equipped for war, that had gathered. On the 16th inst. the body assembled; but being so numerous that they could not do business, there was a vote passed, to choose a large committee to represent the whole, and that this committee should consist of men who did not belong to the county of Cumberland, as well as of those that did belong thereto; which was done. After the most critical and impartial examination of evidence, voted, that the heads of them should be confined in Northampton jail, till they could have a fair trial; and those that did not appear so guilty, should be under bonds, holden to answer at the next court of oyer and terminer in On the 17th inst. bonds the county aforesaid; which was agreed to. were taken for those that were to be bound, and the rest set out under a strong guard for Northampton. We, the committee aforesaid, embrace this opportunity to return our most grateful acknowledgments and sincere thanks to our truly wise and patriotic friends in the government of New-Hampshire and the Massachusetts-Bay, for their kind and benevolent interposition in our favour, at such a time of distress and confusion aforesaid; strongly assuring them, that we shall be always ready for their aid and assistance, if by the dispensations of divine providence, we are called thereto. Signed by order of the Committee. REUBEN JONES, Clerk. Cumberland County, March 23d, 1775. Hitherto, the opposition to the claims of New-York had been confined, principally, to the inhabitants on the western side of the mountains. Many of the New-Hampshire grantees, in the vicinity of Connecticut River, had surrendered their original charters, and taken new grants under the authority of New-York; and had, not only submitted, quietly, to the jurisdiction of that colony, but stood unconcerned spectators of the controversy in which the settlers, on the western grants, were so deeply involved. They were not, however, indifferent to the policy pursued by Great Britain towards her American Colonies. Most of the settlers, on the New-Hampshire grants, were emigrants from Massachusetts and Connecticut; and readily sympathised in the feelings which pervaded those Colonies; and which, at this period, were spreading, with an astonishing rapidity, through every part of the country. The Provincial Assembly of New-York had withholden its approbation of the measures recom mended by the Continental Congress; while those measures had received the sanction of every other Colony. These causes, as has been seen in the document just recorded, led the way to an event, which roused a spirit of opposition to New-York, on the eastern side of the mountains. The massacre (as it was called) of the 13th of March, electrified the whole county of Cumberland: and, as if to give a new impulse to the opposition in that quarter, "the principal persons engaged in that massacre, and who had been confined in the jail at Northampton, were released, on application to the chief justice of New-York." This train of events produced, at length, a general disposition to resist the administration of the government of New-York ;-as will appear by the following proceedings. Ar a meeting of Committees appointed by a large body of inhabitants on the east side of the range of Green Mountains, held at Westminster, on the 11th day of April, 1775. 1. VOTED, That Major Abijah Lovejoy be the Moderator of this meeting. 2. VOTED, That Dr. Reuben Jones be the Clerk. 3. VOTED, as our opinion, That our inhabitants are in great danger of having their property unjustly, cruelly, and unconstitutionally taken from them, by the arbitrary and designing administration of the government of New York; sundry instances having already taken place. 4. VOTED, as our opinion, that the lives of those inhabitants are in the utmost hazard and imminent danger, under the present administration. Witness the malicious and horrid massacre of the night of the 13th ult. 5. VOTED, as our opinion, That it is the duty of said inhabitants, as predicated on the eternal and immutable law of self-preservation, to wholly renounce and resist the administration of the government of NewYork, till such time as the lives and property of those inhabitants may be secured by it; or till such time as they can have opportunity to lay their grievances before his most gracious Majesty in Council, together with a proper remonstrance against the unjustifiable conduct of that government; with an humble petition, to be taken out of so oppressive a jurisdiction, and, either annexed to some other government, or erected and incorporated into a new one, as may appear best to the said inhabitants, to the royal wisdom and clemency, and till such time as his Majesty shall settle this controversy. 6. VOTED, That Colonel John Hazeltine, Charles Phelps, Esq. and Colonel Ethan Allen, be a Committee to prepare such remonstrance and petition for the purpose aforesaid. It is difficult to conjecture what would have been the issue of this controversy, had not its progress been suddenly arrested by the commencement of the revolutionary war. The events of the memorable 19th of April, 1775, produced a shock, which was felt to every extremity of the colonies: and "local and provincial contests were, at once, swallowed up by the novelty, the grandeur, and the importance of the contest thus open. ed between Great-Britain and America."+ The commencement of the war, at this period, led to a train of causes intimately connected with the final independence of Vermont. The at Williams' history. tention of New-York was suddenly diverted from the subject of its partic ular controversy, to the higher one, involving the independence of the whole American community; while the final result of the former was necessarily thrown forward to a more distant period. The New-Hamp shire grantees did not fail to profit by this delay. While they never, for a moment, lost sight of the object for which they had so long contended, they improved the delay, in the cultivation of a more perfect union, and in a better organization of their strength; while a violent, irritable state of publick feeling, ill calculated to sustain a long conflict, gradually settled down into a more deliberate, but not less decided, hostility to the claims of New-York. In this state of things, the inhabitants on the grants soon began to feel their importance; and this feeling was not a little strengthened by the signal exploit,* which has given the brave Allen and his companions in arms, so distinguished a place in the annals of the revolution. Their frontier situation peculiarly exposed them to the depredations of the enemy. Their own immediate safety, therefore, as well as a strong sympathy in the general hostility to the mother country, led them to take an early, and a distinguished part in the common cause. With New-York, however, they were determined to have no imme diate connection, even in the common defence. Accordingly, on the 17th of January, 1776, the following petition was forwarded to the Continental Congress. To the Honourable JOHN HANCOCK, Esq. President of the Honourable Continental Congress, &c. &c. now assembled at Philadelphia. The humble petition, address, and remonstrance of that part of America, being situate south of Canada line, west of Connecticut River, north of the Massachusetts Bay, and east of a twenty mile line from Hudson's River; commonly called and known by the name of the New-Hampshire grants, HUMBLY SHEWETH, That your honours petitioners, being fully sensible and deeply affected with the very alarming situation in which the United Colonies are involved, by means of a designing ministry, who have flagrantly used, and are still using their utmost efforts to bring the inhabitants of the very extensive continent of America into a base and servile subjection to arbitrary power, contrary to all the most sacred ties of obligation by covenant, and the well known constitution by which the British empire ought to be governed. Your petitioners, not to be prolix or waste time, when the whole continent are in so disagreeable a situation, would, however, beg leave to remonstrate, in as short terms as possible, the very peculiar situation in which your petitioners have, for a series of years, been exercised, and are still struggling under. Perhaps your honours, or, at *The surprise and capture of the Fort at Tyconderoga, on the 9th of May, 1775. least, some of you, are not unacquainted, that at the conclusion of the last war, the above described premises which your petitioners now inhabit, was deemed and reputed to be in the province of New-Hampshire, and consequently, within the jurisdiction of the same; whereupon, applications were freely made to Benning Wentworth, Esq. then governor of the province of New-Hampshire, who, with the advice of his council, granted, under the great seal of said province, to your honours petitioners, a large number of townships of the contents of six miles square, each; in consequence of which, a great number of your petitioners, who were men of considerable substance, disposed of their interest in their native places, and, with their numerous families, proceeded, many of them, two hundred miles, encountering many dangers, fatigues, and great hardships, to inhabit a desolate wilderness, which is now become a well settled frontier to three governments. This was not at all our trouble; for, soon after the commencement of those settlements, the monopolizing land-traders of New-York, being apprised that the province of New-Hampshire had granted the said lands, and that settlements were actually making, did present a petition, as we have often heard, and verily believe, in your petitioners names, praying, that the same lands, granted by New-Hampshire, might be annexed to the province of New-York, on account of its local and other circumstances, for the benefit of the inhabitants. Your petitioners, not being apprised of the intrigue, in this case, were mute. Therefore, as no objection was made why the prayer of the petition should not be granted, his Majesty was pleased, with advice of council, on the 24th day of July, 1764, to grant the same. Immediately after, the land-traders of New-York petitioned the then governor of that province for grants of lands, some part of which had been previously granted to your petitioners, by the governor and council of New-Hampshire. The dispute then became serious. Your petitioners then petitioned his Majesty for relief in the premises. His Majesty was pleased to appoint a Committee, who reported to his Majesty in the premises, and his Ma jesty was pleased to pass order in the following words : At a Court at St. James's, the 24th day of July, 1767. His Majesty, taking the said report into consideration, was pleased, with the advice of his privy-council, to approve thereof; and doth hereby strictly charge, require, and command, that the governor, or commander in chief, of his Majesty's province of New-York, for the time being, do not, upon pain of his Majesty's highest displeasure, presume to make any grant whatsoever, of any part of the lands described in the said report, until his Majesty's further pleasure should be known concerning the same. A True Copy, (attest.) WILLIAM SHARP. The many intervening and unhappy disputes which have since happened between those land-traders of New-York and your petitioners, would take up too much time, under the present situation of public affairs, to recite; as Capt. Heman Allen and Dr. Jonas Fay, who we have appointed to present this to your honours, will be furnished therewith, should they find your honours admittance, and such particulars be thought necessary. Let it suffice here, only to mention, that the oppressions from these overgrown land-traders of New-York were so grievous, that your petitioners were again induced, at a great expence, to petition his Majesty; in consequence of which, a committee was appointed, and made a report in favour of your petitioners, which is too prolix to be inserted here.* We are called on, this moment, by the Committee of safety for the county of Albany, to suppress a dangerous insurrection in Tryon county. Upwards of ninety soldiers were on their march, within twelve hours after their receiving the news; all inhabitants of one town, inhabited by your petitioners, and all furnished with arms, ammunition, accoutrements, and provisions, &c. Again, we are alarmed by express from gen. Wooster, commanding at Montreal, with the disagreeable news of the unfortunate attack on Quebec, (unfortunate indeed, to lose so brave a commander) requiring our immediate assistance by troops; in consquence of which a considerable number immediately marched for Quebec, and more are daily following their example. Yet, while we, your petitioners, are thus earnestly engaged, we beg leave to say we are entirely willing to do all in our power in the general cause, under the continental congress, and have been, ever since the taking Tyconderoga, &c. in which your petitioners were principally active, under Col. Ethan Allen; but are not willing to put ourselves under the honourable provincial congress of New-York, in such a manner as might, in future, be detrimental to our private property; as the oath to be administered to those who are, or shall be, entrusted with commissions from said congress, and the association agreed upon by the same authority, together with some particular restrictions and orders for regulating the militia of said province, if conformed to by the inhabitants of said NewHampshire grants, will, as we apprehend, be detrimental to your petitioners, in the determination of the dispute now subsisting between said inhabitants and certain claimants under said province of New-York; and that your petitioners' ardent desires of exerting themselves in the present struggle for freedom may not be restrained, and that we might engage in the glorious cause, without fear of giving our opponents any advantage in the said land dispute now subsisting, which we would wish should lie dormant, until a general restoration of tranquility shall allow us the opportunity for an equitable decision of the same. Another reason that much hinders our joining hand and hand with New-York government, *For this report, see page 33. |