Chap. 4. 



CIVIL POLICY DURING THE REVOLUTION. 



55 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE VERMONT LEGISLATURE. 



CONVENTION AT CORNISH. 



New Hampshire ; but that if those pro- 

 ceedings were disannulled, only the dele- 

 gates from New York would oppose their 

 independence.* The Legislature met 

 again by adjournment on the 8th of Oc- 

 tober, 1778, at Windsor, and, having re- 

 ceived the report of Col. Allen, Oct. 13th, 

 they took up the subject of the union. 



At the first session of the Legislature 

 in March, the state had been divided into 

 two counties, Bennington on the west 

 side of the mountains, and Cumberland 

 on the east. After considering and deba- 

 ting the subject of their connection with 

 the sixteen towns from New Hampshire, 

 from the 13th to the 21st of October, votes 

 were taken in the Legislature on the fol- 

 lowing questions, the result of which 

 evinced the determination of a majority 

 of the members to proceed no further in 

 that hazardous experiment. Question 1st. 

 Shall the counties in this state remain as 

 they were established in March last.' 

 This question was decided in the affirma- 

 tive ; yeas 3.5, nays 26. Qucstio7i 2d. 

 Shall tlie towns on the east side of the 

 Connecticut river, which have been ad- 

 mitted to a union with Vermont, be inclu- 

 ded in the county of Cumberland? Ques- 

 tion 3d. Shall said towns be erected into 

 a county by themselves ? The last two 

 questions were both decided in the nega- 

 tive ; j'^eas 28, nays 33.1 



Finding by these votes that the TjCgis- 

 lature did not incline, at present, to do 

 any thing more on the subject of the 

 union, the representatives from the towns 

 on the east side of the Connecticut with- 

 drew from the assembly, in which they 

 had been admitted to seats, and were fol- 

 lowed by fifteen representatives from 

 towns on the west side of the river, to- 

 gether with the lieutenant governor, and 

 two of the council. After these meinbers 

 had withdrawn, the number left was bare- 

 ly sufficient to constitute a quorum. They, 

 therefore, proceeded to transact the re- 

 maining business of the session, and ad- 

 journed on the 24th of October, to meet 

 again at Bennington on the second Thurs- 

 day of February next, having resolved to 

 refer the subject of the union with New 

 Hampshire to their constituents for in- 

 structions how to proceed at their next 

 session. 



The seceding members, after entering 

 a formal protest upon the journals against 

 the proceedings of the assembly, held a 

 raeeting, at which they made arrange- 

 ments for calling a convention, to which 

 they invited all the towns in the vicinity 

 of Connecticut river to send delegates. 



The object of this convention was to es- 

 tablish a government in the valley of the 

 Connecticut, the centre and seat of which 

 should be somewhere upon that stream. 

 The convention met at Cornish, New 

 Hampshire, on the 9th of December, and 

 a union was agreed upon by the majority 

 of the delegates, without any regard to 

 former limits, and a proposal was made to 

 New Hampshire, either to agree with that 

 state upon a division line, or to submit it 

 to Congress, or to arbitrators mutually 

 chosen. In case neither of these propo- 

 sals was accepted, they proposed that 

 they would consent that all the grants 

 should be united with New Hampshire, 

 and altogether become one entire state, 

 co-e.xtensive with the claims of New 

 Hampshire previous to the royal decision 

 in 1764. Till one of these proposals was 

 acceded to, they " resolved to trust in 

 providence and defend themselves." 



Only eight towns on the west side of 

 Connecticut river were represented in 

 this convention, and the delegates from 

 some of these declined taking any part 

 in making the foregoing proposals to New 

 Hampshire. From the proceedings of 

 this convention, it became obvious that 

 the whole aim of the leading men in the 

 vicinity of Connecticut river, was to es- 

 tablish such a government as to bring 

 themselves in the centre, and it did not 

 appear to be material with them whether 

 this was effected by a union of a part of 

 New Hampshire with Vermont, or by 

 bringing the whole of Vermont under the 

 jurisdiction of New Hampshire. The 

 people of Vermont were now fully sensi- 

 ble of the impolicy, as well as injustice, 

 of aiding in the dismemberment of New 

 Hampshire, and they were wise enough 

 to embrace the first opportunity to retrace 

 their steps, and dissolve a connection 

 which threatened their ruin. 



The legislature of Vermont met at Ben- 

 nington, according to adjournment, on 

 the 12th of February, 1779, and the next 

 day they voted to dissolve the union 

 which had subsisted between them and 

 the towns in New Hampshire.* This de- 

 termination of the legislature of Vermont 

 was immediately communicated to the 

 government of New Hampshire by Ira 

 Allen, and was received while efforts 

 were making to gain the assent of tliat 

 government to the proposals made by 

 the Cornish convention. Encouraged by 

 these divisions, the legislature of New 

 Hampshire now resolved to lay claim, 

 not only to the sixteen towns, which had 

 united with Vermont, but to the whole 



*For a copy of this report seeSlade's State Papers, * For these preceedingg see Slado'g Sta'C Papers, 

 page 92. f Foi these proceedings, see Ibid, p, 94. page 102. 



