USA > Vermont > Vermont in quandary, 1763-1825 > Part 19
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Above all, Haldimand proposed with great foresight to reserve the lands as yet ungranted for the future use of French Canadians. Hle hoped that they would in time provide a buffer between loyal- ists and Americans who, as Samuel Peters wrote, "are like the Jews and Samaritans & ... death only will cure their hatred."8 In reserving these lands for French Canadians, Haldimand did not foresee danger in their mingling with Americans settled near the border. He believed that the French Canadians would be more impervious to American principles than democratically- minded loyalists who had fled from the American backcountry to Quebec.
Haldimand's attitude towards those Americans who came into the province in the hope of securing lands rather than from loyalty to King and country followed specifically the instructions he had received from Lord North. These Americans, known as late loyal-
4. N.Y.S.L., Miscellaneous Manuscripts, No. 7289.
5. B, LXIII.
6. S, XX, 71.
7. B. LCXXVIII, 299-300.
8. P.A.C., Chatham Manuscripts, 1782-1805, 103-104, Peters to Mr. Davidson, Dee. 26, 1791.
4
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THE ALLURE OF CANADIAN LANDS
ists, were not welcomed by Haldimand nor by loyalists already in Quebec. A few, however, managed to pass themselves off as genuine loyalists, but some of these were unmasked and de- nounced to the Canadian government.9 The genuine loyalists who had settled at Sorel on the Richelieu complained of the niggard- liness of the government in complying with their wishes, while "at the very time people who came in since the peace are receiv- ing everything and more than the honest man." They pointed a finger of accusation at one Bostwick, among others, who had arrived since 1783, and they characterized him as "the greatest Rebell's son that ever was in Albany."10
After the lodging of many complaints against late loyalists, the British government issued instructions that they were not to share in its bounty. Nepean instructed Lieutenant-Governor Henry Hope on August 25, 1785, that he was not to give provisions to Amer- icans moving into Quebec unless they could prove themselves to be loyalists.11 Haldimand had previously taken the precaution of ordering that neither provisions nor land, as had been granted "to Loyalists who took an active part for Government," should be given to late loyalists.12
The return of Haldimand to England and the arrival in Quebec in 1786 of Guy Carleton, now Lord Dorchester, brought a com- plete reversal of Haldimand's policy of reserving provincial lands for genuine loyalists and French Canadians. The man most re- sponsible for this reversal was William Smith. He was probably the most powerful person in Quebec at this time.13 As Chief Jus- tice, Smith, instead of viewing American immigration with alarm, proposed to encourage it. His goal was the restoration of the British Empire in North America. He hoped to make the Province of Quebec so prosperous and well-ordered as to attract the favor- able attention of Americans, still in the throes of the Critica! Period. Smith believed that the American Revolution had been precipitated by a well-organized minority, and that by no means
9. Hansen, M. L., Brebner, J. B., op. cit., 64-65.
10. S, XXVIII, 123.
11. C.O. 42, XV 11, 97.
12. B, LXIII, 258.
13. Burt, The Old Province of Quebec, 422.
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THE ALLURE OF CANADIAN LANDS
all persons of loyalist sentiments had fled from the American states to the British possessions. By erecting a representative although not democratic Assembly, by replacing French com- mercial law with English and by borrowing the New England land system for the new settlements, he hoped to attract American merchants and farmers who would in time outnumber the French Canadians. It was common knowledge that Smith had won Dor- chester's support of his policies. "Our Chief Justice's Politics," wrote Henry Hope to Nepean, January 7, 1789, “have made a perfect convert of a certain Person."14 Another report was to the following effect:
[there is] little doubt of intentions of Smith respecting waste lands as well from the Acknowledgments he owed to his friends in the States by whose means he saved property from confiscation, as from his language and conduct. The notion still prevails and is by many openly avowed that the Canadas must be annexed to the States Whenever they shall chuse to unite them. Smith's lan- guage is that . . . a rising colony ... [must] adopt every Citizen who wishes to come in whether he be a rebel or no.15
Smith's unfortunate experience with Yankee speculators and settlers in the New Hampshire Grants had taught him that the best way to attract settlers from the States would be to offer land in fee simple. Described as "a gentleman who had been long con- versant in the practising of the Land Granting Department in the former Colonies of New York and New Hampshire,"16 Smith thought that to expect Americans to be willing to live under the French seignorial system was preposterous.
By the Constitutional Act of 1791, his policies began to be real- ized. The Canadian government, employing powers granted under the act, divided Quebec into two provinces. That portion of the old province bordering upon the upper reaches of the St. Law- rence and the north shores of the Great Lakes became the Prov- ince of Upper Canada; it was promised an elective legislature and freehold tenure. The lower portion of the old province be-
14. C.O. 42, XXI, 3-4.
15. Ibid., XXII, 87-89.
16. P.A.C., Canada Public, Series E, 182-191.
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came the Province of Lower Canada. While the act did not re- quire the establishment in Lower Canada of an Assembly or the introduction of freehold tenure, the British, particularly Lord Grenville who actually framed the bill, anticipated that both would be established as indeed they soon were.17
The changes in Canadian land policies which Smith advocated began in Lower Canada during the year after the passage of the Constitutional Act. On February 7, 1792, Sir Alured Clarke, Lieu- tenant-Governor of that Province, issued a proclamation which set forth the terms upon which the vacant lands would be granted and letters patent issued. Land was to be granted in townships, with the Crown reserving rights to ship and mast timber and sub- soil resources, and land needed for the support of the Protestant clergy. The townships were to be divided into two hundred acre lots and no individual grant was to exceed twelve hundred acres. Letters patent would be issued to petitioners upon proof that their land was in the process of settlement and cultivation, and that they had taken the oath required by His Majesty's thirty-fifth instruction.18
On February 20, the Executive Council of which Smith was President was authorized to receive petitions for land. As has been seen, the instructions as to the procedure to be followed by the Council in granting lands were extremely explicit. Smith recog- nized in these instructions obstacles to the realization of his own plans. At a lengthy meeting of the Council, on March 17, 1792, he argued that individual petitioners would find it difficult to ful- fill the conditions imposed by the instructions. He urged, instead, that one of a group of persons petitioning for a township be desig- nated its leader and be permitted to receive the grant of a town- ship, take the oath on its behalf, distribute land to his associates and retain for himself a share of the proceeds which might total more than 1200 acres. "En somme," as Ivanhoë Caron has com- mented, "le Président du Conseil, sans se prononcer catégorique- ment, proposait une interpretation plutôt large des instructions
17. Burt, op. cit .. 484-496. The Act is printed in Shortt, A., Doughty, A.G., Documents Relating to the Constitutional History of Canada, 1759-1791 ( Ottawa, 1915), 1031-1051. IS. Caron, Ivanhoë, La Colonisation de la Province de Québec ( Quebec, 1923-1927 ), 2 vols., II, 25-28.
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THE ALLURE OF CANADIAN LANDS
royales."19 When Smith's proposal was authorized on March 22, land-speculators were in effect invited to enter the Province of Lower Canada.
John Graves Simcoe, the first Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, distributed Clarke's Proclamation and a similar one for Upper Canada throughout New England and New York. He recommended to Dundas "that the whole of the Proclamation may appear in those newspapers of our West India Islands, as the best means of their being transmitted to the United States, the land jobbers of which are industrious in preventing them from being dispersed from this country."20 He, however, had numerous friends in New England who distributed copies of it. One of them declared, "I have spread your proclamation as far south as New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire." 21
The attractiveness of the lands offered by the proclamations did not rest wholly upon their geographic situation. These lands, if conditions were met and fees paid, were to be had for the ask- ing and were not to be burdened by unpopular taxes as lands were in the American States. Vermonters, it was said, desired to remove to Lower Canada to escape paying the land taxes levied in Vermont.22 The Indian menace which still existed in the interior provided another reason for migration to Lower Canada. "Emis- saries of the speculators," Samuel Peters declared, "have circulated such fears mongst the People that few will at present move into Upper Canada while thousands prepare to settle near Missisquoi Bay." 23
The response of Americans to the Clarke and Simcoe Proclama- tions was immediate. "The people of the United States continue to send Agents, at least people come in calling themselves Agents, who sit down and write a string of Petitions in favor of A.B.C.D. E.F. etc., going thro' the Alphabet."24 As might be expected, many Canadians who had capital for investment applied for warrants of survey, among them George Allsopp, the merchant, James Glennie,
19. Ibid., II, 30.
20. "J. Ross Robertson" Simcoe Papers, II, Bk. 2, 69. .
2 !. V.H.S .. John Baker to Simcoe, n.d.
22. s. XXV. 100.
B. CO. 42. XXI. 269-270.
24. Ibid., XXII, 338.
€
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THE ALLURE OF CANADIAN LANDS
late of the Champlain Valley lumber trade, Francis Baby, Mont- real merchant, Henry Caldwell, Simon Fraser Jr. and Alexander Henry. By far the greater number, however, were Americans or loyalists.25 Heading the list of Americans who requested warrants of survey was the great New York fur-trader, John Jacob Astor. The remainder were lesser folk of the New England frontier of whom the majority were living in Vermont. The land records of the Province of Lower Canada in the Canadian Archives con- tain many petitions for land, some small, some monster in size. These petitions came from Brattleborough, Bennington, Burling- ton, Windsor, Williston, Pawlet, Rutland, Pittsford, Ferrisburg, Charlotte, Monkton and other towns.26
Among those who petitioned for land were loyalists or indi- viduals whose opportunistic conduct during the Haldimand Nego- tiations entitled them, so they assumed, to a share of Canadian lands. Many of them had not seen fit to remove from Vermont after the failure of these negotiations. Such was the case of Luke Knoulton, who had striven so mightily to reunite Vermont to Great Britain that he had been forced to flee Vermont, returning only after the furore over the Haldimand Negotiations had subsided. He, in company with Josiah Arms, petitioned for the township of Stukely on March 26, 1792. On May 3, he reminded the Lower Canadian Government of his "activity as secret agent in Important Concerns the papers of which had to be destroyed."27 Another of the same character was Nathan Stone, a member of an old Yorker family who during the Revolution had been a Lieutenant "in His Majesty's Services," and at one time imprisoned for loyalism.23 Still another loyalist was Abraham Cuyler, ex-Mayor of Albany, who said that he was at present residing in Albany."29
From Brattleborough came a petition from Samuel Gale, son- in-law of Samuel Wells. He was a friend of William Smith and knew many Vermonters, including the Allens. Another son-in-law of Wells, Micah Townshend, also petitioned for land. He, too,
25. See S, Land Committee Minutes, Feb. 20, 1792-Sept. 24, 1793, passim.
26. Ibid.
27. S. Land, Stukely, 1792-18.10.
28. Ibid., Land Sundries, 1795-1798.
29. Ibid., Land, Famham, 1792-1794.
-7.4*
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THE ALLURE OF CANADIAN LANDS
had survived the various phases of the American Revolution in Vermont.3º Abel Spencer, an avowed loyalist himself and son of the Yorker loyalist of the same name, claimed in his petition that his father had sacrificed his life for his King during the Revolu- tion and that all his lands, most of them in Vermont, had been confiscated.31
The most celebrated of the loyalist petitioners was Levi Allen. His heart had been broken when Vermont became the Fourteenth State. His dreams of prospering at St. Johns had been destroyed. Temporarily, he was estranged from his brother, Ira, because of Ira's voting to ratify the Federal Constitution at the Vermont Convention of 1791. Clarke's proclamation revived his drooping spirits, and he wrote his brother, "I have dropped a tear over the expiring Family Honor, but am drying them in full hopes and Faith that a Phenix will arise out of the ashes."32 "Six hours after receiving Proclamation," he wrote the Land Committee, "I was on my way for Quebec."33 As an avowed loyalist, Levi was care- ful to disassociate himself from his Vermont origins. He declared that he owed it to himself to state that he was not responsible for Vermont's behavior since the Revolution, adding that he had never received an acre of land from the State of Vermont and that New Hampshire had granted him his lands. "Only public business I have done for Vermont was negotiating a commercial intercourse with Quebec."34 As soon as he arrived in the province, he re- quested warrants of survey for three townships and received two, Barford and Kingsland.
By this time, the Canadian government had become aware of the questionable means by which he had attempted to secure land grants. A report on an earlier petition of his suggested that of 2090 signatures, 1779 were written by one person whom it suspected was Levi, and it noted similar irregularities in his other petitions.35 Levi employed an amusing stratagem when he
30. Ibid., Land, Farnham, 1792-1794.
31. Ibid., Land, Wotton, 1792-1830.
32. V.H.S., Levi to Ira, June 28, 1793.
33. S, Land, Barford, March 6, 1792.
34. Ibid., March 16, 1792.
35. Ibid., Land, Lake Memphremagog, Report of Henry Motz, July 9, 1787; S, Land Committee Minutes, II, 117.
1
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THE ALLURE OF CANADIAN LANDS
was in Quebec in April of 1792 to petition for a township on be- half of his brother-in-law, William Coit. Soon after he arrived in Quebec, he learned that Ebenezer Hovey and Henry Cull were preparing a petition for the land he wished to secure for Coit. Levi met the crisis by pre-dating his petition to April 14 and sail- ing into the Land Committee's offices on the eighteenth ten min- utes ahead of the unsuspecting Messrs. Hovey and Cull.36
The most delicate problem facing the Land Committee was how to respond to petitions presented by Vermonters who had been active supporters of the American Revolution. These persons simply presented a petition to the Land Committee, respectfully praying for warrants of survey. One of them obtained references from Governor Chittenden, who at this particular time was not in the good graces of the Canadian authorities.37
Americans in this category did not have to despair of securing Canadian lands because loyalist friends in Quebec and Vermont stood ready to assist them. Levi Allen not only sponsored a peti- tion for Coit but also aided a group of embittered and disillu- sioned Shaysites from Williamstown, Massachusetts, to obtain a warrant of survey. William Smith had long been confident that the hatred of many New England backcountry settlers for the New England seaboard would induce them to move to Canada, and his expectations were fulfilled to a degree by the desire of some of them to migrate to his province. Levi remarked, in peti- tioning on behalf of Elijah Baker and Elijah Clark, "they and a great part of associates were with Shays Party, about five years since, being then unsuccessful, have been dissatisfied ever since, as well as a long time before." 38
By the end of 1792, 3,000,000 acres had been warranted for sur- vey in 150 townships, the majority of them in the Eastern Town- ships.39 The overwhelming number of applicants were Americans; indeed, it has been estimated that nineteen-twentieths of those persons petitioning for land in Lower Canada at this time were
36. Ibid., Land Committee Minutes, Feb. 20, 1792-Sept. 24, 1793, 89-90.
37. See Petition of William Coit, May 21, 1792, in S, Land Sundries, 1791-1794.
38. Ibid., Land, Barford, Levi to Lieutenant-Governor Clark, April 20, 1792.
39. Ibid., Land Committee Minutes, 1793-1797, III.
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residents of the American States.4º Land-hungry Americans were seemingly embarked upon an era of peaceful penetration of Lower Canada and an equally peaceful acceptance of British institutions. The expediency of Smith's policies appeared to have been bril- liantly vindicated.
40. C.O. 42, XXII, 87-89.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Conflicting Strategies
Three months after Lieutenant-Governor Clarke had issued the land proclamation, France declared war upon Austria and the wars of the French Revolution began. History had shown that wars in Europe usually brought conflict between the North Ameri- can colonies of the European warring nations. Although the American colonies had declared their independence and were no longer under the control of a European power, the renewal of the struggle between Great Britain and France, fought on sea as well as land, was bound to involve the maritime interests of the United States as a neutral power.
Great Britain, as a greater naval power than France, violated American rights as neutrals more often than France during the earlier phase of the war. Meanwhile, in North America, the re- fusal of Great Britain to evacuate the western posts was alone suf- ficient cause for creating ill-will between the United States and Great Britain. This feeling swiftly rose to a climax when Dor- chester, in February, 1794, provoked Americans by a speech to the Indians in which he said that the British-American impasse might lead to war. Shortly thereafter, he ordered John Graves Simcoe to advance to the Maumee River. In the following August, 1794, Mad Anthony Wayne won his victory over the Indians in that country at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. Great Britain and the United States appeared on the verge of war.1
This new crisis was bound to affect the relations between Lower Canada and Vermont, as much as the revolutionary war had af- fected the relations between the old Province of Quebec and the New Hampshire Grants. Once more Vermonters differed in their estimate of the role their state should play in an Anglo-American crisis. During the Revolution, Vermont had at first fought along- side the American states against Great Britain, then, later, had
1. Burt, The United States, Great Britain and British North American, 137-140, 157.
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withdrawn from the Revolution to negotiate with the British in Quebec, not only for neutrality but also for the purpose of becom- ing again a part of the British Empire. Now two groups within the state were supporting these opposite views again, one favoring war against Great Britain, the other favoring neutrality or, if pos- sible, alliance with Great Britain. Actually, the underlying pur- poses of both factions were the same-speculation in Canadian lands, free navigation of the St. Lawrence and construction of a ship canal around the Richelieu Rapids. One faction was com- posed of Levi and Ira Allen, Thomas Chittenden and John A. Gra- ham, a mining promotor of Rutland, who described himself as an "American Englishman." The other drew its major support from the members of the famous Democratic Societies. In Vermont these societies were particularly active west of the Green Moun- tains-in Bennington, Rutland, Addison and Chittenden counties. The membership, far from being drawn wholly from the farm- ing and artisan classes, included such substantial land-owners and business men, as Silas Hathaway of St. Albans, Matthew Lyon of Fairhaven and Levi Allen's brother-in-law, William Coit.
Although the Allens sympathized with the aims of the Demo- cratic Societies, they were careful to disassociate themselves in public from their activities. So similar were the aims of the Allen- Chittenden faction to the aims of the Democratic Societies that Matthew Lyon could, without compromising basic principles, se- cretly support both. His sympathies, however, were primarily with the Democratic Societies. His belligerent anti-Federalism Jed to his imprisonment for violation of the Sedition Act of 1798 which Fed- eralists had passed in order to crush all opposition to their anti- French policies and their conservative domestic program.
Even before the outbreak of the wars of the French Revolution, the Bennington Gazette printed a news item which indicated a revival of Vermont's desires to conquer the Canadian provinces. In it, the writer declared that they could be conquered with ease and that
... where Wolf, Montcalm and brave Montgomery bled, FREEDOM shall rear her long-dejected head;
.....
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CONFLICTING STRATEGIES
Fayette's bold deed some kindred souls shall fire And bid his views to glorious heights aspire, The Ambitious aim of sovereignty controul, And bid fair freedom greet the northern pole.
The writer asked why the British retained the Canadas in view of the expenses of their governments and the small amount of their trade. He answered his own question by saying that Britain prob- ably retained them because they provided political patronage and "mere pride and domination."? Obviously, if "FREEDOM" were to be brought to the Canadas by Vermonters, their desire for more land and navigation of the St. Lawrence would be achieved.
After the outbreak of the French revolutionary wars, many Ver- monters sided with France against conservative Great Britain be- cause they believed that France was fighting for the same demo- cratic principles for which they had fought in their own revolu- tion. After the arrival of Edmund Gênet in the United States, these Vermonters hoped that his influence would help them realize their ambitions to conquer the Canadian provinces. He and his successors desired to restore the Canadas to France.3 These French ministers worked hand in glove with members of the Democratic Societies which ardently supported the cause of the French Revolution on the one hand, and opposed Federalist domestic and foreign measures on the other.4
Not only were the societies active in Vermont but they also maintained connections with Americans and Canadians in Lower Canada who sympathized with their views and shared their ambi- tions. Ardent democrats on both sides of the border hoped to se- cure French Canadian support by arousing their lingering attach- ments for France and their antipathy to the feudal institutions which the British had perpetuated in Lower Canada. Vermonters had never abandoned their belief in the utility of democratic ideas. Democratic propaganda had helped them to separate the Grants from New York and it might now aid them to detach Lower Canada from the British Empire.
2. Quoted in New York Packet, June 30, 1791.
3. Turner, F. J., "Policy of France Towards the Mississippi Valley," American Histun- cal Review ( X, January, 1905 ) . 247-249.
4. See Link, E. P., Democratic-Republican Societies, 1790-1800 (New York, 1942). .
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Simcoe in Upper Canada and Dorchester in Lower Canada were increasingly alarmed by the mysterious and secret activities of Freemasons and Democrats. Simcoe charged that Montreal Free- masons were carrying on a correspondence with Vermonters "in- jurious to the King's interests."" The Solicitor-General of Lower Canada stated that he had found the Montreal region in a state of "Allmost universal and alarming disaffection."6 This unrest was said to be confined largely to French Canadians of the lower classes who, as in France, were inspired by revolutionary doc- trines to oppose feudal institutions. In French Canada, these doc- trines increased the opposition of the habitants to the seigneurs.
Dorchester was so alarmed that he thought it his duty to in- form the British government of these indications of unrest. On April 26, 1794, he wrote Henry Dundas, new Secretary of State. for War and the Colonies, that French intrigues were gaining ground in the United States and that Vermonters had made pro- posals to the Americans that they be allowed to conquer and plunder Canada unaided.7 Dorchester's reports had some founda- tion in fact. The Vermont Gazette of Bennington published on March 15, 1793 a report received from Lower Canada which stated that republican principles had made headway among Cana- dians, and that Democratic Societies had been formed which held frequent meetings. On the whole, the report concluded, "it ap- pears highly probable that the extensive province of Canada will at an early period, add one to the number of independent free republics to grace the western hemisphere." In the summer of 1794 Dorchester called out the militia to protect the government against any eventuality.
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