USA > Vermont > Vermont in quandary, 1763-1825 > Part 21
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39. S, Land Committee Minutes, 1793-1797.
40. S. LIII, 63.
41. N. Y. S. L., Oliver Phelps Papers, Box VII, 155.
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CONFLICTING STRATEGIES
cel the warrants of survey granted to the Canadians, Henry Cull, William McGillivray, Isaac Todd, Simon McTavish and others.42
As a prominent loyalist, Levi Allen fared somewhat better than his American friends or loyalists more obscure than himself. He was warned by the Land Committee, on August 14, 1795, to ap- pear in Quebec before November 1 in order to satisfy it that the advertisement already described had been published without his knowledge and consent. The committee refused to accept him as the leader of the Township of Barford; but declared that inasmuch as he had paid in 15 & and had been admitted to take the Oath of Allegiance, he could obtain 1500 acres in the township. In re- sponse to the Committee's order, Levi appeared in Quebec on November 1, where he met with a cool reception.43
The wrath of the committee fell heavily on Vermonters, other Yankees and some loyalists. Gale wrote in a bitter vein on June 27, 1795, that the government had not yet agreed on the means to patent the lands granted under warrants of survey. He com- plained that not a single patent had been issued, nor had the fees and conditions respecting the improvement of the lands been an- nounced, although four years had elapsed since the commence- ment of land granting. He said that many settlers were extremely uneasy. As for himself, "I am exceedingly sorry I ever came into this Province; for I really never seed Business so carried on, or rather pretended to be carried on without any thing actually done to the purpose." 44
Silas Hathaway poured out his wrath on the actions of the Land Committee. He said that he had returned from a journey through Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, where he found great dissatisfaction and anger over the actions of the Land Committee. It was said first that the lands were offered by a proclamation, secondly, that these lands were petitioned for, thirdly, that warrants of survey were issued, and fourthly, that the Canadian government now endeavoured to recover the lands from those holding the warrants. He maintained that certain in-
42. See Land Committee Minutes, 1793-1797.
43. Ibid .. 272.
44. Q, LXXIV, pt. II, 363, 370-381.
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CONFLICTING STRATEGIES
fluential men in Lower Canada who wanted to obtain possession of these lands had prompted the government's action and had in the end succeeded in securing for themselves the largest part of them. Hathaway claimed that Rhode Island and Massachusetts people, many of whom had been British sympathizers for many years, were suffering greatly from the actions of the Land Com- mittee. He placed the blame on Lord Dorchester's "inattention to business" and the "avariciousness" of members of his Council. The government's violation of public promises, he said, "excites a spirit of indignation and contempt ... not to say wrath-even when in other respects a spirit of amity and real affection is everywhere restoring between the two countries." 45
Although the Democratic Societies expressed a less belligerent attitude after the signing of the Jay Treaty, they publicly com- plained of Canadian efforts to prevent Americans from obtaining title to provincial lands. The Chittenden County Democratic So- ciety resolved on January 5, 1795, "that every inhabitant of the Province of Lower Canada should be treated by its members with that friendliness, politeness and consideration which foreigners had a right to expect in Vermont," notwithstanding that members of the Society had recently met not only with delay and disap- pointment, but also with what was described as "insolent imperi- ous haughtiness" on the part of Canadians. 46
The probable consequences of these expressions of Vermonters' anger against the Government of Lower Canada were described by Samuel Gale in a letter to Hugh Finlay. "Note," said Finlay in referring to this letter, "he prognosticates confusions and troubles similar to the affair of Bennington and Shaftsbury (that is, Rebel- lion ) should the American speculators in Lands in Canada be dis- appointed in their expectation.""" Finlay undoubtedly found food for thought in this letter.
45. N. Y. S. L., Silas Hathaway Papers, May, 1797.
46. Vermont Gazette, Feb. 13, 1795.
47. C. O. 42, XXII, 341.
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CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Frustration of the Allens
As late as the autumn of 1795, those Vermonters who held war- rants of survey for Lower Canadian lands had failed to secure their validation. Vermonters as a whole had failed to induce the British government to build a canal around the rapids of the Riche- lieu and to secure the privilege of navigating the entire length of the St. Lawrence. These failures angered members of both factions in Vermont who had sought by different means to accomplish what were actually the same ends. The American state and the British province approached the most serious impasse in their re- lations since Ethan Allen plotted the capture of Ticonderoga.
At this juncture, Ira Allen emerged from his four years of retire- ment as the leader of the two factions which were now united in common hostility to the policies of the government of Lower Canada. Ever since Vermont entered the union, Ira had been a silent but observant spectator of events as they unfolded. He had been living on his lands in the Colchester area, determined to be a business man rather than a politician. As a business man, he had experienced grave difficulties from 1791 to 1795. His position as a leading land speculator was vulnerable because it had been achieved by political rather than business methods.
One source of his difficulties was the sale of his lands by the State for unpaid taxes. Tax sales angered a generation of absentee owners of Vermont lands whether living in Vermont or elsewhere. Unlike owners of Vermont lands including Lewis R. Morris, De Witt Clinton of New York and Andrew Craigie of Massachusetts, Ira's total resources consisted almost entirely of land rather than of personal property. He was unable to pay his land taxes and, as a result, the state sold his lands. What lands were not sold for taxes were being threatened by contestants who charged that his titles had been secured illegally.1
1. V. H. S., Ira Allen Papers, Betsey Allen et al. vs. Ira Allen.
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THE FRUSTRATION OF THE ALLENS
Furthermore, Ira was unable to pay his debts. He had already established an unenviable reputation on this score in Quebec. He was not wholly to blame for his financial embarrassments because he was as much a victim of the depression in the timber market as were Lower Canadian merchants who were forced to default to London merchants after the Revolution. To carry on his business, he had to buy goods from merchants in Lower Canada; but he did not receive enough funds from the sale of his timber to pay for the goods he had purchased. The unhappy outcome was a num- ber of lawsuits which plagued him for the remainder of his life. Prominent among his creditors were the Lower Canadian firms of Fraser & Young and S. & F. Montemollin. The latter had advanced him 200 £ in 1787, and, in default of payment, it had sued him in 1789. As late as 1792, Ira had not made a payment. The firm publicly denounced him in the Vermont Journal on November 5, 1792, by saying, "It appears to us a great misfortune to the public that a Man's possessing property should cause officers ( as we sup- pose ) to be so much in awe of him, that they dare not collect a just debt; should this become a predominant custom ( which God for- bid) General Allen may well be rich . .. . "
Pressed by his creditors, Allen appealed to the Vermont Assem- bly to reimburse him for the monies he claimed to have poured into the common cause against New York and Great Britain. His accounts were subjected to the severest scrutiny by a Grand Com- mittee of the Assembly which reported on October 24, 1792, that "the State was not indebted to General Allen neither in law or equity." 2
As his financial difficulties accumulated, Ira decided that they could be removed only by inducing the British to build a Riche- lieu Canal and to concede navigation of the entire length of the St. Lawrence to Vermont. He did not blame his over-expansion, his poor business practices, the economic depression or the hos- tility of his political opponents for his difficulties. It was much easier to lay the blame for them squarely upon his timber losses in the Richelieu, the necessity of using Canadian middlemen and the employment of British shipping. Under the stress and strain 2. Records of the Governor and Council of the State of Vermont, IV, 31.
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THE FRUSTRATION OF THE ALLENS
imposed by his difficulties, Ira's native sense of reality and propor- tion, which he had once had in good measure, deteriorated to such an extent that Lower Canada appeared to him to be a great bar- rier between him and his ambition to make Vermont a maritime state.
In addition, Ira was angry at Canadians because their govern- ment had supported John Caldwell against him in the dispute over the boundary between Caldwell's Manor and Ira's town of Alburg. Lastly, the government's land policies threatened to en- tice settlers from his Vermont lands to the lands offered so freely in the nearby Eastern Townships. Ira's jealousy on this score might have been removed if he had been permitted to participate in land speculation in the Canadian province. As persona non grata in Lower Canada, it was best for him, if he desired Cana- dian lands, to secure them indirectly from his brother, Levi. Levi, still living in St. Johns, had effected a reconciliation with Ira by offering to help him secure a foothold on Canadian soil. On June 28, 1793, he wrote that if Ira wished additional lands he could help him to secure 100,000 acres, "which will soon come in course .. . though [I] always hope to retain a greateful sense of all Fav- ours received from Heaven, men or other beings." 3
The collapse, in the summer of 1795, of both the expansionist and the separatist solution of Vermonters' problems and the satis- faction of their ambitions caused Ira to forsake his retirement to assume the leadership of the movements which now appeared bankrupt. He concluded that success for his program and that of other Vermonters-the Richelieu canal, Canadian lands and navi- gation of the St. Lawrence-lay in negotiations with the British government in London. If they failed, he would then negotiate in Paris with the French government which was at war with the British. He was undoubtedly encouraged to go to Paris because he knew that the French government had for years desired to wrest all of the Canadas from the British and to rebuild the lost French Empire in North America.
Ira's negotiations with the French for joint conquest of the Canadas, if the British would not support his program, will not 3. V. H. S., Levi to Ira, June 28, 1793.
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THE FRUSTRATION OF THE ALLENS
appear so fantastic if projected against the background of his activities during the American Revolution. At that time he had achieved some of his objectives by leading a successful rebellion against New York, and others by first fighting, then currying the favor of the British in Quebec. Ira had all along been determined to achieve them regardless of the means employed. The lapse of twenty years had not changed either his objectives or the means he would use to attain them. Ira would not hesitate to foment a . revolution in Lower Canada if Britain should fail to satisfy him.
That Ira's intentions towards Lower Canada were potentially hostile may be inferred from the fact that, prior to going abroad, he was provided by Governor Chittenden with credentials which stated "that he is now first Major-General of this State, and is re- quested to purchase arms and other implements of War, for the use of the militia."4 To finance his mission abroad, he secured bills of credit from William Hull (later commander at Detroit in the War of 1812 who surrendered to the British without a fight) total- ling 4,000 £, for which he pledged most of his lands as security.
By December, 1795, he had completed arrangements to sail for Great Britain and, if unsuccessful, perhaps France. A letter he wrote Levi just before sailing shows his frame of mind. It con- tained the parting shot that the Canadian government was "not fond of having Americans Amongst them Least a revolution be put on foot by them .... "" Soon afterwards he sailed for England in the company of John A. Graham who had recently returned from his mission to London where he had notified Peters of his election as Bishop of Vermont. The pair arrived at Falmouth on January 2, 1796, and at London six days later. Almost immediately Ira saw Samuel Peters who was still nursing the greatest resent- ment against the British for their failure to consecrate him.
On the twenty-seventh of January, Ira interviewed the Duke of Portland, Home Secretary, who in his long and active political career had twice served as British Prime Minister. He wanted to discover whether or not the British government would build a Richelieu canal. Such a canal, he realized, would reduce the
4. Wilbur, Ira Alllen, Founder of Vermont, 11,77.
5. Ibid., II, 80-81. The original is in the Levi Allen Papers, N. Y. S. L.
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THE FRUSTRATION OF THE ALLENS
Richelieu-St. Lawrence route to the status of a water corridor be- tween inland Vermont and the north Atlantic. As Ira wrote in his diary, he presented the advantages which would accrue to Lower Canada and Vermont from such a project. Portland objected, how- ever, to his government's building the canal. He said that he thought it would be best that private individuals do so because they would be interested in seeing it well built, and kept in excel- lent repair. Ira offered to find individuals who would be interested in this project if the British would permit them to levy tolls or allow Vermont-built ships to pass Quebec to the open sea upon payment of moderate tolls. Portland showed no interest in Allen's proposal, chiefly because he already knew of the hostile designs of Vermonters upon Lower Canada and, besides, he did not wish to make the province more vulnerable to an American invasion by permitting a canal to be built. Nevertheless, he told Ira that despite the fact that he and his government were working over- time to clear the decks of official business, Ira might present his proposals in the form of a memorandum which he could study at his leisure.6
Despite this cool and non-committal reception, Ira returned to Portland's offices on February 8 for a second interview. In Port- land's absence, he interviewed Under-Secretary King, who re- vealed the true reason for British indifference to Ira's proposals. In opening the conversation, King remarked that Ira should have first discussed the canal project with the government of Lower Canada. Ira replied that in Lower Canada he had been told to discuss the project in Great Britain. When King asked him, as Ira wrote in his diary, “ if navigation of the St. Lawrence would not infringe Navigation Laws and the [Jay] Treaty with the United States," Ira did not reply. Instead, he asked that the British government permit ships of Vermont registry to go from Lake Champlain to the Atlantic upon paying a reasonable fee. What advantage would Great Britain derive, asked King, from permit- ting Vermonters "navigation to the open sea?" Allen answered that Britain would acquire a staunch ally in Vermont and in time of war could continue to trade with British North America 6. The Allen Diary is in the Library of the University of Vermont.
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THE FRUSTRATION OF THE ALLENS
with the ships of a neutral Vermont. King closed the inconclusive interview by asking Ira if these commercial concessions would not "seduce the people of Canada to Revolt from Great Britain." Allen replied that the connections already existing between Vermont and Lower Canada were extremely close because only a "bound- ary line parted them."7
In conformity with Portland's suggestion, Ira submitted his pro- posals in a memorandum. Once more he pointed out that Ver- mont's commerce with the outside world must be carried on through British merchants and that these merchants could benefit greatly in time of war by employing Vermont ships. In closing, he again denied emphatically that closer commercial relations be- tween Lower Canada and Vermont would result, as had been sug- gested by King, in the propagation of anti-British and radical poli- tical ideas in the Canadas. On the contrary, he said, closer connec- tions "will help frustrate it."8
The objections made to the virtual alliance proffered by Ira on his own initiative and responsibility arose from the application to Lower Canada of the Navigation Acts, which forbade American ships to navigate the St. Lawrence below Quebec. If the political conditions at that time had been favorable, the British government might have welcomed Ira's proposals. The Jay Treaty, however, had removed the threat of an Anglo-American war and made it inexpedient for Great Britain to agree to an alliance with Ver- mont. Paradoxically, the closer and more amicable the relations between Great Britain and the United States, the more strained became the relations between Lower Canada and Vermont. The removal of the threat of war between the two countries destroyed the chief means by which Vermonters had hitherto endeavoured to secure concessions from Great Britain.
The failure of Portland to agree to Ira's proposals made him decide to go to Paris. He hoped that France, still in the throes of an unfinished revolution and at war against Great Britain, might be induced to support him in an attempt to conquer the Canadas. Ira knew, of course, that during the revolutionary war Benjamin
7. Ibid.
8. Q, CLXXVII, 247.
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THE FRUSTRATION OF THE ALLENS
Franklin had influenced the French government to make an alli- ance with the Continental Congress in order to overthrow British power in North America; and so he reasoned that now he might be able to persuade the French Directory to make an alliance with Vermont whose object would be to strike against the Canadas and to conquer the other British possessions on the continent. After endeavouring to sell copies of Samuel Williams' History of Vermont and pursuing other minor activities to interest Londoners in his state, Allen slipped quietly, if not secretly, out of London on May 20, 1796, bound for France.9
If one is to believe Ira's biographer, the accusations that he entered into an agreement with the Directory by which he se- cured 20,000 stand of arms to be used in a Vermonter-French assault on the Canadas, were made out of whole cloth and were maliciously circulated by his enemies in Vermont, Lower Canada and Britain. Yet, just as the Haldimand Papers prove that the Allens contemplated more than neutrality, so the French secret service archives demonstrate beyond the shadow of a doubt that Ira entered into an agreement with the Directory whose purpose was to restore French rule in the Canadas, and which implied that the French would permit Vermonters to achieve their aims in Lower Canada. The Vermont Journal of Windsor drew the first comparison between the British and French negotiations of Ira Allen. "Has not the private cabinet of Vermont," the newspaper said on June 7, 1797, "sent the same negotiator to Paris, under the pretext of purchasing arms for the militia, as was sent to treat with British agents in Canada, in the year 1780, under pretext of making exchange of prisoners?"
The negotiator mentioned by the Vermont Journal entered into a secret agreement with the Directory on July 11, 1796, for an assault on the Canadas. According to this agreement, a French army was to land at Halifax in the following August, while Allen and his newly and heavily armed militia men were to seize St. Johns. The armies would then converge upon that goal of all armies invading the Canadas-the citadel at Quebec. To insure Vermont's effective participation, the Directory furnished Ira with
9. Wilbur, op. cit., II, 88.
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THE FRUSTRATION OF THE ALLENS
20,000 muskets and 24 pieces of artillery. These muskets if sold to Vermonters would yield Ira a handsome profit of about $50,000. The Directory further aided him by a loan of 200,000 livres.1º
Despite the assurances of French support, Ira appears to have been beset with doubts as to the expediency of executing the in- vasion of the Canadas. Basically he had no stomach for war and even disliked hunting. He preferred to achieve his aims by ne- gotiation. This preference undoubtedly accounts for his return to London where on August 19 he called at Portland's office because he hoped to receive a conclusive answer to his written proposals of March nineteenth. Unable to see Portland, Ira was forced to be content again with interviewing King. Much to his chagrin, King claimed that he had never received the memorandum. Angered by this statement, Ira replied, as he wrote in his diary, "I expected some information on that subject after coming 3000 miles and waiting so long." King sought to soothe him by replying that at all events nothing could be done concerning the canal until the end of the year. He declared emphatically that, if the govern- · ment granted permission to build a canal, it would have to be built. by British subjects, because "the People of the United States could have no share in it, besides he did not suppose I was a man of sufficient Property or any way Equal to undertake so great [a] Business." King's statement so angered Ira that he said, "I should have been much obliged to his Grace to have told me that at my first Interview and not kept me a Dancing attendance 5 or 6 months for such an answer, and immediately withdrew."11
This interview convinced Ira beyond a doubt that Lower Canada, so long as it was British, was the major obstacle to his three-fold ambition. He now prepared to fulfill whole heartedly his agreement with the French government. On September 27, he left London, bound for Ostend to board the American ship, Olite Branch, which he had obtained to carry him and his arms across the Atlantic. On November 20, the conspiracy miscarried when the alert British government dispatched a ship to intercept the Olive Branch, and to take her as prize to a British port. Immedi-
10. Ibid., II, 191-199.
11. University of Vermont, Ira Allen Diary.
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THE FRUSTRATION OF THE ALLENS
ately thereafter, the British government charged that the arms were the property of the French government and hence contra- band according to the British interpretation of international law and, further, that they were to be used in the conquest of the Canadas.12
The evidence accumulated against Ira in Great Britain was fully corroborated by reports from Lower Canada during the three years from 1796 to 1799. These reports referred, in a con- vincing fashion, to the intrigues of French Canadians and dis- gruntled Vermonters, aided and abetted by the French ministers to the United States.13 On October 24, 1796, Governor Prescott, Dorchester's successor, reported to Portland that the unrest of French Canadians was due to the Road Bill of 1796 which re- quired them to work on provincial roads and that Adet and his emissaries were using this as an issue to stir up resentment, hos- tility and sedition. This unrest, he said, had been increased by the "favorable disposition of the lower classes towards the French Cause."14 The stirrings he sensed within the province were linked to Vermonters. On December 19, he wrote Portland that "the enthusiasm is greater than heretofor thought in Vermont for con- quest." 15
Within a short time, the government's reports were fully cor- roborated, thanks to the revelations of John A. Graham who had turned traitor to Ira, Silas Hathaway of St. Albans and Elmer Cushing, an inhabitant of the Eastern Townships. The informa- tion which they gave enabled the Canadian government to point an accusing finger at many prominent Vermonters. As a result of these suspicions and revelations, undesirable Americans and others fled from or were requested to leave the province. In June, 1797, the government advised Levi Allen, the most prominent of them, to quit Lower Canada. John A. Graham implicated the fol -. lowing persons living outside the province: Isaac Clark, Jonathan Spafford (one of whose sons was named Guy Carleton), Ira Allen, Stephen Thorne, William Hull, Timothy Hinman, Jedidiah
12. Wilbur, op. cit., Chapter XV.
13. For these activities, sec Report of the Public Archives of Canada for 1891.
14. Q, LXXVIII, 7.
15. Ibid., LXXVIII, 159.
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THE FRUSTRATION OF THE ALLENS
Clark and Silas Hathaway, among others. He branded these men as "disaffected towards the Federal Government," and having "little to lose and their only hope is in the Idea of Plunder."16 Silas Hathaway was ready with a plausible explanation for his association with the conspirators when he was implicated. He ex- plained in a lengthy letter to Prescott that his seemingly suspicious activities were designed solely to gain the confidence of the con- spirators in order to expose them to the Canadian government. . The British Minister to the United States, Robert Liston, later said that "his apology appears to have satisfied General Prescott." 17
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