[siebert] the AMERICAN LOYALISTS 33 



2, 1783,) a description of the country about Lake Memphremagog, 

 lying some forty miles east of Caldwell's Manor, with a virtual request 

 on behalf of a party of loyalists numbering, he said, ''about one hundred 

 and twenty families and settlers" to be allowed to locate there.* Failing 

 to obtain any satisfaction from Haldimand after mgre than two months, 

 Marsh wrote again (February 29, 1784), to say that he was disappointed 

 that no settlement was to be allowed at Memphremagog, but that he 

 still entertained hopes, and this time asserted that there were several 

 hundred families ready to go to Canada who "would add to the strength 

 and wealth of the province." f As though in support of Marsh's state- 

 ments, Ebenezer Rice and Benjamin Tyler, of Claremont, New Hamp- 

 shire, sent in a petition a few days later in behalf of forty-six families 

 besides their own, in all two hundred and thirty souls, asking to be allow- 

 ed to form a town on the west bank of the Connecticut River or on 

 Lake Memphremagog, on the score of the proximity of the regions. 

 This party was described in the petition as being "of the Profession 

 of the Church of England," and "overburdened with Usurpation, 

 Tyrene, and opression," and therefore impatient to find an asylum in 

 their "Royal Master's Dominion." J Another memorial of this period 

 dated February 19, 1784, was signed by Dr. Isaac Moseley and Captain 

 Ross in behalf of themselves and one hundred and sixty-two other 

 "gentlemen" of Massachusetts, who wished to settle north of latitude 

 45° between Mississquoi Bay and the Connecticut River.'* 



Besides the considerations of convenience in moving and nearness 

 to markets that impelled Tories to select nearby regions for settlement, 

 there were representations growing out of the British attempt to win 

 back Vermont to her former allegiance. For reasons of safety, Vermont 

 encouraged this attempt through the agency of Ethan Allen, who 

 commanded the Vermont troops.^ In the latter part of April, 1783, 

 Allen sent a message to Sherwood "earnestly requesting that the 

 loyalists in Canada might be settled near Vermont, as the private cab- 

 inet of Vermont had resolved to give every possible encouragement 

 to loyal subjects in Canada to remove to the northern part of the State" 

 for the purpose — as Allen alleged — of forming a party in opposition 

 to Congress sufficient to effect the union of Vermont with Canada. It 

 was evidently ha furtherance of this project that Sherwood was visited 

 by a Mr. Campbel from Boston, who was interested in forming some 



*Can. Arch., 1888, 7U6. 

 tibid., 710. 



JCan. Arch., 1888, 793; Haldimand Papers, B. 177-2, p. 643; B. 175, pp. 251, 

 253-255. 



* Haldimand Papers, B. 166, p. 168. 



* Scudder, Vermont, 204, ff. 



