly valueless, even in regard to the small portion of the lands to which they applied. It was then a principle of law as well settled as at the present day, that a grant once made could not be recalled by the grantor. If the authority of New York to grant the lands were admitted, she had already parted with her title to them and had no power to regrant them to others. The confirmatory grants which she proposed to make to the New Hampshire occupants, would be of no avail to them as a defence to suits brought against them by the first grantees. The New York courts would declare them utterly null and void. This matter was well understood by the settlers. They had, indeed, been informed in the favorable report of the English board of trade, of December, 1772, that it was out of the power of the crown, or of the government of New York, to annul the patents which had already issued, and in corsequence the board had proposed to the king to recommend to New York to grant other lands to her former patentees in lieu of those which were possessed by purchasers under New Hampshire. The overtures of New York did not propose to make any such indemnity to the first grantees; and they were rendered the more suspicious in this respect by the fact that the resolutions as originally reported, did contain a guarantee of such indemnity, which provision was stricken out in the assembly, by a large majority. This vote seemed to indicate that it was not the intention of the assembly to carry out in good faith even the limited propositions which they had thought good policy required them to make. The insufficiency of these resolutions to meet the real matter in dispute, and their deceptive character were well understood by the claimants under New Hampshire, and were clearly exposed in newspaper publications and also in a pamphlet by Ethan Allen published the following summer. Their defects became so apparent to the public that it was thought expedient by the New York assembly to pass explanatory resolutions, in which after stating that their former resolves "had been misrepresented by some and misunderstood by others," and declaring that "it was impossible to establish any general principle for the determination of all disputes," arising under the conflicting grants, but that "each case must be determined according to its particular merits," proceeded to propose to submit each case "to such persons as the congress of the United States should elect or appoint for that purpose." This proposal, with another of no importance in relation to lands which had not been granted by New York, was made known by proclamation of the governor, dated October 31, 1778. But this, if carried into effect,· would involve every individual settler in a lawsuit before a foreign tribunal, the cost of which, even if the result should be favorable, would be likely to prove his ruin; and it was only regarded as an additional evidence of the continued insincerity and hostility of the New York government. In fact these explanatory resolves, as well as the original overtures of New York, instead of strengthening her interest in the new state, tended greatly to impair it, inasmuch as they showed very clearly that no security for the titles under New Hampshire was to be expected from that government, and that the only course for the inhabitants to take, in order to preserve their property, was to abide by and maintain their new state organization. This, by invalidating the New York patents, would at once cut the |