The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1877-08-24

war, half-lawsuit, which 30 long raget
between the settlers and the land Job
bers of New York, with its compiica
tions of boundary, jurisdiction ant
title, and collision of fconf1icting claims o
New York, New Hampshire and Mass
achusetts; the men of Concord and Lex
ington not reader than they, to spring
up in resistance to the aggressions o
Great Britain upon the liberties of the
colonies; nor any more patriotic, self
sacrificing, united and steadfast in de
fence of the common cause; nont
shrewder and wiser in the diplomacy o
war than the leaders of these people
who, when the infant state, unsupport
ed by Congress and deserted by the
neighboring states, was left alone tC
make such defence as she could agains
a powerful invasion by the common
enemy gathering upon her northern
border, repelled the invasion and secur
ed victory without conflict, disarmine
the foe by the charm of words, and, by
the finesse of war, securing to the com
mon cause the results of successful
campaign; and none who ever displayed
keener sagacity and skill of polite ad
minisiration and management than they
who made "the Grants" state; who
maintained its independence as separ
ate sovereignty for fourteen years, ant
then put it in place as one of the United
States of America.
Upon plain grounds of common jus
tice, the rebellion of the New Hamp
shire Grants, SO far as it was a rebellion
and the forming of an Independent state
stand justified. The rebellion was
against the injustice of robbery, and the
state was necessity as an instrument
of resistance. The lands embraced
within the territorial limits of this pre-
sent state of Vermont had been under
stood to be within the limits and juris
diction of the province of New Hamp
shire. Upon this understanding, the
royal governor of that colony, Bennino
Wentworth, had granted by charter in
the kings name about one hundred and
thirty townships of these lands, or near
ly three millions of acres, i'll shares, tc
some eight thousand persons, when or
the 20th day of July, 1854, without no.
tice to the settlers, and plainly against
their wishes, the colonial government Of
New York succeeded in obtaining from
the king in council an order declaring
the west bank of the Connecticut river
to be the BOUNDARY, line between the two
provinces OF Now Hompehiro and Nnu
York, thus placing the settlers upon
those grants and their lands under the
jurisdiction of New York.
Since the title to these lands was
originally in the king, and the king had
granted them, and the purchase price
may be said to have gone into the kings
treasury, the question of rightfll colo.
NAL jurisdiction hardly seems to touch
the question of legal right to the lands
and, certainly, since the lands had beer
purchased and paid for In good faith, il
was plain violation of equity, OH the
part of the colonial Government of New
York, to treat those grants as void and
the settlers as trespassers, and to re-
grant the lands to strangers, and thus
turn out from their new made homes 8
whole people to beggary and vagabon
dage. Nor does any effect of the order
establishing the boundary, such as tc
impair by retroaction the royal grant.
already made, seem to have been in
tended by the Home Government. Bu
the New York government gave the
order this Interpretation, treating ii as
the sanction of their previous claim o.
jurisdiction and right; and so success
sive royal governors of that colony sci
to work granting these lands in large
tracts, upon careful selection and sur.
vey of the best, to their retainers and
favorites, regardless wholly of the
rights of the settlers under the New
Hampshire charters. This injustice haj
its incentive in the greed of those gov.
ernors to acquire fortunes for them.
selves by the extravagant fees demand.
ed and paid for such grants, or by them.
selves and their favorites becoming
partners with other spectators and
jobbers in the lands granted. The in
justice of thus disregarding the claims
of the settlers was so manifest and gross
as to receive the rebuke of the Home
government and repeated prohibitions
but the loyalty of these Tory governors
gave way at the point where the Royal
order touched their own emoluments,
and the bad work went on as before
and so the honest settler became accus-
toned to see surveying parties of York
ers crossing his out-fields and circling
his homestead In their delineations OF
manors and baronies, and to receive
thtb vi IOtlCt W L,
Strange sheriffs appeared for service of
process of ejectment, calling him to Al
bany to answer to the plant of some
speculator disguised under the name of
John Doe, who pretended to have
bought from under him the lands he
had bought, paid for, cleaned and til
led, and the house which sheltered his
wife and babes. If he made appear
ance i'll answer TO such summons, he
found the court in suspicious accord
with the rapacious governors and spec
nlators, in treating his grant under the
royal seal of New Hampshire as q null
lily. Such decision of one case was q
precedent for all others, numbering
thousands, and so the alternative was
presented to every grantee and settler
under q New Hampshire charter, to
give up his lands and home OF buy his
peace on impossible terms of an unsym-
pathizing stranger who had schemed to
despoil him. or vet forcibly to resist
such monstrous injustice. We are
wont to applaud the forcible resistance
made to il,c stamp act, and the destruc-
ton of the Tea in Boston harhor, as pa
triotic exhibitions of rightful resistance
W uuilioilti uIDltIdIlIH UNJUST.
What shall we say, then, of the re-
sistance of these settlers of ''the Grants"
TO that scheme of plumber which would
take from people not merely q petty
tax, but their all, the fruits of life of
toll and hardship, and make of them a
community of paupers, to become the
vassals of foreign landlords, or TO beg
their way hack to their old homes. Re-
sistance to injustice so gross, though
sought TO he covered by the hypocrisy
of legal forms, and none the less CALLING
OH this account, was the instinct Of
common manliness, hardly requiring
for its impulse that exaltation of soul
and character which we call heroism.
And so il happened, that when Sheriff
Ten Eyck, ON the 18th day of July,
l77l, with his posse of some three hun
dred armed men, including many of the
gentry of Albany, proceeded in martial
array to Bennington to take possession
by process in ejectment of the farm of
James breckenridge, he met there on