Hugh Munro lived near the west line of Shaftsbury. He took Surveyor Campbell to survey land in Rupert for him. He was seized by Cochran, who said he was a son of Robin Hood, and beaten. Ira Allen says Munro fainted from whipping by bush twigs. Munro had not a savory reputation with the Vermonters. After Tryon's offer of a reward for the arrest of Allen, Baker, and Cochran, he, with ten or twelve other men, had seized Baker, who lived ten or twelve miles from him, a mile east of Arlington. After a march of sixteen miles, they were met by ten Bennington men, who arrested Munro and Constable Stevens, the rest of the party fleeing. Later Warner and one man rode to Munro's and asked for Baker's gun. Munro refused, and seizing Warner's bridle ordered the constable to arrest Warner, who drew his cutlass and felled Munro to the ground. For this act of Warner's, Poultney voted him one hundred acres of land April 4, 1773.
In 1774 Allen published a pamphlet of over two hundred pages, in which he rehearsed many historical facts tending to show that previous to the royal order of 1764, New York had no claim to extend easterly to the Connecticut River. He portrayed in strong light the oppressive conduct of New York toward the settlers. This pamphlet also contained the answer of himself and of his associates to the Act of Outlawry of March, 1774. Another man was busy this year drawing up reports of the trouble in Vermont.
Crean Brush, the first Vermont lawyer, was a colonel, a native of Dublin. In 1762 he came to New York and became assistant secretary of the colony; in 1771-74 he practised law in Westminster, Vt. He claimed thousands of Vermont acres under New York titles, and became county clerk, surrogate, and provincial member of Congress. He was in Boston jail nineteen months for plundering Boston whigs, and finally escaped in his wife's dress. The British commander in New York told him his conduct merited more punishment. A Yorker, always fighting the Green Mountain Boys; a tory, always fighting the whigs; with fair culture and talent, he became a sot, and, at the age of fifty-three, in 1778, he blew his brains out, in New York City. He left a step-daughter who became the second wife of Ethan Allen.
On February 5, 1774, Brush reported to the New York Legislature resolutions to the effect "that riotousness exists in part of Charlotte County and northeast Albany County, calling for redress; that a Bennington mob has terrorized officers, rescued debtors, assumed military command and judicial power, burned houses, beat citizens, expelled thousands, stopped the administration of justice; that anti-rioters are in danger in person and property and need protection. Wherefore the Governor is petitioned to offer fifty pounds reward for the apprehension and lodgment in Albany jail of Ethan Allen, Seth Warner, Remember Baker, Robert Cochran, Peleg Sunderland, Silvanus Brown, James Breakenridge, and John Smith, either or any of them." It was ordered that Brush and Colonel Ten Eyck report a bill for the suppression of riotous and disorderly proceedings. Captain Delaney and Mr. Walton were appointed to present the address and resolutions to the governor.
A committee met March 1, 1774, at Eliakim Weller's house in Manchester, adjourning to the third Wednesday at Captain Jehial Hawley's in Arlington. Nathan Clark was chairman of the committee and Jonas Clark clerk. The New York Mercury, No. 1,163, with the foregoing report in it, was produced and read. Seven of the committee were chosen to examine it and prepare a report, which was adopted and ordered published in the public papers. They speak of their misfortune in being annexed to New York, and hope that the king will adopt the report of the Board of Trade, made December 3, 1772. In consequence, hundreds of settled families, many of them comparatively wealthy, resolved to defend the outlawed men. All were ready at a minute's warning. They resolved to act on the defensive only, and to encourage the execution of law in civil cases and in real criminal cases. They advised the General Assembly to wait for the king's decision. The committee declared that they were all loyal to their political father; but that as they bought of the first governor appointed by the king, on the faith of the crown, they will maintain those grants; that New York has acted contrary to the spirit of the good laws of Great Britain. This declaration was certified by the chairman and clerk, at Bennington, April 14, 1774.
It was in 1774 that a new plan was formed for escaping from the government of New York; a plan that startles us by its audacity and its comprehensiveness. This was to establish a new royal colony extending from the Connecticut to Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence, from forty-five degrees of north latitude to Massachusetts and the Mohawk River. The plan was formed by Allen and other Vermonters. At that time Colonel Philip Skene, a retired British officer, was living at Whitehall on a large patent of land. To him the Vermonters communicated the project. Whitehall was to be the capital and Skene the governor of the projected colony. Skene, at his own expense, went to London, and was appointed governor of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, but the course of public events prevented the completion of this scheme.
[CHAPTER VI.]
PREPARATIONS TO CAPTURE TICONDEROGA.—DIARY OF EDWARD MOTT.—EXPEDITIONS PLANNED.—BENEDICT ARNOLD.—GERSHOM BEACH.