USA > Vermont > Vermont in quandary, 1763-1825 > Part 15
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20. Records of the Governor and Council of the State of Vermont, III, 411.
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were built? Lieutenant-Governor Hamilton asked Ira this ques- tion in the spring of 1785. Ira replied, as Hamilton reported on April 7, 1785, to Lord Sydney, British Secretary of State for the Home Department, "that the Vermonters could not be so ignorant as to expect to have permission to trade thro' the Province except by means of British ships, and on principles which might be per- fectly consonant with the regulations the trade of Great Britain is subject to." 21
The Twiss survey was never approved by the British govern- ment; but a similar proposal was made in London in 1786 by Silas Deane, a Connecticut loyalist who, like the Allens, had switched sides during the Revolution. He proposed to build a ship canal around the Richelieu rapids, the use of which by Vermonters would be restricted in favor of British interests. He advised that Lake Champlain be converted into a British lake by requiring that all vessels on the lake be of British registry, and by permit- ting Vermonters only "smaller open boats."22 Before Dorchester left London to go to Quebec, Deane secured his approval. Dor- chester told Sydney that the canal project would be politically beneficial and commercially useful and that he had advised Deane to lay his proposal before him. Deane would have gone to Quebec if he had not been, as Edward Bancroft reported, "too ill to go himself to Champlain." Deane's death soon afterward put an end for a time to agitation for a ship canal. 23
After failing to secure the canal, the Allens pressed the Quebec government to make commercial concessions greater than those made in 1787. By 1788, Vermont products were exported free of duty to Quebec but not to Great Britain. Probably Vermont products were being shipped from Quebec as if they were Cana- dian products; but, from a legal standpoint, all Vermont imports had been admitted by the Canadian government solely for the purpose of consumption within the province. A year before the ordinance of 1787, Levi had petitioned that Vermont products be admitted free of duty into the British West Indies. "This," ex-
21. Q, XXIV, pt. 2, 282.
22. P.A.C., Report of the Public Archives for 1889, 83-85.
23. Q, XXVIII, 160; XLIII, pt. 3, 681.
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claimed Thomas Ainslie of the Canadian Customs, "is asking all the Commercial privileges of a British subject in the Plantations except owning of vessels."24
In 1787, Levi requested permission on behalf of Vermont to ex- port Vermont products from Quebec in British bottoms upon the same terms enjoyed by British subjects. The Quebec government took no action upon this petition. His failure caused him to write Ira two years later that the prohibition against re-export of Ver- mont products from Quebec was "a most shameful restraint upon the good people of Vermont .... "25
The failure of the Allens to obtain any more commercial con- cessions showed clearly to them the disadvantages of being eco- nomically attached to but politically wholly detached from the British Empire. In 1787, they feared that their difficulties would be made more complex by the probable effect of the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention of 1787 upon their fortunes. Prior to the writing and the adoption of the Constitution, the Allens had taken advantage of the weaknesses of the government under the Articles of Confederation to negotiate openly with Quebec for commercial concessions. They had been free so to act without fear of the attitude of the American states which were absorbed in solving the economic and political problems of the "Critical Period." The failure to solve them had led to a strong desire to replace the government under the Articles with an effective cen- tral government.
This desire for a new government arose from a small group of nationalists who were thinking in terms of the common interests of the states and from the demands of the business community for a government more responsive to its needs. The political problem was that of discovering a form of government which would be effective in its power to tax, regulate interstate commerce and conduct foreign relations and which at the same time would re- spect the tradition of local self-government and the various sec- tional interests. This problem was brilliantly solved at Phila- delphia by the adoption of the federal principle of a division of
24. S, XXII, 162. 25. Ira Allen Papers, 1774-1793, Levi to Ira, May 22, 1789.
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the powers of government between the new national government and the state governments, granting the former national powers, and the latter powers more regional or local in character.
This new federal government met with little if any favor in Ver- mont. The appeal to a sense of nationality had no effect on the Allens because the old central government and the State of New York had been their inveterate enemies and because the other American States had seemingly been indifferent to their plight. An appeal to the Allens as businessmen could bring no favorable re- sponse because they could not conveniently trade with the Ameri- can states nor did they wish to do so. If any political connections were to be more closely knit, so reasoned the Allens, they should be those between Vermont and Great Britain.
The changes soon to be wrought in the states by the adoption of the Constitution did not escape the attention of Dorchester, nor did one of the reasons for this change. "Many wealthy indi- viduals," wrote Dorchester, October 14, 1788, "have taken a de- cided part in favor of the new plan from the hope that the Domestic debt .. . may be funded, & that the various paper se- curities of which they are holders to a great amount, purchased for a trifle, may rise to their full value." In this same letter, he stated that the change in the states had been carefully noted by the Vermonters. They feared "that if a strong national govern- ment shall be settled, it may produce claims upon them for the past and unfavorable offers for the future." 26
The opinions expressed by Dorchester upon the situation in Vermont were those of Ethan Allen who had communicated with him during the preceding July on political matters. On July 16, 17SS, Ethan had written Dorchester that he was fearful that, as soon as the Constitution was adopted and the new government effectively established, Vermont might be coerced into the Fed- eral Union. The supporters of the Constitution were fully aware, he said, of the reason for Vermont's refusal to associate with the other American states. "Vermont is locally situated on the Waters of Champlain which communicate with those of Saint Lawrence
26. N.Y.P.L., George Bancroft Transcripts, I, 313.
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and contiguous to the Province of Quebec where they must be dependent for trade, business, and intercourse which naturally incline them to the British interest." Vermonters, he continued, are warmly opposed to joining the other American states because they would then be exposed to Britain's displeasure which might go so far as to prohibit or hamper the Vermont-Quebec trade. Despite serious obstacles in the way of the supporters of ratifica- tion of the Constitution, including what Ethan, the ex-radical revolutionary, referred to as the "licentious notion of liberty", the Constitution might be adopted, in which case Vermont's inde- pendence would be threatened. If the new government should attempt to subjugate Vermont, Ethan wished Dorchester to sup- ply him with arms. Vermont, he said, might then yield its inde- pendence as it would have done in 1780, "could Great Britain have afforded Vermont protection," for, as he assured Dorchester, "the leading men of Vermont are not sentimentally attached to a republican form of government." If the new government did not attack Vermont, Vermont would re-establish the "Haldimand System" of neutrality and trade with Quebec upon the freest and friendliest terms until events might later make possible a public declaration by Vermont in favor of rejoining the empire.27
Although Ethan spoke of reviving the Haldimand system and of rejoining the British Empire, his proposals actually implied that he and his associates would no longer be satisfied to return to the empire as a British colony or dependency. Since 1781 or 1782, the Allens had progressed towards greater maturity in their ideas as to the kind of political relationship between Vermont and the empire which would be most beneficial and advantageous to their commercial and landed interests. By 1788, or thereabouts, the Allens would be satisfied with nothing less than a Vermont-Brit- ish alliance and reciprocal trade treaty. Such an alliance and treaty assumed that the relationship would be that between sover- eign and equal states. Vermonters now insisted that they main- tain full control over their internal affairs and enter into foreign commitments only if they deemed them in Vermont's interest.
·
27. Q, XXXVI, pt. 2, 448-454.
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As Vermonters looked about them in the world, they drew a parallel between their own country and Switzerland. Land-locked, mountainous Switzerland had for some hundreds of years pre- served its independence, and Vermonters were determined to pre- serve theirs in alliance with a great power, if necessary. This comparison was often made by Vermonters. John Scott of New- bury petitioned the Assembly on October 23, 1787, for govern- ment subsidization of manufacturing. Vermont, he said, was desti- tute of seaports and exposed to the jealousies of more powerful neighbors for most of its imports, "which although properly the luxuries, are by the Generality of Mankind, deemed the neces- saries of life." He pointed to Switzerland, "which by well regu- lated internal police & encouragement given to Linen and Lace manufacturing, tho' lying in a Mountainous and Barren Clime, & Centre of the most potent States of Europe, Had had consistent command of cash and Lived happy and independent for Hundreds of years." 28
Ethan did not live to promote any further the Swiss Policy. His death on February 17, 1789, left the advancement of his plans to his remaining brothers. They decided that Levi should go to Lon- don to secure a commercial and perhaps a political alliance de- signed to preserve Vermont's independence of the other American states. He would be more acceptable to the British than Ira be- cause he was known as a loyalist and was living in the Province of Quebec. Levi wrote Ira, October 11, 1788, that he advised him to look to Great Britain for the solution of their business em- barrassments. "The Plan of trading at Quebec & making remit- tance in lumber," he said, would "never answer", because of the risks and losses incurred in transporting timber, the kind of "country they have to collect in," and "the sharpers at Q- after they arrive reduces the matter to demonstration; all of which operates in favor of the grand plan." 29
Shortly afterwards, the grand plan began to unfold. Sometime in November or December of 1788, the Allen brothers were
28. Manuscript Vermont State Papers, XVII, 240.
29. Ethan Allen Papers, no. 4943.
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closeted with Dorchester. They declared, so Levi said afterwards, that Vermont wished to rejoin the British Empire. Dorchester responded by promising to intercede on their behalf with the British Government. Because no time was to be lost, Levi left Ver- mont in January of 1789, arriving in London on April 23, 1789.30
The time of his arrival in London could not have been more favorable to his mission. While he was there, Great Britain and Spain approached the brink of war over the Spanish seizure of British vessels in Nootka Sound. During the ensuing crisis, Great Britain feared that France, as Spain's ally, might join Spain in war against Great Britain; furthermore, the British Government wondered what would be the attitude of France's ally, the United States, towards a war against Spain. Fearing for a time that the Franco-American Alliance might be invoked, Great Britain sought to appease Vermont, hoping if war came to acquire it as an ally.31 Levi discerned that such a war could be turned to the advantage of Vermont by securing British acceptance of the grand plan. Ver- mont was weak, but not so weak as to be without bargain- ing power in an Anglo-American crisis. Vermont controlled the eastern half of the valley through which the Americans would almost inevitably invade Quebec which British seapower could not protect above tidewater.
Yet Levi despaired of success for his mission until John Graves Simcoe took him in tow. Simcoe was no stranger to Vermont. Indeed, as late as 1787, he had jocularly declared that he might go to Vermont and establish himself permanently there. After Levi's arrival in London, Simcoe befriended him because he be- lieved that Vermont's friendship was necessary to protect Que- bec against what he deemed the aggressiveness of the American states. Joining Simcoe in support of Levi was Sir Henry Clinton, who likewise was no stranger to Vermont. Lesser allies were Philip Skene and the Reverend Samuel Peters. Of these last two, Peters was the more important figure. He was a loyalist from Hebron, Connecticut, whose devotion to Christianity was invari-
30. Ira Allen Papers, 1774-1793, Levi to Ira, May 3, 1789.
31. Turner, F. J., "English Policy Towards America in 1790-1791," American Histori- cal Review ( VII, no. 4, July 1902), 706-735; also VIII no. 1, October, 1902, 78-86.
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ably secondary to his career as a landjobber and an international intriguer. Always the eccentric, Peters found it difficult to make or keep friends. His sermons delivered in London were incom- prehensible to loyalists, one of whom remarked after hearing him preach from the pulpit that it was "hard to conceive how he got there."32 Before the arrival of Levi, he had been a staunch foe of Vermont because his Vermont lands had been confiscated. He had claimed compensation from the Loyalist Commissioners for approximately 56,000 acres of land. Now, to further his own aims; he supported the Allen separatist proposals.
These friends and allies provided Levi with social opportunities which he had never before enjoyed. He "got snug alongside" Philip Skene, "our first Governor," who had him twice to dinner and asked Levi to do what he could to secure the restoration of his estate at Skenesboro. Levi met even John Tabor Kemp, the New York loyalist for whose capture Ethan had offered a reward before the Revolution, and "had a little laugh about Genl. Allen's Advertising him, Duane, etc." 33
Levi was somewhat surprised at the atmosphere surrounding the conduct of business and politics in London. "People," he said, are "too well bred to speak much Truth." Business, he wrote Ira, could not be transacted without friends who must also have an "Interest in the business." He once wrote that he was going to send a letter to Ira "to shew the public and one to Nancy [his wife] more particularly containing only the truth-for in all mat- ters there is Always the public letter that [is] for the public and the private letter to the private Minister."34 He revelled in the secrecy surrounding his mission, seldom signing his name to his letters. Instead he used the noms de plume Lewis Alden, D. Alonzo, Christiana D. Alonzo, Christiana Vala de Arabi Constan- tino Americanus Calvo Alamando De Alonzo, or, when pressed for time, simply Bumper D.
Levi did not permit his active social life to interfere with the
32. Sabine, Lorenzo, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution (Boston, 1864), 2 vols., II. 181.
33. Ira Allen Papers, 1774-1793, Levi to Ira, May 23 or 24 (Levi wasn't sure ), 1759. 34. Ibid., no date.
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commercial and political objectives of his mission. The day after his arrival, he presented a petition to Lord Sydney, in which he stated that Vermont contained many inhabitants still loyal to Great Britain who had fled from the states to Vermont during and after the Revolution. He declared that as late as 1788 Ver- monters had made overtures to Quebec to rejoin Great Britain- "this would still be their greatest wish could it be practicable but being in doubt with respect to its practicability this part of their wish is not comprehended in the Commission with which your memorialist is charged." Vermonters, he wrote, were disappointed by the establishment of the Canadian-American boundary be- cause it destroyed their hopes of being incorporated as "an appendage to the Province of Quebec." To remove the com- mercial barrier inherent in the boundary, he requested that Ver- monters be permitted to trade with Great Britain upon the pay- ment of the same duties as those paid by the inhabitants of the Province of Quebec.35
While waiting for an answer to his petition to Sydney, Levi endeavored to secure a mast contract from the British govern- ment. He interviewed Evan Nepean of the British Admiralty on the twenty-fourth of May, who kindly received him although he had not yet received any dispatches from Dorchester concerning Levi's mission. After a "long confab," Nepean gave him a letter of introduction to Sir Charles Middleton, Chief of the Navy Office. Levi went immediately to the Navy Office to discuss the terms of a mast contract. Although he was treated with politeness, he · was disgusted to discover that timber contracts for the spring had been awarded to New Brunswick and London contractors. "I thought," wrote Levi to Ira, May 24, "I had rubbed off a large Quantity of my natural honesty yet was simple enough to sup- pose the lowest offer would be closed with . .. . "36
His failures caused him to rely largely upon the aid which Clinton and Simcoe could give him to secure a direct trade be- tween Great Britain and Vermont. "If I can carry this point and
35. Bemis, S. F., "The Relations Between the Vermont Separatists and Great Britain, 1789-1791," American Historical Review (XXI, no. 3, April, 1916), 547-560.
36. Ira Allen Papers, 1774-1793.
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open a trade," he wrote Ira, "I shall be forever satisfied if I don't make into myself one hundred pounds clear for seven years to come. Conquering the Canada opposition will be a sufficient re- ward .... "37 To aid Levi, Simcoe and Clinton loaned him small sums and bent every effort to secure a favorable reception for his proposals.
Clinton's and Simcoe's friendship for Levi was due in part to their fear of a revival of the "Family Compact" between France and Spain, and to their fear that in case of war between it and Great Britain, the United States would seize Quebec and thereby destroy the major center of British influence in the interior of North America. In January, 1790, Clinton penned a rough draft of his opinions of the importance to Great Britain of the friend- ship of Vermont. Self-preservation, he maintained, required that the British government accept the Vermont proposals to rejoin the empire, in return for which the British government ought to concede every trading privilege which the Vermonters had re- quested. Such an alliance was necessary to enable the British to fortify themselves on the left bank of the St. Lawrence and on the islands of the Richelieu River. With the protection afforded by an alliance with Vermont, Clinton continued, Britain would be able to exert an influence upon the American settlements lying west of the Allegheny Mountains and to extend greatly the scope of British commerce in North America. He envisaged using the St. Lawrence as a corridor through which British trade and politi- cal influence would be extended far down the Mississippi Valley.38
Simcoe, whose views coincided with those of Clinton, impressed Lord Grenville, Sydney's successor to the Home Secretaryship, with the necessity of Vermont's friendship in view of the threat of war against Spain. He shepherded Levi into Grenville's office to enable him to present his arguments in favor of closer com- mercial connections.39
Grenville's hesitation to commit himself did not prevent Levi from pursuing his other objectives. In September, 1789, he en-
37. Ibid., no date.
SS. Clinton Papers, 1790-1791.
39. Q, CCLXXVIII, 259-270.
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deavoured to interest the British government in the appointment of a "Protestant Episcopal Bishop" for Quebec and Vermont. His candidate for Bishop was Samuel Peters. If Vermont were to be allied commercially and politically with Great Britain, why should not these ties be reinforced by religion? Furthermore, the lands granted by Governor Wentworth to the S.P.G. had escaped con- fiscation during the Revolution and these lands might be available for the support of a new church. For a time, Levi hoped either to secure these lands for himself or to get "something handsome" for caring for them during and after the war. He now decided to secure these lands for the proposed church and he wrote the S.P.G. that, because of neglect, the influence of the Church of England was declining in Vermont and Quebec, that he and Chittenden had saved these lands from "going the way of all flesh," and that they not only wanted to establish a new church but also to open a college at St. Johns as it "bids fair to be the Grand Emporium of New Canda [sic] & Vermont."40 Peters had already communicated upon this subject with George Chalmers, Maryland loyalist, who had become the Chief Clerk of the Board of Trade. He enclosed in his letter a crudely drawn map of the region lying between the Hudson, the St. Lawrence and the Green Mountains which dramatically demonstrated the geographic fea- tures which tied Vermont to Quebec.41
But the core of Levi's mission lay in the grand plan to secure the privilege of re-export from Quebec and, if possible, a political alliance with Great Britain. Once these objectives were achieved, the rest would follow in due course. In December, 1789, Simcoe resumed his efforts to secure a favorable reception for Levi's pro- posals by communicating with Evan Nepean. He told him that unless Vermont were allied to Britain, the British would be forced to abandon the western posts. He snobbishly vouched for the character of the Vermonters, describing them as "A brave virtu- ous English race of People, descendants of the best Familyies in
40. Levi Allen Papers, letters to Reverend Dr. Morice and to the Archbishop of Canter- bury.
41. This map is also printed in Proceedings of the Vermont Historical Society (n.s., XI, no. I, March, 1943), 3-4.
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the Country; the Pierponts, Seymours, Stanleys, etc., Episcopa- lians and Enemies to the New Yorkers and the Congress." Con- tinuing, Simcoe argued in favor of a treaty of alliance and com- merce which Vermonters requested because "all the waters of the country fall into the St. Lawrence." He warned Nepean that the Vermonters would drive through the St. Lawrence to the ocean "by equal alliance or conquest." As Simcoe desired an alliance, he urged the building of a canal around the Richelieu rapids. He declared that the canal would not only attach Vermont to the British but also provide the British Navy with a less precarious source of sup- ply of ship timber than that afforded by the Baltic.42
Meanwhile, the pressure applied by Simcoe and Clinton had borne fruit. On November 21, 1789, the Solicitor-General of the British Customs rendered the opinion that a re-export of Ameri- can articles from Quebec, as if they were of Canadian origin, would not be deemed illegal.43 Then on April 1, 1790, the Lords of the Privy Council for Trade and Plantations answered Gren- ville's request for advice on Levi's petitions. After reviewing the steps which had been taken to open trade between Quebec and Vermont, they declared that it was impossible to assume that Levi was unaware that a commercial connection had already been established, and that it was their opinion that he had a political objective besides that of opening a free commerce between Great Britain and Vermont, and that he had, as they wrote, "probably received secret instructions for this purpose." The Lords declared that it was not within their province to decide whether a treaty with Vermont would violate the Treaty of Paris of 1783, or whether it was politically prudent to risk offending the United States, but they did state that from the standpoint of British com- merce it was desirable that Vermont, Kentucky and other interior settlements remain independent of the United States.44 The Lords saw clearly that Kentucky was separated from the other Ameri- can states by the same mountain barrier which isolated the Cham- plain Valley. Kentucky's outlet to the sea was controlled by Spain
42. P.A.C., "J. Ross Robertson" Simcoe Papers, I, bk. 2, 7-12.
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