USA > Vermont > Encyclopedia, Vermont biography; a series of authentic biographical sketches of the representative men of Vermont and sons of Vermont in other states. 1912 > Part 2
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'Meanwhile, Allen's efforts had borne fruit, and in view of her defenseless con- : on it was decided to send two armies iroit Canada before reenforcements could arrive from England. Arnold was to go
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by way of the Kennebec, Schuyler and Montgomery by way of Lake Champlain and the Richelieu. Allen, who had nat- urally regarded himself as the logical leader of the enterprise, was not even in- eluded in the list of officers. When, how- ever, Schuyler invited him to accompany the expedition, with the understanding that he should be regarded as an officer, and have command of detachments as oc- casion required, he accepted. Schuyler sent him on several expeditions "preach- ing politics" and extending the work he had so hopefully begun of arousing and organizing the people of Canada into sup- port of the Revolution. He met with sweep- ing success; the Canadians guided and guarded him through the woods; enthu- siastic crowds greeted him in the villages ; the Canghnawaga Indians, some of whom had been among the British skirmishers, sent him assurances that they would not take up arms on either side. September 20 he wrote to General Montgomery that he had 250 Canadians under arms, and that he could raise one or two thousand in a week's time, but would first visit the army with a less number and if neces- sary go again recruiting, and he added: "I swear by the Lord I can raise three times the number of our army in Canada, provided you continue the siege."
While returning to camp, as he had written to Montgomery, Allen met Maj. John Brown, who was at the head of a force of about two hundred Americans and Canadians, and a plan was concocted between them and their officers to sur- prise and capture Montreal. Brown was to eross the St. Lawrence above the city and Allen below on the night of Sept. 23, and at a signal of three huzzas they were to attack simultaneously. Brown, for some reason never explained, failed to fulfill his part. Doubtless some unfore- seen obstacle prevented, for he was a brave and capable officer; but he was killed at Stone Arabia, in the Mohawk valley, in a battle with the Tories and Indians, Oet. 19, 1780, and his story about the Montreal attack was never told. Allen crossed over with his foree of 110 men, according to agreement, taking near- ly the whole night for the task, as he had but few canoes. When he failed to get the signal from Brown, he coneluded to stand his ground, as he could not get off
over a third of his force at a time, and the enemy would surely discover the at- tempt. So he dispatched a messenger to Brown and to L'Assomption, a French settlement where lived a Mr. Walker, who was on the side of the patriots, to hurry on assistance. Allen's hope was to hold his ground until aid could arrive, and Walker had raised a considerable force to march to him when he learned of his surrender. Allen had placed guards be- tween his position and the town, with orders to let nobody pass or repass. A good many prisoners were detained in this way early in the day, but one of them managed to escape and went to General Carleton in the city, who had made every preparation to take refuge in his ships, exposed the weakness of Allen's foree, and it was decided to attack Allen in the mid- dle of the afternoon, before assistance could reach him. Carleton marched out with about five hundred men, chiefly Cana- dians and residents of the city, and in- eluding only forty regulars. Allen's force was made up of only 30 Americans and 80 Canadians, but he was in a well- selected position, and he defended it bravely and skillfully for an hour and three-quarters, until nearly all his Cana- dians had deserted him, when he finally surrendered with a force of thirty-one ef- fective men and seven wounded, on being assured good quarters for himself and men.
Schuyler and Montgomery both com- mented severely in letters and reports on Allen's rashness in making the attack single-handed, and this view was excusable with the information they had at the time. They knew nothing apparently of the plan of concert with Brown, or how sure- ly it would have succeeded if Allen had had the co-operation he had a right to de- pend on. They only knew the eonse- quences of defeat, which were so dis- astrous, putting "the French people into great consternation," as Warner wrote, and "changing the face of things," as a Tory wrote to Governor Franklin of New Jersey (the son of the great Benjamin Franklin). "The Canadians," he added, "were before nine-tenths for the Bos- tonians; they are now returned to their duty." The truth is that the attack in- stead of being a reckless exhibition of Allen's vanity was planned after a full
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consultation, on the united judgment of all the officers in both commands, and it only failed by one of those military ac- cidents which can never be provided against, in Brown's failure to co-operate. Carleton practically admits this in his re- port when he shows how poorly prepared Montreal was for attack, and how he was on the point of abandoning the city when he learned from the escaped prisoner of Allen's weakness.
Allen's captivity was full of exciting and characteristic incidents. He had just handed over his sword when an Indian attempted to shoot him. Allen instantly twitched the officer to whom he had handed his sword between him and the savage. Then another attacked him, and Allen only saved himself from being mur- dered by twitching the officer around him with such swiftness that neither of the Indians could reach him without endanger- ing the officer, until another officer and an Irishman drove the Indians away. Allen then walked with the officers to Montreal, meeting in the barrack yard General Prescott, who, when he learned that it was the Colonel Allen of Ticonderoga fame, broke into a torrent of abuse, shook his cane over Allen's head, until the lat- ter shook his fist and assured the general that it would be "the beetle of mortality" for him if he struck. Then Prescott, ac- cording to Allen's narrative, ordered for- ward a sergeant's command to kill the thirteen Canadians who were included in the surrender. Allen stepped between the executioner and the prisoners, and told Prescott to thrust the bayonets into his breast, for he was the sole cause of the Canadians taking up arms. Prescott, after a little hesitation, replied with an oath: "I will not execute you now, but you shall grace a halter at Tyburn."
Then began Allen's two years and seven months of captivity. He was first put on board the ship of war Gaspe in the har- bor and kept in irons six weeks. The leg irons he describes as weighing thirty or forty pounds with a bar eight feet long, and so heavy that he could only lie on his back. He wrote to Prescott and Carleton protesting against such usage and con- trasting it with that he had accorded to the prisoners he took at Ticonderoga, but without eliciting a reply, though he was finally transferred to another ship where
he was very generously treated. But this polite treatment lasted less than a fort- night, when, on the appearance of Arnold before Quebec, Allen and the other pris- oners were placed on board a merchant- man, the Adamant, and shipped to Eng- land. Their treatment aboard this ship was most villainous. Thirty-four of them were confined, handcuffed, in a little room 20x22, so dark that they could not see one another, filled with vermin and an intolerable stench, without an adequate supply of water, where, suffering from diarrhea and fever, they were compelled to eat, slecp, and perform all the offices of life. Allen protested against it as a disgrace to honor and humanity, but was told that it was good enough for a rebel. In the course of the dispute a lieutenant among the Tories spit in his face. Allen, handcuffed as he was, sprang upon him, knocked him partly down, pursued him in fury to the cabin, where the lieutenant, thoroughly frightened, put himself under the protection of a file of men with fixed bayonets.
Upon their arrival at Falmouth, Eng- land, Allen and his men were con- fined in Pendennis Castle, near that city. The government was evidently puzzled just what to do with him. Bets were made in London that he would be hanged ; but the Tory ministry hesitated to take this step, through fear of the great Whig leaders, who favored a more conciliatory policy toward the colonies. In the story of his captivity which he afterward pub- lished, he relates that an attempt was made to bribe him into joining the royal- ist cause. An "officer of high rank," whose name does not appear, was sent to him to represent that the injuries he had suffered from New York arose from an abuse of an order in council, and if he would return to allegiance to the king he should have a full pardon, his lands be restored to him, he and his men sent back to Boston, and he placed in command of a company of rangers; but if he refused they must all be disposed of as the law directs-a delicate way of intimating that he would grace a gallows. Allen only makes a brief allusion to this incident. But the event shows that he spurned the bribe and dared the government to do its worst. His bold demeanor won the sym- pathy of liberal-minded people. He
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learned afterwards, he says, that there was a move for a writ of habeas corpus to obtain for him his lberty.
At length, at a cabinet meeting on Dec. 27, it was decided that he and his associates should be sent back to America and detained there as prisoners of war. Early in January, 1776, they were ac- cordingly placed on board a man-of-war, and Allen put in irons. They were taken first to Cork Harbor, Ireland, then to the North Carolina coast, and later to Hali- fax, where they were kept for several months, being transferred from one ship to another and treated with various de- grees of inhumanity as the temper of the different commanding officers dictated. Finally, in November, 1776, they were landed in New York, then in British con- trol. where Allen was placed on parole, and remained for eighteen months in eom- parative comfort, though he tells a har- rowing story of the way in which the pri- vate soldiers were treated. He exerted himself a good deal to alleviate their con- dition, but with little success. Of the thirty-one men captured with him two died in imprisonment, three were ex- changed. and all the rest made their es- cape at one time or another. It was while at New York that the second attempt was made to seduee his allegiance, by an of- ficer who came to his lodgings, told him that his fidelity, though in a wrong cause, had recommended him to General Howe, who wished to make him colonel of a regi- ment of Tories; proposed to send him baek to England to be introduced to Lord George Germaine, and probably to the king, and return with Burgoyne; he should be paid riehly in gold, and receive for his services in reducing the country a large traet of land in Connecticut or Vermont, as he preferred. According to his own story he refused the offer with characteristic emphasis, likening it to the temptation of "our Saviour" in the wilder- ness.
Allen was exchanged May 3, 1778, for Col. Alexander Campbell, and after two days of courteous entertainment at Gen- eral Campbell's headquarters erossed New Jersey to Valley Forge, where he was en- tertained by Washington for several days and received marked honors from Put- nam, Gates, Lafayette, Steuben and all the officers and men who were heroically
maintaining the country's cause in its very darkest hour. He wrote a letter to Congress offering his services to the cause in any eapaeity where he could be useful, and then proceeded to Bennington, going most of the way in company with Gates, everywhere being received with acclama- tions by the people, and reaching home Sunday evening, May 31, where the ex- pressions of love and enthusiasm could not be restrained, even in that orthodox popu- lace, and eannon boomed welcome from the people, who had long supposed him dead. Fourteen guns were fired, one for each state and one for Vermont. His brother Heman had just died at Salis- bury, Conn., while he was on his journey home. His only son had died during his captivity. His wife, in feeble health, and four daughters were in Sunderland.
He at once asserted his old powers of leadership. David Redding had been eon- vieted of treason and sentenced to be hanged. A rehearing had been petitioned for on the ground that his conviction was a violation of the common law, being by a jury of six instead of twelve. Governor Chittenden had granted a reprieve to June 11. The populace, very bitter against Redding, was disappointed, angry, and threatening to take the law into its own hands, when Allen appeared and eried: "Attention, the whole!" and he proceeded to explain the illegality of the trial, and told the people to go home and return in a week, and they should "see a man hung; if not Redding, I will be." The erowd obeyed. Allen was ap- pointed attorney for the state at the next trial, and he secured Redding's conviction.
He was selected to write a reply to a proclamation of clemency issued by Gov- ernor Clinton the February previous, in which the New York governor charged Vermont's wrongs to the British govern- ment while New York was a colony, and offered to recall the outlawry aet, to re- voke all unjust preference in grants, re- duce the quit rents to the New Hamp- shire basis, make the fees of patents rea- sonable, and confirm all grants made by New Hampshire. Allen's reply, in a pamphlet, was skillful, and made clear the impractieability of what seemed and doubtless was intended to be a fair propo- sition. He showed that as a matter of fact most of the New Hampshire and Massa-
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chusetts grants had been covered by New York patents and that as a matter of law it was impossible for New York to can- cel her former grants, and cited the opin- ion of the lords of trade to that effect. Many people had been eager to accede to Governor Clinton's terms, but Allen's argument was so strong, the rights of self- government so well stated, that the tide of public opinion was completely turned. Probably it prevented a dissolution of the state government. Here again, as well as in the initial stages of the controversy, was it true, as his best biographer, Henry Hall, says: "But for him the state of Vermont would probably never have ex- isted."
He was three times sent on embassies to Congress, first in August, 1778, with ref- erence to the trouble with New Hamp- shire over the "Eastern union." He per- formed the delicate duties with great tact and reported, strongly advising the dissolu- tion of that union and saying that unless it was done "the nation will annihilate Ver- mont." He was again sent in 1779 with Jonas Fay, to defend the new state's ac- tion, and to show Congress, as they wrote July 1, 1779, that they were "willing that every part of the conduct of the people we represent should at any convenient time be fully laid before the Grand Coun- cil of America," but, considering all the embarrassments of the country, "would be far from urging a decision * * until you can have leisure to take it up deliberate- ly." The third mission was with Fay, Stephen R. Bradley, Moses Robinson and Paul Spooner in 1780 to defend Vermont's case against the claims of all three of the adjoining states, and the duties were per- formed with skill and address.
He was also, Oct. 19, 1799, appointed agent to wait on the Council and General Court of Massachusetts to negotiate for an abandonment of the pretensions which the latter state had raised to jurisdiction over Vermont, and to secure her acknowl- edgment of Vermont's independence. He was, in October, 1779, though not a mem- ber of the Assembly, appointed chairman of a committee, consisting of himself. Reuben Jones, Nathan Clark, and John Fassett, "to form the outlines of a plan to be pursued for defense before Congress against the neighboring states in conse- quence of a late act of that body." He
was repeatedly appointed on legislative committees when not a member. He was elected to the Legislature from Arlington, though his "usual home" was in Benning- ton and his family lived in Sunderland, and he was allowed to act, though he re- fused to take the oath expressing belief in the divine inspiration of the Bible and profession of the Protestant religion.
His military service after his release from captivity was confined entirely to his own state. Congress gave him the commis- sion of brevet brigadier-general, but did not call him into the field. Perhaps the reason was the suspicion of his loyalty that soon became rife. The third effort to seduce him was publicly known before he knew it. The Legislature made him major-general and commander-in-chief of the Vermont militia, and he held the po- sition for two years, but no active service was required except to guard the frontiers. In February, 1780, Col. Beverly Robin- son, a Virginia Tory, wrote him a letter alluding to the Vermont feeling over its treatment by Congress and inviting a ne- gotiation with the British. The letter was delivered to him on the streets of Arling- ton in July. Allen showed it to Gover- nor Chittenden and the leading men of the state, and it was decided to pay no atten- tion to it. The next March, however. while the Haldimand negotiation was in full progress, Allen sent the letter, with a duplicate which Robinson had im- patiently forwarded, to Congress, with a long screed of his own, well calculated to impress Congress with the idea that it was running a great risk of driving Vermont to the other side by its unjust treatment. He said he was confident Congress would not dispute his sincere attachment to the cause of his country, though he did not hesitate to declare that he was fully "grounded in the opinion that Vermont had an indubitable right to agree on terms of cessation of hostilities with Great Britain, provided the United States persisted in rejecting her applica- tion for a union with them; for Vermont of all people would be the most miserable were she obliged to defend the independ- ence of the United States, and they at the same time claiming full liberty to over- turn and ruin the independence of Ver- mont." He closed with the characteristic words: "I am as resolutely determined to
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defend the independence of Vermont as Congress is that of the United States, and rather than fail, will retire with my hardy Green Mountain Boys into the desolate caverns of the mountains and wage war with human nature at large."
The Haldimand negotiations are more fully discussed in the sketch of Ira Al- len, whose consummate shrewdness con- ducted them to success. Ethan Allen was in the secret of them all, and at the time had to bear more of the suspicion and odium than any other man, but his part was chiefly that of counsellor, with very little of the active work. There is reason for believing that he told Washington all about them in the beginning, and that the policy of protecting Vermont by fooling the British had the tacit approval of the country's chieftain. There is no chance for reasonable belief that Allen ever for a moment contemplated treason to the American cause; he had twice spurned of- fers when far more alluring. He was con- stantly and carefully looking after the arms and equipments of the state, to keep her in the best condition for defense. In December, 1780, even while the charges of treason were getting loudest against him, he was negotiating with Governor Trumbull of Connecticut for two tons of powder, to resist an invasion from Can- ada. He offered, April 14, 1781, when there seemed to be a chance that the Brit- ish could no longer be kept off by diplo- macy, in a letter to Governor Clinton, his own services and those of two other Ver- mont officers to defend New York against invaders.
The only question is whether in his de- ceit of the British he went beyond the lines of honor. The worst piece of evi- dence is a letter written to Haldimand, June 16, 1782, and closing with these words: "I shall do everything in my pow- er to render this a British province." The letter was unsigned, but has generally been believed to have been written by him. Allen, as commander of the Vermont army in 1781, concluded a truee with the British forees while the negotiations were in progress, and he got the northern parts and frontier of New York included in it. He reported these doings to Colonel Web- ster and General Schuyler, and warned the latter of a project to capture his per- son. assuring him that the "surmises of
my corresponding with the enemy to the prejudice of the United States are wholly without foundation." Captain Sherwood, who came to Allen's headquarters at Castleton as an envoy from Haldimand, reported Allen as bargaining hypothet- ically for himself and for the state, but the report of his terms concludes with this significant condition: "If, however, Con- gress should grant Vermont a seat in that assembly as a separate state, then these negotiations to be at an end and be kept secret on both sides."
But the wildest reports of his treachery flew about the country. Some of them even represented him at the head of British troops in Canada. The feeling grew at home and finally focused in an arraign- ment before the Legislature in November, 1782, for misconduct in the armistice. This is what appears in the "Governor and Couneil" minutes as the "Captain Hotchkiss Resolutions." The record is very meagre. Fay and Bradley, who were on his staff at Castleton, testified, and ap- parently convinced all that nothing im- proper had been done. Allen resigned his commission, evidently deeply hurt that after all he had done for the people he should be subject to such suspicion, that, as he said, "such false and ignominious aspersions" were entertained against him for a moment, and he indignantly left the house, declaring that he would "hear no more of it." The Legislature appointed a committee of two to express the state's thanks for Allen's services, and then ac- cepted the resignation which Allen had of- fered "because there was uneasiness among some of the people on account of his command ;" but he patriotically said he would ever be ready "to serve the state according to his abilities," if ever neces- sary.
The next spring he was chosen gen- eral of the brigade of militia, but refused to accept, though with a repetition of his promise to serve the state in an un- official capacity in case of need. In De- cember, 1781, when New York attempted force to get control of the state, Allen was present with the force of Vermont militia that defeated the project, not nominally in command, but evidently at the request of Governor Chittenden, as his account against the state for that service was allowed.
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The rest of his days were passed in private life, but with recognition on every side as the leader of the state. In 1782 he was called to the field, as he had been two years previously, to quiet the rebel- lious "Yorkers" in Windham county, and when his party was fired on by ambushed men in Guilford he walked into the town on foot and gave his famous warning that unless the inhabitants of the town peace- fully submitted to the authority of the state of Vermont he would "lay it as deso- late as Sodom and Gomorrah." When Shay's rebellion was started in Massachu- setts, messengers were sent to him offering him the chief command, but he contemptu- ously refused it, ordered the messengers out of the state, notified the Massachu- setts authorities, and also exerted himself vigorously to prevent the insurgents from making Vermont a place of refuge. Though so long posted as an outlaw, though a leader of revolutionists and a discourser on human rights through all his active career, and though seemingly so recklessly extravagant in his talk, he was always the friend of law and order.
In 1787 he moved to Burlington, where he devoted himself to farming. He died, Feb. 12, 1789, at the age of only fifty- one, soon after returning from South Hero, where he had been for a load of hay, and had spent the afternoon and evening previous, at the invitation of Col. Eben- ezer Allen, with a party of old friends. On the journey his negro attendant spoke to him several times and received no re- ply, and on reaching home he was found to be unconscious with apoplexy. He died a few hours later. He was buried with military honors, and his remains rest in Green Mount Cemetery in Burlington, overlooking the beautiful valley of the Winooski. The Legislature in 1855 or- dered a monument to be erected over his grave, a Tuscan column of granite 42 feet high, and 4 1-2 feet in diameter. A com- manding statue of him designed by Mead, of Vermont marble, stands in the portico of the capitol at Montpelier. Another by the same great sculptor, of Italian marble, is in the capitol at Washington. The earliest statue of him was modeled by B. H. Kinney, a native of Sunderland, back in the early fifties. It was pro- nounced by aged people who had seen him an excellent likeness, but it is still pri-
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