ALLEN AT GUILFORD.—"ORACLES OF REASON."—JOHN STARK.—ST. JOHN DE CRÈVECŒUR.—HONORS TO ALLEN.—SHAY'S REBELLION.—SECOND MARRIAGE.

In 1782 the rebellious York element in Windham County again called Ethan to the field. In Guilford forty-six men ambushed and fired on Allen's party in the evening. Allen, knowing the terror of his name, entering Guilford on foot, uttered this proclamation: "I, Ethan Allen, do declare that I will give no quarter to the man, woman, or child who shall oppose me, and unless the inhabitants of Guilford peacefully submit to the authority of Vermont, I swear that I will lay it as desolate as Sodom and Gomorrah by God."

In 1784 Allen published a book entitled "Reason, the Only Oracle of Man: or, A Compendious System of Natural Religion." In this book Allen endeavored to prove that the Bible was not inspired, but he declared it a necessity that a future life of rewards and punishments follow the good and evil of this life. His idea of the Deity is expressed in these words:

This book contained 487 pages. Fifteen hundred copies were issued, but most of them were destroyed by the burning of the printing office. Allen wrote to a friend:

Sometimes Allen is too profane to be repeated, sometimes too frivolous for sacred subjects. Speaking of his prospects of being hung in England, he said:

Among the pleasant friends that Allen formed at this time was John Stark. The hero of Ticonderoga had never met the hero of Bennington. Three weeks after Allen's arrival in Bennington, Stark wrote to him proposing an interview at Albany, where he was stationed as brigadier-general in command of the northern department. He also wrote to General Gates:

Four days later Gates wrote Stark:

Another pleasant episode in Allen's life was his association with St. John de CrÈvecoeur, who was the French consul in New York for ten years following the revolution. Sieur CrÈvecoeur married an American Quakeress, bought a farm which he cleared, wrote a book in English called "Letters from an American Farmer," and three volumes in French about upper Pennsylvania and New York. He wrote to Ethan Allen proposing to have the Vermont state seal engraved in silver by the king's best engravers, asked for maps of the state, suggested naming some towns after French statesmen who had befriended America. (St. Johnsbury was named for CrÈvecoeur.) He asked Allen for copies of his "Oracles of Reason" and also for some seeds.

Instances multiply showing the prominence of Ethan Allen in the new state. During Shay's rebellion in Massachusetts, before attempting to seize the United States arsenal at Springfield, he sent two of his principal officers to Ethan Allen offering to him the command of the Massachusetts insurgents, representing one-third of the population of that state. Allen rejected the offer with contempt and ordered the messengers to leave the state. He also wrote to the governor of Massachusetts and Colonel Benjamin Simmons, of western Massachusetts, informing them of the efforts made in Vermont by malcontents from that state, and that Vermont was exerting herself vigorously to prevent the evil consequences of the insurgents' action, and promising the most cordial co-operation in the future.

The incidents of Allen's life and his writings are not published in any one volume, but are scattered through ill-bound primers, are found in fiction, in addresses, and in huge double-column tomes which are not accessible to the people.

The story of his second marriage gives a vivid picture of the rough-and-ready audacious soldier. On the 9th of February, 1784, the judges of the supreme court were at breakfast with lawyer Stephen R. Bradley, of Westminster, when General Allen, in a sleigh with a span of dashing black horses and a colored driver, drove up to the house. Passing through the breakfast-room, he found in the next room the spirited young widow of twenty-four summers, Mrs. Frances Buchanan, who was living in the house with her mother, Mrs. Wall. Dressed in her morning gown, Mrs. Buchanan was standing on a chair arranging china and glass on some upper shelves. She amused her visitor with some witticism about the broken decanter in her hands; a brief chat ensued, then Allen said: "Fanny, if we are ever to be married, now is the time, for I am on my way to Arlington."

"Very well," she replied; "give me time to put on my josie."

The couple passed into a third room, where the judges were smoking, and Allen said:

"Judge Robinson, this young woman and myself have concluded to marry each other, and to have you perform the ceremony."

"When?"

"Now! For myself I have no great opinion of such formality, and from what I can discover she thinks as little of it as I do. But as a decent respect for the opinion of mankind seems to require it, you will proceed."

"General, this is an important matter, and have you given it serious consideration?"

"Certainly; but," here the general glanced proudly at his handsome and accomplished bride, twenty-two years younger than himself, perhaps also conscious of his own mature, stalwart symmetry, "I do not think it requires much consideration in this particular case."

"Do you promise to live with Frances agreeably to the law of God?"

"Stop! stop!" cried Allen, looking out of the window. "Yes, according to the law of God as written in the great book of Nature. Go on! go on! my team is at the door."

Soon the bride's guitar and trunk were in the sleigh and the bells jingled merrily as they dashed westward.

Before his second marriage John Norton, a tavern-keeper of Westminster, said:

"Fanny, if you marry General Allen you will be the queen of a new state."

"Yes," she replied, "and if I should marry the devil I would be queen of hell."

The children of the second marriage were three: one daughter who died in a nunnery in Montreal, and two sons who became officers in the United States Army and died at Norfolk, Va. Ethan Allen, of New York, is a grandson of the second wife.