Burlington free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1827-1865, 1843-11-17
From the New World.
Structures IN stones Border Wars
IN RELATION TO THE
Y E r NJ O n E.

Col. Stone, in his life of Brant, while de-
failing the border wars connected with his
subject, seems TO have conceived | it his priv
ilege to travel into Vermont, for the purpose
of discussing and deciding upon the conduct
and motives of our leaders during the latter
part Of the revolution. This he had a right
TO d., or introduce a disquisition Oh animal
masse,ism, if ho choose !; but SO long as he
PROCESSES to play the historian, however far
he NAV 90 out of the way for subjects of
comment, il is our privilege to hold him res
ponsible for truth and impartiality, and to
repel the aspersion he has attempted to cast
on the memories Of that band of distinguish
ed old patriots by charge of reasonable mo-
tivcs, which, after the lapse of more than
half a century, his clairUoyant mind has
been the first to discover.
Is is we'll known that Vermont, whose
territory had been claimed through a long
and embitered controversy, both by New
Hampshire and New York, declared herself
to the great offence of the latter, an inde-
pendent state near the middle of the war
From that time to its close, after appealing
in vain to Congress for a recognition OF her
rights. or even for assistance to enable her
to sustain herself in her frontier position, she
had to contend, single-handed, for her exis-
tencc against the double forces of the Brit
ish and the New Workers. And it was du-
ring this period of her trouble that The lead
ers of Vermont, with the sole intentIon' as
far as regarded the common enemy of keep
ing at bay IA force she was unable to- meet
entered into negotiation with the BRUSH
officers in Canada for an armistice, winch,
in their situation they believed they were
justified in concluding. And, by this nego'
citation, protracted as long as possible by
those leaders, and by receiving in silence
or with the promise or consideration INT
proposals WHICH tsr ''in were eager .'
$50: them, they succeeded, as is gencr~"y
known, in keeping, for years, the move.
ments of a powerful force of the enemy
suspended on their frontier, thereby saving
not only their own state, but New-York from
the calamity of an invasion which the Amer
lean forces were then but lily prepared te
encounter. This, as has always been wei
known and understood among all WHO liza,
the means of knowing, is the whole lengtl
and breadth of the affair. And yet Col
Stone pretends to see in it a secret plot o
tho Vermont leaders to compromise tn
cause of liberty, and sell their State to tn
British.
a With all due Difference to Col. Stone
logic, we must he permitted to say that hi
conclusions are but poorly warranted by hi
premises. Indeed had his differences, Xix
those of the countryman in the story, bee
drawn by a dray-horse, they could moi
some Of them, have been more far-fetche'
and singular. And mad he been conten
with a simple narration of the facts, eve
those given by him, and left his readers t
form their own conclusion, we should hav
been willing, as one-sided and defective a
would then have been the evidence, to trus
the public with a decision of the case at is
sue. But as he has volunteered a decision
which he feared his readers might fail t
make, we will endearor briefly to meet i
first on his own grounds, and then by addu
cling other evidence, which, either throug
ignorance or design, he has wholly omit
tied.
After fully exoneratlng the whole mass {
the people of Vermont " from any ~intentio
Of ever listening to British proposals." tn
writer says:
But Nth great Difference, after a FL
examination of the case, the same cam,
20 be said of the leaders of the Vermontese.-
They had determined that New Yo,
shoNM be dismembered ; and if then coui
mot force themselves into the Confederate
a., a State, they were Willing to fall ba.
rto the arms Of Great Britain as a Co