To Colonel Webster. To be communicated to Colonel Williams and the posts on your frontier.
He also wrote to Colonel Webster:
Rupert, about break of day
of the 31st October, 1780.
Sir:—Maj. Ebenezer Allen who commands at Pittsford has sent an express to me at this place, informing me that one of his scouts at 1 or 2 o'clock P.M. on the 29th instant, from Chimney Point, discovered four or five ships and gun-boats and batteaux, the lake covered and black, all making sail to Ticonderoga, skiffs flying to and from the vessels to the batteaux giving orders, and the foregoing quoted from the letter verbatim. But I cannot imagine that Major Carleton will violate his truce. I have sent Major Clarke with a flag to Major Carleton, particularly to confirm the truce on my part, and likewise to intercede in behalf of the frontiers of New York. What the motion of the British may be, or their design, I know not. You must judge for yourself. I send out scouts to further discover the object of the enemy. Maj. [Ebenezer] Allen thinks they have a design against your state.
From your humble servant,
Ethan Allen.
He wrote to the president of Congress:
Sunderland, 9 March, 1781.
Sir:—Inclosed I transmit your excellency two letters which I received under the signature thereto annexed, that they may be laid before congress. Shall make no comments on them, but submit the disposal of them to their consideration. They are the identical and only letters I ever received from him, and to which I have never returned any manner of answer, nor have I ever had the least personal acquaintance with him, directly or indirectly. The letter of the 2d February, 1781, I received a few days afore with a duplicate of the other, which I received the latter part of July last past, in the high road in Arlington, which I laid before Governor Chittenden and a number of other principal gentlemen of the state (within ten minutes after I received it) for advice; the result, after mature deliberation, and considering the extreme circumstances of the state, was to take no further notice of the matter. The reasons of such a procedure are very obvious to people of this state, when they consider that congress has previously claimed an exclusive right of arbitrating on the existence of Vermont as a separate government. New York, New Hampshire and Massachusetts Bay at the same time claiming this territory, either in whole or in part, and exerting their influence to make schisms among the citizens, thereby in a considerable degree weakening this government and exposing its inhabitants to the incursions of the British troops and their savage allies from the province of Quebec. It seems that those governments, regardless of Vermont's contiguous situation to Canada, do not consider that their northern frontiers have been secured by her, nor of the merit of this state in a long and hazardous war, but have flattered themselves with the expectation that this state could not fail (their help) to be desolated by a foreign enemy, and that their exorbitant claims and avaricious designs may at some future period take place in this district of country. Notwithstanding those complicated embarrassments, and I might add discouragements, Vermont during the last campaign defended her frontiers, and at the close of it opened a truce with General Haldimand (who commands the British troops in Canada) in order to settle a cartel for the mutual exchange of prisoners, which continued near four weeks in the same situation, during which time Vermont secured the northern frontiers of her own, and that of the state of New York in consequence of my including the latter in the truce, although that government could have but little claim to my protection. I am confident that congress will not dispute my sincere attachment to the cause of my country, though I do not hesitate to say I am fully grounded in opinion that Vermont has indubitable right to agree on terms of cessation of hostilities with Great Britain, provided the United States persist in rejecting her application for a union with them, for Vermont of all people would be the most miserable were she obliged to defend the independence of United States and they at the same time claiming full liberty to overturn and ruin the independence of Vermont. I am persuaded when congress considers the circumstances of this state, they will be more surprised that I have transmitted them the inclosed letters than that I have kept them in custody so long, for I am as resolutely determined to defend the independence of Vermont, as congress are that of the United States, and, rather than fail, will retire with hardy Green Mountain Boys into the desolate caverns of the mountains and wage war with human nature at large.