Ethan Allen, the Robin Hood of Vermont

CHAPTER XIV.

RELEASE FROM PRISON.—WITH WASHINGTON AT VALLEY FORGE.—THE HALDIMAND CORRESPONDENCE.

Allen's narrative in the preceding chapter gives a picture of himself, of the times, and of the treatment of prisoners by the most civilized nation on earth. In January, 1777, with other American officers, he was quartered on Long Island. In August he was sent to the provost jail in New York. May 3, 1778, he was exchanged for Col. Alexander Campbell. Thus he was treated as a colonel, although he had no fixed official rank or title beyond that informally bestowed on him by Montgomery. He was entertained with gentlemanly courtesy for two days at General Campbell's headquarters on Staten Island, and then crossed New Jersey amid the acclamations of the people.

For several days he was the guest of Washington at Valley Forge. Here, eighteen miles northwest of Philadelphia, where the British army was revelling in luxury, Washington, with three thousand men suffering from cold and hunger, was praying to God for guidance in so sore a strait. Baron Steuben was there fresh from the service of Frederic the Great, disciplining the raw recruits into veteran soldiers never again to know defeat. There were Gates, attending a court-martial, and Putnam and Lafayette. These were among Allen's red-letter days; courteously entertained by some of the best soldiers of Europe and America, and the favored guest of Washington, could Heaven reward him better for his long imprisonment? Here he writes a letter to Congress which Washington forwards inclosed with his own. Allen began the journey to his Vermont home in company with Gates, arriving in Fishkill on May 18, and in Bennington just four weeks after his release from prison.

We now come to a chapter in Allen's life which the biographer must enter upon with a mind free from prejudice, and with a strong desire to assimilate the feelings of the age when our little commonwealth was in process of formation. About the close of the year 1776, Allen being a prisoner on parole in New York, a British officer of rank sent for him to come to his lodgings. He told him that his fidelity, although in a wrong cause, had recommended him to General Sir William Howe, who wished to make him the colonel of a regiment of tories. He proposed that Allen in a few days should go to England, be paid in gold instead of continental rag money, be introduced to Lord George Germaine and probably to the king, return to America with Burgoyne, assist in reducing the country, and receive a large tract of land in Vermont or Connecticut as he preferred. Allen replied: "If by fidelity I have recommended myself to General Howe, I shall be loath by unfaithfulness to lose the general's good opinion; besides, I view the offer of land to be similar to that which the devil offered our Saviour, 'to give him all the kingdoms of the world to fall down and worship him,' when the poor devil had not one foot of land on earth."

Mr. B. F. Stevens, an American resident of London, and an indefatigable collector of documents relating to early American history gathered from the British archives, furnishes a letter written by Alexander C. Wedderburn, solicitor-general, on the morning of December 27, 1775, to William Eden, under-secretary of state. On the same day at noon a cabinet meeting was to be held at which was to be considered the disposition to be made of Ethan Allen and other prisoners who had reached England five days before. The "Lord S." referred to is Lord Suffolk, secretary of state, and the "Attorney" is Lord Edward Therlow, attorney-general:

Dear Eden:—I shall certainly attend Lord S. at 12 o'clock. My idea of the Business does not differ much from the Attorney's. My thoughts have been employed upon it ever since I saw you, and I am persuaded some unlucky incident must arise if Allen and his People are kept here. It must be understood that Government does not mean to execute them, the Prosecution will be remiss and the Disposition of some People to thwart it very active. I would therefore send them back, but I think something more might be done than merely to return them as Prisoners to America. Allen, by Kay's [William Kay, secret service agent at Montreal] account, took up arms because he was dispossessed of Lands he had settled between Hampshire and New York, in consequence of an order of Council settling the boundary of these two provinces, and had balanced for some time whether to have recourse to ye Rebels or to Mr. Carleton [governor-general of the Province of Quebec]. The doubt of being well received by the latter determined him to join the former, and Kay adds that he is a bold, active fellow. I would then send to him a Person of Confidence with this Proposal: that his case had been favorably represented to Government; that the injury he had suffered was some Alleviation for his crime, and that it arose from an Abuse of an order of Council which was never meant to dispossess the Settlers in the Lands in debate between ye two provinces. If he has a mind to return to his duty He may not only have his pardon from Gen. Howe but a Company of Rangers, and in the event if He behaves well His lands restored on these terms, he and his men shall be sent back to Boston at liberty; if he does not accept them he and they must be disposed of as the Law directs. If he should behave well it is an Acquisition. If not there is still an Advantage in finding a decent reason for not immediately proceeding against him as a Rebel. Some of the People who came over in the Ship with him, or perhaps Kay himself, might easily settle this bargain if it is set about directly.

Yours ever, A. C. W.

A correspondent of the Burlington Free Press, January 7, 1887, adds this comment:

That it was agreed to in the cabinet appears in the fact that on the very 27th December, 1775, Lord George Germaine of the admiralty ordered that Allen and his associates be returned to General Howe in Boston. Howe evacuated Boston March 16, 1776, went to Halifax, and thence to New York. Allen followed him round and was ultimately a prisoner on parole until the 6th of May, 1778, when he was exchanged for Col. Archibald Campbell. While he was on parole the "Person of Confidence" was found to make the proposal suggested by Wedderburn, and Allen mentions this in the narrative of his captivity.

Who was the British officer of high rank whom Howe employed to buy up Allen we do not know, but the American whom Clinton employed we do know: Beverly Robinson, a Virginian, made wealthy by marriage with Susanna Phillipse, sister of Mary Phillipse, for whom Washington had an attachment. He was the son of a lieutenant-governor, and an early associate of Washington. In 1780 occurred this third attempt to buy Allen. Robinson was the man selected to make the proposition. Ethan Allen was the man selected to be bribed: not Governor Chittenden; not the soldiers Roger Enos or Seth Warner; not the diplomat, the treasurer, the financier of the State, Ira Allen; not the young lawyers Nathaniel Chipman or S. R. Bradley; but the man who had been tempted in England and tempted in New York, the man whose loyalty had not been shaken by the endurance of British brutality for two and one-half years. The time to hope for success would seem to have been December, 1775, on English soil, when he had reasonable grounds to fear being hung for treason, or in New York, in 1777, when Washington had been driven out of Long Island, out of New York City, and chased across New Jersey. This time chosen was in 1780, when Congress had alienated Vermont by ignoring her claims to federation, and had treated her with such contempt that there was almost no hope of her joining the United States.

Long Island knew of Ethan's temptation before he did. The air was full of it. The contents of Robinson's letter were known to the tories before Allen received it. The letter written in February was delivered in July. Washington heard in July that Allen was in New York selling himself to the British. Schuyler had spies everywhere. They reported Allen in Canada. General James Clinton suspected Allen. The correspondence and flag for cartel smelt of treason. Washington had tried to effect an exchange of prisoners, and failed. His letter to Haldimand was unanswered. Gooch had applied, in July, to Washington, and Allen wrote to Washington at the request of the governor. Washington replied he could not prefer Warner's men to those who had been prisoners longer, but here the correspondence languished.

In the Magazine of American History, published in New York, January, 1887, is an article entitled "A Curious Chapter in Vermont's History," dated Ottawa, Canada, November, 1886, signed J. L. Payne, in which the writer says there are hundreds of manuscripts in the Canadian archives which prove that Vermont narrowly escaped becoming a British province. The chief evidence that he furnishes is extracts from the letters of Capt. Justus Sherwood, commissioner for General Haldimand, Governor of Canada. These letters indicate that on October 26, 1780, Sherwood left Miller Bay with five privates, a flag, drum, and fife. On October 28th he is at Herrick's Camp, a Vermont frontier post of three hundred men. He is blindfolded and taken to Colonel Herrick's room. He tells Herrick that he is sent by Major Carleton to negotiate a cartel for the exchange of prisoners, and that he had dispatches from Governor Haldimand and Major Carleton to Governor Chittenden and Governor Allen. Next Sherwood is at Allen's headquarters in Castleton, and Allen having promised absolute secrecy, Sherwood informs him that:

General Haldimand was no stranger to their disputes with the other States respecting jurisdiction, and that his excellency was perfectly well informed of all that had lately passed between congress and Vermont, and of the fixed intentions of congress never to consent to Vermont's being a separate State. General Haldimand felt that in this congress was only duping them, and waited for a favorable opportunity to crush them; and therefore it was proper for them to cast off the congressional yoke and resume their former allegiance to the king of Great Britain, by doing which they would secure to themselves those privileges they had so long contended for with New York.

Allen is reported by Sherwood as replying that he was attached to the interests of Vermont, and that nothing but the continued tyranny of Congress could drive him from allegiance to the United States; but "Should he have any proposals to make to General Haldimand hereafter, they would be nearly as follows: He will expect to command his own forces. Vermont must be a government separate from and independent of any other Province in America; must chose their own officers and civil representatives; be entitled to all the privileges of the other states offered by the King's commissioners, and the New Hampshire Grants as chartered by Benning Wentworth, Governor of New Hampshire, must be confirmed free from any patents or claims from New York or other Provinces. He desires me to inform His Excellency that a revolution of this nature must be the work of time.... If, however, Congress should grant Vermont a seat in that Assembly as a separate State, then this negotiation to be at an end and be kept secret on both sides."

On May 7, 1781, Ira Allen visited Canada, and concerning a conference with him Captain Sherwood reports to the governor:

He says matters are not yet ripe. Governor Chittenden, General Allen and the major part of the leading men are anxious to bring about a neutrality, and are fully convinced that Congress never intends to confirm them as a separate State; but they dare not at this time make any separate agreement with Great Britain until the populace are better modelled for the purpose.

A few days later Captain Sherwood reports to the governor:

Those suspicious circumstances, with the great opinion Allen [referring to Col. Ira Allen] seems to entertain of the mighty power and consequence of Vermont, induce me to think they flatter themselves with the belief that, if Britain should invade them, the neighboring colonies rather than lose them as a frontier would protect them, and, on the other hand, should congress invade them, they could easily be admitted to a union with Britain at the latest hour, which they would at the last extremity choose as the least of two evils; for Allen says they hate congress like the devil, and have not yet a very good opinion of Britain. Sometimes I am inclined, from Allen's discourse, to hope and almost believe that they are endeavoring to prepare for a reunion. To this I suppose I am somewhat inclined by my anxious desire that it may be so.

Upon Col. Ira Allen's return to Vermont, Captain Sherwood reports:

I believe Allen has gone with a full determination to do his utmost for a reunion, and I believe he will be seconded by Governor Chittenden, his brother Ethan Allen and a few others, all acting from interest, without any principle of loyalty.

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