USA > Vermont > Vermont in quandary, 1763-1825 > Part 25
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This Federalist had raised a question whose answer invariably embarrassed Vermont Jeffersonians. They fulminated against
25. S, LXXVII, 127.
26. Hubbard Papers, 1811-1812. Feb. 11, 1S11.
27. Ibid., William Hale to Hubbard, Feb. 11, 1811.
2S. Ibid., Chittenden to Hubbard, June 27. 1812.
29. Green Mountain Farmer, March 21, 1808.
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British plundering of American commerce, they described the expansionist fruits of war, they promised prosperity by home manufactures as an alternative to foreign trade; but in the elec- tions of 1808 and 1812 party lines were broken and they were defeated by the immense appeal of the Canadian market. If Great Britain could have been coerced without disrupting the Vermont trade with the Canadian provinces, these party lines might have remained intact; but they were broken because Vermonters in . great numbers refused to support Jeffersonian measures to coerce Great Britain. The prestige and popularity of the party was at the lowest ebb possible after passage of the Embargo of December, 1807, and the supplementary Land Embargo of March, 1808. These acts also brought the Jeffersonians to a grave party crisis. In the struggle which ensued between profits and patriotism while the Embargo was in effect, profits won a thumping victory. Federalists were both amused and exasperated by the reaction of Jeffersonians to the coercive measures of the Embargo Act, and later of the Non-Intercourse Act. "Our Good Demo-Farmers are most wickedly afraid of non-intercourse, and are hurrying away their produce to Canada."30
So flagrant and numerous were Vermonters' violations of the Embargo that the collector of the Vermont Customs wrote to Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury, on April 1, 1808, that it would be impossible to enforce it without the aid of the mili- tary. On the 10th of April, Jefferson responded by issuing a procla- mation warning Vermonters against trading with Lower Canada and against actions he called insurrectionary. Determined to en- force the Embargo, Jefferson wrote Gallatin to arm vessels on Lake Champlain, to build two gunboats at Whitehall and, if necessary, to call upon the Governor of Vermont to suppress any further defiance of it.31
The President's proclamation produced a sensation. St. Albans residents held a meeting in June, 1808, at which they declared that they had never provided justification for such a proclamation and that Jefferson must have issued it upon receiving information
30. Hubbard Papers, 1811-1812, Horace Leverett to Hubbard, Jan. 24, 1811.
31. Records of the Governor and Council of the State of Vermont, V, 472.
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from persons of ill-repute. In the next breath, however, they ad- mitted that the Embargo was being violated. "If individuals, find- ing themselves on the verge of ruin and wretchedness," they said, "have attempted to evade the Embargo restrictions, and actually accomplished their purpose, this could never furnish a just cause for proclaiming to the world that insurrection and rebellion were chargeable on the good people of this district. . . . "32
Yet not any number of pleas of extenuating circumstances could conceal the real situation in northern and western Vermont. When Jabez Penniman, the Customs Collector, was charged with derilec- tion of duty, inhabitants of Franklin County came to his support. They said that the lumber and potash merchants were deter- mined to trade with Lower Canada, and that if the collector tried to enforce the Embargo with the aid of soldiers and a Vermonter were killed, the people would deal summarily with him.33 To en- · force the Embargo, the Franklin County Militia encamped at Windmill Point. The Federal government, doubtful of the dis- cipline and loyalty of the militia, dispatched a company of one hundred and fifty soldiers of the United States Army from Rut- land County to the border. After their arrival, the Franklin County militia slowly melted away until by October none but the United States troops remained.34
Unwillingly or not, Vermonters continued to share in the pros- perity of the Canadas. During the years of the Embargo and Non- Intercourse Acts, the flood of lumber across the border rose so high that in 1806 and 1807 the ships arriving at Quebec from Great Britain were insufficient in number to transport overseas the huge stocks which had accumulated. Over one-half of the oak timber and most of the pine exported from Lower Canada from 1807 to 1812 was cut in the Champlain Valley by Americans who secured sub-contracts from British Navy contractors.35 From the New York side of the Lake alone, in May and June of 1811, 43 rafts were cleared from Elizabethtown, Plattsburg, Chesterfield, Peru, Willsboro and other towns as far south as Ticonderoga and
32. Ibid., V, 474.
33. Ibid., V, 475 n.
34. Ibid., V, 475.
35. Lower, Lumbering in Eastern Canada, I, 174-175.
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Whitehall.36 So insatiable was the demand in Britain for timber that the values of woodlands doubled and, in some cases, tripled.37
The inhabitants of the Valley exported also large amounts of potash, beef and grain. To cater to this trade, the Montpelier firm of Lewis Lyman & Company published instructions as to the best method of packing provisions. It recommended that persons who were preparing provisions for the Canadian market should con- struct barrels of white oak and that pork should be cut into four pound pieces.38 Americans brought provisions into the province from as far south as Albany, most of which were to be sold on a commission basis. The size of this trade is indicated by the fact that seven hundred sleighs were on the road between Montreal and Middlebury in January, 1809.39 Some of the beef and mutton walked into the province. Charles Smith, a Quebec butcher, entered into a contract for cattle with Chapman and Duncan of Barnet, Vermont, in the summer of 1809.4º British contractors often paid Vermonters in Army bills which involved them in difficulty with patriotic Americans when they were used in commercial transactions.
The greatly accelerated business activity in the province called for an increase in the labor supply. To meet the demand, Ameri- cans crossed into Lower Canada to work as skilled or as unskilled laborers. On the seigneury of Petit Nation two hundred and forty- two men were employed in January of 1809 as millwrights, hewers and blacksmiths. Of these, one hundred and sixty-six were from New Hampshire and Vermont.41 In the city of Montreal, the num- ber of inhabitants was increased very considerably by the arrival of a large number of Americans who engaged in business. Some of them acted as commission merchants who sold provisions im- ported from the American states to the government, and they also exported to the United States manufactures which could no longer be imported directly from Great Britain. Some came from as far east as Boston, some from as far south as New York and some from
36. N.Y.S.L., Peter Sailly Memoir, Appendix I.
37. V.H.S., Whitelaw Papers, Justin Ely to Whitelaw, May 13, 1807.
38. The Vermont Watchman, Oct. 13. 1809.
39. Quebec Gazette, Feb. 2, 1809.
40. N.Y.S.L., Wheeler-Avery-Hathaway Papers.
41. S, LXXVIII, 274.
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Vermont. From Windsor alone, two merchants, Horace Leverett and Julius Barnard, went to Montreal to engage in business.42 The best known of the Vermonters who went to Montreal was Horatio Gates. He built up a larger business in domestic and foreign agri- cultural products than any other merchant in Lower Canada.43
The number of Americans attracted to the province must have been large. A Montreal police official estimated that the population of the city and its suburbs had been doubled in a few years by the arrival of "a class of people who require watching."#4 The mer- chant, James McGill, made the startling discovery that of nine hundred and thirty-eight men enrolled in the first battalion of the Montreal militia, two hundred and thirty-six were known to be Americans. The remainder included, he said, many Americans who, because they had lived so long in the province, and for other reasons, considered themselves British subjects.45
So great was the expansion of the population and the business of Lower Canada that an American newspaper suggested that if a statue should be erected anywhere to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison it should be placed in Montreal. "It is an undeni- able fact," declared the Quebec Gazette in June of 1810, "that the trade and commerce of these provinces has increased as rapidly within two years as ever they did in any part of the United States in the same time and proportion of population."46
Nevertheless, this prosperity contained elements of weakness. Much of the import trade in raw materials was controlled by Americans and, besides, the demands for labor and raw materials were met to a large degree by Yorkers and Yankees. In these cir- cumstances, there was some danger that the economy of the prov- ince might be taken over by Americans without firing a shot. Anglo-Canadian merchants and French Canadian laborers and farmers became more and more aware of this danger as the war approached.
It has been suggested that the French Canadians supported the
42. Vermont Journal, Oct. 14 and 30, 1809.
43. Shortt. Adam, "Founders of Canadian Banking," Journal of the Canadian Bankers' Association, XXX ( October, 1922), 36-38.
44. S. LXXXVII, 179.
43. S, Militia Papers, Military District no. 4, Montreal, July 9, 1812.
46. June 21, 1810.
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British during the War of 1812 because they feared that the un- settled lands in Lower Canada would fall into the hands of land- hungry Americans.47 A more immediate and equally significant reason for their support of the war was their hostility to Ameri- can laborers who had come into the province to compete with them for the available jobs. For example, the carting business in Montreal fell largely into American hands, which occasioned re- sentment and jealousy among French Canadian carters. An Ameri- can named Pick refused to employ French Canadians to unload boats which had just arrived in Montreal in May of 1811 from the American side of Lake Ontario. "This caused," it was reported to the government, " a dispute which ended in a quarrel and was likely to be serious." The riot was quelled and peace restored only after a few skulls had been fractured.48
French Canadian farmers joined laborers to express indignation at the American penetration of their province. They were alarmed by the great amounts of farm products which were permitted so freely to enter Lower Canada. Although this influx was for a time welcomed by Canadian merchants and encouraged by the govern- ment, it was increased by the inability of Lower Canadians to supply British demands for food and raw materials in the Canadas and at home. The predominantly marginal and subsistence agri- culture of the province was the main cause. The farming methods which French Canadians inherited from their fathers and the soil which they tilled were often inferior to Yankee methods and frontier American soils.49 As might be expected, French Canadians demanded tariff protection. An anonymous writer of a pamphlet which appeared in 1812 advanced three arguments in its favor. He stated that the flood of American articles discouraged the Canadian farmer from raising more than sufficient to clothe and feed his family, and that Americans who sold in the Canadian market took cash instead of goods in exchange, "which is but too Sencibly felt, by the Commercial interest in this Province." Lastly.
47. Lanctôt, Gustave, Les Canadiens francais et Leurs Voisins du Sud (New Haven. 1941), 130-141.
48. S, LXXXVI, 191.
49. Jones, R. L., "Agriculture in Lower Canada," Canadian Historical Review (LXVII. I, March, 1946), 33-51.
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he argued that if the American sea ports were opened, the Ameri- cans would desert the Canadian market which would then be in- adequately supplied if, in the meantime, French Canadian agricul- ture had been permitted to deteriorate further.50
While French Canadian farmers and laborers were increasingly uneasy and apprehensive, Anglo-Canadian merchants entertained fears for their commercial future. They were alarmed by the tend- ency of American merchants in the province to import Ameri- can or European manufactured goods via the Hudson-Champlain route rather than by the St. Lawrence. They feared that the Cana- dian trade in importing these goods might in time desert the St. Lawrence in favor of the southern route. Such Canadian firms as McTavish & McGillivray were disturbed by this trend which they considered potentially dangerous. The partners claimed that "fair traders" had lost much business. Two thirds of the tea and tobacco consumed by Lower Canadians, they declared, had been smuggled into the province. To end this unfair competition, they demanded greater vigilance on the part of the St. Johns Customs officials, the appointment of a Customs inspector at Odelltown and of a government official at Montreal with power to confiscate smug- gled goods which had not been seized at the border.51
To provide partial relief from the flood of goods imported from the United States, the government at last issued a proclamation on August 6, 1811, which prohibited the importation via the United States of East India goods. The merchants' attitude towards the Canadian-American trade was succinctly stated after the outbreak of the war by the Quebec Gazette when it declared that imports via the United States, no less than imports of American goods, had "cramped the industry of both Provinces." 52
The province so relied upon American merchants, laborers and raw materials that even the war did not force all Americans to return to the states, or end the importation of American raw materials. On June 30, 1812, the government issued a proclama- tion ordering all American citizens to leave the province within thirty days. Six days later, the American merchants in Montreal,
50. S, LXXXIX, 96-103.
51. S, LXXXIX, 127.
52. Jan. 7, 1813.
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who were greatly shocked, petitioned the government that they wished to remain because the province had been their home and place of business for some years. If permitted to stay, they promised to do everything required except bear arms against the United States.33
The Canadian government responded by issuing a regulation on July 10 which permitted Americans to remain on taking a condi- tional oath of allegiance. Thirty-five merchants immediately did so. Six of these later requested to take the oath without conditions, appearing "to ground the motives of their change of sentiment upon the circumstances of hazard, inconvenience, or loss, that may arise from leaving extensive credit and commercial influence in this province upon their departure."54 Within the province, a few Canadian business men wanted their American employees to re- main. George Platt, a Montreal manufacturer, petitioned for per- mission to keep in his employ three Americans who, he said, were the only artisans capable of operating his wool-carding and nail- making machinery.55 The Baliscan Iron Works offered to give surety for Americans working in its shops, because their depar- ture would lessen its output.56
Although the government issued various embargoes on trade with the American states and closed down all trade on October 20, 1813, it permitted trade if in the interest of the Canadian war effort. A special committee of the Executive Council reported that because provisions and certain other commodities were necessary to the army, the committee recommended that under special license the importation of provisions and the exportation of cer- tain commodities should be permitted. At the same time it sug- gested that this passage be omitted from the published proclama- tion. It also recommended that British subjects be allowed to im- port grain and other provisions, pot and pearl ashes, tobacco and, if needed, leather. It concluded by recommending that British manufactures should continue to be exported to Vermont because "it appears less hostily inclined than the State of New York."""
53. S. XCIV. 7.
54. Ibid., XCIV, 6.
55. Ibid., CHII, 101.
56. Ibid., XCHI, 33.
57. Ibid., C, 27; CI, 102.
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Because of Vermont's attitude, the government was lenient with American lumbermen who were caught in the province when war was declared. Sixteen were at Quebec and four had arrived with rafts at Chambly. They were given special permission to remain for thirty days.58 Shortly thereafter, the government issued a temporary regulation requiring Americans to enter the province through the fort at St. Johns. If going to Montreal, they were to report there at the Police office. American timber bound for Que- bec was required to be in the custody of Canadians or of Ameri- cans who had obtained prior permission from the Montreal auth- orities.59
The means adopted by the government to enable its subjects to trade with Americans led to so thriving a cross-border exchange as to shock William Lindsay, the Collector at St. Johns, "If people can trade with the enemy in time of war with impunity," he ex- claimed, there is "neither occasion for Law or Government." 6º Dur- ing the latter phase of the war, Americans adopted unusual ex- pedients to outwit American customs authorities. On December 1, 1814, the Quebec Gazette reported a neutral vessel sailing Lake Champlain with a full cargo of British manufactures. "Who would have expected," it declared, "to have seen a Swedish flag navigat- ing exclusively an inland water belonging to the United States."
Although Canadians entertained themselves with accounts of the smuggling exploits of Vermonters, they fully appreciated how greatly they contributed to the supplies needed by the British Army in the Canadas. "Two-thirds of the Army in Canada," wrote Governor Prevost to Lord Bathurst, the Colonial Secretary, on August 7, 1814, "are at the moment eating Beef provided by American Contractors drawn principally from the States of Ver- mont and New York."61 In the same year, Prevost chose to invade the Champlain Valley on the west side of the lake because of Vermont's unconcealed and violent opposition to the war.62
Nevertheless, the war did not leave untouched the relations be-
58. Ibid., XC, 14.
59. Ibid., XCII, 229.
60. Ibid., CVI, 162.
61. C, MCCXIX, 273-274.
62. Select British Documents Relating to the Canadian War of 1812, III, pt. I, 346.
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tween the peoples inhabiting the adjoining frontiers of Vermont and Lower Canada. An interesting picture of their plight was drawn in the Congress by Josiah Quincy, a Massachusetts Feder- alist. He declared that the connections between the two peoples before the war were so friendly and close that they were hardly aware that they were citizens of different countries, that marriages took place between them and each settled in the other's territory. After the outbreak of war, they desired above all to maintain these relationships.63
The hope that the war would not affect the daily lives of these inhabitants was, however, not fulfilled. The threat of invasion forced many of the border inhabitants to fall back either into cen- tral Vermont if American, or towards the St. Lawrence, if Cana- dian. Americans fled from the Eastern Townships to Vermont to escape fighting Americans, and Canadians in Vermont fled to Lower Canada to escape fighting Canadians. A British soldier, who had deserted in 1805 from a regiment stationed in Lower Canada, returned to the province after he had been drafted into the New York State militia at Plattsburg because he "chose not to fight against his country and was pardoned."64 At the same time, deserters from the British Army furtively crossed the border into Vermont. Such desertions were encouraged by Americans. They distributed hand bills in French and English in Lower Canada which offered Canadians a bountry of $124 and 160 acres of land if they would come to Plattsburg to enlist.65
Americans who had settled in the Eastern Townships and who did not choose to flee to the United States were enrolled in the Canadian militia. They were regarded with suspicion, and for good reason. They presented a special problem to Canadian militia officers. 66 One of them who deserted from the militia was reported to be "much against the laws of this province." He slapped his hands together "in an angry manner" and several times "damned the laws of the Province and the Persons who would reprove him for damning them." 67
63. Annals of Congress (XXV, 12 Congress 2nd Session ), 546.
64. C. DCLXXVII, 12-14.
65. Quebec Gazette, Feb. 14. 1814.
66. S. LXXXIX, 119.
67. Ibid., Canada Miscellaneous, Jesse Pennoyer Papers.
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Many inhabitants of the frontier not only adoped a pacific or neutral attitude towards the war, but also continued to ply a petty trade back and forth across the border. The war spirit, however, often turned peaceful trading missions into border affrays. Bands crossed the boundary in both directions, seizing booty wherever they went. Before the end of the war, a police official stationed in the Eastern Townships forbade Canadians to cross the border for purposes of raiding. On January 22, 1815, two arbitrators were appointed by the Canadian government to meet with arbitrators appointed by Vermont and New Hampshire to ascertain what property had been stolen and to provide for restitution.68
Not all the border crossings were made for the purpose of plun- der or trade. In November of 1812, fifty or sixty of the American troops stationed at Swanton and Highgate crossed into Canada and descended on an inn. Here they "struck up the tune of Yankee Doodle, drank a bucket of gin sling, for which they paid and went home."69
This episode was one of many which demonstrated that Ver- monters did not take the war seriously. Their hearts were never in it. In October, 1812, they elected as governor Martin Chittenden who chose as his advisor the separatist, Josiah Dunham. The record of this Federalist administration showed that not all Ver- monters were as yet loyal to the United States. With the aid of one-half of the Republicans in the Assembly, the Federalists re- pealed the Act of November 6, 1812, which had prohibited all in- tercourse with Canada; and Chittenden recalled the state militia from the west side of the Lake in 1813.
Not until the American repulse of Prevost's invasion of the val- ley at Plattsburg in 1814 did Vermont change its attitude toward the war. This enheartening victory over seasoned British veterans of the Napoleonic Wars caused even Federalists to express patrio- tic sentiments. Governor Chittenden referred to the battle as a "glorious event."70 Henceforth, he viewed the war as almost wholly defensive and on September 14, 1814, he called on all Ver-
68. C, DCLXXXVII, 77.
69. Quebec Gazette, Nov. 5, 1812.
70. V.H.S., Samuel Strong Papers, Chittenden to Strong, Sept. 14, 1814.
this
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monters to support it.71 The American victory at Plattsburg has been called the one decisive victory of the war, and it appears to have been decisive in its effect on public opinion in Vermont. It scotched defeatism and separatism. When the Hartford Conven- tion met in December of 1814, Vermont was represented by an observer instead of by an official delegate.72
In the same year in which the Hartford Convention met, the Treaty of Ghent brought the war to a close. In retrospect, it was not only an unpopular but also an inconclusive war. Jeffersonians had coveted Canadian lands and they had sought control of the St. Lawrence. Neither of these aims were realized by the war, despite the sacrifice of American lives and the expenditure of large sums of money. Why did the Americans with their superior land power fail to seize the Canadas? The obstructionism of Ver- mont and of the other New England states was one reason. Another lay in the mistaken belief that French Canadians and Americans in the provinces were so disaffected that they would support the American troops against the British. Above all, Ameri- can strategy was defective. It ignored the experience of more ' than a century which demonstrated that the Canadas would fall only when Montreal and Quebec were captured. Instead of at- tacking these seats of British power, the Americans employed their military strength to attack places on the border, stretching all the way from Detroit to Lake Champlain. After Prevost's defeat at Plattsburg, both belligerents were willing to accept a peace nego- tiated on the principle of status quo ante bellum, and on that basis the Treaty was made.73
71. Niles Weekly Register, VII, 65.
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