USA > Vermont > Men of Vermont : an illustrated biographical history of Vermonters and sons of Vermont > Part 3
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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 necessary go again recruiting, and he added : " I swear by the Lord Lean raise three times the number of our army in Canada, provided you continue the siege."
All these hopes were dissipated by the misadventure at Montreal, Sept. 24. While returning to camp, as he had written to Mont- gomery, Allen met Maj. John Brown, the Pittsfield lawyer, who had in the spring made the reconnoitering expedition into Canada, and had now entered the service, and who was at the head of a force of about two hun- dred Americans and Canadians, and a plan was concocted between them and their offi- cers to surprise and capture Montreal. Brown was that night to cross the, St. Lawrence above the city and Allen below, and at a sig- nal of three huzzas, they were to attack si- multaneously. Brown, for some reason never explained, failed to fulfill his part. Doubtless some unforeseen 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, Oct. 19, 1780, and his story about the Montreal attack was never told. Allen crossed over his force of 110 men, according to agree- ment, taking nearly the whole night for the task, as he had but few canoes. When he failed to get the signal from Brown, he saw he was in a scrape, but concluded 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 attempt. So he dispatched a messenger to Brown and to L'Assumption, 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 placed guards between his position and the town, with orders to let nobody pass or repass. A good many pris- oners were detained in this way early in the day, but one of them managed to escape and went to General Carlton in the city, who had made every preparation to take refuge in his ships, exposed the weakness of Allen's force, and so brought on an attack in the middle of the afternoon, before assistance could arrive. Carlton marched out with a force of about five hundred men, chiefly Canadians and residents of the city, and including only forty regulars. Allen's force was made up of only thirty Americans and eighty Cana- dians, 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 Canadians had deserted him, when he finally surrendered with a force of thirty-one effective 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 con- cert with Brown, or how surely it would have succeeded if Allen had had the co-operation he had a right to depend on. They only knew the consequences of defeat, which were so disastrous, 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 Bostonians ; they are now returned to their duty."
But no such excuse can be urged for the historian, Bancroft, who, writing with all the knowledge of later years, charges that Allen's officers opposed the project, but that he "with boundless rashness indulged himself a vision of surprising Montreal as he had sur- prised Ticonderoga." Even Gov. Hiland Hall was not fair and full when he said the attempt was due to Allen's "ambition to dis- tinguish himself, and add to the laurels won at Ticonderoga." The truth is that the at- tack instead of being a reckless exhibition of Allen's vanity was planned after a full con- sultation, on the united judgment of all the officers in both commands, and it only failed by one of those military accidents which can never be provided against, in Brown's fail- ure to co-operate. Carlton practically ad- mits this in his report 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. The effect of the failure on the Canadians only shows correspondingly how beneficial the effect of success would have been. The people were wavering, chiefly to be on the winning side, inclined to the American side, perhaps, but fearful of the consequences if the British prevailed. What was needed above all else was to impress them with confidence of American success. Delay had dimmed the eclat of Allen's victories on Lake Champlain, but another brilliant stroke, like the capture of Montreal, would revive it, powerfully im- press an imaginative people, and draw them in great masses to the American standard. Allen and Brown had, in their intercourse with the people, learned the importance of such a stroke, and hence the enterprise.
Allen's "narrative" of his captivity gives us all the information we have of it and it
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was full of exciting and characteristic inci- dents. He had just handed over his sword when an Indian rushed up and attempted to shoot him. Allen instantly twitched the officer to whom he had handed his sword between him and the savage. Then another "imp of hell," as Allen described him, at- tacked and Allen only saved himself from being murdered by twitching the officer around him with such swiftness that neither of the Indians could reach him or get aim at him without endangering the officer. He keep this up several seconds until another officer and an Irishman interfered and drove the Indians away. Allen then walked with the officers to Montreal, meet- ing in the barrack yard General Prescott, who, when he learned that it was the Colonel Allen of Ticonderoga fame, broke into a tor- rent of abuse, shook his cane over Allen's head until the latter shook his fist and as- sured the general that it would be "the beetle of mortality" for him if he struck. It would have been interesting to see this af- fair to its conclusion, but other officers stayed its progress by reminding the enraged general that it would be inconsistent with his honor to strike a prisoner. Then Pres- cott, according to Allen's narrative, ordered forward a sergeant's command to kill the thirteen Canadians who were included in the surrender. Allen's magnetic boldness, as so often in his career, here served a use- ful purpose. He stepped between the ex- ecutioner and the prisoners, opened his clothes and told Prescott to thrust the bayo- nets into his breast, for he was the sole cause of the Canadians taking up arms. Prescott was of course thrown into a quandary ; he dared not execute a man of Allen's promi- nence, in violation of the capitulation, and dared not carry out his brutal purpose against the prisoners in the face of such a man's protest. Allen had evidently calcu- lated on all this; his "recklessness" usually had calculation behind it. As he says : "My design was not to die, but to save the Cana- dians by a finesse." 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 eight months of captivity, most of it filled with the most brutal abuse, but relieved with a few gleams of soldierly magnanimity. He was first put on board the ship of war Gaspee in the harbor and kept in irons six weeks. The leg irons he describes as weighing thirty or forty pounds with a bar eight leet long, and so heavy that he could only lie on his back. He wrote to Prescott and Carleton protesting against such usage and contrast- ing it with that he had accorded to the prisoners he took at Ticonderoga ; but with-
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out eliciting a reply, though he was finally transferred to another ship where he was very generously treated. The impression that he always made on manly men was illustrated by the conduct of Captain Littlejohn, the com- mander of the latter ship. The captain swore that a brave man should not be treated like a rascal on board his ship ; he refused to keep Allen in irons, and gave him cabin fare with the officers. So far did this friendship go that when Littlejohn was challenged to a duel he accepted Allen's offer to act as his second, going to the field in disguise, on Allen's pledge of honor that whatever the re- sult of the duel he would return to the ship. But this mark of confidence was prevented by the interference of other British officers who at the last moment settled the contro- versy without fighting. But this polite treat- ment lasted less than a fortnight when, on the appearance of Arnold before Quebec, Allen and the other prisoners were placed on board a merchantman, the Adamant, and shipped to England. Their treatment under the inspiration of a junto of Tories aboard was most villainous. Thirty-four of them were confined, hand-cuffed, in a little room 20X22, so dark that they could not see one another, filled with vermin and an intoler- able stench, denied an adequate supply of water, where suffering from diarrhoea and fever they were compelled to eat, sleep and perform all the offices of life. Allen had a fight before he would go into the filthy in- closure. He first protested against it as a disgrace to honor and humanity, but was told that it was good enough for a rebel, that anything short of a halter was too good for him, and that a halter would be his portion as soon as he reached England. In the course of the dispute a lieutenant among the Tories spit in his face. Allen, hand-cuffed as he was, sprang upon him, knocked him partly down, pursued him in fury to the cabin where the lieutenant, thoroughly frightened, got under the protection of a file of men with fixed bayonets. Allen chal- lenged the man out to meet him in hand- cuffs as he was, which the cowering fellow would not do. But the soldiers finally forced Allen at the point of the bayonet into the hole.
Arriving at Falmouth, in England, he and his men were shut up for a few weeks while the ministry decided what to do with him. He was a subject of general interest. Bets were laid in London that he would be hanged. Parliament debated the question. Crowds of people came to see what, up to that time, was the most romantic, and, be- cause of what he had done, the most feared, figure of the Revolution. He often, while walking in the spacious parade of the castle, would stop and harangue the crowds assem-
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bled to see him, telling of the impractica- bility of Britain's conquering the colonies, expatiating on American freedom, and im- pressing all with his boldness in such talk while the question of his execution was still under consideration. It was a part of a shrewd game of bluff. Another part he humorously details in telling how he " came Yankee" over the prison authorities. He asked for the privilege of writing a letter to Congress, which the commander of the castle granted after consultation with a su- perior officer. Allen wrote in this letter of his ill-treatment, how he and his companions were kept in irons by General Carleton's order, but urged Congress to desist front retaliation until the results of the treatment of himself and companions were known, and then that the retaliation should be, " not according to the smallness of my character in America, but in proportion to the impor- tance of the cause for which I suffered." The letter, of course, went, as expected, straight to Lord North instead of Congress, and its design, as Allen says, was " to intimi- date the haughty English government and screen my neck from the halter." Another thing that helped him is that there was an attempt to win him back to the British cause. This fact has been found by B F. Stevens in official correspondence in the British archives at London. 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 re- stored 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 sympathy of liberal-minded people. He learned after- wards, he says, that there was a move for a writ of habeas corpus to obtain for him his liberty. In consequence of all this, it was determined in cabinet meeting, Dec. 27, to get rid of the problem by ordering Allen and his associates to be returned to America as prisoners of war, and he was, Jan. 8, 1776, placed in irons on board the man-of-war Solebay, Captain Symonds, where he again had to undergo harsh and brutal treatment. When the fleet rendezvoused at Cork some benevolent gen- tlemen in that city undertook to supply the prisoners with the necessaries which the ship's officers denied, and sent aboard com- plete outfits of clothing, with sea stores,
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meats, wines and liquors, most of which Captain Symonds promptly appropriated, swearing that the "damned American rebels" should not be feasted by the "damned rebels of Ireland." A few guineas of money from his generous friends, however, did remain with Allen, and his conclusion from this af- fair and his other experience was that as a people the Irish "excel in liberality and gen- crosity." He tells of a characteristic encon- ter he had with the captain sometime after they left Cork. The purser was ordered not to sell to Allen some medical supplies of which he was in need, and when Allen remonstrated, saying he was sick, the captain replied that it did not matter how soon he was dead; he was not anxious to preserve the lives of rebels. Allen again contrasted, as he was fond of doing, the treatment of their pris- oners by the Americans, and argued that as the English government had not proceeded against him as a capital offender, English officers had no right to, but as he had been acquitted by being sent back as a prisoner of war he was entitled to be treated as such. Furthermore, it was not policy for them by harsh usage to destroy his life, for if living he might redeem one of their officers. The captain retorted in a rage that the Brit- ish would surely conquer the rebels, hang Congress and the leaders, Allen in par- ticular, and retake their own prisoners, so that his life was of no consequence in their policy ; besides it was not owing to the hu- manity of the Yankees, but their timidity, that they treated prisoners so well. This was really the prevalent idea up to Burgoyne's surrender. Allen's reply was that if they waited until they conquered America before they hung him he should die of old age, and in the meantime lie would like to purchase of the purser with his own money such arti- cles as he really needed. Allen came off first best in the argument as he usually did ; but he did not get the permission. The fleet proceeded by way of Madiera to Cape Fear in North Carolina, where the prisoners were all collected and put on board the frig- ate Mercury, Capt. James Montague, who was even more bigotedly brutal in his treat- ment. He even forbade his surgeon to ad- minister help to any sick prisoner, many of whom were suffering with scurvy, and cut their food down to barely a third of the usual allowance. Allen shared equally with the rest, though the men offered him more. From Cape Fear they went to Halifax, ar- riving about the middle of June, where Allen managed to secure some alteration of their treatment by sending a letter of complaint through a sympathetic guard to Governor Arbuthnot, who ordered them transferred to the Halifax jail. Allen, however, there suf- fered severely from jail distemper, for which
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he found a remedy in raw onions, which the other prisoners used to advantage. In Octo- ber they were sent on board the Lark frigate, bound for New York, Captain Smith, who drew the first tears of his captivity from Allen by his kindly and cordial treatment, inviting him to dinner and assuring him that he should be treated with respect by the whole crew. Smith, it appears, had before got him- self into trouble with some of his superiors by his vigorous protests against their inhu- man conduct towards the prisoners. Allen expressed, as best he could, his gratitude at this unexpected kindness, and his fear that it would never be in his power to return the favor.
Smith replied, like the hearty tar, the true soldier he was, that he had no reward in view ; he only aimed to treat his prisoner as a gentleman should be treated ; but this, he said, is a mutable world, and one gentleman never knows how soon it may be in his power to help another. This came true sooner than he ever knew, for while the ship was skirting along the coast, one of the prisoners, Captain Burk, formed a conspiracy with an under officer and some of the crew of the ship to kill the captain and the principal officers and take the ship with £35,000 sterling in the hold, into one of the Ameri- can ports. They laid the plan before Allen and urged him to enlist the other prisoners in the design. Allen refused absolutely and showed what a sorry return it was for the chivalric kindness they had received. Asked to remain neutral, he gave emphatic notice that he would fight by Captain Smith's side if the attempt was made, but he assured them that if they would give up the project he would respect their confidence and keep the secret, guarding their lives with the same honor as he would Captain Smith's, and such was his power over men and their faith in him that the matter rested right there.
In November the prisoners were landed in New York, where he was placed on parole and remained for eighteen months in com- parative comfort himself, though he tells a harrowing story of the way the private sol- diers were treated. He exerted himself a good deal to alleviate their condition, but with little success. He held Sir William Howe personally responsible for these cruel- ties and in his "narrative" in his extravagant style denounces him and James Loring, a Tory, and the commissary of prisoners, especially, as "the most mean-spirited, cow- ardly, deceitful and detestable animals in God's creation below, and legions of infer- nal devils, with all their tremendous horrors, are impatiently ready to receive Howe and him with all their detestable accomplices into the most exquisite agonies of the hottest regions of hell fire."
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Of the thirty-one men captured with him two died in imprisonment, three were ex- changed and all the rest made their escape at one time or another. It was while at New York that the second attempt was made to seduce his allegiance, by an officer 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 regiment of Tories ; pro- posed to send him back to England to be introduced to Lord George Germaine, and probably to the King, and return with Bur- goyne ; he should be paid richly in gold, in- stead of rag money, and receive for his ser- vices in reducing the country a large tract of land in Connecticut or Vermont, as he pre- ferred. Allen replied that if by fidelity he had recommended himself to General Howe, he "should be loth by unfaithfulness to lose the general's good opinion ; besides, I view his offer of land to be similar to that which the devil offered our Saviour, to give him all the kingdoms of the world to fall down and worship him, when the poor devil had not one foot of land on earth."
Allen was exchanged May 3, 1778, for Colonel Alexander Campbell, and after two days of courteous entertainment at General Campbell's headquarters he crossed New Jersey to Valley Forge, where he was enter- tained by Washington for several days and received marked honors from Putnam, 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 ser- vices to the cause in any capacity where he could be useful, and then proceeded to Ben- nington, going most of the way in company with Gates, who treated him royally, and everywhere being received with acclamations by the people, and reaching home Sunday evening, May 31, where the expressions of love and enthusiasm could not be restrained, even in that orthodox populace, and cannon 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 Salisbury, Conn., while he was on his journey home. His only son had died dur- ing his captivity. His wife, in feeble health, and four daughters were in Sunderland.
He at once asserted his old powers of leadership. Another characteristic incident introduced him to it. David Redding had been convicted of treason and sentenced to be hanged. A rehearing was petitioned for on the ground that his conviction was a vio- lation of the common law, being by a jury of six instead of twelve. Governor Chitten- den had granted a reprieve to June II. The populace, very bitter against Redding, was
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disappointed, angry, and threatening to take the law into its own hands, when Allen ap- peared and cried : " 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 crowd obeyed. Allen was appointed attor- ney for the state at the next trial, and he seenred Redding's conviction.
He was selected to write a reply to a pro- clamation of clemency issued by Governor Clinton the February previous, in which the New York Governor charged .Vermont's wrongs to the British government while New York was a colony, and offered to recall the outlawry act, to revoke all unjust prefer- ence in grants, reduce the quit rents to the New Hampshire basis, make the fees of patents reasonable, and confirm all grants made by New Hampshire. Allen's reply, in a pamphlet, was skillful, and made clear the impracticability of what seemed and doubt- less was intended to be a fair proposition. He showed that as a matter of fact most of the New Hampshire and Massachusetts grants had been covered by New York pat- ents and that as a matter of law it was impos- sible for New York to cancel her former grants, and cited the opinion 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 existed."
He was three times sent on embassies to Congress, first in August, 1778, with reference to the trouble with New Hampshire over the "Eastern union." He performed the delicate duties with great tact and reported strongly advising the dissolution of that union and saying that unless it was done "the nation will annihilate Vermont." He was again sent in 1779 with Jonas Fay, to defend the new state's action, 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 Council of America" but considering all the embar- rassments of the country "would be far from urging a decision *
* until you can have leisure to take it up deliberately." 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 performed with skill and address.
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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 acknowledgment of Vermont's independence. He was, in October, 1779, though not a member of the Assembly, appointed chairman of a commit- tee, consisting of himself, Reuben Jones, Nathan Clark, and John kassett, "to form the outlines of a plan to be pursned for de- fense before Congress against the neighbor- ing states in consequence of a late act of that body." He was repeatedly appointed on legislative committees when not a member.
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