The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1877-08-16

the men Of Concord and Lexington not
reader than they, to spring up in resistance
to the aggressions Of Great Britain upon the
liberties of the colonies nor any more pa
triotic, self-sacrificing, united and steadfast
in defense OF the common cause ;-none
shrewder and wiser in the diplomacy OF
war than the leaders Of these people, who,
when the infant state, unsupported by con-
gress and deserted by the neighboring
states, was left alone to make such defense
as she could against powerful invasion by
the common enemy gathering upon her
northern border, repealed the invasion and
secured victory without conflict, disarming
the foe by the charm of words, and, by the
finesse of war, securing to the common
cause the results of a successful campaign I;
and none who ever displayed keener sa-
gacity and skill of polite administration
and management than they who made "the
Grants" a state who maintained its indie
pendence as a separate sovereignty for four
teen years, and then put it in place as one
of the United States OF America
Upon plain grounds of common Justice,
the rebellion OF the New Hampshire Grants,
so far as II was a rebellion, and the forming
of an independent state, stand justified.
The rebellion was against the injustice of
robbery, and the state was a necessity as an
instrument of resistance. The lands en-
braced within the territorial limits of this
present state Of Vermont had been under
stood to be within the limits and jurisdic-
ton of the province of New Hampshire.
Upon this understanding, the royal gov
ernor of that colony, Benning Wentworth,
had granted by charter in the kings name
about one hundred and thirty townships OF
these lands, or nearly three millions of
acres, in shares to some eight thousand per-
sons, when on the Goth day of July, 1854,
without notice to the settlers and plainly
against their wishes, the colonial govern
ment 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 prov
inces of New Hampshire and New 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 treas
ury, the question of rightful colonial juris-
diction hardly seems to touch the question
of legal right to the lands and, certainly,
since the lands had been purchased and paid
equity, on the part of the colonial govern
ment of New York, to treat those grants as
void and the settlers as trespassers, and to
regrant the lands to strangers, and thus turn
out from their new made homes whole
people to beggary and vagabondage. Nor
does any effect of the order establish
ing the boundary, such as to impair
by retroaction the royal grants already
made, seem to have been intended by the
home government. But the New York gov
eminent gave the order this Interpretation,
treating it as the sanction Of their previous
claim of jurisdiction and right and so sue
cessive royal governors of that colony set to
work granting these lands in large tracts,
upon careful selection and survey of the
best, to their retainers and favorites, regard
less wholly of the rights of the settlers under
the New Hampshire charters. This in
justice had its incentive in the greed
of those Governors to acquire fortunes
for themselves by the cxtravagant fees
demanded and paid for such grants, or
by themselves and their favorites becom-
ing partners with other spectators and job
bers in the lands granted. The injustice Of
thus disregarding the claims of the settlers
was so manifest and gross as to receive the
rebuke of the Home government and re-
peated prohibitions but the loyalty of these
Tory Governors gave way at the point where
the Royal order touched their own emolu-
ments, and the bad work went on as before;
and so the honest setaler became accustomed
IN acc survnyins parties of Workers crossing
his out fields and circling his homestead in
their delineations of manors and baronies,
and to receive their salutations of notice to
quit. Strange sheriffs appeared for service
of process of ejectment, calling him to Alba
ny to answer to the plant of some specu-
lator, disguised under the name of John Doe.
who pretended to have bought from under
him the lands he had bought, paid for,
cleaned and TILED, and the house which
sheltered his wife and babes. II he made
appearance in answer to such summons, he
found the court in suspicious accord with
the rapacious governors and spectators, in
treating his grant, under the royal seal OF
New Hampshire, as nullity. Such decis.
ion OF ono case was precedent for all 9th.
ers, numbering thousands, and so the altern.
alive was presented to every grantee and set
tier under New Hampshire charter to give
up his lands and home, or buy his peace or
impossible terms of an unsympathisine
stranger who had schemed to despoil him
or yet forcibly to resist such monstrous in
BILE resistance made to the stamp act, and til,
destruction of the tea in Boston harbor, al
patriotic exhibitions of rightful resistanc,
to authority arbitrarily unjust. What shall
we say, then, of the resistance of these set
| tiers of GO the Grants" to that scheme o.
plumber which would take from a people
not merely petty tax, but their all, tn,
| fruits of life of toll and hardship, an(
make of them community OF paupers, Il
become the vassals of foreign landlords, o
| to beg their way back to their old homes
| Resistance to injustice so gross, thougl
| sought to be covered by the hypocrisy o
legal forms, and none the less CALLING on thi
account, was the instinct of common man
illness, hardly requiring for its impulse tina
exaltation OF soul and character which w
call heroism. And SO 1t happened that whei
sheriff Ten Eyck, on the 18th day of July
| It'll, with his posse of some 300 armed men
including many of the gentry Of Albany
| proceeded in martial array to Bennington h
take possession by process in ejectment o
| the farm of James Breakenride, he me
there on the borders Of the Walloomsac
| gathering of the settlers of "the Grants,
prepared for resistance. Bennington in tow
meeting had voted TO take this farm unde
its protection, and it was protected. Tn
sheriff had met power greater than tn
power of the county, who solved for hin
the prophetic riddle of Ethan Allen, tina
"the gods of the valley are not the gods O
the hills" and "if they would come to Ben
nington the meaning should be made clear.
And so the power Of the county evaporated
and resistance TO like attempts in the futur
was made easier, and their success impossl
BILE. 1t has been well and truly said by tina
venerable gentleman, native of Benning
ton, whose presence graces this occasion
and who in his long and useful life OF pull
lie service has done his age no better seryic
than by his publication of the Early Hii
tory OF Vermont" that ." Here in fact, O
| the farm of Jamea Rrealkenridpe was hor