[FN-5] Idem.
But, notwithstanding the veil of secrecy drawn over the proceedings, dark suspicions got afloat that all was not right. The sincere Whigs among the people of the Grants became alarmed, and were apprehensive that they might be sold ere yet they were aware of it. When the Legislature met, the people whose jealousies had been awakened, flocked to the place of meeting to ascertain whether all was well; and it was only by much dissimulation on the part of those in the secret, that the friends of the Union were pacified. There were also other spectators present, from different States, who felt an equal interest to ascertain whether the great cause of the nation was not in danger of being compromised. The result was, that the agents succeeded in throwing dust into the eyes of the people; and so adroit was their management, that the Allens held communication with the enemy during the whole Summer without detection. On more than one occasion, British guards, of several men, came to the very precincts of Arlington, delivering and receiving packages in the twilight.
In September the negotiations were renewed, the commissioners of both parties meeting secretly at Skenesborough, within the territory of New-York, and farther progress was made in the terms of the arrangement, by which Vermont was in due time to throw herself "into the arms of her legitimate sovereign." Sir Frederick Haldimand, however, was becoming impatient of longer delay; and a strenuous effort was made for an immediate and open declaration on the part of Vermont. To this proposition the Vermont commissioners, Ira Allen, Joseph Fay, and a third person, whose name is not given, pleaded that there had not yet been time to prepare the people for so great a change, and that they should require the repose of the approaching Winter for that object. It was at length stipulated, however, that inasmuch as the royal authority had been received by Sir Frederick Haldimand for that purpose, an army might ascend the lake, with proclamations offering to confirm Vermont as a colony under the crown, upon the principles and conditions heretofore indicated, on the return of the people to their allegiance; the commissioners interposing a request, that the General commanding the expedition would endeavor to ascertain the temper of the people before the proclamation should be actually distributed.
The Legislature of the Grants assembled at Charlestown in October. Meantime General St. Leger, agreeably to the arrangement with Allen and Fay, ascended the lake to Ticonderoga with a strong force, where he rested. In order to save appearances, the Vermontese had stationed a military force on the opposite shore, under the command of General Enos, to whom was necessarily confided the secret. But on neither side would it answer to entrust that secret to the subordinates. They must, of course, regard each other as enemies in good faith; and the fact that they did so consider themselves, was productive of an affair which placed the Vermontese in a peculiarly awkward predicament The circumstances were these: In order to preserve at least the mimicry of war, scouts and patrols were occasionally sent out by both parties. Unluckily one of these Vermont patrols happened one day to encounter a similar party from the army of St. Leger. Shots were exchanged with hearty goodwill; the Vermont sergeant fell, and his men retreated. The body was decently interred by order of General St. Leger, who sent his clothes to General Enos, accompanied by an open letter apologizing for the occurrence, and expressing his regret at the result.
It was hardly probable that an unsealed letter would pass through many hands, and its contents remain unknown to all save the person to whom it was addressed. Such, certainly, was not the fact in regard to the letter in question. Its contents transpired; and great was the surprise at the civility of General St. Leger in sending back the sergeant's clothes, and deploring his death. A messenger was despatched by General Enos to Governor Chittenden at Charlestown, who, not being in the secrets of his employers, failed not, with honest simplicity, to proclaim the circumstances of the sergeant's death, and the extraordinary message of General St. Leger. The consequence was excitement among the people assembled at Charlestown, attended with a kindling feeling of distrust. "Why should General St Leger send back the clothes?" "Why regret the death of an enemy?" were questions more easily asked by the people, than capable of being safely and ingenuously answered by their leaders. The consequence was, a popular clamor unpleasant to the ears of the initiated. Major Runnels confronted Colonel Ira Allen, and demanded to know why St. Leger was sorry for the death of the sergeant? Allen's answer was evasive and unsatisfactory. The Major repeated the question, and Allen replied that he had better go to St. Leger at the head of his regiment, and demand the reason, for his sorrow, in person. A sharp altercation ensued, which had the effect, for a short time, of diverting the attention of the people from the dispatches which they had been clamoring to have read. These were precious moments for the Governor and the negotiators with the enemy. The Board of War was convened, the members of which were all in the secret, and a set of pretended letters were hastily prepared from such portions of General Enos's dispatches as would serve the purpose in hand, which were read publicly to the Legislature and the people; and which had the effect of allaying the excitement and hushing suspicion into silence.
Meantime a rumor of the capture of Cornwallis and his army at Yorktown was wafted along upon the southern breeze; the effect of which was such upon the people, as to induce Allen and Fay to write to the British commissioners with St Leger, that it would be imprudent at that particular conjuncture for him to promulgate the royal proclamation, and urging delay to a more auspicious moment The messenger with these despatches had not been longer than an hour at the head-quarters of St. Leger at Ticonderoga, before the rumor respecting Cornwallis was confirmed by an express. The effect was prodigious. All ideas or farther operations in that quarter were instantly abandoned; and before evening of the same day, St. Leger's troops and stores were re-embarked, and with a fair wind he made sail immediately, back to St. John's.
From this narrative of facts, as disclosed in London many years afterward by Colonel Ira Allen himself, it will be seen at once that General Heath was in error, when, in his general orders of November 9th, he attributed the inaction of General St. Leger, and his ultimate retreat, to the preparations of Lord Stirling, and Generals Stark and Gansevoort, for his reception. The digression which has been judged necessary to elucidate this portion of the operations in the north, during the Summer and Autumn of 1781, may by some readers be thought wide of the leading design of the present work. Still, it is believed that to a majority of the public, the facts detailed in this connexion will be new, as they must be curious in the estimation of all. They are at the same time held to be essential to a just appreciation of the difficulties with which the military officers in the Northern Department, and the Government of the State of New-York, were obliged to contend during the period under consideration. Strong light is also reflected by them upon that portion of the history of the war itself with which they are interblended. Every close reader of American history is aware that there was a correspondence, of some description, between the leaders of the people occupying the New Hampshire Grants and the common enemy, during the later years of the Revolutionary war. But neither the precise character, nor the extent, of that correspondence, has been generally understood; while it has, for obvious reasons, been the desire of those most directly concerned in those matters, to represent the whole as a game of dissembling with an enemy who had attempted to tamper with the patriotic sons of the Green Mountains. [F-1] Be this as it may, it is in the secret proceedings of the Vermont conspirators, that the key is found to the mysterious movements of the enemy on Lake Champlain, which had so greatly harassed the American commanders at the north during that Autumn. It was known that St. Leger was upon the lake in great force; and having landed at Ticonderoga, to all human calculation an invasion was intended, which the country was then ill prepared to resist. At times he was apparently balancing upon what point to move. With the means of striking, he did not strike; and his dilatoriness, and apparent indecision, were alike inexplicable. The effect was to keep the northern part of the state in constant alarm, and to harass the militia by frequent calls to the field, against an enemy hovering upon the shore of the lake, always, apparently, just ready to make a descent, and yet idling away the season without farther demonstration. Much greater quietness might have been enjoyed by the people of New-York, so far as the common enemy was concerned, had it been known that his hands were fettered by an armistice with a contiguous territory, claiming to be an American state, and professing at the same time to be at open war with the self-same enemy with whom the government of the said territory was at that moment in secret alliance. [FN-2] When to this singularly embarrassing position, those other difficulties which have been passed in review are added, such as an exhausted and ravaged country; an unfed, unclothed, unpaid and deserting army; [FN-3] extensive disaffection among the people immediately at home; continual irruptions of hostile partisan bands in every quarter; mobs of insurgents setting the laws at defiance in one direction; the militia regiments in the district thus lawless, more than half disposed to join the disorganizers; with an actual and somewhat formidable invasion from the west; it must be conceived that both civil and military authorities were laboring under a complication of evils, requiring for their control all that prudence and energy, discretion, perseverance and courage, combined, could accomplish.
[FN-1] Sparks, adopting the views of earlier writers, has noticed the case in this favorable aspect in his late sketch of the Life of Ethan Allen. The author certainly agrees with Mr. Sparks in the opinion that "there was never any serious intention on the part of the Vermontese to listen to the British proposals." But with great deference, after a full examination of the case, the same cannot be said of the leaders of the Vermontese. They had determined that New-York should be dismembered; and if they could not force themselves into the confederation as a State, they were willing to fall back into the arms of Great Britain as a Colony. But it is very certain, from the conduct of the people of the Grants when they heard of St. Leger's regrets at the killing of the sergeant, that they were prepared for no such arrangement.
[FN-2] Of course General Heath was not aware of the proceedings of the Vermontese when he issued his general orders above cited, nor was the Government of New-York acquainted with them. Although, from the necessity of the case, a considerable number of the Vermont leaders must have been in the secret, it was nevertheless exceedingly well kept. It was not until the month of March of the following year, (1782,) that Governor Clinton communicated the affidavits of Edgar and Abeel to the Legislature, the substance of which has been embodied in the preceding narrative. Those affidavits explained the threats murmured by Ethan Allen, when in Albany the Spring before. They also explained the threat contained in a letter from Governor Chittenden, referred to in a preceding page, while they strengthened the suspicions that had for months been entertained by General Schuyler and Governor Clinton. But it was not until years had elapsed that the whole truth came out.