USA > Vermont > Windsor County > Windsor > The birthplace of Vermont; a history of Windsor to 1781 > Part 26
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Of all the steps advised by the Committee on Programme, the two most striking were, of course, the efforts to unite the whole of the Grants to the support of the New State project and the temporary resistance of New York law. Why a per- manent instead of a provisional resistance was not prescribed is not explained, but perhaps the reason lay in a doubt as to the success of securing the united support of the inhabitants in the New State idea. As a whole, the programme was so strong that after its approval by the convention, one is rather surprised at the comparatively weak "covenant or compact" which the delegates next proceeded to frame. Evidently there was dissension immediately after the adoption of the report of the Committee on Programme. A recess was ordered until the afternoon, and the entire afternoon's session resulted only in the appointment of a committee to prepare a covenant or compact, to be signed by the members. Fay, Chittenden, Jones, and Marsh were appointed to this latter committee, together with Ebenezer Hoisington, Colonel Moses Robinson, and Doctor Obediah Dunham. The three last took the places of Carpenter, Rogers, and Ira Allen, who had served on the Committee on Programme.
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On the morning of Friday, September 27, the Committee on Covenant or Compact submitted to the convention the fol- lowing :
"At a General Convention consisting of fifty-six Delegates on the New Hampshire Grants, on the east and west side of the range of Green Mountains, representing thirty-six towns on said Grants, held at Dorset the 25th day of September, 1776, by adjournment.
"Whereas this Convention have for a series of years had un- der their particular considerations the disingenuous conduct of the former Colony (now State) of New-York toward the in- habitants of that District of Land commonly called and known by the name of the New-Hampshire Grants, and the several illegal, unjustifiable, and unreasonable measures they have taken to deprive by fraud, violence, and oppression those in- habitants of their property and in particular their Landed interest; and as this Convention has reason to expect a Con- tinuance of the same kind of disingenuity unless some mea- sures effectually be taken to form the Sª District into a sep- arate and distinct one from New York; and whereas it at pres- ent appears to this Convention that, for the foregoing reasons, together with the distance of road which lies between this Dis- trict and New York, it will be very inconvenient for those inhabitants to Associate or connect with them, for the time being, directly or indirectly :
"Therefore this Convention being fully convinced that it is necessary that every individual in the United States of Amer- ica should exert themselves to their utmost abilities in the defence of the liberties thereof and that this Convention may the better satisfy the Public of their punctual attachment to the Sd common cause, at present as well as heretofore, we do make and subscribe the following Covenant, viz:
"We the subscribers inhabitants of that district of Lands commonly called and known by the name of the New Hamp- shire Grants, being legally delegated and authorized to trans- act the public and political affairs of the aforesaid District of Lands, for ourselves and Constituents, do solemnly covenant and engage that, for the time being, we will strictly and re-
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ligiously adhere to the several resolves of this or a future Con- vention constituted on Sa district by the free voice of the Friends to American Liberties, that shall not be repugnant to the resolves of the honble Continental Congress relative to the General Cause of America." 1
Boiled down to its essence, this agreement was merely an attempt to bind its signers to conform, for the time being, to the decisions of the convention and a subsequent convention. The double insertion of the words "for the time being" made room for wide possibilities: they left room either for a future adjustment with New York or the formation of a separate State Constitution. Undoubtedly, the compact was signed by most of the delegates, although the names of no signers ap- pear in Jonas Fay's minutes.2 An atrociously spelled copy of the compact in the fourth volume of the Documentary History of New York, at pages 554 to 555, shows but forty-five signers. The subscribers included Warner, Heman Allen, Abner Seeley, and Obediah Dunham, who were not listed as delegates to the convention, and lacked fifteen who were. Among the names omitted were Bowker's, Chittenden's, and Colonel William Marsh's. Four delegates from east-side towns failed to sub- scribe, but Ebenezer Hoisington, of Windsor, put his name to the compact.
This compact appears not to have been intended as a paper for general subscription throughout the Grants. Indeed, al- most directly after its adoption, the convention voted that the " Association" which had been drawn up at the July con- vention should be tendered for signature by every male in- habitant of the Grants, "from 16 years old and upwards." No action whatever was taken with regard to the compact.
There now came up for the first time in the convention the name of Jacob Bayley. The lack of his support meant the lack of the support of Gloucester County. The worth of Bay- ley's character was well known to the delegates at Dorset. Without him they were without the strongest moral force to be found in any single character on the Grants. Recognizing
1 1 Gov. & Coun., 29-30.
2 Early Vermont Conventions.
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the situation but doubting Bayley's sympathy with their plot of secession, the delegates passed the following resolution:
"Voted, That Colo Jacob Bayley, Capt. Abner Seeley and Colo Jacob Kent1 be a Joint Committee to exhibit the pro- ceedings of this meeting to the inhabitants of the County of Gloucester, and request them to sign the Association left with them at their County Convention held at Thetford the 13th day of August ultimo and return the same by their delegate or Delegates chosen or to be chosen hereafter to meet and join this convention at their next sitting."
The "joint committee" of which Bayley was thus made a member was the only committee to which the word "joint" was attached. The intent was plain. Seeley was of Thetford, was the only citizen of Gloucester County whom the conven- tion had under its complete control, and who could be de- pended on to do what he could towards spreading the new State propaganda. Without the approval of General Bayley, Seeley's efforts would come to little. Neither Bayley nor Kent could be counted on to favor a revolt from New York while the war of the Revolution required complete union and co- operation among the thirteen former colonies. Therefore, in the hope that Bayley and Kent might be pleased with the ap- pointment, the convention constituted them members of a "joint" committee which, of course, could only act by the joint consent of the members. Thus the convention neatly forestalled the possibility of Bayley and Kent, as the majority members of the committee, taking action independently of Seeley and thwarting the aims of the convention. It was too transparent a trick to dupe or seduce so keen a patriot as Jacob Bayley, and was a poor way in which to approach him. The subsequent overtures for his support were made directly and without resort to ruse.
The convention must have had little confidence in the plan to enlist General Bayley in the New State cause, because when the delegates came to the point of selecting men to
1 Colonel Jacob Kent, of Newbury, was president of Gloucester County's Com- mittee of Safety.
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spread the news of the convention's proceedings through the several counties upon the Grants it was "Voted, That Colo Wm. Marsh and Capt. Ira Allen be a Committee to go into Cumberland and Gloucester Counties to carry the proceed- ings of this Convention. . . . "
The convention appointed Doctor Jonas Fay, Doctor Reu- ben Jones, and Colonel William Marsh to draw a "Remon- strance or Petition" to be sent to the Continental Congress' On the intended contents of this document Colonel Marsh made a brief report, but it was concluded on the following day to defer the finishing or final approval of the paper until the con- vention's next session. The appointment of a "Board of War" of west-side members, the adoption of a code of rules for the discipline of the militia, a provision for the building of a jail at Manchester, and the selection of a committee of twelve west-side members to attend the next session which was to be held on the east side of the Green Mountains, constituted the bulk of the remaining business. The convention ended on the morning of Saturday, September 28, on which day, with a sense or caution or as a blind, the convention adopted the fol- lowing measure: "Voted, that Colo Seth Warner, Capt. Heman Allen, Capt. Gideon Brownson, Mr. Ebenezer Hoisington, Capt. Abner Seeley and Doctor Jonas Fay be a committee to prepare a Citation to send to the State of New York to know if they have any objection against our being a Separate State from them : and to make a report as soon as may be." The delegates who proposed that procedure may have been uneducated men, but they must have been sufficiently worldly wise to know in advance that New York would entertain grave objection to being dismembered. The only reasonable inference from this vote seems to be a hope of deceiving New York into the belief that the inhabitants of the Grants had been and intended to be merely marking time with the New State idea until formal reply should come from New York. Indeed, the form of the enquiry and the fact that it was being made might possibly create in the minds of those to whom it was addressed a hope that an answer disapproving separation would end the pro- ject. It is quite difficult to spell good faith out of such a manœuvre. Moreover, the Dorset delegates well knew that
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such an enquiry would not strike New York as a jolt of novelt'y or with surprise, for Ebenezer Hoisington must have fully ex- plained to them the contents of his code of instructions and the Phelps letter which had been sent to New York by the Cumberland County Convention in the early" part of the sum- mer, and which had fully apprised the New York Congress or Convention that secession was under consideration.
Except for determining the duties of the delegates in notify- ing their constituents and neighbors of what the convention had accomplished and agreeing on final adjournment, the last act of the Dorset Convention was a bit of the old policy of coercion. This consisted of a vote that nobody should par- ticipate in the election of local committees of safety save those who should sign the association as formulated by the Dorset Convention of July 25. A special reason for such a precaution- ary measure might be found in the tories in certain localities: "it appears that the Town of Arlington are principally Tories"; but subsequent developments prove sufficiently that the mea- sure was aimed also at those who maintained allegiance to the State of New York. The convention then charged the dele- gates with the duty of spreading the report of the conven- tion's proceedings. To Ebenezer Hoisington fell the responsi- bility of notifying Windsor, Hertford (Hartland), Woodstock, Hartford, and Pomfret, and the convention adjourned to re- convene at the Court House at Westminster on October 30, at 10 in the forenoon.
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE PHELPS LETTER MAKES TROUBLE
CUMBERLAND COUNTY's three delegates to the New York Convention had been engaged on the business of the session for some time before the convention journal makes mention of the Hoisington code of instructions or the Phelps letter. The latter paper was specifically called up on August 24. The entry on that day reads as follows: "A letter from the com- mittee of the County of Cumberland was read, and is in the words following, that is to say :. . . " Here the Phelps letter, signed James Clay, chairman, and accompanied by the pro- tests of Elkanah Day, of Putney, John Bridgeman, of Hins- dale (Vernon), and John Norton, of Westminster, was spread in full upon the convention's records. No debate on the sub- ject occurred at the moment, the letter merely being referred to a committee consisting of Messrs. Morris, Duer, Hobart, and Schenk. Present on that day were two of Cumberland's delegates, viz., Colonel Joseph Marsh and Captain John Ses- sions.
There was no further action on the Phelps letter until Sep- tember 26. By this time Colonel Marsh, who seems to have obtained leave of absence on or about August 29, had gone home. Major Stevens, however, was in his seat; and he with Captain Sessions had the burden of explaining what was be- hind the Phelps letter and what it threatened. The immedi- ate occasion for bringing forward the Phelps letter on that day was the receipt of the following communication from Major Joab Hoisington, of the Cumberland and Gloucester Rangers:
"Agreeable to the order of the Honorable the Congress I have sent the muster-rolls of the several companies under my command by Elizur Andrews, the bearer, begging the favour
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of your forwarding the remainder of the bounty, rations and first month's wages, taking his receipt for the same.
"I am Sir, your humble servant
Joab Hoisington.
"N.B. Please to remit my wages and rations, likewise as much of the ration as the Honorable Congress shall see fit. Find it much easier to purchase supplies with cash."
This message from Major Hoisington, together with the list of officers under him, having been read and spread upon the minutes, a motion was duly made and seconded that a sum sufficient for Hoisington's needs be supplied him. Here trouble broke out. Somebody promptly objected that the Cumberland County Committee, by the Phelps letter of June 21 and the accompanying instructions, had reserved or pre- tended to reserve to the people of that county a right of seceding from the government of New York; that the State had already been put to great expense for Cumberland County and that further expenditure on its account should not be made until the inhabitants of that county fully acknowledged the jurisdiction of the State of New York. To an unprejudiced reader these objections will seem not only timely but natural and reasonable. Plainly, the fat was in the fire. No wonder that Simon Stevens and John Sessions were quickly put upon the grill. In the course of the ensuing debate and at the re- quest of one of the delegates, Stevens was asked point-blank if he acknowledged the jurisdiction of New York over Cum- berland County. Stevens replied that he fully acknowledged it. Sessions did the same. Here the discussion went over until the next day.
On September 27 the requisition of Major Hoisington and the Phelps letter were read once more and debate resumed. Again Major Stevens and Captain Sessions were put on the stand. They were asked whether they were elected by the sub-committees of the several Cumberland County towns or by the people at large. "By the people of the County at large," they answered. They went on to testify that the Com- mittee of Cumberland County consisted of two committeemen from the sub-committee of each town, and that these sub-
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committees had been chosen long before the delegates to the New York Convention were elected. Captain Sessions testi- fied that he was very confident that neither the County Com- mittee of Cumberland County nor the town sub-committees had received from the people any orders either that instruc- tions be given to the delegates, or that any reservations such as were made in the Phelps letter should be insisted on. This letter, Sessions explained, was agreed to by way of a compro- mise "to prevent any division in the County, as some few towns in the County were opposed to sending deputies to the Convention unless with such instructions." He had received no particular instructions from his own town, and he doubted whether any other town had given any. He felt that his cre- dentials vested him with full power to participate as a dele- gate in forming a government for the State of New York. Pressed further by the other delegates, Captain Sessions de- clared that he felt bound by the Hoisington code of instruc- tions no further than to see that the instructions were brought to the notice of the convention, to cast his own vote in ac- cordance with such instructions and to endeavor to have them carried out by the convention "so far as they shall appear to be right and beneficial."
Both Stevens and Sessions were asked if they would feel bound by the Hoisington instructions in particulars in which, upon debate, it might be demonstrated that the instructions were "injurious." Under such circumstances, or if they should be outvoted Cumberland's delegates maintained that they would not be bound by the instructions. This ended the haz- ing of the two gentlemen from Cumberland. They had stood their ordeal fairly well, but they must have realized that they had taken exceedingly long shots in interpreting the language of Ebenezer Hoisington and Charles Phelps. At all events, the majority of the convention realized it.
One of the delegates now pointed out that the committee to which the Phelps letter had been referred on August 24 had made no report. Most of that committee being absent, the convention appointed a new committee, consisting of William Duer, James Duane, Zephaniah Platt, Captain Sessions, and Major Stevens, to take under consideration both the Phelps
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letter and Major Joab Hoisington's requisition. To this com- mittee John Jay was subsequently added. As the personnel of the new committee foreshadowed, there was businesslike de- spatch in its proceedings. A committee report, covering the situation very fully, was offered within five days on October 2. Owing to pressure of other matters, it did not come up for discussion until two days later, when we find it spread at length on the convention journal. Since it was offered by James Duane and bears evidence of his lawyerlike artfulness and skill, the probability is that he was both chairman of the committee and draughtsman of the report.
The committee's report set forth that New York had al- ready supplied Cumberland County with one hundred pounds sterling in money, eighteen hundred pounds of gunpowder, forty-five hundred pounds of lead, and a quantity of flints; that New York had favored Cumberland further by authoriz- ing the raising of the Rangers in Cumberland and Gloucester Counties, with a bounty of twenty-five dollars and a Conti- nental trooper's pay for each non-commissioned officer and private; that subsistence allowances had been provided for each captain at sixteen shillings per week, for each lieutenant at fourteen shillings, and for each non-commissioned officer and private at ten shillings; that a Cumberland County major in the person of Joab Hoisington had been commissioned as commander, and that not less than twelve hundred pounds sterling in money had already been handed to Cumberland's delegates for the benefit of these troops. Yet on top of this beneficence, as the committee's report proceeded to relate, had come the insolent letter from Cumberland County's committee and a requisition from Major Joab Hoisington calling for $6,412.25 additional funds.
James Duane's committee report, drawn in his fluent style and in the tone of a lawyer's argument, is an excellent pres- entation of the New York side of the case. Though it is too long to present in full in these pages, it should be read by anybody who wishes to get a full view of the opposing claims of the New Hampshire Grants settlers and the government of New York. The document may be found in its entirety in the printed journal of the New York Convention and in the third
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volume (second series) of American Archives. There is a fairly full summary of it in B. H. Hall's History of Eastern Vermont, at pages 271 to 274.
Duane recited the two following objections that had been raised on the floor of the convention against acceding to Major Hoisington's request: first, that since Cumberland County had reserved or pretended to reserve not only the right to reject the whole or any part of a frame of State gov- ernment not conforming to Ebenezer Hoisington's code of in- structions, but also the right to secede from New York, no further funds should be supplied: that no money should be sent if jurisdiction is questioned. Second, that it did not ap- pear in the correspondence or elsewhere that the Rangers had actually supplied themselves with muskets, firelocks, powder- horns, bullet pouches, tomahawks, blankets, and knapsacks, as prescribed in the resolutions of the convention under which the troops had been raised. Of course, the first point was the serious one. On this, Mr. Duane grew expansive and eloquent. He sketched the history of New York's jurisdiction and exer- cise of authority over Cumberland County, the beneficence of New York's rule, the issuance of confirmation charters. Over debatable if not dangerous ground he passed lightly and rap- idly until he landed upon safer footing. Certainly "at a time when this state is invaded and pressed by powerful armies, when our utmost exertions are necessary, and we are straining every nerve for the common cause of America, for the general defence of this state and for the more immediate defence of the County of Cumberland" it was, as Duane plausibly urged, the duty of the convention to preserve jurisdiction over the entire state domain. Later, when read on the Grants, his argument served as a rallying cry to all except those bent upon secession. Even to some of the latter it appealed on reflection as ground for a postponement of separation until the War of the Revolution should be over.
Duane thus proceeds: "At a time when every virtuous mem- ber of the community is loudly called upon to assist his bleed- ing country, and harmony and mutual confidence are so essen- tial to our preservation and to the success of the greatest and best of causes-at such an important and decisive conjuncture
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your committee cannot but lament that any of the inhabitants of the County of Cumberland should suffer themselves to be so far misguided as to assert a claim and principles subversive to all government, derogatory to the dignity, rights and juris- diction of this state, manifesting an unbecoming return for the assistance and protection they have received out of the pub- lic treasury of their fellow-subjects at large, and implying a latent design, by a future separation from the state, to leave the whole burthen of the present cruel and expensive war to be sustained by the rest of the community."
Logical, no doubt, Duane was. Among the other twelve revolting colonies his report must have been fairly effective campaign material for New York's case against the inhabi- tants of the New Hampshire Grants. It reminds us, perhaps, of our own feelings when, during the great World War, we de- plored, not without indignation, the disposition of some of the Irish to seek at that anxious time a separation from Great Britain. On the other hand, we can understand Vermont stubbornness and we can easily picture the lack of effect pro- duced by Duane's aggressive and untactful style on men of the type of Ebenezer Hoisington. Let us continue, however, with Duane's argument and observe how he dealt concretely with the Hoisington code of instructions and the Phelps letter.
"If the extraordinary injunctions in the letter from their committee should be vindicated," proceeds Duane, "it must follow that the form of government dictated by a party . . . by no means a majority of the county, is to be adopted, how- ever injurious to the general interest of this state or disagree-
able to the other counties . ; and thus a single county is to control the whole state, prescribe its constitution and government, and establish its laws on pain of separation. From a parity of reason every other county and every dis- trict and town within this state might arrogate the same power and instead of producing order, security and a wise and permanent government-the great and salutary purposes for which this free convention was elected and assembled-an- archy and confusion must be the fatal result."
Here, again, James Duane is perfectly logical-especially on such facts as he was willing to state or assume. But the in-
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habitants of the New Hampshire Grants were not of the same breed as the men in the other counties of New York : they had been brought up under different traditions. The New Eng- land methods of government-not only those which had been in force but those which the inhabitants of the Grants hoped to see installed-were not the same as those in favor in the other parts of New York. Ebenezer Hoisington had these differences in mind when he formed his code of instructions. Manhood suffrage without property qualification, the town as the unit of representation, the election rather than the ap- pointment of public officers-these and other items considered essential by Hoisington in a properly constituted government were not only deemed not essential by the best and leading characters of New York, but were regarded as objectionable. Duane was therefore going beyond the case in assuming the chance that other New York counties outside the New Hamp- shire Grants might undertake to dictate forms of government. He was in error, also, in failing to recognize the peculiar rever- ence in which the men of New England birth and training held those governmental usages with which to this day we are so familiar.
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