USA > Vermont > Vermont in quandary, 1763-1825 > Part 12
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29
Additional information which arrived in Quebec tended to prove that the Allens had deceived the Vermont Assembly by declaring that the negotiations were designed solely to coerce Congress in- to recognizing Vermont. One Andrews informed Sherwood that Assemblyman David Smith had told him that Vermont's aim was to hold the British at arm's length until Congress would recognize Vermont's independence. More alarming was his information that Squire Thomas, another member of the Assembly, declared that "an Alliance with Canada should never be and that he would fight with his knees in blood before it should happen."21 In April, Joseph Knapp, Thomas Barlow and Simon Van Camp reported that they had been forced to leave Castleton because they favored the British and had assisted British scouts who were reconnoiter- ing Vermont. This was a shock to them, they said, because "they expected from common report to find the Inhabitants of Vermont friendly to Govt., but were disappointed especially with the com- mon people, whom they think are the hottest rebels they have ever seen." 22
IS. B, XLIV, 118-119.
19. Ibid., CLXXVII, pt. I, 161-165.
20. Ibid., CLXXVII, pt. I, 167.
21. Ibid., CLXXVII, pt. I, 155-157.
22. Ibid., CLXXVII, pt. I, 222.
118
HALDIMAND NEGOTIATIONS: Second Phase
So perilous became the position of the Allens that, in May, Ethan told a man who had recently arrived from Quebec, "for God's sake, for his own and their safety to take care of himself for the mob was watching every motion."23 A short time there- after, a mob confronted Governor Chittenden, demanding explana- tion for his releasing British war prisoners and loyalists and de- nouncing him as a traitor to the American cause. It accused him of intending to sell his country and called him and his associates traitors and tories. Chittenden retorted that he had acted upon the advice of his council and that he did not consider that he had to account to a mob for his actions. Thereupon, he ordered the mob to disperse.24 Late in May Sherwood wrote that he did not doubt that Vermont would declare for Britain if the Governor, the Allens and the Fays could effect it. He feared only that the Ben- ningtonites would find means to overthrow the Allens and their policies. Knowing that the Allens were supported by only one of several political factions, he declared that they might possibly join the empire if Haldimand could guarantee them adequate pro- tection against their political enemies.25
Haldimand was faced with difficulties and embarrassments of his own which forced him to hesitate to send troops to support the hard-pressed Allens. On February 22, 1782, Sir Henry Clinton sent him an urgent message that William Smith had received in- telligence that the French were preparing to invade Quebec.26 This dispatch, received by Haldimand on April 6, 1782, undoubt- edly forced him to postpone his intended expedition to provide protection for the Allens. Not until Haldimand had received assur- ance from Clinton sometime in April that the attack, if made, was more likely to be launched against New York, could he resume his preparations to comply with Germain's most recent dispatch.
Yet, no sooner had the French invasion scare blown away than a greater obstacle was placed in the way of successfully conclud- ing the negotiations. On March 9, 1782, Smith wrote in his diary that the British Parliament had not passed the act which he
23. Ibid., CLXXVII, pt. 1, 305.
24. Ibid., CLXXVII, pt. I, 349-350.
25. Ibid., CLXXVII, pt. I, 303-304.
26. Sir Henry Clinton Papers.
119
HALDIMAND NEGOTIATIONS: Second Phase
claimed was necessary to enable Haldimand to close with the Ver- monters. This information had been conveyed to him in a letter recently received from Germain. "I suspect," wrote Smith, on March 9, "from Lord Germain's letter that the Difficulty respect- ing conciliation lays with the King and I almost despair now of that Project for dividing & so lessening the Number of our enemies." The next day Clinton, who had no doubt read Ger- main's letter, wrote Haldimand that he had not expected that the dispatches from Britain would contain the powers necessary to confirm all the terms demanded by the Allens. Accordingly, he desired Haldimand to continue in touch with them and to offer what encouragement he could.27
Clinton's letter proved exceedingly embarrassing to Haldimand because it conflicted with Germain's dispatch of July 26, 1781, in which he instructed Haldimand to secure Vermont at all costs. Germain's dispatch to Clinton implied that he could not offer the Vermonters all they demanded because Parliament had not yet passed an act respecting Vermont. Haldimand complained to Clin- ton on April 28, 1782, that he now found it extremely difficult to act upon Vermont with any hope of success because, although Germain had given him a wide latitude to negotiate in his letter of July 26, he had narrowed it in his later dispatch to Clinton. Haldimand, now in a quandary, warned Clinton that the condi- tional terms which he had offered Vermonters prior to Cornwallis' surrender had not been fully acceptable to them and that now the terms were wholly unacceptable. Thereupon Haldimand said that he was determined to launch an invasion of Vermont without first issuing a proclamation. "This Crisis is arrived," he exclaimed, "when Coersion Alone must decide the Part Vermont will take." He told Clinton that as soon as he knew that Quebec was not to be attacked, he would appear upon the frontier with as great a force as he could muster, although he foresaw difficulty in pene- trating far into Vermont with the small number of troops at his disposal in Quebec.28
Despite the conflicting instructions and the inadequacy of the 27. Clinton Papers, Clinton to Haldimand, March 10, 1782.
28. Ibid., CXLVII, 24-28.
120
HALDIMAND NEGOTIATIONS: Second Phase
army in Quebec, Haldimand had already permitted Sherwood to renew his overtures to the Allens. These overtures, according to Sherwood, were authorized by royal instructions which Haldi- mand had received that spring, but which cannot be found in the Haldimand Papers. Acting upon these instructions, Sherwood wrote Ira on April 16 that Haldimand had full powers to erect Vermont, including the unions, as a British province, provide munificently for Governor Chittenden, make Ethan Allen a Brig- adier-General and Ira and his colleagues field officers.29 On the twenty-ninth, Haldimand ordered Baron de Riedesel to send a considerable force to the frontiers to provide Vermonters with the opportunity to declare themselves in favor of the British.3º This order confronts the historian with an intriguing question. Had Haldimand decided to cut through the maze of conflicting in- . structions by an immediate application of coercion? The Haldi- mand Papers do not provide an answer to this question.
That the Allens might have welcomed coercion by this time is suggested by the difference in Ethan's attitude before and after the Congress' rejection of Vermont's claims in the spring of 1782. Before this sebuff, Ethan had written Haldimand on May eighth that Vermont was in grave danger because Washington had threatened an invasion to force the state to recede from the East and West unions, and that Vermont, he said, would soon know whether its latest advances to the Congress had been welcomed.31 After the rebuff, he wrote Haldimand on June sixteenth that the refusal of Congress to admit Vermont to the union had increased the hostility of Vermonters to the Congress more than anything it had done heretofore. All the frontier towns, he said, were in favor of his policies. As for himself, he would do everything in his power to establish Vermont as a British province. "It is Liberty which they say they are after but will not extend it to Vermont." 32
If circumstances had permitted Haldimand to go to the Allens' support in the spring of 1782, Vermont might not have been forced to remain on the fence. Unfortunately, Haldimand never
29. Ibid., CLXXXVIII, 461-462.
30. Ibid., CXXXIX, 135-136.
31. Ibid., CLXXVII, pt. I, 264.
32. Ibid., CLXXVII, pt .. I, 354-356.
121
HALDIMAND NEGOTIATIONS: Second Phase
applied force because of circumstances over which he had no control. Early in the spring his hand had been stayed temporarily by the French invasion scare, and later he was sorely perplexed by Germain's conflicting instructions. In July, 1782, his hand was stayed permanently. Clinton's successor, Guy Carleton, wrote him a letter on June 20, 1782, which forbade him to send his afmy into Vermont. Fortunately, the letter arrived in time to prevent Haldi- mand from launching his invasion. He wrote that before he had received Carleton's letter he had been engaged in preparing the expedition because he believed that Vermonters had been tem- porizing from the beginning of the negotiations. Luckily, he said, difficulties in securing wheat, manufacturing flour and forward- ing it to Lake Champlain delayed his departure long enough for him to receive Carleton's letter which informed him that the British government was ready to make peace with the Continental Congress. "I," concluded Haldimand, "acted accordingly." 33
This dispatch brought Haldimand to what he described as a "very embarrassing Crisis," because he had urged the Vermonters to declare for Great Britain and because he had given them the most emphatic assurance of his and of British support which he had only recently renewed. He complained that he was not in- formed of the intentions of the British government except that they were peaceable and that, as a result, he could no longer act until after he had received specific instructions. Haldimand said that in the meantime he would exercise great care that neither he nor his subordinates would act in a manner embarrassing to the British government. Professing sympathy for the Vermonters, he said that he would not encourage them to take any measures which he could not support. Nevertheless, he was determined to maintain friendly relations with the Vermonters because he was · convinced that "the very best Consequences must result to the safety of this Province from an union with that people .... "31
Haldimand must have given a sigh of relief for having so nar- rowly avoided embarrassing the British government. Lord North had resigned and Lord Shelburne, his successor, had decided to
33. Thid., LV, 165-170.
34. Ibid., CXLVIII, 55-60.
122
HALDIMAND NEGOTIATIONS: Second Phase
make peace. On April 22, 1782, Shelburne dispatched a letter to Haldimand in which he told him that the offers he had made to Vermont contravened the British government's policy of avoiding taking the offensive against the Americans. Shelburne added that he did not have sufficient confidence in the Vermonters to justify him in ordering Haldimand to go to their support. He instructed Haldimand to send his army into Vermont only in case of an American attack on Quebec. In conclusion, he made the first clear- cut and authoritative statement, since the outbreak of the Revolu- tion, of British policy towards the conflicting claims to Vermont lands. In this statement, he abandoned the New York claimants and aligned his government behind the claims of the New Hamp- shire Grantees. He told Haldimand to assure the Vermonters "of His Majesty's Disposition to prefer Claims arising from Possession and Cultivation to those arising from Grants made without knowl- edge, and obtained I apprehend, by collusion and imposition."35 Thus, the letter which instructed Haldimand to support the New Hampshire titles also instructed Haldimand to support Vermont only if the Americans attacked Quebec!
Meanwhile, loyalist Yorkers in Vermont had not yet abandoned hope that they could secure reunion with Britain. In the summer of 1782 and the following winter, Smith, Wells and possibly Knoulton sought to make political capital of the war-time eco- nomic distresses of the backcountry inhabitants of New England. They informed Quebec that the people of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, and Cheshire County, New Hampshire, were potentially loyalist. They described enthusiastically an incident which had occurred on the east bank of the Connecticut River. Here cattle were being sold for taxes, but for little because the . people were intimidated from bidding. At Walpole the highest bid for a fine yoke of oxen was nineteen pence, and a cow sold for as little as five pence. One affluent person, the account con- tinued, placed a bid of one dollar on a cow which so enraged the onlookers that he withdrew it. After the tax sale, the inhabitants went to the Liberty Pole "and cryed aloud Liberty is gone, Cut it down .... Huzza'd aloud for King George and his Laws." To take 35. Ibid., XL, 40-41.
123
HALDIMAND NEGOTIATIONS: Second Phase
advantage of this pro-British sentiment, Vermont loyalists sug- gested that a convention be held to discuss redress of backcountry grievances and when sufficiently strong to establish a loyalist government by a state convention.36 Micah Townshend was re- ported to have secured type from New London in order to pub- lish a newspaper which would identify the loyalist cause with the redress of such grievances.37
The Allens had no more given up hope of abandoning reunion than had the Yorkers. Before Haldimand's hands were tied by Shelburne's instructions, they attempted to secure a secret treaty with the British. Haldimand wrote Carleton on Aug. 11, 1782, that the Allens had sent an associate, James Breakenridge, to request him to conclude a secret treaty for reunion which they would ratify in order to keep the Continental Congress in the dark con- cerning the true sentiments of Vermonters. By this measure, Haldimand concluded, the Allens hoped to attract thousands of British sympathizers to Vermont.38 Haldimand did not welcome this proposal. Sherwood wrote Ira that Haldimand refused to en- tertain it because it would expose Vermont to great danger from the Americans, and because he could not conclude a treaty with Vermont without its ratification by the Assembly.39
The Allens could not secure ratification by the Assembly because it reflected increasingly the growing public opposition to their negotiations. For the moment, the Allens' resourcefulness ap- peared exhausted. Haldimand declared on October 25, 1782, that since the evacuation of Savannah by the British, the Vermonters had communicated with him less frequently. Nevertheless, he wished to keep in communication with them and to keep alive their desire for reunion which, he said, "perhaps is only restrained by that despondency and doubt of Protection on the part of Great Britain which is so prevalent over North America."40
Despairing of being able to win Vermont for the British on their own initiative, the Allens communicated with Haldimand in
36. Ibid., CLXXVII, pt. 2, 452-459.
37. Ibid., CLXXXVIII, pt. 2, 45-49.
38. Ibid., CXLVIII, 68-69.
39. 1bid., CLXXVII, pt. 2, 428-431.
10. Ibid., LVI, 6.
-
124
HALDIMAND NEGOTIATIONS: Second Phase
November, requesting him to seek confirmation of the rumor which had long been circulated before the Revolution that Philip Skene had been appointed Governor of a new province com- prising the Champlain Valley. Haldimand, much interested in this request, declared on November 2, 1782, that he had high hopes "for the Skene project, and hoped to secure information of it by the following spring." 41
Then in March of 1783 the Allens gave the most convincing evidence of their desire to rejoin the empire by asking Haldi- mand to intercede with the British government on their behalf. Ethan was reported by Sherwood as fearful that the American States would be conceded independence at Paris by Great Britain. He desired Sherwood to prod Haldimand into claiming Vermont as a part of the empire because he was determined that his state should not join the American States. Haldimand believed that the time had passed when Vermont could rejoin the British and Sher- wood wrote Ethan to this effect, adding that Haldimand viewed "with concern the fatal consequences which he has so frequently predicted from your procrastination." 42 Nevertheless, Haldimand asked the British government to instruct its negotiators at Paris to secure the inclusion of Vermont within the remaining British possessions in North America. Sherwood wrote on April 10, 1783, that he had some reason to believe that Haldimand's representa- tions to his government on behalf of the Allens might have in- duced the British to lay a claim to Vermont which he hoped might have been the reason for the rumor that peace negotiations had miscarried in Paris.43 The rumor however was false. The ne- gotiations leading to the Treaty of Paris of 1783 were never in- terrupted by a quarrel over the status of Vermont.
At Paris, the American negotiators, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay and John Adams, secured a treaty which was extremely favor- able to the United States, largely because the British were war- weary and their government sought through a conciliatory peace to detach the American government from the French Alliance.
41. Ibid., CLXXV, 300-303.
42. Ibid., CLXXVIII, 151.
43. Ibid., CLXXVIII, 162-163.
125
HALDIMAND NEGOTIATIONS: Second Phase
The British negotiator, Richard Oswald, who like Shelburne was much influenced by Adam Smith's ideas about trade, faithfully executed his government's policy and, unwittingly or not, sacri- ficed the interests of many Vermonters. He acknowledged the in- dependence of the United States and conceded notable fishing privileges for Americans in the remaining British possessions in North America. The American negotiators reciprocated only to the extent of agreeing to recommend to the states that loyalists be provided a legal opportunity to recover property which had been confiscated.
If Franklin had had his way, the British would have been forced to concede the annexation of Canada to the United States. The British balked at this, however, and finally the negotiators hammered out a compromise boundary between the United States and Canada which placed Vermont within American territory. It was drawn from the mouth of the St. Croix River to its head- waters and from thence to the height of land separating the watersheds of the Atlantic and the St. Lawrence. From the elusive "northwest angle", the boundary was dropped to the Connecticut River and along that river to the forty-fifth parallel. From this point the boundary was extended along the forty-fifth parallel to the St. Lawrence. From here it was drawn through the Great Lakes to the head of Lake Superior and from thence to the point where it intersected the Mississippi River which was thought to rise farther north than it does.
The boundary provisions of the treaty wrecked the Haldimand Negotiations. The Allens' plan to rejoin the British Empire had miscarried. The British had agreed that Vermont lay within the United States and, in so doing, had sacrificed the Allens to the larger purposes of their policy towards the United States. Recog- nizing that the Haldimand Negotiations would violate the treaty which was being concluded, Lord North, who was again Prime Minister, instructed Haldimand on August 8, 1783, to abandon them." It was now Haldimand's duty to inform the Allens that he had been forbidden to come to their support in any circum- stances whatever. By the late spring of 1784 the Allens knew the
44. Ibid., XLIV, 119.
126
HALDIMAND NEGOTIATIONS: Second Phase
contents of North's letter. Their reaction was described by Haldi- mand in a dispatch he sent home on June 29, 1784. The Vermon- ters, he said, fully realized the advantages of connecting them- selves with the British; but they also realized that without British aid and support they could not publicly declare in favor of Great Britain without inviting political catastrophe.43
The Treaty of Paris marks the end of one era in Vermont his- tory and the beginning of another. It caused the Allens to review and to revise Vermont's foreign policy in the light of the altered situation.
45. Ibid., LVI, 241.
---
1
CHAPTER NINE
Quebec's Commercial Dependency
"Vermont," declared Ethan Allen on April 18, 1783, "shall remain independent of independency,"1 thus indicating his aversion to the other American States whose independence Britain had recog- nized. Nevertheless, Vermont was dependent upon a dependency because geography and economics tied Vermont to Quebec, a British dependency. The establishment of that part of the forty- fifth parallel lying between the Connecticut River and the St. Lawrence River as the international boundary threatened to pre- vent the free flow of goods between the Province of Quebec and the State of Vermont.
Twelve months before Lord North forbade Haldimand to give any assistance to the Vermonters, the political negotiations had merged with commercial negotiations designed to admit Ver- monters into the Quebec market. As early as July, 1782, George Smyth said that they were determined to trade with the Canadian province. Soon afterwards, two Vermonters were forbidden to en- ter Quebec when they appeared at the Loyalist Blockhouse which had been built by the British at the foot of Lake Champlain.2 Haldimand approved stopping them, but added that he wished them to be treated kindly because he wanted to encourage those Vermonters who had expressed a desire to rejoin the empire. Nevertheless, he flatly refused to open trade so long as Vermont was an independent state, or until the Vermont Assembly had for- mally requested trading concessions. Such instructions, he said, might cause Vermonters to redouble their efforts to effect what he described as a reconciliation.3
The loyalist faction in Vermont proposed to make use of the
1. B. CLXXVIII, 173.
2. Ibid., CLXXVII, 389.
3. Jbid., CLXXIX, pt. 2, 47-48.
---
-
128
QUEBEC'S COMMERCIAL DEPENDENCY
desire to trade with Quebec as the means of convincing Ver- monters that joining the American confederation would destroy their chances for such trade. In pursuit of this policy, Samuel Wells advised Haldimand on August 22 to permit salt to be sold to Vermonters.+ William Smith agreed with Wells that this trade would open the eyes of Vermonters to the undesirability of con- necting themselves with the Continental Congress.
At this time, the Allens violently opposed trade with Quebec, chiefly because they feared that it would be interpreted by the Congress as additional and convincing evidence of the sincerity of their political negotiations with Haldimand. Although Haldi- mand sympathized with Wells' suggestions and aims, he agreed with the Allens that so open a demonstration of where their com- mercial interests lay would bring down upon them the wrath of the Congress." As a result, Sherwood reassured the Allens that Haldimand foresaw the probable consequence which they had suggested of a Quebec-Vermont trade at this time.6 Yet the Bri- tish General declared later that if Vermonters wished to drive cattle to Crown Point or Onion River during the winter he would take them in exchange for salt and other necessities.
Haldimand's agents reported in the autumn of 1782 that per- sons were coming from as far south as Poughkeepsie to the Loya- list Blockhouse with beef and other provisions which they did not wish to sell to General Washington because he offered only paper money "which they universally detest."" Late in November, Sher- wood was alarmed to discover that smugglers were active in viola- tion of Haldimand's orders. One Nicholls declared that he had "money plenty" and was told by "some body in Authority to have lyberty to trade in Montreal, and that if he is now deny'd that privilege by G'd he will do no more Secret Service for Govt." 8
Another trader, one Holmes, arrived later at the Blockhouse with beef; and, when stopped, refused to carry it back because he had heard that trade had been opened with Quebec.º Thereupon
4. Ibid., CLXXVII, pt. 2, 452-453.
5. Ibid., CLXXIX, pt. 2, 75-77, 171-172.
6. Ibid., CLXXIX, pt. 2, 110-113.
7. Ibid., CLXXVII, pt. 2, 558.
8. Ibid., CLXXVII, pt. 2, 609.
9. Ibid., CLXXVII, pt. 2, 609.
129
QUEBEC'S COMMERCIAL DEPENDENCY
the officer in command at the Blockhouse ordered the beef to be pitched into the lake in the presence of the garrison as a warning to other traders.10
On January 7, 1783, Captain Weatherby of Charlestown, New Hampshire, arrived at the Blockhouse. He had planned to go to Quebec with two hundred pairs of shoes but when Holmes told him what had been done with his beef, he left his shoes in the Onion River Valley. He introduced himself as a friend of the Allens and as a leader in the formation of the second East Union. He declared that he was loyal to the British and that "his publick harangues have ... fomented & kept alive the general discontent against the measures of Congress which so universally subsist in that Country." Despite his assertions, he was told that his shoes, like Holmes' beef, would be sunk in the lake if he attempted to carry them into the province. 11
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.