220 LETTER XVII. TOWN OF BURLINGTON.-CHARACTER AND HISTORY OF THE STATE OF VERMONT. MY DEAR FRIEND, Burlington, State of Vermont, ASCENDING the waters of Lake Champlain, the shores assume a wilder and more mountainous character. The site of the flourishing town of Burlington is one of singular beauty; the neatness and elegance of the white houses ascending rapidly from the shore, interspersed with trees, and arranged with that symmetry which characterizes the young villages of these states, the sweet bay, and, beyond, the open waters of the lake, bounded by a range of mountains, behind which, when our eyes first rested on them, the sun was sinking in golden splendour;-it was a fairy scene, when his flaming disk, which might have dazzled eagles, dropt behind the purple screen, blazing on the still broad lake, on the windows and the white walls of the lovely village, and on the silver sails of the sloops and shipping, gliding noiselessly through the gleaming waters. Not forty years since, and the ground now occupied by this beautiful town and a population of two thousand souls, was a desert, frequented only by bears and panthers. The American verb to progress (though some of my friends in this country deny that it is an Americanism) is certainly not without its apology; even a foreigner must acknowledge, that the new kind of advancement which greets his eye in this country, seems to demand a new word to portray it. The young town of Burlington, is graced with a college, which was founded in the year 1791, and has lately received considerable additions. The state of Vermont, in which it stands, whose population may be somewhat less than 300,000, contrives to support two establishments of this description; and, perhaps, in no part of the Union is greater attention paid to the education of youth. The territory passing under the name of Vermont is intersected, from north to south, by a range of mountains, covered with ever-green forests, from which the name of the country. This Alpine ridge, rising occasionally to three and four thousand feet, nearly fills up the breadth of the state; but is every where scooped into glens and valleys, plentifully intersected with streams and rivers, flowing, to the eastward, into the beautiful Connecticut, and, to the west, into the magnificent Champlain. The gigantic forests of white pine, spruce, cedar, and other evergreens, which clothe to the top the billowy sides of the mountains, mingle occasionally their deep verdure with the oak, elm, beech, maple, &c. that shadow the valleys. This world of forest is intersected by tracts of open pasture, while the luxuriant lands that border the water courses are fast exchanging their primeval woods for the treasures of agriculture. The most populous town in the state contains less than three thousand souls; the inhabitants, agricultural or grazing farmers, being scattered through the valleys and hills, or collected in small villages on the banks of the lakes and rivers. In scrupulous regard to the education of her citizens, in the thorough democracy of her institutions, in her simple morals and hardy industry, Vermont is a characteristic daughter of New-England. She stands conspicuous, however, among her sister states for her patriotic spirit ; her services have always been rendered to the nation un sparingly, nor could she ever be charged with separating her interests from those of the confederacy. During the revolutionary struggle, her scanty populalation, thinly scattered along the borders of rivers and streams, in mountains and forests, were signally generous and disinterested. The short history of this spirited republic is not without a peculiar interest, and is very highly honourable to the character of her people. During her colonial existence, she was engaged in a dispute with the neighbouring provinces, involving all those great principles which afterwards formed the basis of the quarrel between the colonies and the mother country. Under the administration of Great Britain, in consequence of various contradictory acts, passed at different periods, and under different reigns, the Vermont lands were claimed by the two adjoining provinces of NewHampshire and New-York. Most of the early settlers held their possessions under the patent granted to the former, when the latter asserted a prior claim, and essayed to constrain the ejection of the proprietors. The proclamation of the royal Governor of New-York was answered by a proclamation of the royal Governor of NewHampshire; the matter being referred to the home authority, a verdict was pronounced in favour of New-York against the wishes and claims of the Vermontese ; but this imperial verdict was as little respected by the hardy mountaineers as had been the proclamation of the governor. "The gods of the valleys," cried the spirited Ethan Allen, "are not gods of the hills." An opposition was instantly organized, and the New-York claims and jurisdiction so set at defiance, that a civil war had very nearly ensued. The ground assumed by this infant colony was the right of a people to self-government, and accordingly she established her own in defiance of the threats of New-York and her governor. But a greater cause soon fixed the attention of this high-minded people. In the very heat of their contention with the New-York claimants and legislature, the quarrel broke out between the British government and the American people: From this quarrel the mountaineers of Vermont might easily have excused themselves. Far removed from the sea, without commerce, untaxed and ungoverned, the arbitrary measures of the English ministry clashed with no immediate interests of theirs, and, heated as they were in other disputes, might have been supposed little calculated to excite their opposition by wounding their pride; but, superior to all selfish considerations, their own quarrel was lost in that of the community. The news of the battle of Lexington had no sooner reached them, than we find Ethan Allen, at the head of a troop of Vermont mountaineers, surprising the important post of Ticonderoga. Summoning the surrender of the fort in the dead of night, "In whose name ?" said the astonished and irritated commander. "In the name of the great Jehovah and the continental congress," replied the patriot. This continental congress contained no representatives of the people of Vermont; it had not pronounced upon the justice or injustice of the claims preferred against them, nor acknowledged the independent jurisdiction which they had established; but it was an assembly gathered under the wings of freedom; it asserted for others those rights which the Vermontese had asserted for themselves; without hesitation therefore, without waiting to be solicited, or essaying to make stipulations, voluntarily and unconditionally these champions of the rights of man forsook their ploughshares and their pruninghooks, recommended their women and children to the protection of heaven, and went forth to fight the battles of their brethren. After the declaration of independence, the Vermontese appealed to the congress as to the supreme government, demanding to be admitted into the confederacy as an independent state. They grounded their plea upon the same great principles by which the other states had justified their resistance to Great Britain;- the right of a people to institute their own government, and the invalidity of all contracts uncemented by a mutual agreement between the parties. New-York, on the other hand, could appeal only to royal grants and deeds legally rather than justly executed. The feelings of the congress were well disposed towards the Vermont cause; but New-York was too important an ally to be decided against rashly; judgment therefore was deferred until the two states should come to agreement between themselves, or until more peaceful days should bring leisure to the congress to examine into all the bearings of the question. Thus thrown out of the pale of the Union, it was imagined by the enemy, that Vermont might easily be won from the common cause. She was now promised high privileges, and an individual existence as a royal province; but this generous republic was not to be so bought from honour: firm in her resistance to New-York, she was as true to the cause of America; her handful of freemen asserted their own rights, and sustained those of their brethren throughout that trying contest. At its close, and when the national independence was finally established, the dispute with her sister state was amicably adjusted; and she then voluntarily joined herself as a fourteenth state to the thirteen original confederated republics whose cause she had so zealously and magnanimously made her own. In consequence of her resistance to the jurisdiction of New-York, Vermont had asserted and enjoyed an independent existence several years before the dismemberment of the colonial provinces from Great Britain; but the constitution, as it now stands, was not finally arranged until the year 1793. The plan of government is among the most simple of any to be found in the Union. The legislative department is composed of one house, whose members are |