[FN-2] By way of indicating their feelings toward the New-Yorkers, there was an inn at Bennington, called the "Green Mountain Tavern," the sign of which was the skin of a catamount stuffed, and raised on a post twenty-five feet from the ground, with its head turned toward New-York, giving defiance to all intruders from that quarter. It was at this tavern that that powerful and inexorable though ideal personage, Judge Lynch, was wont to hold his courts before he took up his abode at the South. Sometimes the delinquents, who were so unfortunate as to be obliged to answer in his court for the crime of purchasing lands of the real owners, or for acknowledging the government to which by law they belonged, were punished by being suspended by cords in a chair, beneath the catamount, for two hours. This was a lenient punishment. The more common one, was the application of the "beech seal" to the naked back—or, in other words, a flagellation with beechen rods.
Such was the posture of affairs between New-York and the people of the New Hampshire Grants, at the commencement of the Revolution. But the battle of Lexington produced a shock which, for the time being, arrested the prosecution of the controversy. New-York was called to nerve her arm for a higher and nobler conflict, in the early stages of which she was gallantly assisted by the recusant settlers of the Grants. Ethan Allen himself struck the first blow at the north, by the capture of Ticonderoga; and his martial companion in resisting the authorities of New-York, Colonel Seth Warner, rendered efficient service at the battle of Bennington. Still, the Vermontese did not forget, while New-York was exerting her energies elsewhere, to prosecute their own designs for an entire alienation from New-York, and a separate state organization. [FN-1] To this end all the energies of the chief men of the Grants were directed; and the result was, that the Declaration of Independence of the British crown, by Congress, on the behalf of the twelve United Colonies, of July 4th, 1776, was followed by a convention of the people of the disputed territory; which convention, on the 15th of January, 1777, declared the New Hampshire Grants to be a free and independent State, [FN-2] and forwarded a memorial to Congress, praying for admission into the Confederation.
[FN-1] Blade's Vermont State Papers—a valuable work.
[FN-2] Idem.
Indignant at this procedure, the state of New-York sought the interposition of Congress. The justice of the claim of New-York was fully recognised by that body; and the memorial from the Grants was dismissed, by a resolution "that the independent government attempted to be established by the people of Vermont, could derive no countenance or justification from any act or resolution of Congress." But the people of the Grants persisted in their determination to assert and maintain their independence. Nothing daunted, therefore, by the adverse action of Congress, they proceeded to form a constitution and to organise a State Government; the machinery of which was fully set in motion in the following year, 1778.
The Legislature of New-York still attempted to assert its right of jurisdiction, but made liberal proffers of compromise in regard to titles of lands—offering to recognise and confirm all the titles which had previously been in dispute. A proclamation to this effect, conceived in the most liberal spirit, was issued by Governor Clinton, in February, 1778; avowing, however, in regard to the contumacious, "the rightful supremacy of New-York over their persons and property, as disaffected subjects." [FN-1] But, like every preceding effort, either of force or conciliation, the present was of no avail. Ethan Allen issued a counter-proclamation to the people of the Grants, and the work of their own independent organization proceeded without serious interruption. [FN-2] They were the more encouraged to persevere in this course, from an impression that, although Congress could not then sanction proceedings in regard to New-York that were clearly illegal; the New England members, and some of the Southern also, would, nevertheless, not be very deep mourners at their success. Roger Sherman maintained that Congress had no right to decide the controversy, and was supposed to countenance the proceedings of which New-York complained. Elbridge Gerry held that Vermont was extra-provincial, and had a perfect right to her independence. [FN-3] But so thought not New-York and Governor Clinton; and the organization of a state government revived the heart-burnings that had subsided, and re-enkindled the fires of discord which had been inactive during the first three or four years of the war. The causes of irritation became daily more frequent and exasperating, until, during the Summer and Autumn of the present year, the parties were again on the verge of open hostilities. The people of the Grants, as they had grown in strength, had increased in their arrogance, until they had extended their claims to the Hudson river; and it was no diminution of the perplexities of New-York, that strong indications appeared in several of the northern towns, to which the people of the Grants had previously interposed not even the shadow of a claim, of a disposition to go over to Vermont.
[FN-1] Slades's Vermont State Papers.
[FN-2] Respecting this manifesto, John Jay wrote to Governor Morris—"Ethan Allen has commenced author and orator. A philippic of his against New-York is handed about. There is quaintness, impudence, and art in it."