In the first place, all the supposed actors and abettors of the massacre within reach were seized and secured, excepting Redding and one or two others of a like character, who, by their activity in assisting to apprehend the fugitive comrades whom they had so meanly deserted, and their offers to give evidence against them, had purchased an exemption from punishment, and excepting also the Janus-faced Chandler, who, by his duplicity, had contributed more than any other man, perhaps, towards this catastrophe, but who now contrived to make even his iniquities count in his favor. [Footnote: As the acts of this notorious personage, whose character we have been at considerable pains to ascertain, and accordingly portray, will have no further connection with our story, we cannot forbear, before dismissing him entirely, giving the reader a short account of his subsequent career, and singular end. Although, by his facility of accommodating his political principles to those of the majority, and his alacrity of tacking about, and mounting, like a squirrel on a wheel, so as to be found rising to the top in every revolution or counter-revolution of public sentiment, he thus adroitly managed to get appointed to some offices of minor importance, under the new state government, yet, becoming every year better and better understood, and consequently more and more distrusted, he finally sunk into utter insignificance and contempt; and, falling into pecuniary embarrassments, brought about by a long course of secret fraud in selling wild lands, of which he had no titles, he was confined for debt in the very building in which the massacre occurred; where, as if by the retribution of Heaven for the part he once there acted, he soon died, unhonored and unlamented. And, what is still more remarkable, his remains were strangely destined to be denied even the respect of a common burial. For some exasperated creditor having attached the body, and the neighbors, from a notion that prevailed at that time, supposing, that by removing the body for a public burial they would make themselves liable for his debts, suffered it to remain till it became too offensive to be endured, when, at the dark hour of midnight, a few individuals went silently to the prison, got the putrid mass into some rough box, and drew it on the ground to the fence of the neighboring burial-ground; and, having dug a horizontal trench under the fence, and a deep pit on the other side, pushed through and buried up all that remained of the once noted Chief Justice Chandler. An old, decayed oak stump, still standing, is the only object that marks the site of his grave.] After this was effected, the victors, all but enough to constitute a safe guard, laid aside their arms, and resolved themselves into a sort of civil convention, to take measures for the trial of the prisoners by some mode, which, in the absence of all proper authorities, should answer for a legal process. And, as the first step in the matter, a jury of inquest, to sit on the dead body of French, was ordered, and a committee appointed to see to the empanelling of impartial men, and collect evidence and conduct the investigations to be had before them. All this being duly accomplished, and the jury bringing in a verdict that the deceased came to his death by the discharges of muskets, in the hands of Patterson, Gale, and others therein enumerated, all the latter, thus designated as the murderers of the unfortunate young man, were taken, and, under the authority of another order or decree of the convention, marched off, under a strong guard, to the jail in Northampton, some forty or fifty miles into the interior of Massachusetts, and there confined, to be tried for their lives at the next court that should be holden in the county where the offence was committed; while a less deeply implicated portion of the prisoners were put under bonds to appear at the court to answer to the charges of manslaughter and assault, or made to undergo other punishments and restrictions immediately imposed by the convention. [Footnote: Among the different kinds of sentences imposed on the class of offenders here last named, was one dooming Judge Sabin to the limits of his own farm, and making it lawful for any one catching him off of it to kill him. And so deep was the public indignation against this inveterate loyalist and supposed secret abettor of the massacre, that he was narrowly watched for the chance of executing the penalty. An aged revolutionist, from whom this fact was derived, stated that he had lain many a Sunday, with a loaded rifle, in the woods near the judge's farm lines, to see if he would not, when coming out to salt his sheep, stray over his limits. But the old fellow, he said, was always too wary for him.] The actors in the outrage, who comprised nearly all the leading members of the British party in that part of the Grants lying east of the mountains, having been thus summarily disposed of, the people, now taking the government into their own hands, and acting in primitive assembly, proceeded to reorganize the county, by the appointment of new judges, and all the usual subordinate officers, of their own principles, to adopt measures to reduce to submission or drive away the remaining loyalists of the county, and, finally, to declare themselves alike independent of the government of Great Britain and of New York.
Thus terminated this memorable outbreak, which acquired additional importance from the fact, that it resulted in the entire subversion of British authority in this, the only section among the Green Mountains where it ever gained a foothold. And not small the praise, which, in view of the circumstances, should be awarded to the hardy spirits by whom this miniature revolution was achieved; for, so great was the power of patronage exercised by this court, and the influence of those enjoying office or immunities under it,—a great majority of whom were stanch, and the rest tacit, supporters of the royal cause,—that, till the occurrence of this sanguinary affair, it is evident the former had but little hope of being able to overthrow this petty local dynasty without assistance from abroad. The aged survivors of that stormy period inform us, indeed, that but for the massacre of Westminster, it would have been difficult to predict whether the opening of the revolution, a few months afterwards, would have found, in the section in question, a whig or tory majority predominating. But that act of murder and madness, which the loyalists here, with the strange infatuation attending their doings almost every where else at the time, seemed destined to commit, as if to hasten their own overthrow, settled their doom.
“It was the electric flame to fire the hearts
Of a true people.”
And while it opened the eyes of hundreds of the hitherto acquiescent, it armed the opposing with an energy and determination in their cause, which at once became irresistible; and when the war-note was subsequently sounded by such patriots as Benjamin Carpenter and his associates, it found a ready response in every glen and corner of the surrounding country, and the hardy settlers seized their arms, and, with the cry of French and vengeance! hastened away to the scenes of action at Lexington, Ticonderoga, and Bunker Hill.
We are aware that some historians have classed this affair among the difficulties and skirmishes growing out of what has usually been termed the New York controversy, while others have treated the subject in a manner which shows them to be doubtful in what light to place the transaction; and, for that reason apparently, they have slid over the matter in those general and ambiguous terms so often and reprehensibly indulged in by writers at a loss about facts, to conceal their own ignorance, or to avoid the responsibility of deciding the point at issue. But a careful examination of the subject has led us to the conclusion, that the affair in question had little or no connection, in reality, with the New York controversy, but that it was wholly of a revolutionary character. No resistance to the authority of New York had ever been previously made in this section of the Grants; nor did the opposers of this court, in any of their remonstrances, or other proceedings, either before or after the massacre, assign any reason for their doings which can be fairly construed into an objection to the jurisdiction of that province, as such; or any otherwise than that it had, up to that time, refused to adopt the resolves and recommendations of the Continental Congress. On the contrary, all their arguments are based on their duty and determination of joining their revolting brethren in the other colonies, and, consequently, of resisting the longer continuance of British authority among them. Such, indeed, is the ground taken by Dr. Jones, in his minute and authentic account of the occurrence, in which he was, as we have made him in our illustrations, an actor. And even the inscription on the tombstone of the ill-fated French, written when the transaction, and all its attendant circumstances, were fresh in the minds of all, sufficiently proves, if further proof were necessary, that the version we have given of the affair is identical with the one generally understood and received at the time.” [Footnote: The inscription here alluded to, which we insert as supporting our position rather than as affording any new antiquarian curiosity to many readers, is verbatim as follows:—
“In memory of William French, son of Mr. Nathaniel French,
Who was shot at Westminster March y'e 13th 1775 by the hands
of Cruel Ministerial tools of George y'e 3d, in the Court
House, at 11 o'clock at night, in the 22d year of his age.
“Here William French his Body lies
For murder his blood for vengeance cries
King George the third, his tory crew
Tha with a bawl his head shot threw
For liberty and his country's good
He lost his life and dearest blood.”]
It was this view of the occurrence which led us to occupy the space we have devoted in attempting to illustrate it; for it becomes invested with a new interest and new importance, when it is considered, as we think it must be, that here was enacted the first scene of the great drama that followed; here was shed the first blood, and here fell the first martyr, of the American revolution.