USA > Vermont > Vermont in quandary, 1763-1825 > Part 20
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As the Anglo-American crisis came to a head, the attitude of Vermonters became more and more menacing. As early as March 28, 1794, the Vermont Gazette carried a Canadian report that a war between the Americans and the Indians in the west was im- minent. It intimated that Dorchester would withdraw his support of the Indians "in case war really ensued" and in case the United
5. O. LXIX, pt. 1, 59.
6. Ibid., LXIX, pt. 1, 54.
7. Ibid., LXVII, 191.
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States saw "cause to farm to Vermont the capture of Canada." On May fourth, the Rutland Democratic Society issued a series of resolves. One was directed against Hamilton's funding of the debt and the establishment of the Bank of the United States, both of which were declared to favor unduly "speculators and funding system men; one was in favor of adequate defense of Lake Cham- plain; and one approved a harsh address to Dorchester "on the subject of his execrable villainy in rousing the savages of Canada to prepare for butchery of the people of the United States." On May 16, the Democratic Society of Chittenden County con- demned Dorchester's actions, although "in the last war, Sir, you was generally esteemed amongst the most humane of British of- ficers." The society thereupon threatened an invasion of Lower Canada in which disaffected Canadians would join.9
Meanwhile the Allen-Chittenden faction secretly prepared for Vermont's neutrality and alliance with Great Britain in case of an Anglo-American war. It revived the separatist project of 1789- 1790 to supplement the already existing geographic and economic ties with political and religious ties. Once more, the Allens and Chittenden hoped to persuade the Vermont Assembly to grant lands to the S.P.G. for the support of Peters' church, they wished the British government to build a Richelieu canal and they desired to participate in the granting of Canadian lands. Emboldened by the prospect that Britain's necessity would force her to support all of Vermont's ambitions, they actually plotted to annex to Ver- mont western New York as far as Niagara and they even viewed greedily lands near the British post at Detroit. The object was, of course, a vast land speculation. Ebenezer Allen, a relative of the famous Allen family, wrote Ira on March 25, 1795, that the prospect of these lands is "so good that I think it to be superior to any Chance there ever was in the State of Vermont nor do I think there ever was a Gratter specte [speculation] to be made than at this moment." This land was so excellent that he said "it would make your hart for to leep with Joy Ware you to see it."10
S. Vermont Gazette. June 6, 1794.
9. Ibid., May 16, 1794.
10. Ira Allen Papers, 1795-1801.
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Meanwhile, in London, Samuel Peters acted as spokesman for the Vermont separatists. He had not as yet secured from the Bri- tish government what he believed to be sufficient recognition of his hardships and losses as a loyalist. As a result, he was still searching for a position affording "a decent salary."11 With the revival of the separatist project of the Allens and Chittenden, Peters aspired once more to return to the American states as the Bishop of Vermont and, perhaps, Lower Canada.
In Upper Canada, the group working towards some of these aims was led by Simcoe and his secretary, William Jarvis, who was Samuel Peters' son-in-law. Like Levi, Simcoe had been deeply chagrined and disappointed because the Allens had been shabbily treated by the British in Quebec and London about the time that Vermont joined the union.12 "The assembly of Vermont," he wrote Sir Henry Clinton, "admit their folly and rashness in joining Con- gress. We ought to nurse our interest there." 13
As Simcoe conceived British interests, the survival of the Cana- das as British possessions rested in large part on Vermont's friend- ship. A commercial and political alliance between Britain and Ver- mont would provide a barrier against future American expansion, as well as a screen behind which the Canadas could exert greater influence in the interior of the continent. "If the affections of Ver- mont be preserved, & the fashionable democratic principles spread not among the French Canadians, "he wrote Dundas on August 16, 1791, "there is no need to dread the Power of the Americans."
Simcoe did not agree with his personal friends in Vermont who desired to be permitted to navigate the entire length of the St. Lawrence. He wrote Dundas, February 23, 1794, that the Ver- monters must be prevented from executing their claim to navigate the St. Lawrence as a natural right.15 Neither was he sympathetic towards the efforts of Vermonters to speculate in Upper Canadian lands. When Joseph Fay, Justus Sherwood, Stephen Arnold, a member of the Governor's Council of Vermont, and others at-
11. New York Historical Society, Samuel Peters Papers, XIII, 13.
12. Report of the Public Archives of Canada for 1889, 7.
13. Clements Library, Clinton Papers, 1790-1792.
14. Cruikshank, E. A., The Correspondence of John Graves Simcoe ( Toronto, 1923- 1931), 5 vols., 1, 53.
15. P.A.C., "J. Ross Robertson" Simcoe Papers, III, Bk. 9, 689-703.
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tempted to secure a grant of not less than 3,500,000 acres, Simcoe politely but firmly rejected their petition.16 His secretary, William Jarvis, wrote them that "at the present moment it is of much more importance that Upper Canada possess few inhabitants loyal to the King and British constitution, than a multitude of people of hostile or doubtful character."17 Despite these sources of potential friction between Simcoe and the Vermonters, he cooperated with them for the purpose of furthering his own ends, which were those of the British.
The aims of these Vermonters were summed up by Samuel Peters in a document he entitled, "Proposals From Vermont, March, 1794." Vermont, so he wrote, would become a neutral power, "like a Swiss Canton," if Great Britain would grant Ver- monters all the commercial privileges of British subjects, concede free navigation of the St. Lawrence, appoint a Protestant Epis- copal Bishop for Vermont and the Canadas and support Vermont's annexation of New York as far west as Niagara. In return for all this, Vermont promised to guarantee Great Britain permanent possession of the western posts, to protect the Canadas from an American invasion and to guarantee that Vermont would not per- mit the other American states to share its commercial privileges in the British Empire. "These are in general which I have heard spoken of and must be opened with great caution & no record of anything of this business is to be left in the office," he concluded, evidently referring to the disclosure of the Haldimand Negotia- tions, "lest the Birds of the Air sell the news and another delay should take place." 18
Because the pro-British group in Vermont expected war, a pri- vate agreement was entered into by Chittenden and Jarvis at Wil- liston, Vermont, on January 12, 1794. The Governor, in the pres- ence of Colonel Fay, criticized the excesses of the French Revo- lution, declared that Vermont was opposed to the United States' joining France in war against Great Britain and asked Jarvis to give his compliments to Simcoe and to "tell him that the Gover-
16. P.A.C., "Wolford" Simcoe Papers, I, Bk. 3, 32.
17. "J. Ross Robertson" Simcoe Papers, I. Bk. 5, 60-61.
18. C.O. 5, VIII, 10-12.
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nor and Council of Vermont are of the same opinion that they were in the year 1781 when Colonel Fay was ... on board a King's small Vessel negotiating a union with Canada." A sea war, said Chittenden, "will lose everything, commerce through Canada ruined, the country raided by Indians." On the fourteenth, Jarvis saw Ira Allen who expressed the same sentiments.19
Britain's acceptance of the "Proposals From Vermont" depended wholly upon war as the outcome of the Anglo-American crisis. "The settlement of Vermont," wrote Dundas to Dorchester in July of 1793, "is a matter at Present of great delicacy, and upon which no positive or precise directions can be given. The conduct of Lord D [orchester] will be very guarded and circumspect and must be regulated by Circumstances as they arise."20 In a letter over a year later, in November, 1794, Portland, the Home Secre- tary, expressed a different view to Simcoe. He instructed him, on November tenth, not to be committed in the present contest be- tween the Americans and the Indians "for it would endanger final arrangements being made between us and the United States." Re- ferring to Vermont, he declared himself "very well aware that under circumstances of a different nature, many advantages to this Country and great disadvantages to the Amercan States might be the consequence of attending to the present dispositions of the Vermonters." 21
The final arrangements referred to were incorporated in the Jay Treaty of November 19, 1794, which. removed temporarily the crisis over the rights of Americans as neutrals and permanently the crisis over the western posts.22 The Federalists were respon- sible for this treaty. They opposed war against Britain because many of them were business men whose close connections with British merchants and financiers and need for British credit led them to voice the demand that war be avoided. Furthermore, the Federalists regarded Britain as the chief bulwark against the democracy which they believed was running berserk in France.
19. Q, CCLXXX, pt. I, 269.
20. C.O. 42, XXII, 264.
21. Q, CCLXX, pt. I, 275-276.
22. See Bemis, S. F., Jay's Treaty; A Study in Commerce and Diplomacy ( New York, 1924).
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They believed it had already infected the United States through the agency of the Democratic Societies.
These considerations were largely responsible for the desire of the Washington Administration to prevent the war which seemed inevitable after Dorchester's speech to the Indians in February, 1794. In the spring of that year Washington appointed John Jay to go to London to arrange a treaty with the British. In April, four months before Wayne's victory in the Battle of Fallen Tim- bers, Edmund Randolph, Secretary of State, drafted instructions for Jay. He was told to secure British compensation for injuries to American commerce, to secure evacuation of the posts and to provide for British and American implementation of the provisions of the Treaty of 1783 which had not been honored. Jay was em- powered also to discuss the terms of a commercial treaty. On May 12, he left for London, where he arrived on June S.
The treaty which he secured fulfilled some but not all of the aims of the administration. The British promised to evacuate the western posts by June 1, 1795, and to permit the entrance of American ships of seventy tons or less into the ports of the British West Indies. In return, the United States agreed to facilitate the payment of private debts owed to British subjects by Americans if contracted prior to 1783. Both agreed to establish commissions to arbitrate claims arising from British depredations of American shipping and to settle the disputed points which had arisen in re- gard to the Canadian-American boundary.
The attention given to these provisions has tended to obscure the significance of the clauses of the treaty dealing with Canadian- American trade. Jay returned from London with substantial con- cessions for Americans who were trading with the inland British colonies of Lower and Upper Canada. Largely because the Navi- gation Acts did not apply to inland colonies, the British govern- ment acceded to clauses which allowed reciprocal privileges for Canadians and Americans to pass back and forth across the border, and others which permitted the importation of foreign and domes- tic goods from the United States into the Canadas by land or in- land navigation on the payment of duties no higher than those
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levied on the same goods if imported into the Canadas by sea.23
These clauses aroused hostility among Canadian merchants be- cause they desired their government to place high import duties on goods entering by land or inland navigation and low duties on goods entering by sea. By levying duties in this fashion they hoped to erect a tariff wall against imports from New York and concentrate the trade of the Canadas upon the St. Lawrence. It was the opinion of the Montreal merchant, George Allsopp, that this restriction upon the tariff-making power of the Canadian government, in addition to the British promise to evacuate the posts, would throw the bulk of the fur trade into American hands and that "our principle Montreal houses will connect themselves with people in New York to make it a kind of joint concern be- tween that state and this province." The port of New York, he said, "is the place I prefer to all others in America . . .. " 24
Allsopp's preference for New York did not arise wholly from the British concessions in the Jay Treaty. The treaty only con- firmed the strong grip New York already had on the trade of the Great Lakes basin and the Champlain Valley. New York could compete successfully against Montreal in the trade in articles of low bulk and high value because it had an ice free port, paid lower insurance rates, had abundant credit resources at its disposal in Great Britain (which Simcoe deprecated) and controlled splen- did ships and shipping facilities.25 It was no wonder therefore that one half of the goods passing through the Little Falls canal of the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company in 1797 was bound for Upper Canada and that goods imported via New York appeared on the shelves of Vermont merchants as far north as St. Albans, which was almost on the border.26 Hamilton was correct in stating that the Jay Treaty would result in a "far greater momentum of influence on Canada, than Canada on the United States."27
The reaction of Vermonters to the treaty was, however, wholly
23. Graham, Sea Power and British North America, 93.
24. P.A.C., George Allsopp Letter Book, Allsopp to John Allsopp, Nov. 28, 1795.
25. Williamson, C., "New York's Impact Upon the Canadian Economy Prior to the Completion of the Erie Canal," New York History ( XXIV, I, January, 1943). 24-38.
26. Schuyler (Canal) Papers, John Porteous to James Cochran, Dec. 20, 1797.
27. Williamson, op. cit., 28.
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unfavorable. Having failed in their efforts to secure the building of a Champlain Canal, they hoped that the treaty would grant them the right to navigate the entire length of the St. Lawrence to the open sea. They would not have agreed with Hamilton's statement that settlers in the Northwest would find it easier to reach the sea through the United States than through the Canadas. "The People of Vermont," said Peters, who was well-informed on the views and opinions of Vermonters "are discontented with Mr. Jay's Treaty touching the Inland Navigation of the Rivers and Lakes in America which permits them to go by water to Quebec, or Montreal, and no farther." He charged that Jay did not press the American claim to navigate the St. Lawrence, because he de- sired Vermonters to trade solely with New York thereby making it the commercial center not only of Vermont but also of the Genesee.28 Stephen Thorne, a Yorker living in London, agreed heartily with Peters' statements. The treaty, he said, "confirmed the British right of shutting out the people of Vermont from navi- gating the waters of the St. Lawrence, tho nature has said other- wise." 29
The failure to secure this concession, which was one of the "Proposals From Vermont," was matched by the failure of Peters to secure his consecration by the Archbishop of Canterbury after his election as Bishop of Vermont. His election had been secured by his friends in Vermont at a convention held at Manchester on February 27, 1794. It was possibly the most bizarre convention ever held by "Episcopalians" in the United States. "Episcopalians of Vermont," an annalist related, "united with a body of those not previously of that communion and elected Peters Bishop."30 The convention, representing only about one-half of the Vermont parishes, ignored protests that he was a loyalist, elected him Bish- op, and appointed John A. Graham to go immediately to London to notify him of his election. Graham left soon afterwards, and upon his arrival he went directly to Peters, who thereupon moved
28. N.Y.S.L., Ira Allen Papers, Peters to Messrs. Phyn & Co., Feb. 8, 1796.
29. N.Y.S.L., Ira Allen Papers, 1795-1801, Thorne to Robert Woodworth, March 15. 1797.
30. Batchelder, C. D., Documentary History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Vermont ( New York, 1876), 25.
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heaven and earth to secure his consecration by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Despite the intervention of the Duke of Buckingham, the Arch- bishop refused to consecrate Peters. He gave as reason for his re- fusal that Parliament had authorized him to make only three ap- pointments of Bishops in the United States. Two appointments had already been made and the third was about to be made. Furthermore, he maintained that Peters could not furnish proof that the American Convention of the Episcopal Church had. ap- proved his election. Peters later privately declared that the third appointment was going to a friend of the Bishop of Durham who was described as close to William Pitt. Peters' friends hinted that John Jay, no stranger to Vermont's political gyrations, had op- posed his consecration, and that the British government had re- spected his views on the subject. Jay's objection, if made, was per- haps the decisive factor.31
Nevertheless, Peters' failure to secure consecration was not the real reason for his refusal to proceed immediately to take up his duties as Bishop of Vermont. "As Moses alone consecrated Aaron . High Priest," he wrote, "Chittenden can do the same."32 The real reason lay in the refusal of the Vermont Assembly to cede the S.P.G. lands to the Bishop of Vermont. In the fall of 1794, the Assembly peremptorily passed two bills confiscating these lands for the use of the state, basing its action on the principles of the American Revolution.33 These laws were the real cause for Peters' refusal to go to Vermont. "Trouble is," he wrote, "how can I sup- port myself and then if I Have a certainty of not disgracing you and your Church by my poverty, I will go over and bless you and all denominations." "' 34
The failure of the separatist proposals of Peters and his faction was soon followed by the failure of the other faction to achieve its aims by the different method of assaulting Lower Canada from within and without. The open avowal of the aim of Vermonters to seize the province in case of an Anglo-American war, the
31. N.Y.H.S., Peters Papers, V, 84, 104; VIII, 50.
32. Batchelder, op. cit., 43.
33. Ibid., 46, 52.
34. Ibid., 40-43.
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disturbing reports of disaffection among the French Canadians caused, in part, a reversal of William Smith's policies which in their execution had been so favorable to Vermonters. The con- ditions in Lower Canada before the Jay Treaty was signed greatly increased the government's fear that it was dangerous to permit Americans to settle in great numbers in the province. One American said that he had been informed by a Canadian land official that the reason the government acted with such delay in patenting land was its fear of a war between Britain and the United States. Furthermore, the Canadian melting pot envisaged by Smith did not operate as he thought it would. The Canadian government genuinely feared an internal explosion. Its responsible officials must have pondered the political implications of the charge made by George Cook of Caldwell's Manor that Abel Spencer and Silas Hathaway, holders of a warrant of survey, were members of a Democratic Society.35
The suspension of settlement and speculation in the lands of the Eastern Townships was not dictated wholly by the fear of Ameri- can penetration into Lower Canada. The reversal of Smith's policies arose also from a flagrant violation of His Majesty's in- structions that each land petitioner must take an oath and that no individual should be permitted to hold large tracts of land for speculative purposes. Years later, William Osgoode, a govern- ment official of Lower Canada, described the causes for the rever- sal of the method of granting and patenting of land established by William Smith. He said that warrants of survey had been made until June of 1794. At this time Dorchester, now that Smith had died, had become aware of the violations of the royal instructions. It had become evident, he said, to the new Chief Justice and the new council members, that, in both theory and practice, land grants had been made in violation of royal instructions, especially the 35th article forbidding the granting of land without the tak- ing of an oath. Warrants of survey, he continued, had been given out before the appointment of commissioners to administer the oath. Osgoode declared that it was the duty of the council to pre-
35. N. Y. S. L., Oliver Phelps Papers, Box XXI. John Smith to Phelps, Oct. 29, 1793. P. A. C., S, Land Committee Minutes, Sept. 23, 1793-Jan. 2, 1797, 65.
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vent the townships from "being overwhelmed by a Torrent of Dis- affection."36 The alarm had already been given by Hugh Finlay, but it had been ignored. As early as March, 1792, he had written Samuel Gale that a warrant of survey could not be obtained un- less the oath were taken in person. He asked Gale to spread the news that agents who appeared in Quebec to secure warrants of survey for themselves and for others could not legally secure them.37
Still another reason for suspending the further settlement of the townships was Smith's violation of the royal instructions limit- ing the amount of land to be granted to an individual. Hugh Fin- lay declared that much of the land had fallen into the hands of speculators. "I have much reason to believe," Finlay wrote to Cale on March 5, 1795, "that many of the original applicants for townships who came forward in 1792 with lists of two, three, four and even six hundred associates never did intend to settle an acre of land in Canada." He said that the petitioners were not able to" satisfy the Land Commissioners that they were desirable persons to settle in the Province. He told Gale that, after receiving war- rants of survey, the original applicants had returned to the Ameri- can States and sold them by claiming that they were virtually patents for land. "If people will suffer themselves to be duped by land jobbers," he concluded, "they must sit down under the loss they have thereby sustained."38
Finlay had correctly described what had happened, in most cases, to these warrants of survey. The frontier of speculation had indeed crossed the boundary into Lower Canada. Levi Allen's efforts to secure land, among many others, demonstrate the truth of Finlay's charges. The Canadian Land Committee reported that, shortly after Levi had secured the warrant of survey for the town- ship of Barford, he had returned to Vermont and endeavoured, as the committee said, to mislead the public by an advertisement which claimed that he owned two Canadian townships, that taxes were not levied, nor was there any selling at vendue "as hath been
36. Land Series E, 182-191.
37. C. O. 42, XXII, 338.
38. C. O. 42, XXII, 342-343.
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too much the practice in many places," and that his lands would be sold for two shillings an acre. The committee said, further, that such unwarranted statements had a "deluding & mischevious Ten- dency and he ought to lose the townships if the advertisement was published with his knowledge." Such an example, the Com- mittee believed, "would have a Salutary effect & prevent the good people of the Neighbouring States from being imposed on by Land Jobbers who ... have made like attempts in other parts of the United States." 39
Similar accusations were made against John and William Baker and Silas and Alfred Hathaway. Those accused were not all Ver- monters. The Reverend John Smith of Dighton, Massachusetts. of whom it was said "that the Parson is not so much esteemed in the country he resides in, 'seeing he attends to Land-jobbing more than the care of souls,"40 claimed that he had secured three town- ships, had four more which would soon be secured and owned ten additional townships in company with a gentleman of great influ- ence and reputation in Lower Canada whom he did not identify. At one time, Smith interested the great Connecticut merchant. Oliver Phelps, in the purchase of these lands. Phelps wrote him on September 15, 1795, that he was interested in Canadian lands and that he wished Smith to inform him upon what terms he could obtain a township.41
The Lower Canadian Land Committee set to work to remedy this alarming situation created by American Jand speculators. On January 7, 1795, the Committee ordered all holders of warrants of survey to appear in Quebec to take the oaths according to Artick- 35 of the royal instructions, and in other ways to satisfy the Com- mittee that the instructions had been obeyed. The minutes of the Land Committee for the ensuing year record the rejection of the warrants of survey held by Americans who had not, in one way of another, complied with these instructions. The axe fell on Jona- than Fassett, Elijah Baker, Reuben Bostwick, Obadiah Blake, Na- than Stone among others. The Committee, however, did not can-
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