The fact is, according to the admissions, and the documents published by the Vermont historians themselves, [FN-1] that the people of Vermont, though doubtless for the most part attached to the cause of their country, nevertheless looked upon New-York "as a more detested enemy" than Great Britain; [FN-2] and the officers of the latter were not slow in their efforts to avail themselves of the schism. Accordingly, Colonel Beverley Robinson sought to open a correspondence with Ethan Allen as early as March, 1780. The first letter was handed to Allen in Arlington, but was not answered. A second letter from Robinson was received by Allen in February, 1781, which, with the first, he enclosed to Congress in March, accompanied by a letter plainly asserting the right of Vermont to agree to a cessation of hostilities with Great Britain, provided its claims, as a State, were still to be rejected by Congress. It does not appear, however, that the threat had any effect upon that body.
[FN-1] Slade's State Papers.
[FN-2] Idem.
In the months of April and May following, the Governor and Council of Vermont commissioned Colonel Ira Allen, a brother of Ethan, to proceed to the Isle au Noix, to settle a cartel with the British in Canada, and also, if possible, to negotiate an armistice in favor of Vermont. The arrangements for this negotiation were conducted with the most profound secrecy; only eight persons being cognizant of the procedure. [FN-1] Colonel Allen, accompanied by one subaltern, [FN-2] two sergeants, and sixteen privates, departed upon his mission on the first of May; and having arrived at the Isle au Noix, entered at once upon his business—negotiating with Major Dundas, the commander of that post, only on the subject of an exchange of prisoners, but more privately with Captain Sherwood and George Smith, Esq. on the subject of an armistice. The stay of Allen at the island was protracted for a considerable time, and the conferences with the two commissioners, Sherwood and Smith, on the subject of the political relations of Vermont, were frequent, but perfectly confidential; Allen carefully avoiding to write any thing, to guard against accidents. But from the beginning, it seems to have been perfectly understood by both parties that they were treating "for an armistice, and to concert measures to establish Vermont as a colony under the crown of Great Britain." [FN-3] In the course of the consultations, Allen freely declared "that such was the extreme hatred of Vermont to the state of New-York, that rather than yield to it, they would see Congress subjected to the British government, provided Vermont could be a distinct colony under the crown on safe and honorable terms." He added, "that the people of Vermont were not disposed any longer to assist in establishing a government in America which might subject them and their posterity to New-York, whose government was more detested than any other in the known world." [FN-4] These were encouraging representations in the ears of his Majesty's officers; and, after a negotiation of seventeen days, the cartel was arranged, and an armistice verbally agreed upon, by virtue of which hostilities were to cease between the British forces and the people under the jurisdiction of Vermont, until after the next session of the Legislature of Vermont, and even longer, if prospects were satisfactory to the Commander-in-chief in Canada. Moreover, as Vermont had then extended her claims of territory to the Hudson river, all that portion of New-York lying east of the river, and north of the western termination of the north line of Massachusetts, was included in the armistice. It was also stipulated that, during the armistice, the leaders in Vermont were to prepare the people by degrees for a change of government, and that the British officers were to have free communication through the territory of the new State—as it claimed to be. [FN-5]
[FN-1] Thomas Chittenden, Moses Robinson, Samuel Safford, Ethan Allen, Ira Allen, Timothy Brownson, John Fassett, and Joseph Fay.
[FN-2] Lieutenant Simeon Lyman.
[FN-3] Political History of Vermont, published by Ira Allen in London, in 1798.
[FN-4] Allen's Political History of Vermont.