D URING the summer of 1778, about four weeks after Ethan Allen returned to Vermont from his long captivity, a new Governor General arrived in Canada in the person of Gen. Frederick Haldimand, a man whose name is associated with an important chapter of early Vermont history. Haldimand was born on August 11, 1718, in the Swiss canton of Neuchatel. As a boy he entered the service of the King of Sardinia. Later he served, successively, in the armies of Frederick the Great in Prussia and William, Prince of Orange in Holland. In 1756, at the request of Sir Joseph Yorke, British Minister at The Hague, he came to New York, to become an officer in, a regiment recruited from Swiss and German colonists in Pennsylvania and Maryland. Having been transferred to another regiment, he was sent to General Abercrombie's army, and participated in the unsuccessful attack upon General Montcalm's French troops at Ticonderoga. He was also with the British army at the capture of Montreal. For six years he was stationed in Florida, returning in 1773 to New York as a Major General, when Gage went to England on leave of absence. It was during this period that General Haldimand obtained his first knowledge of the controversy between New York and the New Hampshire Grants. He is said to have refused Governor Tryon's request to send regular troops to suppress the Green Mountain Boys. He returned to England in 1775, where he remained until he was ordered to Canada. The surrender of Burgoyne in 1777 and the formation of an alliance between France and the United States early in the year 1778, convinced the British government of the necessity of a change in the American policy. Commissioners were appointed with the power "to offer to the colonies at large or separately, a general or separate peace. The British authorities in Canada were not ignorant at this time of conditions in the new State of Vermont. Their ships controlled the waters of Lake Champlain, and frequent scouting parties and communications from Tories furnished information of internal affairs. Vermont at this time literally was surrounded by enemies. New York, as has been shown in preceding chapters, was bitterly hostile and desirous of compelling submission to her authority. New New Hampshire and Massachusetts laid claim to portions of the Green Mountain State. Canada contained a British army, large for that period, which greatly outnumbered any force Vermont could put in the field. The Continental Congress alternated between indifference and hostility in its attitude toward Vermont's claims for admission to the Union of States. Ira Allen has written of this period-and no man was better informed-that "Vermont was in a forlorn situation, torn by intestine divisions and the intrigues of her enemies in Congress; all the cannon, nay, every spade and pickaxe taken by her valiant sons at Ticonderoga and Crown Point, were removed out of the State to Fort George, together with Colonel Warner's regiment, raised in and for the protection of Vermont, but put into Continental service, were thus stationed to defend the frontiers of New York, not half so much exposed as Vermont, and to add to the distress, New York recalled, at the same time, all her State troops from Skenesborough." These conditions having been reported to the King's ministers, Lord George Germaine on March 3, 1779, directed Sir Henry Clinton, in chief command of the British forces in America, to open negotiations with Vermont. To General Haldimand he wrote: "The drawing over the inhabitants of the country they call Vermont to the British Crown appears a matter of such vast importance for the safety of Canada, and as affording a means of annoying the northern revolted provinces that I think it right to repeat to you the King's wishes that you may be able to effect it, though it should be attended with considerable expense." Haldimand replied on September 13, 1779, that he would do what he could "to reclaim the Vermont people," adding the opinion that "they are a profligate banditti." Lord George Germaine again wrote to General Haldimand, on March 17, 1780, urging "the vast importance of drawing over Vermont." In compliance with these instructions from the British. Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs, and presumably acting in accordance with directions from Sir Henry Clinton, on March 30, 1780, Col. Beverly Robinson addressed a letter to Ethan Allen. At the beginning of the war Robinson sympathized with the Americans, but later, when the British took possession of New York, perhaps to save his property, he accepted a commission as Colonel of a Loyalist regiment, and was the agent who succeeded in corrupting Benedict Arnold. In his |