Governor Tryon's Attempt to make Peace.-Realizing the difficulty of subduing the grantees by force, Governor Tryon determined to see what could be done by negotiation. Accordingly he wrote a letter to the Rev. Dr. Dewey and the people of Bennington and vicinity inviting them to lay before him their causes of complaint and expressing a strong desire to do them justice.

A committee appointed for the purpose, of which the Rev. Dr. Dewey was one, prepared letters in answer to the Governor's, again declaring the titles to their lands as legal, and saying further that their acts, which had been called riotous and disorderly, were necessary and right, and that they had not resisted the New York government, but land jobbers who were trying to deprive them of their lands. This was indeed true. The quarrel was not with New York, many of whose people were in firm sympathy with the settlers, but with a few unscrupulous public officers and speculators, who wished to enrich themselves through fraudulent means, and paid little heed to the oftrepeated command of the king to desist until his pleasure should be known.

These letters were delivered to the Governor by Captain Stephen Fay and his son, of Bennington, who laid them before the New York council. After considering them, the council agreed that no prosecutions should be made for crimes with which the settlers were charged, and that all civil suits brought against them by owners of land under New York grants should be stopped till they might know the pleasure of the king, provided that the settlers would take no steps to dispossess New York claimants of land for the same period. This was agreed to in a convention at Bennington shortly after the return of the agents.

There was now great rejoicing in the grants, for the people believed that their troubles were about to end. But peace was not yet in sight. While these negotiations were going on, the settlers heard that Cockburn, a noted New York surveyor, was measuring land north of them for New York claimants. Ethan Allen and a small party went in search of him, and overtook him on the Onion (Winooski) River; after breaking his instruments, they took him prisoner.

On their return they stopped at the First Falls of the Otter Creek, where Vergennes now stands, to drive away the tenants of Colonel Reid, a New York patentee who had previous to this time dispossessed a Mr. Pangborn, a New Hampshire grantee, who had first settled there and built a sawmill. Reid had not only appropriated the sawmill to his own use, but had also taken possession of 150 sawn logs and 14,000 feet of pine boards and had built a grist-mill. The Green Mountain Boys now drove Reid's tenants away, broke the stones of the grist-mill, and reestablished the original settlers.

When Governor Tryon heard of these doings, he sent a letter of sharp rebuke to the inhabitants of the grants, requiring them to restore to the tenants of Colonel Reid their land and tenements. The committee prepared a conciliatory answer, declaring that it was not a breach of good faith on their part, as the proposition of Governor Tryon had not been accepted by the Committee of Safety when these transactions took place. The Governor did not answer this communication, and it was soon apparent that the attempt at reconciliation had been a failure.

Colonel Reid returns, but not to remain.-Colonel Reid, determined to maintain his title, came back the next sum

mer with a party of Scotch emigrants who had but recently come over, and for a second time drove the first settlers away. By hooping the millstones he again made the grist-mill serviceable; and, after having several log huts erected, he returned to New York, giving his tenants orders to hold possession against all claimants.

About two months after this, Allen, Warner, and Baker, with over a hundred armed men, appeared on the ground and warned the tenants to depart, explaining to them that the land did not belong to Colonel Reid and that he had but imposed upon them. At first they resisted, but, finally convinced of the truth of the matter, withdrew. The houses were then burned and the crops destroyed by turning the horses loose into the fields; and the millstones were broken in pieces and thrown over the falls. The boltcloth, cut in pieces by Remember Baker, was worn away by the men as cockades in their hats.

The original settlers were again reinstated; and, to keep out intruders in the future, the Green Mountain Boys built a blockhouse at the falls, and this was garrisoned by a small number of men. They also erected a second one near the lower falls of the Winooski to prevent the intrusion of New York claimants upon the rich lands of that section.

Punishments for Violation of the Decrees made by the Committees of Safety.-What punishments should be inflicted upon those who violated the decrees made by the Committees of Safety was left to the decision of the court. The most common modes of punishment were banishment from the grants and the application of the "beech seal," as that process was called where punishment was inflicted by means of beech rods applied with great severity to the

naked back of the offender. A Mr. Hough, who had attempted to hold office under New York authority, was condemned to receive 200 stripes upon the naked back. This method, though primitive, was effectual; and in that age, when whipping was a common mode of punishment, it did not occasion the censure with which it would be met to-day.

89041

A convention at Manchester, in 1774, forbade any person to act as an officer under a commission from the New York government under penalty of being "viewed." This

Catamount Tavern at Bennington.

Called also Green Mountain Tavern, and Landlord Fay's.

was a kind of punishment practised almost exclusively in Bennington and, like some of the other penalties, was more ludicrous than severe. A Doctor Adams, of Arlington, suffered this unique penalty because of his persistent sympathy with New York officials. He was first tied into an armchair and then drawn up to the top of the signpost of the Green Mountain Tavern, upon the top of which stood the stuffed hide of a great catamount, that always looked grinning toward New York. There he was allowed to remain for two hours, to the great merriment of the bystanders.

Incensed by such acts on the part of the Green Mountain Boys, the New York officers became more arbitrary and insolent than ever; and, as they held their positions by appointment and did not depend on the vote of the people, they made no attempt to please the settlers and consequently grew more and more to be disliked by them.

Benjamin Spencer of Clarendon was an offender of this class, and had furthermore bought land under New York authority. He was acquainted with the fact that he was violating the laws of the Green Mountain Boys, but, paying no heed to the warning, was taken prisoner by them, tried in their court, and found guilty. As punishment the Green Mountain Boys took off the roof of his house, and would not put it on again until he had promised to mend his ways and give them no further trouble.

A Scheme. The more arbitrary and unjust the New York officials, the greater the spirit of opposition on the part of the grantees, until finally a plan was created among some of the leading spirits of the grants to withdraw from the jurisdiction of New York and form a separate royal province of the grants and a portion of eastern New York, making Colonel Philip Skene, of Skenesboro, the governor of the new colony. Whatever might have come of this we can only conjecture; but at all events the grantees had gained the sympathy of the crown, and had every reason to believe that their lands would be in time confirmed to them. However, a long and bloody contest would probably have ensued, had not the breaking out of the Revolutionary War compelled the disputants to turn their energies to fighting a common enemy.