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LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
MATTHEW LYON 
 
 THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 
 A BIOGRAPHY 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 j. FAIRFAX MCLAUGHLIN, LLD. 
 
 Author of "College Days at Georgetown" "Origin of the Star Spangled 
 
 Banner" "Sketches of Fisher Ames, Alexander H. Stephens* 
 
 and Benjamin Robbins Curtis" etc. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 WYNKOOP HALLENBECK CRAWFORD COMPANY 
 
 MDCCCC 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 DAVIS 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PACF 
 
 Introduction .. vii-xi 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 A glance at Irish history. Wicklow. Boyhood of Matthew 
 
 Lyon in Dublin. His departure for America 1-48 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Stamp Act. Lyon in youth a Connecticut Redemptioner. 
 Marries Ethan Allen's niece. Removes with Thomas 
 Chittenden to Vermont. Dr. Dwight's strictures on 
 Vermont and Vermonters 49~<X> 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Yorkers and Green Mountain Boys. Hampshire Grants Con 
 troversy. The Revolution. Lyon in Ethan Allen's 
 storming party at Ticonderoga. Cashiered by Gates. 
 Restored by Schuyler. Lyon rescues St. Clair's army 
 from Burgoyne. Fills important stations in Vermont.. 97-166 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Lost Sibyl leaves of Gov. Chittenden. Death of Mrs. Lyon. 
 Haldimand Intrigue. Gov. Chittenden's daughter be 
 comes Col. Lyon's second wife. He founds Fair Haven. 
 Elected to Congress 167-208 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Federalists rule with an iron rod. Peter Porcupine an un 
 rivalled scold. The Lyon-Griswold fight. Pistolers and 
 pugilists in Congress. A century of Hotspurs 209-305 
 
fV CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PAGB. 
 
 President Adams sends Col. Lyon to prison, as Charles the 
 First sent John Hampden, and is overthrown in some 
 what the same way. The X. Y. Z. imposture. Hamil 
 ton in the ascendant. He strikes at John Adams, who 
 strikes back and crushes him. Lyon's triumphant re 
 entry in Congress 306-382 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Jefferson elected President. Lyon's decisive part in the result. 
 Fictions and fables of a century laid bare. Lyon's letter 
 to ex- President Adams 383-406 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Westward Ho! Col. Lyon founds Eddyville, Kentucky. 
 Again in Congress. A study of John Randolph of 
 Roanoke. Henry Clay and Matthew Lyon disciples of 
 Matthew Carey. Clay and Jackson hostile to Jefferson 
 through the machinations of Burr. Lyon opens the 
 eyes of Jackson to his mistake. Clay also enlightened 
 and refuses his hand to Burr in New York. Lyon calls 
 Madison the Caucus President. Opposes war of 1812, 
 and like Randolph loses his seat in Congress. Dis 
 tinguished descendants of Col. Lyon. His friendly rela 
 tions with Josiah Quincy. President Monroe appoints 
 Lyon Factor to Cherokee Nation. Again elected to 
 Congress, but dies at Spadfa Bluff before he can take 
 his seat. Re-interred at Eddyville 40^475 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Col. Lyon's religious faith. His relations with Burr and Wil 
 kinson. His letters to Josiah Quincy and Armisted C. 
 Mason. Letter to Lyon of Albert Gallatin. Lyon's 
 farewell letter in Niles's Register a political curiosity. . 477-512 
 
 General Index 5i3~53i 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 MATTHEW LYON Frontispiece 
 
 J. FAIRFAX MCLAUGHLIN xi 
 
 THOMAS CHITTENDEN 147 
 
 LYON-GRISWOLD FIGHT IN CONGRESS. A Cartoon 229 
 
 JOHN ADAMS 306 
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON 383 
 
 CHITTENDEN LYON 418 
 
 WILLIS B. MACHEN 422 
 
 EDWARD C. MACHEN 426 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XT O other American has illustrated more thoroughly than 
 Matthew Lyon the excellence of democratic institutions 
 in affording- to every man of character and talents a fair field for 
 honorable distinction. But so fleeting is political eminence, so 
 evanescent are the highest distinctions of government, that it 
 is doubtful whether the name of Lyon, who in his day and 
 generation filled conspicuous places as soldier, civilian and 
 congressman, and was as well known as any man in America, 
 has not been entirely forgotten by ninety-nine out of every 
 hundred American citizens. Such is fame. 
 
 A century ago he who did not know Matthew Lyon of 
 Vermont might well confess himself unknown. In a century 
 more how few of the great men of to-day, heroes of the 
 passing hour, presidents, governors, senators, congressmen, 
 ambassadors, generals and admirals, alas, how few of them all 
 shall have escaped the fate of Matthew Lyon, and, like him, not 
 be entirely forgotten! 
 
 " The evil that men do lives after them, 
 The good is oft interred with their bones." 
 
 Feeling an aversion for political pamphleteers who pretend 
 to write American history, I resolved many years ago to inves 
 tigate diligently all accessible sources of information which 
 might throw light upon the events of Matthew Lyon's life, 
 and to gather up the facts of his career into a connected nar 
 rative. It was an immense labor. Local chronicles, moth- 
 
Vlll INTRODUCTION 
 
 eaten documents, court records, congressional and State legis 
 lative annals, and county, town and State histories; innumer 
 able pamphlets and lists of essays, addresses, lectures, and other 
 fugitive productions, often found in book catalogues comprised 
 under the head of Americana; old letters fortunately preserved 
 in the hands of his descendants and others ; such was the wide 
 field in which I delved industriously for long years. Interest 
 in the subject constantly increased, and after I had compiled 
 a half dozen big scrap-books, I began to digest materials and 
 write the following pages. At last the task, thought quixotic 
 by several friends, was completed. 
 
 I had written the life of Matthew Lyon, but who was going 
 to publish it? One publisher after another was consulted, and 
 all of them proved languid. " Who was Matthew Lyon? " 
 They did not know anything about him ; the public was not in 
 terested in him. From the commercial point of view, they saw 
 no money in such a book. Reluctantly enough the manuscript 
 was laid aside, and might have reposed neglected in my library 
 until vixit should be written after my name, when probably it 
 would be sent to the paper mill with other rubbish, or left to 
 be devoured by mice in the attic. From this fate a lineal de 
 scendant of the old Revolutionary hero finally rescued it by 
 what appeared to be the merest accident. 
 
 He chanced to read an article of mine in the New York Sun 
 on the late Hon. John Randolph Tucker, a few days after the 
 death of that brilliant Virginian, and surmised that the writer 
 peradventure might know something about his own great 
 grandfather, Matthew Lyon. This haphazard conjecture was 
 brought to my notice by a letter from the gentleman in ques 
 tion, Col. Edward Chittenden Machen, of New York city. 
 
INTRODUCTION IX 
 
 Great was his surprise when he learned that I had written a 
 Matthew Lyon biography. He called upon me, I handed him 
 the manuscript for perusal, negotiations were opened for its 
 publication, and in this strange, almost romantic manner the 
 following pages have been brought to light. Colonel Machen 
 not only paid me for my work, but has assumed all the ex 
 penses of the publication, and his pious reverence for his ances 
 tor deserves a suitable recognition from every one, now or here 
 after, who may become interested in the subject. 
 
 A native of Ireland, born in the year 1750, in the Golden Belt 
 of Wicklow, Matthew Lyon had the misfortune, according to 
 the Kentucky historian Collins, of losing his father in the in 
 surrection of the White Boys, who was cruelly put to death 
 by the English because he loved his country and took up arms 
 against the intolerable oppression of its invaders. An 
 ancestor of the author of this book, Edmund Sheehy of Clon- 
 mel, grandfather of Lady Blessington on her mother's side, 
 was likewise judicially murdered during the same unhappy 
 days. Whether on account of this fellowship in the martyr 
 dom of their fathers, or from other patriotic affinities, James 
 Sheehy, of Alexandria, Virginia, and Matthew Lyon, of Ver 
 mont, became warm friends while the latter was a member of 
 Congress at Washington in the year 1803. James Sheehy was 
 the son of the above Edmund, and a nephew of Father Nicho 
 las Sheehy, who in the year 1766 was horribly butchered by 
 the English, beheaded and quartered, because he would not 
 reveal the secrets of the confessional to his accusers. James 
 left Ireland and became a wealthy importing merchant at Alex 
 andria, Virginia. His own son Edmund was my maternal 
 
 Madden's Life of the Countess of Blessington, I, 16. 
 
X INTRODUCTION 
 
 grandfather, who told me in my childhood of Matthew Lyon, 
 and of that gentleman's visits to his father's house. Thus be 
 gan my interest in the subject of this biography. 
 
 Colonel Lyon was twice married. His first wife was a niece 
 of Ethan Allen, the hero of Ticonderoga; his second a daugh 
 ter of Thomas Chittenden, the first and most celebrated of the 
 Governors of Vermont. Lyon founded the town of Fair 
 Haven in that State, a seat of thriving industry; and 
 afterwards the town of Eddyville on Cumberland river, Ken 
 tucky. He represented Vermont and Kentucky in Congress, 
 and was elected in his old age second delegate to Congress 
 from the Territory of Arkansas, although he did not live to 
 take his seat. 
 
 Rudyard Kipling has paraphrased, in one of his stories, a 
 favorite expression of Colonel Lyon, " By the bulls that re 
 deemed me," into " By the bull that bought me/' an impreca 
 tion employed by Lyon to signify his pride instead of shame 
 in the circumstance that he was once bought by a Connecticut 
 Yankee for a pair of two-year-old stags. He came to America 
 as a redemptioner, and in the scarcity of money the bulls be 
 came a part of the consideration for his services. From this 
 humble beginning he rose to an honorable station in society, 
 and cast the momentous vote in Congress which made Jeffer 
 son President of the United States. John Adams procured the 
 passage of the alien and sedition laws chiefly to get rid of 
 Lyon, who was tried, convicted and sentenced to four months' 
 imprisonment, and to pay a fine of one thousand dollars under 
 the odious sedition act. But Lyon proved stronger in his cell, 
 like another Hampden, than Adams in the Presidential office. 
 The people of Vermont re-elected him to Congress while he 
 
j. FAIRFAX MCLAUGHLIN 
 
INTRODUCTION XI 
 
 was incarcerated, and he came out of his prison door for a 
 triumphal progress to the seat of government, attended by a 
 multitude larger than was ever before brought together in the 
 Green Mountain State; "the train," says Robinson in his "Ver 
 mont," recently issued in Scudder's series of " American Com 
 monwealths," " extending a distance of twelve miles. With 
 half as many," felicitously adds Mr. Robinson, " he might 
 boast of a greater following than had passed up the Indian 
 Road under any leader since the bloody days of border war 
 fare, when Waubanakee chief or Canadian partisan led their 
 marauding horde along the noble river."* 
 
 Such was Matthew Lyon, "loved," says the distinguished 
 publicist, Francis Wharton, " as a neighbor, for he was full of 
 that chivalrous spirit of generosity which is not a strange in 
 mate of an Irish heart; and valued as a friend, for upon that 
 warm temperament had been grafted the fertility of expedients 
 belonging to the American pioneer. " b> 
 
 J. F. McL. 
 
 NEW YORK, March 15, 1900. 
 
 Rowland E. Robinson's " Vermont," p. 262. 
 " State Trials of the United States," p. 344. 
 
MATTHEW LYON 
 
 THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 
 A BIOGRAPHY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 HIS BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD IN WICKLOW THE GOLDEN BELT 
 OF IRELAND PASSES HIS BOYHOOD IN DUBLIN WHEN 
 BURKE, GRATTAN AND SHERIDAN FIGURED THERE CHARLES 
 LUCAS HIS MODEL SETS OUT FOR AMERICA. 
 
 TV/T ATTHEW LYON, the Irish-American Hampden, victim 
 and destroyer of the first great conspiracy against the 
 liberties of the United States, known as the Alien and Sedition 
 laws, was born in County Wicklow, the Switzerland of Ireland, 
 July 14, 1750. 
 
 This beautiful county adjoins Dublin on the south, and is 
 celebrated for its mountain scenery, the once magnificent forest 
 of Shillalah, and a landscape of surpassing loveliness. Numer 
 ous villas and spreading demesnes adorn that romantic region 
 within its borders known as the Golden Belt. "Were I 
 asked," says Sir Jonah Harrington in his description of Wick- 
 low, " to exemplify my ideas of rural, animated, cheering land 
 scape, I should say, My friend, travel, visit that narrow region 
 which we call the Golden Belt of Ireland."* 
 
 a " Personal Sketches of My Own Times." 
 
2 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 The scenery of Wicklow has furnished a glowing theme for 
 tourists, and a favorite subject for painters and etchers. From 
 Spenser in the Elizabethan age, to Tom Moore and Aubrey 
 De Vere in our own, poets have celebrated the scenery of the 
 county in song and pictured page. Grandeur and beauty meet 
 the eye on every side, from towering Lugnaquilla to the wild 
 fastnesses of Glenmalure; from the Round Tower and Saint 
 Kevin's Rock to the romantic Dargle and its Lover's Leap. 
 Here is the sublime Cascade of Powerscourt; there the Glen 
 of the Downs and mystic Luggela. 
 
 Yon bosky dell is none other than Sweet Vale of Avoca, 
 where " the bright waters meet." At Shelton Abbey in 
 the Vale of Arklow slept James the Second after his inglo 
 rious flight from the Boyne. a And further on amidst the 
 enchanting scenery of Wicklow is historic Tinehinch, home 
 of the Irish Demosthenes, Henry Grattan. Out of the 
 wild Wicklow passes to clasp to his heart once more his 
 betrothed Sarah Curran, ere he should quit his native land 
 forever, came Robert Emmet to his melancholy fate. In this 
 celebrated county was born Matthew Lyon, the future Ameri 
 can statesman, whose life scarcely less adventurous than that 
 of a hero of romance will form the subject of the following 
 pages. His early boyhood was passed in Dublin. 
 
 Stronghold of the English power, Dublin has ever been the 
 focus of British influence in Ireland. It is a remark of 
 scholars that in no other place in the Empire is the English 
 language spoken with greater purity than at Dublin. Con 
 stant intercourse between the people of Wicklow and those of 
 the city has made an impression on Wicklow manners. The 
 
 Lodge's " Peerage "; and Knight's " Guide to Wicklow," p. 82. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 3 
 
 peculiarity of speech, called the brogue, is less observable in 
 this county than in any other throughout the Island. 1 * The 
 picturesque costume of the ancient clans has been replaced like 
 wise by modern English dress. But with these exceptions, 
 old customs remain unchanged, and no part of Ireland is more 
 strongly marked by the national characteristics than Wick- 
 low. 
 
 In spite of the proximity of Dublin, Wicklow was one of the 
 last districts of Leinster that was conquered by the English 
 invaders. For centuries the present county formed part of 
 County Wexford, from which it was separated and made 
 shire ground in the time of Queen Elizabeth; but it was not 
 until 1605, during the reign of James the First, as we learn 
 from the Hibernia Dominicana, that it was raised to the dignity 
 of a county. 6 The clans of the O'Tooles, O'Byrnes, O'Kava- 
 naghs, and Walshes, the aboriginal chieftains of Wicklow, hung- 
 like a black cloud over the neck of Dublin, giving and taking 
 blows, and when overwhelmed by numbers retreated to their 
 strongholds in the mountains, where for centuries they success 
 fully defied the English power. The bitter strains in which 
 the early English historians rail against them prove how well 
 the men of Wicklow held their own against the inroads of the 
 Saxons. Abuse, cheap resource of baffled enemies, is the only 
 language they employ in their accounts of these sturdy moun 
 taineers. Even Spenser, the Rubens of English poetry, dis 
 figures the pages of his learned work, " A View of the State 
 
 a Knight's " Guide to Wicklow," Introductory Chapter, p. 8. 
 6 " Wickloe patrum memoria 1605 comitatus jus induit Equite Arth. 
 Chichester pro-rege." Hibernia Dominicana. 
 Spenser's " View of the State of Ireland." 
 
4 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 of Ireland/' by coarse invective against the wild Irish septs of 
 Wicklow. The truth is, these septs were a brave race strug 
 gling for their own and their country's liberty. 
 
 Quintilian somewhere says that genius is the heritage of 
 mountainous lands, for people there are always free. From 
 his mountain progenitors Lyon inherited invincible courage, 
 the Celtic love of fun and adventure, and a self-reliance that 
 failed him not in the most trying hours of his checkered life. 
 From time immemorial Wicklow rejoiced greatly in the 
 peculiar Irish institution of fairs. Young Lyon probably at 
 tended some of them, and mingled in the throngs of drovers- 
 and frieze-dealers, of peddlers and pipers, among the cattle 
 and pigs, when gentry and peasantry, tithe-proctors and tithe 
 payers, seneschals and rapparees, coming together in a body 
 and forgetting their differences, made the market towns of 
 Wicklow ring with jollity. Wakes and dances were among 
 the most popular customs of the people, the ceremony of keep 
 ing the dead company during the night with wassail and song 
 and ululations being strictly observed; while persons of all 
 ages assembled at the dances, when the young trod measures 
 to the music' of the bagpipes, and the old, after the manner of 
 Asiatics, recounted ancient legends which had been handed 
 down for centuries, perhaps withoxit the loss or gain of a single 
 sentence. 
 
 The " retrospective imagination," remarked upon by Mr. 
 Lecky, that distinguishes the Irish above all other races, had 
 full play in Lyon's native county. Every stranger was told 
 wonderful stories of the Phooca, the phantom steed,, which had 
 been ridden, so ran the tale, by Strongbow and after by Old 
 
 Sir Jonah Harrington's " Sketches of My Own Times." 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 5 
 
 Noll, when they came into Ireland on mischief bent. Breath 
 ing fire from his nostrils the Phooca still was wont on stormy 
 nights to dash down mountain cataracts, and sometimes to 
 serve tricks on belated travelers, such as poor little Tommy 
 Cuttings, a tailor of Ballymore Eustace, whom he overtook 
 one dark night and bore away over the mountains into a fu 
 rious succession of Tarn O'Shanter adventures.* 1 Tommy's 
 phantom gallop ever after furnished a winter evening's tale 
 along the whole countryside from Dublin to the Meeting of 
 the Waters. But of all the legends of Wicklow that of Saint 
 Kevin and the Lady is the most popular. According to one 
 tradition, quaintly preserved in an ancient Wicklow song, the 
 Lady was no other than an old hag or witch whose persecutions 
 drove the Saint from picturesque Luggela, the spot originally 
 chosen for the erection of his celebrated Seven Churches, Ire 
 land's mystical number. But according to another tradition, 
 adopted for purposes of poetry by Tom Moore, she was the 
 beautiful Kathleen who followed the Saint to his lonely retreat 
 at Glendalough only to be hurled from the beetling rock to a 
 watery grave: 
 
 " By that Lake whose gloomy shore 
 Skylark never warbles o'er." 
 
 On his visit here in 1825, Sir Walter Scott described the 
 Seven Churches of Glendalough, of which the See of Dublin 
 was once only a suffragan, as " the inexpressibly singular 
 scene of Irish antiquities."" 
 
 In Matthew Lyon's childhood, the Irish peasantry though 
 almost cured of their love of the Stuarts, as the Young Preten- 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Hall's "Scenery of Ireland," article Wicklow. 
 
6 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 der had found to his cost in 1746, were nevertheless far from 
 being reconciled to the House of Hanover. Father O'Leary 
 and Bishop Berkeley had kept them away from Culloden whither 
 their hearts inclined them, but the broken treaty of Limerick 
 had annihilated forever all lingering Irish affection for the 
 Kings and government of England, and affords to statesmen 
 and rulers of men everywhere an impressive example of what 
 Burke finely calls "the ill-husbandry oi injustice." While 
 the vice-regal party in Dublin strove to keep alive loyal recol 
 lections of King William by quaffing off bumpers to " the 
 glorious, pious and immortal memory of William the Dutch- 
 .man," the men of Wicklow answered the Castle toast by 
 drinking to " the memory of the Chestnut Horse " that broke 
 the neck of the same William of Orange, and refilling many a 
 measure of Drogheda usquebaugh in honor of the avenging 
 steed. They had not forgotten William's speech on the Irish 
 woolen trade, to say nothing of the battle of the Boyne. 
 
 The manners, customs, and highly imaginative legends of 
 Lyon's native county exercised an influence in the formation 
 of his character, and to some extent afford a key to the numer 
 ous romantic episodes in his after life. 
 
 Of the lives of his parents but few particulars are remem 
 bered. His father's calling is not known, but if he was in the 
 insurrection of the evicted cottiers called White Boys, as there 
 is some reason to believe, it is probable his occupation was 
 that of a small farmer. He must have possessed some means, 
 as he placed his son at school in Dublin, and afforded him 
 opportunity of acquiring a fair English education, and a little 
 knowledge of Latin and Greek. The last surviving daughter 
 
 Harrington's " Sketches of My Own Times." 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 7 
 
 of Matthew Lyon, the late venerable Mrs. Eliza A. Roe, of 
 Illinois, was of opinion that her father's parents were wealthy. 
 During Matthew's childhood a famine occurred in Ireland, 
 and widespread destitution prevailed among the people, calami 
 ties vividly narrated by Matthew O'Connor and other Irish 
 historians of that period. The fact that the father was able in 
 those trying times to provide means to educate his son at a 
 distance from home is evidence that he was at least in easy 
 circumstances. It is the custom in Ireland to place children at 
 school at a very early age. Swift was sent when he was six 
 years old. Lyon must have been very young, for all accounts 
 agree that his father died while he was a small boy, and that 
 his school days ended when he was in his thirteenth year. In 
 Collins's History of Kentucky, where Colonel Lyon passed his 
 latter years, a sketch of his life is given. After speaking of him 
 as "the most remarkable character in southwestern Kentucky," 
 the historian refers to his parentage and says : " His father, 
 while Matthew was a small boy, engaged in a conspiracy 
 against the British Crown, for which he was tried, condemned 
 and executed. His widow soon married; and Matthew, at the 
 age of nineteen, fled from the cruelty of a step-father to 
 America." 
 
 But Matthew's age at the time of his emigration is not cor 
 rectly stated by Mr. Collins. At thirteen, after leaving school, 
 he was placed in a Dublin printing office, or newspaper office, 
 to learn the trades of printer and book-binder. He worked 
 here about two years. If the father suffered capital punish 
 ment, the early days of his sensitive, high-strung son were no 
 doubt embittered, and this tragedy, reported by so respectable 
 
 a Collins's " History of Kentucky," Vol. II, p. 491. 
 
8 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 an authority as Collins, the Kentucky historian, who may have 
 learned of it directly or through others from Colonel Lyon him 
 self, deserves more than passing reference in a memoir of the 
 son's life. If the elder Lyon was put to death for White Boy ism, 
 as were so many of his innocent countrymen, a sad motive for 
 the early exile of his son may be found in that tragedy. During 
 the eighteenth century confiscation in Ireland usually went 
 hand in hand with the doom of death. Upon the execution of 
 the father, his family probably at the same time was reduced to 
 poverty. 
 
 About the middle of the eighteenth century several insurrec 
 tions occurred in various parts of Ireland. It is the opinion 
 of some writers, as said above, that the elder Lyon was a Wick- 
 low farmer. If so, the uprising of the White Boys was the 
 one, if any, in which he probably took part. Insurrections 
 among the manufacturing classes of the North of Ireland were 
 frequent about that time, as they had been in the earlier part 
 of the century. 
 
 The chief commercial dependence of the country, if not the 
 sole one, was the woolen trade. By an act of the British Par 
 liament, passed in 1699, and described by the impartial his 
 torian Lecky as one of "crushing and unprecedented severity," 
 the export of the Irish woolen manufactures, not only to Eng 
 land but to all other countries, was absolutely prohibited. 
 " The effects of this measure," says Lecky, " were ter 
 rible, almost beyond conception. The main industry of the 
 country was at a blow completely and irretrievably annihilated. 
 A vast population was thrown into a condition of utter destitu 
 tion." 
 
 a Lecky's " Leaders of Irish Opinion." 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 9 
 
 Skilled labor fled the country in despair, for its main interest 
 was swept away, and it found a more congenial field for its 
 enterprise in Germany, France and Spain. The western and 
 southern districts of Ireland were almost depopulated, and 
 emigration to America, the present United States, which with 
 occasional interruptions has continued in an ever-increasing 
 stream from that day to the present, then for the first time was 
 systematically begun. The Irish of Ulster came over in 1728, 
 and their posterity are to be found chiefly in Pennsylvania and 
 in the Southern States in Virginia, West Virginia and Ken 
 tucky, and as far down as the Carolinas and Georgia. They 
 now call them Scotch-Irish, but why Scotch is not clear. 
 Their progenitors came from the province of Ulster, Ireland, 
 and were described as Irishmen, not Scotch-Irishmen, by the 
 historians of their own age. In the accounts written by them 
 selves which have been preserved they are described simply as 
 Irishmen, without any Scotch, English or other prefix or com 
 pound. The new-fangled name, propitiatory coinage of a later 
 day, had not then been invented. They had no apologies to 
 offer for being Irishmen. The poet's burning imprecation, 
 beginning with the words, " Lives there a man with soul so 
 dead," never could be applied to them. Of this stock were An 
 drew Jackson, John C. Calhoun and Stonewall Jackson. In the 
 appended letter Mr. Calhoun described himself and his father. 
 Recent writers may take a useful hint from this letter, never 
 hitherto published, and in which the distinguished writer, it 
 will be observed, describes his father, not as many others who 
 have written about him have done by employing the mixed 
 race words Scotch-Irish, but simply and truly as an Irish 
 emigrant. 
 
10 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 Letter of John C. C'alhoun upon becoming a member of the 
 Irish Emigrant Society of New York: 
 
 " SENATE CHAMBER, 
 
 " Washington, D. C., 
 
 " I3th September, 1.841-. 
 
 " Dear Sir. I have been so much engaged in the discharge of my 
 public duties that I have been compelled to neglect almost everything 
 else for the past few weeks, which I hope will be a sufficient apology 
 for not answering at an earlier date your letter of 131*1 August 
 
 " I have ever taken pride in my Irish descent. My father, Patrick 
 Calhoun, was a native of Donegal county. His father emigrated when 
 he was a child. As a son of an emigrant I cheerfully join your 
 Society. Its object does honor to its founders. I enclose five dollars 
 which the Society will please regard as my annual subscription for the 
 next five years. With great respect, 
 
 " Yours, etc., 
 
 "JOHN C. CALHOUN. 
 " To the Secretary Irish Emigrant Society." 
 
 If Mr. Calhoun always took pride in his Irish descent, Gen 
 eral Jackson was not behind him in devotion to the Celtic 
 race. When he was President nearly all his personal attend 
 ants were natives of Ireland, and he would reason with them, 
 and advise and exhort them as though they were members of 
 his own family. In his " Irish Settlers in America " (p. 1 19) 
 the brilliant Thomas D'Arcy McGee relates the following 
 anecdotes of Jackson's partiality for persons of his own race: 
 " Many instances of his thoughtfulness in this regard have 
 been related to us by living witnesses of the facts. We have 
 perused a most kind and characteristic letter from the General 
 to Mr. Maher, the public gardener at Washington, on the death 
 of his children. It is conceived in the most fraternal and cor 
 dial spirit of sympathy. Jackson's man-servant, Jemmy 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS II 
 
 O'Neil, alas! no more, was once in the circle of our acquaint 
 ance. Before the days of Father Mathew, poor Jemmy was 
 given to sacrifice too freely to Bacchus, and on those occasions 
 assumed rather a troublesome control over all visitors and 
 dwellers in the White House. After many complaints, Jack 
 son decided to dismiss him, and sent for him accordingly. 
 
 Jackson Jemmy, you and I must part. 
 
 Jemmy Why so, General? 
 
 Jackson Every one complains of you. 
 
 Jemmy And do you believe them, General? 
 
 Jackson Of course, what every one says must be true. 
 
 Jemmy Well now, General, I've heard twice as much said 
 against you, and I never would believe a word of it. (Exit 
 Jackson.)" 
 
 Chronic famine in a land of plenty was the outcome of 
 England's inhuman policy in Ireland. Absentee landlords 
 achieved the rest. Rack-rents and tithes drained the people of 
 their life-blood. At that time the Irish peasantry drew their 
 subsistence wholly from tillage. But in 1761 the cattle dis 
 ease, breaking out in Holstein and spreading to Holland, soon 
 made its appearance in England. It proved extremely fatal to 
 horned cattle. The price of beef, butter and cheese rose enor 
 mously. The cupidity of speculators was aroused. Ireland 
 with its impoverished tenantry offered an alluring field for their 
 greed. Alien speculators pointed out to the Irish landlords 
 the depression in all agricultural pursuits except those con 
 nected with cattle raising. These speculators urged the land 
 lords to dispossess the tenants summarily. Being merely 
 tenants at will, immediate eviction was practicable. The land 
 lord class arrayed itself solidly against the peasantry, and an 
 
12 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 agricultural revolution followed. The cottiers were ruthlessly 
 driven out, tillage was abandoned, and the land in immense 
 tracts leased to wealthy monopolists for grazing purposes. 
 These " land pirates," as they were called by the evicted cot 
 tiers, required few hands to feed their cattle. Their pay-rolls 
 were consequently small, and they could well afford to bribe 
 the landlords with larger rents than the peasants were able to 
 pay, and ejectment of the small farmers became almost uni 
 versal. The starving peasants finally sought shelter in the 
 towns, begging their bread from door to door when no longer 
 permitted to earn it. " The only piteous resource of the 
 affluent," says Plowden in his History of Ireland, " was to ship 
 off as many as would emigrate to seek maintenance or death 
 in foreign climes." Dean Swift's sarcasm about cultivating 
 cattle by banishing men was being terribly fulfilled. 
 
 But while Plowden ascribes the emigration of 1762, and the 
 years immediately following, to the bounty of the " affluent," 
 Matthew O'Connor, who lived at that period, and ranks high 
 as a historian, does not so state it. " No resource," says this 
 careful writer, " remained to the peasantry but emigration. 
 The few who had means sought an asylum in the American 
 plantations; such as remained were allowed generally an acre 
 of ground for the support of their families, and commonage 
 for a cow, but at rents the most exorbitant." And thus the 
 second exodus to America, this time not from Ulster, but from 
 Connaught, Leinster, and Munster, began in 1762 and con 
 tinued for some years. In this wave came Matthew Lyon to 
 seek his fortunes in the New World. 
 
 Having brought their victims to despair the landlords and 
 graziers attempted to shift the blame to others, and to excite 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 13 
 
 religious animosities between Catholics and Protestants. The 
 tithe proctors of the church establishment, always inexorable 
 in the exaction of tribute, afforded a ready scape-goat. The 
 nick-name of " tithe-mongers " was invented for them by the 
 real authors of Irish misery, whose benevolent rapacity would 
 not admit of partnership in the work of spoliation. And so 
 the landlords inveighed against the tithe-mongers until agra 
 rian violence on the part of the White Boys occurred, when the 
 crafty instigators of these riots called upon government to 
 suppress an insurrection caused by their own inhumanity and 
 greed. It is true that the White Boys were recruited largely 
 from the ranks of the Catholics, because the peasants were 
 almost universally Catholics ; but it is equally true that the con 
 temporaneous revolts in Ulster of the Peep-of-Day Boys, the 
 Oak Boys, and the Hearts of Steel Boys were composed mainly 
 of Protestants. Neither religion nor politics had anything to 
 do with these outbreaks. Both Catholics and Protestants 
 were starved into insurrection, the former -by the rapacity of 
 landlords and graziers, and the latter by the infamous non- 
 exportation act of King William's Parliament in 1699. The 
 government appointed a commission of eminent men in 1762 
 to inquire into the causes and circumstances of the revolt of 
 the White Boys. Its members were distinguished for zeal as 
 Protestants and ability as lawyers. In their report they said: 
 " That the authors of these riots consisted indiscriminately of 
 persons of different persuasions, and that no marks of disaffec 
 tion to his Majesty's person or government appeared in any of 
 these people."* The truth of this report was attested by the 
 
 oPlowden's " History of Ireland," Vol. II, p. 138. 
 
14 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 judges of the Munster Circuit, and by the Lord-Chief-Justice 
 of the Common Pleas, the upright Sir Richard Aston. 
 
 But the mailed hand was uplifted, and the innocent not 
 less than the guilty were made to feel its vengeance. Num 
 bers of the best people in Ireland were accused and tried on a 
 charge of White-Boyism, and judicially murdered upon the 
 suborned testimony of spies and informers. 6 
 
 It is not at all improbable that the father of Matthew Lyon 
 lost both his estate and life during the uprising of the White 
 Boys which followed the wholesale eviction of the peasantry 
 from their farms. But in the estimation of those conversant 
 in the Irish State Trials of the blood-stained eighteenth cen 
 tury, such a death will not militate against the character of the 
 elder Lyon, but rather strengthen the opinion that he was a 
 worthy and brave man who perished at the hands of those 
 who could not subdue him to their purposes. 
 
 Mr. Collins, it will be observed, states that Matthew Lyon's 
 mother was twice married. Matthew often spoke of her in 
 after years with tender affection, and of the tears he shed at 
 leaving her. He once alluded to her in a speech in Congress. 
 " He had no pretensions/' he said, " to high blood, though he 
 thought he had as good blood as any of them, as he was born 
 of a fine, hale, healthy woman."* If his mother married again, 
 and was still living when her son had become a prosperous 
 man in Vermont, her second marriage would explain her con 
 tinued residence in Ireland. The handsome conduct of Mat 
 thew afterwards in the case of five of the children of his 
 
 " History of Ireland," Vol. II, p. 139. 
 * Ibid, " History of Ireland," Vol. II, p. 140. 
 c Annals of Congress, 1797. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 15 
 
 deceased sister, Mrs. Edwards, is evidence enough of what he 
 would have done for his mother had she needed his assistance, 
 or been free to join him in America. She remained in Ireland, 
 but Matthew always remembered and spoke of his mother with 
 reverence and affection. His sister lived in Dublin and was 
 the wife of a Mr. Edwards, captain of an Irish merchantman. 
 Of this marriage there were said to be as many as twenty 
 children.* Captain Edwards finally lost his life by shipwreck, 
 and left his family destitute. His widow did not long survive 
 him. " My aunt died broken hearted/' said Mrs. Roe, in a 
 letter to the writer of this memoir containing some recollec 
 tions of her father's family. After his removal to Kentucky, 
 and while he was a representative at Washington from that 
 State, Matthew Lyon sent to Ireland for the five youngest 
 children of this deceased sister, two sons and three daughters, 
 and received them with open arms into his American home. 
 The care and affection he bestowed on his own children were 
 extended by the generous and warm-hearted uncle to the new 
 comers. " They made their home at my father's," says Mrs. 
 Roe, " until they were men and women. The two youngest 
 were married at my father's, and he did well by them." a 
 
 Whether in consequence of his father's reported execution, 
 his mother's second marriage,, or the poverty of the family, 
 'we have seen that young Matthew was taken from school and 
 put in a Dublin printing office at the age of thirteen. Here he 
 learned the trades of printer and book-binder, which afterwards 
 proved of great advantage to him in America. Many dis 
 tinguished men have begun their careers at the printing case. 
 But it is a misfortune for a promising boy to be cut off at that 
 
 "Mrs. Roe's letter to author. 
 
16 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 age from academic training. He may have mastered arithme 
 tic and grammar rules, and obtained a smattering of algebra 
 and the classics, but the flavor of learning does not come at 
 thirteen, nor, except rarely, correct taste and scholarly disci 
 pline. No matter how propitious his subsequent career may 
 prove, without early education a man of great natural endow 
 ments is like Hercules without his club. His best efforts will 
 be disfigured more or less by the early defect. Still there are 
 qualifications to the rule, for it is the part of pedantry to lean 
 to the side of names and forms, and forget reality and sub 
 stance. The greatest leaders, such as Marlborough and 
 Washington and Jackson, have not been grammarians and rhet 
 oricians. Matthew Lyon obtained an academic foundation 
 in a city famous for its scholars, and pre-eminent as a literary 
 and intellectual center; but he had no more. For the rest he 
 was entirely a self-educated man. His exploits in after life 
 prove that he caught the spirit of his early surroundings. Had 
 he received a liberal education, his fine properties of mind 
 might have carried him into the highest walks of literature 
 and statesmanship, together with several other young Dub- 
 liners, Burke, Sheridan and Grattan among the number, who 
 were his youthful contemporaries, and peradventure daily 
 jostled him in the streets in passing and repassing with him to 
 their several pursuits. It is quite possible that some of these 
 ingenious youths may have been his playmates or friends. A 
 very Brundusium for its constellation of wits was Dublin at 
 that day. Young Edmund Burke was already at man's estate, 
 and an attache in the official family of the Lord-Lieutenant. 
 But Grattan was only four years the senior of Lyon, and Sheri 
 dan was one year his junior. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS IJ 
 
 Burke went to England to take his place as the greatest 
 master of the English language since Shakespeare. Sheridan 
 soon followed, and made the wonderful speech for down 
 trodden humanity in India, when, according to Byron, " van 
 quished Senates trembled as they praised." Burke declared 
 of this speech of Sheridan that it was " the most astonishing 
 effort of eloquence, argument and wit united of which there 
 was any record or tradition." Grattan, the Irish Demosthenes, 
 remained behind to woo back freedom to his beloved Ireland 
 for a bright, brief era, and to come forth at length from Tine- 
 hinch, his romantic seat in Wicklow, and proclaim a Bill of 
 Rights from College Green in the presence of a hundred thou 
 sand Irish soldiers, upon whose guns were inscribed these elo 
 quent words "Free Trade or This." Matthew Lyon crossed 
 the seas to hold the balance of power between the Puritans and 
 Cavaliers of America in the most momentous civic contest of 
 the nineteenth century, the presidential election of 1801, the 
 great formative era, and by his vote in the House of Repre 
 sentatives to decide it in favor of Thomas Jefferson. 
 
 Young as he was when he left his native land, the main 
 springs of his character are to be sought for there. The 
 tyranny which he loathed, for a father was probably its victim, 
 and the efforts of his countrymen to break it, which he must 
 have witnessed, should be kept distinctly in view by the his 
 torical student in tracing the growth of his mind, and the 
 development of his almost fanatical democratic spirit. He 
 was born in the middle of the eighteenth century, the blackest 
 hour of Ireland's multiplied centuries of the penal laws. But 
 principles had been enunciated by Molyneux, seed sown by 
 Swift, arguments urged by O'Leary, the Irish Chrysostom, 
 
1 8 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 and events were then transpiring directed by the fiery energy 
 of Dr. Charles Lucas, which were to make the blackest hour 
 the precursor of dawn. The revolution of 1688 had given 
 liberty to Englishmen, yet it was but a niggardly liberty after 
 all, for it had found Irishmen in chains, and it had pinned them 
 down in a Gibeonite bondage, even worse than Ireland, the 
 martyr nation of the world, had yet endured in its whole 
 history. 
 
 The Plantagenets and Tudors confiscated the estates of the 
 Irish nobility, but the haughty Saxon and Anglo-Norman 
 barons having plundered the Celtic princes and chieftains, and 
 xiled such of them as were not killed in battle, were content 
 to stop there, and disdained to make war on the common peo 
 ple, the great body of the Irish race. They settled down in 
 Ireland, and the laboring classes were not seriously disturbed. 
 For the Irish people it was a change of masters. Clanship was 
 uprooted, and feudalism to a certain extent introduced. True, 
 before these changes could be effected, everything was carried 
 by the sword, or when that proved unavailing against the 
 obstinate valor of the Irish, the stranger's object was attained 
 by treachery and corrupt appliances. The blood of some of 
 the best men that ever adorned the history of Ireland was shed, 
 martyrs in the highest sense; but it was the blood of nobility 
 and clergy, the flower of the flock but not the flock itself, the 
 great and not the many, that fell in the fierce onslaught of the 
 Saxons. 
 
 The Stuart dynasty, for which the Irish people felt so strange 
 an infatuation, heroic in its devotion, but always basely 
 requited, entailed upon Ireland infinitely more mischief than 
 Plantagenets and Lancasters and Tudors combined. A swarm 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 19 
 
 of thrifty Scotchmen followed James the First into England, 
 but the English place-hunters were more than a match for 
 them, and the callous James, who had allowed his royal mother 
 to perish on the block without lifting a finger to save her, in 
 order now to provide for his countrymen, sent them into Ire 
 land to fatten there on the miseries of the people. Upon the 
 humble homes of the poor, and not upon the possessions of the 
 upper classes, the Scotch adventurers fixed hungry eyes, thus 
 reversing the example of the earlier and prouder invaders. To 
 promote the schemes of his countrymen in Ireland, James the 
 First invented the notorious plan for universal plunder, known 
 as the " Commission for the investigation of defective titles." 
 Under the Irish clan system there were no title-deeds to real 
 estate. The Irish families held their lands by prescription or 
 immemorial possession. The Irish had held these lands for 
 centuries. Hence when James the First required them on 
 pain of forfeiture to produce title-deeds, which he well knew 
 they did not possess, he had invented the most tremendous 
 engine of confiscation ever heard of in the civilized world. 
 The people saw with horror the abyss into which their inheri 
 tance was about to be engulfed. The first commission of 
 James reported three hundred and eighty-five thousand acres 
 in Leinster alone as " discovered; " that is to say, in the judg 
 ment of the commission the " titles were not such as ought to 
 stand in the way of his Majesty's designs." 
 
 Under Charles the First, the remorseless Strafford carried 
 to still greater excess this monstrous scheme of spoliation ; and 
 it reached its utmost limits in the hands of Cromwell's parlia- 
 
 Thebaud's " Irish Race, Past and Present." 
 
 
2O MATTHEW LYON 
 
 mentary commissioners. But to do Cromwell justice, he did 
 not contrive this engine of confiscation, but found it ready to 
 his hand as it had been left by the Stuarts. The effects of 
 Cromwell's policy in Irelarid have been well summed up in a 
 single sentence by Villemain in his " Histoire de Cromwell:" 
 " Ireland became a desert which the few remaining inhabitants 
 described by the mournful saying : ' There was not water 
 enough to drown a man, not wood enough to hang him, not 
 earth enough to bury him/ " Four-fifths of the Irish nation 
 were deprived of their property by Cromwell because of their 
 invincible loyalty to Charles the First, whose head he had cut 
 off; and incredible as it may appear, the son of Charles the 
 First ratified that spoliation of his father's faithful subjects by 
 the troopers of his father's executioner. 
 
 But it remained for William of Orange and Queen Anne 
 and the three first Georges to add a new calamity to all those 
 that had preceded it, for during their reigns the spectacle was 
 presented, as it has been often since, of a whole people starving 
 to death in the midst of plenty, and in time of profound peace. 
 The eighteenth was by bad eminence the century of the penal 
 laws. After the treaty of Limerick had been broken, the Irish 
 Parliament 4evised every conceivable scheme of persecution, 
 outrage, and oppression against the great body of the Irish 
 people. Religious fanaticism was rampant. The English Par 
 liament hating Irish Protestants and Irish Catholics impar 
 tially, passed laws which utterly crushed the trade of Ireland. 
 Thereafter began those periodical famines which still continue 
 to visit that unhappy country. 
 
 The Irish Parliament in Matthew Lyon's childhood was 
 seething in corruption, and did not in any sense represent the 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 21 
 
 people. Of its three hundred members, two hundred and 
 sixteen were what were called nomination or rotten-borough 
 members, and the Catholics, who composed the vast majority 
 of the whole population, were excluded from representation 
 both directly and indirectly, without seats and without votes ; a 
 nevertheless through this polluted channel the first signs of 
 life began to enter, the first manifestations of an independent 
 spirit began now to be discerned. Against the degradation of 
 the Parliament of Ireland, and its abject subservience under 
 Poyning's Law to the English Parliament, one great voice had 
 been lifted up. Molyneux, of Trinity College, Dublin, the 
 friend of Locke, and a man of profound learning, had published 
 so long before as 1698 his celebrated work " The Case of Ire 
 land," in which, by an exhaustive and unanswerable appeal to 
 history, he proved that the Parliament of Ireland had naturally 
 and anciently all the prerogatives in Ireland which the English 
 Parliament possessed in England. But at the time he wrote 
 public spirit was dead, and the heart of the nation was well 
 nigh broken by oppression. The English government ordered 
 his book to be burned by the common hangman, and the effect 
 of that noble utterance for the time being was lost on Ireland. 
 But not forever. 
 
 Dean Swift, with consummate skill, took up the argument a 
 few years after, and proclaimed his absolute faith in the doc 
 trines of Molyneux, and his allegiance, not to the King of 
 England, but to the King of Ireland. By his celebrated 
 Drapier's Letters the incomparable Dean of St. Patrick's re 
 vived the spirit of nationality throughout the length and 
 
 a Lecky's " Leaders of Irish Opinion.' 
 
22 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 breadth of Ireland. In describing the effect of Swift's Dra- 
 pier's Letters, the eloquent Lecky exclaims, " There is no more 
 momentous epoch in the history of a nation than that in which 
 the voice of the people has first spoken, and spoken with suc 
 cess. It marks the transition from an age of semi-barbarism 
 to an age of civilization, from the government of force to the 
 government of opinion. Before this time rebellion was the 
 natural issue of every patriotic effort in Ireland. Since then 
 rebellion has been an anachronism and a mistake. The age of 
 Desmond and O'Neil had passed. The age of Grattan and 
 O'Connell had begun." 
 
 But Swift's death in 1747 left Ireland without a leader. The 
 national spirit he had aroused and the public opinion he had 
 created were on the point of extinguishment, when the patriot, 
 Charles Lucas, appeared in the Irish Parliament, and not only 
 rallied the people once more, but directed their energies into 
 political channels. Lucas was the first member of the Irish 
 Parliament during the eighteenth century who boldly grounded 
 himself on Molyneux and Swift, and adopted the policy of 
 agitation as a substiute for force. The many-voiced free press, 
 educator for good or evil, the Archimedean lever of modern 
 society, was first introduced in the Irish capital by Lucas, who 
 founded the celebrated newspaper, the " Dublin Freeman's 
 Journal," in which he rallied the drooping energies of his 
 countrymen, and organized the lines of battle which Grattan 
 and the Volunteers afterwards so magnificently waged in 1782. 
 In addition to a courage never surpassed, this Irish patriot 
 possessed that wonderful power of electrifying" the hearts of 
 the people which within a few years after was to display itself so 
 
 Lecky's " Leaders of Irish Opinion." 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 23 
 
 marvellously in America in the persons of Patrick Henry and 
 James Otis. 
 
 It was during Matthew Lyon's boyhood that Charles Lucas 
 figured in Dublin. In those early days in the art of printing, 
 when only the hand press was in use, the printer who set the 
 type also folded papers, and it was thus that Lyon learned the 
 business of bookbinding in conjunction with typesetting. In 
 the present age the steam-press has driven the bindery out of 
 the printing office and made it a separate trade. It is possible 
 that Lyon was employed by Lucas and learned to set type, 
 fold papers and bind books in the office of the " Freeman's 
 Journal." Certainly there are enough points of resemblance in 
 the careers of the two men to justify the opinion that Matthew 
 Lyon selected his countryman, Charles Lucas, as a model. 
 They both lived in Dublin at the same time, perhaps were in 
 the same office, and certainly were in the same business. 
 Lucas was the idol of the people. Even the Catholics, whose 
 religion he opposed, regarded him as another Swift, and as in 
 the case of Swift, forgot his prejudices against their faith in 
 admiration of his shining patriotism. Lucas delighted to bring 
 fonvard clever Irish youths. The style of the " Freeman's 
 Journal " was intensely democratic, and its leaders, and notably 
 its essays called " Barratariana," were hurled with fiery invec 
 tive against the Vice-Regal government and the Castle or 
 aristocratic party. When Lyon embarked in politics in Ver 
 mont he established, in spite of almost incredible obstacles, 
 the "Farmer's Library," a newspaper which he modeled on the 
 style of the Dublin "Freeman's Journal." And afterwards, when 
 a candidate for Congress, in 1798, he began the publication of 
 a semi-monthly magazine whose name sufficiently denoted its 
 
24 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 democratic character, " The Scourge of Aristocracy." The 
 Irish Parliament of George the Second, against whose contin 
 uance without a return to the people for a new election Lucas 
 struggled so hard, endured without prorogation during no less 
 than thirty-three years. Lucas denounced its corruptions, and 
 the slavishness to the Castle of its members so pointedly and so 
 personally that the grand jury of Dublin, a packed body, 
 ordered his addresses to be burned, and the Parliament in 1749, 
 under orders from the Castle, proclaimed him an enemy to his 
 country, and issued an order for his arrest. When Matthew 
 Lyon took his seat in the Congress of the United States his 
 first speech was a vigorous denunciation of the courtly pro 
 cessions through the streets of Philadelphia on the part of 
 members of Congress to submit their answer to the President's 
 speech. He denounced the custom as a slavish aping of the 
 manners of royalty, undemocratic and un-American. Lyon 
 was the first, indeed the only man at that day to lift his voice 
 against these Congressional street pageants of the Federalists. 
 Afterwards Jefferson, when he became President, sternly dis 
 countenanced the ceremony, and it was abolished. Lyon's 
 boldness and defiance of power, constantly encroaching upon 
 the rights of the people, excited the alarm and enmity of the 
 friends of the President in Congress, who denounced him as 
 an enemy of the country. When Lyon, in a temperate but fear 
 less letter, exposed the abuses of the executive office, an order 
 for his arrest was issued by virtue of an act of Congress, pre 
 cisely as an order for the arrest of Dr. Lucas had been issued 
 before by virtue of an act of Parliament. Both Lucas and 
 Lyon were enthusiastic admirers of Dr. Franklin. Lyon 
 placed his son James at Philadelphia under the special charge 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 2 
 
 and direction of the illustrious philosopher. In 1771 Franklin 
 made the tour of Ireland, and during his sojourn in Dublin 
 resided at the private residence of Dr. Lucas as the guest of the 
 'Irish patriot. An interesting letter or fragment of one has 
 been preserved which was written by Dr. Franklin to his dis 
 tinguished friend Thomas Gushing, of Boston, shortly after 
 this visit. " Before leaving Ireland," said Franklin, " I must 
 mention that being desirous of seeing the principal patriots 
 there, I stayed till the opening of their Parliament. I found 
 them disposed to be friends of America, in which I endeavored 
 to confirm them, with the expectation that our growing weight 
 might in time be thrown in their scale, and by joining our in 
 terests with theirs, a more equitable treatment from this nation 
 might be obtained for them as well as for us. There are many 
 brave spirits among them. The gentry are a very sensible, 
 polite and friendly people. Their Parliament makes a most 
 respectable figure, with a number of very good speakers in both 
 parties, and able men of business. And I must not omit 
 acquainting you that, it being a standing rule to admit mem 
 bers of the English Parliament to sit (though they do not vote) 
 in the House among the members, while others are only ad 
 mitted into the gallery, my fellow-traveler being an English 
 member, was accordingly admitted as such. But I supposed 
 I must go to the gallery, when the Speaker stood up and 
 acquainted the House that he understood there was in town 
 an American gentleman of (as he was pleased to say) distin 
 guished character and merit, a member or delegate of some of 
 the Parliaments of that country, who was desirous of being 
 
 Mr. Jackson, M. P. 
 
26 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 present at the debates of the House; that there was a rule of 
 the House for admitting members of English Parliaments, and 
 that he supposed the House would consider the American 
 Assemblies as English Parliaments; but as this was the first 
 instance, he had chosen not to give any order in it without 
 receiving their directions. On the question the House gave a 
 loud, unanimous Ay, when two members came to me without 
 the bar " 
 
 A biography of Dr. Franklin, one of the first ever published 
 in America, was issued out of the printing office of Matthew 
 Lyon at Fair Haven, Vermont, and it is probable that it was 
 written by Colonel Lyon himself. He had perhaps been taught 
 to love Franklin by Lucas. The parallel may be traced one 
 step further. 
 
 Lucas was driven out of Ireland by the government or 
 English party, but lived to come back, and so great was his 
 popularity that he was returned by the electors of Dublin to 
 the Irish Parliament. Lyon was driven out of New England 
 by the John Adams or Federal party, and went to make his 
 home in Kentucky, for, in spite of many differences of charac 
 ter, the Irish and the Cavaliers have always foregathered as 
 friends. So great became his popularity, he was elected again 
 to Congress by the people of Kentucky, as he had been by the 
 gallant people of Vermont while a State prisoner in the Ver- 
 gennes jail. " If I have seen further than others," was the 
 remark of Sir Isaac Newton, " it was by standing on the 
 
 The rest of the letter is lost Spark's "Works of Benjamin 
 Franklin," Vol. VII, pp. 557-8. See also " Franklin's Correspon 
 dence." 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 2/ 
 
 shoulders of giants." When in 1797 Lyon entered a freeman's 
 protest against the monarchical ceremony of a whole Congress 
 packing through the streets to present a courtly address to the 
 President, not another member of Congress stood up to sustain 
 him. If, like Sir Isaac Newton, he saw further than others, 
 as the event proved, it was because he had stood in his youth 
 on the shoulders of giants of Molyneux and Swift, of Lucas 
 and Flood, of Burke and O'Leary. The classical school and 
 Dublin printing-case proved of inestimable advantage to the 
 Wicklow boy. 
 
 In his old age Matthew Lyon wrote an autobiography, which 
 no doubt contained a full account of his parentage and early 
 life. For some years after his death it was preserved at his 
 homestead in Kentucky. The writer has addressed inquiries 
 concerning this autobiography, which would prove of such 
 value in the preparation of the present biography, to many of the 
 descendants of Colonel Lyon, and with the utmost diligence 
 has followed every clue that might lead to its discovery, but it 
 is to be feared it has been unfortunately lost. His daughter, 
 Mrs. Roe, had never heard of it. At least one person now 
 living had read it, a grandson of Colonel Lyon, Matthew S. 
 Lyon, of Evansville, Indiana. In a letter to the writer, dated 
 April 1 8, 1881, this gentleman said: 
 
 "My grandfather, Col. M. Lyon, left an unfinished autobiog 
 raphy, which by some inadvertence was very much mutilated 
 by mice in the attic, where it had been stored away, and which 
 
 At the time of writing these words the author knew that Mr. Mat 
 thew S. Lyon was living. But he has since died. He is said to have 
 been an agreeable and accomplished gentleman. His death occurred 
 in Union County, Ky., in the year 1891. 
 
28 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 I trjed in my boyhood to mike something out of, but which I 
 gave up in despair, not being able from my personal knowledge 
 to piece out the breaks in it. Some years later the manuscript 
 was taken by a relative of his (Mason R. Lyon, I think) to 
 Alabama. If I am not mistaken this Lyon was engaged in 
 publishing a newspaper, but its name or location I am unable 
 to give you. I think he gave up the idea of restoring it him 
 self, as I have never heard anything of him or it since, and 
 suppose it is long since lost or destroyed. 
 
 " Of my grandfather's history," added this gentleman, " I 
 can give you only a few meagre facts, which perhaps are 
 already known to you. He was born in Wicklow county, Ire 
 land, I cannot give you the date, and came to this country at 
 thirteen years of age. I remember that fact because connected 
 with it he states one quite remarkable, that at that age he was 
 a fair Latin and Greek scholar, and quite proficient in his 
 trade, a printer and bookbinder." 
 
 This is an important letter, and entitled to great weight, for 
 the writer of it had seen the autobiography of his grandfather, 
 and what he says in regard to it is in the nature of primary 
 evidence. The mistake he makes respecting his grandfather's 
 age when he emigrated to America is a very natural one. All 
 the historical writers who have given an account of Matthew 
 Lyon have fallen into the same error. Wharton in his " State 
 Trials of the United States/' Lossing, Drake, and Collins in 
 their historical and biographical writings, Pliny White in his 
 address before the Vermont Historical Society, Charles Lan- 
 man and Ben Perley Poore in their biographical dictionaries 
 
 Letter of Matthew S. Lyon to author. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 29 
 
 of Congressmen, and the writer of the article on Matthew Lyon 
 in "Appleton's Cyclopedia;" all, except Collins, state that he 
 was born in 1746, and came to this country at thirteen. Col 
 lins makes him still older, nineteen at the time of his emigra 
 tion. The grandson probably had read the sketches of some 
 of these authors, and their statements may have confused his 
 recollection of what his grandfather himself must have written 
 on the subject. The venerable Mrs. Roe, the last survivor of 
 Matthew Lyon's immediate family, possessed knowledge more 
 nearly approaching accuracy than that of the others, for she 
 says in a letter to the author, "My father came to this country 
 when he was fourteen years old." After a very careful investi 
 gation of every attainable authority in relation to Colonel 
 Lyon's age, including the Colonel's own testimony on the 
 point, the present writer is able to state his age exactly, as well 
 as the year of his departure from Ireland for America. 
 
 Matthew Lyon was born July 14, 1750, and emigrated from 
 Ireland in 1765, when he was in the fifteenth year of his age. 
 If at thirteen, as stated in his autobiography, according to his 
 grandson's recollection of it, he was a fair Latin and Greek 
 scholar, the explanation is that this was the age when he left 
 school, and that the business of printing and bookbinding 
 came afterwards, between his thirteenth year, when his school 
 days ceased, and his fifteenth year, when he departed for 
 America. Interesting particulars in relation to Colonel Lyon's 
 early life lie buried away in several town and county histories 
 of Connecticut, his first home in this country. Some of these 
 books are now very scarce, while others are out of print and 
 practically inaccessible. Morris's "Statistical Account, etc., of 
 
3O MATTHEW LYON 
 
 Litchfield County/' published in the early part of this century, 
 cannot now be procured, while Woodruff's "History of the Town 
 of Litchfield" (1845), an< 3 Kilbourne's "Biographical History 
 of Litchfield County" (1851), are rarely to be met with, even 
 in the libraries of Connecticut antiquarians. Yet in each of 
 those books is contained an account of Matthew Lyon, of his 
 youth and first days in America. It has been the author's 
 good fortune to procure Woodruff's and Kilbourne's volumes. 
 These, with Cothren's "History of Ancient Woodbury," and two 
 or three other local chronicles of Connecticut, have served to 
 supply the hitherto missing links in the first ten years of Lyon's 
 life in America, from the time he left Dublin to his settlement in 
 Vermont. The extraordinary care which the people of New 
 'England bestow on genealogies, and town and county histories, 
 is worthy of all praise, and while it furnishes testimony of the 
 reverence in which they hold their ancestors, it is evidence also 
 of the superior literary taste which prevails in that section of 
 the American Union. Future historians will turn to these 
 local chronicles as mines fraught with rich materials, for the 
 ultimate value of facts is never apparent to the casual eye, but 
 is only developed by time and a studious comparison of the ele 
 ments of history. Dates, names, marriages, funerals, creeds, 
 education, sports, customs, apparel, and the thousand com- 
 plexional habits and peculiarities of a people, whether they 
 appear trifling or grave, important or insignificant, cannot be 
 weighed and appreciated fully by one generation, but require 
 many succeeding generations to bring out and make manifest 
 their intrinsic and relative grade in the scale of great and 
 small, of durable or transitory things. The minute and ap- 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 3! 
 
 parently trivial details contained in these unpretentious books 
 will always be a joy and well-spring of delight to the historical 
 and critical scholars of the next age. 
 
 Thanks to these old chroniclers, the present writer has been 
 enabled to accompany Matthew Lyon from the ship that bore 
 the youthful emigrant to these shores, to trace his steps from 
 New York to his first home in Connecticut, from that place to 
 his second home in the same Colony, and thence across the 
 Green Mountains to the Valley of Lake Champlain. The light 
 shed upon these early events in his career in America by Con 
 necticut writers makes lucid his own otherwise obscure and 
 hasty statement in respect to the same period which afterwards 
 in 1798 he uttered on the floor of Congress. In that statement 
 Colonel Lyon declared that he had lived during the preceding 
 twenty-four years in Vermont, and that prior to his settlement 
 there he had lived for ten years, from his fifteenth to his 
 twenty-fifth year, in the colony of Connecticut, his first home 
 in America. 
 
 With these threads of his biography in hand, the hitherto 
 
 disputed question of his age is set at rest, and the exact time 
 
 of his coming to America is fixed. After having solved this 
 
 difficulty by aid of old records, the present writer was fortunate 
 
 ( enough to have his conclusions completely verified by the 
 
 'written testimony of Matthew Lyon himself and his own wife, 
 
 contained in his family record. This was furnished by Mr. F. 
 
 A. Wilson, a lawyer of Eddyville, Kentucky, the husband of a 
 
 great-granddaughter of Colonel Lyon. 
 
 Mr. Wilson's note is as follows: 
 
32 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 " Eddyville, Kentucky, 
 
 " May 9th, 1881. 
 
 " Dear Sir. I was handed this morning part of the family record of 
 Col. Matthew Lyon, said to be in his handwriting. On the back of it 
 is the record of his age, and that of his wife, Beulah, also date of his 
 death. I enclose it to you. I promised to return this paper. 
 
 "Yours respectfully, 
 
 " F. A. WILSON." ; 
 
 The fallowing is a literal copy of this family record: 
 " M LYON ISSUE 20 VENTURE. 
 
 " Minerva, born May 27th, 1785 
 " Chittenden, born Feb'y 22d, 1787 
 " Aurelia, born June 27th, 1790 
 " Matthew, born April i8th, 1792 
 " Noah Chitt n , born March 22d, 1794 
 " Deceased, born August i6th, Same 
 " Beulah, born July 26th, 1796." 
 
 Giles, born , 1803 
 
 Eliza Ann, born June nth, 1805. 
 
 [NOTE. The two last children, Giles and Eliza Ann, are not in the 
 record, but are added by author from data furnished by Mrs. Roe.] 
 
 The above interesting family record is in a bold, clear hand, 
 and bears the marks of age. It was undoubtedly written by 
 Matthew Lyon himself. The author has compared it with 
 numerous letters of Colonel Lyon now in his possession, and 
 the writing is identical. On the back of the paper, in a dif 
 ferent hand, the following appears : 
 
 " Col. Matthew Lyon 
 Was born July I4th, 1750, 
 Beulah Lyon 
 
 Was born May I5th, 1764. 
 Col. Matthew Lyon 
 Deceased August ist, 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 
 
 33 
 
 This endorsement, which also bears the marks of age, was 
 probably written by Mrs. Beulah Lyon shortly after her hus 
 band's death in 1822. The dates of birth and death in the case 
 of her husband are given, but in that of herself only the date 
 of her birth. It is thus probable that she was still living at the 
 time the endorsement on the record was made, otherwise the 
 date of her death would likely have been given as in the case 
 of her husband. And if she were living, no one else was so apt 
 to be acquainted with the facts as herself. Mrs. Lyon survived 
 her husband eighteen months. The interesting paper was re 
 turned to Mr. Wilson, in compliance with his wishes, after an 
 exact copy of its contents had been made for this biography. 
 
 Nothing further is needed to correct the mistakes concerning 
 the age of Matthew Lyon in every hitherto published account 
 of his life. Mr. Wharton, author of the celebrated work on 
 American Criminal Law, has written a graphic but imperfect 
 sketch of Lyon in his valuable volume entitled " The State 
 Trials of the United States." Speaking of the old patriot's 
 trial under the Sedition act, he says : " Of the defendant in 
 this case himself, who for many years was so famous in Ameri 
 can politics, no biography, as far as I can find, has been writ 
 ten."* He was obliged to piece out his narrative from the very 
 imperfect recollections of Mr. Henry Stevens, of Barnet, Ver 
 mont, and to collect such incidents in Colonel Lyon's life as he 
 could glean from vague newspaper accounts of his career. 
 
 The present is the first attempt to write Lyon's life from 
 original sources which has ever been made. Newspapers and 
 hearsay reminiscences have been the only dependence of all 
 previous writers during the past seventy or eighty years in 
 
 a P. 337- 
 
34 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 every account extant of his remarkable career. The task of 
 seeking out original sources of information has been entirely 
 neglected. A career full of historical action of the first im 
 portance, and replete with stirring and romantic incidents, de 
 serves to be better known, and is still a want, as it was when 
 Wharton wrote, in the political literature of the country. 
 
 An American sea captain engaged in that mitigated form of 
 the barbarous slave trade, the transportation of indentured 
 servants, or redemptioners, from Europe to the American 
 colonies, is generally supposed to have lured Matthew Lyon 
 from his native land to this country. This cruel traffic long 
 flourished in both French and British America, and was only 
 discontinued in several parts of the United States about fifty or 
 sixty years ago. Redemptioners were distinguished from 
 African and Indian slaves by the fact that one system was 
 based upon apprenticeship to labor for a term of years in satis 
 faction of passage or ship money, on the completion of which 
 the debtor redeemed his freedom; while the other system was 
 one of perpetual bondage. Under the Connecticut Code of 
 1650, commonly called the Blue Laws, the traffic in redemp 
 tioners flourished vigorously, and not only in the Connecticut 
 market, but in all the Anglo-American colonies, poor Euro 
 peans were constantly on sale in the seaport towns as inden 
 tured servants. Skippers and merchantmen drove a thriving 
 business in the brutalizing trade. 
 
 The story as handed down that Matthew Lyon was inveigled 
 into the toils of one of these rovers of the deep lacks authentic 
 ity. No doubt the captain was ready enough to entrap the 
 boy aboard of his vessel, for that was in the line of his trade, 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 35 
 
 and no doubt he held out such inducements to him as that a 
 clever young Dublin printer would make money faster in the 
 colonies than at home; but Matthew was not a callow youth 
 to be caught with such a bait. Higher and manlier motives 
 were at play in the boy's bosom. The terrible sufferings of 
 the Irish people at that day, the insurrection of the White Boys 
 against their tyrants and would-be destroyers, the probable 
 execution of his own father during the revolt, and the impover 
 ishment and desolation which no doubt overtook his father's 
 family, all these circumstances furnish stronger motives for 
 his exile than the trumpery lies of a vulgar sea captain playing 
 on the boy's excited credulity. What cared the high-spirited 
 Matthew Lyon whether he came as galley slave or redemp- 
 tioner, provided that he might put an ocean between himself 
 and the oppressors who had brought such misery home to his 
 own door? But the true story of his emigration has never yet 
 been told. Fessenden's caustic verses and William Cobbett's 
 lampoons, as well as the attacks of others among Lyon's politi 
 cal enemies, served to obscure the truth out of sight. 
 
 The bitterness of early party contests, notwithstanding the 
 pictures of idyllic simplicity in the olden day drawn by declaim- 
 ers of the Fourth of July school, was as intense, if not so 
 vulgar, as it is in the present age. The Federalists sneered at 
 Congressman Lyon as an Irish adventurer who had been 
 bought for a pair of stags. Rhymers of the John Adams party 
 wrote many taunting squibs on this topic. Lyon was too sen 
 sible to lose his temper at these attacks, and too proud to be 
 ashamed of his early adversities. He declared that what was 
 said about the stags was perfectly true, and his favorite im 
 precation was " by the bulls that redeemed me." Fessenden, 
 
36 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 the most satirical of the Federalist poets, in a smart song, 
 called the " Dagon of Democracy/' the name he gave to Lyon, 
 refers to this incident in the following lines: 
 
 " Tis said that he brags 
 How one pair of stags, 
 
 Erst paid for his passage from Europe; 
 But the price of a score 
 Would scarce send him o'er, 
 
 And pay for his hangman a new rope! 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 " O then ye are lucky, 
 Good men of Kentucky, 
 
 To choose spitting Matt for your idol; 
 Come frolic and caper, 
 By the blaze of his taper 
 
 And sing fol de rol, diddle di dol." 
 
 Petty assaults of this kind, and there were many of them, 
 sealed Lyon's lips on the subject, and uncontradicted malevo 
 lence had the whole field to itself. False stories of his 
 emigration and apprenticeship were spread abroad on all 
 sides. Had he denied that he came as a redemptioner, and 
 entered into explanations, his enemies might have said that he 
 was seeking to parry the force of their blows. He, therefore, 
 remained silent, and his epigrammatic oath about the bulls 
 that redeemed him served to give color to the slanders of his 
 enemies. The fact that he did not set out for America as a 
 redemptioner at all, but was reduced to that state of servitude 
 by the bad faith of the captain with whom he sailed, never 
 reached the eye of the general public during Colonel Lyon's 
 lifetime. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 37 
 
 His late venerable daughter, Mrs. Eliza A. Roe, of Ghana, 
 Ogle county, Illinois, communicated to the present writer in 
 the year 1881, the true history of her father's emigration to 
 America. This account is contradictory in several important 
 particulars of every other one on the subject. 
 
 In all other accounts the fact is assumed as conceded that 
 Lyon was a penniless redemptioner who came to America on 
 stipulated terms mutually agreed to between the captain and 
 himself before the vessel sailed. Mrs. Roe corrects this, and 
 declares that her father was cheated out of his money and 
 services, and sold as a redemptioner by the master of the 
 vessel in violation of the agreement between them. 
 
 Matthew while living in Dublin had read a great deal about 
 the new world. In 1757 his townsman, the great Edmund 
 Burke, published " An Account of the European Settlements 
 in America " in two volumes, in which, with a master's hand, 
 he depicted the rising glories of the colonies. Robertson's 
 " History of America " is to some extent a compilation from 
 Burke's Account. Compared with misgoverned and famine- 
 stricken Ireland, the American colonies presented a contrast 
 too marked to escape the quick eye of Lyon. The evictions 
 begun in 1762 among the Irish Cottiers to make room for 
 alien speculators still continued undiminished in 1765, when 
 Lyon left the country. To his mother he often expressed the 
 wish to come to America, but she invariably refused her con 
 sent. Recognizing his talents, she indulged in day-dreams of 
 future greatness for him in Ireland, and mother's love no doubt 
 strengthened her opposition. But the boy's mind was in 
 flamed not only by Burke's account, but by the letters of 
 
 A Dublin edition was printed in 1762. 
 
38 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 another of his countrymen, the celebrated George Berkeley, 
 Bishop of Cloyne, who came to New England in 1728, and 
 passed about two years at Newport, Rhode Island. Bishop 
 Berkeley's noble verses on the prospect of planting arts and 
 learning in America, the last stanza of which " Westward the 
 course of empire takes its way," is so often misquoted, must 
 have appealed powerfully to Lyon's ardent imagination. Hav 
 ing resolved to quit the down-trodden land of his birth, his 
 resolution became more firmly fixed by opposition, and at 
 length he determined to put it into execution at the first 
 opportunity. That opportunity soon offered. American sea- 
 captains were always on the lookout for Irish youths, and 
 Lyon met one of them at Dublin in 1765 who commanded a 
 fine vessel about to sail for New York. The captain offered 
 Lyon a free passage in place of wages, in consideration of 
 which the youth was to serve as cabin boy during the trip 
 across the Atlantic. These terms were accepted by Lyon. 
 He was the possessor of a guinea which he placed in the 
 captain's hands for safe keeping until they should arrive at 
 New York. 
 
 The day before the vessel sailed he went in the gray of the 
 morning to his mother's room to gaze for the last time upon 
 his beloved parent. Knowing that a formal leave taking was 
 out of the question, he entered on tip-toe, for he was well aware 
 that on the slightest intimation of his purpose she would thwart 
 it at all hazards. Long and sadly he gazed upon the sleeping 
 woman, the solitary link that bound him, to his home. He 
 described the scene in after years to his family and friends in 
 Vermont as one of the saddest trials of his life. Between filial 
 love and the aspiration to escape from bondage in Ireland to 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 39 
 
 freedom in America, the struggle was long and bitter. " His 
 nature," says his daughter, " was very sympathetic and affec 
 tionate." Commanding with difficulty his pent-up feelings, Mat 
 thew took a last silent farewell of his mother, and passed out of 
 her presence forever. Gathering up a small parcel of his cloth 
 ing he hastened to the vessel, and placed himself under the 
 captain's orders. The latter suspecting that a rescue might be 
 attempted by the boy's friends, secreted him in the hold of the 
 vessel, where he remained concealed all that day. 
 
 The late Mrs. Elizabeth A. Roe, of Ghana, Illinois, in a 
 letter to the author, has furnished full particulars of her father's 
 departure from Ireland. I will let her tell the story in her own 
 
 W0rds: "Ghana, Ogle County, Illinois, 
 
 " May 24th, 1881. 
 
 " Dear Sir. It is with pleasure I attempt to answer your polite 
 letter in my homely fashion. You cannot expect much from one so 
 old and infirm, 76 the nth of next June. I am very much pleased that 
 one who is so capable and so interested has undertaken to write my 
 dear Father's history. I have often wondered that it had not been 
 done by some of his political friends. 
 
 " In the first place, I must say that I know but very little about his 
 home and friends in Ireland. I know I have often heard my dear 
 Mother say his home was in Dublin, and that his parents were 
 wealthy. My Father came to America when he was fourteen years 
 old. He read a great deal about the New World, as it was called then, 
 and he had a great desire to come over to America. But he was idol 
 ized by his parents, a and they could not bear the idea of his coming 
 to the new country, and leaving his good home so young. They had 
 taken a great deal of pains to educate him. He was studious and pro 
 gressed very fast, and they were in hopes that he would make a great 
 
 As Lyon's father was probably put to death at the time of the 
 rising of the White Boys, years before the son's emigration, Mrs. 
 Roe's use of the plural, parents, strengthens Collins's statement that 
 Lyon's mother was twice married. 
 
4O MATTHEW LYON 
 
 man at home if he stayed there. But the more he read the more 
 anxious he was to come, and the more his parents opposed it. At 
 length he resolved to steal away and come. 
 
 " There were a great many young men coming then who were not 
 able to pay their passage, and they arranged it with the captains of the 
 different vessels that when they arrived in port they would be inden 
 tured until the age of twenty-one to pay their board and passage to 
 America. Father thought he would do that rather than not come. 
 He had in his possession one guinea. But he made arrangements with 
 the captain of a very fine vessel to be cabin boy for his passage. The 
 vessel was to sail the next day. He told the captain he would have to 
 secrete him, for his Father would search every vessel at the wharf for 
 him. The captain did so, and when his Father came to the vessel in 
 search of him, he heard his voice calling, ' Matthew, my dear boy, 
 come to the embrace of your Father. Don't leave your parents and 
 go you know not where.' And Father would have gone to him, but 
 that he was secured so he could not get to him. He was very sympa 
 thetic and affectionate. 
 
 " The vessel sailed next morning, and bore him out of port, and he 
 never saw his parents again. He had such implicit confidence in the 
 captain that he gave his guinea to him for safekeeping. But when he 
 
 a George Taylor, a signer of the Declaration of Independence from 
 Pennsylvania, was a redemptioner. " He was born in Ireland in 1716, 
 so poor," says Thomas D'Arcy McGee in his " History of the Irish 
 Settlers in North America," " that his services were sold on his ar 
 rival to pay the expenses of his passage out," p. 68. Also see " The 
 Biographical Cyclopedia of Representative Men of Maryland and Dis 
 trict of Columbia," p. 380, published at Baltimore by the National Bio 
 graphical Publishing Co., 1879, which says Daniel Dulany's father, Daniel 
 Dulany, Sr., was a cousin of Rev. Patrick Dulany, the Dean of Down, 
 and was born in 1686, in Queens County, Ireland. Owing to his 
 father's second marriage and an irreconcilable quarrel with his step 
 mother, he ran away while quite a lad from the University of Dublin, 
 indentured himself to pay the expenses of his passage and came to 
 Maryland. Accidentally his education and breeding were discovered 
 by the gentleman who purchased him, and he soon rose to his proper 
 social level. He was admitted to the bar in 1710. The case of Dulany 
 lends plausibility to Mrs. Roe's story that her father's parents were 
 wealthy. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 4! 
 
 got to port the captain indentured him just as he did the other boys 
 and kept his guinea; only that as he was such a large, fine looking 
 boy he passed him off on sale for eighteen years old. He let them go 
 to the highest bidder. So he was only indentured for three years 
 instead of five. He worked out part of his time, and bought the rest 
 of it, and commenced life for himself. He worked hard at low wages 
 and paid his boss, for he had accumulated some property. 
 
 " He was married when he was twenty-one or twenty-two years old 
 to a Miss Hosford. They had four children, and then she died. He 
 lived a widower about a year, and was then married to my dear 
 Mother, who was the third daughter of Governor Thomas Chittendeti, 
 and the widow of George Galusha, a son of the second governor of 
 Vermont" * * * 
 
 *' Yours Very Sincerely, 
 
 " Eliza A. Roe." 
 
 It appears from this interesting and authentic contribution 
 to the history of iMatthew Lyon's early life that he shipped 
 from Ireland, not as a redemptioner at all, but as cabin boy 
 to the master of the vessel, who robbed him of the pittance of 
 money he held in trust for him, and sold him as a redemp 
 tioner, in violation of the agreement to give him a free passage 
 to America in lieu of wages as an employee of the vessel. 
 Having cheated young Lyon, it was not surprising that this 
 trafficker in human flesh, even when trying to make some 
 amends for his injustice to him, took care to practice his gen 
 erosity at the e.xpense of another, and deceived Jabez Bacon, 
 the purchaser of the boy's service, in regard to his age. It is 
 probable the incorrect idea that Lyon was born in 1746 
 originated with this captain's false statement in adding several 
 years to the boy's true age. 
 
 In relation to this voyage an additional occurrence is related 
 by Rev. Pliny H. White in his Lyon address before the Ver 
 mont Historical Society. " During the passage," says the Ver- 
 
42 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 mont antiquarian, " he (Lyon) was attacked by violent 
 sickness, and was delirious for many days. On his recovery 
 he found himself destitute even of so much clothing as was 
 needful to supply the place of that which his disease had 
 rendered unfit for further use; and his necessities were supplied 
 from the scanty wardrobes of some abandoned women who 
 were his fellow passengers, and who, true to the kindly instincts 
 which were in womanly nature, even when most depraved, had 
 tenderly ministered to him in his sickness when all others de 
 serted him, and now, out of their own deep poverty, supplied 
 his yet greater need." Mr. Matthew S. Lyon, of Evansville, 
 Indiana, mentions the same incident in the letter respecting his 
 grandfather's autobiography. 
 
 But to those acquainted with the brutalities and outrages 
 practised upon steerage passengers in emigrant ships, how far 
 the epithet " abandoned " is justly applied by Mr. White to 
 those women, may be an open question. So recently as the 
 year 1860 the Congress of the United States passed stringent 
 laws for the protection of helpless females from inhumanity 
 and brutal violence at the hands of officers and seamen of 
 emigrant vessels. Those who are inclined to know more of 
 the iniquities of those marine dens, and of the peril to which 
 helpless but virtuous female immigrants were formerly ex 
 posed, will do well to consult the work of the late John Francis 
 Maguire, M. P., called " The Irish in America." The title of 
 the United States statute is as follows : " To regulate the car 
 riage of passengers in steamships and other vessels, for the 
 better protection of female passengers," and sufficiently shows 
 what evil it was intended to arrest. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 43 
 
 Vessels carrying redemptioners in the last century were more 
 open to the charge of licentiousness than those of a more recent 
 date, against which the penalties of the law were denounced in 
 1860. Archibald Hamilton Rowan, a name imperishably 
 associated with the eloquence of John Philpot Curran, passed a 
 few years in America towards the end of the last century, and 
 bears testimony to the evils endured in the white slave ships by 
 Irish and Dutch redemptioners. In a letter to his wife, written 
 at Wilmington, Delaware, November 5, 1797, Mr. Rowan says: 
 
 " The members of the Society for the Abolition of Slavery 
 have not the least objection to buying an Irishman or Dutch 
 man, and will chaffer with himself or the captain to get him 
 indented at about the eighth part of the wages they would have 
 to pay a country born. But to tell truth, they who are thus 
 purchased generally do themselves justice, and run away before 
 half their term is up. This, then, like every other abuse, falls 
 hard only on the best subjects. " a In another letter Mr. Rowan 
 writes : " Swarms of Irish are expected here by the spring 
 vessels, and the brisk trade for Irish slaves here is to make up 
 for the low price of flax seed! " & 
 
 A more particular description of this barbarous traffic is 
 found in Fearon's " Sketches of America/' published at Lon 
 don in 1818. " A practice which has been often referred to in 
 connection with this country," says Fearon, " naturally excited 
 my attention. It is that of individuals emigrating from Europe 
 without money, and paying for their passage by binding them 
 selves to the captain, who receives the produce of their labor 
 
 a " Autobiography of Archibald Hamilton Rowan/' p. 3118. 
 b lbid, p. 318. 
 
44 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 for a certain number of years. The price for women is about 
 $70, men $80, boys $60." 
 
 The year, but not the month, of Lyon's arrival in America is 
 known. He came in 1765, the year made memorable by the 
 passage of the Stamp Act. Mr. Rowan, writing in 1797, said 
 the spring vessels brought swarms of Irish. Lyon probably 
 came in the spring. For this opinion there is a further reason : 
 The I4th of July was his birthday; he must have arrived before 
 that day, since, if he came after it he was then in his sixteenth 
 year, which he himself said was not the case, as he lived in 
 Connecticut from his fifteenth to his twenty-fifth year." 
 
 The town of Ancient Woodbury enjoyed the distinction at 
 that day of being the home of the wealthiest merchant in Con 
 necticut. This was the celebrated Jabez Bacon, whose descen 
 dants have been so numerous and respectable in that State. 
 That careful historian Hinman says, in his " Historical Collec 
 tions," that Bacon left an estate valued at nine hundred thou 
 sand dollars. The accounts and traditions of the man which 
 have come down to us represent him as an individual not less 
 remarkable for the originality of his character than for the 
 boldness of his operations. Some of his daring speculations 
 read like the exploits of an Astor or a Vanderbilt or Jay Gould 
 of the present age, rather than those of a country storekeeper 
 in a little Connecticut village a century and a quarter ago. 
 
 Mr. Bacon made frequent visits to New York, where he was 
 a lion among the merchants in those primitive days. The lead 
 ing trait of his character seems to have been extraordinary 
 self-reliance. He was known, says Cothren, to have struck 
 
 Annals of Congress, 1798, p. 1025. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 45 
 
 bargains in five minutes upon which the loss or gain of a 
 fortune turned. 
 
 It was with this enterprising man that Matthew Lyon's 
 destiny brought him face to face upon his arrival at New York. 
 Bold, impetuous, and daring in the extreme himself, the young 
 Wicklow emigre, by a rare felicity of fortune, attracted the 
 keen eye of the Connecticut merchant, in whom Lyon saw 
 many of his own qualities reflected, but on the part of Bacon 
 they were chastened and directed by matured judgment and 
 the cool New England temperament. The meeting between 
 them must have been an agreeable one, for their affinities no 
 doubt drew them towards each other from the first. But there 
 are no particulars of this interesting meeting, only the bare 
 statement of the fact itself by Cothren, that " Matthew Lyon 
 was assigned on his arrival in New York to Jabez Bacon, of 
 Woodbury, who brought him home." 
 
 In after years Lyon became the founder of a town in Ver 
 mont and of another in Kentucky ; United States mail contrac 
 tor for the Western States and territories; and the originator 
 of newspapers, mills, factories, shipyards, and other industries. 
 Who knows how much he owed to old Jabez Bacon, whose 
 pluck and tireless activity were constant objects of admiration 
 to such an apt boy? The contagious influence and example of 
 such a man must have been an excellent school for the young 
 apprentice. Lyon would have become a good business man, 
 though he had never known Bacon; whether he would have 
 done so many things as well, and left his impress upon them 
 all as deeply, without such a guide in the beginning, may very 
 reasonably be doubted. Contact of the right sort is beneficial 
 
 " History of Ancient Woodbury," Vol. I, p 320. 
 
46 MATTHEW LYOK 
 
 to every one; to a youth of ardent and impressionable nature, 
 its value as an educational influence cannot be overestimated. 
 
 About the end of April, 1765, news of the Stamp Act reached 
 New York. It was passed March 22d. From that time to the 
 close of the year the aroused colonies were preparing for war, 
 and in many places the " Sons of Liberty," a title derived from 
 a passage in Colonel Barre's celebrated speech in the British 
 Parliament, were in open rebellion against the royal authority. 
 A Colonial Congress, the first one of the revolutionary era, 
 met this year in New York, and adopted a spirited declaration 
 of the rights and grievances of the Colonies. A petition for 
 redress was dispatched to George the Third, and energetic 
 memorials were sent out to each House of the British Parlia 
 ment. On the evening of the day appointed for the Stamp 
 Act to go into operation a riot took place in New York. The 
 " Sons of Liberty," in two companies, marched through the 
 streets demanding the surrender to them of the obnoxious 
 stamps. But the distributor had resigned and refused to touch 
 the stamps, and Colden, the commandant, had taken them into 
 the fort. Colden was hung in effigy by the people, and his 
 carriage was burned under the muzzles of his own guns. 
 General Gage, the commander-in-chief in America, who 
 then happened to be on the spot, wisely advised Colden to sur 
 render the stamps to the infuriated populace. They were 
 accordingly given up to the Mayor and Corporation, and 
 deposited in the City Hall. a 
 
 Such were the scenes transpiring on all sides when Matthew 
 Lyon arrived in the new world. As he left the ship and passed 
 through the streets of New York in company with Jabez 
 
 " Hildreth's History of the United States," Vol. II, pp. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 47 
 
 Bacon, sounds of the popular commotion must have reached 
 the ears of the astonished boy. They were not unfamiliar 
 sounds to him, for he had heard them in his native Wicklow, 
 with the sinister accompaniments of famine, chains and the 
 gallows superadded the protests of a people against tyranny. 
 ' He had come three thousand miles across the sea to escape 
 from that tyranny, and now upon his arrival in America, its 
 black shadow, which he thought he had left behind him forever 
 in the old world, was enveloping in gloom the new. The life 
 of his father had been forfeited to it; his home had been ren 
 dered desolate by it ; and here it was in New York as in Ireland, 
 lifting its menacing front athwart his path. Filled with dismay 
 must have been the heart of the young exile. But there was 
 this comforting difference, the " Sons of Liberty " were in 
 arms, and the adherents of England were fleeing terror-stricken 
 from the wrath of a people resolved to break the chains of the 
 oppressor before they could be riveted, upon them. 
 
 Lyon's stay in New York was probably short, for Jabez 
 Bacon was too much engrossed in mercantile pursuits to take 
 any interest in patriotic affairs, and as soon as he had made 
 his purchases he was off again to Connecticut. Cothren says 
 that " an aged merchant of New York told him many years 
 ago that Mr. Bacon would sometimes visit his store, make him 
 a bid for a whole tier of shelf goods, from floor to ceiling, 
 amounting in value to thousands of dollars, and have the whole 
 boxed and shipped in an hour to the sloop at the foot of Peck 
 Slip, bound for Derby."" 
 
 Woodbury is situated in the Pomperaug Valley, in Litchfield 
 county, Connecticut, fourteen miles from the New York State 
 
 " History of Ancient Woodbury," Vol. I, p. 353. 
 
48 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 line, and ninety miles from the city of New York. The young 
 emigrant was soon established in his new home in the " land of 
 steady habits," an apprentice of the most enterprising mer 
 chant in the Colony of Connecticut. 
 
 This town was the birthplace of many revolutionary heroes. 
 Among the number were the future uncle by marriage of Mat 
 thew Lyon, Ethan Allen himself, the Ajax Telamon of the* 
 Green Mountain Boys; also Seth Warner, their Hercules in 
 stature and prowess; and Remember Baker, worthy kins 
 man and associate of both. The note of preparation for the 
 great struggle was already heard in Ancient Woodbury, and 
 Matthew Lyon began to learn his first lessons in the cause of 
 freedom among the hardy sons of the Connecticut mountains. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 49 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE COLONIES THROW OFF THE YOKE OF ENGLAND CHIEF 
 
 JUSTICE MARSHALL'S ERROR GATHERING UP THE LOST 
 
 THREADS IN MATTHEW LYON's EARLY LIFE IN CONNECTICUT 
 AND VERMONT HIS FIRST MARRIAGE PRESIDENT DWIGHT 
 FORGETS HIS USUAL URBANITY. 
 
 HERE were not wanting some," said the elder Pitt, in 
 his celebrated speech on the right of taxing America, 
 " when I had the honor to serve his Majesty, to propose to 
 me to burn my fingers with an American stamp act. With the 
 enemy at their back, with our bayonets at their breasts, in the 
 day of their distress, perhaps the Americans would have sub 
 mitted to the imposition; but it would have been taking an 
 ungenerous and unjust advantage of them." The great Com 
 moner was mistaken, not only in his opinion of the probable 
 result, but in the motives which prevented the experiment. 
 Magnanimity or justice to the Colonies had nothing to do with 
 England's forbearance. During the old French war the 
 British government feared to encounter the danger of such a 
 step, for on its American Colonies the happy issue of the war 
 mainly depended. Had a stamp act been imposed at an earlier 
 day, England and not France would have been driven out of 
 America. Robert Walpole, the predecessor of Pitt, main- 
 
 Speech of William Pitt on the Right of Taxing America, delivered 
 in the House of Commons January 14, 1766. 
 
5O MATTHEW LYON 
 
 tained that everything had its price, but with his usual hard 
 sense he made an exception of the liberties of the Colonies. 
 Contenting himself with their trade, he dryly remarked that he 
 would leave the taxation of the Americans to some of his suc 
 cessors who had more courage and less regard for commerce.* 
 
 From the dawn of English colonization in America, it was 
 the cherished scheme of the crown to establish a complete 
 supremacy in the plantations. Evidences of this design are 
 to be found everywhere and at all times in Colonial history. 
 During the reigns of James the First, and Charles the First, 
 every measure of government in America was carried by royal 
 prerogative. But the Colonists were then too insignificant in 
 resources and numbers to excite the cupidity of the mother 
 country. The civil wars coming on in the latter part of the 
 reign of Charles the First served to distract attention from 
 America, and while the Roundheads and Cavaliers were im 
 bruing their hands in each other's blood, the plantations grew 
 apace in population and prosperity. Cromwell concerned him 
 self less about Colonial affairs than with the domestic compli 
 cations of the Commonwealth and Protectorate, and was so 
 unfavorably impressed with America that he invited the Puri 
 tans of New England to leave the savage wilderness, and take 
 possession of the plundered estates in Ireland. 5 
 
 With the restoration of the Stuarts under Charles the Second 
 began the system of commercial oppression, for the trade of the 
 Colonies had now become sufficiently great to be made the 
 subject of monopoly. To regulate and restrain it was the first 
 step; to impose duties on it the next one. In vain did the 
 
 ^Marshall's " Life of Washington," Vol. II. 
 6 Lingard's " History of England," VIIL, 176. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 5! 
 
 Colonies struggle against English monopoly. Charles, trust 
 ing less to prerogative than parliamentary enactments, brought 
 into full play the Navigation Act, and cramped the trade of 
 America by duties, restrictions and penalties of the most exact 
 ing nature. The Colonies were yet too weak to offer effectual 
 resistance. If this external oppression had been followed up 
 by internal monopoly, or the imposition by Parliament of an 
 inland tax upon the plantations, the last safeguard would have 
 been swept away, the power of self-protection would have been 
 at an end, the freemen of the American provinces would have 
 become the veriest slaves of England. It was providential that 
 the right was not then set up to levy taxes for revenue on 
 America, for resistance at that day was out of the question. 
 With equal rigor, but less ability, James the Second pursued 
 the oppressive commercial policy of Charles towards the 
 Colonies. He made the mistake, however, of trusting to pre 
 rogative, where the last King, with better statesmanship, relied 
 on the co-operation of Parliament. The loss of his throne 
 rendered the hostility of James to the Americans powerless for 
 injury. 
 
 Upon the accession of William of Orange, America, for the 
 first time, was in a position to dictate to England a policy pro- 
 motive of provincial rights and liberties. Hitherto it had been 
 the thrall of England; now it became the bulwark of British 
 domination. From this time forward, for a period of seventy- 
 five years, down to 1763, England and France were in an 
 almost uninterrupted struggle for supremacy in America. The 
 commands of the Crown upon the Colonies for men and 
 money, during the progress of these wars, were about as effec 
 tive as afterwards were the recommendations of the old Con- 
 
52 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 federated government to the thirteen States. The Colonial As 
 semblies obeyed the requisitions or not, as seemed to them 
 most convenient. Both Crown v and Parliament chafed under this 
 defiant growth of liberty in the Colonies, but as their aid in the 
 wars with the French was indispensable, the hazardous experi 
 ment of taxing them, however near the English heart the desire 
 might be, never was ventured upon in a single instance. That 
 England longed for the favorable hour when she might un- 
 resisted wield autocratic power over her American provinces 
 cannot for a moment be doubted by anyone who closely ex 
 amines the events of those days. 
 
 In 1701 and again in 1714, Parliament attempted the destruc 
 tion of the charter and proprietary governments. Still another 
 and more dangerous effort was made by Parliament in 1748 
 to give to the King's colonial instructions the force of law. 
 Finally the secretary for foreign affairs and the English Board 
 of Trade proposed in 1753, with the same ulterior designs upon 
 the liberties of America, a plan of colonial union, which was 
 formulated by Franklin the next year in the Albany Conven 
 tion, but rejected by the Colonial Assemblies on the one hand, 
 as detrimental to their freedom, and by the English govern 
 ment on the other, for the opposite reason that it dangerously 
 enlarged it. a 
 
 The exigencies of England in that age enabled the Colonies 
 to baffle all these attempts upon their liberties. Fear, and not 
 affection, withheld the vengeance of the mother country. 
 English statesmen, with Lord Chatham at their head, might 
 descant upon British magnanimity; but the war-cry of New 
 France, intermingled with the war-whoop of the Algonquins, 
 
 oHildreth's " History of the United States," Vol. II, p. 444- 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 53 
 
 proved the potent arbitrator between the Anglo-American 
 Colonies and the vengeance of their loving mother. Eng 
 land's magnanimity was brought to the test in 1763, when, by 
 the aid of the Colonists, the English arms were victorious, and 
 the French power in America was destroyed. Hardly had the 
 treaty of Paris been signed when England gave notice of her 
 tender purpose, now that the hated French were out of the way, 
 to carry through Parliament an American Stamp Act, and to 
 crush the Colonies between the upper and nether millstones 
 of commercial high protective restrictions and internal mo 
 nopoly. Taxes were to be raised in America for purposes of 
 revenue by the arbitrary fiat of a Parliament in which Ameri 
 cans were not represented. Mr. Grenville, the illiberal lawyer 
 and official barnacle, with the whip and spur of an imperious 
 majority, carried the Stamp Act through Parliament March 22, 
 1765. The insolent vices of prosperity were hurrying England 
 forward to her supreme and crowning humiliation. 
 
 The biography of Matthew Lyon is not the place to write 
 the history of the Revolution, but before passing from the con 
 sideration of the Stamp Act, the first measure of arbitrary power 
 in the impending struggle, the writer of these pages cannot but 
 express astonishment to find Chief Justice Marshall implicitly 
 following Lord Mansfield in the procession of courtiers, and 
 making special pleas on the side of King, Lords and Commons. 
 Not only does the American Chief Justice appear to lean to the 
 side of arbitrary power, but he makes a labored argument to 
 show that in Parliament was lodged the right to impose a tax 
 upon the Colonies in order to raise a revenue for England. 
 
 "Life of John Stark," by Edward Everett, p. 3 in Vol. I of "Sparks's 
 American Biography." 
 
54 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 No wonder that Junius fixed Mansfield in the pillory. No 
 wonder that the author of the Declaration of Independence 
 looked upon the American Mansfield as too close a copy of the 
 original. But judges are the natural defenders of prerogative. 
 In Marshall's "Life of Washington," which Jefferson described 
 as "a five-volumed libel" upon the Democratic party, and as a 
 partisan publication prepared rather to bolster up the sinking 
 fortunes of the Federalists than to celebrate Washington, the 
 Chief Justice exposes his want of acquaintance with Colonial 
 history by the following observations : " The degree of author 
 ity which might rightfully be exercised by the mother country 
 over her Colonies had never been accurately defined. In 
 Britain it had always been asserted that Parliament possessed 
 the power of binding them in all cases whatsoever." b And 
 then, as if he had never heard of James Otis or old Sam Adams, 
 he asserts that even in rebellious Massachusetts "this had per 
 haps become the opinion of many of the best informed men in 
 the province." c Next follows this extraordinary statement: 
 " The English statute book furnishes many instances in which 
 the legislative power of Parliament over the Colonies was ex 
 ercised, so as to make regulations completely internal; and in 
 no instance that is recollected was their authority openly con 
 troverted."* As if there could not be a doubt about it, this 
 high prerogative Federalist refers to the utterances of English 
 ministers at divers times on the subject, and then sums up thus: 
 " Of the right of Parliament, as the supreme authority of the 
 
 " Jefferson's Works," Vol. V, p. 587; IX, p. 478, etc. 
 b " Marshall's Washington," Vol. II, p. 99- 
 Ibid, Vol. II, p. 99. 
 *Ibid, Vol. II, p. 101. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 55 
 
 nation, to tax as well as to govern the Colonies, those who 
 guided the councils of Britain seem not to have entertained a 
 doubt." a Why even that oracle of the law, Daniel Dulany, 
 loyalist and all as this illustrious man afterwards became, utterly 
 annihilates these specious claims of a parliamentary right to 
 raise a revenue by taxation in the Colonies. b 
 
 It was these grave mistakes of Chief Justice Marshall in deal 
 ing with important facts of Colonial history that compelled 
 Chancellor Kent, otherwise his warm admirer, to say of his 
 "Life of Washington:" "This work is very authentic and accur 
 ate, except the first volume on Colonial history." Mr. Bancroft, 
 though he himself is happier at narrative than constitutional 
 exposition, declares " Marshall meagre and incomplete."* 
 Blackwood's Magazine finds him " greatly mistaken several 
 times in matters of importance."'" John Randolph, the ex 
 travagant admirer of Marshall, said in a letter to Philip Barton 
 Key, " I cannot, however, help thinking that he was too long 
 at the bar before he ascended the bench; and, that like our 
 friend P., he had injured, by the indiscriminate defense of right 
 or wrong, the tone of his perception (if you will allow so quaint 
 a phrase) of truth or falsehood." 7 
 
 The gravamen of Marshall's statements is that anterior to 
 the passage of the Stamp Act, Parliament possessed the right 
 to bind the Colonies in all cases whatsoever, externally and 
 
 a lbid, Vol. II, p. 103. 
 
 b " Dulany's Considerations," etc., quoted with approval by Lord 
 Chatham in the House of Lords. 
 
 c " Kent's Course of English Reading, 1853," P- 44- 
 d " North American Review," Vol. XLVI, p. 483. 
 " Blackwood," Vol. XVII, pp. 57, 187. 
 / Baldwin's " Party Leaders," p. 241. 
 
56 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 internally, and that this authority had never been openly contro 
 verted by the Colonies. This, of course, embraced the right 
 to tax them for purposes of revenue. Never was more egregi 
 ous error made by a weighty writer. Judge Marshall 
 confounds the commercial regulations and restraints imposed 
 by the mother country upon the Colonies with the right to tax 
 them for revenue. The former had been in force from the 
 earliest days, from the origin of the Navigation Act in 1651, 
 but never until 1764, more than a century later, when the 
 Stamp Act was brought forward, had the attempt been made to 
 impose a revenue tax upon America by the British Parliament. 
 Edmund Burke, the highest authority upon Colonial history, 
 is very clear on this point. " The principle of commercial 
 monopoly," Burke says, " runs through no less than twenty- 
 nine acts of Parliament, from the year 1660 to the unfortunate 
 period of 1764. In all those acts the system of commerce is 
 established, as that from whence alone you proposed to make 
 the Colonies contribute (I mean directly and by the operation 
 of your superintending legislative power) to the strength of the 
 empire. I venture to say that during that whole period" how 
 could Marshall have failed to know this? " a parliamentary 
 revenue from thence* was never once in contemplation. Ac 
 cordingly in all the number of laws passed with regard to the 
 plantations, the words which distinguished revenue laws, 
 specifically as such, were, I think, premeditatedly avoided. 
 * * * This is certainly true, that no act avowedly for the 
 purpose of revenue, and with the ordinary title and recital taken 
 together, is found in the statute book until the year I have 
 mentioned, that is, the year 1764. All before this period stood 
 on commercial regulation and restraint. The scheme of a 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 57 
 
 Colony revenue by British authority appeared, therefore, to the 
 Americans in the light of a great innovation."* 
 
 Chief Justice Marshall's reading of the English statute-book 
 must have been limited, when with such commentators as 
 Edmund Burke and Lord Chatham right at hand on the very 
 subject he was discussing, he preferred to assert for English 
 prerogative claims more extravagant than had been set up by 
 the English people themselves. Judge Marshall probably 
 formed his opinions on this subject from those of the Crown 
 lawyers, which were oracular to this extent, that they always 
 were adapted to the wishes of those who sought them, whether 
 or not, as a Colonial witticism ran, they were given for half a 
 crown each. " I have lived long enough," Daniel Dulany 
 said, " to remember many opinions of Crown lawyers upon 
 American affairs. They have all declared that to be legal 
 which the minister for the time being has deemed to be ex 
 pedient." 6 
 
 The Colonists maintained the right of internal taxation as 
 residing exclusively in the several Assemblies of the Freemen 
 of the Provinces. The Crown had never encroached upon it. 
 In the many discussions in Colonial history upon the extension 
 of the English statutes, the Americans had always claimed as 
 their own inheritance the principles of English liberty. With 
 their institutions, their polity, and their charters was insepar 
 ably interwoven the idea of representation as the basis of tax 
 ation. In all the Colonies, whether under proprietary, royal or 
 charter governments, the people of each one of them from the 
 
 a Edmund Burke's speech on American Taxation, delivered in the 
 House of Commons, April 19, 1774. 
 & " Dulany's Considerations," Annapolis, 1765. 
 
5 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 first had always been known in their legislative annals as " the 
 freemen of the province." The careful student of history will 
 find from the dawn of English settlement in America the germ 
 of State rights planted in each Colony. Local self-government 
 was the fundamental theory of all the plantations. All grants 
 for money were made by the Colonial Assemblies. Whether 
 the requisition was from the Crown directly, or the proprietary, 
 or the governor, the veto on arbitrary power was lodged in the 
 freemen of the provinces represented in their several Legisla 
 tures or Assemblies. Jealously did they guard the trust. Here 
 then is to be found the origin of the sovereignty of the Ameri 
 can people, and not in any written constitution. The lex non 
 scripta of -the freemen of the provinces was the fountain source 
 of civil and political liberty in the United States. It came in 
 with the extension of the English statutes, and antedated the 
 struggle for independence by more than a century. State pride 
 may fondly cling to these early memorials, for they are the title- 
 deeds of the Republic. In them are to be found ample proofs 
 of that autonomy of the States which it is somewhat the 
 fashion of late to deride. 
 
 The war of the Revolution, according to Daniel Webster, 
 was fought " on a preamble."* But Mr. Webster's epigram 
 referred to the second stage of the controversy, that which im 
 mediately preceded the clash of arms. Patrick Henry and 
 James Otis first uttered the cry of liberty. The people of each 
 Colony echoed back the cry when they were told their birth 
 right was in danger, and all were ripe for resistance from 
 the moment the passage of the Stamp Act became known. 
 
 o " Webster's Works," Vol. IV, p. 109. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 59 
 
 Resistance was everywhere. The Sons of Liberty spread over 
 all the Colonies so spontaneously that the honor of giving the 
 first impulse to the movement cannot be assigned to any man 
 or to any Colony. "The punctured veins," says the eloquent 
 John V. L. McMahon, " only gave out the blood that pervaded 
 the whole system." 5 Those who led in the crusade for freedom 
 are indeed up among the immortals. " Such," remarks Mc- 
 Mahon, " were Henry of Virginia, and Otis, of Massachusetts, 
 in the two great Colonies, whose movements against the Stamp 
 Act stand first in order and importance upon the page of his 
 tory. They touched the chord of public feeling, already trem 
 blingly alive; and they knew its response." 
 
 The young emigrant at Ancient Woodbury had arrived in 
 the country in the height of the Stamp Act excitement. Lyon's 
 first impressions of America were formed at a time remarkably 
 favorable to a quickening of the impulses of freedom. That 
 portion of his life which was passed in Connecticut has scarcely 
 been mentioned by those who have written cursory sketches of 
 his career. The Rev. Pliny H. White, in his address on 
 Lyon before the Vermont Historical Society, refers to the place 
 of his nativity and his early arrival in America, but then taking 
 a short cut into his subject, he declares he knows nothing 
 further of him for the succeeding eleven years, that is, until his 
 arrival in 1777 at Arlington, Vermont. He dismisses the in 
 teresting period from his fifteenth to his twenty-fifth year, with 
 the remark that " neither record nor tradition bears witness to 
 
 a A title borrowed from Colonel Barrc's famous speech. Hildreth's 
 " History of the United States," Vol. II, p. 529. 
 
 b McMahon's History, "View of the Government of Maryland," p. 
 333- 
 
 e Ibid, p. 333- 
 
6O MATTHEW LYON 
 
 any other facts in Lyon's early life."* Fortunately for the 
 purposes of the present biography, Rev. Mr. White was 
 mistaken. There is no authority for his statement that Jesse 
 Leavenworth was one of the holders of Lyon's indentures. 
 He was likewise absurdly at fault in assigning him to the 
 position of " a laborer in the employ of Thomas Chittenden, 
 of Arlington, Vermont, afterwards Governor of the State." 5 
 Perhaps the desire to tell an anecdote about a New York Fifth 
 Avenue coachman, who eloped with his employer's daughter, 
 led the speaker out of the path of history into that of romance. 
 There are several other inaccuracies in Mr. White's address, 
 elsewhere corrected in these pages, notably concerning Colonel 
 Lyon's second wife, the number of her children, and the dura 
 tion of her married life. 
 
 Other Vermont writers are nearly as silent in relation to the 
 years Lyon spent in Connecticut. The present writer recog 
 nized the importance of collecting the lost threads of that part 
 of his life which preceded his advent in Vermont, before the 
 fictions concerning his youth, invented afterwards by adversa 
 ries in a season of fierce political contention, should come to 
 be accepted as sober fact. Patient research has rewarded the 
 investigation with success. Connecticut antiquarians had not 
 wholly ignored the young man. The descendants of Colonel 
 Lyon rendered valuable aid by furnishing letters, speeches and 
 fragmentary sketches. Miss Susan Quincy, daughter of Presi 
 dent Josiah Quincy, of Massachusetts, and Mrs. S. L. Gouver- 
 neur, Jr., of Washington, granddaughter by marriage of Presi- 
 
 " Life and Services of Matthew Lyon," by Pliny H. White, 1858, 
 p. 6. 
 
 Ibid, p. 6. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 6l 
 
 dent Monroe, have also placed the author under great obliga 
 tions by sending him interesting original letters of Colonel 
 Lyon to Josiah Quincy and Senator Mason. All the facts 
 bearing on the subject of his life in Connecticut which 
 are probably accessible at this day will now be presented 
 in their appropriate order. If other records and memorials 
 lie buried away beneath the moth and rust of a century and a 
 quarter, some intrepid antiquarian may yet bring them to light. 
 
 The fact of Matthew Lyon's residence in Connecticut is 
 established upon the testimony of four separate authorities: 
 
 First, Lyon himself, in a speech in Congress in 1798; 
 second, George C. Woodruff, in his " History of the Town of 
 Litchfield/' published in 1845; third, Payne Kenyon Kilbourne, 
 in his " Biographical History of the County of Litchfield," pub 
 lished in 1851; fourth, William Cothren, in the first volume of 
 his " History of Ancient Woodbury," published in 1854. 
 
 In one or two other places the fact is mentioned incidentally, 
 but the writers here designated claim to have prepared their 
 volumes from unpublished original sources, and may be called 
 properly authorities on the subject. 
 
 "After living ten years in Connecticut," said Matthew Lyon, 
 February i, 1798, on the floor of Congress, " from my fifteenth 
 to my twenty-fifth year, I removed to a new settlement in 
 Vermont, then called New Hampshire Grants, about thirty 
 miles from Ticonderoga." a A few days before making this 
 statement, he had said on the floor of the House : " By these 
 things, and my standing in this House, I could prove that I 
 have always been respected in the country I represent, and 
 where I have lived these twenty-four years." b 
 
 "Annals of Congress, 1798, p. 1025. 
 *> Annals of Congress, 1.798, p. 973- 
 
62 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 Mr. Woodruff's volume contains the first notice of Lyon, 
 unless "Morris's Statistical Account of Litchfield," now out of 
 print, may be excepted. " Formerly by a law of this State," 
 Woodruff says, " if debtors had no other means to pay their 
 debts, they were assigned in service for that purpose. And it 
 is said to have been common for poor foreigners, who could 
 not pay their passage money, to stipulate with the captain of 
 the ship, that he might assign them to raise the money. Per 
 sons so assigned were called redemptioners, and several were so 
 held in this town. Among them was Matthew Lyon, a native 
 of Ireland, who was assigned to Hugh Hannah, of Litchfield, 
 for a pair of stags valued at 12. Lyon was afterwards a mem 
 ber of Congress from Vermont and from Kentucky." 
 
 The next reference to Lyon is found in Mr. Kilbourne's vol 
 ume, much commended by Connecticut scholars for its anti 
 quarian research. Among condensed sketches of a number of 
 local celebrities occurs the following: "Lyon, Matthew, Col 
 onel, a native of Ireland, came to this country in 1758, and was 
 for several years a resident of this county. He emigrated to 
 Vermont, and was there elected to Congress in 1 797, and again 
 in 1799; he soon after removed to Kentucky, and was sent to 
 Congress from that State from 1803 to 1811. His son, Chitten- 
 den Lyon, was in Congress from Kentucky for eight years. 
 Both of Colonel Lyon's wives were natives of this county, the 
 first being a niece of Ethan Allen, the second a daughter of 
 Governor Chittenden." & 
 
 The third notice is given by Mr. Cothren in his elaborate 
 and valuable work. This author says : " It is asserted to have 
 
 a Woodruff's " History of the Town of Litchfield, 1845," pp. 29-30. 
 b Kilbourne's " Biographical History of the County of Litchfield, 
 1851," P- 358. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 63 
 
 been a common practice for poor foreigners who were unable 
 to pay their passage money, to engage their passage by stipula 
 ting with the captain of the vessel which brought them to this 
 country, that he might assign them in service to raise the 
 money which was his due on arrival at the port of destination. 
 Persons assigned in this manner were called redemptioners,and 
 more than one was so held in Ancient Woodbury. Among 
 the number was Matthew Lyon, a native of Ireland, who was 
 assigned on his arrival in New York to Jabez Bacon, of Wood- 
 bury, who brought him home, and after enjoying his services 
 for some time, he assigned him for the remainder of the time 
 of service to Hugh Hannah, of Litchfield, for a pair of stags 
 valued at 12. By dint of sterling native talent, under these 
 most disheartening circumstances, he fought his way to fame 
 and eminence. * * * Lyon's success furnishes a striking 
 example of the genius of the institutions of our favored 
 country."* 
 
 The particulars mentioned by Colonel Lyon in the extracts 
 from his speeches above quoted, will suffice to correct the error 
 of Kilbourne in regard to the year of his arrival in this country. 
 It is known that he went immediately to Connecticut after his 
 arrival at New York from Europe. Mr. Cothren states that 
 fact correctly. Lyon's declaration in 1798, that he had lived 
 in Connecticut ten years, and in Vermont twenty-four, settles 
 the question definitely as to the time he reached America. It 
 was in the year of the Stamp Act, 1765. 
 
 Ancient Woodbury, his first home in America, was one of 
 the early settlements of Connecticut. Many pioneers had ar 
 rived there, even so far back as 1673. The charter of the town 
 
 History of Ancient Woodbury, 1854," Vol. I, p. 320. 
 
64 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 was granted in the spring of 1674, as the following minutes 
 attest: "A court of election held at Hartford, May 14, 1674; 
 This court grants that Paumperaug and the plantation 
 there shall be called by the name of Woodbury, which town is 
 freed from county rates fower yeares from this date." a Wood- 
 bury, according to Cothren, was a place of extensive limits, 
 and continued to be for years after its settlement one of the 
 largest and most important towns in the western part of Con 
 necticut. Here, with flaunting banners and " sonorous metal," 
 came Lafayette and the French army marching through the 
 town to join Washington in the south. Here they stacked 
 arms for rest, and the old chroniclers relate that the fair 
 maidens of Woodbury danced on the village green with some 
 of the handsome young soldiers from chivalrous France. 6 If 
 we may judge of the prosperity of the town from that of one 
 of its merchants, Jabez Bacon, to whom Lyon was apprenticed, 
 it was a remarkably thriving place. "He was for years," Coth 
 ren says, " the sole merchant of this town, and all the neigh 
 boring towns ; and so large at times was his stock in trade that 
 it is credibly reported merchants from New Haven sometimes 
 visited Woodbury, and purchased from Jabez Bacon goods to 
 retail afterwards in that city." c He was a person of conse 
 quence, as mentioned in the preceding chapter, even among 
 the business men of New York, whither he frequently went to 
 lay in goods. His active young apprentice perhaps sometimes 
 
 a Trumbull's " Colonial Records," p. 227. I was informed by the 
 famous antiquarian collector and bookseller of New York, the late 
 Mr. Sabin, that Trumbull would neither publish nor allow access dur 
 ing his lifetime to his " Colonial Records." 
 
 & " History of Ancient Woodbury," Vol. I, p. 21$ 
 
 c " History of Ancient Woodbury," Vol. I, p. 35^- 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 65 
 
 accompanied him, for in the letters of Lyon allussions to the 
 habits and customs of the people of New York at that period 
 are occasionally made, and particulars are given that would 
 seem to have been derived from personal observation. 
 Bacon dealt largely in pork, the " Old Red Store in the Hol 
 low," as his place was called, often being packed with dressed 
 hogs which he shipped via " Darby Narrors," to New York. 
 A bold operation is related of him, and if Lyon witnessed it, 
 of which however there is no positive evidence, it must have 
 produced a lasting impression on so apt a boy. It appears 
 that the old trader turned an unsuccessful venture into a 
 grand business achievement, and " put the screws " on the 
 whole New York market. He had made a large shipment to 
 the city, consisting of a choice lot of pork, and counted con 
 fidently on handsome profits. But when he reached there he 
 could find no purchasers, even the houses he was in the habit 
 of dealing with offered ruinously low figures for his meat. To 
 sell at such prices was to incur heavy loss, to re-ship perishable 
 meat to Derby, a total one. He soon found out the cause of 
 the depression. Two immense shiploads of pork were ex 
 pected in that day from Maine. The person who gave him 
 the information might have noticed an instantaneous change 
 in Bacon's manner. Cothren, who relates the story as an un 
 questionable fact, says : " The old gentleman merely set his 
 teeth firm, an ominous trick of his in a bargain, and left the 
 store. He instantly took a horse, rode some six miles up the 
 East River shore, to about what is now Blackwell's Island, 
 boarded the sloops as they came along, and purchased every 
 pound of their cargoes, staking his whole fortune for it. This, 
 at that day, put the whole New York market in his hands, and 
 
66 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 tradition says he cleared forty thousand dollars by this single 
 operation." This was a stroke of genius scarcely inferior, ex 
 cept in the magnitude of the operation, to that related of the 
 famous Rothschild, who went out and watched the varying for 
 tunes of the battle of Waterloo until he saw the Old Guard of 
 Napoleon broken and in retreat. Then the Napoleon of finance 
 hastened to London in advance of the news and bought 
 English consols, clearing out of hand five millions of dollars 
 as his share of the victory. How fully the enthusiastic Lyon, 
 already burning with business ardor, must have enjoyed this 
 transaction of Bacon, whether as an eye-witness or as a listener 
 to the story from the lips of the redoubtable Jabez, may be 
 easily imagined. 
 
 Ethan Allen, Seth Warner and Remember Baker had left 
 Woodbury before Lyon became a resident of the place. But 
 in their occasional visits to relatives and friends in the neigh 
 borhood, the three famous leaders and Lyon met as acquain 
 tances and friends. There is a tradition in Connecticut that 
 Lyon went with them to Vermont, but this is a mistake. He 
 continued to live in Connecticut until 1774, several years after 
 the others had become 'residents of the Hampshire Grants. 
 
 From the first Lyon was an ardent patriot. Soon after he 
 reached Woodbury a convention was held of all the towns of 
 Litchfield county, and Woodbury was fully represented. 
 Spirited measures were adopted by this body, and it was 
 " resolved that the Stamp Act was unconstitutional, null and 
 void, and that business of all kinds should go on as usual." 6 
 Patriotic excitement ran high among the hardy yeomanry of 
 
 a lbid, Vol. I, p. 353- 
 b Ibid, Vol. I, p. 173- 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 6/ 
 
 the county. Notwithstanding their mutual esteem and con 
 geniality of temperament, a serious cause of disagreement now 
 grew up between Jabez Bacon and Matthew Lyon. The boy 
 was a fiery Whig; the man was suspected of being a Loyalist. 
 General Benedict Arnold once preferred charges against Bacon, 
 and ordered the Deputy Commissary-General, Peter Colt, to 
 seize contraband goods of his at Derby which it was supposed 
 Bacon was about to smuggle to the British on Long Island. 
 Captain Isaac Tomlinson, of Woodbury, was involved in the 
 same charge of disloyalty to the popular cause. They stood 
 their trial and were acquitted. 
 
 But Bacon was immersed in the pursuit of gain, Lyon more 
 interested in the cause that " tried men's souls." Cothren says 
 Bacon at his death was worth about half a million. Hinman, 
 as we have already seen, placed the amount still higher, and rated 
 him at nine hundred thousand dollars ; either sum was an enor 
 mous fortune in those primitive days. As the troubles of the 
 times increased, Mr. Bacon finally allowed Lyon to look out 
 for another employer, and after a year's residence in Wood- 
 bury the young Whig was assigned to Hugh Hannah, of Litch- 
 field. & The consideration paid by Hannah was a pair of stags 
 
 o " State Archives of Connecticut," Vol. XV, p. 66. 
 
 6 In "Reminiscences of Fair Haven," "written by Miss Emeline Gilbert, 
 as communicated to her by Benjamin Franklin Gilbert," and published 
 in Vol. I of the papers of the Rutland County Historical Society, 
 pp. 146-7, there is what purports to be a sketch of Colonel 
 Lyon. It is, however, only a fancy sketch. Among its other 
 errors of fact, the following more glaring ones may be enu 
 merated: First. "At the early age of nine years he sailed for 
 America, landing at New Haven, Conn." Not true. He was 
 fifteen at the time named, and landed at New York. Second. " The 
 captain sold him to a farmer for a pair of stag oxen." Not true. See 
 " History of Ancient Woodbury," Vol. I, p. 320. Third. " At twenty- 
 
68 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 of the value of 12, old tenor, equivalent to $40. The price 
 paid by Bacon originally is not known, but writers of that 
 age on the apprentice system, both in the English and French 
 colonies in America, inform us that common laborers were 
 worth between forty and fifty dollars ; tradesmen and mechanics 
 from sixty to one hundred dollars and upwards. Lyon had 
 learned the trade of printer in Dublin, and although he was but 
 fifteen years old, it is probable Bacon paid the ship captain 
 about sixty dollars for his indentures. He received forty dol 
 lars, or its equivalent, from Hannah, or about two-thirds per 
 haps of the original price. 
 
 Hugh Hannah, like Bacon, was a country merchant, but no 
 suspicion of disloyalty to the patriots was ever whispered 
 against him in the local chronicles of Connecticut. The writer 
 has been informed by Mr. Cothren, the well known contributor 
 to the early history of Litchfield county, that it is a tradition 
 there that Matthew Lyon improved his leisure hours while with 
 Mr. Hannah by a diligent course of study and reading. He 
 
 one years of age he was free from his master, and made his way to 
 the southern part of Vermont." Not true. He was free at eighteen, 
 married at twenty-one, and did not go to Vermont until he was 
 twenty-five years old. See Mrs. Roe's letter, and Lyon's speech in 
 Congress, February ist, 1798. Whether the following statement has 
 better claims to truth than the preceding ones is left to the decision 
 of the reader: " With the floggings of an abusive master and mistress, 
 and the stringency of the ' Blue Laws ' of Connecticut, the boy had 
 but a sorry time in his new home. Possibly the master was not better 
 suited, for he soon sold him to another man. The change was a for 
 tunate one for the lad, for in his second home he received better treat 
 ment and some schooling." Lyon's age and combative propensities 
 render those " floggings " doubtful. A big muscular boy in his six 
 teenth year, and almost fiery enough to fight a rattlesnake and give 
 him the first bite, was not a tempting customer to practice upon with 
 birch or otherwise. The story looks apocryphal. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 69 
 
 "became well known at Litchfield, and made many friends there. 
 The intense energy with which he always set about the busi 
 ness before him, and the impetuosity and frankness of his 
 manners soon attracted favorable attention; the warmth of his 
 affections and a riant, Celtic humor greatly promoted his 
 popularity; while the daring courage and zeal with which he 
 enlisted in the patriotic movements of the day brought him 
 into contact and habits of intimacy with those famous men, 
 Thomas Chittenden and -Ethan Allen, the latter then resid 
 ing at Salisbury in the same county. He probably formed 
 the conception of the extensive iron works he afterwards 
 established in Vermont from an inspection of similar works 
 at Salisbury, Connecticut, which were in part the prop 
 erty of his friend, Ethan Allen. " The first furnace in 
 the Colony/' Judge Church said, " was built at Lake- 
 ville in Salisbury, in 1762, by John Hazleton and Ethan 
 Allen, of Salisbury, and Samuel Forbes, of Canaan."* 
 The tenacity of the iron ore of Salisbury is said to 
 be tmequaled. At a later date the National Armories of 
 Springfield and Harpers Ferry were supplied from this place, 
 and the best anchors and chain cables of the Navy were also 
 manufactured with Salisbury iron. 6 
 
 Mrs. Roe, daughter of Matthew Lyon, informed the present 
 writer, as heretofore stated, that her father's term of apprentice 
 ship lasted less than three years. " He worked out part of his 
 time, and bought the rest of it," says his daughter, " and com- 
 
 Chief Justice Samuel Church's address at the Litchfield Centennial 
 celebration, 1851. 
 Ibid. 
 
7O MATTHEW LYON 
 
 menced life for himself. " a Her statement of this fact, hitherto 
 a matter of guesswork among all writers, is important, and the 
 only authoritative one on the subject. She was seventeen 
 years old when Colonel Lyon died. She probably got the infor 
 mation from her father himself. According to Mrs. Roe, Mat 
 thew Lyon became a freeman in the year 1768. As he did not 
 leave Connecticut until 1774, the last six or seven years of his 
 life there were devoted to his own interests and pursuits. 
 During the term of his apprenticeship, Mrs. Roe adds, " he 
 had accumulated some property." 6 . He consequently did not 
 begin his career empty-handed. Lyon fell in love with a Miss 
 Hosford, probably of Salisbury, the niece of Ethan Allen, and 
 following the custom of Connecticut, where early marriages 
 were the rule, the young couple were married shortly after Lyon 
 attained his twenty-first year. 6 Canaan had been the residence 
 at one time of Ethan Allen, and of his father, Joseph Allen. 
 Possibly Miss Hosford may have lived there. But Mr. Coth- 
 ren, the historian of Ancient Woodbury, informed the author 
 that Hosford is a Salisbury and Cornwall name. 
 
 Lyon's union with this young lady proved in every way 
 happy. It supplied a new incentive to his exertions, and the 
 cares of a family soon gave to the character of the impetuous 
 youth the counterpoise of stability of the matured man. Social 
 advantages, in addition to domestic happiness, were acquired by 
 his marriage into the influential Allen family, a family soon to 
 become powerful in Vermont. This connection and the favor 
 able acceptance it met with on both sides establish the fact of 
 Matthew Lyon's respectable standing in the community where 
 
 Letter of Mrs. E. A. Roe, of May 24th, 1881. 
 b lbid 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 71 
 
 he lived. The nephew by marriage of Ethan Allen, and the favor 
 ite associate of the hero of Ticonderoga and of the other leaders 
 of the Green Mountain Boys from the origin of that celebrated 
 martial clan, was an individual of no mean pretensions from 
 his earliest manhood. The circumstance of his having begun 
 his career as an apprentice attached no discredit to Lyon's 
 name. It was only in the fierce party conflicts a quarter of a 
 century later, when his talents had made him a formidable 
 antagonist, that his political opponents seized upon the fact 
 as a weapon of ridicule to be used against him. Colonel Lyon 
 in later life always spoke with pride of his respectable standing 
 among the people of Connecticut. At the time of his alterca 
 tion with Roger Griswold, on the floor of Congress in 1798, he 
 declared he was well acquainted with the people of that State, 
 as the first part of his life in this country had been passed there. 
 He not only knew them well, he said, but having lived among 1 
 them for many years, he was confident that if he returned there 
 and set on foot a printing press for six months, although the 
 people were not fond of revolutionary principles, he could 
 effect a revolution which would result in the overthrow of the 
 Representatives in Congress from that State, since they were 
 acting in opposition to the interests and opinions of nine- 
 tenths of their constituents. 
 
 Notwithstanding the poverty and struggles of his boyhood, 
 Matthew Lyon's career in Connecticut was an honorable one. 
 Commencing as a redemptioner, and buying his freedom before 
 the expiration of his term of service, he so conducted himself 
 that every incident of his life there shows a certain law of de 
 velopment as its characteristic mark. When each year 
 
 Annals of Congress, 1798. 
 
72 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 closed he was farther advanced than at its beginning. The 
 lessons he learned in the first twelve months under old Jabez 
 Bacon, the John Jacob Astor of the Paumperaug Valley, bore 
 fruit afterwards when he became the founder of towns in Ver 
 mont and Kentucky. Resuming his studies the second year, 
 when employed by Hugh Hannah, of Litchfield, the academic 
 advantages, which had been cut short in Dublin, he revived 
 either by studying self-imposed tasks, or under the tuition of a 
 schoolmaster. He continued in this way to improve his mind 
 and his fortunes until he completed his twenty-first year. Then 
 his marriage to Miss Hosford took place. His avocations 
 during the four succeeding years are not specifically mentioned 
 in his literary remains, but they were sufficiently remunerative 
 for the maintenance of a growing family. Probably he was 
 employed in the iron works of Ethan Allen at Salisbury, as his 
 knowledge of that business was displayed at Fair Haven. His 
 associations were with men of the character of the Aliens and 
 Chittendens. Matthew Lyon and Rev. Bethuel Chittenden, a 
 well-known minister of the Episcopalian Church, and a brother 
 of Thomas Chittenden, settled in the same neighborhood in 
 Vermont, Lyon in Wallingford and Bethuel Chittenden in 
 Tinmouth, a few miles away. In fine, as far as the old chron 
 icles of Connecticut make mention of his name, Lyon appears 
 to have been a growing figure during the whole time he re 
 sided in that Colony. 
 
 Nor is his case a singular one. By their talents and services 
 to the people, many redemptioners rose to high public posi 
 tions in various parts of the country. Daniel Dulany the 
 elder, before referred to, who for forty years held the 
 first place in the confidence of the Proprietary and 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 73 
 
 the affections of the people of Maryland, was an Irish 
 redemptioner. a He was Attorney-General, Judge of the 
 Admiralty, Commissary-General, Agent and Receiver- 
 General and Councillor in the Province of Maryland during 
 the successive administrations of Governors Bladen, Ogle and 
 Sharpe. His son, the celebrated Daniel Dulany the younger, 
 was the greatest lawyer in America before the Revolution. 
 His opinion on the Stamp Act was quoted by Lord Chatham 
 with the highest commendation in his famous speech in the 
 House of Lords, May 27, 1774, on the bill authorizing the 
 quartering of British soldiers on the inhabitants of Boston. 
 
 George Taylor, a distinguished Revolutionary patriot, mem 
 ber of the Continental Congress, and one of the signers of the 
 Declaration of Independence, was, as already mentioned, an 
 other Irish redemptioner. 5 " Persons of sterling character and 
 skill in the mechanic arts," says Rev. Dr. Foote, in his 
 " Sketches of Virginia," " were found in these companies (re- 
 demptioners), and having served their alloted time with credit 
 and cheerfulness, became wealthy and held an honorable posir 
 tion in society, the descendants being unreproached for the 
 faithful servitude of their ancestors." In 1748 the great-grand 
 mother of the illustrious Stonewall Jackson came out as a re 
 demptioner from Europe to Maryland.** 
 
 To such an ambitious young man as Lyon the opportunities 
 for improvement were exceptionally favorable. Litchfield, 
 from an early day, was a place of great intellectual activity, and 
 
 oRep. Men, Md. and D. C, p. 380. 
 
 ^Sanderson's " Lives of the Signers." 
 
 c Foote's Sketches of Va., p. 263. 
 
 **" Life and Letters of General Thomas J. Jackson (Stonewall Jack 
 son)," by his Wife, Mary Anna Jackson. New York: Harper Brothers. 
 1892, p. 2. 
 
74 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 the home of many men of note. The first Law School in the 
 United States was established there, and long before Judge 
 Story's Harvard School came into existence, over one thousand 
 lawyers had been trained at Litchfield by that excellent man, 
 Judge Tapping Reeve, and his able coadjutor, Judge James 
 Gould, author of the famous book on pleading. Among the 
 number were Oliver Wolcott, Uriah Tracy, Horatio Seymour, 
 the elder, Peter B. Porter and John C. Calhoun. 
 
 a Chief Justice Samuel Church, of Connecticut, in his interesting 
 address at the Litchfield Centennial celebration in 1851, makes honor 
 able mention of a great number of prominent men who had been 
 students at the Law School in that place. It is a little singular that 
 the name of John C. Calhoun is entirely omitted, although the address 
 is replete with particulars of almost every other man of note who 
 studied there. The reader can scarcely help thinking this was a 
 studied omission, especially in view of the following inaccurate state 
 ment in the address: " Gen. Peter B. Porter was a graduate of Yale 
 College and pursued the study of the law where so many of the noted 
 men of the country have at the Litchfield Law School. * * * As 
 a member of the House of Representatives, he was associated with 
 Henry Clay on a committee to consider the causes of complaint against 
 Great Britain, and drew up the report of that committee, recommend 
 ing the declaration of the war of 1812," p. 65. Now John C. Calhoun, 
 another graduate of Yale College and a student at the Litchfield Law 
 School, was on this committee with General Porter, but his name is 
 suppressed, although he and not General Porter wrote the report 
 which Judge Church ascribes to the latter. Another misstatement by 
 the orator was the naming of Henry Clay as a member of the commit 
 tee, whereas he was Speaker of the House and of course not on the 
 committee at all. The committee referred to was the committee on 
 Foreign Relations of the House of Representatives. General Porter 
 was named as chairman, but at the first meeting of the committee, 
 Mr. Calhoun being absent, General Porter moved that Mr. Calhoun 
 be made chairman, as he himself was about to retire from Congress, 
 and the motion was unanimously carried. The members of the com 
 mittee were Peter B. Porter, John C. Calhoun, Felix Grundy, John 
 Randolph, of Roanoke, and Philip Barton Key. The report in ques 
 tion is published in " Calhoun's Works," Vol. V. In treating of so 
 important an historical fact more accuracy on the part of Chief 
 Justice Church was to have been expected. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 75 
 
 " Even after Judge Gould's connection with the School," 
 says Church, " an inspection of the catalogue will show that 
 from it have gone out among the States of this Union a Vice- 
 President of the United States, two Judges of the Supreme 
 Court of the United States, forty Judges of the highest State 
 Courts, thirteen Senators and forty-six Representatives in Con 
 gress, besides several Cabinet and Foreign Ministers."* 
 
 Litchfield, originally called the " wild Western lands," was 
 settled later than several other Connecticut towns. It was 
 long regarded as a mere sterile region of mountains and flinty 
 rocks, the habitation of warlike bands of Indians, which settlers 
 avoided. When the first pioneers ascended the steep Litchfield 
 hills, they came with axes in hand, cutting away a space for 
 their log cabins and meeting-houses, and, as a protection 
 against the weather, covering them when put up with rived 
 clapboards of oak. 
 
 They built stone fences about the clearings, and foddered 
 their cattle on the snow, and slowly the nucleus of the famous 
 town was formed. The distaff and spindle played a conspicu 
 ous part in their domestic economy, for like the queens of old, 
 they " did spin with their hands," those staunch mothers and 
 daughters of Litchfield. 
 
 " Behold, 
 
 The ruddy damsel singeth at her wheel, 
 While by her side the rustic lover sits." 
 
 The wedding suit is still growing on the backs of " individ 
 ually remembered sheep " b when the bridal day approaches, 
 and they are sheared, poor things, of their warm coats for the 
 
 "Ibid. 
 
 5 " The Age of Homespun," by Rev. Horace Bushndl. 
 
76 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 accommodation of the groom, and wrapped up and stitched in 
 blankets to keep them from perishing with the cold. 
 
 And now, when young Lyon, tempest-tossed thus far in the 
 journey of his short life, ascends the hills of Litchfield and 
 sits down within its gates, a simple, primitive society is already 
 formed there into which he is hospitably received, and where 
 he is made to feel at home. In season came the apple-paring 
 and quilting frolics, excursions to the mountain tops after the 
 haying, and other summer sports. In winter gathered round 
 the big fire-place the neighbors pass social evenings, and while 
 the blazing logs throw out a ruddy light, doughnuts and cider 
 and hickory nuts are brought out of the cupboard in order to 
 season discourse with entertainment, and drive away the look 
 of alarm which the deacon and spinster have caused to overcast 
 the Puritan Arcadia by remarking upon "the great danger com 
 ing to sound morals from the multiplication of turnpikes and 
 newspapers." 
 
 Who is yon stripling cracking hickory nuts before the fire, 
 and laughing so loudly at these dismal forebodings? Can it be 
 Matthew Lyon, the future editor of the " Scourge of Aristoc 
 racy?" 
 
 Ere Litchfield was, two or three generations (succeeding the 
 landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth), had arisen, flourished 
 and passed away. The stern Puritanism of the earlier days, 
 such as Eaton and Davenport brought to New Haven, did not 
 take root in the new settlement. The Blue Laws were relaxed. 
 Surplices, organs, and table at the west end of the church were 
 no longer abominations in the eyes and ears of the people. 
 The penal statutes against Quakers, and prescriptive of prayer 
 
 <* " The Age of Homespun," by Rev. Horace Bushnell. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 77 
 
 books and the observance of Christmas, were a dead letter in 
 the town of Litchfield. 
 
 Nowhere else in New England did so liberal and tolerant 
 a religious spirit prevail as in this county. The tone of feeling 
 at Yale College had spread to the place, where a number of 
 the alumni resided. Congregations worshipping with the 
 liturgy of the Church of England were found on the same street 
 with those of the Congregationalists, not only in Litchfield, but 
 in Woodbury, Salisbury and other townships of the county. 
 " Litchfield," President Dwight says, " is a handsome town. * 
 * * There are two congregations, a Presbyterian and an 
 Episcopal. The latter has three churches."" Sometimes the 
 Puritan dislike of Archbishop Laud, whom the early Puritans 
 styled the " short horns of Anti-Christ," and of the ritualistic 
 ceremonies of Episcopalian worship, would break out in Litch 
 field, and vent itself against members of the Church of Eng 
 land there; but the great body of the people frowned down this 
 spirit, and kept persecution at a distance. " A more tolerant 
 and of course a better spirit," Chief Justice Church says, "came 
 with our fathers into this county, and it has ever since been 
 producing here its legitimate effects, and in some degree has 
 distinguished the character and the action of Litchfield county 
 throughout its entire history." 6 
 
 There was less of doctrinal subtlety and Old Testament 
 metaphysics among its pastors than among the Plymouth 
 clergy. The moderate spirit of Oliver Wolcott the younger, 
 and Tapping Reeve and James Gould, offset the sterner Puri 
 tanism of Lyman Beecher and John Cotton Smith. 
 
 " D wight's Travels," Vol. II, p. 370. 
 6 Church's Litchfield Centennial address. 
 
78 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 Students from all of the Southern States, especially from 
 South Carolina and Georgia, attended the Litchfield Law 
 School, taking their place side by side, as a band of brothers, 
 with their fellow students of the New England States. Sec 
 tional animosity had not yet effected a lodgment in the hearts 
 of Americans. 
 
 The restless spirit of adventure which had accompanied the 
 first settlers to Litchfield, impelling them into untried fields, 
 began to shoot out in new directions several years before the 
 Revolutionary war. The tide first turned to Vermont, which 
 was largely settled by the sons of this county. In the border 
 wars of the Green Mountain Boys with New York and New 
 Hampshire, and in the questionable intrigue of some of the 
 Vermonters with the British enemy during the closing years 
 of the Revolution, it is said on respectable authority that the 
 policy adopted by Vermont in each instance was inspired from 
 Litchfield. But the intrigue with the British reflects no credit 
 on any of the parties to it. If the scheme originated at the 
 house of the elder Governor Wolcott, perhaps Chief Justice 
 Church, the eulogist of Wolcott, was not aware when he made 
 the revelation that the Continental Congress in 1780 declared 
 that intrigue " subversive of the peace and welfare of the 
 United States." 
 
 It is often the case that the well kept secrets of 
 one generation are inadvertently unearthed and brought to 
 light by the chronicler of another generation, intent only on an 
 individual narrative, and unconscious of the larger historical 
 importance it may possess. The more recently published 
 Haldimand correspondence, which discloses the secret negotia 
 
 " De Puy's Green Mountain Boys," p. 409. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 79 
 
 tions between the British and the Vermont leaders, does not 
 connect the name of Wolcott with that Janus-faced diplomacy 
 which so stirred the wrath of General Stark, a and indeed of the 
 people of Vermont themselves. An unsealed letter became the 
 tell-tale witness, and the contrivers of the plot were put to 
 their wit's end to appease the indignation it produced among 
 the people. The letter contained an apology from the British 
 commander, General St. Leger, for the killing of a Vermont 
 soldier, Sergeant Tupper, by one of the enemy, in consequence, 
 said St. Leger, of " my picket not knowing the situation."' 6 
 Extraordinary apology! Was the war over between Vermont 
 and Great Britain? General St. Leger buried the Vermonter 
 with a suspicious display of respect, and sent back his effects 
 to General Enos, the commander of the Vermont troops. The 
 letter which he also sent fell into the wrong hands, the matter 
 was brought before the legislative body, and the Green Moun 
 tain Boys scented treason in the air. The fine Machiavellian 
 hand of Ira Allen was required to allay the rising storm. 
 
 " In her (Vermont's) dilemma, " says Church, " her most 
 sagacious men resorted to the councils of their old friends of 
 Litchfield county, and it is said that her final course was shaped, 
 and her designs accomplished by the advice of a confidential 
 council assembled at the house of Governor Wolcott in this 
 'village." 6 
 
 Vermont has been claimed by some Connecticut writers as 
 the child of Litchfield county. The principal founders of the 
 
 a Prof. James Davie Butler's address before Vermont Historical 
 Society, 1846. " Vermont Historical Society," Vol. II, " Haldimand 
 Papers." 
 
 b " Vermont Historical Gazetteer," Vol. I, p. 819. 
 
 Church's Centennial address at Litchfield, 1851. 
 
8O MATTHEW LYON 
 
 hardy little State emigrated from that county. Ethan Allen 
 and his several brothers, as well as Thomas Chittenden, Seth 
 Warner, Matthew Lyon, Remember Baker, the Galushas, Chip- 
 mans, and other Vermont magnates all hailed from Connecticut. 
 Among these distinguished Litchfieldians, four became gover 
 nors of Vermont, three senators in Congress, and several of 
 them members of the House of Representatives, including in 
 the last category the subject of this biography. 
 
 Of Matthew Lyon's marriage with Miss Hosford^ four 
 children were born, Ann, James, Pamelia and Loraine, names 
 given to them for members of the Allen family. Ann, the 
 oldest child, married John Messenger, of Vermont. They emi 
 grated to Kentucky in 1799, and Mrs. Messenger lived to be 
 an octogenarian. James was sent by his father to Philadel 
 phia and placed under charge of the illustrious Benjamin 
 Franklin. Following in the footsteps of his father, he learned 
 the trade of a printer. He returned to Vermont an active 
 business man. During the latter years of his father's residence 
 in that State James rendered him valuable assistance in con 
 ducting his newspaper, "The Farmer's Library," and his maga 
 zine called "The Scourge of Aristocracy;" also in managing his 
 father's extensive iron works, mills and other interests at Fair 
 Haven during the latter's absence in the State Legislature, and 
 afterwards as a member of Congress. James Lyon, honored 
 with the friendship and correspondence of Jefferson, subse 
 quently became a citizen of South Carolina, where he died in 
 1824. Pamelia married Dr. George Cadwell, of Hampton, 
 New York, and removed to Kentucky with her husband and 
 father. Loraine, the youngest child of Colonel Lyon's first mar- 
 
 o Letter of Mrs. Roe. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 8l 
 
 riage, also accompanied her father to Kentucky, but con 
 tracted a fever and died very soon after her arrival in Eddy- 
 ville, at the age of seventeen. She was the first white person 
 whose death occurred in the new settlement,* and her early 
 demise proved a severe affliction to her father and other rela 
 tives. 
 
 According to the best authorities Ethan Allen, the oldest of 
 the famous brothers, set out for the valley of Lake Champlain 
 in the year I766 6 . Ira Allen, the youngest brother, followed 
 in 1771. The latter went with Remember Baker to Onion 
 river in 1772 to survey lands they had there purchased. Sub 
 sequently these settlers formed an association which was 
 known as " The Onion River Land Company." The members 
 were Ethan Allen, Remember Baker, Heman Allen, Zimri 
 Allen and Ira Allen.* They purchased an immense tract em 
 bracing over 300,000 acres between Ferrisburgh and the 
 Canada line, upon the Lake shore, which comprised the greater 
 part of eleven townships. But the tide of war bore the settlers 
 hither and thither during the Revolution. After the peace Ira 
 Allen returned, and did much to develop the country, especially 
 in the neighborhood of Winooski Falls. 
 
 These pioneers were soon followed by many of their former 
 , neighbors in Connecticut. Benning Wentworth, Governor of 
 
 Mrs. Roe's letter. 
 
 *> " Vermont Historical Magazine," Vol. I, p. 561. 
 
 Ibid, Vol. I, p. 770. 
 
 d " Bennington was granted in the year 1749 by Benning Wentworth, 
 Governor of New Hampshire, and from him received its name. In 
 1764 Captain Robinson, a respectable inhabitant of Hard wick in the 
 Province of Massachusetts Bay, having purchased a tract of land, be 
 gan the settlement of Vermont, on the western side of the Green 
 Mountains in this place. He was soon followed by a number of 
 planters; and the township was filled up with great rapidity" 
 Dwighfs Travels, II, 402^3. 
 
82 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 New Hampshire, had discovered a rich placer in the country- 
 west of the Green Mountains, and for many years he was in the 
 habit of issuing patents or grants of land in the Valley of Lake 
 Champlain, from the proceeds of which land speculations he 
 amassed a large fortune. Hence the name of New Hampshire 
 Grants. Settlers flocked in from Massachusetts, New Hamp 
 shire, and especially from Connecticut. 
 
 Among these early pioneers came Thomas Chittenden, from 
 Salisbury, Connecticut, destined to be the first and most fam 
 ous Governor of Vermont; and Matthew Lyon, from Litchfield, 
 whose services to the State were only second in importance to 
 those of Chittenden, of the two Aliens, and of Seth Warner; 
 and whose achievements in the wider sphere of the National 
 House of Representatives were greater than those of any of 
 the early Vermonters. The annals of the country would be 
 incomplete without a narrative of the part taken by this born 
 leader of men during the administrations of Adams, Jefferson 
 and Madison. It is not surprising that Mr. Wharton in his valu 
 able work, "The State Trials of the United States," should call 
 attention to the want of a biography of Matthew Lyon as a 
 deficiency in American literature. 
 
 A pioneer by nature, Lyon rejoiced in frontier life, and took 
 as much delight as Daniel Boone himself in threading the soli 
 tude of the trackless forest. But while Boone remained always 
 a forester, Lyon was both forester and statesman, at home in' 
 the wilds on Lake Champlain and the forests of Kentucky, and 
 distinguished as a debater and originator of sound measures 
 in Congress. He was captivated by the glowing accounts sent 
 back to Connecticut by the advance guard in Vermont. 
 
 The country in fact deserved the praise lavished on it by the 
 land speculators. It had remained a wilderness ever since 
 1609, when the celebrated Samuel Champlain, Father of New 
 
THE HAMEDEN OF CONGRESS 83 
 
 France, discovered the lake which bears his name, and rashly- 
 participated with the Algonquins in that famous battle with the 
 Iroquois, which, from the mighty results traceable directly to 
 it as a cause, deserves to be ranked, not as an insignificant 
 skirmish between a handful of savages, but rather as one of the 
 decisive battles of the world. From that day forth the Iro 
 quois hated the name of a Frenchman, and the powerful Con 
 federacy of the Five Nations did more to drive France from the 
 new world than was accomplished in the same direction by the 
 arms of England on the Heights of Abraham, when Wolfe fell 
 in the arms of victory, and Montcalm closed his illustrious 
 career in defeat. Middle space between the territories of fierce 
 Iroquois and Algonquins, and afterward between New France 
 and New England, scarcely less savage in their wars with each 
 other than the Indians, the Valley of Lake Champlain was the 
 dark and bloody ground of colonial history. Its solitude was 
 unbroken save by the crack of the rifle, or the war-whoop of the 
 savage as his tomahawk descended on his victim. " Every 
 rustle of a shaken leaf " even after the New England settlers 
 began to arrive " seemed an Indian tread; every tree an In 
 dian covert; every window a mark for his rifle." a 
 
 Matthew Lyon read with admiration of this magnificent 
 valley, and its Green Mountains dedicated from the dawn of 
 creation to the sublime and beautiful in nature; how the terri 
 tory just reclaimed from the savages was opened up to the uses 
 of civilized man; how its lakes and rivers were shaded by 
 forests of pine, elm and chestnut; the uplands timbered with a 
 luxuriant growth of maple, beech and birch; and the moun 
 tains, lifting their peaks among the clouds, were covered from 
 base to sky-piercing summit in a tropical mantle of evergreens. 
 
 fl Prof. James Davie Butler's address before Vermont Historical 
 Society, 1846. 
 
84 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 Moose, deer, otter, beaver, and other animals supplied the 
 hunter with game; and the lakes, rivers and smaller streams 
 were replenished with fish of good quality and in great variety. 
 In the spring of 1774 Lyon and his family bade friends in 
 Litchfield adieu, and set out for the new country across the 
 Green Mountains. Strange to say, no writer appears to be 
 informed of the precise time of his arrival in Vermont. But 
 the date is fixed by the Colonel himself in the brief narrative 
 of his career in Connecticut and Vermont which he recounted 
 in 1798 on the floor of Congress. This narrative, and the let 
 ters and documents placed in the hands of the present writer 
 by his descendants, conclusively show that he went to Vermont 
 during the same spring that Thomas Chittenden emigrated. 
 It is not unlikely that Thomas Chittenden, Matthew Lyon and 
 Jonathan Spafford, with their several families, formed part of 
 one emigrant train. Governor Chittenden set out in the 
 month of May, 1774." In Mr. John Strong's graphic sketch 
 of Addison, Vermont, it is said some of the early Litchfield 
 emigrants took the route through Albany across the Hudson 
 to Fort Gurney, and thence through Lake George to Ticonde- 
 roga, and down Lake Champlain to their respective destina 
 tions. 6 But it is believed Chittenden and Lyon carried in 
 their train household wares and farming utensils, and it is r 
 therefore, more probable their route was northward through 
 Goshen, Cornwall, and Canaan, Connecticut, across the line 
 into Massachusetts, and thence through Sheffield, " delightfully 
 romantic Stockbridge," and Williamstown, famous for its Col 
 lege, Alma Mater of President Garfield, whence they passed the 
 
 < Hon. David Read in " Vermont Historical Magazine," Vol. I. 
 Strong's sketch, Ibid, Vol. I, p. 7. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 85 
 
 border into Vermont. Fourteen miles beyond the Massachu 
 setts line lies Bennington. Thence to Wallingford, via Man 
 chester, the pioneers took their way. At this point Matthew 
 Lyon stopped, made his pitch of lares and penates, and looked 
 round on earth, sky and lake, horizon of his first home in the 
 wilderness. Bidding God speed to his fellow-travelers, he 
 beheld the hardy pioneers as they moved off, no doubt on his 
 side with sorrowful heart, for Thomas Chittenden, destined to 
 become his father-in-law at a later date, was one of those 
 rugged captains and noble souls in life's battle whose con 
 versation was a joy to all who were brought into his society. 
 Wallingford, Lyon's first abode in the Hampshire Grants, is 
 situated on Otter Creek in the southeastern section of Rutland 
 county, between thirty and forty miles from Ticonderoga. 
 After parting company with Lyon, Thomas Chittenden and his 
 fellow pioneers continued the journey to Ticonderoga, and 
 thence down Lake Champlain to Onion or Winooski river, 
 and up that river to Williston, a spot of wonderful beauty, sixty 
 or seventy miles further north than where Lyon and his little 
 family had pitched their tents. 
 
 The celebrated President Dwight, of Yale College, was in 
 the habit of spending vacations in traveling through New 
 England and New York. He visited Vermont several times, 
 and has left graphic pictures of the Green Mountains and of the 
 Valley of Lake Champlain. His sketches of the hardy race of 
 men who settled the country are drawn in colors much less 
 bright. He took notes and collected materials during his 
 journeys for a book which was published in four volumes, his 
 well-known " Travels in New England and New York." Such 
 is the uncertain fate of literary efforts, that Dr. Dwight, who 
 
86 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 spent a lifetime in writing that ponderous work " Theology 
 Explained and Defended," besides hundreds of sermons and 
 long ambitious poems, as the solid edifice upon which his fame 
 might rest, is now best remembered by the production of his 
 leisure hours, written perhaps as a relief from more exhausting 
 occupations. What he prized most, and fondly thought 
 would win immortality, has become nearly obsolete, while his 
 modest book of travels has not only made his name famous in 
 the world of letters, but deservedly ranks as an American 
 classic. It is chaste in style, eloquent in descriptions of natural 
 scenery, and valuable to the historical student as an animated 
 picture of the manners, customs and modes of life in New 
 England and New York nearly a century ago. In a review of 
 this work Robert Southey said : " The work before us, though 
 the humblest in its pretences, is the most important of his 
 writings, and will derive additional value from time, whatever 
 may become of his poetry and of his sermons." a " He has 
 done more," Chancellor Kent said, " than any other person to 
 explain and recommend to the respect of mankind, the wisdom 
 of the institutions of New England, and the progress of her 
 settlements, her geography, her history and her biography." 5 
 
 Dr. Dwight was the greatest, as well as the most delightful, 
 of the New England schoolmasters. Had Daniel Webster 
 enjoyed the inestimable advantage of his instructions, the 
 Jupiter Tonans of American eloquence might have boasted, as 
 Alexander the Great said of Aristotle, that the wisest of his 
 countrymen had been his instructor. But Dr. Dwight had for 
 pupil John C. Calhoun, and moulded the plastic genius of the 
 
 Robert Southey in " London Quarterly Review," Vol. XXX, p. i. 
 & Kent's address before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, New Haven, 
 1831. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 87 
 
 South Carolina prodigy with consummate art, and a parental 
 fondness born of admiration of his pupil's shining parts. 
 " That young man," he said one day to a friend, " has talents 
 enough to be President of the United States." 
 
 In the year 1798 Dr. D wight visited Wallingford, Vermont, 
 the home of Matthew Lyon in the new settlement from 1774 to 
 1777. He also visited Fair Haven, the flourishing little town 
 of which Colonel Lyon was the founder and most distinguished 
 citizen. Extending his journey the Doctor, at a later day, 
 visited the plantation of Governor Chittenden in Williston. 
 He gives us glimpses of these places. 
 
 " Thursday, September 26 (1798), we rode to Rutland before 
 dinner, twenty miles. Our journey lay along the principal 
 branch of Otter Creek. The mountain on the west having 
 terminated in Wallingford, we escaped from our defile into an 
 open and more agreeable country. Wallingford contained in 
 1790, 536; in 1800, 912; in 1810, 1,316 inhabitants." 6 During 
 this trip the Doctor's morality suffered a shock at one of these 
 towns, name not given in the text. " We lodged at an inn, 
 where we found, what I never before saw in New England, a 
 considerable number of men assembled on Saturday evening, 
 for the ordinary purposes of tavern-haunting. They continued 
 their orgies until near two o'clock in the morning, scarcely 
 permitting us to sleep at all. Early the next morning, these 
 wretches assembled again for their Sunday morning dram, 
 when we left the inn and went to a neighboring house as early 
 as possible, disgusted with the manners of so irreligious a 
 family." 
 
 R. M. T. Hunter's "Life of Calhoun, 1845," p. 6. 
 
 * " Dwight's Travels," Vol. II, pp. 410-11. 
 
 Ibid, Vol. II, p. 411. 
 
88 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 The Doctor's Puritan zeal bridles up at any comparison be 
 tween Connecticut and Vermont. " I shall further be told, 
 perhaps," exclaims the good Timothy, like some haughty old 
 Athenian waving away from the Parthenon garish maidens of 
 Chios or Rhodes, " that the inhabitants of Vermont are, in a 
 great proportion, either such as were originally citizens of Con 
 necticut, or children of those citizens." But the schoolman 
 is ready with his distinction : " The men who originated the 
 policy of Connecticut were a very different class of human 
 beings from those who formed the system of Vermont. Intel 
 ligence and piety flourished under the fostering care of those 
 who founded Connecticut. They are growing up in Vermont 
 in spite of these founders."" It may be doubted, however, 
 malgre the learned Doctor, whether Vermont was less fortu 
 nate than the land of Steady Habits for being free of the Blue 
 Laws. "Wednesday, October 3d," he says, "we left West 
 Haven, and rode through Fair Haven. * * * Most of the 
 road was tolerably good. Fair Haven is geneally a rough, dis 
 agreeable township. The only exception to this remark, within 
 our view, was on its southern limit along Pulteney river, where 
 there is a small tract of handsome intervals. The only cheer 
 ful object which met our view before we reached the river was 
 a collection of very busy mills and other waterworks." 
 These mills and waterworks were the property of Mat 
 thew Lyon, but the Puritan saint does not condescend 
 to name the Democratic sinner. Matthew about that 
 time was in jail as a Republican incorrigible. " Fair Haven, 
 in 1790, included West Haven, and contained 545 inhabitants; 
 
 "Ibid, Vol. II, p. 473. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 89 
 
 in 1800, there were in Fair Haven 411, and in 1810, 645. Both 
 of these townships are small." a 
 
 In the year 1806 the Doctor made another tour through 
 Vermont, and gives us a glimpse of Governor Chittenden's 
 settlement. " In Jericho we passed by a beautiful plantation, 
 formerly the property of Governor Chittenden, now of Major- 
 General Chittenden, one of the members of the American Con 
 gress." 6 This Major-General was Martin Chittenden, brother- 
 in-law of Matthew Lyon by his second marriage, and his close 
 friend. In one of Lyon's letters to President Josiah Quincy, 
 of Harvard University, another of his intimate friends, he con 
 cludes by saying: " Give my respects to my friends, and as 
 sure them I have not forgotten them. I write by this mail to 
 my brother Chittenden, and shall not repeat to him what I 
 have said to you. With affectionate regard, I am, 
 
 " Truly Your Friend, 
 
 " M. LYON." 
 
 President Quincy and General Chittenden were then in Con 
 gress, 1812, and Colonel Lyon was in Kentucky. 
 
 " Onion river/' Dr. Dwight says, " furnishes several romantic 
 scenes. * * * The estate of Hon. Mr. Chittenden is the most 
 beautiful spot on its banks; and probably one of the most fer 
 tile in the American Union. To a person satisfied with rural 
 solitude it must be a charming residence." This romantic 
 spot was the home in her girlhood of Beulah Chittenden, 
 second wife of Matthew Lyon. 
 
 But while Dr. Dwight gives an interesting account of the 
 infant settlement of the Hampshire Grants, it cannot be re- 
 
 /Wd, Vol. II, p. 455- 
 
 *lbid, Vol. II, p. 429- 
 
 " Dwight's Travels," Vol. II, p. 433. 
 
9O MATTHEW LYON 
 
 garded as an impartial one. This eminent scholar had the 
 fault, sometimes found among persons with set ideas, of not 
 thinking as well of their neighbors as they might. Ethan Allen 
 was one of his inveterate aversions. For all Frenchmen the 
 good Doctor's dislike was still more marked. Of the hero of 
 Ticonderoga he thus speaks: 
 
 " This man was born at Salisbury, in Connecticut. His 
 education was confined, and furnished him with a mere smat 
 tering of knowledge. * * * Licentious in his disposition, 
 he was impatient of the restraints either of government or 
 religion, and not always submissive to those of common 
 decency. * * * A little circle of loose persons will always 
 gather about a man of this description. Allen was surrounded 
 by a herd of such men. * * * At length he determined to 
 become an instructor of the public. This was a fatal step. He 
 neither understood the subject, nor knew how to write. * * 
 He named his book the ' Oracles of Reason/ after a wretched 
 publication of Charles Blount, one of the pertest and weakest 
 of all the British infidels, but probably Allen's favorite author, 
 and not improbably the only one whose works he had read. 
 This was the first formal publication in the United States 
 openly directed against the Christian religion. When it came 
 out I read as much of it as I could summon patience to read. 
 Decent nonsense may probably amuse an idle hour; but brutal 
 nonsense can be only read as an infliction of penal justice. The 
 style was crude and vulgar; and the sentiments were coarser 
 than the style. The arguments were flimsy and unmeaning, 
 and the conclusions were fastened upon the premises by mere 
 force."* 
 
 The Doctor names Salisbury as Ethan Allen's birthplace. But 
 Ancient Woodbury, Litchfield, and other places have also 
 
 " Dwight's Travels," Vol. II, pp. 406-7. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 91 
 
 'claimed the same honor. "He was a native of this county," says 
 Chief Justice Church in his Litchfield Centennial address ; but 
 he, too, must have his fling at the old hero, for he tells us : "The 
 town of his nativity has been a matter of dispute, but it is not 
 a question worth solving." If Ethan Allen was " licentious in 
 his disposition," Dr. Dwight should have furnished proof of 
 so grave a charge. His ingenuous nature rendered his life 
 like an open book, but nowhere is licentiousness nor a viola 
 tion of the " restraints of common decency " to be found in the 
 acts of Ethan Allen. " The herd of loose persons," with whom 
 the Doctor contemptuously surrounded him, were the Green 
 Mountain Boys, rough foresters, it is true, but so were the 
 Spartans of antiquity ; so were the inhabitants of the Swiss Can 
 tons in the age of William Tell ; and so were many of the early 
 American Colonists those " embattled farmers " whose valor 
 contributed chiefly to the independence of the United States. 
 The services of the Green Mountain Boys were freely and 
 effectively rendered in the Revolution. Seth Warner was one 
 of the persons that surrounded Allen, and indeed was his own 
 cousin. Warner's services at the battle of Bennington have 
 placed his name with that of the hero of the victory, General 
 Stark, in the first rank of the soldiers of the Revolution. Such 
 a man deserved better requital than to be classed opprobriously 
 among a " herd of loose persons." Matthew Lyon was another 
 of the associates of Ethan Allen, having married his niece, and 
 Lyon was neither a roysterer nor "tavern-haunter," but a 
 strictly sober and highly intellectual man. a 
 
 Allen's infidelity deserved censure, and Dr. Dwight is not 
 too severe on his quixotic " Oracles of Reason," over which 
 happily the veil of oblivion has long since fallen. The Doctor 
 is perhaps mistaken in ascribing to Charles Blount the respon- 
 
 Letter of Mr. F. A. Wilson, of Kentucky. 
 
92 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 sibility for his theological vagaries. Allen's model was 
 Thomas Young, the Philadelphia sceptic. They were acquain 
 tances and correspondents, and Allen was a close reader of 
 Young's infidel publications. 
 
 Even the glorious achievement of this whirlwind of a man 
 in capturing Ticonderoga is slightingly dismissed by Dr. 
 Dwight. " In the bustling part of the American Revolution," 
 he says, "Colonel Allen made some noise." Was there a quiet 
 part? Is bustle or noise out of place in a revolution? Who 
 has heard of that paradox in resounding war? A cold recital 
 of the facts of such a soul-stirring achievement of American 
 valor as the capture of Ticonderoga, premised by a paradox, 
 is all that the hero of such an enterprise receives at the hands 
 of the Yale philosopher. 
 
 Dr. Dwight is equally severe on the State government. The 
 town of Vergennes was founded by Ethan Allen, and received 
 its name from him as a tribute to the Count de Vergennes, 
 " whom," says the Doctor, " ardent, uninformed and short 
 sighted Americans at that time believed to be a friend of this 
 country." 
 
 Whether on account of its French name, or other equally 
 repellent cause, the Doctor conceived an antipathy for the 
 place. " A traveler," he says, " is compelled to laugh at this 
 freak of Colonel Allen. * * * Vergennes was indeed in 
 tended for the seat of government, and so are half a dozen other 
 places. Whether any of them will ever become what they so 
 ardently covet; whether there will be a seat of government in 
 the State, or whether the Legislature will continue to roll on 
 wheels from town to town, as they have hitherto done; no 
 human foresight can determine. The Legislature itself has 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 93 
 
 been at least equally freakish with the projector of this city; 
 and seems at present little more inclined to settle than any 
 other bird of passage."* 
 
 Vermont and Vermonters had evidently fallen from Dr. 
 Dwight's good graces. A better acquaintance with their his 
 tory, their struggles, privations, and final success in establish 
 ing their State might have softened the Doctor's splenetic 
 temper, and saved him from the utterance of many things 
 about them that were ungracious, and of some things that were 
 not just. A single further extract will serve to illustrate his 
 acerbity in writing about the early settlers of Vermont. " A 
 considerable number," he writes, " of those who first claimed 
 and acquired influence in the State of Vermont during its early 
 periods, were men of loose principles and loose morals. They 
 were either professed infidels, Universalists, or persons who 
 exhibited the morals of these two classes of mankind. We 
 cannot expect, therefore, to find the public measures of Ver 
 mont distinguished at that time by any peculiar proofs of in 
 tegrity or justice."' 6 
 
 After these animadversions so unexpected from such a writer, 
 it is reassuring to be told in conclusion that " the religious, and 
 of course the moral, state of Vermont is improving." 6 
 
 Not thus speaks the American Goldsmith, Washington Irv 
 ing, of the leader of the Green Mountain Boys. After referring 
 to the border strifes between Yorkers and the inhabitants of 
 the Hampshire Grants, down to the period of the Revolution, 
 Washington Irving says : " Thus Ethan Allen was becoming a 
 
 " Dwight's Travels," Vol. II, p. 421. 
 b lbid, Vol. II, p. 471. 
 Vol. II, p. 474- 
 
94 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 kind of Robin Hood among the mountains when the present 
 crisis changed the relative position of things as if by magic. 
 Ethan Allen at once stepped forward a patriot, and volunteered 
 with his Green Mountain Boys to serve in the popular cause. 
 He was well fitted for the enterprise in question by his ex 
 perience as a frontier champion, his robustness of mind and 
 body, and his fearless spirit. He had a kind of rough elo 
 quence also that was very effective with his followers. ' His 
 style/ says one, who knew him personally, ' was a singular 
 compound of local barbarisms, scriptural phrases, and oriental 
 wildness ; and though unclassic and sometimes ungrammatical, 
 was highly animated and forcible/ " a 
 
 After Ethan Allen came back from captivity, he visited Gen 
 eral Washington at Valley Forge, and was received by the 
 Father of his Country with distinguished marks of attention. 
 So much interest did Washington feel in him that he sought 
 preferment for Allen in the Continental Army, and wrote a 
 strong letter on the subject to the President of Congress, an 
 unusual step for him to take in behalf of any one. " His forti 
 tude and firmness," he wrote, " seem to have placed him out 
 of the reach of misfortune. There is an original something 
 about him that commands admiration, and his long captivity 
 and sufferings have only served to increase if possible his en 
 thusiastic zeal. He appears very desirous of rendering his 
 services to the States, and of being employed ; and at the same 
 time he does not discover any ambition for high rank." 6 
 
 Timothy Dwight's opinion of Ethan Allen evidently was not 
 shared by George Washington, or Washington Irving. 
 
 a Irving's " Life of Washington," Vol. I, pp. 404-5. 
 6 Ibid, Vol. Ill, p. 378. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 95 
 
 Of the French the Doctor spoke with still greater acrimony 
 than of Ethan Allen or of the Green Mountain Boys. But it 
 should be remembered he was a Federalist in politics, and 
 these unlocked for explosions of wrath on the part of a man 
 distinguished at other times for gentleness of disposition and 
 urbanity of manners, may be attributed rather to party excite 
 ment than to a purpose to treat others unfairly. 
 
 What Dr. Dwight says in relation to the French setting up 
 unfounded claims to the country along Lake Champlain is not 
 supported by history or public law. Samuel Champlain dis 
 covered Lake Champlain on the 4th of July, 1609, and pushed 
 his explorations as far south as Ticonderoga and Lake George, 
 four years before the Dutch settled New York, and eleven 
 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. By the laws 
 of nations, universally recognized, the discovery of lands in 
 the new world vested undisputed title to those lands in the 
 nation under the authority of which the discoverer had set out. 
 
 If Dr. Dwight's strictures on Ethan Allen are met by the 
 conflicting testimony of General Washington, his animadversions 
 upon the French are confronted by the same high authority. 
 In a letter to Colonel Laurens, sent out as Special American En- 
 yoy to France to solicit assistance in the crisis of the Revolu 
 tion, Washington said: " This country has been brought to a 
 crisis which renders immediate, efficacious assistance from 
 abroad indispensable to its safety. It is impossible to extricate 
 ourselves from our embarrassments. There is an absolute 
 necessity of speedy and ample relief, a relief not within the 
 compass of our means." a He also wrote to Dr. Franklin, 
 then American Minister to France, and said : " The opposition 
 
 ^Diplomatic Correspondence Am. Rev. IX, 211. Sparks's Writings 
 of Washington VII. 370. 
 
96 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 of America to England must soon cease, if our allies cannot 
 afford us that effectual aid, particularly in money and in a 
 naval superiority, which is now solicited."" In another and 
 still more urgent letter Washington declared : " If France 
 delays a powerful and timely aid in this critical posture of our 
 affairs, it will avail us nothing that she attempt it hereafter. 
 In a word, we are at the end of our tether, and now or never 
 our deliverance must come." 6 
 
 And it did come, though Dr. Dwight seemed to have for 
 gotten it. France sent us ten thousand men, a powerful fleet, 
 and eight millions of money, and with this timely aid the 
 Revolution was closed at Yorktown in victory. When the 
 intelligence of Cornwallis's surrender reached Europe, France 
 went wild with joyous acclamations, and Paris was illuminated 
 for three nights in succession. Salutes of guns, bonfires, and 
 civic and military processions witnessed the enthusiasm that 
 welled up from the hearts of the French people in every city 
 and town in the kingdom. 
 
 But Dr. Dwight's mind was evidently warped by the peculiar 
 religious opinions of which he was the ablest expounder in his 
 day. Could he only have emancipated his great intellectual 
 powers from such a thraldom, and viewed the events and 
 persons he so eloquently portrays, as a philosopher and as a 
 statesman, he would have done more justice to the patriotic 
 services of the Green Mountain Boys and their intrepid leaders, 
 and recognized in Matthew Lyon the extraordinary ability 
 which, as I shall show in subsequent chapters, raised kim to 
 eminence, and entitled him to the gratitude of posterity. 
 
 The Writings of Washington, VII, pp. 379 etc. 
 *Ibid. Dip. Cor. Am. Rev. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 97 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HAMPSHIRE GRANTS CONTROVERSY ETHAN ALLEN TAKES 
 TICONDEROGA LYON IN THE STORMING PARTY NEXT 
 SEES SERVICE IN CANADA UNDER SETH WARNER THE JERI 
 CHO AFFAIR RETREAT FROM TICONDEROGA AMERICAN 
 DEFEAT AT HUBBARDTON LYON GUIDES ST. CLAIR SAFELY 
 TO HUDSON RIVER. 
 
 T N the spring of 1774 Lyon purchased lands in the township of 
 Wallingford, Vermont, afterwards known as Lyon's planta 
 tion, and took up his residence upon this purchase situated 
 about thirty miles from Ticonderoga. a In Hiland Hall's 
 " Early History of Vermont," that author mentions a patent 
 for 32,000 acres of land in the townships of Clarendon and 
 Wallingford issued by Governor Tryon, of New York, to Ben 
 jamin Spencer, of Durham, on the 7th of January, 1772. But 
 Mr. Hall was in error. There was no New York patent in 
 1772 for land in Wallingford. In a letter to Lord Dartmouth, 
 dated New York, July i, 1773, Governor Tryon says: " There 
 are fifteen townships granted by New Hampshire, and which 
 have been confirmed by New York/' 6 and " that there are one 
 hundred and fourteen townships of six miles square granted by 
 New Hampshire besides those fifteen which have been con 
 firmed by New York." c The fifteen townships are enumerated, 
 
 a Vermont Historical Society Collections, Vol. I, p. 16. 
 & Doct. Hist. N. Y., Vol. IV, p. 506. 
 c Ibid, Vol. IV, p. 507. 
 
98 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 and Wallingford is not one of them; but directly following is 
 another list of twelve, prefaced by the following remark: 
 " Townships for which confirmations have not issued, altho' 
 long since advised to be granted." In this list appears the 
 name of Wallingford. 
 
 Title by intrusion or occupancy, or what a celebrated son of 
 Vermont of a later age, Senator Stephen A. Douglas, called 
 " Squatter Sovereignty," was the best title many early settlers 
 could boast. To this class belonged one Scott, the first comer 
 in Wallingford, 6 whose rude log cabin is described in verse by 
 Tom Rowley, the Shoreham bard, writer of unpremeditated 
 homely lays which stirred the hearts of the Green Mountain 
 Boys only less deeply than the wild eloquence of Ethan Allen. 
 
 Abraham Jackson, commonly called the Deacon, was a con 
 temporary of Lyon, arriving at Wallingford some months be 
 fore him, being the first legal settler under a Hampshire Grants 
 patent. But John Hopkins, of Salem, New York, whose piety 
 was once so scandalized by a profane laborer that he drove him 
 out of the field with a pitchfork, preceded Jackson by nearly 
 three years, having his home on West Hill. The Ives family 
 were well represented in primitive Wallingford, Abraham Ives, 
 Lent Ives and Nathaniel Ives being contemporaries and neigh 
 bors of Matthew Lyon. Daniel and Benjamin Bradley, and 
 Joseph Randall and Joseph Jackson also figured among the 
 early settlers of the town. A particular friend of Matthew 
 Lyon lived in the next township. This was Rev. Bethuel Chit- 
 tenden, of St. Stephen's parish, in Tinmouth, brother of the 
 Governor. Here, too, were found at that day Vermont pio- 
 
 a lbid, p. 477- 
 
 6 V. H. M., Vol. III. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 99 
 
 neers whose names are handed down among the pillars of the 
 infant State. Samuel Mattocks, Stephen Royce, Elisha Clark 
 and Samuel Chipman, to mention no more, were there to 
 spread the salt of Puritan virtue in the wilderness, and to re 
 claim it from savage occupation. The last named, Samuel 
 Chipman, was an honest blacksmith, whose famous son, Na 
 thaniel Chipman, became a judge and senator of renown. He 
 was in frequent rivalry in politics with Matthew Lyon, and once 
 had a sharp personal collision with him, Chipman being as 
 uncompromising a Federalist as Lyon was a stern Democrat. 
 A daughter of the Nathaniel Ives here mentioned, Mrs. Me- 
 linda Chatterton, survived almost to the present age, dying in 
 1867, in her 97th year; although a daughter of Matthew Lyon, 
 Mrs. Eliza A. Roe, widow of Rev. John Roe, of Illinois, died 
 twenty years later, in 1887. If Mrs - Chatterton was a delight 
 ful reminiscent of early Wallingford, counting her long years 
 by taking a journey back in memory " to the doorless and 
 hearthless log house by the Roaring Brook " which meanders 
 through the village, Mrs. Roe, with the ready pen of an author 
 and a marvellous recollection of the stirring historic events in 
 her father's life, furnished the present writer with particulars 
 concerning Matthew Lyon which the world would never have 
 known of but for that estimable old lady. 
 
 Mr. Joel C. Baker, of Rutland, one of the speakers at the 
 Wallingford centennial celebration which took place in 1873, 
 
 "V. H. M., Vol. Ill, p. 1174- 
 
 b Two books written by Mrs. Roe are in the author's possession, 
 " Aunt Leanna or Early Scenes in Kentucky," Chicago, published for 
 the author, 1855, and " Recollections of Frontier Life," Rockford, 
 Illinois, Gazette Publishing House, 1885. 
 
IOO MATTHEW LYON 
 
 selected for his theme the life and public services of Matthew 
 Lyon, " who," as we are told by Rev. H. H. Saunderson, 
 " for a time had been a citizen of Wallingford." a 
 
 Like the titles of most of his neighbors, Lyon's title to his 
 homestead in the town was acquired under a charter issued in 
 1761 by the royal governor of New Hampshire, Benning Went- 
 worth. Many New York officials, including several pre-revo- 
 lutionary governors, had become personally interested in Ver 
 mont lands and granted them not only to civilians but to 
 soldiers of the old French war, a brisk business having been 
 carried on in lands on the west side of the Green Mountains, 
 especially in these military grants. The patentees were mostly 
 foreigners who went back to Europe after the treaty of Paris, 
 and for trifling sums assigned their patents before departure to 
 the officials who issued them. The latter were determined to 
 profit by the speculation. In this way the seeds were sown of 
 the celebrated Hampshire Grants controversy. 
 
 Governor Colden's greed and Ethan Allen's pugnacity were 
 aroused, farmers and land-jobbers were in conflict, and Puritan 
 and Patroon were "miching mallecho," and reviving a vendetta 
 almost as fierce as that between ancient Iroquois and Algon 
 quin along the shores of Lake Champlain. 
 
 It has been asserted by several writers that Vermont had the 
 roughest experience of all the struggling Colonies. It would 
 be nearer the truth to say that Vermont was the most for 
 tunate one of them all. A combination of peculiar circum 
 stances produced this result, (i) It was fortunate in its gallant 
 and hardy defenders, although Yorkers called Ethan Allen 
 another Robin Hood, and offered a reward for his head; (2) 
 
 V. H. M., Vol. Ill, p. 1183. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS IOI 
 
 fortunate in its perilous situation midway between Canada and 
 the United States, for out of the " nettle danger to pluck this 
 flower safety " was rendered comparatively easy by the rivalry 
 of the two great powers; (3) fortunate even in the number of 
 its foes, as Massachusetts, New Hampshire," New York and 
 British America each sought in opposition to the others to 
 capture the prize for itself; (4) fortunate in freedom from the 
 burden of debt and taxation under which for the twelve years 
 of the Confederation the thirteen States suffered and groaned ; 
 (5) finally, with the wrath of the United States provoked by 
 the Haldimand Intrigue, which many to this day style incip 
 ient treason, and with American peace and independence 
 established, and New York, Massachusetts and New Hamp 
 shire left free to deal with the Green Mountain Boys and dis 
 member and divide up their portion among themselves, even 
 then the supreme good fortune of Vermont placed the defiant 
 little rebel against both England and the United States upon a 
 more solid and enduring foundation than ever before. 
 
 The balance of power in the American Union was already in 
 1791 looming up between North and South, a gaunt spectre, 
 which finally, seventy years later, in 1861, overshadowed and 
 involved the land in frightful war and slaughter. Alexander 
 Hamilton perceived the necessity of a check to southern pre 
 ponderance likely to follow the admission of Kentucky into the 
 Union, and thus New York, an ancient enemy, furnished the 
 master spirit to champion the cause of Vermont, and secure its 
 admission likewise as a free and independent State. 
 
 Was she not fortune's favorite child, this mountain com 
 monwealth, when all influences, whether internal and friendly, 
 
 a New Hampshire Petition, Doct. Hist. N. Y., Vol. IV, pp. 4112-13. 
 
IO2 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 or external and unfriendly, conspired as though by manifest 
 destiny to propel her forward into the charmed circle of the 
 Confederacy?"' 
 
 It is singular that no one should have yet written a full and 
 satisfactory account of the Hampshire Grants controversy. 5 
 The dispute extended over a period of forty years. To Ben- 
 ning Wentworth the grants were a rich source of revenue. 
 After he had made a fortune out of them, he turned over the 
 dispute to the grantees, and Yorkers and Green Mountain 
 Boys soon came to blows and were long in armed antagonism. 
 Governor Tryon issued doughty proclamations fixing a price 
 on Allen's head, and Allen retorted with counter proclamations 
 of outlawry against his New York enemies. Now some myr 
 midon of the Albany officials seizes and brings in an unwary 
 
 a ln his address at the dedication of the monument to Nathaniel 
 Chipman at Tinmouth, Vermont, October 3, 1873, Hon. E. P. Walton, 
 of Montpelier, said: " Chipman was anxious for the adoption of the 
 Federal Constitution and the admission of Vermont to the Union, but 
 he believed that this would strip multitudes of Vermonters of their 
 possessions, as the ultimate decision of their land-titles would fall to 
 the United States courts. At the same time Hamilton feared that the 
 requisite number of States might not be secured for the adoption of 
 the Federal Constitution, and he therefore desired the vote of Ver 
 mont. Still further, he looked to the selection of New York city as 
 the capital of the Union, and hoped to strengthen the chances for 
 success by the aid of Vermont. It was obvious to both that Chitten- 
 den and his friends, who ruled Vermont " (one of the foremost of 
 these friends of Governor Chittenden was his son-in-law Matthew 
 Lyon), " would never join the Federal Union if it was to be at the 
 sacrifice of a large portion of the people. The only possible solution 
 of the difficulties which baffled Chipman and Hamilton was to remove 
 the claim of the New York grantees to lands in Vermont by buying 
 them out. And thus the controversy was settled, at a cheap price, 
 $30,000, to Vermont, and a large loss to the New York grantees." Ver 
 mont Historical Magazine, Vol. Ill, p. 1158. 
 
 & Prof. J. D. Butler's 1846 Address before the Vt. Hist. Soc. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS IO3 
 
 Green Mountain Boy; straightway Allen retaliates by seizing 
 the first Yorker and subjecting him to " a castigation with the 
 twigs of the wilderness." Appeals were made to the mother 
 country to settle the dispute, but owing to the greed of land 
 speculators on both sides, and the vacillating and selfish policy 
 of the English Board of Trade, predatory border war continued 
 for years, and the dispute promised to be as interminable as the 
 similar Schleswig-Holstein dispute in more recent European 
 history. Then came the American revolution to swallow up 
 everything else in colonial life except the Hampshire Grants 
 controversy which, although postponed in presence of the 
 grander struggle, still survived in undiminished vigor. The 
 Confederation was formed and after twelve years gave place to 
 the present happy Constitution,, and still the fight went on in 
 the Hampshire Grants. The Federal Government was two 
 years of age, and that sphinx of the Green Mountains re 
 mained as defiant and vexatious as ever. When it came to an 
 end at last, as sooner or later even a sphinx must do, it took 
 its quietus by compromise and dropped from view unsolved. 
 
 The history of this remarkable conflict well deserves a his 
 torian. The national historians, Bancroft and Hildreth, pass 
 it over with a few hurried sentences. James Duane, one of the 
 early Mayors of New York city, in his pamphlet entitled " A 
 State of the Right of the Colony of New York with respect to 
 its Eastern Boundary ; " Henry B. Dawson, in his " Historical 
 Magazine," and a few other New York writers have con 
 tributed interesting but partisan views upon the subject. On 
 the other side Ethan Allen in his " Brief Narrative," Ira Allen 
 and Dr. Williams in their histories of Vermont, and Hiland 
 Hall in his " Early History " of the same State, and some 
 
IO4 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 others, have entered the lists against the New York writers, and 
 presented to the world ingenious pleas for Vermont. But 
 these controversial books and essays cannot be accepted as 
 impartial by the serious student of American history. Perhaps 
 the nearest approach cm this subject, to what is yet a desidera 
 tum in the historical literature of the country, is to be found in 
 the " Life of Ethan Allen " by Jared Sparks. The materials 
 were rather scant, and many important facts since brought to 
 light were not yet accessible when Mr. Sparks wrote. It must 
 be added that he shows a considerable bias in favor of the 
 Green Mountain Boys, but perhaps on the whole his book con 
 tains the most satisfactory discussion of the origin and history 
 of the Hampshire Grants controversy which has been pub 
 lished. 
 
 A memoir of Matthew Lyon, although he was one of the 
 leaders in the struggle, affords neither proper space nor oppor 
 tunity for an investigation of this interesting chapter of Ameri 
 can history. A hint or two on the subject must here suffice, 
 and indeed is necessary to elucidate some events in Colonel 
 Lyon's career at this period. 
 
 Which of the contending parties was right, and which wrong 
 in the doughty provincial war? Or was the right or wrong of 
 the matter clearly with neither side? Let impartial students, 
 to whom the question really belongs, examine and decide. In 
 a nutshell the whole inquiry hinges on the proper answer to a 
 single question: 
 
 Were the boundaries claimed by Massachusetts under the 
 Devon Charter actually granted to that Colony by James the 
 First; or were the boundaries of New Netherland claimed by 
 New York actually granted by the Charter of Charles the 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS IO5 
 
 Second to his brother the Duke of York? That is the crucial 
 question of the whole controversy. 
 
 While New Hampshire and the Green Mountain Boys were 
 involved in dispute with New York, the contention of Benning 
 Wentworth was that New Hampshire had an extension of the 
 same western limits as Connecticut and Massachusetts. He 
 made the mistake of treating the Connecticut line as though 
 prescribed by a British charter. Such, however, was not the 
 fact. That line was the result of an agreement entered into 
 with New York in 1684, and hence the question is narrowed, 
 as here stated, to Massachusetts and New York. 
 
 The Charter of Charles the Second to the Duke of York, 
 March 12, 1664, comprehended the same eastern boundary, 
 namely, the west bank of the Connecticut river, as was con 
 firmed to New York by the decree of George the Third in 
 1764, just one century later. That grant was never annulled, 
 and the territory now known as the State of Vermont was em 
 braced within the chartered limits of New York. But equit 
 able rights are sometimes merged in adverse possession. The 
 greed of Albany officials alienated the sympathies of the British 
 ministry, and the utterances not only of the Board of Trade 
 but of the King himself, began to betray sympathy with the 
 Green Mountain Boys. On the other hand, Benning Went 
 worth, Governor of New Hampshire, had an itching palm 
 quite equal to that of Governor Colden, of New York, and 
 between the years 1749 and 1764 the former had issued patents 
 for 130 townships in the Hampshire Grants. 
 
 Besides the fees received from patentees, Wentworth was in 
 the habit of setting apart for himself 5oo-acre reservations in 
 most of these several townships. Speculators on both sides 
 
106 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 thus involved the merits of the controversy in the greatest per 
 plexity. The English Board of Trade advised the King and 
 ministry to refuse compliance with New York's requisition for 
 a military force to quell the " Bennington Mob." Generals 
 Haldimand and Gage when called upon by the Governor of 
 New York to furnish troops against the Green Mountain Boys 
 declined to obey the requisition. Thus encouraged by the 
 mother country, Ethan Allen and his followers not only drove 
 New York grantees from the disputed territory, but repulsed 
 sheriffs, surveyors and other officials as often as they appeared 
 within the limits of the Grants. 
 
 A change of policy, remarkable as it was sudden, later on 
 occurred in the British ministry. Lord Dartmouth expressed 
 diplomatic alarm at the concurrence of lawless banditti from all 
 parts of America on the Hampshire Grants, adding insincere 
 sympathy for New York in the teeth of his former declarations 
 upon the subject. This weak reversal of ministerial policy was 
 due entirely to a cause independent of the rights of either party. 
 The American revolution was beginning to shake the sea-girt 
 isle from end to end, and it was discovered that Ethan Allen 
 was an ardent Whig, while Governor Golden was an equally 
 ardent Loyalist. Change of front came too late to benefit New 
 York; the mischief had been done by a vacillating policy of 
 makeshifts and procrastination on the part of the English 
 Board of Trade, the notorious inefficiency of which, not only 
 in this dispute, but in its transactions with the whole thirteen 
 Colonies, proved not the least potent auxiliary to American 
 independence. 
 
 Massachusetts denied vigorously that the eastern boundary 
 of New York was the west side of Connecticut river; on the 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS IO/ 
 
 contrary it maintained that its own western boundary extended 
 to a line within twenty miles of the Hudson river by virtue of 
 the patent granted at Plymouth in the county of Devon, known 
 as the Council of Devon, by James the First in the eighteenth 
 year of his reign. It was further claimed by Massachusetts 
 that the Council of Devon, in the third year of Charles the First, 
 included the lands in dispute in a grant to Sir Henry Roswell, 
 Sir John Young, Knight, Thomas Southcott, and others, their 
 assigns forever; that the said disputed territory was confirmed 
 to Massachusetts by Charles the First in the fourth year of his 
 reign, and by virtue of that grant, although it was vacated in 
 Chancery in 1684, Massachusetts was seized of said lands at the 
 time of the grant to the Duke of York who could not infringe 
 on its patent; and finally that the territory in dispute was 
 granted well and validly to Massachusetts by the charter of 
 1693. 
 
 The pretensions of New Hampshire to the disputed territory, 
 granted so lavishly by Governor Wentworth, were based wholly 
 upon a northward extension of the Massachusetts line. If the 
 claim set up by the latter Colony to a western boundary, twenty 
 miles distant from the Hudson river, was a valid one, the juris 
 diction of New Hampshire over the grants in question was not 
 to be assailed by New York, but so far as that Colony was 
 concerned the grants of Wentworth conveyed absolutely an 
 unclouded fee-simple title to the purchasers and their assigns 
 forever. 
 
 The boundaries of the government of New Hampshire, the 
 only royal plantation in New England, were defined in letters 
 patent of George the Second given at Whitehall the third day 
 of July, 1741, in the following words: 
 
IO8 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 " Our province of New Hampshire within our dominions of 
 New England in America, bounded on the south side by a 
 similar curve line, pursuing the course of Merrimac river at 
 three miles distance on the north side thereof; beginning at the 
 Atlantic Ocean and ending at a point due north of a place 
 called Pontucket Falls; and by a straight line drawn from 
 thence due west across the said river till it meets with our other 
 governments; and bounded on the south side by a line passing 
 up through the mouth of Piscataqua Harbour, and up the mid 
 dle of the river to the river of Newichwaunock, part of which 
 is now called Salmon Falls, and through the middle of the 
 same to the furthest head thereof; and from thence north two 
 degrees westerly, until one hundred and twenty miles be 
 finished from the mouth of Piscataqua Harbour aforesaid, or 
 until it meets with our other governments." 
 
 These boundary lines of New Hampshire were thus limited 
 by George the Second in their extension westward and north 
 ward by his majesty's other governments, and all grants of 
 lands westward of the Connecticut river issued by Benning 
 Wentworth were subject to those limitations. 
 
 The extension of the western limits of Connecticut afforded 
 the Governor of New Hampshire no precedent, since Connecti 
 cut came into possession of a western limit twenty miles east of 
 the Hudson river, not by charter from the Crown, but by cove 
 nant and agreement with New York in 1684, afterwards con 
 firmed by King William. Under that agreement New York 
 and Connecticut commissioners ran the lines and marked the 
 bounds and monuments between the two Colonies in 1725, 
 thereby fixing the eastern boundary of New York at a point 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS IOO, 
 
 twenty miles east of the Hudson river as far north as the 
 Colony of Connecticut extended. 
 
 With this brief outline of the jurisdictional claims of Massa 
 chusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire, it only remains to 
 inquire what were the limits of New York in the same direc 
 tion, before passing from this the most vexed territorial con 
 troversy in our Colonial history. 
 
 The boundaries of New York are given in a " Description of 
 New Netherland " published at Amsterdam in 1671, which the 
 indefatigable Dutch historian, Dr. E. B. O'Callaghan, con 
 sidered to have been borrowed from Van der Donck's famous 
 account, entitled " Beschryving van Nieuw Nederlandt," which 
 was published in Holland in 1656. The following are the 
 limits assigned in this account to the Dutch province: " New 
 Netherland bounded on the southwest by Virginia, stretches 
 on the northeast to New England; on the north it is 
 washed by the river Canada, and on the coast by the ocean; 
 northwesterly, inland, it remains wholly unknown. The first 
 who discovered this country was Henry Hudson. Engaged 
 by the East India Company to find out a passage to China 
 north of America, he set sail with the yacht " Half Moon " in 
 the year 1609. In front of Newfoundland he took a course 
 directly southwest, entered a large river, there met two men 
 clothed in elk skins, and subsequently arrived safe at Amster 
 dam. New Netherland being thus discovered, divers traders 
 set about establishing a stable trade here. Wherefore they 
 sought for and obtained a charter in the year 1614, from the 
 States General at The Hague, to trade to New Netherland to 
 the exclusion of all others. " a 
 
 Doct. Hist. N. Y., Vol. IV., pp. 75 and 84. 
 
IIO MATTHEW LYON 
 
 Hendrick Hudson sold the province to the Dutch soon after 
 he discovered it, and the Dutch West India Company settled 
 a Colony there and called it New Netherland, long before the 
 Massachusetts and Connecticut charters were granted. In 
 1660 the English captured the Colony from the Dutch, who 
 recaptured it in 1673, but surrendered it in the following year 
 by the treaty of Breda to the English government. Charles 
 the Second thereupon granted a Charter again to the Duke of 
 York of the lands recovered from the Dutch. The limits of 
 the Duke's grant appear to have been identical with those of 
 New Netherland, as a reference to the charter shows : By his 
 several letters patent of the I2th of March, 1663-4, and the 2Qth 
 of June, 1674, Charles the Second " did give and grant in fee 
 unto his brother James, Duke of York, certain lands of which 
 the province of New York is a part; containing among other 
 tracts ' all that island or islands, commonly called by the sev 
 eral name or names of Matowacks or Long Island, situate and 
 being toward the west of Cape Cod and the Narrow Higgan- 
 setts, abutting upon the mainland between the two rivers there 
 called or known by the several names of Connecticut and 
 Hudson's rivers; together also with the said river called Hud 
 son's river, and all the land from the west side of Connecticut 
 river to the east side of Delaware Bay.' " a 
 
 It will thus be seen that the province of New York extended 
 east as far as the Connecticut river. The historical student, 
 bearing in mind the respective boundary lines here sketched of 
 the three New England provinces and of New York, will have 
 no difficulty in forming a safe judgment upon the priority of 
 jurisdiction over the territory embraced within Vermont. 
 
 Ibid, p. 346. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS III 
 
 After patient research and impartial investigation among the 
 earliest muniments of title to the territory under consideration, 
 it is the opinion of the present writer that the grants made by 
 Governor Benning Wentworth of lands westward of Con 
 necticut river, known as the Hampshire Grants, were in un 
 mistakable violation of the territorial rights of New York. 
 
 The situation of the settlers on the Grants was rendered 
 embarrassing by the royal decree of 1764, which fixed Con 
 necticut river as the dividing line between New York and New 
 Hampshire. But they were loyally prepared to acknowledge 
 New York's jurisdiction over their territory, however repug 
 nant to their wishes and feelings the change might be. Had 
 the New York officials of that day shown sound policy and not 
 strained the King's decision in their favor beyond its obvious 
 meaning and purpose, that decree would have been the happy 
 issue of the long dispute, and the Hampshire Grants would 
 have been annexed to New York, and to-day would form a part 
 of the great Empire State. But land speculators in the cities 
 of Albany and New York went farther and maintained that the 
 decree of George the Third not only fixed the jurisdiction, but 
 rendered null and void the Wentworth Grants. In other 
 words, these land-jobbers insisted that the King's act, instead 
 of being a peaceful settlement of the boundary lines between 
 two of his Colonies, was a sweeping act of universal confiscation 
 denounced against the inhabitants on the Hampshire Grants. 
 Formal demands were made for a surrender of the lands, and 
 unsuccessful attempts on the part of New York patentees to 
 oust the Green Mountain Boys were of common occurrence. 
 Ejectment suits followed, and, as they were tried at Albany, 
 decisions were always in favor of the Yorkers. Ethan Allen, 
 
112 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 who attended at the trial of the first of these actions with the 
 well-known Connecticut lawyer, Jared Ingersoll, attorney for 
 the defendant, left the court in despair of obtaining justice be 
 fore such a tribunal. " Might often prevails against right," 
 said the facetious attorney-general who appeared for the 
 Yorkers. " The gods of the valleys are not the gods of the 
 hills," retorted Allen. Affecting not to understand these 
 words, the attorney-general questioned him further: " If you 
 will accompany me to the hill of Bennington," replied the ready 
 Green Mountain Boy, " the sense will be made clear." a 
 
 Submission to a change of jurisdiction, when decreed by the 
 King, was the duty of loyal subjects. But the Green Moun 
 tain Boys were not to be forisfamiliated in a strange tribunal 
 composed exclusively of their enemies. Albany judgments 
 were defied, and organized resistance to what the inhabitants 
 on the grants called a scheme of plunder met the sheriffs who 
 came to execute the writs. The Green Mountain Boys would 
 neither submit to confiscation, nor consent to buy over again 
 what they had already bought and paid for to a royal governor 
 whose authority was derived from the same King in whose 
 name it was now proposed to despoil them. 
 
 That the decree of 1764 had been misconstrued by New York 
 was made evident by a subsequent order of the King in Council 
 (July 24, 1767) commanding the Governor of New York to 
 abstain from issuing any more patents in the disputed territory 
 until the royal intentions should further be made known, 
 " upon pain of his Majesty's highest displeasure." 6 
 
 a lra Allen's " History 1 of Vermont," p. 25. Also Sparks's and 
 De Puy's "Life of Ethan Allen." 
 
 & Doct. Hist. N. Y., Vol. IV, pp. 375-6. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 113 
 
 And now " the Bennington Mob," as the Yorkers pppro- 
 briously called all Green Mountain Boys, under the spirited 
 leadership of Ethan Allen, proved more than a match for the 
 Albany officials in the border war which continued to rage for 
 several succeeding years. At length the Revolution burst forth, 
 and after the fight at Lexington there were found in the ranks 
 of Americans no longer Yorkers or Green Mountain Boys; 
 only Tories and Sons of Liberty remained. Ethan Allen, 
 trained to war from his boyhood, stepped forth a valiant Whig, 
 fell like a thunderbolt on Ticonderoga, electrified the continent 
 by its capture, and crowned the exploit with the best epigram 
 matic speech on record. " By what authority? " inquired the 
 astonished English commandant of the fortress in reply to the 
 demand for surrender. "In the name of the Great Jehovah and 
 the Continental Congress," was the responsive and resounding 
 anti-climax of Allen. 
 
 The capture of Ticonderoga was the first offensive blow by 
 the Americans in the Revolutionary war, and the tidings of their 
 victory carried dismay to the ministry of Lord North. Among 
 the gallant band of patriots who achieved this brilliant and 
 substantial triumph at Ticonderoga was Matthew Lyon, neph 
 ew by his first marriage of Ethan Allen. In a letter written 
 at Frankfort, Kentucky, January 16, 1817, to Senator Armisted 
 C. Mason, of Virginia, whose tragic end in a duel so aroused 
 indignation in 1819, Lyon gave a quaint and forcible resume 
 of his career. The following extract from that letter will be 
 read with interest by all Vermonters, and especially by the 
 people of Wallingford, where Lyon resided at the period of 
 which he writes: "In 1774, when British encroachment on 
 our rights was raising the spirit of resistance, I laid before the 
 
114 MATTHEW LYOtf 
 
 youngerly men in my neighborhood, in the country now called 
 Vermont, a plan for an armed association which was adopted. 
 We armed and clothed ourselves uniformly. We hired an old 
 veteran to teach us discipline, and we each of us took the com 
 mand in turn, so that every one should know the duty of every 
 station. With a part of this company of Minute Men, im 
 mediately after the Lexington battle, I joined Ethan Allen. 
 Eighty-five of us took from one hundred and forty British 
 veterans the fort Ticonderoga, which contained the artillery 
 and warlike stores which drove the British from Boston and 
 aided in taking Burgoyne and Cornwallis. That fort contained 
 when we took it more cannon, mortar-pieces and other military 
 stores than could be found in all the revolted Colonies. At 
 the rate captors have /been paid in the late (1812) war, our 
 plunder, which we gave to the nation without even pay for our 
 time, was worth more than a million of dollars. I persuaded 
 
 many of the Royal Irish Company taken there to join 
 
 us, who afterwards distinguished themselves in our cause. In 
 the same month, April, 1775, for the purpose of taking an 
 armed sloop in the lake, it was necessary to mount two heavy 
 pieces of ordnance at Crown Point. Our European artillerists 
 said it could not be done without certain apparatus which could 
 not be obtained without a ruinous delay. With the assistance 
 of a few backwoodsmen and some timber, readily procured, I 
 mounted them, and put the match to the first cannon ever fired 
 under the auspices of the American Eagle, whose renown has 
 spread far and wide." 
 
 Lyon took just pride in the famous capture of Ticonderoga. 
 " Now is the time," he said afterwards on the floor of Con 
 gress, during a debate on the repeal of the Embargo, February 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS (1 1 5 
 
 7, 1809, " to pause and count the cost. I know a little of what 
 war means. Although I had not the honor of bearing a con 
 spicuous part in that war which gave this country liberty, 
 although I had the mortification very unjustly to receive a 
 stab in my reputation in that war, a stab which would have put 
 almost any other man down, I acted an humble though perhaps 
 a useful part in that war from the first to the last of it. I was 
 a private soldier in one of those companies called ' Minute 
 Men ' who first took up arms in defense of the cause of Ameri 
 can liberty, and with my gun on my shoulder marched to take 
 Ticonderoga under the command of Ethan Allen." a 
 
 Nothing could have been more opportune for the interests 
 of Vermont in the Continental Congress than the capture of 
 this great stronghold of the British. The powerful influence of 
 George Clinton, the patriotic Governor of New York, and the 
 occasional intrigues of Massachusetts and New Hampshire to 
 annex the Grants, were felt injuriously by the Green Mountain 
 Boys. Congress was at times supine, and at other times half 
 ready to recognize New York's jurisdictional claims to the 
 disputed territory. But when Ethan Allen seized the Keys of 
 Champlain and handed them over as a trophy to the patriot 
 cause, pigmy colonial struggles and marauding exploits of the 
 past were forgotten, the bickerings of petty land-jobbers were 
 j silenced, and with rigor relenting the Continental Congress 
 " pardoned something to the spirit of liberty." 
 
 To such heroes Congress voted the same pay as that received 
 by officers and men on the Continental establishment, and 
 recommended to the Provincial Congress of New York that, 
 after consulting with General Schuyler, " they should employ 
 
 Annals of Congress, Tenth Congress, Second Session, p. 1416. 
 
Il6 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 in the army to be raised for the defense of America those called 
 Green Mountain Boys under such officers as the said Green 
 Mountain Boys should choose. " a 
 
 Magnanimously forgetting the past, the Provincial Congress 
 of New York adopted a resolution which authorized the Green 
 Mountain Boys to raise a regiment of five hundred men, and 
 to select their own officers up to the grade of lieutenant-colonel 
 inclusive, the field officers to be appointed by New York. An 
 invidious recommendation was added, undoubtedly aimed at 
 Ethan Allen, on whose head they had once set a price, that the 
 Green Mountain Boys would nominate acceptable persons to 
 New York. Whether this ill-tempered request, or an actual 
 preference of Vermonters for another leader, determined the 
 choice, certain it is that Ethan Allen was dropped, and the 
 Dorset convention of July 26, 1775, by a vote of forty-five to 
 five, selected Seth Warner lieutenant-colonel of the new com 
 mand. Matthew Lyon was chosen adjutant to the regiment.** 
 
 Daniel Chipman, in his " Life of Seth Warner," while suit 
 ably recounting Allen's merits, seems to regard the claims of 
 Warner as superior. The former, he says, " was sometimes 
 rash and imprudent," the latter "was modest and unassum 
 ing." 
 
 The unfortunate capture of Ethan Allen in his sortie on 
 Montreal perhaps gave rise to the opinion that he was rash and 
 imprudent. But Major Brown, who conceived the idea of cap- 
 
 a " Life of Ethan Allen," by Jared Sparks, p. 289. 
 
 & Lyon's Congressional Narrative, Annals of Congress, February I, 
 1798. He also said in the letter to Senator Mason, an extract from 
 which is quoted on a preceding page: "The first summer I was ap 
 pointed one of the first Revolutionary adjutants." 
 
 c Daniel Chipman's " Memoir of Col. Seth Warner," pp. 54-5. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 1 1/ 
 
 luring the town, and persuaded Allen to aid in the assault, is 
 responsible by inexcusable absence from his appointed post for 
 the fiasco that followed. " Carleton afterwards admitted," 
 says a more recent writer, but who cites no authority for so 
 important an admission by the British commander, " that if 
 Brown had not failed to join Allen, Montreal would have fallen 
 into their hands." 
 
 Colonel Warner's regiment, of which Lyon was adjutant, 
 served with distinction under General Montgomery in Canada 
 during the brilliant fall campaign of 1775. Mr. Chipman has 
 fallen into an error where he says at page 36 of his " Life of 
 Warner," " it is evident that both Warner and the officers of his 
 regiment were without commissions, for we find by Mont 
 gomery's orderly book that, on the i6th of September, he 
 issued an order appointing Seth Warner colonel of a regiment 
 of Green Mountain Rangers, requiring that he should be 
 obeyed as such. Probably the Provincial Congress of New 
 York withheld the commissions on the same grounds on which 
 in the following year they urged the Continental Congress to 
 recall the commissions which they had given to Warner and 
 the officers of his regiment." As Mr. Chipman tells us at page 
 2 that he had but " scanty materials," and had to- trust to his 
 " own recollection " when he wrote, he no doubt did injustice 
 to New York unintentionally. Warner was not without his 
 commission at the time referred to by Chipman. The careful 
 Dr. O'Callaghan in the " Documentary History of New York," 
 compiled from original sources in the State archives at Albany, 
 informs us at page 554 of the fourth volume of that valuable 
 
 " Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Heroes," by H. W. 
 De Puy, p. 302. 
 
Il8 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 work, in a note to a letter of Ethan Allen, that " Seth Warner 
 was appointed Lt. Col. of the Green Mountain Boys on the 
 ist Sept., 1775, by the N. Y. Prov. Congress." New York, 
 therefore, did not withhold the commission of Warner. The 
 orderly book of General Montgomery may show that Seth 
 AVarner was appointed colonel of Green Mountain Rangers on 
 the 1 6th of September without impugning the verity of the 
 record of his appointment as lieutenant-colonel of the Green 
 Mountain Boys on the ist of the same month. It would rather 
 appear that the gallant Montgomery " seventh from Washing 
 ton in rank, next to him in merit," a had witnessed Warner in 
 action, and promoted him to a full colonelcy for good conduct, 
 as he was not the man to deny to valor its reward. 
 
 About the end of November the term for which they had 
 enlisted having expired, and their equipment t not being suffi 
 cient for the rigors of a Canadian winter, Colonel Warner and 
 his men returned home, bearing back with them the thanks 
 and commendation of General Montgomery. Having con 
 quered two-thirds of Canada and raised the hopes of the 
 patriots by his genius in arms, the hapless Montgomery, with 
 victory almost at hand, fell on those same Heights of Quebec 
 where Montcalm and Wolfe had yielded up their spirits before, 
 and then and there the prospect of wresting Canada from the 
 mother country was dimmed and extinguished. 
 
 The American army was reduced to the utmost straits. 
 Smallpox carried off hundreds of officers and men. Large 
 reinforcements reached the enemy, and General Carleton had 
 hopes of capturing the remnant of the American forces. Gen- 
 
 Bancroft's " History of the United States," Vol. VII, Centenary 
 edition. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 119 
 
 eral Wooster wrote to Colonel Warner, January 6, 1776, an 
 earnest appeal for succor in his distress, and the Green Moun 
 tain Boys, under their gallant leader, again took up the march 
 across the border into Canada. Their services were invaluable. 
 They formed part of the rear guard during the retreat, minis 
 tered to the sick, and repulsed scouting parties of the enemy, 
 until at length the almost exhausted Americans passed the 
 border with the British in hot pursuit. Winter proclaimed an 
 armistice, and General Gates, who succeeded General Sullivan, 
 presently drew in his troops about Ticonderoga, and the dis 
 astrous Canadian campaign was at an end. 
 
 Seth Warner, now out of commission, shortly after applied 
 to the commander of the Northern Department for troops to 
 protect the frontier left defenceless by the retreat of the army. 
 General Gates recommended in reply that six companies should 
 be raised by the Committee of the Hampshire Grants, promis 
 ing to commission the officers at Continental pay as soon as 
 they should be nominated. Matthew Lyon was a member of 
 this Committee which immediately selected the officers for the 
 companies. Lyon was nominated by the Committee and re 
 ceived his commission from Gates as a second lieutenant. He 
 was at this time at home in Wallingford where he forthwith 
 began to enlist men, and shortly raised his quota. At his own 
 expense he set out with his recruits for Pittsford, which was 
 the rendezvous for the companies as fast as they should be 
 raised. On his arrival there Lyon met his captain and first 
 lieutenant, neither of whom had raised any men. He was as 
 tonished to find that only two companies and part of a third, 
 besides his own men, had been raised by the several officers 
 
I2O MATTHEW LYON 
 
 nominated by the committee of the Hampshire Grants. The 
 cause of this unexpected apathy soon became apparent. 
 
 A resolution passed Congress July 5, 1776, with the echoes 
 of the Declaration of Independence still lingering in the cham 
 ber from the previous day, to raise a new regiment of the Con 
 tinental line to serve during the war, and to be composed of 
 Green Mountain Boys under command of Lieutenant-Colonel 
 Warner. This was the first formal recognition of the Green 
 . Mountain Boys by the United States, and created much en 
 thusiasm throughout the Grants. Its effect was to paralyze 
 the work of enlistment in the six home companies, and to 
 stimulate the business of forming Warner's Continental regi 
 ment, which was rapidly recruited to the maximum number. 
 Matthew Lyon immediately applied to General Gates to dis 
 charge him and his men in order that he might enroll himself 
 with them in the regular service of the United States under 
 Warner. To this application Gates promptly returned a favor 
 able reply, and ordered Lyon to prepare his payroll for settle 
 ment with his men for the time they had already served before 
 enrollment in the new regiment. A gang of wheat speculators 
 of Tory proclivities, had bought for a mere trifle the growing 
 crops from the farmers along the Canadian border, who, when 
 the army fell back and left them within the enemy's lines, had 
 fled southward with their families, a body of homeless refugees. 
 If troops were ordered north, as the wheat gang expected, 
 their speculation would become profitable, for the crops would 
 be required for subsistence, and army quartermasters would be 
 ready to buy them. With this view these speculators now 
 urged General Gates not to disband the home companies, but 
 to order them to the north as a protection to helpless families 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 121 
 
 who, they falsely pretended to believe, had been left behind, and 
 to act as videttes upon the enemy's movements. They urged 
 this request with so much plausibility that General Gates 
 yielded to their rascally petition, countermanded his order for 
 the disbandment of the militia companies, and sent them far 
 north, to a place called Jericho, precisely where the speculators 
 owned the crops. " General Gates," said Lyon in the Mason 
 letter, " influenced by designing Tories, ordered the party 
 seventy miles in advance of our army." 
 
 This apparently trivial transaction was big with the fate of 
 Matthew Lyon. A stroke of misfortune now overtook him so 
 severe, so unprovoked by act or word of his, and which entailed 
 on an innocent, upright man so much obloquy and undeserved 
 reproach in after years, culminating at last with a battle royal on 
 the floor of Congress, that it would be inexcusable to omit from 
 this memoir a recital of the events which presently took place. 
 Fortunately Matthew Lyon himself has put on record a narra 
 tive of these events on a solemn and formal public occasion, 
 the truth of which was confirmed by many contemporaneous 
 witnesses and writers in Vermont, while no witness or writer 
 on the subject ever denied its truth in a single particular. This 
 account was related before the Committee of Privileges of the 
 House of Representatives by Matthew Lyon, February i, 1798. 
 That part of the narrative which refers to the Jericho affair is 
 subjoined: " In 1776, after the retreat from Canada, Colonel 
 Seth Warner, being out of employ, applied to the commander- 
 in-chief in the northern department for some defense for the 
 frontier of New Hampshire Grants, which became exposed by 
 the retreat of the army. The general recommended to the 
 Committee of the New Hampshire Grants, of which I was a 
 
122 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 member, to nominate the commissioned officers for six com 
 panies, and he promised to commission them, and that they 
 should be entitled to Continental pay. In one of these com 
 panies I received a commission as a second lieutenant. I set 
 about enlisting my men, and immediately obtained my quota, 
 and at my own expense marched them to the rendezvous at 
 Pittsford about twenty miles southeast from Ticonderoga, 
 which by this time had become headquarters. At the rendez 
 vous I found the captain and first lieutenant of my company 
 had raised no men, and that there were but two companies and 
 a part of another, besides mine, raised, and that Colonel War 
 ner, who was expected to have commanded our six companies, 
 had received a commission and orders from Congress for rais 
 ing a regiment on the Continental establishment during the 
 war, and that in his endeavors to raise his regiment the raising 
 of our companies was wholly impeded. Finding the business 
 falling into supineness, I applied to the general to discharge me 
 and my men, in order that I might join Warner's regiment. 
 The general at once agreed to discharge and pay me and my 
 men, and ordered me to make up my payroll for the purpose. 
 But at this juncture application was made to the general by 
 some people who had bought the crops of the Whigs, and who 
 had removed from Onion river; and he was induced to order 
 our party to march to Jericho, and take post at a certain house 
 on the north side of Onion river, at least sixty miles in advance 
 of the army towards Canada from whence the army had re 
 treated, and about the same distance from any body of inhabi 
 tants; and the general, instead of discharging, ordered me to 
 join one of the other companies. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 123 
 
 " The idea of the people, and of the committee of the New 
 Hampshire Grants was that these six companies, if they had 
 all been raised, would have been stationed somewhere near 
 Middlebury, which is opposite Crown Point, and about twelve 
 miles east therefrom, and near forty miles southward of the 
 place appointed by the general. 
 
 " The commanding officer wrote to the general, representing 
 the situation of the country, and the impossibility of our being 
 of any service at Onion river, as all the well affected people 
 were moved away. This letter was either neglected or an 
 swered with a fresh order for marching. The order was 
 obeyed ; but the soldiers considered themselves sacrificed to the 
 interest of those persons who bought the crops for a trifle, 
 and wanted to get our party there to eat them at the public 
 expense. I opposed those murmurs with all the arguments 
 in my power. 
 
 " I used frequently to urge with them that the absolute gov 
 ernment of the army must be with the general; he could not 
 be omniscient, and we ought to submit with cheerfulness and 
 hope for the best. In this situation our little garrison, which 
 contained about sixty men besides invalids, were alarmed by 
 the Indians taking some persons from a house about a mile 
 distant. Consternation prevailed. I immediately called for 
 volunteers, and with about twenty men went to the house 
 where the prisoners had been taken from thence took a cir 
 cuit in the woods round the garrison in order to see if there 
 were any party or appearances of the enemy. Finding none, I 
 
 a " Their destination was to be fixed by the Committee of Safety, 
 of which I was a member." Lyon's letter to Senator Mason, January 
 16, 1817. 
 
124 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 returned and obtained leave to take about five and twenty of 
 the best men, and pursue the enemy towards the lakes, where 
 we supposed they had gone. I had proceeded about two miles, 
 when two runners from the commanding officer brought me 
 positive orders to return, with intelligence that a subaltern 
 officer had returned from a scout to the Lake Champlain, about 
 twelve miles distant, where he saw five or six hundred Indians. 
 " On my return I found the soldiers more than ever anxious 
 about their situation. They complained bitterly of the orders 
 which bound them to the north side of Onion river, more than 
 twenty poles wide, at that time not fordable, and but a single 
 small canoe to cross with. I endeavored to encourage them 
 with assurances that we could withstand any number of In 
 dians in our log house and a hovel or two which stood near; 
 and, after a battle, if we should find the enemy too troublesome, 
 we might retreat with honor. I urged them to their duty as 
 soldiers and patriots. Every preparation was made to repel 
 the attack which was expected from the enemy that night. 
 Being fatigued and off duty, I had laid down to rest, with my 
 fuzee in my arms. About nine o'clock in the evening I heard a 
 violent bustle, with a cry of ' Turn out! turn out! ' I turned out 
 and inquired where the enemy were discovered, and was an 
 swered, ' Nowhere.' The soldiers were paraded, and I found 
 by what was said by the sergeants that they were about to 
 march off and cross the river. I expostulated with them long 
 and earnestly, pointing out the dishonor which such an action 
 would reflect on their country. I urged them to stay the 
 event of a battle, and I spoke the truth when I assured them 
 that I preferred death in battle to the dishonor of quitting our 
 post. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 125 
 
 " All entreaties were ineffectual ; they declared they had been 
 abused there was no chance for their lives there, and they 
 marched off for the south side of the river. A sergeant re 
 turned with some soldiers, and called upon the officers to cross 
 the river. As they were going to take the canoe to the other 
 side, they insisted on our going, and threatened violence if 
 we refused. The other officers, which were two captains and 
 one lieutenant, seemed willing to go, and I did not think it 
 my duty to resist alone. 
 
 " In the morning the soldiers offered to return to subordina 
 tion if the commanding officer would lead them to a small 
 block fort at New Haven, about thirty miles to the southward. 
 The officers held a consultation; in this I refused to do any 
 thing but go back to the station we were ordered to maintain. 
 We were at this place joined by a lieutenant and a few men, 
 who had gone to the mill near Crown Point to get wheat 
 ground, and I was sent express to headquarters to carry letters 
 and inform the general of what had happened ; but some of the 
 wheat speculators had arrived before me, and so exasperated 
 the general that when I arrived he was enraged to the highest 
 pitch ; he swore we should all be hanged, and ordered me under 
 arrest. Within a few days the other officers and some of the 
 soldiers were brought into headquarters. We had a trial by a 
 court-martial, appointed by the exasperated general, who now 
 swore we should all be broke. I proved everything with 
 respect to myself that is here stated (the persons are yet alive 
 by whom I proved it, and are ready to repeat it), notwithstand 
 ing which I was included in the general sentence of cashiering ; 
 nor did even the lieutenant who was absent at the mill escape 
 the awful condemnation. The soldiers were sentenced to cor- 
 
126 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 poral punishment, but on General Carleton's coming down to 
 attack Ticonderoga they were liberated. 
 
 " The mortification of being cashiered, and that very un 
 deservedly, without any other aggravation, was, I believe, quite 
 to the extent of my power to bear; had any indignant ceremony 
 /been to be performed, they would not have had my company at 
 it, as the implements of death were in my power. 
 
 " The general sent for us to his own house and there, in a 
 mild manner, communicated to us the sentence no one pres 
 ent, I believe, but his aid; and we took our own time and 
 manner of quitting Ticonderoga. I have always understood 
 he reversed the sentence. 
 
 " Perhaps my spirit would not have been able to have borne 
 up under this affliction had not all my acquaintances acquitted 
 me of every color of misbehavior; nor did the bitterest enemy 
 ever seriously, between he and me, before the present insult, 
 call my courage or my conduct in that instance in question. 
 Twenty-one years have elapsed since the unfortunate affair, 
 during which it has slept in oblivion, until party rage and party 
 newspapers tore open the wound in my breast. 
 
 " To pursue the narrative: General St. Clair, who presided 
 at the court-martial which condemned me, in the summer suc 
 ceeding that misfortune, recommended me to General Schuy- 
 ler, informing him (as I supposed) of my ill-usage, and of my 
 subsequent services, and obtained for me a commission of 
 paymaster to a Continental regiment commanded by Colonel 
 Seth Warner, which commission entitled me to the rank of 
 captain. * * * 
 
 " In this regiment I served at the capture of Burgoyne; and 
 the succeeding spring, when my family could return to my 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS I2/ 
 
 plantation from which Burgoyne's invasion had drove them, 
 at the solicitation of Governor Chittenden and many other 
 friends I resigned." 
 
 Horatio Gates, who thus cashiered Matthew Lyon for doing 
 his duty with a constancy under difficulties which proved that 
 he possessed courage of a heroic quality, " was," says Washing 
 ton Irving, " an Englishman by birth, the son of a captain in 
 the British army. Horace Walpole, whose Christian name he 
 bore, speaks of him in one of his letters as his godson, though 
 some have insinuated that he stood in filial relationship of a 
 less sanctified character." 5 Bancroft made a careful study of 
 the character of Gates, and devotes considerable space to his 
 intrigue to degrade Washington from command of the armies 
 of the Revolution. 
 
 " Gates enjoyed the friendship of John Adams," says Ban 
 croft/ Again the national historian informs us that " Gates 
 purposely neglected to make reports to his superior." 11 "Wash 
 ington thought that the requisitions of Gates should be made 
 directly to himself, or that at least he should receive a duplicate 
 of them but Gates insisted on dealing directly with Congress, 
 as ' the common parent of all the American armies/ " 6 " Shal 
 low, vain and timorous," says Bancroft elsewhere, " and of lit 
 tle administrative ability, he was restless for high promotion 
 without possessing any of the qualities requisite in a leader."' 
 
 Annals of Congress, Fifth Congress, Vol. I, pp. 1025-1028. 
 & Irving's " Life of Washington," Vol. I, p. 385^ 
 c Bancroft's "History of the United States," Vol. V, p. 299, Cenr- 
 tenary edition. 
 
 <* Ibid, Vol. V, p. 354- 
 
 elbid, Vol. V, p. 557. 
 
 / Bancroft's " History of the United States," Vol. VI, p. 275. 
 
128 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 After the victory at Saratoga, Gates came to an open rup 
 ture with Washington, and the Conway cabal, to advance the 
 former over the latter, assumed a most menacing front. Hap 
 pily for the fate of America neither John Adams, nor Samuel 
 Adams, nor Mifflin, nor Rush, nor Conway, nor Gates, nor 
 Charles Lee, nor all of them and their congeners combined, 
 were able to disturb the serene Washington, already conse 
 crated in the hearts of Americans. On the I3th of June, 1780, 
 without consulting Washington, and in opposition to his well- 
 known wish that General Greene should be sent to the south, 
 " Congress unanimously appointed Gates to the command of 
 the Southern army, and constituted him independent of the 
 oommander-in-chief." a He hastened to South Carolina to ex 
 change, as General Charles Lee predicted, his Northern laurels 
 for Southern willows. At the battle of Camden, Gates was 
 utterly routed by Cornwallis, and leaving his broken forces to 
 take care of themselves, he ran away 200 miles from the scene 
 of his disgrace. He sped to Charlotte, and thence to Hills- 
 borough, the laughing stock of both armies. 6 
 
 Such was Gates. If Matthew Lyon had been a revengeful 
 man, here was more than sufficient to satisfy the most morbid 
 sense of injury. But the author, in all of Lyon's correspon 
 dence and speeches, has not found one word of harshness or 
 vindictiveness against Gates. That arrogant commander, by a 
 wanton abuse of power, had cashiered Lyon for not stopping 
 the retreat of sixty men, whom he did not command, before an 
 army of nearly ten thousand. Gates himself had now become 
 a fugitive from his own army, which he had blindly led to 
 
 a Bancroft's " History of the United States," Vol. VI, p. 275. 
 & Ibid, Vol. VI, p. 281. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 129 
 
 defeat, and then left to its fate. Had Matthew Lyon, instead of 
 Horatio Gates, commanded at Camden, deserted his force after 
 he had brought disaster upon it, and fled a panic-stricken man 
 in buckram two hundred miles from the scene of conflict, no one 
 would have complained had a court-martial cashiered him, no 
 one could have challenged the justice of the sentence. Had 
 Gates presided, to push the hypothetical case one step 
 further, at the trial of such a recreant, in all probability 
 the doom of death would have been pronounced, and pro 
 nounced justly, against the culprit. The man who cashiered 
 Lyon at Ticonderoga, for striving to do his duty in the face of 
 insuperable difficulty, was reserved in the eternal fitness of 
 things to become the hero of the tragic-farce at Camden. 
 
 Lieutenant Lyon left Ticonderoga with a bleeding heart, a 
 brave man struggling against crushing adversities. He re 
 turned to Wallingford and those heroic men whose names are 
 synonims for courage, Governor Thomas Chittenden, Ira Allen 
 and the other leaders of the Green Mountain Boys, did not 
 receive him as Gates had done. They were on the ground, 
 knew all the facts of the case, were aware that a gang of cor 
 morant speculators had obtained the ear of General Gates, 
 that the retreat from Jericho was earnestly opposed by Lyon, 
 and they now declared that Lyon had been iniquitously sacri 
 ficed by Gates at the dictation of camp followers and traffickers 
 in the miseries of the people. Nor was Lyon's vindication 
 confined to words. He was elected a member within a few 
 days of the Dorset convention of July 24, 1776, from Walling 
 ford, and took his place among the leaders of Vermont, as 
 the immediate answer of a brave people to the sentence visited 
 
 Vermont Historical Society Collections, Vol. I, pp. 16-23. 
 
130 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 upon him by General Gates. The old Council of Safety pro 
 nounced its verdict on the conduct of General Gates by order 
 ing payment of the balance of ration money due to Captain 
 Fassett and his two lieutenants, Matthew Lyon and Jonathan 
 Wright, for their services at Jericho on Onion river. As Ver 
 mont's vindication of Matthew Lyon and the others from the 
 injustice they endured at the hands of Horatio Gates, the judg 
 ment of the Council of Safety is here transcribed from the pro 
 ceedings of the Council: 
 
 " State of Vermont. In Council of Safety, iQth November, 1777. 
 " It is the opinion and judgment of this Council, that Deacon Aza- 
 riah Rude (Rood) pay Capt. John Fassett and his two lieutenants, 
 Matthew Lyon and Jonathan Wright, all the ration money due to them 
 while in service at Onion River in the year 1776, amounting to twenty 
 dollars, taking Captain Fassett's receipts for the same, being money 
 which said Rude drew from the Quartermaster-General 
 
 " By order of Council 
 
 "Joseph Fay, Secretary."* 
 
 In the following summer Burgoyne, " with his amphibious 
 and semi-barbarous armament," 6 began the famous invasion by 
 way of Lake Champlain. The British army in New York, 
 under Howe, was to march northward and form a union with 
 Burgoyne's army at Albany, as it descended from Canada. 
 But this junction, which might have proved irresistible, was 
 not to take place. With eight thousand men of all arms ad 
 mirably equipped and officered, Burgoyne attacked Ticonde- 
 roga. The brave but unfortunate St. Clair, after the enemy 
 had planted a battery on Fort or Mount Defiance which over 
 looked and commanded Ticonderoga, evacuated the fortress in 
 the face of the overwhelming army of invasion. This step 
 
 Records of Governor and Council, Vol. I, p. 198. 
 6 Irving's " Life of Washington," Vol. II, p. 89. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS I3 1 
 
 created widespread popular dissatisfaction. The position was 
 supposed to be a defensible if not impregnable one. Wash 
 ington Irving imputes the blame largely to General St. Clair. 
 Bancroft takes a hasty but juster view. The military parts of 
 Irving's " Life of Washington " are drawn largely in mezzo 
 tint. It is to be regretted, with the many lives of Washington 
 issued during the last hundred years, that his inner military 
 history is less understood by the general public of this day 
 than it was by those who lived nearer to his own time, and 
 derived their knowledge from the official reports of the com- 
 mander-in-chief and his officers, and the surrounding circum 
 stances of the times. The American Livy has not yet ap 
 peared. 
 
 To understand St. Clair's position at Ticonderoga the 
 intrigues of faction which then afflicted the country, as they 
 have so often since, must be distinctly kept in view. A bitter 
 feud between New York and New England, existing prior to 
 the Revolution and actively at work during its progress, had 
 much to do with this misfortune. A like spirit manifested 
 itself in the camp of Allen and Arnold when Ticonderoga was 
 captured from Delaplace. It was at work when Massachu 
 setts at first declined, New York held back, and Connecticut 
 finally sent troops under Hinman to occupy the station. Then 
 when Montgomery's brilliant stroke of war in the north was 
 followed by his death, the Continental Congress weakly inter 
 meddled with Washington and his army, sent Gates to super 
 sede Schuyler in the Northern department, and with like stu 
 pidity, as danger approached, allowed him to seek shelter under 
 Washington in the Middle States, and finally when it was too 
 late they restored Schuyler to his old command. These 
 
132 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 changes were the result of sectional jealousies, and showed im 
 becility of management. Arnold's madness for renown led to 
 the destruction of his squadron on Lake Champlain, and Schuy- 
 ler's limited means and want of influence with the Eastern troops, 
 all left Ticonderoga a doomed post long before it was evacuated 
 on the 6th of July, 1777. Schuyler was an able and efficient 
 officer; St. Clair a brave, skilled and self-sacrificing one. The 
 former did much to weaken Burgoyne,as became evident finally 
 at Saratoga, though the partisans of Gates in Congress, led by 
 Samuel Adams, again sent that weak officer to the North to 
 reap the fruits of other men's labors; St. Clair, holding a post 
 deemed impregnable, was confronted by the sharp alternative 
 of sacrificing himself or his army, and heroically cast his own 
 prestige to the winds and saved an army which was indispens 
 able to the final success of the campaign, and perhaps to the 
 salvation of the cause itself. Burgoyne correctly judged that 
 the possession of Ticonderoga was a barren victory without 
 the capture or destruction of the American forces. The British 
 plan of campaign, as already stated, was the junction at Al 
 bany of the army of General Howe advancing from New York, 
 and the army of General Burgoyne descending from Canada. 
 The latter, therefore, ordered an immediate pursuit by land and 
 water of General St. Clair, as his retreat was accidentally re 
 vealed while the troops were marching out during the night 
 by a fire on Mount Independence in the quarters of General 
 Fermoy. The English historian, Gordon, charges that Fermoy, 
 contrary to positive orders, set fire to his house," but the 
 charge was denied by that officer, and no evidence was adduced 
 to sustain it. In the confusion of a hasty flight it is probable 
 
 Gordon's "America," Vol. II, p. 482. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 133 
 
 that the unfortunate fire, as more careful writers hold, was 
 accidental. St. Clair's strength was greatly exaggerated by 
 newspapers, and the military authorities purposely encouraged 
 the delusion in order to maintain the morale of the army, and 
 to raise the spirits of the people sore pressed by the war. The 
 folly of such a policy became apparent when the fortress was 
 evacuated, and the Americans fled before the superior forces 
 of Burgoyne. Consternation seized the public mind. Yet 
 St. Clair's fault was not in retreating, but in staying so long. 
 Mount Defiance or Sugar Hill was unfortified and commanded 
 Ticonderoga. When the British took the former, the latter 
 was at their mercy. Sullivan, Warner and Wooster had been 
 compelled to fall back from Canada, and St. Clair was not 
 strong enough to confront the powerful army of Burgoyne. 
 The retreat was scarcely ordered before a hot pursuit began. 
 The main column of the Americans reached Hubbardton the 
 same day, twenty-two miles from Mount Independence, after a 
 most fatiguing march. St. Clair by great exertions restored 
 order among the confused regiments. He halted for two 
 hours at Hubbardton. Most of the stragglers, who had been 
 unable to keep up with their regiments, here rejoined the 
 ranks, and nearly the whole rear guard arrived before St. Clair 
 renewed the retreat. He placed Warner in command of the 
 rear with positive instructions, as soon as the last of the troops 
 came up, to follow the army to Castleton, six miles off, and to 
 halt that night about a mile and a half behind the general's own 
 force, until four o'clock in the morning, at which hour he was 
 to resume the march and join the main body. Had this order 
 been obeyed, all disaster, beyond the destruction of the stores 
 and baggage of the troops at Skeensborough, would have been 
 
134 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 avoided, and the movement have proved a brilliant retreat. 
 But want of discipline was one of the greatest difficulties 
 against which the American generals had to contend through 
 out the whole Revolutionary war. Their men would not obey 
 them. Washington was constantly embarrassed by laxity of 
 discipline, and nowhere did he display more fortitude than in 
 overcoming this defect among the brave but headstrong, self- 
 opinionated farmers of his army. John Trumbull was in the 
 camp at Crown Point after the retreat from Canada, and found, 
 " not an army, but a mob * .* * void of every idea of dis 
 cipline or subordination ; * * * the officers as well as men 
 of one Colony insulting and quarrelling with those of an 
 other." 
 
 Warner disobeyed St. Clair's order, and as his men, some 
 twelve hundred in number, were greatly fatigued, he impru 
 dently remained that night at Hubbardton. Next morning 
 about four o'clock St. Clair paraded his army at Castleton and 
 waited in vain for Warner during two anxious hours. Fearing 
 that the enemy would be upon them, he sent back an express to 
 Warner and Francis at six o'clock with orders to join him 
 instantly. But the enemy was already at hand, and the dis 
 astrous battle of Hubbardton took place. Warner fought with 
 obstinate valor, and killed and wounded many of the Hessians 
 and English under Riedesel and Frazer, but was himself over 
 borne by numbers and defeated with great loss in killed, 
 wounded and prisoners. 6 The brave Colonel Francis was 
 
 <* " Life of Col. John Trumbull." 
 
 6 Thompson, in his "History of Vermont," says " the British loss in 
 killed and wounded was 183; the American loss in killed, wounded and 
 prisoners, 324," p. 1021 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 135 
 
 killed. The remnant of the Americans fled to Manchester, 
 and about one hundred of them joined St. lair. That gallant 
 officer had the mortification of being disobeyed by two cow 
 ardly militia regiments whom he ordered back to reinforce 
 Warner while the battle was raging. The rest of his troops 
 were too far on to return. The recreants were broken and dis 
 banded, and on their return to Massachusetts Samuel Adams 
 took up their defense, and strove to justify men who had al 
 lowed their countrymen to be cut to pieces, and with craven 
 insubordination refused to enter the fight when their assistance 
 probably would have saved the day. 
 
 It was at this perilous juncture that Matthew Lyon, who had 
 led a detachment of Green Mountain Boys into the fight at 
 Hubbardton, and aided Warner in his heroic but unavailing 
 struggle, now rendered the most important military service of 
 his life, and enrolled his name among the heroes of the Revolu 
 tion. In the valuable letter to Mason, Lyon said : " I was in 
 my station of adjutant in the retreat from Ticonderoga in 
 1777." The fight of Hubbardton took place on the 7th of July. 
 That night a heavy rain fell, and the fleeing army of St. Clair, 
 with the enemy already in possession of Skeensborough, and 
 Riedesel's forces in their rear, found themselves without 
 proper guides struggling on through the Vermont wilderness 
 in mud and rain, uncertain of the route to pursue, and liable to 
 march into the lines of Burgoyne in their efforts to extricate 
 themselves from the perils that environed them. It was a 
 moment of deep anxiety to General St. Clair, and his keen, mili 
 tary eye was watchful to prevent a possible ambuscade. Every 
 camp follower was kept under strict observation, and sus 
 picious characters were rigidly scrutinized lest lurking spies 
 
136 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 and Tories might endanger his safe retreat. During the night 
 a young man claiming to be a Green Mountain Boy, and de 
 claring himself a woodman and pioneer thoroughly acquainted 
 with the route to Bennington, and the only road to the Hudson 
 river which the army could safely take, presented himself at 
 the outposts and aroused the suspicions of the guard by the 
 boldness of his pretensions, and the earnestness of his offer to 
 act as guide to the imperiled troops. He was placed under 
 arrest and conducted to headquarters. General St. Clair 
 recognized the young stranger at once as Lieutenant Matthew 
 Lyon, a man devoted to the cause, whom General Gates had 
 so cruelly and unjustly cashiered during the preceding summer, 
 and whom Governor Chittenden and the Green Mountain 
 leaders had welcomed back to their councils as a true and gal 
 lant patriot. Matthew Lyon was universally recognized as 
 every inch a forester, as much at home in the wilds of the Green 
 Mountains as Daniel Boone in the forests of Kentucky. There 
 was no other man in New England whom General St. Clair 
 would have welcomed so heartily to his camp as this bold 
 woodman on that dark and perilous night. He was well known 
 to the officers of the army, and many a gallant man breathed 
 a sigh of relief when the General instantly accepted the new 
 comer as a guide to the army, and ordered the head of the 
 column to follow his lead and press forward confidently where- 
 ever Lieutenant Lyon directed. The new guide immediately 
 ordered a detour through the woods, and saved the army from 
 impending capture. 
 
 The English historian Gordon refers to this detour in the 
 following sentence: "While St. Clair was at Castleton an 
 officer of one of the gallies arrived with information that the 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 137 
 
 British were pursuing in force towards Skeensborough, and 
 would reach it before he could get there. This determined 
 him to change his route and to strike into the woods on his 
 left, lest he should be intercepted at Fort Anne." a The officer 
 of the galley knew as little about the country as St. Clair, and 
 the change of route was made under the sole direction and 
 leadership of Matthew Lyon. The following testimony, from 
 a distinguished officer of St. Clair's army, makes this absolutely 
 plain. This was the celebrated General Wilkinson, after 
 wards at the head of the armies of the United States, who 
 bears grateful testimony to the signal and opportune 
 service rendered by Matthew Lyon on this occasion. 
 " General Burgoyne's anticipation/' 6 says Wilkinson, " of Gen 
 eral St. Clair at Skeensborough, information of which he re 
 ceived at Castleton, obliged him to change his line of march, 
 and by a circuitous route through Pawlet, Manchester and 
 Bennington, he struck the Hudson river at Batten-Kill, and 
 joined General Schuyler at Fort Edward on the I2th of July. 
 The night of the 7th being extremely dark and rainy, one of the 
 guards took up and reported to headquarters a young man sus 
 pected of being a spy. I visited the guard, and found the 
 prisoner to be a Lieutenant Lyon of the militia, since Mr. 
 Matthew Lyon, of Congress, who had joined us to offer his 
 services as a guide, of whom we stood in great need, being 
 strangers to the country, which was in general a wilderness, a 
 town having sometimes barely a cabin or two to distinguish it; 
 even Bennington, the seat of the government of the Hamp- 
 
 o Gordon's " America," Vol. II, p. 484, London edition, 1788. 
 6 Wilkinson uses the word "anticipation" as a euphuism for the 
 capture and destruction of the post. 
 
138 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 shire grantees, could not number more than a dozen log cabins, 
 which were however surrounded by a considerable tract of im 
 proved ground. Lieutenant Lyon, an active, ardent young 
 man, was extremely zealous, and accompanied us as long as his 
 services were useful ; he had been stationed the preceding cam 
 paign, with a party of militia at Otter Creek, in a subordinate 
 capacity; the post was evacuated without orders, and Lieuten 
 ant Lyon has been censured for that transaction, although he 
 opposed the measure, and on an investigation was acquitted 
 of blame." a Lyon said in the letter to Mason: " On account 
 of the services I rendered that army in that difficult retreat, the 
 generals who had seen me abused the year before procured 
 for me an appointment of paymaster in the regiment on the 
 Continental establishment, with the rank of captain in the 
 army." 
 
 The incapacity and harshness of Gates received a just rebuke 
 when Schuyler, his successor in command, promptly restored 
 Lyon to the army and promoted Tiim to a higher rank than he 
 had held at the time of the causeless cashiering. Of this Lyon 
 writes as follows in his letter to the editor of " The Spirit of 
 '76 " : " The oldest and most experienced officers of the court- 
 martial disapproved the sentence and obtained for me almost 
 immediate promotion. The sentence was never communi 
 cated to me in public. The commanding general sent for me 
 and in his room communicated the sentence, remitted the dis 
 qualification, and advised me to accept a first lieutenancy in a 
 Continental regiment then offered me." 
 
 a " Memoirs of My Own Times," by General James Wilkinson, vol. I, 
 p. 189. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 139 
 
 In speaking later on of his dismissal from the army by Gates, 
 Lyon said: " I always understood he reversed the sentence." 
 
 This was probably true. General Schuyler's reinstatement 
 of Lyon might have required otherwise another court-martial, 
 had the sentence of the former one been in force. St. Clair no 
 doubt represented to Schuyler that Lyon's acquaintance with 
 the country, and his bravery and devotion in the hour of great 
 est peril had proved of incalculable assistance to him in effect 
 ing the safe retreat to Fort Edward. ' Such services were re 
 quited by the commanding general in a suitable manner; he 
 wiped out the Gates stigma and assigned Lyon to immediate 
 duty as paymaster to Col. Seth Warner's regiment. 
 
 This was a post of trust and some distinction which had been 
 previously filled by a Connecticut officer, son of a member of 
 the Continental Congress. For some reason the officer, who 
 was popular, had been cashiered, and there was much feeling 
 in the regiment over the affair. The young man's father 
 brought it to the attention of Congress with a view to rein 
 statement. The feeling in the regiment and the father's in 
 fluence operated in favor of the former paymaster, and ren 
 dered the position by no means a pleasant one to his successor. 
 Captain Lyon encountered this dissatisfaction, but as it was 
 not directed against himself personally, his good sense and tact, 
 and a certain riant frankness of spirit peculiarly his own, soon 
 won over officers and soldiers alike, and made the new pay 
 master as great a favorite as the former one. The movement 
 in behalf of the displaced officer had not been given over, nor 
 had his father's strenuous but unavailing efforts to secure his 
 reinstatement yet been abandoned when Captain Lyon came 
 into the regiment. It was probably on this account, and to 
 
I4O MATTHEW LYON 
 
 soften disappointment among the soldiers that the General an 
 nounced the change as a temporary appointment. 
 
 The following is an extract from General Schuyler's letter to 
 Colonel Warner, announcing the appointment of Lyon : 
 
 " Fort Edward, July 15, 1777. 
 
 " Dear Colonel. I am favored with yours of yesterday. I enclose 
 you an order for what clothing can be procured at Albany, which must 
 be sent for. I have made a temporary appointment of M. Lyon to 
 be your Pay Master, and have given him four thousand dollars, which 
 is all I can at present spare. Colonel Simmonds, with four or five 
 hundred of his regiment will join yours; but let the others come this 
 way. * * * Advance as near to the enemy as you possibly can. 
 Secure all tories, and send them to the interior part of the country. 
 Be vigilant; a surprise is inexcusable. Thank the troops in my name 
 for behaving so well as you say they did at Hubbardton. Assure them 
 that I will get whatever I can to make them comfortable. All of your 
 regiment that were here afe already on the way to join you. If we act 
 vigorously, we save the country. * * * Cheer up the spirits of 
 the people in your quarter. 
 
 "P. SCHUYLER."* 
 
 On his appointment as paymaster, Lyon immediately re 
 paired to Manchester, where the regiment was stationed. 
 He held the position until the close of the campaign and took 
 part in the glorious battle of Saratoga. His resignation after 
 the capture of Burgoyne's army caused much regret in his 
 regimental family. He was urged by all to remain, but when 
 he explained that important duties summoned him home, and 
 farewell was spoken, he bore away with him the affectionate 
 sentiments and hearty good wishes of his companions in arms: 5 
 
 It is not known whether he was a member of the Windsor 
 Convention of July 2, 1777, as " the journal of that convention 
 
 " Collections of the Vermont Historical Society," vol. I, p. 186. 
 5 Lyon's Congressional Narrative. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 14! 
 
 was never printed, * * * and not even a full list of the 
 members is extant." a 
 
 The condition of the country was never so unsettled 
 as in the year 1777. A wilderness only partly re 
 claimed furnished at the best -but scant supplies to the 
 people, and the British government had now placed powerful 
 armies and fleets in cooperation in one supreme effort to sub 
 jugate New England and New York. Burgoyne's savage al 
 lies and more savage proclamations were spreading terror 
 among defenseless women and children, and as his army ad 
 vanced not a few among the settlers on the Grants lost heart 
 and deserted to the enemy. Overwhelming disasters occurred 
 on all sides and paralyzed the business of the Windsor Con 
 vention. The Indians, whose favorite weapons were the torch 
 and tomahawk, were now let loose in the district where most 
 of the delegates resided, and when news came of St. Glair's 
 retreat, dreadful apprehensions for their wives and little ones 
 spurred every one to instant departure. At this moment, as in 
 Virginia at a later day when Patrick Henry was addressing the 
 convention upon the ratification or rejection of the Constitu 
 tion of the United States, a violent storm burst forth and dark 
 ness like an incubus sat down upon the earth. Lightning 
 blinded the sight and thunder deafened the ears of the dele 
 gates, and the house in which they sat shook with the fury of 
 the tempest. Departure from the building was impossible, 
 and the members thus forced to tarry, resumed business, 
 bravely put the Constitution on its final reading and adopted 
 it. Although not submitted to the people for ratification, this 
 
 a Address of Rev. Pliney H. White before the Vermont Historical 
 Society, at Windsor, July 2, 1863. 
 
142 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 Constitution was acquiesced in and as strictly obeyed as 
 though that formality or essentiality had been observed. 
 While there were no officers to administer the affairs of the 
 State, it became necessary to entrust the destinies of Vermont 
 to a Council of its best men with powers absolute and unlimited. 
 This celebrated body, since known as the Old Council of 
 Safety, was chosen by the Windsor Convention as its last act 
 before adjournment. Of this Council there is authority for 
 saying that Matthew Lyon was a member. That careful Ver 
 mont antiquarian, Rev. Pliny H. White, in his Windsor ad 
 dress of July 2, 1863, spoke as follows: " No list of the mem 
 bers of this Council is extant, but it is known that Thomas 
 Chittenden, Ira Allen, Moses Robinson, Jonas Fay, Joseph 
 Fay, Paul Spooner, Nathan Clark and Jacob Bayley were of 
 the number, and there is good reason to believe that Samuel 
 Robinson, Matthew Lyon, Thos. Rowley, Gideon Olin and 
 Benjamin Carpenter were also members. Its powers were un 
 defined, and practically were unlimited, but they were exercised 
 with great discretion, and with a single eye to the welfare of 
 Vermont."* The Windsor Convention having thus adopted a 
 State Constitution and selected a Council of Safety, adjourned 
 on the 8th of July, news of the evacuation of Ticonderoga, the 
 flight of the Americans, the pursuit by the British and of a 
 fierce battle at Hubbardton, having brought the proceedings 
 to a sudden close, and filled the members, as above stated, with 
 the utmost anxiety and alarm. The Council of Safety repaired 
 to Manchester where it was in session until the 24th of July, b 
 
 a " Collections of the Vermont Historical Society," vol. I, p. 63. 
 b Letter of Colonel Warner to Gen Stark. Collections Vermont 
 Historical Society, I, 190. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 143 
 
 when it adjourned for a few days to Sunderland, and on the 
 28th of July to Bennington, at which place it was in session 
 for the remainder of the campaign. 41 Ira Allen in his " His 
 tory of Vermont " is not exact in dates. He informs us of the 
 sitting of the Council of Safety at the three above-mentioned 
 places, and from his text the inference is drawn that the memor 
 able step was taken for the appointment of Commissioners of 
 Sequestration, not at Manchester, but at Sunderland. As this 
 far-reaching measure originated with Allen, his account of it 
 is important. " The Council of Safety," he says, " had no 
 money or revenue at command, and all expresses were sup 
 ported at their private expense ; yet, in this situation it became 
 necessary to raise men for the defense of the frontiers, with 
 bounties and wages; ways and means were to be found out, 
 and the day was spent in debating on the subject. Nathan 
 Clark, not convinced of the practicability of raising a regiment, 
 moved in council that Mr. Ira Allen, the youngest member of 
 Council, and who insisted on raising a regiment, while a ma 
 jority of the Council were for only two companies, of sixty 
 men each, might be requested to discover ways and means to 
 raise and support a regiment, and to make his report at sun- 
 rising on the morrow. The Council acquiesced, and Mr. Allen 
 took the matter into* consideration. Next morning, at sun- 
 rising, the Council met, and he reported the ways and means to 
 raise and support a regiment, viz.: That the Council should 
 appoint Commissioners of Sequestration, with authority to 
 seize the goods and chattels of all persons who had or should 
 join the common enemy; and that all property so seized should 
 
 a lra Allen's History of Vermont, pp. 93'94- Blade's State Papers, 
 pp. 197-223. 
 
144 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 be sold at public vendue, and the proceeds paid to the treasurer 
 of the Council of Safety, for the purpose of paying the bounties 
 and wages of a regiment forthwith to be raised for the defense 
 of the State. The Council adopted the measure and appointed 
 officers for the regiment. Samuel Herrick, Esq., was ap 
 pointed the colonel, and the men enlisted, and the bounties 
 paid in fifteen days, out of the confiscated property of the 
 enemies of the new State. This was the first instance in Amer 
 ica of seizing and selling the property of the enemies of Amer 
 ican independence." 
 
 A graphic account of the proceedings of the Old Council 
 of Safety is contained in the address of Hon. D. P. Thompson 
 delivered in 1850 before the Vermont Historical Society, and 
 published by order of the Legislature, the members of both 
 Houses having been present at its delivery. Mr. Thompson's 
 warmth of coloring and historical fidelity have been adversely 
 criticised by Hon. E. P. Walton, editor of that valuable work, 
 " The Governor and Council," but Hon. David Read, a writer 
 of much accuracy as to facts, uses Thompson's account with 
 out question in his sketch of Governor Chittenden. Delivered 
 before a body devoted to historical inquiries, and published by 
 the Legislature, the Thompson production is recommended to 
 favor by this high endorsement. An address, moreover, which 
 elicited the following resolution is surely entitled to respectful 
 consideration: " Montpelier, Vt., October 29, 1850. Resolved, 
 by the Senate and House of Representatives: That the Secre 
 tary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House of Representa 
 tives be instructed to solicit from the Hon. Daniel P. Thomp 
 son a copy of the interesting and valuable address pronounced 
 
 Ira Allen's History of Vermont, pp. 96-07. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 145 
 
 by him before the Vermont Historical Society, in presence of 
 the two Houses, on the evening of the 24th instant, and that 
 the Secretary and Clerk procure two thousand copies thereof 
 to be printed and distributed under the direction of his Excel 
 lency the Governor." In communicating this resolution to 
 the orator, the Secretary and Clerk added : " We take occasion 
 to express the hope that you will comply with the unanimous 
 desire of the two Houses, in which the entire audience, on the 
 occasion alluded to, participated." 
 
 Mr. Thompson was careful to cite the authority from which 
 he derived the material facts of his narrative, namely, Ira 
 Allen, a member of the Council of Safety, and " from the lips 
 of old men now passed away, and especially of one whom this 
 year has numbered with the dead, Daniel Chipman, and who, 
 then an observant boy, was permitted to be an eye and ear 
 witness of all that occurred in the debate, which we will try to 
 bring up as a living and truthful picture directly to the senses." 
 The orator introduces the audience to the Old Council of 
 Safety at its most interesting and important session. As Mat 
 thew Lyon is declared to have been one of the leading actors 
 in the animated scene depicted by Mr. Thompson, the follow 
 ing passages from his address are appropriate in this place: 
 
 " In obedience to the order of the Convention they (the 
 Council of Safety) had promptly assembled at Manchester and 
 commenced the worse than Egyptian task devolving on 
 them that of making adequate provisions for the public de 
 fense, while the means wese almost wholly wanting. For with 
 scarcely the visible means in the whole settlement, in its then 
 exhausted and unsettled condition, of raising and supporting 
 a single company of soldiers, they were expected to raise an 
 
146 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 army; without the shadow of a public treasury, and without 
 any credit as a State, and without the power of taxing the 
 people, which, by the Constitution just adopted, could only 
 be done by a legislature not yet called, they were required to 
 do that for which half a million was needed. Such were the 
 difficulties by which they were met at the outset difficulties 
 which to men of ordinary stamina and mental resources would 
 have been insurmountable. But the members of the Old 
 Council of Safety were not men of ordinary stamina, either 
 moral or mental, and the results of their action amid all these 
 difficulties and discouragements were soon to evince it to 
 the world. The particular time, however, we have chosen for 
 lifting the curtain from their secret proceedings was at the 
 darkest and most disheartening hour they were doomed to 
 experience, and before their united mind had been brought 
 to bear on any measure affording the least promise of auspi 
 cious results. * * * 
 
 " The long summer day was drawing to a close * * * 
 when the doorkeeper, with unwonted haste and an agitated 
 manner, entered the room and announced to the astonished 
 members the alarming tidings that one of their own number, 
 and till that day an active participator in their discussions, 
 had proved a Judas, and was now, with a band of his recreant 
 neighbors, on his way to the British Camp. This news fell 
 like a thunder-clap on the Council, producing at first a sensa 
 tion not often witnessed in so grave an assemblage. But no 
 formal comments were offered, and after the commotion had 
 subsided, all sank into a thoughtful silence, which v/e will 
 improve by personal introductions of all the leading members 
 
FIRST GOVERNOR OF VERMONT. 
 

 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 147 
 
 of this body, whom we are now to suppose sitting before us 
 digesting the tidings just announced. 
 
 " Separated from the rest by a sort of enclosure composed 
 of tables strung across one end of the apartment, which was 
 the large upper room of the old tavern in Manchester, and 
 which had been hastily fitted up for the occasion, sat the Presi 
 dent of the Council the venerable Thomas Chittenden, the 
 wise, the prudent and the good, who was to Vermont what 
 Washington was to the whole country, and who, though pos 
 sessing no dazzling greatness, had yet that rare combination 
 of moral and intellectual qualities which was far better 'good 
 sense, great discretion, honesty of purpose, and an unvarying 
 equanimity of temper, united with a modest and pleasing 
 address. * * * On the left of the President, on one of 
 the plain benches that ran along the walls in front, immersed 
 in thought, sat side by side, like brothers as they were, the two 
 Fays those intelligent and persevering friends of freedom and 
 State independence. Further along sat the two Robinsons, 
 alike patriotic and active or able, according to the different 
 spheres in which they were about to be distinguished one 
 in the tented field, and the other on the Bench and in the 
 Councils of the Nation. 
 
 " Next to them was seen the short, burly form of the un 
 compromising Matthew Lyon, the Irish refugee, who was will 
 ing to be sold, as he was, to pay his passage, for a pair of 
 two-year-old bulls, by which he was wont to swear on all extra 
 occasions thus sold for the sake of getting out of the King- 
 tainted atmosphere of the Old World, into one where his 
 broad chest could expand freely, and his bold, free spirit soar 
 untrammeled by the clogs of legitimacy. In his eagle eye, and 
 
148 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 every lineament of his clear, ardent and fearless countenance, 
 might be read the promise of what he was to become the 
 stern Democrat and unflinching champion of the whole right 
 and the largest liberty." 
 
 Brief sketches are given of the leading members of the 
 Council. The thoughtful Benjamin Carpenter, the mild Na 
 than Clark, future Speaker of the Legislature, stern Gideon 
 Olin, afterwards a Congressman, Thomas Rowley, the poet 
 of the Green Mountains, and Paul Spooner, the busy man of 
 affairs, are all crayoned out in Mr. Thompson's clever sketch. 
 Ira Allen is described more fully: " So much the junior of his 
 colleagues was he, that a spectator might well wonder why 
 he was selected as one of such a sage body. But those who 
 procured his appointment knew full well why they had done 
 so ; and his history thenceforward was destined to prove a con 
 tinued justification of their opinion. Both in form and feature, 
 he was one of the handsomest men of his day; while a mind 
 at once versatile, clear and penetrating, with perceptions as 
 quick as light, was stamped on his Grecian brow, found a live 
 lier expression in his flashing black eyes and other lineaments 
 of his intellectual countenance. Such, as he appeared for the 
 first time on the stage of public action, was the afterwards 
 noted Ira Allen whose true history, when written, will show 
 him to have been either secretly or openly the originator or 
 successful prosecutor of more important political measures 
 affecting the interests and independence of the State, and the 
 issues of the war in the Northern Department, than any other 
 individual in Vermont; making him, with the many peculiar 
 traits he possessed, one of the most remarkable men of the 
 times in which he so conspicuously figured. ' I have finished/ 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 149 
 
 said Spooner, breaking the gloomy silence which had so long 
 pervaded the assembly, ' I have finished the despatch, Mr. 
 President, requiring the attendance of General Bailey, the ab 
 sent member from Newbury, and I have ventured to add the 
 news of the defection of that miserable Squire Spencer/ ' Tis 
 all well/ responded the President; 'but I had hoped to have 
 forwarded by the same messenger, a despatch requesting the 
 aid of New Hampshire. But how can we expect they will do 
 anything till we do something for ourselves till they know 
 whether they will find among us more friends to feed and 
 assist than enemies to impede them? And I submit to you, 
 gentlemen, whether it is not now high time to act to some 
 purpose? If we can't vote taxes, we can contribute towards 
 raising a military force, if you will agree to raise one. Instead 
 of being disheartened by the conduct of the traitor Spencer, 
 who has, perhaps, providentially left us before we had settled 
 on any plan of operations which he could report to the enemy, 
 let us show him and the world that the rest of us can be men ! 
 I have ten head of cattle which, by way of example, I will give 
 for the emergency. But am I more patriotic than the rest of 
 you here, and hundreds of others in the settlement? My wife 
 has a valuable gold necklace; hint to her to-day that it is 
 needed, and my word for it, to-morrow will find it in the treas 
 ury of freedom. But is my wife more spirited than yours and 
 others? Gentlemen, I wait your propositions/ 
 
 " During this effective appeal drooping heads began to be 
 raised perplexed countenances began to brighten, and by the 
 time he had closed several speakers were on their feet eager 
 to respond. 
 
150 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 " ' Mr. Carpenter has the floor, gentlemen,' said the Presi 
 dent, evidently wishing that discreet and firm man should lead 
 off as a sort of guide to the warm emotions he saw rising. 
 
 " ' I rose,' said Carpenter, ' to give my hearty response to the 
 sentiments of the Chair. It is time, high time to act. I have 
 no definite proposition now to offer; but within one hour I 
 will have one, if others are not before me in the matter. For 
 it is a crime to dally any longer, and from this moment action 
 shall be my motto.' 
 
 " 'Aye, action! action!' responded several. 
 
 " 'Action let it be, then,' said the impulsive Rowley, the next 
 to speak; ' and I will make a proposition that will give gentle 
 men all the action they will want, besides setting an example 
 which will show works as well as faith. I propose, Mr. Presi 
 dent, that each one of us here, before any more of us run 
 away to the enemy, seize a standard, repair singly to the 
 different hamlets among our mountains, cause the summoning 
 drum to be beat for volunteers, whom we will ourselves lead 
 to do battle with this Jupiter Olympus of a British General, 
 who has so nearly annihilated us by force of Proclamation/ 
 
 " 'Tom Rowley all over! but a gallant push nevertheless/ 
 exclaimed Samuel Robinson in an undertone, ' and yet, Mr. 
 President/ he continued, rising, ' if our spirited colleague's pro 
 posal should be carried into effect, we should still want a regu 
 larly enlisted force to serve as a nucleus to volunteers, espe 
 cially under such officers as most of us would make.' 'I move/ 
 exclaimed Samuel Robinson, ' we vote to raise a company of 
 an hundred men, which will be as many as all the contributions 
 we can obtain among our poor and distressed people will 
 equip and support very long in the field.' 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS I$l 
 
 " ' And I/ said Clark, ' believing we many venture to go a 
 little higher than that, propose to raise two companies of sixty 
 each/ 
 
 " * No, no/ cried several voices. ' One company means 
 can be found for no more/ 
 
 " ' Yes, yes, the larger number I go for two companies/ 
 cried others. 
 
 " ' And I go for neither, Mr. President/ said Ira Allen, dash 
 ing down his pen upon the table, by the side of which he had 
 been sitting in deep cogitation. ' I have heard all the proposi 
 tions yet advanced see the difficulties of all, and yet I see a 
 way by which we can do something more worthy the character 
 of the Green Mountain Boys, and that too without infringing 
 the Constitution or distressing the people. I therefore move, 
 Sir, that this Council resolve to raise a whole regiment of men, 
 appoint their officers, and take such prompt measures for their 
 enlistment that within one week every glen in our mountains 
 shall resound with the din of military preparations/ 
 
 " ' Chimerical ! ' said one who, in common with the rest of 
 the Council, seemed to hear with much surprise a proposition 
 of such magnitude so confidently put forth, when the general 
 doubt appeared to be whether even the comparatively trifling 
 one of Clark should be adopted. 
 
 " ' Impossible utterly impossible to raise pay for half of 
 them,' exclaimed others. 
 
 " ' Don't let us say that till compelled to/ said Carpenter in 
 an encouraging tone. ' Though I don't now see where the 
 means are to come from, yet new light may break in on us by 
 another day, so that we can see our way clear to sustain this 
 proposition. If there should be, we should feel like men again/ 
 
IS 2 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 " ' Amen to all that/ responded Clark, ' and as the hour of 
 adjournment has arrived, I move that our young colleague 
 who seems so confident in the matter of means, be a committee 
 of one to devise those ways and means to pay the bounties and 
 wages of the regiment he proposes, and that he make his report 
 thereof by sunrise to-morrow morning/ 
 
 " * I second that motion, so plase ye, Mr. President/ cried 
 Lyon in his usual full determined tone and Irish accent, ' I go 
 for Mr. Allen's proposition entirely, manes or no manes. But 
 the manes must and shall be found. We will put the brave 
 gentleman's brains under the screw to-night/ he added jo 
 cosely, ' and if he appears empty handed in the morning, he 
 ought to be expelled from the Council. Aye, and I'll move it 
 too, by the two bulls that redamed me/ 
 
 " ' I accept the terms ! ' said Allen, ' give me a room by my 
 self, pen, ink, paper and candles, and I will abide the con 
 dition/ 
 
 " ' For your light, Mr. Allen, as your task is to find money 
 where there is none to any common view, I would advise you 
 to borrow the wonderful lamp of Aladdin/ gaily added Rowley, 
 as the Council broke up and separated for the night. 
 
 " At sunrise the next morning all the Council were in their 
 seats to receive the promised report. * * * Allen, with 
 his papers in hand, came in and, after announcing his readiness 
 to report, calmly proceeded to unfold his plan, which was noth 
 ing more nor less than the bold and undreamed of step of con 
 fiscating, seizing and, on the shortest legal notice, selling at 
 the post the estate of every Tory in Vermont, for the public 
 service ! 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 153 
 
 " The speaker having read his report, consisting of a decree 
 of confiscation, drawn up ready for adoption by the Council, 
 and a list of candidates or nominations of officers for a regi 
 ment of Rangers, he quickly resumed his seat and patiently 
 awaited the action of the Council. But they were taken by 
 such complete surprise by a proposition at that time so new 
 in the Colonies, so bold and so startling in its character, that 
 for many minutes not a word or whisper was heard through 
 the hushed assembly whose bowed heads and working counte 
 nances showed how intensely their minds were engaged in 
 trying to grapple with the subject matter on which their action 
 was so unexpectedly required. 
 
 " Soon, however, low murmurs of doubt or disapproval 
 began to be heard, and the expressions Unprecedented step! 
 Doubtful policy! Injury to the cause! became distinguishable 
 among the more timid in different parts of the room, when 
 the prompt and fearless Matthew Lyon, whose peculiar traits of 
 intellect had made him the first to meet and master the proposi 
 tion which jumped so. well with his feelings, and whose con 
 sequent resolve to support it was only strengthened by the 
 tokens of rising opposition he perceived around him, now 
 sprang to his feet, and bringing his broad palms together with 
 a loud slap, exultingly exclaimed : ' The child is born, Mr. 
 President! My head,' he continued, ' has been in a continual 
 ' fog ever since we met, till the present moment. But now, 
 thank God, I can see my way out of it; I can now see at a 
 glance how all we want can be readily, aye, and righteously, 
 accomplished! I can already see a regiment of our brave 
 mountaineers in arms before me as the certain fruits of this 
 bold, bright thought of our young friend here/ 
 
154 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 " ' Unprecedented step, is it? It may be so with us timid 
 Republicans; but is it so with our enemies, who are this mo 
 ment threatening to crush us because we object to receive their 
 law and precedent? How, in Heaven's name, were they to 
 obtain the lands of half Vermont, which they offered the lion- 
 hearted Ethan Allen if he would join them, but by confiscating 
 our estates? What became of the estates of those in their 
 country who, like ourselves, rebelled against their govern 
 ment? Why, sir, they were confiscated! Can they complain, 
 then, if we adopt a measure, which, in case we are vanquished, 
 they will visit upon our estates, to say nothing of our necks? 
 And can these recreant rascals themselves, who have left their 
 property among us, and gone off to help fasten the very law and 
 precedent on us/ complain of our doing what they will be the 
 first to recommend to be done to us, if their side prevails? 
 Where, then, is the doubtful policy of our anticipating them in 
 the measure, any more than seizing one of their loaded guns 
 in battle and turning it against them? 
 
 " ' Injury to the cause will it be? Will it injure our cause 
 here, where men are daily deserting to the British in the belief 
 that we shall not dare touch their property, to strike a blow 
 that will deter all the wavering, and most others of any prop 
 erty, from leaving us hereafter? Will it injure our cause here, 
 to have a regiment of regular troops who will draw into the 
 field four times their numbers of volunteers? If that be an 
 injury, Mr. President, I only wish we had more of them! With 
 half a dozen such injuries we would rout Burgoyne's whole 
 army in a fortnight. I go, then, for the proposition to the 
 death, Mr. President. '^Y^-by-the-two bulls that redamed me 
 I will- go it I ' 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 155 
 
 " The ice was broken. This bold dash of rough, argumenta 
 tive eloquence, so adroitly addressed to men of such mould, 
 had reached cords that rose responsive to the touch and gave a 
 direction to the naturally favoring current of their feelings, 
 which was not to be diverted. The more ready and fearless, 
 one after another, now stepped forward, removed obstructions, 
 and gave additional force to the gathering impetus. The 
 President, on whom all eyes were turned, was seen nodding 
 his approbation in spite of all his prudence. The timid rapidly 
 gained strength, the doubters at length yielded, and within two 
 hours this all important measure, which in the eventful period 
 of forty days named at the outset, became the pivot on which 
 the destinies of Vermont were turned, was unanimously 
 adopted." 
 
 Colonel Herrick's regiment was immediately raised and 
 equipped, the sinews of war in this crisis being obtained out of 
 the proceeds of sales of personal property of tories and traitors. 
 The soldiers thus placed in the field took part in the fever 
 memorable battle of Bennington, turning point in the tide of 
 war in the North, as the battle of King's Mountain proved in 
 the South, the former leading to the overthrow of Burgoyne 
 at Saratoga and to the alliance between France and the United 
 States, and the latter to the surrender of Cornwallis at York- 
 town and the recognition of American independence .by George 
 the Third. Captain Lyon as paymaster to Warner's regiment 
 fought at Bennington, where his regiment covered itself with 
 glory, and he also took part in the battles around Saratoga, 
 repairing, as he himself afterwards said in Congress, to the 
 
 Address before the Vermont Historical Society, by Daniel P. 
 Thompson. Burlington: 1850. 
 
156 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 trenches every morning, musket in hand, in that grand strug 
 gle where the lion flag of England went down in fatal defeat 
 before the Stars and Stripes of the nascent Republic. In his 
 Frankfort letter to Senator Mason, which the author has found 
 so useful in explaining many things that were obscure, Lyon 
 said that while he was paymaster to Warner's regiment, " be 
 sides attending to the duties of my station, I with my gun and 
 bayonet was in many rencounters and assisted at the taking of 
 Burgoyne, and had the honor and pleasure of seeing his army 
 pile their arms/' He continues: "In 1778, the regiment 
 having lost near two-thirds of its number in the many battles 
 and affairs of 1777, was ordered to the southward, where it was 
 expected it would be incorporated with other regiments and 
 the supernumerary officers discharged. At the request of my 
 Vermont friends I resigned my station in the army, and the 
 next week was chosen and appointed a captain in the militia. 
 I was immediately appointed paymaster-general of the troops 
 and the militia of the State, Secretary to the Governor and 
 Council, and assistant to the Treasurer." 
 
 Lyon had now become a leader in Vermont, his untiring 
 activity, excellent business qualities, and ardor in the cause of 
 independence all having conspired to bring him forward. Gov 
 ernor Chittenden admired him greatly, and felt the want of such 
 a man in the emergencies which crowded thickly upon him. 
 Ethan Allen was in captivity, Remember Baker dead, Warner 
 and Cochran were absent in the Continental Army, and now 
 Ira Allen and Matthew Lyon became the chief counsellors and 
 supporters of the Governor in the arduous task of defending 
 Vermont from the attacks of its numerous enemies. Arling 
 ton was the Tory headquarters in the State. Jehiel Hawley, 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 157 
 
 the leading man there, openly prayed for the King; Abel Bene 
 dict deserted to the British and was killed at the battle of Ben- 
 nington; at least five or six other Arlington men were in the 
 army of Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga. The stay-at-home 
 men were in secret correspondence with the enemy.* Either 
 the Tory stronghold must be reduced, or the patriots in Ver 
 mont were in danger of being driven out of the country. " At 
 this juncture," says a writer in the "Vermont Historical Maga 
 zine," " Thomas Chittenden, Matthew Lyon and John Fassett, 
 Jr., moved into the town and took possession of confiscated 
 property. Captain Fassett took Bisco's house; Thomas Chit 
 tenden, Captain Hawley's; Colonel Lyon, the one opposite, 
 now west of the railroad depot. Between Chittenden's and 
 Lyon's a vault was dug and walled up with plank and timber, 
 to be used as a jail. Ethan Allen was the neighbor of Fassett, 
 and Ira Allen was at Sunderland, three miles distant. Every 
 thing being ready the Council erected its judgment seat, and 
 woe to the Tory who was summoned to its presence. * * * 
 It were to little purpose," continues this writer, who appears 
 to have a soft place in his heart for Tories, " to enter into a 
 detail of the proceedings of the Governor and Council while 
 at Arlington. It is enough to say that the Commissioners of 
 Sequestration were not idle. There was little, if any, resis 
 tance. Their foes were completely disheartened by the turn 
 which events had taken." 6 
 
 One of the most painstaking investigators of the early his 
 torical landmarks of Vermont was the late E. P. Walton, 
 editor of " Governor and Council/' and also editor of the 
 
 <* Vermont Historical Magazine, vol. I, p. 130. 
 6 Vermont Historical Magazine, article Arlington, by Rev. F. A. 
 Wadleigh, vol. I, p, 130. 
 
158 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 " Vermont Watchman." He had great industry and mental 
 clearness, and only reached his conclusions after carefully sift 
 ing all the evidence. No list of the members of the Old Coun 
 cil of Safety is extant, and many names have been suggested 
 as claimants to the honor of membership. Mr. Walton ex 
 amined the claims of all with admirable patience and fairness, 
 and his judgment is entitled to the respectful attention of his 
 torical scholars. The Council consisted of twelve members, 
 eleven of which, Mr. Walton concluded, had been ascertained 
 beyond reasonable doubt. He then addressed himself to the 
 discovery of the twelfth member, and the result of his investi 
 gation is summed up as follows: 
 
 "The last name on the 'Rev. Mr. White's list, and most 
 probably the right one to be selected, is that of Matthew Lyon, 
 then of Arlington."* A number of "Additions and Correc 
 tions " appears at the end of the first volume of " Governor 
 and Council," one of which is in the shape of an opinion com 
 municated to the editor by Mr. Henry S. Dana, of Woodstock, 
 Vt. " This gentleman," says Mr. Walton, " is of opinion that 
 Matthew Lyon was not a member of the Council of Safety, for 
 the reasons that, in 1798, in his defense before the Committee 
 of Privileges of Congress on the Griswold affair, and in his 
 speech on the subsequent resolution of expulsion, he named 
 sundry of his services and offices in Vermont, and did not 
 name membership in the Committee of Safety; 6 and also that, 
 
 Records of the Council of Safety and Governor and Council of the 
 State of Vermont, vol. I, p. 71. Montpelier: 1873. 
 
 & " Committee " probably a misprint for " Council," as Lyon did de 
 clare in the speech referred to that he was a member of the Committee 
 of Safety of the Hampshire Grants, and, besides, the Council of Safety 
 was the body evidently meant by Mr. Dana. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 159 
 
 for a period after his retreat from Jericho in 1776, he was ' in 
 disgrace.' Both of these points are alluded to in the text; and 
 the first one (suggested on page 73) is strong enough to make 
 one doubt, at least; but after all, the editor has not been able 
 to find a person with so good a claim to the honor as Lyon 
 had. Mr. Dana suggested Hon. Benjamin Emmons in lieu of 
 Lyon, remarking that some of Mr. E.'s descendants ranked him 
 as one of the Council of Safety. In a subsequent letter, how 
 ever, Mr. D. wrote thus : ' I think Lyon is excluded by his 
 own witness, but I rather think you will never be able to prove 
 that Emmons had a much better right to the place nothing 
 beyond hearsay.' " a 
 
 The present writer has probably had the best opportunity 
 to examine the writings and speeches of Matthew Lyon, and 
 will devote the rest of this chapter to a resume of the public 
 stations known to have been held by him, and of those prob 
 ably held by him, but of which the evidence is not certain, 
 during the period from his arrival in the Hampshire Grants 
 in 1774 to his advent in Arlington as Secretary of the Gov 
 ernor and Council, April 9, 1778. 
 
 He was probably a member of each of the three conventions 
 held respectively, at Manchester January 31, 1775, in which 
 Wallingford was represented; 6 at Dorset July 26, 1775; and 
 at the same place January 16, 1776.^ The lists of delegates 
 are not preserved. Lyon was active in Wallingford affairs 
 during this period, having submitted to the young Whigs in 
 
 Records of the Council of Safety and Governor, etc., of Vermont, 
 pp. 526-7. 
 
 & Vermont Historical Society, I, p. 8. 
 c Ibid, p. 9. 
 d Ibid, p. II. 
 
160 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 his neighborhood in 1774 a scheme for a military organization, 
 which was adopted." 
 
 In 1776, before the Dorset Convention of July 24th of that 
 year had been held, General Gates recommended the nomina 
 tion of military officers to the Committee of the Hampshire 
 Grants, " of which," Lyon declared in his Congressional Nar 
 rative, " I was a member." He was probably appointed by 
 the Manchester Convention, or by one of the Dorset conven 
 tions just named. Should the full lists of members ever be 
 found, the name of Lyon probably will be discovered among 
 them. 
 
 He was a delegate to the Dorset Convention of July 24, 
 1776, from North Wallingford, together with Abraham Jack 
 son. The well authenticated James H. Phelps's copy of the 
 proceedings and list of members contains Lyon's name, b which 
 is also subscribed to the declaration of principles put forth by 
 the Convention. Some Vermont writers say he was a mem 
 ber of the Windsor Convention of July 2, 1777, as well as of 
 the celebrated Council of Safety which was chosen by that 
 Convention. d Mr. Dana, already referred to, expressed the 
 opinion that he was not a member of this Council, because he 
 did not mention it in his Congressional Narrative. There is 
 apparent argumentative force in this opinion. Lyon was fond 
 of referring to the honorable positions he occupied in Vermont, 
 but the author has found no distinct claim by him in his letters 
 or speeches, many of which he has examined, though his letter 
 
 o Lyon's letter to Mason, January 16, 1817. 
 6 Vermont Historical Society, I, p. 16. 
 c Ibid, p. 23. 
 
 d Rev. Pliny White, E. G. Walton, D. P. Thompson and others held 
 this opinion. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS l6l 
 
 to Senator Mason might be construed to inchide such a claim, 
 of having been a member of the Old Council of Safety of 
 1777. The failure of Colonel Lyon to mention that office 
 in 1798, when suddenly called upon to defend himself from 
 attack, is by no means conclusive either that he had or had 
 not been a member of this Council. There were several sta 
 tions of honor which he omitted to mention on that occasion, 
 but which there is no doubt he had filled. Mr. Dana may have 
 thought it probable that so great a distinction as the office 
 conferred was not likely to be forgotten by Colonel Lyon, 
 whose memory was generally tenacious of the important trans 
 actions in which he had taken part. But he was one of the 
 eighty-five Americans who struck the first glorious and ag 
 gressive blow of the war, the capture of Ticonderoga, the fame 
 of which immeasurably surpasses that of any other event, the 
 battle of Bennington alone excepted, which occurred in Ver 
 mont during the whole Revolution. He was also founder of 
 the flourishing town of Fair Haven, where he established ex 
 tensive mills, factories and iron works, and long was known 
 as the father of the town, a benefactor of the poor and one of 
 the most popular and respected citizens of Vermont. Yet 
 none of these matters was mentioned by Colonel Lyon in his 
 " Congressional Narrative." The force of Mr. Dana's opinion 
 is of course only negative and argumentative. As such it must 
 receive every consideration it deserves in this biography, the 
 author of which has no other purpose than to state the truth. 
 The failure to find reference to the Old Council of Safety in 
 such of Colonel Lyon's literary remains, except the Mason letter 
 of 1817, as have come into the present writer's hands, although 
 negative and inferential, adds to the plausibility of the opinion 
 
1 62 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 expressed by Mr. Dana. In reality, however, I think Mr. 
 Dana is mistaken. On the other side, there is much to be said 
 favorable to the opposite opinion expressed by well known his 
 torical writers in Vermont, that Colonel Lyon was a member of 
 the Council in question. Had the author not been aware of this 
 he would have omitted the copious extracts from Mr. Thomp 
 son's address before the Vermont Historical Society, in which 
 Lyons membership and prominence in the Council are dis 
 cussed as undoubted facts. In the sketch of Thomas Chitten- 
 den by David Read, the name of Matthew Lyon is also given 
 as a member of this Council. In the " Report of a British 
 Agent/' published among the Haldimand Papers, this occurs : 
 " Captain Lyon (one of the Council) told * * * that 
 Governor Chittenden would settle with Britain if the present 
 leading men in Vermont were allowed to continue such under 
 Britain." 6 Commenting on this, Walton says, "Lyon was 
 never a member of any Council, unless it was the Council of 
 Safety, which closed more than two years previous to these re 
 ports." 6 " Colonel Allen's report to the Council," says another 
 of Haldimand's agents, " was kept so profound a secret that no 
 man of the King's friends, nor of the rebels of high or low de 
 gree could come to the knowledge of a syllable of it from the 
 Council, except a few words dropped from Captain Lyon, to 
 the following purport, viz : * Vermont would never make up 
 the Tories' losses, and if they could not settle with General 
 Haldimand pretty much on their own terms, they would baffle 
 him with flags and prolong the time till they were better able 
 
 a Vermont Historical Magazine, I, 911. 
 6 Vermont Historical Society, II, 137. 
 c Governor and Council, I, 72. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 163 
 
 to oppose him.' " a The last quotation, found in the " Report 
 of a British Agent," is also taken from the Haldimand 
 Papers, and implies that L. was a member of the Council. 
 Mr. Walton sums up the testimony in favor of Lyon's mem 
 bership in the following words : " Assuming, as it is certainly 
 safe to do, that Lyon was qualified for the place, his close rela 
 tions with Chittenden and the Aliens, * * * are the 
 strong points in favor of the probability that he rather than 
 any other man suggested by Mr. White, or any other man who 
 can be suggested, was the twelfth member of the Council of 
 Safety"* The italics in the last words are those of Mr. Wal 
 ton. 
 
 Lyon says, in his letters and speeches, that he was adjutant 
 of his regiment the first year of the war. He was lieutenant in 
 the Continental line when ordered to Jericho by Gates in 1776, 
 and paymaster with the rank of captain in Col. Seth Warner's 
 regiment in 1777. General Schuyler's letter to Colonel War 
 ner, in which Lyon's appointment to the last position was an 
 nounced, has been already quoted. A grandson of Colonel 
 Lyon, Mr. T. A. Lyon, of Louisville, Kentucky, among other 
 valuable papers which he has furnished to the author, sent the 
 original commission of his grandfather as second lieutenant in 
 the Continental line in 1776. Some autograph hunter has cut 
 out the general's signature (that of Horatio Gates most prob 
 ably), but the rest of the commission is intact, and is here given 
 in full as an interesting and perhaps never before published 
 Revolutionary document. It is written in a bold, fine hand, 
 and bears the wax seal of the general whose name has been 
 cut out. 
 
 Vermont Historical Society, II, 137, 
 6 Governor and Council, I, 712-3. 
 
164 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 "By Virtue of the Power & Authority Given by Major Genera! 
 Schuyler. 
 "To Matthew Lyon, Gentleman: 
 
 " Reposing especial trust & Confidence in your Patriotism, Valour, 
 Conduct & Fidelity, I do by these presents constitute & Appoint you 
 to be a Second Lieutenant in the Army of the United States rais'd 
 for the defence of American Liberty, & for repelling every hostile 
 Invasion thereof. You are therefore carefully & diligently to dis 
 charge the duty of a Second Lieutenant by doing & performing all 
 manner of things thereunto belonging. And I do strictly charge & 
 require all officers & soldiers under your command to be obedient 
 to your Orders as a Second Lieutenant & you are to observe & 
 follow such Orders & directions from time to time as you shall 
 receive from the present or a future Convention of the United States 
 of America or Committee thereof, for that purpose appointed, or 
 Commander in chief for the time being of the Army of the United 
 States, or any other your Superior Officer, according to the rules 
 & discipline of War; in pursuance of the trust repos'd in you this 
 Commission to Continue in force untill revok'd by me, the present, 
 or a future Convention of the United States. 
 
 " dated at Ticonderoga this igth day of July 1776. 
 
 " (Signature cut out.) [Heavy wax seal.] 
 " By his Honour's 
 " Command. 
 
 "WM. CLASSON, Secny." 
 
 Rev. Pliny H. White, in his 1858 address 'before the Ver 
 mont Historical Society, states that Lyon was first heard of in 
 the Hampshire Grants as a laborer employed by Thomas Chit- 
 tenden at Arlington. This is obviously an error. Chittenden 
 first took up his residence at Arlington in 1777, nearly four 
 years after Lyon had bought land and settled in Wallingford. 6 
 
 o " Chittenden, after the surrender of Burgoyne, purchased a farm in 
 Arlington, on which he resided until 1787." Daniel Chipman's Life! 
 of Governor Chittenden, p. 17. 
 
 & A letter to the author from Joel C. Baker, Esq., of Rutland, and 
 Rev. Mr. Saunderson's Sketch of Wallingford at a former page. Also/ 
 Lyon's Congressional Narrative, 1798. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 165 
 
 Mr. White cites no proof or record evidence for his statement, 
 and the author, after diligent search, has found nothing what 
 ever to support it, but everything to contradict it. The orator 
 in this instance no doubt trusted to rumor, which for a season 
 among the Federalists was very busy with its thousand 
 tongues disseminating idle stories concerning Matthew Lyon. 
 The address, while marked by much of antiquarian research 
 into a subject then almost forgotten, and which Mr. White 
 contributed not a little to rescue from oblivion, has this defect, 
 perhaps inseparable from all hasty treatment : Portions of the 
 narrative are taken at second hand and from neighborhood 
 gossip, as for example, where he says Lyon's second wife " bore 
 him four children," whereas the number was eight; where he 
 says, " Lyon's first appearance in public life was in the sum 
 mer of 1776 * * * at Jericho/' whereas he was one of 
 Ethan Allen's storming party at Ticonderoga in 1775, and ad 
 jutant to Seth Warner's regiment also in 1775 ; 6 where he says, 
 in speaking of Lyon's conviction and fine under the Sedition 
 Law, that " it was not till 1833, several years after his death, 
 that the fine and costs were refunded to his heirs," whereas the 
 act of Congress referred to bears date July 4, 1840; and 
 finally, not to dwell on the subject longer, where he says Lyon 
 " was elected the first delegate to Congress " from the Terri 
 tory of Arkansas, whereas he was elected the second delegate, 
 having been defeated by another candidate at the first elec- 
 tion. d 
 
 Lyon's family record and his daughter's (Mrs. Roe's) letters to au 
 thor. 
 
 & Lyon's letter to Senator Mason and his 1798 Narrative. 
 
 c Congressional Globe for 1840. 
 
 * Register of Congressional Debates, 1820. 
 
1 66 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 Thomas Chittenden, Matthew Lyon and Jonathan Spafford 
 emigrated from Litchfield county, Connecticut, in 1774, and it 
 is possible, as they took household and other effects with them 
 to the Hampshire Grants, that Lyon, always fertile in resources 
 atid a natural organizer, may have been employed by Chitten 
 den to transport the effects of the party to the new country 
 from historic old Litchfield. Everywhere that the records dis 
 close Chittenden and Lyon in contact, they appear as equals 
 and friends. They were members of the Dorset Convention 
 of July 24, 1776. They were leading members of the Old 
 Council of Safety of 1777. They appeared as associates at 
 Arlington, in the latter part of 1777, to crush out Toryism then 
 rampant at that place. In the course of a few years Lyon mar 
 ried the daughter of Chittenden and became a favorite son-in- 
 law of the famous Governor. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 LOST SIBYL LEAVES OF CHITTENDEN THE HALDIMAND IN 
 TRIGUE IRA ALLEN'S CONFESSION COLLISION AT WEST 
 MINSTER BETWEEN CHIPMAN AND LYON COUNCIL OF CEN 
 SORS CAUSE LYON'S IMPEACHMENT LYON VINDICATED 
 
 DEATH OF HIS WIFE HIS REMARRIAGE TO GOVERNOR CHIT- 
 
 TENDEN'S DAUGHTER HE FOUNDS FAIR HAVEN DISTIN 
 GUISHED CAREER IN VERMONT. 
 
 "TOURING the period of the residence of Thomas Chittenden 
 and Matthew Lyon at Arlington the cause of Vermont, 
 like a pendulum betwixt despair and hope, now trembled on 
 the verge of ruin, and again was carried to the opposite ex 
 treme of anticipated triumph, with State sovereignty the watch 
 word in every fight and against every enemy. 
 
 "Ho! all to the borders, Vermonters come down, 
 With your breeches of deer-skin and jackets of brown, 
 With your red woolen caps and your moccasins, come 
 To the gathering summons of trumpet and drum. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Leave the harvest to rot on the field where it grows, , 
 
 And the reaping of wheat for the reaping of foes; 
 
 ****** 
 
 Our vow is recorded, our banner unfurled 
 
 In the name of Vermont, we defy all the world."* 
 
 It was a season of great historical action upon which the 
 destinies not only of Vermont but of America hinged. France 
 and England, the century fighters, had exchanged places in 
 
 " Song of the Vermonters," by John G. Whittier. 
 
1 68 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 their relations to America. Years before, when English do 
 minion on this continent seemed to be more firmly established 
 than ever through the French surrender of Canada to England, 
 the astute Count de Vergennes predicted that it would prove a 
 fatal triumph to Great Britain. " I am persuaded," said he, 
 " England will ere long repent of having removed the only 
 check that could keep her Colonies in awe. They stand no 
 longer in need of her protection; she will call on them to con 
 tribute toward supporting the burdens they have helped to 
 bring on her, and they will answer by striking off all depend 
 ence." 
 
 The evolutions of the mighty struggle, which began in the 
 forests of Pennsylvania and encircled the world in its progress, 
 nowhere have been crayoned out more strikingly than by the 
 great English novelist Thackeray. The inspiration of the 
 name of Washington has not only lent to genius its noblest 
 theme, but it has enriched the English language with some of 
 its finest literature. But where in a single stroke is the epic 
 depicted so graphically, with the Heaven-sent hero carved out 
 before the naked eye with the distinctness of the marble of 
 Canova, as in this gem from the pages of " The Virginians? " 
 
 " Up to this time (1753) no actual blow of war had been 
 struck. The troops representing the hostile nations were in 
 presence the guns were loaded, but no one as yet had cried 
 ' Fire! ' It was strange that in a savage forest of Pennsylvania 
 a young Virginian officer should fire a shot and waken up a 
 war which was to last for sixty years, which was to cover his 
 own country and pass into Europe, to cost France her Ameri- 
 
 Bancroft's History of the United States, III, 305. Irving's Life of 
 Washington, I, 281. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 169 
 
 can Colonies, to sever ours from us, and create the great 
 Western Republic; to rage over the Old World when extin 
 guished in the New; and, of all the myriads engaged in the 
 vast contest, to leave the prize of the greatest fame with him 
 who struck the first blow! " a 
 
 Vermont played a not insignificant part in the American 
 Revolution, and if the papers of Governor Chittenden had been 
 preserved, instead of having been sold, as Professor Butler 
 says, " to a peddler with paper rags/' 6 what an invaluable treas 
 ury of facts might have been gathered from his correspondence. 
 Those letters and documents, stuffed in the vandal ragbag of a 
 peddler, no doubt teamed with New England and New York 
 history. .Among his correspondents were Stark, the hero of 
 New Hampshire ; Hancock, whose signature suggests the mas 
 sive statesman; Sam. Adams, the Hotspur of his prolific family; 
 John Adarrts, with his "antiquated British surliness ;" c the plas 
 tic Hamilton and sturdy George Clinton, old Oliver Wolcott, 
 of Litchfield, the nursing mother of Vermont; honest Philip 
 Schuyler, General Haldimand, the British tempter, and clarumet 
 venerabile nomen, George Washington himself. How much at 
 that time of trial and doubt must the leaders have found to 
 say in those lost sibyl leaves of Chittenden! Each trifle even, 
 if I may borrow the quaint figure of speech of Professor But 
 ler, would be " a little window through which we could look 
 into the distant past." Had the papers of Chittenden come 
 down to us they would constitute in connection with Haldi- 
 
 " The Virginians: A Tale of the Last Century," by William Make 
 peace Thackeray, chapter VI. 
 
 * " Deficiencies in Our History," an address before the Vermont 
 Historical Society, by James Davie Butler, 1846. 
 
 c Carpenter's Life of Jefferson. 
 
I7O MATTHEW LYON 
 
 mand's papers a perfect chapter of Revolutionary history, and 
 make much clearer than it is now ever likely to be our knowl 
 edge of the secret intrigue between the British and Ver- 
 monters. As it is, the chapter lacks completeness, important 
 leaves have been torn out in the most interesting parts, and 
 that scapegoat, the peddler, is left to take the blame. The 
 origin of the Chipman-Lyon feud lies buried in this lost chapter 
 of Vermont history. 
 
 The war swept southward after the victory of Saratoga, and 
 New York, New Hampshire and Massachusetts had more leis 
 ure in which to harass the Green Mountain Boys, and renew 
 attempts to dismember their territory and divide it up among 
 themselves. Governor Chittenden met the crisis undaunted, 
 and Ira Allen and Matthew Lyon rendered efficient aid in de 
 fense of the liberty and separate existence of Vermont. Plot 
 and counterplot succeeded each other rapidly ; first, New 
 Hampshire towns, and next New York towns sought to form 
 a union with Vermont, and the New Hampshire towns tried to 
 disintegrate the Grants under the specious plea of erecting a 
 new State along Connecticut river on either side of that stream. 
 New Hampshire and New York appealed to Congress, and 
 that body, while wisely striving to remain neutral, was com 
 pelled by the importunities of Governor Clinton and President 
 Weare to interfere in the dispute and assume an attitude of 
 unfriendliness to Vermont. Ira Allen and Stephen R. Brad 
 ley, the Vermont agents, were admitted to the Congressional 
 deliberations, but without a voice in the controversy, and per 
 ceiving an adverse disposition on the part of Congress, they 
 promptly withdrew and remonstrated against the right of that 
 body to sit as a court of judicature and determine the fate of 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 
 
 Vermont by virtue of authority given only by the other parties. 
 The Green Mountain Boys now renewed the scheme of union, 
 known as the East and West unions with New Hampshire 
 and New York towns, and not satisfied with this bold step, 
 which was partially carried out, the Vermont leaders entered 
 upon another still more desperate and questionable movement 
 nothing less than secret negotiations with the enemy, the pro 
 fessed purpose of which was a return to their allegiance to the 
 British Crown. This step was only taken after repeated over 
 tures had been made by British emissaries to bring it about. 
 Two letters to Ethan Allen from an adroit and scheming New 
 York Tory of much prominence, Beverley Robinson, had been 
 forwarded to Congress with the twofold object of proving the 
 desire of Vermont to be received into the Confederacy or, fail 
 ing that, and rather than submit to New York, of intimating 
 the intention of once more becoming a British province. Mat 
 thew Lyon, as Deputy Secretary or Secretary of the Council, 
 certified to the correctness of the copies of these letters, the 
 originals of which were kept in Vermont. Congress paid no 
 attention to the letters, and negotiations with the British, 
 commonly called the Haldimand Intrigue, were opened by 
 Governor Chittenden. This intrigue has provoked furious 
 abuse from a multitude of hostile writers, and led to more wide 
 spread censure of Vermont than any other transaction in the 
 history of the State. But repulsed by Congress, and threatened 
 with destruction by their neighbors, the then leaders of the 
 independent republic which had been created by the wisdom of 
 Chittenden and the valor of the Aliens, Warner, Lyon and their 
 fellows, felt themselves to be driven to the dire necessity of in- 
 
172 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 triguing with the common enemy of America in order to pre 
 vent the annihilation of Vermont. Exigent casuistry ! 
 
 Viewed as a pure question of international law or of the law 
 of nations, had Vermont the right to treat separately with Great 
 Britain during the Revolutionary struggle? Puffendorf and 
 Vattel lay down the law that a de facto State, having declared 
 its independence and being able to maintain it, may claim 
 recognition, and if the claim is acknowledged by other nations 
 or made good by military force, it may exercise the acts of a 
 nation, make treaties, declare war, conclude peace, and wield 
 the sovereignty of a separate nationality. In 1777 the people 
 of Vermont having already thrown off allegiance to Great 
 Britain, established a separate government, adopted a constitu 
 tion and placed their affairs in the hands of a Council of Safety, 
 they seem to have fulfilled those requirements defined by the 
 publicists as essential to constitute a de facto State. The right 
 to conclude peace with the public enemy cannot be denied to 
 such a government, and therefore the charge of treason to the 
 United States, of which Vermont was not a part, is inapplicable 
 to the Green Mountain Boys or to their leaders, conceding 
 even that peace with Great Britain at the risk of war with the 
 United States was the object of their negotiations with the 
 British General Haldimand. But as a moral and patriotic 
 question, aside from the constitutional and international aspect 
 of the case, nothing could be more un-American and abhorrent 
 than actual union between Great Britain and Vermont against 
 the United States in the Revolutionary war. The negotiations 
 which took place were carried on by stealth and wrapped in 
 impenetrable mystery, an acknowledgment that those who en 
 gaged in them on the part of the Green Mountain Boys were 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 173 
 
 ashamed of the business. When Sergeant Tupper, a Green 
 Mountain Boy, was killed by St. Leger's men and some of 
 Tupper's militiamen were captured, the secret negotiations 
 were nearly exposed by the British general. He buried the 
 American with distinguished military honors, and returned his 
 clothing and personal effects to the Vermonters, with a letter 
 of apology for the killing of the sergeant by his troops, igno 
 rant of the secret armistice between the British and Green 
 Mountain Boys. 
 
 The contents of that letter became known. Colonel Rey 
 nolds, called by some chroniclers Major Runnells, questioned 
 Ira Allen sharply as to the meaning of such a transaction, and 
 got a fiery and unsatisfactory answer. Nathaniel Chipman 
 was called upon to doctor the letter, and produced a new or 
 bogus one, which was read to the excited people as the real 
 dispatch from St. Leger, and the matter was hushed up, but 
 only after the greatest difficulty. The wrath of the Vermonters 
 was aroused, and its exhibition was infinitely creditable to them 
 as American patriots, and went very far to establish the truth 
 of Governor Chittenden's subsequent admission that but very 
 few persons, only eight men, were aware of the secret negotia 
 tions with the enemy. General Stark, then at Saratoga, wrote 
 to Governor Chittenden, and said: "Accountable as I am to 
 superiors and inexcusable as I should be if I neglected to ad 
 vise them of any circumstances which carry the aspect of in 
 iquity, I wish to receive the most authentic information re 
 specting the sergeant of the Vermont militia who was slain 
 and his party captured by the enemy. I expect your Excel 
 lency will enable me to furnish a minute detail of it to Congress 
 by affording me a perusal of the original letter which the 
 
174 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 British commanding officer is said to have written to you on 
 the occasion. This will be returned to you by a safe hand and 
 a copy transmitted to Congress." Governor Chittenden put 
 off General Stark with explanations. 
 
 But Vermont was truly the child of the Revolution, the off 
 spring of war, a State evolved from the storm of battle. Did 
 its people mean to join the British and desert the American 
 cause? Oh, no! The blood-stained field of Hubbardton, where 
 the Green Mountain Boys fell stubbornly fighting in the patriot 
 cause, says no; their blood poured out like water on the glo 
 rious field of Bennington forbids the dishonoring thought. 
 " Greater love than this no man hath," says the inspired Book, 
 " that a man lay down his life for his friends." Traitors are 
 not made of such stuff as the heroes who stormed the heights 
 of Ticonderoga, followed Montgomery into Canada, marched 
 to the rescue of Wooster and Sullivan, and helped to win the 
 victory at Saratoga. The offense of that strange intrigue was 
 in its ignoble possibilities, and not in its real motives, which 
 seem only to have been a cunning dalliance, a trick of war, a 
 pardonable deception practiced on the British. In a letter to 
 Governor Chittenden, General Washington gauged the quality 
 of the transaction correctly: "They" (the British), said he, 
 " have been worsted in the use of their own weapon decep 
 tion."" 
 
 The people of Vermont have nothing to fear from the most 
 rigid inquiry into the Haldimand intrigue. Even Col. Wil 
 liam L. Stone, while arraigning the leaders with severity, 
 frankly admits that the people were not in the plot. c 
 
 Collections Vermont Historical Society, II, 197. 
 * Vermont Historical Society Papers, II, p. 229. 
 c Life of Brant, IJ, 203-4. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 175 
 
 . 
 
 We have seen how the inhabitants of the Grants were swept 
 from their homes and fled into Connecticut and Massachusetts 
 on the irruption of Burgoyne into Vermont during the summer 
 of 1777. Matthew Lyon's wife and children, driven from their 
 farm in Wallingford, fled southward with the rest to seek 
 refuge with their friends out of the track of the invader, prob 
 ably in Litchfield county, Connecticut. On Lyon's resignation 
 from the Continental army and return to Vermont in the winter 
 of 1777 or spring of 1778, he conducted his family home again 
 to the Grants, and made his abode in the Tory stronghold of 
 Arlington. He continued to reside in this place for the next 
 five years, held many positions of trust and distinction in the 
 community, and on the election of Thomas Chittenden Gov 
 ernor of the State, Lyon was chosen by the people of Arlington 
 to succeed that distinguished man in the Legislature, taking 
 his seat in that body at the beginning of 1779. 
 
 The fierce struggle for existence which Vermont was making 
 at this time against New York and New Hampshire and to a 
 less extent against Massachusetts, rendered the military arm 
 of the young mountain republic its chief reliance, not only 
 against the British and Tories, but against its sister States. 
 Lyon was remarkably active in these emergencies, and rose by 
 regular regimental gradation in a regiment of Green Moun 
 tain Boys from the rank of captain, in 1778, to that of colonel 
 at the opening of the year 1782. He was, with the two Aliens, 
 the mainstay of Governor Chittenden, during these trying for 
 mative days, now aiding in the work of quelling Tories, fight 
 ing Yorkers and guarding the frontier from red-coats and In 
 dians, and again devising measures to secure, if possible, the 
 
176 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 admission of Vermont into the Confederation as the fourteenth 
 sovereign confederate of the United States. 
 
 Chittenden placed the number of persons in the Haldimand 
 secret at eight Thomas Chittenden, Moses Robinson, Samuel 
 Safford, Ethan Allen, Ira Allen, Timothy Brownson, John Fas- 
 sett and Joseph Fay. a But that number had to be increased 
 as circumstances required. 6 Nathaniel Chipman was taken 
 into the intrigue, and to him was assigned the questionable task 
 of reconstructing the St. Leger-Tupper letter. He was after 
 wards the founder of the Federal party in Vermont, the Fed 
 eralists being disposed later on to censure Governor Chitten 
 den and Matthew Lyon, the founders of the Democratic party 
 in the State, then called the Old Guard, for their part in the 
 intrigue, which, like the shirt of Nessus, sticks forever to all 
 who had lot or parcel in the business. Matthew Lyon cannot 
 escape some small degree of the censure attached to Judge 
 Chipman. Neither of them was taken into the secret at first. 
 Ira Allen, the Machiavelli of his time, had the conspirator's 
 talent for secrecy, and thought one was better than two, and 
 eight were enough for every contingency. Chittenden was less 
 subtle, but far wiser, and he, probably against Ira Allen's 
 wishes, soon added Chipman, Lyon, Enos and one or two 
 others to the original number of intriguers who were playing 
 double with the British and Americans. Lyon's participation 
 in the ruse must be regarded as the least defensible act of his 
 whole public career. He was improperly blamed and unjustly 
 punished for the retreat from Jericho, but even had he been 
 
 oWilliams's History of Vermont, II, 214. 
 * Vermont Historical Collection, I, 421. 
 'Ibid, II, 193. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 177 
 
 guilty of disobedience of orders with which he was then 
 charged by Gates, that offense would have been immeasurably 
 small compared with any, even the slightest complicity in the 
 plot fomented by Haldimand and Ira Allen, the professed 
 object of which was submission to England in the midst of a 
 war Vermont had plunged into with the States of which 
 she claimed to be a sister, for weal or woe, for " liberty or 
 death." I am aware that Jared Sparks described the intrigue 
 by the rose-colored remark that it was one of " the allowable 
 stratagems of war." But Ira Allen, over a quarter of a cen 
 tury after the Revolutionary war had ended, described it more 
 bluntly, and the final verdict of history will be that the prime 
 mover of the intrigue knew more about his own ultimate de 
 sign than the amiable Jared Sparks. " If the events of war 
 had terminated in favor of Great Britain," said Ira Allen to 
 Samuel Hitchcock, of Burlington, in a letter dated October n, 
 1809, " Vermont would have been a favorite Colony under the 
 Crown ; if in favor of the United States, they were prepared for 
 a sister State in the Federal Union, which they obtained."* 
 This, he asserted in the same cold-blooded confession, gained 
 for Vermont "the securest situation of any of the people in the 
 United States." Such, then, was the scheme of Ira Allen, but 
 Governor Chittenden, Nathaniel Chipman and Matthew Lyon 
 never would have entered into any plot to make Vermont in 
 reality a " Colony under the Crown." The glory or the shame 
 of this self-confessed scheme belongs exclusively to Ira Allen. 
 The good people of Vermont, to their credit be it said, have 
 ever been ashamed of the Haldimand intrigue. But that 
 
 <* Letters of Ira Allen, pp. 9-10, in the Vermont State Library. Also 
 Governor and Council, I, 116. 
 
MATTHEW LYON 
 
 shame has often to be spelled out between the lines of many of 
 the early State records which, without such a key to explain 
 them, would be wholly incomprehensible. Thus Slade in his 
 " State Papers," and the Commissioners of Confiscation and 
 Sequestration in their published transactions, have suppressed 
 the names of Tories subjected to confiscation. The secret 
 records of the Court of Confiscation have been sedulously 
 guarded from publication. " In all our histories," says Profes 
 sor James Davie Butler, " there is a lack of characteristic mi 
 nutiae. We ask for face to face details, we receive far off 
 generalities." How many Tories were stripped of their hold 
 ings, how many by Haldimand's orderwere restored to their pos 
 sessions, how many received compensation in other forms as the 
 result of the negotiations with the British, are among the buried 
 secrets of the Old Council of Safety which will never be known. 
 Matthew Lyon, I repeat, with his usual impetuosity, once 
 blurted out to one of Haldimand's agents, " Vermont would 
 never make up the Tories' losses, and if they could not settle 
 with General Haldimand pretty much on their own terms, they 
 would baffle him with flags and prolong the time till they were 
 better able to oppose him." & To another spy of Haldimand 
 it appears Lyon held different language. " Captain Lyon (one 
 of the Council) told * * * that Governor Chittenden would 
 settle with Britain," says the spy, " if the present leading men 
 in Vermont were allowed to continue such under Britain, their 
 old and new Grants confirmed, the East and West new terri 
 tories confirmed, all their laws and acts confirmed and nothing 
 
 a Address before the Vermont Historical Society, Montpelier, 1846. 
 & Collections Vermont Historical Society; Haldimand Papers, II, 
 137- 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 179 
 
 revoked; that the Tories' farms must (he supposed) be given 
 up to them; but Vermont would not make good any other 
 damage to them." a 
 
 These glimpses afford a hint of the cause why the records 
 of the old Court of Confiscation were so jealously guarded, 
 and why Matthew Lyon was impeached in 1785. This im 
 peachment took place while Lyon was absent; it was pressed 
 to conviction and fine by Nathaniel Chipman and others, 
 but it fell through entirely when Lyon made request for a 
 new trial. He was able to show that his refusal to surrender 
 the tell-tale records, even if they were not then destroyed, which 
 is more probable, was intended to screen others and not himself, 
 that their exposure would produce endless litigation, and act 
 like a bombshell not only on land titles but on reputations 
 and characters. As Chipman was in the Haldimand intrigue, he 
 must have taken the hint, for the prosecution was abandoned 
 suddenly and completely. But it would have been more just 
 to Colonel Lyon, who was evidently innocent of any personal 
 misconduct in the premises, to have reversed the sentence, re 
 mitted the fine, and placed on record the evidence of his ac 
 quittal of the charge made against him by the Council of 
 Censors. In effect this was done, the conviction was treated 
 as a nullity, the fine was not enforced, and the State, not Lyon, 
 paid the costs of the prosecution ; but the record was practically 
 suppressed. Chipman and Lyon were political opponents. 
 The enemies of the latter for a time circulated false stories con 
 cerning him, and invented one about a wooden sword which 
 not only aroused Colonel Lyon's indignation, but led to many 
 an encounter with fists on the part of his young son, Chitten- 
 
 Ibid, II, 136. 
 
ISO MATTHEW LYON 
 
 den Lyon, with any of his playmates in the neighborhood who 
 ventured upon the insulting subject. This silly story was to 
 the effect that General Gates, when he cashiered Matthew Lyon 
 at Ticonderoga, ordered him to wear a wooden sword and to be 
 drummed out of camp to the music of the Rogues March. 
 Rev. Mr. Beaman describes Chittenden Lyon as a very fiery 
 boy, a chip of the old block, generous, popular and impulsive, 
 but woe betide any schoolmate or companion of his who dared 
 to say wooden sword in his presence. The story was utterly 
 false, and too ridiculous and mean to be long tolerated by Ver- 
 monters who knew and liked Matthew Lyon for his courage 
 in every fight, for his conspicuous rank among those daring 
 men, the Green Mountain Boys, who braved death in many 
 desperate battles; and so the malicious lie was soon frowned 
 down and run down by the whole community, and no more 
 was heard of it in Vermont. In March, 1780, Chipman, who 
 seemed always to be jealous of Matthew Lyon, had reflected 
 upon him in a report that he made to the Legislature on the 
 debts due from persons whose estates had been confiscated by 
 the old Council of Safety, all record of which has likewise been 
 suppressed. Lyon, who was innocent of any wrong doing and 
 well knew Chipman was more deeply implicated in the Haldi- 
 mand intrigue than himself, resented the imputations by at 
 tacking Judge Chipman at Westminster, and engaging in a 
 sharp tussle with him in the room of Mr. Stephen R. Bradley 
 at that place. The old Council of Safety and its Commission 
 ers of Confiscation were clothed with the full sovereign power 
 of the people, willingly bestowed upon them in a time of ex 
 treme peril, when the sic volo, sic jubeo rule was the only law 
 that bound them. If these records would show how many of 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS l8l 
 
 Haldimand's appeals in behalf of the Tories, and demands for 
 the restoration of their confiscated property, had been complied 
 with by the old Council of Safety, public policy at such a crisis 
 and the ever changing current of events no doubt dictated 
 silence, and justified the care shown in avoiding unnecessary 
 publicity. Details of petty calamities, and cruel sufferings of 
 women and children driven from their homes by a righteous 
 enforcement of the penalties denounced against Toryism and 
 treason, presented a moving spectacle to the heart of magnani 
 mous men; but it was not a spectacle to put on exhibition in 
 the gazettes. Governor Chittenden and Matthew Lyon pre 
 ferred to go about doing good by stealth among the distressed 
 inhabitants of Arlington and the surrounding country, clothing 
 the naked, feeding the hungry, and discharging the other offices 
 of charity, rather than to expose to public gaze the miseries 
 entailed upon the families of Tories by the hard necessities of 
 a time of war and of conflicts with domestic traitors to the 
 American cause. " The Governor took upon himself," says 
 the historian of the town, Rev. F. A. Wadleigh, " the task of 
 visiting from time to time every family, and taking an account 
 of the provisions on hand. Under his oversight, and by his 
 impartial and disinterested counsel, distribution was so made 
 that, although all were pinched, none perished."* 1 Modera 
 tion is creditable where power is unlimited. The pa 
 triots exercised their autocratic powers so rarely and so 
 mercifully that only the one or two strictures of the Federalists 
 led by Judge Chipman, and they, when brought to the test 
 against Lyon, utterly breaking down, ever have been made 
 against Thomas Chittenden and his Council. Once besides 
 Vermont Historical Gazetteer, I, 130. 
 
1 82 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 the instance mentioned, Chittenden, who was suspected of hav 
 ing strained a point in Ira Allen's favor in some land title, was 
 attacked by the Federalists in the Legislature and that year he 
 was defeated for Governor, but an investigation, as in the 
 attacks on Lyon, proved his innocence of any wrongdoing, 
 and the year after his defeat Thomas Chittenden, the leader of 
 the " Old Guard," was again triumphantly elected Governor, a 
 position he continued to hold nearly as long as he lived. 
 
 The rencontre between Chipman and Lyon in the room of 
 Mr. Bradley at Westminster, Vermont, in the beginning of 
 the year 1780, must have caused a deep-seated enmity between 
 the two men. Nearly twenty years afterwards Judge Chip 
 man, knowing the feelings of Colonel Lyon upon the subject 
 of his having been unjustly cashiered from the army by Gen 
 eral Gates, and that Lyon would resent any slurs upon his con 
 duct in that affair (for Lyon told Chipman as much), neverthe 
 less circulated the old, forgotten wooden sword slander among 
 Senators and Congressmen at Philadelphia. Lyon retorted 
 by saying: " I could prove that the gentleman from Vermont 
 (Chipman), who was called to give testimony against me, has 
 with the politeness peculiar to a certain country which I will 
 not now name, insulted me and received due chastisement 
 from me for it." a 
 
 This was a home-thrust, and Lyon offered to bring forward 
 testimony from Vermont to prove that he had chastised Judge 
 Chipman in 1780 for an unwarranted affront. The next day, 
 February 9, 1798, smarting under this retort, Chipman ad 
 dressed a letter to the chairman of the Committee on Privileges 
 
 Annals of Congress, 1798, p. 974. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 183 
 
 giving his version of that ancient squabble with Colonel Lyon. 
 It was read in the House, and has found a place in the "Annals 
 of Congress."* It is a plain attempt to heap ridicule on a man 
 he did not like. Judge Chipman taxes credulity largely in ask 
 ing our acceptance of the story that he, quite a small man, 
 even with the aid of Mr. Bradley, was able to lay a big two- 
 hundred pound athlete like Lyon on his back not only that, 
 but Lyon, he asserts, was in a towering rage, and yet remained 
 passive and unresisting in the hands of the little Judge, while 
 the latter, assisted by Mr. Bradley, lifted the powerful Colonel 
 into the air, carried him across the room and laid him on his 
 back in the opposite corner. The whole story smacks of Mun- 
 chausen. It will be observed that Lyon claimed to have chas 
 tised his adversary, and offered to prove it. Chipman, him 
 self telling the story, performed his herculean task of flooring 
 Lyon, and returned to his seat to enjoy the joke. Balderdash! 
 The following is Judge Chipman's letter : 
 
 " Philadelphia, February oth, 1798. 
 
 " Sir: I feel it my duty, in this public manner, to vindicate myself 
 against an unwarranted attack on my eharacter by Mr. Lyon yester 
 day in the House of Representatives. I learn that he there asserted 
 that he had once chastised me publicly for an affront which I had 
 given him. This assertion of Mr. Lyon is without foundation; it is 
 false. Nor can I conjecture to what circumstance Mr. Lyon could 
 have alluded, unless it might be a ludicrous transaction which took 
 place at Westminster, in the State of Vermont, in the beginning of 
 the year 1780, the circumstances of which I beg leave to relate: The 
 Legislature of Vermont were in session at that place; Mr. Lyon at 
 tended as a member; I attended on business. The House of Repre 
 sentatives requested me, though not a member, to examine and report 
 my opinion concerning certain debts due from persons whose es 
 tates had been confiscated. I had made a report accordingly, at 
 some part of which Mr. Lyon took offence. One morning Mr. Lyon 
 
 Ibid, pp. 999-1000. 
 
184 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 called at Mr. Bradley's room, in which I was then doing business. 
 No person was in the room but Mr. Bradley, Mr. Lyon and myself. 
 Mr. Bradley and I sat writing at opposite sides of the table; Mr. 
 Lyon took a seat by the table at the side of Mr. Bradley, and entered 
 into a conversation upon the subject of the report above mentioned. 
 He soon discovered himself to be somewhat irritated, and in a very 
 rude and pointed manner declared that no man who had a spark 
 of honesty could have reported as I had done. Attacked in this rude 
 manner, I retorted in a passion that he was an ignorant Irish puppy. 
 
 " Mr. Lyon rose in a violent passion, grasped at my hair that was 
 turned back with a comb, which he broke in the grasp. I was at 
 that moment mending a pen; I instantly rose, intending to revenge 
 the insult with the knife in my hand; but Mr. Bradley had seized Mr. 
 Lyon from behind, round the arms, and drew him back a little; upon 
 which Mr. Lyon, bearing himself in Mr. Bradley's arms, threw his 
 feet upon the table to kick across. The awkward appearance of Mr. 
 Lyon at this moment and the grimaces of his countenance provoked 
 me to laugh. I dropt the penknife, seized Mr. Lyon's feet, and in 
 this manner, with the help of Mr. Bradley, who still kept his hold, 
 carried him across the room and laid him on his back in a corner. 
 Mr. Bradley and I returned to our seats, laughing very merrily at 
 the scene. In the meantime Mr. Lyon rose from his corner, stood 
 a short time in apparent agitation, and without uttering a word. At 
 length he turned upon his heel with these expressions: 'Damn it, 
 I will not be mad ' forced a laugh, and left the room. Nothing ever 
 afterwards passed between Mr. Lyon and myself upon this subject. 
 I therefore repeat that Mr. Lyon's assertion is wholly without founda 
 tion. 
 
 " I ask pardon for the trouble I have given the House upon this 
 
 business 
 
 " And am, with respect, etc., 
 
 " NATHANIEL CHIPMAN." 
 
 The impeachment of Matthew Lyon by the Legislature of 
 Vermont on the recommendation of the Council of Censors, 
 and his trial and conviction by the Governor and Council, to 
 gether with his appearance before the latter body after its de 
 cision was rendered against him, when the whole proceedings 
 
 Annals of Congress, 1798, pp. 999-1000. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 185 
 
 were summarily squelched, the State itself and not Lyon pay 
 ing the costs of prosecution, have been digested and will now 
 be given in historical sequence for the first time. This ac 
 count is scattered through long and tedious proceedings on 
 other subjects, and is practically buried away among the musty 
 memorials and worm-eaten lumber of the State archives. The 
 author has been at no little pains to dig out this record, but as 
 it has never before seen the light in a collected and intelligible 
 shape its historical value in vindicating Lyon from unfounded 
 aspersions 'justifies the compilation. It may be added that 
 Lyon's old enemy, Nathaniel Chipman, was one of the mana 
 gers of the impeachment on the part of the Assembly. Hinc 
 illae lachrymae. 
 
 " Council of Censors. The first Council met at Norwich in 
 June, 1785; at Windsor in September following, and 
 at Bennington in February, 1786, and revised the en 
 tire constitution. * * * The Council also instituted the 
 impeachment of Matthew Lyon by a resolution requesting the 
 Assembly to impeach him. This last fact is stated in Slade's 
 record in a note at p. 530."* " October 24 Colonel Barrett was 
 again convicted, suspended for six months and required to pay 
 the costs of prosecution 11 195. At the same session Mat 
 thew Lyon was impeached for refusing to deliver the records 
 of the Court of Confiscation to the Council of Censors. Mr. 
 Lyon was convicted and ordered to deliver the record. He 
 was also sentenced to a reprimand and to a fine of 500 on his 
 neglect to appear. He appeared, the sentence was read, and 
 then, on Mr. Lyon's request, a new trial was granted. The 
 
 Vermont Historical Society, II, 491-2. 
 
1 86 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 case seems not to have been tried again. " a This was a strange 
 way to smother such a matter. Either Lyon was guilty or not. 
 That his " request " was supported by such reasons as to con 
 vince the Court that the Council of Censors had burned their 
 fingers by intermeddling with the records of the old Court of 
 Confiscation, wherein the plotters with Sir Frederick Haldi- 
 mand may have kept records which might lay bare the se 
 crets of that intrigue, becomes strongly apparent by the incon 
 sequential backdown of the impeachers after Lyon appeared 
 and made answer or request for a new trial. Searching fur 
 ther for details which might throw light on this persecution 
 rather than prosecution, the present writer has unearthed the 
 following particulars: 
 
 " M. Lyon's impeachment. Record of the Governor and 
 Council at the session with the General Assembly at Wind 
 sor." 
 
 " Saturday, October 15, 1.785. * * * A bill was received 
 from the Council of Censors impeaching Col. Matthew Lyon 
 ' for refusing to deliver to ye order of this Board (viz.) The 
 Council of Censors the Records of Confiscation, and was 
 read.' " 6 
 
 " Monday, October 17, 1785. * * On motion ordered 
 that to-morrow morning 10 o'clock be assigned for the trial 
 of Colonel Matthew Lyon on the impeachment ordered by the 
 Council of Censors; and that a copy of this order be trans 
 mitted to the General Assembly (now sitting) by the Secretary, 
 that they have opportunity to give necessary order to the 
 prosecution of said cause." 
 a Vermont Historical Society, II, 428; MS. Assembly Journal, Vol. 
 
 II, 498-9. 
 &Gov. and C, III, 81. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 187 
 
 " Tuesday, October 18, 1785. According to yesterday's 
 order the Council resolved themselves into a Court for the 
 trial of impeachments, his Honor, the deputy-governor " (Paul 
 Spooner), a " in the chair. The trial of Matthew Lyon, Esqr., 
 came on, it being on an impeachment brought against him by 
 the General Assembly for ' knowingly, wilfully and corruptly 
 refusing to deliver the Records of the late Court of Confisca 
 tion to the order of the Council of Censors.' The said Mat 
 thew Lyon being called to plead to said impeachment, plead 
 not guilty, and put himself on the Court for Tryal. Evidences 
 were educed for and against the prisoner and after the argu 
 ments made use of therefrom, and from the nature of the 
 cause, the decision was submitted to the Court. Adjourned." 
 
 " Wednesday, iQth October, 1785. Court met according to 
 adjournment and resumed the consideration of said cause for 
 judgment, and after deliberation thereon, came to the follow 
 ing determination, vizt: This Court consider and adjudge that 
 the said Matthew Lyon is guilty of the crime alleged against 
 him in the impeachment. Therefore order that he deliver the 
 Records of the late Court of Confiscation to the Honorable 
 the Council of Censors, taking their Rect. And receive a 
 reprimand from the president of this Court; And on his neglect 
 or refusal immediately to attend to and comply with and per 
 form the same that he pay a fine of five hundred pounds 
 money to the Treasurer of this State, and that he also pay cost 
 of prosecution. Adjourned to 2 ock p. m. Met according 
 to adjournment. The said Matthew Lyon, Esqr., appeared in 
 
 The Chipman party evidently took advantage of the absence of 
 Governor Chittenden, Lyon's father-in-law, from the chair. 
 
1 88 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 Court when the preceding sentence of the Court was read, 
 whereupon the said Matthew Lyon, Esqr. moved the Court 
 for a new trial, alleging as the reason for his request that his 
 cause had not been rightly understood and defended before the 
 Honorable Court; the Court taking the same into considera 
 tion ordered that the said Matthew Lyon, Esqr., be allowed a 
 new trial agreeable to his request, and that Friday next 10 
 o'clock in the morning be assigned for the said trial to com 
 mence."* . 
 
 But Friday came and went, and no trial took place. 
 Potent indeed must have been that request of Colonel Lyon. 
 That some political manoeuvre or attack was hidden under 
 this proceeding seems probable, for the Governor of the State, 
 who was president of the Court, was absent, and Judge Chip- 
 man was one of the managers against the defendant. Yet 
 Lyon neither paid 500 pounds penalty, nor received any repri 
 mand, nor as will appear further on, did he pay a cent of costs 
 of the prosecution of the case. He stamped out the whole 
 trial and judgment of the Court by what he told his prosecu 
 tors, but not one syllable is recorded of what that sledge 
 hammer speech contained. The case fell through, and the 
 greatest injustice was done to the defendant by the suppression 
 of the record of what must surely have been a triumphant vin 
 dication of his personal and official character from a serious 
 charge affecting both. That he was held absolutely blameless 
 is shown by the tell-tale fact which the author has dug out of 
 another and disconnected part of the records of the Court, 
 
 Gov. and C, pp. 83-4. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 189 
 
 namely, that the State itself, and not Lyon, paid the costs of 
 the prosecution. Here is the record : 
 
 " Adjourned from Friday to Monday next." But before 
 adjourning 1 on Friday this tell-tale resolution was adopted by 
 the Court, which shows that Lyon had won, and that his en 
 emies took refuge in the appointment of a committee to beat 
 about the bush in another direction. 
 
 " Resolved that a committee be appointed to join a com 
 mittee appointed from the General Assembly to take under 
 consideration the proceedings of the Court of Confiscation, the 
 Commissioners of Sales and Sequestration, and the state of the 
 titles of those who have purchased confiscated estates, state 
 facts and make report. The Assemblis Committee, Mr. Slum- 
 way, Mr. Chipman, Mr. Knoulton, Mr. Tilden and Mr. Loomis. 
 Members of Council, his honor the deputy govr and Mr. Rob 
 inson Adjourned."* It thus appears that the Assembly took 
 the initiative in this abandonment of the attack on Colonel 
 Lyon. The finale was the payment of the costs by the State, 
 and that is stated in the following extract from the records of 
 the Governor and Council : 
 
 " Wednesday, 26 Oct. 1785. 
 
 " Resolved that a committee be appointed to tax the bills of cost 
 in the cases of Colonel Lyon and Justice Barrett's impeachments. 
 Members chosen Mr. Fletcher and Mr. Porter. & 
 
 " Resolved that the Treasurer be directed to pay unto Israel Smith, 
 Esq r , the sum of two pounds twelve shillings and 46. Money out 
 of some of the Hard Money taxes, it being the bill of cost on the 
 trial of Colonel Matthew Lyon on impeachment. The said bill of 
 costs is as follows, viz*. 
 
 Ibid, p. 87. 
 b Ibid, p. 92. 
 
1 90 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 The impeachment o 15 o 
 
 Two attorney fees, 153 i 10 o 
 
 One subpoena 004 
 
 Service o 2 6 
 
 One travel six miles o I 6 
 
 Attendance one day o 3 o 
 
 2 12 14 
 
 " This bill was examined and taxed by the Hon.ble Samuel Fletcher 
 and Thomas Porter Esq r , by Order of Council." 
 
 Poor Justice Barrett did not fare so well. 
 
 " Thursday, 27 Oct. 1785. 
 
 " The bill of costs in the case of Col. Barrett's impeachment on the 
 trial being committed to Mr. Niles and Mr. Fletcher to examine and 
 tax (is) as follows to the amount of 11, 19, o, vizV (A blank left 
 for items on the record is not filled.) 
 
 And one year later an execution issued against the Justice 
 as appears by the following entry: 
 
 "Thursday, 26 Oct. 1786. 
 
 "An execution issued against John Barrett Esq r , for 27, i2s cost 
 of the suit of impeachment. 
 
 "Signed by Order of Council."* 
 
 Vermont writers have always been in doubt as to the out 
 come of this prosecution of Colonel Lyon by somebody inter 
 ested in getting hold of the records of the Court of Confisca 
 tion. The attempt to intimidate Lyon by fine and impeach 
 ment utterly fell through, the State was saddled with the costs, 
 and the tell-tale record was practically suppressed. Here for 
 the first time a connected narrative of this very tricky transac 
 tion is presented to the public, and especially to the people of 
 Vermont, who have always had a kindly place in their hearts 
 for Matthew Lyon. Truth in the end cannot be kept back. 
 
 a Ibid, p. 93. 
 & Ibid, p. 112. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 19! 
 
 Reference has been made in these pages to the intimate 
 relations between Ethan Allen and Matthew Lyon. Their 
 friendship began in the early day while they yet lived in Litch- 
 field County, Connecticut. Allen's iron works at Salisbury 
 must have been the place where Lyon acquired intimate knowl 
 edge of the iron business in which *he was afterwards so exten 
 sively engaged in Vermont. His marriage in Connecticut to 
 Miss Hosford, a niece of Ethan Allen, confirmed their rela 
 tions, and the intimacy between the two families continued to 
 be kept up in Vermont in the closest ties of friendship. Lyon 
 named one of his daughters Loraine, after Loraine Allen, as a 
 compliment to and mark of his affection for the favorite 
 daughter of General Allen. Of the latter lady many anecdotes 
 are related by Vermont chroniclers, of her likeness to her cele 
 brated father, both in character and person, and even some say 
 that she shared to a certain extent in her father's scepticism in 
 matters of religion. But woman's nature shrinks from infi 
 delity, and the story runs that Loraine Allen in her last sick 
 ness asked her father, "Whose faith shall I embrace, yours or 
 that of my mother? " The redoubtable Ethan, forgetting his 
 " Oracles of Reason," and deeply moved, answered, " That of 
 your mother." Whether authentic or not, the story has come 
 down to us, and President Dwight has made it the text of a 
 good homily. Rev. F. A. Wadleigh, in his interesting chron 
 icles of Arlington, has some reminiscences of Loraine Allen, 
 whose vein of humor sometimes ran into odd conceits. She 
 was very much attached to Colonel Lyon. He often charmed 
 her by descriptions of his native county in Ireland, the Vale of 
 Avoca within its borders, and the enchanting scenery of the 
 Golden Belt. One day, after listening to an animated story of 
 
192 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 Wicklow by the Colonel, she quaintly changed the subject to 
 death, made a sport of dying, and told him she meant shortly 
 to leave the world, and had selected Ireland as her place of 
 exit. The anecdote is related by Rev. Mr. Wadleigh, who 
 says : " She asked Colonel Lyon, who was very fond of her, 
 if he had any messages to send to his friends in the old country, 
 for she expected to go by the way of Cork." a 
 
 Fanny, the youngest daughter of Ethan Allen, was of 
 a more serious temperament than her sister. She be 
 came a convert to the Catholic Church, and a nun 
 of the Sisterhood or Convent Hotel Dieu in Montreal. 
 " Multitudes of New England people visiting Montreal," 
 says the writer of a book published at Burlington, Ver 
 mont, in 1886, " flocked to the Convent, begging to see the 
 lovely young nun of the Hotel Dieu, who was the first daughter 
 New England had given to the sacred enclosure, and whom 
 they claimed as belonging especially to them through her con 
 nection with their favorite Revolutionary hero. So continual 
 were these interruptions that she was driven at length to obtain 
 the permission of the Mother Superior absolutely to decline 
 appearing in answer to such calls, except when they were made 
 by friends of former days, for whom she still preserved and 
 cherished the liveliest affection." 6 
 
 The married life of Colonel Lyon was a happy one. Four 
 children were born to him. His wife lived for twelve years 
 after her marriage to him, and died at Arlington, the place of 
 residence of her husband, in the year 1782. 
 
 a Vermont Historical Gazetteer, Vol. I, p. 135. 
 
 & Catholic Memoirs of Vermont and New Hampshire, p. 22. Bur 
 lington: 1886. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 
 
 The bereavement was a severe one. Lyon, with strong 
 family affections and domestic tastes, became a widower with 
 four motherless little children to maintain and educate. But 
 he took paternal pride in the duty, and had the comfort and 
 happiness of rearing them well, and of seeing them develop into 
 fine characters and ornaments of the social life of the com 
 munity. He was becoming wealthy and abundantly able to 
 gratify his fondness and ambition for his children. 
 
 The many stirring scenes in which they had mingled, and 
 their joint work of crushing out Toryism at Arlington, which 
 before had been the British stronghold in Vermont, brought 
 Governor Thomas Chittenden and Matthew Lyon into habits 
 of intimacy and devoted personal friendship. The Colonel 
 was always a welcome guest at the fireside of the Governor. 
 The destinies of Vermont at that day were largely controlled 
 by these two remarkable men. Indeed, their operations and 
 success in propagating American ideas and American senti 
 ments of loyalty in this seat of rank Toryism proved the pivotal 
 or turning point in shaping the future policy of the Green 
 Mountain State. It was a stern struggle, the work constant 
 and engrossing. Relief and relaxation came in the evening in 
 the home circle of the Governor, where cares of State gave 
 place to the charms of female society, and the merry music of 
 wheel and distaff in that age of Homespun made the hearth 
 stone of domesticity peculiarly cheerful and soothing. Clever 
 sons and comely daughters to the number of eleven were the 
 legacy or jewels of the Governor. 
 
 General Isaac Clark, known as " Old Rifle," a brave soldier 
 of two wars, became the husband of Hannah Chittenden in the 
 year 1779. Her own father performed the ceremony, and gave 
 
194 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 his daughter's hand to the man who had won her heart. " Old 
 Rifle " was town clerk of Ira, Rutland County, and those cu 
 rious in turning over ancient memorials may still find this item 
 in the record book of the town : 
 
 " Ira, 5th September, 1779. Then recorded the marriage of 
 Isaac Clark and Hannah Chittenden on the i8th day of Jan 
 uary, 1779: Married by Governor Chittenden and recorded by 
 Isaac Clark, town Clerk." 
 
 Beulah, the fourth daughter of the Governor, is described in 
 contemporary chronicles as a very intelligent and pretty young 
 lady, who, at the age of sweet sixteen, became the wife of 
 George Galusha, son of a future Governor of the State. Young 
 Galusha lived but a year or two, and Madame Beulah had put 
 on the weeds of widowhood at about the very time Colonel 
 Lyon became a widower. He was a little past thirty, she 
 scarcely twenty years of age. Is it strange that the two young 
 people sympathized with each other in their mutual bereave 
 ment any wonder that pity in a short time melted into love, 
 and in a year more another marriage assuaged grief of widow 
 and widower, and made Matthew Lyon and Beulah Galusha the 
 happiest young couple in the town of Arlington? I have not 
 had the opportunity to examine the old Arlington records and 
 find out whether the father of the bride, as in likelihood he did, 
 again performed the marriage ceremony, tied the knot, and 
 gave away the hand of his daughter to her liege lord. But 
 this is known. No more devoted couple ever entered into the 
 holy state of matrimony at Arlington than Matthew Lyon and 
 the daughter of Governor Chittenden. A large and interest 
 ing family of sons and daughters, a, quiver full, blessed their 
 
 < Vermont Historical Gazeteer, Vol. Ill, p. 779. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 195 
 
 long union of nearly forty years duration, during the course 
 of which, with admirable spirit and cheerfulness, the wife went 
 about her duties, and the husband, as we 1 are told by the 
 learned antiquarians White and Walton, became one of the 
 most successful business men and political leaders in Vermont, 
 and, as we are further told by the distinguished historian Col 
 lins, " the most remarkable character among the public men of 
 southwestern Kentucky/' 'Matthew Lyon, next to Alexander 
 Hamilton, was the most powerful antagonist of one President, 
 John Adams, who put him in a dungeon; and he also became 
 the most serviceable friend of another President, Thomas Jef 
 ferson, by casting the vote that elected him. 
 
 Colonel Lyon was returned to the Assembly four times dur 
 ing his residence in Arlington, becoming well known as an 
 effective and eloquent debater and practical man of affairs. 
 The records show that he was selected to serve on the leading 
 committees of the Legislature. He also held during his resi 
 dence at Arlington the positions of Deputy Secretary of the 
 Council, Secretary of the Board of War, and other offices of 
 importance. 
 
 He was one of the grantees of the town of Fair Haven 
 when its charter was obtained from the Legislature, and hav 
 ing already bought several valuable tracts along Poultney 
 river Colonel Lyon removed from Arlington in the latter part 
 of the year 1783 and established his home in the new settle 
 ment, becoming the founder and father of the town. 6 Fair 
 Haven was originally known on account of the mills, the facto 
 ries and the furnaces he established there as " Lyon's Works." 
 
 o Collins's History of Kentucky, Vol. II, p. 491. 
 * Adams's History of Fair Haven, p. 190. 
 c Ibid, p. 62. 
 
196 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 We have the testimony of an eye witness to his advent at Fair 
 Haven, one who beheld the white canvas emigrant train of 
 the pioneer as it wound along and forded the river to its desti 
 nation. " It was in 1783," I quote from Miss Gilbert's "Rem 
 iniscences of Fair Haven," " that a little girl stood on the bank 
 of Poultney river watching some loaded teams ford the stream. 
 That girl was Sally Benjamin, who lived until a few years since. 
 The wagons contained Colonel Lyon with his family and 
 goods, on their way to found the town of Fair Haven, of which 
 he was one of the proprietor s." a 
 
 It would have filled old Jabez Bacon with delight to have 
 beheld his Ancient Woodbury apprentice all aglow with Yan 
 kee enterprise, laying the foundations of a town and renewing 
 the face of the earth on Poultney river. Colonel Lyon used 
 the streams for mills and factories, and the forests for the 
 manufacture of basswood paper; the first record of such an 
 invention the writer has found in the history of those times. 
 The broken mortars and cannon and small arms about Ticon- 
 deroga, and on many a historic field of fight in the Revolution 
 were beaten literally into plough shares, and licked into new 
 shapes for agricultural purposes in the blazing furnace blasts 
 along Poultney river. The redemptioner who was not 
 ashamed of " the two bulls that redeemed him " was fashioning 
 the broken implements of war into bar iron, nails, hoes, spades, 
 shovels and tradesmen's tools, like another Mulciber at work 
 among his mechanical arts. He reclaimed the wilds of nature, 
 and made the place the abode of a thriving settlement of Green 
 Mountain Boys. President Timothy Dwight, as we have seen 
 
 a Rutland County Centennial Celebration. R. Co. Hist. Soc. 1882. 
 Vol. I, p. 146. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 197 
 
 in a former chapter, found little to please him in this part of 
 Vermont until he reached the village of Fair Haven, and he 
 there paused to admire Lyon's Works. The graphic Dr. J. A. 
 Graham, in his " Sketch of Vermont/' was full of commenda 
 tions of the intrepid pioneer who built up this flourishing town. 
 jThe editor of the " Records of Governor and Council," the 
 Hon. E. P. Walton, was equally emphatic in appreciation of 
 Matthew Lyon's extraordinary business capacity. Even the 
 last man in the world from whom to expect it, Henry B. Daw- 
 son, in the New York " Historical Magazine," finds room for 
 praise. 
 
 " Fair Haven is generally a rough, disagreeable township," 
 says President Dwight. " The only exception to this remark, 
 within our view, was on its southern limit, along Poultney 
 river, where there is a small tract of handsome in 
 tervals. The only cheerful object which met our view before 
 we reached the river was a collection of very busy mills and 
 other water works." These were in the town founded by 
 Matthew Lyon. 
 
 " Fair Haven," says Dr. Graham, " joins on Skeensborough, 
 and is the most flourishing town in the State. It owes its con 
 sequence to its founder, Colonel Lyon, whose enterprise and 
 perseverance in carrying on manufactories have been of infinite 
 utility to the public, to the gratitude of which he has the 
 strongest claims. He has erected a furnace for casting all 
 kinds of hollow ironware, and two forges, a slitting mill for the 
 making of nail-rods, a paper mill, a printing- press, and corn 
 and saw mills. * * * It is a curious fact that Colonel Lyon 
 has executed a good deal of printing at his office, on paper 
 Dwight's Travels in New England and New York, II, 455. 
 
198 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 manufactured by himself of the bark of the basswood tree, and 
 which is found to answer every purpose for common printing. 
 He has held some of the first offices in the State, and no man 
 in it can be found more qualified to do so, as his knowledge of 
 the finances and situation of the country is scarcely to be 
 equalled ; nor does his integrity ever suffer him to lose sight of 
 the real good of the people. * * * His friendship and 
 generosity are as great as his ambition. * * * His pas 
 sions and all his pursuits flow from the noblest feelings of the 
 heart; they are all exerted for the benefit of mankind, and not 
 only endear him to my esteem, but secure to him the respect 
 and affection of all those who are happy in his acquaintance, 
 or who have a knowledge of his character."* 
 
 " Matthew Lyon," says the discriminating Mr. E. P. Wal 
 ton, " deserves to be ranked among the remarkable men of 
 Vermont. * * * He was a terse and vigorous writer and 
 able debater. * * * However valuable to the State the 
 services of Matthew Lyon may have been in the many public 
 offices he filled, it may be doubted whether his influence as an 
 enterprising and energetic business man was not even more 
 valuable. He was daring in his enterprises, and had he either 
 neglected politics and given his intellect and skill to business, 
 or given less attention to business and more to culture in law 
 and statesmanship, he might have been an eminently success 
 ful man. * * * He was on the whole probably more use 
 ful to the public than to himself."* 
 
 The "Historical Magazine," of New York, generally so 
 spiteful when Vermont or Vermonters was the subject of re 
 ft Dr. John A. Graham's "Sketch of Vermont." An interesting 
 book, dedicated to the Duke of Montrose, a cousin of its author. 
 & Records of Governor and Council, I, 123 et seq. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 199 
 
 mark, quoted with approval from the " Salem Gazette " the 
 following notice of Matthew Lyon : 
 
 " Basswood paper. Several papers refer to this article as a 
 recent invention. It is not so. As early as 1796 a newspaper 
 prepared from basswood was printed in Vermont by the cele 
 brated Matthew Lyon, bearing the title of ' The Scourge of 
 Aristocracy and Repository of Important Political Truth.' It 
 was in this paper that Lyon published the libel for which he 
 was tried and convicted under the famous Sedition Law." a 
 There are two or three inaccuracies in this article, but the re 
 mark on the invention of basswood paper by Lyon is pertinent 
 and curious. 
 
 The newspaper referred to was not established until 1798, 
 and the letter of Lyon upon which he was convicted of sedition 
 by his political enemies was published in the " Windsor Jour 
 nal," an unfriendly paper, and not in the " Scourge of Aristoc 
 racy," a friendly one. Fortunes in wood pulp have been made 
 in our own age, and ex-Senator Warner Miller, of New York, 
 once bore the nickname of " Wood Pulp Miller." But old 
 Colonel Lyon, in the forests of primitive Vermont, was the 
 real inventor in the last century of the process for making 
 paper from basswood. 
 
 At this point in the career of Lyon, I am for a moment 
 tempted to pause. It was here in the town of Fair Haven, 
 which he founded, that the remarkable character of the man 
 was brought into full play, his best traits were developed, and 
 his indomitable energy was concentrated in useful schemes for 
 the State of his adoption. Here he evinced unselfish zeal for 
 the public good; here he built up numerous works of internal 
 o Historical Magazine and Notes and Queries, Nov. 1867, p. 308. 
 
200 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 improvement; here showed heroic attachment to the cause of 
 State Rights; here proclaimed and enforced persistently and 
 inflexibly the rights of the common people against arbitrary 
 power. Fleeing from king-tainted Europe, he had ever been 
 a Democrat from his childhood in Wicklow, where he con 
 secrated himself to freedom in the blood of a murdered father; 
 at the Dublin printing case, where perhaps Charles Lucas ut 
 tered the same battle cry for man; in Connecticut, where he 
 joined the Sons of Liberty against the Stamp Act. His loath 
 ing of monarchy and all arbitrary and centralized power was 
 inbred and almost fanatical. As a Green Mountain Boy, mem 
 ber of the old Council of Safety of Vermont, in the ranks of; 
 Warner and Stark at Bennington, and in the Continental army 
 at Saratoga, where tyranny received an almost fatal blow, Mat 
 thew Lyon had become a champion of American Democracy, 
 a people's man as distinguished from an aristocrat, a disciple of 
 the school of Thomas Jefferson, his political idol. What Lyon 
 believed, that he was pretty sure to practice. He was aston 
 ished to see Tories growing in influence after the close of the 
 war, with the Federalists led by Hamilton affecting English 
 forms and precedents, and only waiting, though most happily 
 waiting in vain, for Washington to nod assent in order to clap 
 a crown upon his head. 
 
 Thus Matthew Lyon became a Democrat of Democrats, 
 and regarding the Federalists as thinly disguised Tories, he 
 waged ceaseless warfare against them. As Jefferson stripped 
 for the fight in Virginia, grappled with primogeniture, the tithe- 
 gatherers of the Established Church and the enemies of re 
 ligious liberty, so Lyon sprang into the breach in Vermont in 
 the same fight, defeated the Federalists after a prolonged bat- 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 2OI 
 
 tie, and became the pioneer Democrat of New England. 
 While forgiveness is wise and magnanimous in governments, 
 and even English loyalists were included in the scope of Ameri 
 can amnesty for the past, it is nevertheless true that many 
 strong Tories, stout Britons in all but the name, sought citi 
 zenship after the Revolution and enrolled themselves as mem 
 bers of the Federal party. The tone and complexion which 
 they gave to that party led finally to its downfall and extinc 
 tion after the war of 1812. Naturally the great apostle of the 
 opposite school of Republicanism became the object of their 
 most bitter attacks. Scrape a Federalist, and if you should 
 not find a Tory, his distinguishing mark was very apt to be 
 antipathy to Thomas Jefferson, and in Vermont to Matthew 
 Lyon. But Thomas Jefferson was rather helped than impeded 
 by this aversion. Considering its source it was quite logical, 
 and viewing its effects very beneficial to the object of its en 
 mity. Patriotic Americans rallied to his standards everywhere, 
 the more the Federalists abused the author of the Declaration 
 of Independence. That celebrated statesman, Daniel Webster, 
 visited the Sage of Monticello shortly before the latter's death, 
 and afterwards declared to Peter Harvey that no other Ameri 
 can had exerted so large an influence as Jefferson over the 
 people and destinies of the United States. 
 
 The number of Tories who became citizens after the Revolu 
 tion was unexpectedly large. There were immense numbers 
 of them, as Sabine's " American Loyalists " reveals to us. The 
 late Henry Ward Beecher once went so far as to say that the 
 best blood in America coursed in their veins, and strangely 
 enough he took occasion to say it in 1883, at the centennial 
 celebration of the evacuation of the city of New York by the 
 
202 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 British, when people were in the humor rather for American 
 than English buncombe. 
 
 Between Lyon and the Tories or Federalists there was im 
 placable hostility. At him they hurled shafts of malice, ridi 
 cule and opprobrium ; at them he levelled barbed arrows of de 
 nunciation and scornfully fierce invective. Indeed the charac 
 ter of Lyon is a study. His convictions ran clear to the bot 
 tom of subjects, and nothing he said or did was commonplace. 
 Like his antagonist, old John Adams of Braintree, a fighting 
 doctrinaire in council, and like John Stark at Bennington, a 
 Celtic thunderbolt in war, he never appeared dimly in any 
 of the transactions of his day, but always a clear cut substan 
 tiality in every line and lineament ; never turgid, never a Grad- 
 grind, but always in bold relief, a tribune of the people. 
 
 No one can read the very full " History of Fair Haven," by 
 Mr. C. N. Adams, without being impressed with the business 
 ability and public spirit of Matthew Lyon. Evidently he is 
 not a favorite of that painstaking and industrious chronicler, 
 but in Mr. Adams's dry details of names of settlers, whence 
 they came, who they were, how much land they purchased, 
 their avocations and the like, through the whole long account 
 of the people of Fair Haven and their doings in the olden day, 
 the presence of Matthew Lyon is felt and seen as that of the 
 central figure of a history not written to celebrate his exploits, 
 or with any partiality or leanings towards him personally. 
 That he was a man of action, with a power to lead others, the 
 highest gift of Heaven to man, as John Randolph once said, is 
 demonstrated by Mr. Adams, even though that writer has not 
 a particle of coloring in his book, but confines it to dry statis 
 tics, local happenings, and names, dates and land titles, of in- 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 203 
 
 terest solely to the people of the town. There Lyon was coun 
 seling, constructing and taking the initiative among his neigh 
 bors; choosing business sites which, after a century are busi 
 ness sites still, filling the place with diversified industries, in a 
 word he was the founder and father of the town. Mr. Adams 
 chronicles the names of some notable Vermonters who were 
 natives of the place ; many well-known and some distinguished 
 men have lived there; but the pioneer who first came and laid it 
 out is still after more than a hundred years the most conspicu 
 ous and remarkable personality in the history of Fair Haven. 
 Those who knew him best liked him most; no office was too 
 high for their favorite; no man in their opinion so well fitted 
 to fill it as Matthew Lyon. 
 
 At the first election of a United States Senator by the Legis 
 lature, in 1791, the name of Colonel Lyon appears among the 
 favorites of the people for that office. The following extract 
 from " Records of Governor and Council," refers to the sena 
 torial election : 
 
 " In Council, Monday, 
 "Windsor, 17 October, 1791 
 
 " Resolved to join the House in Grand Committee at 2 o'clock, 
 P. M. for the purpose of Electing Senators agreeable to the order 
 of Saturday. * * * The Governor and Council joined accordingly 
 and compared the nomination, when the Honorable Moses Robinson 
 and Stephen R. Bradley, was declared to be duly Elected Senators 
 to Represent this State in the Congress of the United States." 
 
 " Neither the official records nor the Vermont newspapers 
 give the names of the unsuccessful candidates; and the only 
 clue discovered is a copy in the ' Vermont Journal ' of Octo 
 ber 1 8, 1791, of a humorous handbill which was posted in 
 
204 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 Windsor on the day preceding the election. ft characterized 
 the election as ' Federal Racing,' and described the racers thus: 
 
 " EASTERN RACERS. 
 
 ' The Past-TimeStephen R. Bradley. 
 
 * Peacock Possibly Elijah Paine. 
 
 ' Pretty Town Horse Old Roger Enos. 
 ' Narragansett Pacer Jonathan Arnold. 
 ' Connecticut Blue Nathaniel Niles. 
 
 "WESTERN RACERS. 
 
 * The Old Script Moses Robinson. 
 ' Jersey Sleek Isaac Tichenor. 
 
 ' Figure, Bold Sweeper Probably Matthew Lyon. 
 
 * Northern Ranger Probably Samuel Hitchcock/ " 
 
 At the first, second, third and fourth Congressional elections 
 in Vermont, the friends of Matthew Lyon supported him en 
 thusiastically for that office. Although defeated three times 
 in a close poll, the Colonel was not discouraged, but was more 
 determined after each defeat to carry the banner of Democracy 
 to victory. It was this grit and unconquerable purpose that 
 drew from Rev. Pliny H. White the following remarks in his 
 Lyon address: 
 
 " The distinguishing traits in Matthew Lyon's character were 
 boldness, energy, perseverance and a resolute will. No under 
 taking was too hazardous for him to enter upon, no obstacle 
 too great for him to encounter, no delay long enough to weary 
 him out. From every defeat he rose like Antaeus from mother 
 earth, strengthened for another trial. Once having fixed his 
 eye upon an object to be acquired, he never lost sight of it. 
 The prize at which he aimed might repeatedly elude his grasp, 
 but he pursued it none the less steadily and persistently. "^ 
 
 Vermont Governor and Council, Vol. IV, pp. 5 and 6. 
 & Rev. P. H. White's Address on Matthew Lyon, p, 2& 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 20$ 
 
 At the Presidential and Congressional elections of 1796, 
 when Adams and Jefferson were elected President and Vice- 
 President, Matthew Lyon was elected to Congress from the 
 Western part of Vermont, the State being entitled to two mem 
 bers, one from the West, the other from the East, and he 
 repaired to Philadelphia, then temporary seat of the Federal 
 Government, to enter upon his new field of duties in the month 
 of May, 1797. 
 
 The town of Fair Haven was organized August 28, 1783, 
 whether immediately preceding or after Colonel Lyon located 
 his family in the place is not clear. He was himself no doubt 
 on the spot, as he at once took the leading part in affairs, and 
 all looked up to him as their directing spirit. He built a forge, 
 a gristmill, a papermill and sawmill, and became an extensive 
 manufacturer in iron as well as in paper and lumber. At 
 heavy cost and with great labor he transported the requisite 
 machinery from Lenox, Massachusetts. He was well ac 
 quainted with the business of ship building. In a letter to 
 President Monroe many years later, June 7, 1817, he said: 
 " I have built many sea vessels on my own account, for which I 
 have searched and selected the timber. The construction of 
 ships has been a subject on which I have read much and 
 thought much. I have conversed with ship 'builders, ship 
 owners, and timber getters. I for many years followed getting 
 ship timber on Lake Champlain for the London market." 
 
 So sound was his business judgment and particularly his 
 knowledge of the proper sites for his various branches of trade, 
 that Rev. Mr. White, the Vermont antiquarian, in his address 
 before the Historical Society of that State, declared that they 
 were used for sunilar purposes in 1858, seventy odd years after 
 
2O6 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 Lyon had selected them. Later on he started a printing office 
 in his papermill, and commenced in 1793 the " Farmer's 
 Library," a small sized newspaper, the editorial management 
 being divided between himself and his son James, the printer, 
 Mr. Spooner, supplying local articles. At the time this paper 
 was established there were but three other papers in the State, 
 the Bennington " Gazette," the Windsor " Journal " and 
 the Rutland " Herald." Colonel Lyon continued his paper for 
 three or four years, changing its name to the Fair Haven 
 " Gazette." His object was not to make money, the sparse 
 population rendering a large circulation and remunerative ad- 
 vertizers out of the question. Indeed he conducted it as a 
 losing business throughout. But so marked was the spread of 
 Federalism or Toryism to the eastward that Colonel Lyon was 
 willing to lose money rather than that the people should be 
 deprived of an organ of those doctrines and sentiments which 
 had been so popular in the time of the Revolution, and without 
 which that momentous conflict could not have been main 
 tained. The " Gazette " accomplished its purpose and kept 
 the people in line with the sound Republicanism of '76. Not 
 content with giving them a lively newspaper, the Colonel 
 sought to cultivate among the early settlers a wholesome taste 
 for literature and useful knowledge. He issued a number of 
 books from his press, and in the list I find a " Life of Ben 
 jamin Franklin," and a novel called " Alphonso and Dalinda." 
 After he left Fair Haven fifty-six years elapsed before another 
 book was issued in the town. During an exciting political 
 contest in his district in 1798, when he was again running for 
 Congress, he sent some communications to the Rutland 
 " Herald," but the editor, Dr. Samuel .Williams, refused them a 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 2O? 
 
 place in his columns. Colonel Lyon would not be muzzled, 
 and forthwith began a semi-monthly magazine in Fair Haven, 
 bearing the defiant and sounding name of " The Scourge of 
 Aristocracy and Repository of Important Political Truth." 
 The first number was issued October i, 1798, and the subscrip 
 tion price was $3 per annum. It was published for 
 one year. " It was a duodecimo," says Mr. White, " of thirty- 
 six pages, nominally edited and published by James Lyon, but 
 containing much from the pen of the Colonel himself." 
 
 It was to the " Scourge of Aristocracy " that Lyon's indict 
 ment under the Sedition Law was really due and may be plainly 
 traced. The first number of the " Scourge" appeared on the 
 first of October, 1798, and four days after, October the 5th, 
 1798, he was indicted. He was too prudent to leave a loop 
 hole in his articles in that paper for the Federalists to stick a 
 peg there and hang a prosecution on it against him. But loop 
 holes and pegs are not necessary for men bent on mischief with 
 arbitrary power in their hands. The " Scourge " made the fur 
 fly in other directions, and also made his enemies still more 
 astute to catch him. Fourteen days before the Sedition Act 
 passed Congress Lyon wrote a letter to an individual in 
 Vermont, criticising John Adams in terms which are mildness 
 itself contrasted with the slashing criticisms of our Presidents 
 by latter-day editors. The emissaries of John Adams hunted 
 up this letter and published it in the Vermont or Windsor 
 " Journal " after the passage of the act, and by that ex post facto 
 trick circumvented Lyon, and with their Alien and Sedition 
 net landed him safe in prison. The " Scourge of Aristocracy " 
 therefore played an important part in an historic drama, in 
 the first act of which John Adams plucked Matthew Lyon out 
 
208 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 of his seat in Congress, and sent him in exile to Vergennes 
 jail; in the second act of which Lyon in his turn, while still a 
 prisoner of State, plucked John Adams out of his seat in the 
 Presidential chair, sent him in exile to Braintree, and won 
 back his own seat in the House. Lyon's letter and quota 
 tions from Joel Barlow furnished the loophole, the " Scourge 
 of Aristocracy " supplied the peg, and the liberty of the press 
 became the real issue. Matthew Lyon killed the Alien and 
 Sedition laws as dead as Marley, and John Adams was " hoist 
 with his own petar." 
 
 At the sale of the great Brinley library in New York in 
 1878, a bound volume of " The Scourge of Aristocracy " was 
 sold, and the present writer was a competitor with Yale Col 
 lege for its purchase. I bid $12.50 for it, but the College, 
 which was a five thousand dollars legatee of Mr. Brinley, to be 
 applied in the purchase of books in his vast library, bid $1275, 
 and carried off the " Scourge." That copy is now in the 
 library of Yale College. Another copy is in the Vermont 
 State library. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 209 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 BROW BEATINGS AND INSULTS AFFLICTING PERSECUTIONS 
 AND PERSONAL INDIGNITIES MONARCHIE MASQUE LYON 
 ENTERS CONGRESS CHIPMAN's LITTLE STORIES PRECIPITATE 
 THE LYON-GRISWOLD FIGHT CONGRESS A BEAR GARDEN 
 ITS GLADIATORIAL RECORD FOR A CENTURY. 
 
 *"PHE insolent vices of prosperity," according to Gibbon, 
 were among the chief causes which laid the Roman 
 Empire in the dust. During the second administration of 
 Washington the Federalists gained complete ascendency in 
 Congress, and by the time Adams succeeded to the Presidency 
 the manners and customs of the day were aristocratic, exclu 
 sive and rapidly tending to haughty feudal castes in American 
 society. " Pride," says the good Book, " goeth before de 
 struction." 
 
 In the Anas, a Mr. Jefferson calls attention to the growing 
 preference of the Federalists for monarchy: 
 
 " December 26, 1797. Harper lately in a large company 
 was saying that the best thing the friends of the French could 
 do, was to pray for the restoration of their monarch. ' Then/ 
 says a bystander, ' the best thing we could do, I suppose, 
 would be to pray for the establishment of a monarch in the 
 United States/ ' Our people/ says Harper, ' are not yet ripe 
 for it, but it is the best thing we can come to, and we shall 
 come to it/ Something like this was said in the presence of 
 
 " Jefferson's Works," IX, 187. 
 
2IO MATTHEW LYON 
 
 Findlay. He now denies it in the public papers, though it 
 can be proved by several members." 
 
 Under Adams this spirit grew apace, and matters rapidly 
 tended from bad to worse. It was the Monarchic Masque, ac 
 cording to Professor George Tucker. 
 
 The ladies of the new dynasty of Snobbium Gatherum out 
 stripped their husbands as apists of English aristocracy. In 
 a letter to his wife Mr. Gallatin draws to the life an under study 
 of Mrs. Abigail Adams, the lady of the President. " Phila 
 delphia, i Qth June, 1797. I dine next Thursday at court. 
 Courtland dining there the other day, heard her majesty, as 
 she was asking the names of the different members of Con 
 gress to Hindman, and being told that of some one of the 
 aristocratic party, say, 'Ah, that is one of our people/ So 
 that she is Mrs. President, not of the United States, but of 
 a faction. * * * But it is not right. Indeed, my beloved, you 
 are infinitely more lovely than politics." After the words " of a 
 faction," Mr. Adams, the editor, has stars; something interest 
 ing is left out. A faithful limner should copy the picture bet 
 ter. 
 
 When Jefferson was about to withdraw from public life in 
 1809, a farewell address recounting his services was presented 
 to him by his friends. One of those services was omitted 
 which the retiring President deemed it proper to mention, as 
 weightier than many other matters thought worthy of praise. 
 " There is one, however," said he, " not therein specified, the 
 most important in its consequences of any transaction in any 
 portion of my life; to wit, the head I personally made against 
 the Federal principles and proceedings during the administra- 
 
 o " Life of Albert Gallatin," by Henry Adams, p. 185. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 211 
 
 tion of Mr. Adams. Their usurpations and violations of the 
 Constitution at that period, and their majority in both Houses 
 of Congress, were so great, so decided and so daring, that 
 after combating their agressions inch by inch without being 
 able in the least to check their career, the Republican leaders 
 thought it would be best for them to give up their useless 
 efforts there, go home, get into their respective Legislatures, 
 embody whatever of resistance they could be formed into, and, 
 if ineffectual, to perish there as in the last ditch. All, there 
 fore, retired, leaving Mr. Gallatin alone in the House of Repre 
 sentatives, and myself in the Senate, where I then presided as 
 Vice-President Remaining at our posts, and bidding defiance 
 to the brow-beatings and insults by which they endeavored 
 to drive us off also, we kept the mass of Republicans in 
 phalanx together, until the Legislature could be brought up 
 to the charge; and nothing on earth is more certain than that 
 if myself particularly, placed by my office of Vice-President 
 at the head of the Republicans, had given way and withdrawn 
 from my post, the Republicans throughout the Union would 
 have given up in despair, and the cause would have been lost 
 forever. 
 
 " By holding on we obtained time for the Legislature to 
 come up with their weight; and those of Virginia and Ken 
 tucky particularly, but more especially the former, by their 
 celebrated resolutions, saved the Constitution at its last gasp. 
 No person who was not a witness of the scenes of that gloomy 
 period can form any idea of the afflicting persecutions and 
 personal indignities we had to brook. They saved our coun 
 try, however. The spirits of the people were so much subdued 
 and reduced to despair by the X Y Z imposture, and other 
 
212 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 stratagems and machinations, that they would have sunk into 
 apathy and monarchy, as the only form of government which 
 could maintain itself." . 
 
 Among the stratagems alluded to by Mr. Jefferson, was the 
 billingsgate of William Cobbett, the unrivalled scold of Ameri 
 can politics. " Cobbettized him," as Sir Jonah Barrington, al 
 ways happy at turning phrases, styled slanderers, for Cobbett 
 afterwards figured in the British Parliament, and gloried in his 
 chosen name of Peter Porcupine. He was the Federal bull 
 dog, and gnashed at Democrats unmercifully. No sooner had 
 Col. Matthew Lyon arrived in Philadelphia to take his seat 
 in Congress in the spring of 1797, having been chosen at the 
 last election by the people of Vermont to represent them in 
 that body, than the following cartoon appeared in Porcupine's 
 
 Gazette: 
 
 " TUESDAY, 6TH JUNE. 
 
 " The Lyon of Vermont. To-morrow at eleven o'clock 
 will be exposed to public view the Lyon of Vermont. This 
 singular animal is said to have been caught on the bog of 
 Hibernia, and, when a whelp, transported to America; curi 
 osity induced a New Yorker to buy him, and moving into 
 the country, afterwards exchanged him for a yoke of young 
 bulls with a Vermontese. He was petted in the neighborhood 
 of Governor Chittenden, and soon became so domesticated, 
 that a daughter of his Excellency would stroke him and play 
 with him as a monkey. He differs considerably from the 
 African lion, is much more clamorous and less magnanimous. 
 His pelt resembles more the wolf or the tiger, and his gestures 
 bear a remarkable affinity to the bear; this, however, may be 
 
 <* " Jefferson's Works," IX, 507-8. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 213 
 
 ascribed to his having been in the habit of associating with 
 that species of wild beast on the mountain; he is carnivorous, 
 but not very ferocious has never been detected in having 
 attacked a man, but report says he will beat women. 
 
 " He was brought to this city in a wagon, and has several 
 days exposed himself to the public. It has been motioned to 
 cage him as he has discovered much uneasiness at going 
 with the crowd. 
 
 " (Note : It will be seen in the proceedings of Congress, 
 that this beast asked leave to be excused from going with the 
 rest of the members to wait on the President.) Many gentle 
 men, who have seen him, do not hesitate to declare, they think 
 him a most extraordianry beast." a 
 
 The animus of this elegant extract is found in the Note. 
 Colonel Lyon opposed the courtly custom of answering the 
 President's speech by the personal attendance of every mem 
 ber of Congress in the audience room of the Executive. The 
 whole business of such answers, street processions and soft 
 speeches of mutual admiration, first by the President coming 
 to deliver his compliments to Congress, and next of the Con 
 gress going en masse to deliver their compliments to the Presi 
 dent, smacked of king, lords and commons, and was repugnant 
 to the democratic tastes of the new member from Vermont. 
 No longer was " Mr. Gallatin alone in the House of Repre 
 sentatives," as Jefferson described him. He had received a 
 positive ally in Matthew Lyon. Nor was Jefferson himself 
 any longer alone in the Senate; at the same time that Lyon 
 took his seat in the House, Andrew Jackson, an unknown 
 Democrat, shortly destined, as Pope said of one Johnson of 
 
 o "Porcupine's Works," VI, 16-17. 
 
214 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 Grubb Street, to be deterre, was sworn in as the new Senator 
 from '1 ennessee. It was not a great while before Cobbett's Por 
 cupine opened its broadsides on all three of these Democrats, 
 Jefferson, Jackson and Lyon. I subjoin a specimen of its 
 pleasantries : 
 
 " Gimcrack's Museum is now opened for inspection, where 
 may be seen the following curiosities: Wax-work Figures, 
 Paintings and Menage of Beasts. 
 
 " I. The identical wooden sword which was girded on the 
 thigh of the hero of Onion River, with the musical notes 
 which accompanied that brave man in his triumphal exit from 
 the camp at Ticonderoga. 
 
 " 2. The American Orator ; representing a member of Con 
 gress in solemn debate, spitting in the eye of his opponent, 
 to clear it from the mist of prejudice. 
 
 " 4. The Pismires out of Office, by Monroe and T. Coxe. 
 
 " 5. The Political Sinner, from the Flemish School, by A. 
 Gallatin. 
 
 " 7. Hotspur, by Jackson. 
 
 " 8. The Fox at Fault, by Thomas Jefferson. 
 
 " 9. In a convenient detached room may be seen The Ver 
 mont Lion; the greatest beast in the world. 
 
 "Admittance one quarter of a dollar for grown persons 
 children at half price." 
 
 It must be confessed that Colonel Lyon was here in good 
 company, pares cum paribus; three future Presidents of the 
 United States. 
 
 One or two features of this cabinet of curiosities call for a 
 word of explanation. How came our old acquaintance, the 
 
 " Porcupine's Works," VIII, nS. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 21$ 
 
 wooden sword, to reach Philadelphia girded on the member 
 of Congress, whom Mr. Cobbett represents as spitting in the 
 eye of his opponent to clear it from the mist of prejudice, and 
 how came it to be brandished so publicly, not only by Porcu 
 pine, but in the Halls of Congress? Shabbily enough, indeed. 
 Senator Nathaniel Chipman dug it up from an ancient rubbish 
 heap in Vermont, where in a former chapter the reader has 
 already seen it properly buried from sight with proofs of its 
 silly mendacity and meanness. For uttering similar petty 
 slanders Senator Chipman was once chastised long years before 
 at the town of Westminster, Vermont, by Col. Matthew Lyon. 
 For some reason Chipman had an unaccountable hatred of 
 Lyon. He had unsuccessfully tried to stab his reputation by 
 gathering up widely separated items from the secret documents 
 of the commissioners of confiscation in the old evil days of the 
 Haldimand intrigue, and demanding that Lyon should deliver 
 up the books in which the story of that intrigue was supposed 
 to be contained. We have seen that a committee of which he 
 was a member had procured Lyon to be impeached and fined 
 for not delivering up those tell-tale books, and we have also seen 
 how Lyon came before Chipman's committee and put his foot 
 on the insect brood of slanders which the latter gentleman 
 was trying to propagate against him, and crushing them out 
 forever. There was some motive for Chipman's conduct. 
 What was it? The only one which I can conjecture to have 
 had any rational foundation was a possible desire to get back 
 into his own custody the bogus letter which he once wrote and 
 palmed off on the people of the Grants as a genuine epistle. 
 The secret springs of human action must be known to give 
 accuracy to the portraits of history. Was that Chipman's 
 
2l6 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 motive? Did Lyon have that letter? Most likely he did. He 
 was the Secretary of the Board of Confiscation or War, the 
 son-in-law of Governor Chittenden, and his most confidential 
 and trusted adviser. Chittenden and Lyon were Democrats; 
 Chipman was a Federalist. Chittenden was once attacked and 
 defeated for Governor by the Chipman party, but at the next 
 election the slanders which had been hatched against Chitten 
 den and used to his temporary detriment, were stamped out, 
 and he was triumphantly re-elected Governor, and held the 
 office nearly as long as he lived. It was a period when things 
 looked dark in Vermont, and the people were distracted, as 
 Prof. James Davie Butler said in his 1846 address, by the 
 " infinite conjugation of the verb suspect." The Haldimand 
 intrigue, like the shirt of Nessus, clung tight and could not be 
 gotten rid of, and Mr. Chipman's letter, falsely purporting to 
 have been written by the British General St. Leger, had a 
 treasonable squint, or as General Stark said, " an aspect of in 
 iquity," which perhaps made Chipman uncomfortable and 
 anxious to get it back in his own hands. If Matthew Lyon 
 had that letter in his possession, to his credit be it said, he 
 never made it known, never brought it to Philadelphia, nor 
 waved it in Congress to show how Mr. Chipman once had been 
 in a conspiracy with the enemies of the United States to carry 
 over Vermont to the English side in the Revolution, and make 
 her a loyal colony of the mother country. He was too true a 
 Vermonter, too much of a man for this. And yet had Lyon 
 done so, he would have had far more justification for such a 
 charge than Chipman had in brandishing a wooden sword over 
 [Matthew Lyon, because the letter was a fact and the wooden 
 sword a lie. Mr. Henry Clark, of Rutland, Vermont, tells the 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 
 
 story of the bogus letter succinctly in his address upon the 
 " Historical Value of Monuments," delivered at Castleton, 
 January 15, 1881, before the Rutland County Historical So 
 ciety. " One hundred years ago," says Mr. Clark, " scenes 
 were transpiring at that little fort pregnant with the weal or 
 woe of the young republic of Vermont. Here practically was 
 settled whether Vermont should retain her independence or 
 give her allegiance to the British Crown. * * * In Sep 
 tember, 1781, Ira Allen and Joseph Fay met the British com 
 missioners in secret conclave at Skeensboro (Whitehall) to per 
 fect their negotiations and renew the armistice. The Gover 
 nor was to be appointed by the King, and the Legislature by 
 the people. * * * It was at this time that Sergeant Tup- 
 per was killed by one of St. Leger's scouts. General St. Leger 
 decently buried the body, sent his clothing to General Enos 
 with an open letter to Governor Chittenden, making apology 
 for killing him, saying his picket not knowing the situation. 
 As the letter was not sealed its contents became known among 
 the officers and men, * * * and presently the whole 
 Legislature were awake to the subject. * * * Governor 
 Chittenden lost no time in assembling the Board of War at 
 his room, all of whom were in the secret, and happened to be 
 present. * * * The Board of War at once sent for 
 Nathaniel Chipman of Tinmouth, as counsel, and let him into 
 the secret, and it is said that he advised the course taken (to 
 make out a new set of letters) and prepared the bogus letters 
 which were read. Treason was snuffed and the excitement in 
 tense. * * * Many doubts have been cast upon the au 
 thenticity of this transaction, but in the light of history its real- 
 
2l8 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 ity and truth have been revealed." (Rutland County Hist. 
 Soc., Vol. I, pp. 182, et seq.) 
 
 Nathaniel Chipman, son of a blacksmith, author of the bogus 
 letter which was read before the Legislature at Charlestown, 
 Vermont, in order to deceive the people, aroused over a sus 
 pected treasonable correspondence during the Revolution with 
 a British officer, was now in 1797 a Senator of the United 
 States from Vermont. He circulated malicious stories among 
 congressmen to the prejudice of Matthew Lyon, and de 
 scended from his high station to defame a fellow Vermonter, 
 and whisper stale, refuted slanders to Roger Griswold and 
 others relative to the cashiering of Lyon by Gates. If he had 
 told only the truth, for example, the story of the two bulls in 
 which Colonel Lyon took much pride and which a modern 
 writer, Rudyard Kipling, in his " Mowgli's Oath ' By the bull 
 that bought me/ " a has borrowed from the old Colonel 
 with evident admiration of Lyon's epigrammatic style of em 
 ploying it when speaking of his exploits, that might be ex 
 cused on the score of political rivalry. But when he sat toad- 
 like at the ears of congressmen from other States whispering 
 gross fabrications and venomous slanders against a representa 
 tive from his own State, which, when they were repeated in his 
 presence were repelled by that representative, and precipitated 
 a disgraceful fight on the floor of Congress, the question arises, 
 who was responsible for the fight, Chipman the back-biter, or 
 Griswold and Lyon the fighters? 
 
 Colonel Lyon took his seat in the House as a new member 
 May the I5th, 1797, when the Federal Government was but 
 eight years old. Already in Washington's first cabinet two 
 
 New York " Tribune," July 23, 1899. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 219 
 
 commanding figures had appeared. Mr. Jefferson, the great 
 apostle of Democracy, and Mr. Hamilton, the great apostle of 
 Centralization. These two men saved the country from dis 
 union at the outset by a compromise between the North and 
 South upon the national assumption of the debts of the States, 
 and the choice of a seat of government. But Mr. Jefferson 
 regretted his share in the compromise, and Mr. Hamilton, hav 
 ing control of the public purse, soon dominated the Cabinet of 
 Washington. Great strategist as he was in statecraft, Hamil 
 ton confronted in Jefferson the only man in America who was 
 his superior in handling large questions of public policy. As 
 soon as he was convinced that Hamilton would win, for Wash 
 ington was on his side, and all the others were but pawns in his 
 hands, Jefferson's next move was a masterly retreat. 
 
 His unerring judgment in retiring from the Cabinet prob 
 ably saved him from the fate of poor Edmund Randolph, his 
 successor, who fell victim to a contemptible plot of Oliver Wol- 
 cott and the other Hamilton men surrounding Washington; 
 and from the still more melancholy fate which afterwards over 
 took John Adams when the old Braintree hero's administra 
 tion was controlled and completely wrecked by the Hamil 
 ton faction. There is something pathetic in the story of the 
 undoubting faith of John Adams in the Hamilton spy Wol- 
 cott, who, after the President took him into his Cabinet as 
 Secretary of the Treasury, betrayed all his secrets to his arch 
 enemy, and in the end, with a knife in one hand, stretched out 
 the other to accept from his impulsive, unsuspecting victim a 
 life office as Federal judge. 
 
 " Some of the most delicate facts stated," wrote Hamilton 
 to Wolcott, when about to send a Parthian shaft into the side 
 
220 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 of Adams, " I hold from the three ministers, yourself particu 
 larly, and I do not think myself at liberty to take the step with 
 out your consent. I never mean to bring proof, but to stand 
 upon the credit of my own veracity." 
 
 And he transmitted to the Cabinet spy the first draft of his 
 philippic for him to spice more highly the " delicate facts," 
 which task Wolcott forthwith performed. What a spectacle! 
 Prudent Mr. Jefferson in getting out of reach! 
 
 Wolcott next wrote an oily letter to the President, gushing 
 with sycophantic thanks for the new office which Adams in 
 man fashion had bestowed, and sturdy old John replied hand 
 somely to his punic friend. Charles Francis Adams, in refer 
 ring to this reply of his grandfather to Wolcott, has put on 
 record the following declaration: 
 
 " To the day of his death Mr. Adams never suspected that 
 the individual to whom he addressed this letter overflowing 
 with kindness was the person who had secretly furnished the 
 confidential information obtained as a Cabinet officer and ad 
 viser of the President, upon which Mr. Hamilton rested his 
 attack upon his reputation, and had revised, corrected, 
 amended and approved all of tfiat paper whilst in manu 
 script. * * * 
 
 " It is worthy of remark in this connection, that in all the 
 subsequent vicissitudes of party conflict in the United States, no 
 similar violation of confidence in Cabinet officers has ever 
 taken place." 6 
 
 On the 2d of June, 1797, the subject of the answer to the 
 
 "Gibb's Administration of Washington and Adams," II, 422. 
 6 " Life and Works of John Adams," by his grandson Charles 
 Francis Adams, IX, 100-101. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 221 
 
 speech of the new President, Mr. Adams, was under discus 
 sion. Lyon opposed the mode of procedure, and for his hardi 
 hood was assailed by the Federalists as a plebeian, and John 
 Allen, of Connecticut, disdaining men with Irish brogue flung 
 on these shores from Europe, appealed to the better blood and 
 accent of Americans to keep Democrats in check. This put 
 the Vermont Democrat on his mettle. He already perceived 
 that some sneak from his own State had been whispering false 
 stories about him, and the attempt to put him down by sneers 
 and aristocratic airs brought him to his feet on the 3d of June 
 with the following motion: 
 
 " That such members as do not choose to attend upon the 
 President, to present the answer to his speech, shall be ex 
 cused." Thereupon Matthew Lyon made his maiden speech 
 in the halls of Congress. 
 
 " Mr. Lyon said he yesterday voted against the appointment 
 of a committee to wait upon the President to know when and 
 where he would receive their address, because he believed the 
 President should always be ready to receive important com 
 munications. He wished to make a motion." (Given above.) 
 He wished to be understood. He thought the motion a 
 reasonable one, it proposed to leave them at liberty to do as 
 they pleased. And by the rules he saw he was obliged to 
 attend. He was told he might stay behind without being 
 noticed; but this was not enough for him, as he was a timid 
 man, and the House had the law on their side, as he recollected 
 something of a reprimand which had been given to Mr. Whit 
 ney. (The Speaker reminded him it was out of order to cen 
 sure the proceedings of the House on any former occasion.) 
 
 He said he stood corrected and proceeded. 
 
222 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 He had spoken, he said, to both sides of the House (as they 
 were called) on the subject. One side dissuaded him from his 
 motion, and laughed at it; the other side did not wish to join 
 in it, because it would look like disrespect to the person lately 
 elected, who was not a man of their choice ; but he trusted our 
 magnanimous President would, with the enlightened yeo 
 manry of America, despise such a boyish piece of business. 
 This, he said, was no new subject with him; he had long heard 
 the folly of the wise made a matter of wonder in this respect. 
 It was said this was not the time to abolish the custom; but this 
 was the cant used against every kind of reform. No better 
 time could ever arrive, he said, than this, which was the thres 
 hold of a new Presidency, at a time when the man elected to the 
 office was beloved and revered by his fellow citizens; he was 
 as yet unused to vain adulation; he had spent a great part of 
 his life amongst a people whose love of a plainness of manners 
 forbids all pageantry ; he would be glad to see the custom done 
 away. Were he acting in his own personal character, he per 
 haps might conform to the idle usage, but acting as he was for 
 eighty thousand people, every father of a family in his district 
 would condemn him for such an act. 
 
 The gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Allen) yesterday 
 hoped there would be American blood enough to carry the 
 question. (The Speaker again reminded him that he was out 
 of order to allude to what was done yesterday, and said the 
 proper motion would be to rescind the rule.) 6 
 
 Colonel Lyon here refers to Dr. Samuel Johnson's famous lines in 
 "Vanity of Human Wishes": 
 
 " Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise! 
 From Marlborough's eyes the streams of dotage flow, 
 And Swift expires a driveller and a show." 
 
 * Speaker Jonathan Dayton, afterwards in the Burr conspiracy, 
 makes himself ridiculous ia this ruling. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 223 
 
 Mr. Lyon continued : " He did not wish to rescind the rule, 
 he said, only so much of it as obliged the House to attend. 
 This, he said, was no trifling with him, he should have as great 
 an objection to attend this business, as a Quaker would to 
 make his obeisance to a magistrate. (The Speaker said he 
 must move to rescind the rule, or that he himself be excused, 
 no other motion was in order.) Then, he said, he must con 
 fine himself to the narrow grounds of himself. He had no 
 objection to gentlemen of high blood carrying this address. 
 He had no pretensions to high blood, though he thought he had 
 as good blood as any of them, as he was born of a fine, hale, 
 healthy woman. Before yesterday he never heard of gentle 
 men boasting of their blood in that House He could not say, 
 it was true, that he was descended from the bastards of Oliver 
 Cromwell, or his courtiers, or from the Puritans who punished 
 their horses for breaking the Sabbath, or from those who per 
 secuted the Quakers, or hanged the witches. He could, how 
 ever, say that this was his country, because he had no other; 
 and he owned a share of it, which he had bought by means of 
 honest industry; he had fought for his country. In every day 
 of trouble he had repaired to her standard, and had conquered 
 under it. Conquest had led his country to independence, and 
 being independent, he called no man's blood in question." 6 
 
 This speech caused a sensation in the House. Mr. Allen 
 discovered that the Irish born gentleman from Vermont knew 
 how to answer his remarks in relation to " American blood " 
 and " American accent/' in vigorous, penetrable English. 
 
 6 Annals of Congress, Vth Cong., 1797, Vol. I, pp. 234-5. 
 
224 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 From that moment the high-flyers among the Federalists de 
 termined to get up the hue and cry against Colonel Lyon, and 
 reduce him to silence and submission. They little suspected 
 how hard it would prove. 
 
 The report in the Annals concludes as follows : 
 
 " Mr. Dana observed that the House would not wish to do 
 violence to the gentleman's feelings. It was true some of the 
 most respectable men in the United States had waited upon 
 the President in a similar way; yet if the gentleman thought it 
 would not comport with his own dignity to do it, he hoped he 
 would be excused. The motion to excuse him was put and 
 carried unanimously." 
 
 In Porcupine's report the following is added: "Mr. Otis 
 said, as the Lyon appeared to be in a savage mood, he would 
 recommend him to be locked up while the House proceeded 
 to the President. (He was loudly called to order from several 
 parts of the House/') 
 
 Little Judge Chipman, the Senator from Vermont, was very 
 industrious about this time. The excitement of the Federal 
 ists over Matthew Lyon's manly speech, gave Chipman a 
 favorable opportunity to " feed fat the ancient grudge " he bore 
 him. Lyon afterwards traced to Chipman the spreading 
 abroad at Philadelphia of petty calumnies against him, long 
 since exploded in Vermont, and made him admit it under oath. 
 " At Rutland I was in company," deposed Judge Chipman, 
 "with Mr. Lyon and two gentlemen of the Supreme Court, 
 and some gentlemen of the bar, at our private quarters. In 
 the conversation between Mr. Lyon and myself, my expression 
 was: If he did not expect that this ridiculous speech in Con- 
 
 " Porcupine's Works," VI, 170-1 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 22$ 
 
 gress, relative to the address, would bring up the wooden 
 sword? I mentioned in Philadelphia the conversation with 
 Mr. Lyon in a company one evening. I believe Mr. Griswold 
 was present. I think it probable I have also related the con 
 versation which I had with Mr. Lyon at Rutland, more than 
 once in this city." a 
 
 That which Judge Chipman called a " ridiculous speech " 
 was not so considered by Mr. Jefferson. One of the first acts 
 of the latter when he became President was to secure the 
 abolition of the custom of royal visits between the Executive 
 and Congress, and no more Congressional pageants to the 
 White House from that day to this have been seen in the 
 streets of Washington. Matthew Lyon had hit them off well 
 as " a boyish piece of business." 
 
 In reference to the wooden sword story Judge Chipman also 
 stated in his deposition as follows : " Colonel Lyon observed 
 that if anyone at Philadelphia, or if any member of Congress 
 should insult him with it, or pretend to mention it to him, it 
 should not pass with impunity." Was it not singular, did it 
 not look like a preconcerted scheme, that the very man to 
 whom Chipman related that false and contemptible story, 
 should be the one that some time after taunted Lyon with the 
 insulting charge on the floor of Congress? Roger Griswold 
 asked him whether he meant to wear his wooden sword when 
 he next went into Connecticut, asked the question in the pres 
 ence of the Speaker of the House and several other members 
 of Congress, all of whom heard it. Burning with indignation, 
 
 Deposition of Senator Chipman before the Committee of Privileges 
 of the House of Representatives at Philadelphia, Feb. 6, 1798. Annals 
 of Congress, 1797-1799, pp. 1023-1024. 
 
226 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 but mindful of his surroundings, for the scene took place on 
 the floor of Congress during a lull in the proceedings but be 
 fore adjournment, Colonel Lyon pretended not to hear Gris- 
 wold, and turned his head in another direction, continuing his 
 conversation with the Speaker and the others, in which he had 
 been previously engaged. But the young man Griswold was 
 not to be denied, he was fifteen years younger than Lyon, and 
 so he remarked to Congressman Brooks " he does not hear 
 me," got up from his seat, walked over to Matthew Lyon, 
 pulled him by the arm, and repeated his infamous and degrad 
 ing question. Is it any wonder when thus goaded that Mat 
 thew Lyon turned upon his tormentor and spat in his face? 
 Judge Linton Stephens once did the same thing with a man 
 who had maltreated in a ruffianly manner his emaciated 
 brother, the illustrious Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia. 
 There are other noted cases where men of spirit in situations 
 which precluded corporal chastisement of the offenders have 
 resorted under extreme provocation to the same mode of pun 
 ishment. 
 
 My Lord Chesterfield might not have done it, but Ethan 
 Allen or Seth Warner, Andrew Jackson or Phil Sheridan very 
 probably would have done it in like circumstances. At all 
 events, Matthew Lyon did do it, and the whole pack of Federal 
 hounds went on the trail of the Lyon of Vermont, and soon 
 had him at bay. A very unexpected witness in Lyon's favor 
 was the Rev. Dr. Ashbel Green, who had defeated another 
 popular churchman, Bishop John Carroll of Baltimore, in the 
 election for Chaplain of the House. Dr. Green says, while he 
 objected to see his own face in a picture of the fight, neverthe 
 less that the Federalists were unable to expel Lyon because he 
 
1HE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 22/ 
 
 was the assailed party, and was only defending himself from 
 being made a butt of ridicule by Griswold. 
 
 The affair took place on Tuesday the 3Oth of January, 1798. 
 Forthwith on the same day, Samuel Sewell of Massachusetts 
 offered this resolution : " Resolved, That Matthew Lyon, a 
 member of the House, for a violent attack, and gross indecency 
 committed upon the person of Roger Griswold, another mem 
 ber, in the presence of this House, whilst sitting, be, for this 
 disorderly behaviour, expelled therefrom." A Committee of 
 Privileges was appointed with power to investigate the entire 
 affair, to sit during the session, and to report to the House. 
 The Committee were Messrs. Pinckney, Venable, Kittera, 
 Isaac Parker, R. Williams, Cochran and Dent. Mr. Pinckney, 
 the Chairman, fell sick, and Mr. John Rutledge, Jr., was ap 
 pointed in his place. And now the affair was worked up with 
 all the sensational adjuncts which declamation, mock heroics, 
 partisan rage and hope to oust a Democrat and win a seat for 
 a Federalist could inspire in the dominant party. " Young 
 Rutledge joining Smith and Harper," says Jefferson in a letter 
 to Madison, " is an ominous fact as to that whole interest."* 
 Such scenes have become familiar to us since that day, but this 
 case has no parallel for vituperation and rancor. Outside the 
 House the excitement spread, but the country took the humor 
 ous view of it with better sense of perspective. Wits and wit 
 lings poured their effusions through the columns of the papers 
 and in broadsides along the town. " Spitting Matt," and 
 " Roger, the Knight of the Rheumful Countenance," in Federal 
 doggerel and Democratic ballad, went broadcast over the land. 
 
 a " Life of Rev. Ashbel Green," p. 267. 
 * " Jefferson's Works," IV, 180. 
 
228 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 Brush and pencil, picture and caricature, added much to the 
 hilarity, and Matthew Lyon shortly became the best known 
 man in the country. Mr. Griswold didn't get his second wind 
 for over two weeks, and then he went to McAlister's store on 
 Chestnut street and bought the biggest yellow stick on sale. 
 Armed with this cane or bludgeon, he repaired to the House on 
 Thursday, the I5th of February, and coming on Colonel Lyon 
 unawares, who was seated at his desk, began to beat him about 
 the head and shoulders unmercifully, in the presence of the 
 whole Congress, with Mr. Speaker in the chair quietly egging 
 him on. It was commented on at the time that the Speaker 
 forgot all about calling to order or trifles of that sort, until 
 Lyon got the tongs and began to give thump for thump, when 
 down the combatants came on the floor, and members rushed 
 between and parted them, and down Mr. Speaker came with 
 his objections for the first time since the beginning of the game, 
 not in the shape of a call to order, but objections to Griswold's 
 legs being taken hold of by the peacemakers. " What! " said 
 he, "Take hold of a man by the legs! That is no way to take 
 hold of him." In his testimony, Mr. Gillespie, a member from 
 North Carolina, stated " that Mr. Lyon expressed disapproba 
 tion at being parted, and said as he was rising, ' I wish I had 
 been let alone awhile.' " 
 
 The Speaker was Jonathan Dayton, afterwards engaged in 
 the Burr conspiracy, and fair play or foul play, he wanted Lyon 
 licked. " I appeal," said he, " to the breast of every honorable 
 gentleman whether the members of that House would consent 
 to sit in amity with such a man." Lyon's reply is not 
 
 <* Annals of Vth Congress, p. 1004. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 
 
 recorded, but was doubtless to the point, as the Speaker had 
 before found him ready at retort. 
 
 I reproduce here a cartoon of the fight from an original print 
 of that day which was thought the cleverest bit of caricature 
 of the whole vast quantity of run mad art then let loose. 
 Shades of likeness to the men are found in it, according to con 
 temporary testimony. I have a fine picture of the amiable 
 Chaplain, afterwards President of Princeton, Rev. Ashbel 
 Green, and certainly can detect points of resemblance, dis 
 paraging and exaggerated but still a remote likeness, between 
 the cartoon and the real engraving. 
 
 Speaking of Matthew Lyon, Mr. L. E. Chittenden of New 
 York, said in a letter to the author, February 3, 1881, " Those 
 who knew him assure me that he is easily recognizable in the 
 picture of the fight with Griswold, but of course the picture is 
 an exaggeration." 
 
 February 3, 1798, Gallatin in a letter to his wife said: " The 
 dispute between Griswold and Lyon shows you what asperity 
 has taken place between members of Congress. The facts you 
 now know from the accounts in the papers, the report of the 
 committee and Lyon's defense in this morning's Aurora. I 
 must only add that there is but little delicacy in the usual con 
 versation of most Connecticut gentlemen; that they have con 
 tracted a habit of saying very hard things, and that consider 
 ing Lyon as a low-life fellow, they were under no restraint in 
 regard to him. No man can blame Lyon for having resented 
 the insult. All must agree in reprobating the mode he 
 selected to show his resentment, and the place where the act 
 
 Gallatin and his wife did not so consider him, as they soon became 
 warm friends of Colonel Lyon. 
 
230 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 was committed. As two-thirds are necessary to expel, he will 
 not, I believe, be expelled, but probably be reprimanded at the 
 bar by the Speaker." 
 
 Mr. Henry Adams, the first of his family in whose writings 
 I have observed a word of temperate treatment of Colonel 
 Lyon, says, after the combatants were pulled apart by the legs, 
 " they went on to endanger the personal safety of members by 
 striking at each other with sticks in the lobbies and about the 
 House at intervals through the day, until at last Mr. H. G. 
 Otis succeeded in procuring the intervention of the House to 
 compel a suspension of hostilities. Lyon, though a very 
 rough specimen of Democracy " (the Adams blood was be 
 ginning to mount here, but he restrains himself and adds,) " he 
 was by no means a contemptible man, and, politics aside, 
 showed energy and character in his subsequent career." 6 
 
 Gallatin to his wife, February 8, says : " We are still hunting 
 the Lyon, and it is indeed the most unpleasant and unprofit 
 able business that ever a respectable representative body did 
 pursue." February I3th again he reverts to the subject: "Are 
 you as tired of modern Congressional debates as I am? I sus 
 pect you wish your husband had no share in them, and was in 
 New York instead of attending the farcical exhibition which 
 has taken place here this last week; and indeed my beloved 
 Hannah is not mistaken. I feel as I always do when absent 
 from her, more anxious to be with her than about anything 
 else; but in addition to that general feeling, I am really dis 
 gusted at, the turn of public debates, and if nothing but such 
 subjects was to attract our attention, it must be the desire of 
 
 " Life of Gallatin," pp. 192-3. 
 p. 192. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 23! 
 
 every man of sense to be out of such a body. The affectation 
 of delicacy, the horror expressed against illiberal imputations 
 and vulgar language in the mouth of an Otis or a Brooks, were 
 sufficiently ridiculous; but when I saw the most modest, the 
 most decent, the most delicate man, I will not say in Congress, 
 but that I ever met in private conversation, when I saw Mr. 
 Nicholas alone dare to extenuate the indecency of the act com- 
 iinitted by Lyon, and then I saw at the same time Colonel 
 Parker tremblingly alive to the least indelicate and vulgar ex 
 pression of the Vermonter, vote in favor of his expulsion, I 
 thought the business went beyond forbearance, and the whole 
 of the proceeding to be nothing more than an affected cant of 
 pretended delicacy, or the offspring of bitter party spirit."* 
 
 The bitterness of feeling surpassed all former displays in the 
 clash of factions. Jefferson mentions something of this in a 
 letter to Edward Rutledge: "Philadelphia, June 24, 1797. 
 You and I have formerly seen warm debates and high political 
 passions, but gentlemen of different politics would then speak 
 to each other, and separate the business of the Senate from that 
 of society. It is not so now. Men who have been intimate 
 all their lives, cross the streets to avoid meeting, and turn their 
 heads another way, lest they should be obliged to touch their 
 hats. This may do for young men with whom passion is en 
 joyment, but it is afflicting to peaceable minds. Tranquillity is 
 the old man's milk. I go to enjoy it in a few days, and to ex 
 change the war and tumult of bulls and bears for the prattle of 
 my grandchildren and senile rest." 6 
 
 In a letter to James Madison, dated Philadelphia, February 
 
 "Ibid., pp. 192-3. 
 
 " Jefferson's Works," IV, 191-2. 
 
232 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 15, 1798, Jefferson says: " You will have seen the disgusting- 
 proceedings in the case of Lyon; if they would have accepted 
 even of a commitment to the sergeant, it might have been had. 
 But to get rid of his vote was the most material object. These 
 proceedings must degrade the General Government and lead 
 the people to lean more on their State Governments, which 
 have been sunk under the early popularity of the former."* 
 The extremists swept the conservatists along with them by 
 violence and browbeating, and men like Pinckney and Harper, 
 noted before for their polished manners, became scolds only 
 less disreputable than Dayton and Dana. " Mr. Pinckney," 
 says Jefferson, in a letter to Madison under date of March 29, 
 1798, " in the affair of Lyon and Griswold went far beyond 
 that moderation he has on other occasions recommended." b 
 The remark of Colonel Lyon in his conversation with Speaker 
 Dayton that the people of Connecticut were attached to Re 
 publican principles, and that by going among them, as he knew 
 them well, he would be able to convince them that their present 
 leaders were misleading them, shortly received emphatic con 
 firmation in a letter to Edmund Pendleton from Mr. Jefferson. 
 " Philadelphia, April 2, 1798. A wonderful stir is com 
 mencing in the Eastern States. The dirty business of Lyon 
 and Griswold was of a nature to fly through the newspapers, 
 both Whig and Tory, and to excite the attention of all classes. 
 It, of course, carried to their attention, at the same time, the 
 debates out of which that affair springs. The subject of these 
 debates was, whether the representatives of the people were to 
 have no check on the expenditure of the public money, and the 
 
 "Ibid., IV, 211. 
 *Ibid., IV, 227. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 233 
 
 Executive to squander it at their will, leaving to the Legisla 
 ture only the drudgery of furnishing the money. They begin 
 to open their eyes on this to the eastward, and to suspect they 
 have been hoodwinked. Two or three Whig presses have set 
 up in Massachusetts, and as many more in Connecticut." 
 
 Matthew Lyon's boldness had set the ball in motion, and 
 printer's ink began to scatter the seed of the renaissance; Jef 
 ferson like Byron believed in the efficacy of the pen. The poet 
 says: 
 
 " But words are things, and a small drop of ink, 
 Falling, like dew, upon a thought, produces 
 That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think." 
 
 It was a matter of frequent remark at the time that Gris- 
 wold's courage was small, scarcely discernible, and his willing 
 ness to transfer his quarrels to others excessive and very mani 
 fest. Provoking a conflict and declining it when joined, in 
 sulted ignominiously and not lifting a finger to resent the in 
 sult, and that too in an age when unfortunately among gentle 
 men the code duello was everywhere recognized and enforced, 
 Roger Griswold came out of his first encounter with Lyon in 
 a very damaged condition on the score of genuine courage. 
 His inconsequential meekness was suggestive of Shylock when 
 Antonio spat upon his Jewish gabardine, or of Falstaff when 
 brought to bay by the Douglas, and the fat man falls down as if 
 dead, with the sage reflection that " the better part of valor is 
 discretion." Mr. Madison seemed to take this view of the 
 doughty Connecticut warrior, and while agreeing with Gallatin 
 and Jefferson that the main object of the Federalists was to 
 get rid of Lyon's vote in the House, the father of the Constitu- 
 
 " Jefferson's Works," IV, 229. 
 
234 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 tion flouts Griswold as a man of the sword, quite unworthy of 
 Congressional vindication. 
 
 " The affair of Lyon and Griswold," said Madison, in a letter 
 to Mr. Jefferson, written in February, 1798, " is bad enough 
 every way, but worst of all in becoming a topic of tedious and 
 disgraceful debates in Congress. There certainly could be no 
 necessity for removing it from the decision of the parties them 
 selves before that tribunal, and its removal was evidently a 
 sacrifice of the dignity of the latter to the party manoeuvre of 
 ruining a man whose popularity and activity were feared. If 
 the state of the House suspended its rules in general, it was 
 under no obligation to see any irregularity which did not force 
 itself into public notice ; and if Griswold be a man of the sword, 
 he should not have permitted the step to be taken; if not, he 
 does not deserve to be avenged by the House. No man ought 
 to reproach another with cowardice who is not ready to give 
 proof of his own courage." a 
 
 When Griswold, armed with his big stick, broke out on a 
 rampage in a crowded House, attacked without risk to himself 
 a defenseless man seated at his desk and unaware of the ap 
 proach of his assailant, and beat his victim, before he could get 
 up to defend himself, with all the strength and premeditated 
 cowardice at his command, as if he wanted to stretch him 
 senseless if not dead at his feet, what did this self-righteous 
 Congress do about it? Just nothing at all. Expel Griswold? 
 No, they did not even censure him. Well might Mr. Madison 
 when he heard of the cowardly assault, write to Mr. Jefferson 
 and say: " I am curious to see how the zealots for expelling 
 Lyon will treat the deliberate riot of Griswold. The whole 
 
 o " Letters and Other Writings of James Madison," II, 127-8. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 235 
 
 affair has been extremely disgraceful, but the dignity of the 
 body will be wounded, not by the misconduct of individual 
 members, which no public 'body ought to be answerable for, 
 but by the misconduct of itself, that is, of a majority; and it is 
 to be feared that the majority in this case are ready for every 
 sacrifice to the spirit of party which infatuates them. The 
 greatest sinners among them are Sewall and Harper, who 
 forced the offensive business on the House." a 
 
 Archibald Hamilton Rowan, the Irish gentleman whom 
 Curran had defended, was at this time on a visit to the United 
 States. " The House of Congress," wrote Mr. Rowan to his 
 wife, " is becoming a boxing school ; the Speaker giving chal 
 lenges from the chair, and when taken up in private, putting 
 the matter ' ad referendum ' till the end of the session. If this 
 is a specimen of a democratic republic, Lord help us sufferers 
 in the cause! " b Speaker Dayton insulted Colonel Lyon very 
 grossly in the House. The latter made no public reply. Per 
 haps Mr. Rowan's words, " taken up in private," may mean 
 that Colonel Lyon called down the Speaker outside the House. 
 It was just like him to do it. No bully ever insulted him with 
 impunity. 
 
 But let me now give the curious reader of our early Con 
 gressional annals a more detailed narrative of the famous 
 Lyon-Griswold fight, and I cannot do this more graphically 
 than by calling to the witness stand some of the editors of the 
 papers of that day, of the " Aurora," " Porcupine's Gazette," 
 etc., and some of the witnesses who testified before the Con 
 gressional committee while the first fervor and rapture of the 
 
 Qlbid., II, 129-30. 
 
 b " A. H. Rowan's Autobiography," p. 321. 
 
236 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 strife were still swaying their minds, and letting them all speak 
 for themselves in their own fiery and impassioned words. 
 
 Congress at that time met in Philadelphia in a house at the 
 southeast corner of Sixth and Chestnut streets, used also as a 
 District and Quarter Sessions Court of that city. The House 
 occupied the first floor rear, and the Senate the back room of 
 the second story. 
 
 From the " Aurora," January 31, 1798 (abridged): 
 "The House of Representatives was engaged in balloting 
 for managers to conduct the impeachment before the Senate of 
 Senator Blount of North Carolina, the Speaker being out of 
 the chair. Just before the adjournment Mr. Griswold and Mr. 
 Lyon being outside of the bar, the former made some allusion 
 to a story circulated in some of the Eastern States that Mr. 
 Lyon had been obliged to wear a wooden sword for cowardice 
 in the field. Upon this Mr. Lyon spit in Mr. Griswold's face. 
 Mr. Sewall desired that the galleries might be cleared, and 
 when the doors were closed he moved that Mr. Lyon be ex 
 pelled. The House ordered the doors to be opened, and the 
 subject was then referred to the Committee on Privileges. 
 The Committee soon reported to the effect that if either of the 
 members offered any violence to the other before a final de 
 cision of the House, he should be considered guilty of a high 
 breach of privilege." 
 
 Further accounts from the " Aurora " (abridged) : 
 " On the ist of February a letter from Mr. Lyon to the 
 Speaker was read, in which he disclaimed any intentional dis 
 respect to the House. On the following day the Committee 
 of Privileges reported the facts of the case to the House, and 
 recommended the passage of a resolution for Mr. Lyon's ex- 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 237 
 
 pulsion. The debate upon this report continued until the I2th 
 of February, when the vote upon the question of expulsion was 
 taken, and stood ayes 52, nays 44. A vote of two-thirds being 
 constitutionally required to effect an expulsion, the motion was 
 lost. 
 
 " Of the affair of January 3oth a caricature is in existence 
 representing Mr. Lyon as a lion standing on its hind legs and 
 having a man's head in profile. A wooden sword is hanging 
 by his side. Griswold, whose name admitted of no pun, is 
 holding a handkerchief in his hand, and exclaiming ' What a 
 beastly action.' " 
 
 From the " Aurora " of February 16, 1798: 
 
 " Yesterday, after prayers, nearly half an hour after the time 
 to which the House had adjourned, and after the Speaker had 
 taken the chair, Mr. Lyon was sitting in his seat (which is the 
 center of a row of desks) with his hat off and inclining forward 
 with his eyes on a paper before him. Mr. Griswold left his 
 seat with a stout hickory club, came up to Mr. Lyon on his 
 right front, and without warning struck him once and again 
 over the head and shoulders before he could rise, and repeated 
 his blows, which Mr. Lyon endeavored to ward off with his 
 arm, while extricating himself from the surrounding desks and 
 chairs. Mr. L. attempting to close in, in order to avoid the 
 blows, pushed forward towards the Speaker's chair, Mr. G. 
 endeavoring to preserve the distance and repeating his blows. 
 Mr. L. at length got hold of the tongs; but after one stroke 
 with them, his antagonist closing in, both the tongs and the 
 club were dropped, and the two members fell, Mr. G. having 
 Mr. L. partly under him. There was no call of order from the 
 Speaker all this time. Two members endeavored to take Mr. 
 
238 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 G. off by pulling him by the legs. The Speaker alleged he 
 should be taken off by the shoulders; they were, however, 
 separated. A few minutes afterwards Mr. G. was standing in 
 that part of the House where water is placed for the use of the 
 members. Mr. L. came up to the same place with a cane in 
 his hand; as soon as he recognized Mr. G. he struck him with 
 his cane on which Mr. Sitgreaves brought Mr. G. a hickory 
 club; but the members interfered. The Speaker then called 
 to order and Messrs. L. & G. separated. 
 
 " We are happy to add that Mr. L. is not so much hurt as 
 might have been expected from the violence and manner of the 
 assault." 
 
 Abridged from a Federal paper of the period : 
 
 * Philadelphia, February 16. Another Fracas in Congress. 
 
 "Yesterday morning immediately after the prayers were 
 over, and while the Speaker was in the chair, but before the 
 House was called to order, Mr. Griswold, a member from Con 
 necticut, observing Mr. Lyon, of Vermont, in his seat, left the 
 chair in which he usually sat and moved diagonally towards 
 the table occupied by the Sergeant-at-Arms. He made a mo 
 mentary halt, assumed a fierceness of countenance to which he 
 is unaccustomed, grasping at the same time with firmer nerve 
 the hickory stick he had in his hand, passed on with three or 
 four quick steps, till he came near to Mr. Lyon, when he raised 
 his stick and drew a violent stroke across Mr. Lyon's head, 
 who was sitting uncovered and looking down upon some 
 papers upon the desk, which stood between him and Mr. Gris 
 wold. The stroke was so sudden and unexpected that Mr. 
 Lyon did not even make an effort by raising up his arms to 
 ward off the danger. Mr. G. repeated his stroke before Mr. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 239 
 
 L. could rise from his seat. Mr. L. put his cane between his 
 legs when he first sat down, but seemed to have lost it, as he 
 pressed forward unarmed to extricate himself from the chairs 
 and desks with which he was surrounded. Mr. G. continued 
 his assault during the favorable opportunity furnished by Mr. 
 L.'s embarrassed situation, and gave several severe strokes, 
 one of which visibly staggered him. As soon as Mr. L. had 
 got into the open area before the Speaker's chair, he attempted 
 to close with Mr. G., but finding this not easily effected, by the 
 wariness of his antagonist, he seemed compelled to seek for 
 arms that should put him more on a level with Mr. G. With 
 this view he passed on to the nearest fireplace, followed by Mr. 
 G. who continued striking. At length Mr. L. seized the fire 
 tongs and proceeded to repel Mr. G.'s attack, but in this he 
 was prevented by Mr. G. who quickly caught hold of the tongs 
 also, and made a thrust with his cane at Mr. L/s face. The 
 combatants now closed and abandoned their weapons; after a 
 short struggle they fell side by side on the floor, when several 
 other members interposed and separated the combatants. Mr. 
 L. immediately expressed a wish that they had been left alone 
 to settle the matter in the way Mr. G. had proposed. 
 
 " A few minutes only had intervened when by accident Mr. 
 Lyon and Mr. Griswold met at the water table near the south 
 east door. Mr. Griswold was now without any stick and Mr. 
 Lyon had a cane in his hand. Their eyes no sooner met than 
 Mr. Lyon sprang to attack Mr. Griswold, who, stepping back, 
 in some measure avoided the blow. Mr. G. continued to re 
 treat until another cudgel was put into his hand by Mr. Sit- 
 greaves, but on the Speaker and some other members calling 
 to order, the business terminated for the present. 
 
240 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 " Mr. Lyon suffered considerable personal injury from the 
 blows he received in the first attack. Mr. Griswold appears 
 to have sustained little or no bodily hurt during the whole 
 affray." 
 
 From Peter Porcupine's " Gazette," Ultra Federalist, Jan 
 uary 31, 1798: 
 
 " Lyon's Spitting. A misrepresentation of the transaction 
 which happened yesterday in the House of Representatives, 
 between Mr. Lyon and Mr. Griswold, having been published 
 this morning in the " Aurora," the following more correct 
 statement of the fact is handed to you, to prevent the injury 
 which that misrepresentation seems designed to do the charac 
 ter of an injured man. 
 
 " Yesterday in the House of Representatives, while the 
 members were balloting for managers to conduct the impeach 
 ment of William Blount, Mr. Lyon, standing by the bar of the 
 House, and addressing himself to a circle of which Mr. Gris 
 wold was one, made the following observations, ' That the rep 
 resentatives to Congress from the State of Connecticut were 
 conducting themselves in the House in direct opposition to the 
 wishes of their constituents ; that they were pursuing their own 
 interests, and cared nothing about the public, their object being 
 to obtain offices for themselves; and that it mattered not 
 whether the office was worth one thousand or nine thousand 
 dollars; that the Representatives of the State were administer 
 ing opium to their constituents to lull them asleep ; and that if 
 he should go into that State and take on himself the manage 
 ment of a printing press for six or twelve months, he could 
 effect a revolution, change the whole politics of the State, and 
 turn out the present Representatives/ 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 24! 
 
 " On which Mr. Griswold replied to Mr. Lyon that he was 
 much mistaken; for he could not produce the effect if he should 
 go into Connecticut, or change the opinion of the meanest 
 hostler. 
 
 " Mr. Lyon said he knew the temper of the people of Con 
 necticut; he had to fight them in his own district whenever 
 they came there. Mr. Griswold asked him whether he fought 
 them with a wooden sword? Upon which Mr. Lyon spit in 
 Mr. Griswold's face. 
 
 " Mr. Griswold from respect to the House, and being in 
 stantly cautioned by some of his friends, repressed his indigna 
 tion. 
 
 " The public are extremely anxious to know, whether it was 
 tobacco juice or natural saliva, that the Hon. Matthew Lyon, 
 Esq., squirted into the face of his brother legislator. Next 
 after this important point, we Philadelphians all want to have 
 out the whole history of the wooden sword. There is certainly 
 something at the bottom of this story, that the Honorable 
 Member wishes to keep in oblivion. For, let the reader ask 
 himself, whether a gentle hint, like that of Mr. Griswold, was 
 calculated to awaken resentment in anyone to whom it was not 
 applicable, and in whose mind it did not revive something that 
 he was very anxious to keep hidden from the world. But I 
 pray some one to send me the history of the dagger of lath; 
 then we shall have facts, and not reasoning, to judge from. 
 
 " Matthew Lyon came from Ireland. He not long ago 
 drank ' Success to the United Irishmen,' then in open rebellion 
 against their King, and he spit in the face of an American Mem 
 ber of Congress" 
 
 Let me interrupt Mr. Cobbett's unapproachable strain of 
 
242 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 scurrility right here, in order to quote another but far inferior 
 defamer upon Mr. Jefferson. Carpenter scoured the land in 
 his search for slanders against the founder of the Democratic 
 party, and quotes the following toast offered by Jefferson, then 
 Vice-President, at a meeting in Charlottesville, Va., as an ad 
 ditional token of reproach: 
 
 " Ireland, may she soon burst her fetters, and take her rank 
 among the free republics of the earth." a I resume Cobbett, 
 for the reader must not be deprived of Porcupine's superb 
 mendacities. 
 
 " Lyon. Yesterday the House of Representatives came to 
 a decision on the filthy conduct of this spitting hero. An 
 amendment was proposed by the supporters of Mr. Lyon (for, 
 strange as it may seem, supporters he has) the object of which 
 was to substitute a reprimand in place of expulsion. This was 
 rejected by the gentlemen with disdain. They very truly said, 
 that to punish such an odious, such a base offence, in so slight 
 a manner, would be infinitely worse than doing nothing at all, 
 as it would, in some sort, be giving a sanction to brutality. 
 
 " The original resolution for expulsion was then put when 
 there appeared 52 for it, and 44 against it ; and as the Constitu 
 tion requires, that, to expel a member there shall be a majority 
 of two-thirds, the resolution was lost; and it was determined 
 that the man of spittle should, unpunished and uncensured, still 
 sit as a member of the Congress, or, as the Abbe de Mably 
 calls it, ' the grand Amphyctionic Council of the New World ! ' 
 Ave Amphyctionia! Would to Heaven the enthusiastic Abbe- 
 were now alive 1 
 
 " The filthy affair of Lyon as far as relates to the discussions 
 
 Carpenter's " Life of Jefferson," II, p. 298. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 243 
 
 of the House of Representatives, is now over. His supporters, 
 his friends, and his equals, though they provoked the examina 
 tion of evidences before the House, were extremely anxious to 
 avoid debate on the subject. They wished to keep the thing 
 as much as possible hidden from their constituents, as well as 
 from the world in general; and it is for this very reason, that I 
 have resolved, if it please God to grant me life, to make the 
 whole business as notorious as the courage of Alexander, or 
 the cruelty of Nero. For this purpose, I will publish in my 
 paper, once a fortnight as long as I publish it (if that be for 
 fifty years), a sort of record in manner and form following, to 
 wit: 
 
 " Be it remembered that in the year of our Lord one thou 
 sand seven hundred and ninety-eight (the close of the ' en 
 lightened eighteenth century '), one Matthew Lyon, an Irish 
 man, and a furious Democrat, was sent to Philadelphia by the 
 enlightened republicans of Vermont, to represent them in the 
 Congress there assembled. That on the 3Oth day of January 
 in the enlightened year aforesaid, the said Lyon did, in the Con 
 gress Hall, while the House was in actual session, spit the 
 nauseous slime from his jaws into the face of Roger Griswold, 
 a member from Connecticut. And further, that the said Lyon, 
 in justifying his said conduct, did (he being then speaking be 
 fore and to the House) utter these words : * * * meaning 
 thereby the posteriors, or hinder parts of him the said 
 Lyon. 
 
 " In consequence of this decent conduct and polite language, 
 so highly honorable to democracy, and to the enlightened cen 
 tury aforesaid, a resolution was offered for expelling the said 
 spitter from the House. That an inquiry took place, in which 
 
244 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 it was proven that he, the said Lyon from Vermont, was, dur 
 ing the American war cashiered by General Gates, for desert 
 ing his post. 
 
 " And be it further remembered, that Nicholas of Virginia, 
 Williams of North Carolina, Smith of Baltimore, Gallatin of 
 Geneva, Livingston of New York, and several others (all of 
 them of the Democratic party), did actually make and utter 
 speeches in favor of the said Lyon. That the resolution, after 
 fourteen days spent thereon, was put to the vote, when there 
 appeared fifty-two for expulsion, and forty-four against it; and 
 that as the Constitution requires a majority of two-thirds to 
 expel a member, the said Lyon, of course, was not expelled, but 
 kept his seat in Congress as before. 
 
 " And whereas it is just that the said forty-four men who 
 voted in favor of the said Lyon, and by whose means he was 
 kept in the said Congress, should be made known to their con 
 stituents and to the universe, and also that the memory of their 
 conduct should be perpetuated, and handed down to their 
 children, if, perchance, they may have any; to these ends their 
 names, with the States they represent, are hereunder enregis- 
 tered, to wit: 
 
 Massachusetts Freeman Pennsylvania Bard 
 
 Skinner Findley 
 
 Varnum Gallatin 
 
 New York Elmendorf Gregg 
 
 Havens Hanna 
 
 Livingston McClenahan 
 
 Van Cortlandt Maryland S. Smith 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 
 
 245 
 
 Maryland Sprigg N. Carolina Blount 
 
 Virginia Brent Bryan 
 
 Cabel Gillespie 
 
 T. Claiborne Locke 
 
 Clay Macon 
 
 Clopton McDowell 
 
 Dawson Stanford 
 
 Giles R. Williams 
 
 Harrison S. Carolina Benton 
 
 Jones W. Smith 
 
 New Sumter 
 
 Nicholas Georgia Baldwin 
 
 A. Trigg Milledge 
 
 J. Trigg Kentucky Fowler 
 
 Venable Tennessee W.Claiborne." a 
 
 Two weeks later Cobbett changed his lamentations to rejoic 
 ings. The reader will now find this guardian of the good 
 order and dignity of the House suddenly converted into a 
 partisan of free fighting on the floor of Congress, and an apolo 
 gist of the most disgraceful scene of rough and tumble pugil 
 ism and disorder, with cudgel and tongs accompaniments, 
 which has ever taken place in the House of Representatives 
 throughout the entire history of the country. This eloquent 
 scold fairly screams his exultation over Griswold's assault. 
 From Porcupine's " Gazette/' February 16, 1798: 
 " A Burning Shame. The affair which took place in Con 
 gress yesterday was but imperfectly related in my ' Gazette ' 
 of last night. I shall therefore now endeavor to give it more 
 in detail. 
 
 " Porcupine's Works/ 
 87-90. 
 
 by William Cobbett, Vol. VIII, pp. 68-70, 
 
246 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 " After the House had decided that nothing should be done 
 to Lyon for spitting in Mr. Griswold's face, it seems that the 
 former had the prudence to avoid the sight of the latter till yes 
 terday, when he came and took his seat. He was sitting alone, 
 involved in deep contemplation, when Mr. Griswold first spied 
 him. No sooner did this happen than he caught up a thick 
 hickory stick, made towards the man of spittle, and, in the 
 twinkling of an eye, without giving him time either to eject his 
 
 saliva or say ' My / began to belabor him. Poor Lyon 
 
 got out of his seat, made at his assailant, and endeavored to 
 grapple with him; but the supple New Englander, who is as 
 active as he is strong, beat him from him with his left hand, 
 while he thrashed him with the right; and thus did the member 
 from Vermont receive a shower of blows, such as never fell on 
 the devoted hide of Don Quixote or his continent steed 
 Rozinante. You must needs think the man was not very much 
 at his ease in this situation. He ran to the fire place and 
 catched up a pair of tongs (just like a lady), and attempted to 
 use them; but his antagonist presently disarmed him, and con 
 tinued to beat away with as regular a stroke as did the drum 
 mers of General Gates, on a former occasion. At last Lyon 
 made shift to close with him, when Mr. Griswold immediately 
 kicked him up, and made him measure his length on the floor. 
 Here several gentlemen came up and took off the enraged New 
 Englander, or it is reasonable to suppose that he would have 
 continued to pummel away for some time longer. 
 
 "The poor man of saliva was most dreadfully cut and 
 bruised; and had not Nature (foreseeing perhaps this ren 
 counter) taken particular care to fortify his head, it must have 
 been smashed to pieces. It is said that several connoiseurs 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 247 
 
 from the West Indies and from the Southward, have declared 
 that never negro suffered such a drubbing. 
 
 u Lyon stopped an hour or two to wash and bathe, and then 
 retired from the House accompanied by his friend and country 
 man Blair McClenachan. They walked down towards Fourth 
 street, followed by a crowd of boys; and would you believe it, 
 the naughty little rascals hallooed and shouted, ' There goes 
 the Lion and Blair! ' Whatever may be said or thought of the 
 rib-roasting, I am persuaded that everyone will agree with me, 
 that it is highly disgraceful to the police of Philadelphia, that 
 these little blackguards be allowed thus to follow and mock a 
 member of Congress, like so many small birds at an owl that 
 happens to change her roost by daylight." 
 
 When writing this choice specimen of billingsgate, Cobbett 
 probably forgot all about the Abbe de Mably and the " grand 
 Amphyctionic Council of the New World." Griswold had 
 turned it into a bear garden. And although when Lyon's mis 
 conduct was the subject of criticism we have seen Peter Porcu 
 pine spreading his quills, and have heard his exclamation 
 " Would to Heaven the enthusiastic Abbe were now alive!" 
 nevertheless when Griswold's deliberate riot occurred, our 
 fickle censor throws the Abbe overboard, and becomes the 
 chief fugleman of a Congressional bully and bruiser. 
 
 Two incidents of this fierce fight plainly revealed the charac 
 ter of each man, and therefore call for particular remark. 
 When Griswold stealthily approached and assailed Lyon with 
 a stout hickory stick, Lyon never flinched, but unarmed as he 
 was rose up from his seat, and, even Cobbett admits, he " made 
 at his assailant and endeavored to grapple with him." But 
 
 Ibid., pp. 90-92- 
 
248 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 after Lyon had regained his ordinary walking cane and met 
 Griswold at the water cooler, the latter now being without his 
 bludgeon, Lyon advanced and Griswold retreated before him, 
 receiving but not turning to repel a stroke over the shoulders 
 from Lyon's cane. " Mr. G. continued to retreat/' says one of 
 the Federal accounts I have quoted, " until another cudgel was 
 put in his hand by Mr. Sitgreaves." Courage and cowardice 
 have seldom been more sharply contrasted. 
 
 From the Annals of the Fifth Congress.* 
 BREACH OF PRIVILEGE. 
 
 " Tuesday, January 30, 1798. 
 
 " Mr. Sewall said he believed the business which he had to 
 lay before the House would require secrecy, as it was a subject 
 which would considerably affect the feelings of the members 
 of the House. He therefore moved that the galleries might be 
 cleared; which was accordingly done, excepting the members 
 and the Clerk. 
 
 " Mr. Sewall then stated, that he had been informed, in a 
 manner which left no doubt of the truth of the fact, that in the 
 presence of the House whilst sitting, Matthew Lyon, a member 
 from the State of Vermont, did this day commit a violent 
 attack and gross indecency upon the person of Roger Gris 
 wold, another member of this House; and, in order to bring 
 the subject before the House, that he had prepared a resolu 
 tion, which he read in his place, and delivered in at the Clerk's 
 table. A question was then taken in the following words: 
 Does the matter so communicated require secrecy? 
 
 " This motion passed unanimously in the negative, and the 
 galleries were opened. 
 
 a Pp- 955 ^ seq. to 1067. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 249 
 
 " The House then proceeded to consider the motion made 
 by the member from Massachusetts, which was read, as fol 
 lows: 
 
 " ' Resolved, That Matthew Lyon, a member of this House, 
 for a violent attack and gross indecency committed upon the 
 person of Roger Griswold, another member, in the presence 
 of this House, whilst sitting, be, for this disorderly behaviour 
 expelled therefrom.' 
 
 " It was moved that this resolution be referred to a com 
 mittee to be denominated a Committee of Privileges, with in 
 structions to inquire into the whole matter of the said resolu 
 tion, and to report the same with their opinion thereon to the 
 House. 
 
 " The question was taken by yeas and nays, and decided in 
 the affirmative 49 to 44. 
 
 " Ordered, That Messrs. Pinckney, Venable, Kittera, Isaac 
 Parker, R. Williams, Cochran, and Dent, be a committee for 
 the purpose. 
 
 " A motion was then made that the House come to the fol 
 lowing resolution: 
 
 " ' Resolved, That this House will consider it a high breach 
 of privilege if either of the members shall enter into any per 
 sonal contest until a decision of the House shall be had 
 thereon/ 
 
 " A motion was made to add the following words to the end 
 thereof: 
 
 " ' And that the said Matthew Lyon be considered in the 
 custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms until the further order of the 
 House.' 
 
 " The yeas and nays were taken upon this question and de 
 cided in the negative 29 to 62. 
 
250 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 " This motion being negatived, the sense of the House was 
 then taken on the main question, as originally offered, and it 
 was carried. 
 
 "Thursday, February I. 
 
 " Mr. Venable said, he was directed by the Committee of 
 Privileges to inform the House, that the Chairman of that 
 Committee (Mr. Pinckney) was yesterday taken ill, and was 
 unable to attend to the business referred to them ; that the com 
 mittee had this morning received a note from Mr. P. stating, 
 that he was still too much indisposed to attend to business; 
 they, therefore, wished him to ask for the appointment of 
 another member in his place. 
 
 " The motion being agreed to, the Speaker nominated Mr. 
 Rutledge. 
 
 " Mr. Venable then added, that he was also requested to ask 
 leave of the House to sit during the session. Leave was 
 granted. 
 
 " The Speaker informed the House that he had received a 
 letter from a member from Vermont, which he was requested 
 to lay before them. 
 
 " To the Speaker of the House of Representatives : 
 
 " Sir: As the attention of the House of Representatives has 
 been called to my conduct in a dispute with Mr. Griswold, on a 
 suggestion of its being a violation of the order of the House, 
 and the respect due to it from all its members, I feel it in 
 cumbent upon me to obviate the imputation of intentional dis 
 respect. Permit me, sir, through you, to assure the House of 
 Representatives that I feel as much as any of its members the 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 251 
 
 necessity of preserving the utmost decorum in its proceedings ; 
 that I am incapable of an intentional violation of its rules ; and 
 that, if, in the present instance, I am chargeable of a disregard 
 of them, it is owing wholly to my ignorance of their extent, 
 and that the House of Representatives claimed any superinten 
 dence over its members when not formally constituted, 
 and when they are not engaged in actual business. If I have 
 been mistaken in my understanding on this subject, I beg the 
 House to believe that my fault has been without intention, and 
 that I am very sorry I have deserved its censure. I am, sir, 
 
 your obedient servant, 
 
 "MATTHEW LYON. 
 "February I, 1798." 
 
 " Mr. Nicholas moved that the letter be referred to the com 
 mittee who have this subject under consideration. Agreed to. 
 
 " Friday, February 2. 
 
 " Mr. Venable, from the Committee of Privileges, made the 
 following report. 
 
 " The Committee of Privileges, to whom was referred a reso 
 lution on the 30th of January, charging Matthew Lyon with 
 disorderly behavior, with instructions to inquire into the whole 
 matter thereof, and to report the same, with their opinion, to 
 the House, having examined several witnesses on oath touch 
 ing the subject, report: That, during the sitting of the House 
 of Representatives on the 3Oth day of January, 1798, the tellers 
 of the House being engaged in counting the ballots for 
 managers of the impeachment against William Blount, the 
 Speaker had left his chair, and many members their seats, as is 
 usual on such occasions ; the Speaker was sitting in one of the 
 member's seats, next to the bar of the House, and several mem 
 bers near him, of whom Mr. Griswold was one. 
 
252 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 " Mr. Lyon was standing without the bar of the House, lean 
 ing on the same, and holding a conversation with the Speaker. 
 He spoke loud enough to be heard by all those who were near 
 him, as if he intended to be heard by them. The subject of his 
 conversation was, the conduct of the Representatives of 
 the State of Connecticut, (of whom Mr. Griswold was one). 
 Mr. Lyon declared that they acted in opposition to the inter 
 ests and opinions of nine-tenths of their constituents; and they 
 were pursuing their own private views, without regarding the 
 interests of the people; that they were seeking offices, which 
 they were willing to accept whether yielding $9,000 or $1,000. 
 He further observed that the people of that State were blinded 
 or deceived by those Representatives ; that they were permitted 
 to see but one side of the question in politics, being lulled 
 asleep by the opiates which the members from that State ad 
 ministered to them; with other expressions equally tending to 
 derogate from the political integrity of the Representatives of 
 Connecticut. 
 
 " On Mr. Lyon's observing, that if he should go into Con 
 necticut, and manage a press there six months, although the 
 people of that State were not fond of revolutionary principles, 
 he could effect a revolution, and turn out the present Represen 
 tatives. Mr. Griswold replied to these remarks, and amongst 
 other things, said, " If you go into Connecticut, you had better 
 wear your wooden sword," or words to that effect, alluding to 
 Mr. Lyon's having been cashiered in the army. 
 
 " Mr. Lyon did not notice the allusion at this time, but con 
 tinued the conversation on the same subject. Mr. Griswold 
 then left his seat, and stood next to Mr. Lyon, leaning on the 
 bar, being outside the same. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 253 
 
 " On Mr. Lyon's saying he knew the people of Connecticut 
 well, having lived among them many years that he had fre 
 quent occasion to fight them in his own district, and that he 
 never failed to convince them Mr. Griswold asked if he 
 fought them with his wooden sword, on which Mr. Lyon spat 
 in his face. 
 
 " The committee having attentively considered the foregoing 
 statement of facts, and having heard Mr. Lyon in his defence, 
 are of the opinion that his conduct in this transaction was 
 highly indecorous, and unworthy of a member of this House. 
 
 " They, therefore, recommend the adoption of the resolution 
 submitted to their consideration by the House, in the words 
 following, to wit: 
 
 " ' Resolved, That Matthew Lyon, a member of this House, 
 for a violent attack and gross indecency committed upon the 
 person of Roger Griswold, another member, in the presence of 
 the House while sitting, be for this disorderly behavior ex 
 pelled therefrom.' 
 
 " The report having been read, 
 
 " Mr. Lyon said, he did not think the evidence was stated in 
 its full extent in this report. He wished, therefore, before the 
 House proceeded in the business, they would hear the evidence 
 themselves. 
 
 " Mr. Harper inquired of the Speaker whether that was the 
 usual mode of proceeding? 
 
 " Mr. Speaker said, it was necessary first to take up the re 
 port for a second reading. 
 
 " Mr. Macon observed that this was a very delicate and a 
 very serious question, as it related to one of the members of 
 that House, and as it respected the dignity of the House itself. 
 
254 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 He hoped, therefore, the report would be printed, that some 
 time would be given to consider it, and that the House would 
 themselves hear the testimony. The punishment which the 
 report proposed was equal to death itself. He hoped, there 
 fore, it would not be acted upon hastily, but made the order for 
 the day for Monday. 
 
 " Mr. Harper did not wish to press the business in an im 
 proper manner, as it was certainly of great importance to a 
 member of that House, to the House itself, and to the dignity 
 of the country. It was usual to have all reports of any con 
 sequence printed, and a day or two given for consideration. 
 He was not himself desirous of delay, as he was at present 
 ready to vote upon the question ; but, if other members wished 
 it, he should not object to the motion proposed by the gentle 
 man from North Carolina. 
 
 " Mr. Nicholas took it for granted, that, whenever this sub 
 ject came up, the House would think it necessary to go into an 
 examination of the witnesses themselves, and not rely upon the 
 manner in which their testimony had struck others. He 
 thought it would be best, therefore, whilst the report was print 
 ing, to go on in the examination of witnesses. 
 
 " The question for postponing till Monday was put and 
 
 carried. 
 
 " Monday, February 5. 
 
 " Mr. Sewall moved the House to take up the report of the 
 Committee of Privileges, in order that it might be committed 
 to a Committee of the Whole. 
 
 " The Chairman informed the Committee that the judge of 
 the District Court was in the House. 
 
 " Judge Peters was accordingly called upon. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 255 
 
 " Mr. Rutledge desired an oath might be administered to 
 the Speaker, Messrs. S. Smith, Brooks, Hosmer, Coit, Dana 
 Goodrich and Champlin; which was accordingly done. 
 
 " Thursday, February 6. 
 
 " Mr. Lyon understood General Sumter, from South Caro 
 lina, could give some information to the committee; he re 
 quested, therefore, he might be sworn. 
 
 " Mr. Sumter declared he knew nothing of the business, ex 
 cept what he had heard from Mr. Lyon soon after the affair 
 happened. 
 
 " It was at length agreed that that precise question should be 
 put to Mr. Sumter, viz : ' Whether Mr. Lyon told him that he 
 heard Mr. Griswold address him twice on the subject of the 
 wooden sword?' which Mr. Sumter answered in the affirma 
 tive. 
 
 " Thursday, February 8. 
 
 " Mr. Lyon then rose and spoke as follows : 
 
 " Mr. Chairman : I feel myself extraordinarily circum 
 stanced, and accidentally drawn into a very serious situation, 
 merely by my ignorance of the House of Representatives being 
 likely to take cognizance of an affair that happened when the 
 members of the House were at their amusement and recrea 
 tion; when every one was doing that which was right in his 
 own eyes. How much I was supported in this opinion by the 
 conduct of the Speaker, every gentleman may see by his testi 
 mony. He sat in a chair within the bar facing me as I stood 
 without it. He spoke to me of my country, and the conduct 
 of some people there concerning the stamp act; it appears I 
 turned the conversation towards Connecticut; it appears I had 
 four or five other gentlemen's wit and raillery to bear, and this 
 
256 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 in the hearing of the Speaker. Does this look like the House 
 being sitting? 
 
 " How could I imagine this House was sitting, when the 
 Speaker suffered me to be interrupted when speaking to him, 
 by the remarks and jokes of four or five gentlemen? 
 
 " How could I imagine the House was sitting, when the 
 Speaker was joking me about an embassy to Kamtschatka 
 among the fur tribe? 
 
 " How could I imagine the House was sitting, when I heard, 
 and knew the Speaker heard, Mr. Griswold insult me, without 
 checking him? 
 
 " How could I imagine the House to be sitting, when the 
 Speaker suffered Mr. Griswold to proceed a second time with 
 the most provoking insolence? 
 
 " Had the House been sitting, I should not have been called 
 on by Mr. Dana, with respect to something Mr. Williams had 
 said; consequently I should not have entered into a conversa 
 tion about Connecticut ; the Speaker would not have spoken to 
 me of Vermont, and I should not again have turned the subject 
 to Connecticut, and Mr. Griswold would have postponed his 
 premeditated insult premeditated, I say, because it has been 
 proved that he had notice of my feelings and my determination 
 on this subject. 
 
 " Is it proper to say the House was sitting, while half the 
 members were standing round the table, while two-thirds of the 
 other half were walking round the bar, the Speaker engaged in 
 jocular conversation or writing letters? 
 
 " But, Mr. Chairman, it seems, by the course this business 
 has taken in the committee, that I am to be criminated for 
 holding an indelicate or impolite conversation within the hear- 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 257 
 
 ing of the gentlemen from Connecticut. Every one knows 
 that there are two different opinions entertained in this country 
 with respect to the management of the Government, and every 
 one who knows me, knows that I am very free in speaking my 
 opinion on these subjects. There are many, and I believe 
 some in this House who know something of the rough, illiberal 
 manner in which I have been treated in the New England 
 newspapers, on account of my political opinions ; and I believe 
 there are many persons in this House who are well acquainted 
 with the kind of politeness which the gentlemen from Con 
 necticut make use of towards their opponents; and some are 
 acquainted with the share of politeness whicfi those gentlemen 
 deserve from me. 
 
 " If the House are at a loss on this subject, they will, I hope, 
 recur to the language made use of by Mr. Coit and Mr. Dana, 
 in their testimony; and the House, I believe, will recollect a 
 speech from a gentleman who sits behind me, in which he told 
 the committee twice or three times that I was no gentleman. 
 
 " Again, I say, Mr. Chairman, I am very extraordinarily 
 situated. Evidence has been introduced into this House to 
 induce the members to believe that I left Colonel Warner's 
 regiment with dishonor; that I am a person of disrepute; that 
 I have been in the habit of receiving insult with impunity. 
 Here I am, three hundred and fifty miles from home, and from 
 the evidence who are able to show the contrary. Had I a 
 reasonable opportunity, I could prove, by the Lieutenant- 
 Colonel, who is now General Safford, and several other officers 
 of that regiment, that when I left it, I left it with the regret of 
 much of the greater part of the officers and all the soldiers I 
 mention the Lieutenant-Colonel because Colonel Warner is 
 
258 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 not living. My certificate of having settled my accounts, 
 which is at home, would prove my having done my duty well. 
 
 " I could prove my having taken my musket and marched to 
 the lines every day, during the siege of Burgoyne. I should 
 not have mentioned this circumstnce, had not the Speaker 
 mentioned his having done so when Paymaster. 
 
 " I could also prove, that when an officer offered me an in 
 sult, I chastised him before the officers of that regiment. 
 
 " (Mr. Champlin asked whether the gentleman said he had 
 chastised an officer, or would chastise him? 
 
 " Mr. Lyon answered that he had chastised him.) 
 
 " I could prove that I took the commission in Colonel War 
 ner's regiment when I was driven from my plantation by Bur- 
 goyne's invasion ; that I resigned my appointment, and left the 
 regiment for the care of my family, for preferment, for honor, 
 for superior office, and to serve the people of the State of Ver 
 mont. 
 
 " I could prove, had I opportunity, that I was immediately 
 appointed Deputy Secretary of the State, Paymaster of the 
 troops of Vermont, assistant to the Treasurer, assistant to the 
 Commissioner of Loans, and Captain of the Militia, besides 
 being called on to act as Private Secretary to the Governor. 
 
 " I could also prove that within two years from the time of 
 that resignation, I was appointed Secretary to the Governor 
 and Council, a Member of the Legislature, Clerk of the House 
 of Assembly, one of a Committee for the Collection and Revis 
 ion of Laws, and to a number of other offices under the 
 authority of that State, besides a considerable number of 
 offices in the municipal establishment of the town in which I 
 lived, as well as my promotion to the command of a regiment, 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 259 
 
 and all this before I formed a connexion with one of the most 
 respectable families in that State. I could prove also, that I 
 have been a member of the Legislature of Vermont, except two 
 years, ever since; that I have been appointed to many other 
 offices in which I did not think proper to serve, such as Audi- 
 ' tor of the Treasurer's Accounts, and Judge of the county where 
 I live. 
 
 " By these things, and by my standing in this House, I could 
 prove that I have always been respected in the country I repre 
 sent, and where I have lived these twenty-four years. 
 
 " The free electors of my district have given me a preference 
 to a gentleman of very great respectability, one who has served 
 six years with unimpeachable fidelity in this House, and is now 
 Chief Justice of the State of Vermont; yet evidence has been 
 adduced in order to show that I am a person of disrepute. 
 
 " As to my being in the habit of receiving insult with im 
 punity for which it seems Mr. Chipman's testimony was in 
 troduced were I allowed to call testimony from Vermont, I 
 could very easily prove so much on this head, as, perhaps, to 
 prove, in the minds of some gentlemen, that respectability 
 which, in every other respect, attaches to my character. 
 Among other things I could prove that the gentleman from 
 ? Vermont who was called to give testimony against me, has, 
 with the politeness peculiar to a certain country which I will 
 not now name, insulted me and received due chastisement for 
 it. 
 
 "Mr. Harper called to order. The gentleman from Ver 
 mont had already spoken very improperly of witnesses, and he 
 now spoke in a very reprehensible way of Mr. Chipman. He 
 hoped he would be admonished. 
 
26O MATTHEW LYON 
 
 " Mr. Otis differed in opinion from the gentleman from 
 South Carolina. 
 
 " If the gentleman thought it would be of service to him to 
 inform the committee that he had chastised an officer in the 
 face of his regiment, or beaten a Judge of the Supreme Court, 
 he was right in stating the circumstances. 
 
 " Mr. Lyon. It would be folly in me to state anything to 
 this committee that I cannot prove. Nor should I have men 
 tioned that circumstance, had I not been charged with receiv 
 ing injuries with impunity. I never did receive injuries with 
 impunity; nor did I come here to do so. I would sooner leave 
 the world. Mr. L. then proceeded: 
 
 " Were I to be allowed time to bring forward testimony from 
 Vermont, I could prove that my character, as a man of spirit, 
 stands on such ground in my country, that I had no need to 
 defend it, by entering into a squabble with such a Chief Justice 
 in court time. 
 
 " If the proof of these things be considered of importance, I 
 hope I shall be allowed time to send to Vermont to obtain it 
 for my own part I cannot so consider it. I must think that the 
 House of Representatives ought never to have taken up the 
 matter of the difference between Mr. Griswold and myself, 
 circumstanced as it was; and that if the House thought other 
 wise, the due submission to their authority, which I have 
 always stood ready to pay, and the sorrow which I have ex 
 pressed, and am continually expressing, for my misapprehen 
 sion, might serve as some mitigation of an offence against the 
 dignity of this House, which I never could have knowingly 
 been guilty of. 
 
 " Mr. Champlin rose and said : It was fully proved that an 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 26l 
 
 offence of a gross and injurious nature had been committed by 
 the member from Vermont (Mr. Lyon) against the person of 
 the member from Connecticut (Mr. Griswold), and that the 
 member from Connecticut, whose cheek glowed with indigna 
 tion, and whose arm was nerved by the desire of vengeance, 
 recollecting the place in which he stood, and the respect due 
 from him to that House," (Much respect he showed, indeed!) 
 " repressed his resentment. 
 
 " Mr. R. Williams did not mean to introduce a debate upon 
 this subject, but merely to state the reasons which had induced 
 him in the select committee, and in the House, to vote against 
 this report. Having made these remarks, he would state why 
 he thought the House had not the power to expel the member 
 from Vermont. He did not believe that a member of the 
 Legislature could be expelled for any act done out of the 
 House, except it rendered him infamous. 
 
 " In the rules for the regulation of the proceedings of the 
 House, it was declared that, whenever the House meets, the 
 Speaker should take the chair at the hour to which the House 
 adjourned. But where, he asked, was the Speaker when the 
 act complained of was committed, and what was the situa 
 tion of the House at that time? He did not mean to say that 
 the Speaker or any other member was not doing his duty, but 
 to show that the House was not in order. The Speaker had left 
 his seat, and was in that of another member ; and the members 
 were passing to and from different parts of the House. So 
 that if even it could be considered in such a situation as that the 
 rules of the House would apply to it, some allowance ought to 
 be made to members who might think differently. But cer 
 tainly no motion could have been stated to the House in this 
 situation. 
 
262 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 " These were the reasons, Mr. W. said, which induced him 
 to think the member from Vermont ought not be expelled ; not 
 because he approved of his conduct, or that the insult which he 
 states to have been offered to him, as warranting the improper 
 manner in which he resented it; not because the House had not 
 the power to expel its members, but because it was not in such 
 a situation at the time as to authorize an expulsion for the 
 offence, and that, therefore, the person offending did not know 
 that any such consequence as an expulsion could be the pun 
 ishment to which he was liable. 
 
 "Mr. Harper said, he should, like the gentleman from North 
 Carolina, omit noticing the provocation said to be given to the 
 gentleman from Vermont. He believed that was out of the 
 question, because, if the act complained of had been in con 
 sequence of a blow received, he would have had both the gentle 
 men expelled; or if the gentleman from Connecticut had given 
 way to his feelings, and struck the member from Vermont to 
 his feet, in return for the insult he had received, in that case he 
 should have been for involving both in one sentence; for, if this 
 rule was once departed from, and provocation was to be set 
 up as an apology for outrage, every person would be left to 
 judge in his own cause as to the sufficiency of provocation. 
 The distinction between words and personal attack, is a dis 
 tinction well understood. No language could be sufficiently 
 provoking to warrant a blow. In well-bred society, when a 
 man receives an affront, does he knock down the person giving 
 it? No. He represses his feelings, and takes another time 
 and place to obtain justice; and except the members of that 
 House were to conduct themselves in this manner, they laid 
 prostrate the barriers which protected decency of conduct 
 among them." (False, as was soon proved.) 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 263 
 
 " Friday, February 9. 
 
 " Mr. Harper said, he was under the necessity of performing 
 a very disagreeable duty. It was a duty, however, which he 
 found himself bound to perform, since no other member had 
 thought proper to undertake it. 
 
 " It must be recollected by many members of that House, 
 that the member from Vermont, whose very extraordinary- 
 conduct has been for some time the subject for discussion, 
 yesterday, at the conclusion of his defence, made use of an 
 expression so outrageous, so gross and indecent, that no gen 
 tleman yet had been able to repeat it;* and if this expression 
 could have been buried in silence, he, for one, should have 
 been in favor of its being so buried; but, unfortunately, this 
 could not be the case, it had not only been heard by many of 
 the members, but by many strangers; and he was authorized 
 to say, it was about to appear in one of the public gazettes of 
 this city." (Porcupine published it.) "As it could not, there 
 fore, be kept from public view, it was necessary to take such 
 notice of it as it deserved. 
 
 " Mr. Dent accordingly presented a statement of the of 
 fensive words to the Chair; which, without being read, was 
 referred to the Committee of the Whole to whom was referred 
 the report of the Committee of Privileges. The question for 
 this reference was carried by the casting vote of the Speaker, 
 there being 43 votes for it, and 43 votes against it." (Even 
 nine Federalists broke away from the ridiculous Mr. Harper 
 on this vote.) 
 
 " Mr. Shepard said, the member from Vermont had been 
 
 *The expression alluded to, if used at all, which some members de 
 nied, and it was not in the published remarks of Colonel Lyon, was 
 merely vulgar, and not obscene. Fielding uses like language in ''Tom 
 Jones," and Chaucer and Shakespeare were similar transgressors. 
 
264 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 guilty of an indecency for which he ought to be expelled from 
 his seat. The gentleman acknowledged that it was his com 
 mon practice to scourge everyone who offends him. It was 
 not necessary, therefore, to send to Vermont to inquire his 
 character there. For his own part, he could not consent to 
 sit with him. If he must be a legislator, it should be in a 
 part of the world where all decisions were made by spitting 
 and scratching. He was sure no gentleman or modest man 
 could plead in behalf of such a man. He hoped the member 
 from Vermont would be expelled, without spending much 
 time on the subject. 
 
 " Mr. Nicholas was always desirous of the approbation of 
 the gentleman who had just sat down, because he believed 
 he always acted from the best motives. He hoped that gen 
 tleman would also have allowed that others might act from 
 principle as well as himself. He could not refrain, however, 
 from doing what he conceived to be his duty, whatever might 
 be the motives which gentlemen chose to attribute to his con 
 duct. But whatever his opinion might be of the measures 
 proposed to be taken in consequence of the offence under con 
 sideration, with respect to the offence itself, he condemned 
 it as much as any other gentleman, as indecent and improper. 
 
 " Mr. N. felt it necessary to make some observations 
 on this subject, because the report of the Committee of 
 Privileges does not state facts as they are; he supposed it 
 had been composed hastily, as it certainly does not correspond 
 with the impression which the evidence makes. The gentle 
 man who introduced the resolution, like a good lawyer, has 
 made the case broad enough to support it. He has evidently 
 given way to the impression of the moment, as the evidence 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 265 
 
 certainly does not support the allegations therein contained. 
 (Mr. N. reads the resolution.) He said he could not agree 
 to this resolution, because he denied that the House was sit 
 ting, or that the offence was done in view of the House. He 
 should make some observations on the testimony, and show 
 wherein it differed from the report of the committee. He 
 needed no witness to prove the state of the House at the 
 time this transaction took place; it was fully in the recollection 
 of every gentleman. Not one of them, except the two mem 
 bers appointed to count the ballots, was attending to public 
 business, and very few, indeed, who were not out of order. 
 The area of the House was full of squads, carrying on con 
 versation without restraint. One article of testimony was 
 strong as to this fact. The attention of the gentleman from 
 Maryland (Mr. S. Smith) was drawn to the conversation hold 
 ing around the fire behind him by a loud laugh. There could 
 be no doubt, therefore, that the House was not engaged in 
 business, was not in order, was not in a situation to be dis 
 turbed by any transaction of this kind. Indeed, he did not 
 understand, from what had fallen from the gentleman from 
 South Carolina, that he thought it was. His argument was, 
 that the Speaker, having once taken the Chair, called the 
 House to order, and the Journals having been read, the rules 
 of the House knew of no mode by which it could be disor 
 ganized without an adjournment. 
 
 " Suppose this position was true, what results? Why, that 
 it was their business to have been in order, and not that they 
 were so; for, whilst the Speaker was out of his Chair, whilst 
 members were out of their places, and violating the rules of 
 order, no one could say that the House was in session, or 
 
266 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 that it could claim respect from others as a Legislative body. 
 Was it possible, therefore, for men, who were not doing what 
 the rules of the House required them to do, to call upon other 
 members to keep the rules inviolate? 
 
 " Here was a situation, then, when the members of the 
 House were discharged from any duty for two hours, and 
 during this period, the transaction which is now the subject 
 of inquiry took place. 
 
 "The member from Vermont had but lately got his seat 
 in the House, and of course, was not well acquainted with 
 its rules; and seeing the members of the House in the situa 
 tion they were, the Speaker himself holding conversation with 
 him, and, though not encouraging him in it, yet, by asking 
 questions, pushing him further into it than he otherwise would 
 probably have gone, the Speaker calling upon him and another 
 gentleman in conversation, ' to take care, or they should want 
 seconds.' When this was the situation of things, might it not 
 have imposed upon any member in the House? Could it be 
 considered that the Speaker thought the rules of the House 
 were likely to be violated when he thus spoke? 
 
 " Mr. Nicholas said, he would consider the effect which Mr. 
 Griswold's attack was likely to produce upon Mr. Lyon. It 
 appeared that, for some purpose or other, which he pretended 
 not to know, Mr. Lyon's history was to be raked up for twenty 
 years past. A transaction, which at that distance of time took 
 place, had been introduced with a view of sinking him in 
 public estimation. The first time this painful circumstance 
 was mentioned to Mr. Lyon, he refused to take notice of it; 
 but the gentleman from Connecticut laid hold of him, which 
 was tantamount to saying, ' you shall listen to what I have to 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 267 
 
 say/ and repeated the sarcasm. He asked whether, being 
 placed in such a situation, there was not some allowance to 
 be made for acting in the manner he did? Nor did Mr. 
 N. think the mode which Mr. Griswold had taken to re 
 pel anything which the gentleman from Vermont had said 
 against the Representatives from Connecticut was the best 
 calculated for the purpose. 
 
 " Mr. Sitgreaves said, before the question was taken, he 
 wished to make some observations upon it. 
 
 " It was said, that the member from Vermont could not have 
 put up with an insult like that offered by the member from 
 Connecticut, and that the impossibility of putting up with it 
 was a sufficient extenuation of his crime. He had all along 
 thought that whenever anything was said of the provocation 
 which produced the act complained of, they wandered from 
 the proper path. He believed no anterior circumstance had 
 anything to do with the judgment which the House ought 
 to pass upon this offence. Could any man suppose that the 
 feelings of the gentleman from Connecticut were less sensitive 
 than the feelings of the gentleman from Vermont? Would 
 any man call in question his spirit or ability? Do not all who 
 know him, know that his courage, strength and spirit, enabled 
 him to take instantaneous revenge, had not his respect for the 
 House prevented him from doing so?" 
 
 This seems to show Griswold was the stronger man physi 
 cally. But that did not keep him from running away at the 
 water cooler. 
 
 " He wished to add this latter offence to the former, in order 
 to show the full ground of the member's expulsion, since this 
 latter offence was of too gross a nature to be lost sight of. He 
 
268 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 moved to add the following words to the resolution : 'And for 
 a gross indecency of language in his defence before the House/ 
 
 " Mr. Coit trusted when he declared it to be his intention 
 to vote against this amendment, he should not be thought to 
 be an advocate of Mr. Lyon, or of his indecent language. In 
 the course of his defence, he had made use of several expres 
 sions highly improper to be used by a member of that House; 
 but they mark the character of the man. He was unwilling, 
 however, to take hold of these circumstances against him, but 
 would give them all the proper weight they deserved. He 
 presumed the particular expression alluded to fell from the 
 member inadvertently, and was not intended to offend the 
 decorum and order of the House. He therefore thought, not 
 withstanding the opinion which he had of the man, that it 
 would be more consistent with the candor and dignity of the 
 House not to notice it. 
 
 " Mr. S. Smith did not believe that the expression alluded to 
 was read. What the gentleman read, was delivered in a tone 
 of voice which every one could hear; but what he said as he 
 sat down was uttered in a lower voice, and he did not hear 
 it. He had read his speech that morning in the papers, in 
 which there was no such expression. He wished to repeat 
 to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Rutledge) who had 
 given him a philippic, that his reason for wishing to take a 
 vote upon this question without debate, was no other than 
 to spare a further expense of time upon a business, which, he 
 thought, had already occupied too much. 
 
 "After a few other observations, the question was put on 
 the amendment and carried, 48 to 43. 
 
 " The question on the resolution as amended was about to 
 be put, when 
 
 " Mr. Gallatin said he knew how late in the day it was, and 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 269 
 
 therefore his remarks would not be long; but as he considered 
 there was a point of view in which the subject had not been 
 placed, he wished to say a few words before the question was 
 taken. 
 
 " Of the fact itself he had no remarks to make ; the evidence 
 was direct, and all could draw their inferences from it. 
 
 " But it appeared to him that gentlemen who expressed so 
 much sensibility on the occasion, had confined themselves 
 wholly to the indecency committed within the walls of the 
 House, without taking any notice of the nature of the punish 
 ment proposed to be inflicted. 
 
 " Our Government, he said, was a Government by repre 
 sentation. The people of the United States had not vested 
 power with a sparing hand; they had given all power out of 
 their hands; but they had guarded against the abuse of it. 
 They had said this power shall not be exercised but by persons 
 appointed by ourselves. This being the case, said Mr. G., 
 we, the representatives of the people, have only a limited 
 power over individual representatives in our body. It is true 
 the Constitution has given us the power of expulsion, but 
 under as much caution as power could be given. 
 
 " When he put questions to the witnesses in relation to the 
 order of the House, at the time the act complained of took 
 place, he did it not with a view of lessening the offence itself. 
 He did not mean to inquire whether the member from Ver 
 mont had committed a less degree of indecency, because the 
 House was in one situation, than it would have been if it 
 had been in another; but his object was to show that the 
 public business had not been interrupted, and that the House 
 was in a situation in which it could not have been interrupted. 
 
270 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 It was true the Speaker had, in the morning, taken the Chair, 
 and the House had not adjourned; but it must also be 
 allowed that the House was not at that time organized. What 
 was the business before the House? A committee of two 
 members were counting the votes for managers of an im 
 peachment. Were they interrupted; or could they be inter 
 rupted by an incident of this kind? He was sure they were 
 not interrupted. If, then, the public business was not inter 
 rupted, and if the fact was not of that nature which showed 
 a corruption of heart, he did not think it would be proper to 
 expel the member from Vermont. 
 
 " Monday, February 12. 
 
 " Mr. Findley said, the question before the committee was 
 a question of indecency, and not of crime; and he wished, for 
 the sake of decency, so much had not been said upon it. In 
 forming the Constitution there had been a distinction made 
 between punishment and expulsion. Expulsion was evidently 
 the highest punishment which the House could inflict, but 
 no one could say indecency was the highest crime. He never 
 understood, either at the time the Constitution was formed, 
 or since, that expulsion was intended to be applied to any 
 thing but crimes, for what would be a subject for impeach 
 ment in other bodies where impeachments could be brought. 
 This was not, therefore, an opinion formed upon the spur of 
 the occasion. Mr. F. said, he knew of an instance of this 
 kind, which happened in another legislative body, upon 
 which a committee was appointed to consider it ; but they never 
 made a report, but held their decision in terrorem over the 
 offending member. He thought, if a similar course had been 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 27! 
 
 taken in this matter, it would have been preferable to spending 
 so much time in debate upon it. 
 
 " Mr. Shepard spoke again upon this subject. If the mem 
 ber from Vermont were not expelled, he supposed it would 
 break up the present session, without doing any business ; that 
 it would divide the States against each other, and finally end 
 in a civil war." Such arrant nonsense as this was received 
 with a serious face by the Federalists. 
 
 " Mr. Pinckney said, in order to insure perfect freedom of 
 debate, it was necessary to repress every personal violence in 
 the first instance. In considering this question, he considered 
 it as fixing a rule for their government in future; and he 
 thought, if it were so considered (and no reference had to the 
 dispute which had produced the discussion), there would be a 
 pretty unanimous opinion that an offence of this kind ought 
 to be punished by expulsion. 
 
 " Mr. Livingston rose to entreat the gentlemen, as they 
 valued the respectability of the House, the good opinion of 
 their constituents, and the public Treasury, that they would 
 suffer this business to come to a conclusion. Their constitu 
 ents, he was certain, had long been tired of the discussion. 
 Nearly twenty days, which had cost as many thousand dollars 
 to the country, had been consumed in this business. Gentle 
 men rose to express their abhorrence of abuse in abusive 
 terms, and their hatred of indecent acts with indecency. The 
 simple question before the House was, what degree of punish 
 ment was proper to be inflicted upon the member from Ver 
 mont. (The Chairman informed Mr. L. he was mistaken 
 in saying twenty days had been consumed in this business; 
 it had been before the House only fourteen.) Mr. L. said 
 it was in a fair way for being twenty. 
 
272 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 " Mr. R. Williams rose and took notice of the different argu 
 ments urged in favor of the amendment. He denied that the 
 committee ought to consider the consequences to which an 
 act might possibly lead; if so, an assault would of course be 
 punished equally with murder, as it might possibly lead to it. 
 He did not think the House ought to interfere any further, 
 than to preserve order and decorum in its proceedings. If 
 a member of the House committed a crime, he was answerable 
 to the laws equally with any other man. Upon the whole, 
 he considered the proposed punishment as disproportionate 
 to the offence, and should therefore move an amendment, 
 Mr. W. then moved to amend the resolution reported, 
 by striking, out the words, ' be for this disorderly behaviour 
 expelled/ and insert in their place, ' is highly censurable, and 
 that he be reprimanded by the Speaker, in the presence of this 
 House/ 
 
 " Mr. Dayton (the Speaker) said, the length of the present 
 debate had been complained of; but who, he asked, had first 
 broke silence after the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. 
 Thatcher) had expressed his wish that the vote might be 
 taken without debate? It was the gentleman who had just 
 sat down ; and now he had given the committee another speech, 
 and introduced a proposition calculated to produce further 
 discussion. He wishes the gentleman from Vermont to be 
 reprimanded by the Speaker. What could the Speaker say 
 to him? He could only say, You have done an act which 
 would disgrace a blackguard; come and take your seat in the 
 House, You have insulted us with words which show your 
 defiance of us, but come and sit with us and be our brother 
 legislator. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 273 
 
 " Were these words to be addressed to the member? The 
 Speaker would sooner address him in words of thunder which 
 would drive him from his presence. 
 
 " Mr. Nicholas hoped the committee would not be pre 
 vented from doing what it thought proper, because there might 
 be a difference between the private opinion of the Speaker, 
 and what he might be called upon to do in his capacity as 
 Speaker. 
 
 " Mr. R. Williams denied that he was the first who began 
 the debate. 
 
 " Mr. Dayton repeated that he was the first who broke 
 silence after the gentleman from Massachusetts had wished 
 the vote to be taken without debate. 
 
 " Mr. R. Williams said that it would appear, from the man 
 ner in which the gentleman had said he broke the silence, 
 that he had begun the debate, which he did not. Mr. W. 
 said, he was more strongly convinced than ever of the 
 impropriety of extending the power of expulsion, since he had 
 heard the passionate expressions of the gentleman from New 
 Jersey. Was this the language of a Judge? He would not 
 only pass the law upon the offender, but he would do it 
 with thunder and vengeance! In his opinion, Mr. W. said, 
 nothing could tend more to disgrace the councils of America 
 than such heated language as this. It was sufficient to induce 
 the people to say, ' We have too much liberty, too much free 
 dom of speech; our Government is bad,' and to be ready to 
 lay hold of any other that is offered to them. A sentiment 
 of this kind tended more to destroy the Government than any 
 thing he had heard. Gentlemen talked of heat in debate; but 
 where did it come from? Not from the gentlemen in opinion 
 
274 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 with him, must be evident to every one. Whatever opinion 
 might be held of his amendment, he thought it proper, and 
 therefore made it; nor did he think it liberal in any man to 
 treat it as it had been treated. Was it right to be told by a 
 member, because he had moved an amendment like the pres 
 ent, that he should be ashamed to sit with him? Was this 
 what the public expected to hear in its Legislative councils? 
 He believed not. He thought it would do no credit to him 
 who uttered the sentiment. 
 
 " Mr. Dayton said that the gentleman from North Carolina 
 had misstated what he had said in several instances; but he 
 did not think it worth while to set him right, it would be a 
 waste of time and words. 
 
 " Mr. Harper was strongly opposed to the amendment. He 
 was sorry to see gentlemen determined to support the member 
 from Vermont, at all events, rather than lose a vote on 
 favorite political questions. The reprimand proposed, he was 
 confident, would have no effect upon them; besides it was a 
 punishment of the lightest kind which the House could inflict, 
 and by no means proportioned to the highest possible out 
 rage." 
 
 Jefferson said that Harper wanted a monarchy in place of 
 the republic. Hamilton called Harper a man of vanity. 
 
 " Mr. Dana condemned the wish that had been expressed 
 for passing a silent vote upon this subject, and particularly 
 the conduct of the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. S. Smith), 
 for having expressed such a wish. 
 
 " Mr. D. said he did not mean to cast any blame upon 
 gentlemen who differed from him in opinion; nor would he 
 envy any gentleman the pleasure they would have in the com- 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 275 
 
 pany of the gentleman from Vermont, if they chose to asso 
 ciate with such a kennel of filth, let them do so; let them press 
 him to their heart, and salute him as their brother, they may 
 do it without envy; let them be designated as the companions 
 of Mr. Lyon, by being pointed at, by ' There goes the member 
 of Congress who voted to have Matthew Lyon as a com 
 panion!' If they felt themselves invulnerable to such a re 
 proach, he acknowledged he had not attained to that degree 
 of insensibility. He himself would put him away, as citizens 
 removed impurities and filth from their docks and wharves." 
 
 Dana was not nearly the equal of Lyon in ability and real 
 worth, and his language here shows he could play the low 
 blackguard. 
 
 " Mr. S. Smith thought, as he had determined to say nothing 
 upon this subject, that he should not have received the cen 
 sure of any one. He had conversed with several gentlemen on 
 both sides of the question, and he thought, in order to avoid 
 a lengthy discussion, which could have no effect but produce 
 heat, it would be best to take a silent vote on the question. 
 The gentleman who had just sat down had called upon him 
 as a military man. He did not come here as a military man, 
 but as a legislator. It seemed as if gentlemen were determined 
 to make him speak on this subject; if he had wished to do so, 
 they would not have been able to keep him silent. He thought 
 the gentleman last up had made a speech to little purpose. If 
 military opinions were wanted, two military gentlemen had 
 already given their opinions. If, twenty years ago, he had 
 been asked an opinion, he supposed he should have given such 
 a one as the gentleman from Connecticut would not have liked 
 to hear. 
 
276 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 " The question on the resolution was put and carried, 51 
 to 43. 
 
 " The committee then rose, and reported the amendment to 
 the resolution, together with the evidence which had been 
 taken before them. The House took up the amendment 
 (relative to the offensive words in the defence) and agreed to 
 it, 49 to 46. 
 
 " Mr. Macon said, it was observable there were two opinions 
 in the House; one for expulsion, the other for a reprimand. 
 He did not think the offence was such as would authorize an 
 expulsion. He said there had been as many illiberal expres 
 sions in the course of this debate as he had ever heard. Gen 
 tlemen had talked of party doing this, and party doing the 
 other, whilst they themselves are the first to mention it. He 
 hoped they would have kept these things out of the sight of 
 the world. If gentlemen of one description voted one way, 
 those of another voted a contrary way. As for the punishment 
 of being reprimanded in the face of the House, which would 
 be entered upon the Journal, he thought it a very serious one, 
 and he would almost as soon be hanged at once. 
 
 " The question was then taken by yeas and nays, and the 
 amendment was negatived, 52 to 44. 
 
 " The question was next taken upon the resolution for ex 
 pulsion, by yeas and nays, and carried, yeas 52, nays 44. 
 
 " The Constitution requiring two-thirds of the members 
 present to carry a vote of expulsion, the motion was declared 
 by the Speaker not carried. 
 
 " The following is the testimony taken in the foregoing case, 
 as delivered in at the Clerk's table. The Speaker, Jonathan 
 Dayton, Esq., of New Jersey, deposed as follows: 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 277 
 
 " When the ballots of the House for managers of the im 
 peachment against Mr. Blount were brought to the table to be 
 counted, and the committee who were named as tellers were 
 actually engaged in that business, I walked forth from the 
 Chair without adjourning the House, in order to take a little 
 exercise about the room. I soon heard some expressions 
 rather warmer than usual at the fire, behind me, and turning, 
 observed that they passed between Mr. Lyon, of Vermont, 
 and Mr. Dana, of Connecticut. I addressed myself imme 
 diately to them, and said, ' Gentlemen, keep yourselves cool;' 
 and afterwards added, ' if you proceed much further, you will 
 want seconds/ Upon this, Mr. Lyon addressed himself to 
 me, and said, among other things, that he had in his own mind, 
 designated the embassy to Cayenne for Mr. Dana; upon which, 
 in order to give a turn of pleasantry to the conversation, I 
 asked Mr. Lyon whether he had reserved for himself the mis 
 sion to Kamtschatka, among the furred tribes. After a few 
 other remarks, Mr. Lyon began some animadversions upon 
 the temper of the people of Connecticut, and the conduct of 
 their Representatives in Congress. He said he had good 
 reason to know and declare, that the members from that State 
 were acting in direct opposition to the opinions of nine-tenths 
 of their constituents; that, regardless of the public good, they 
 were seeking their own private interests; that their object was 
 to obtain offices for themselves; that if they could not obtain 
 the most lucrative, they would not refuse those which were less 
 so, (mentioning two sums, which I think were nine thousand 
 dollars and one thousand dollars;) that he, Mr. Lyon, had a 
 good right to know the people of Connecticut, for he had to 
 fight with them in his own district. 
 
278 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 " Upon this, Mr. Griswold, who was sitting in Mr. Harper's 
 seat, asked whether he had fought them with a wooden sword, 
 or with his wooden sword. Mr. Lyon either not hearing this 
 question, or affecting not to have heard it, continued his re 
 marks to me, and added, that when the Connecticut people 
 came into his district on visits to their relations, they came 
 with strong prejudices against him and his politics; but, after 
 conversing with them freely he had always succeeded in bring 
 ing them over to his side ; that if he should go into that State 
 and talk with the people, he could open their eyes and effect 
 an entire change there. Upon which, Mr. Griswold laying 
 his hand gently upon Mr. Lyon's arm, in order to attract his 
 attention, said, ' if you were to enter into Connecticut for the 
 purpose you mention, you could not alter the opinion of the 
 meanest hostler/ Upon which Mr. Griswofd repeated the 
 substance of a former question, and asked, whether, when he 
 should come, he would take with him his wooden sword. 
 Upon which followed the indecency which has given rise to 
 this reference. 
 
 " Samuel Smith, of Maryland, deposed as follows : ' I passed 
 Mr. Lyon, who was engaged in a jesting conversation with 
 other members such as gentlemen frequently amuse them 
 selves with, when the House is not in actual business. Not 
 thinking the conversation interesting, my attention was par 
 ticularly directed to my letters, when I heard Mr. Lyon direct 
 ing his conversation to the Speaker, who sat in the seat be 
 hind me, generally occupied by Mr. Dana; Mr. Griswold in 
 that of Mr. Harper. Mr. Griswold then said something which 
 created a loud laugh, which I did not hear, but which I have 
 since understood, related to the wooden sword. I turned, 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 2/9 
 
 and observed that Mr. Lyon still continued his conversation, 
 directed to the Speaker, and in the same style of jocularity, 
 indeed, all the gentlemen appeared to be in perfect good 
 humor, and to consider the conversation as amusing. 
 
 " Mr. Griswold had removed outside of the bar to where 
 Mr. Lyon stood. At this time, having left my seat with the 
 intention to leave the House, I leaned on the bar next to Mr. 
 Lyon, and fronting Mr. Griswold. Mr. Lyon having observed 
 (still directing himself to the Speaker), that, could he have the 
 same opportunity of explanation that he had in his own dis 
 trict, he did not doubt he could change the opinion of the 
 people in Connecticut; Mr. Griswold then said, 'If you, Mr. 
 Lyon, should go into Connecticut, you could not change the 
 opinion of the meanest hostler in the State.' To which Mr. 
 Lyon then said ' That may be your opinion, but I think dif 
 ferently, and if I was to go into Connecticut, I am sure I 
 could produce the effect I have mentioned.' Mr. Griswold 
 then said, ' Colonel Lyon, when you go into Connecticut, you 
 had better take with you the wooden sword that was attached 
 
 to you at the camp at .' On which, Mr. Lyon spat in 
 
 Mr. Griswold's face, who coolly took his handkerchief out of 
 his pocket and wiped his face. Believing that the quarrel 
 would go no further, I left the House. 
 
 " David Brooks, of New York, deposed as follows : 
 "At the time which has been mentioned, I was sitting in my 
 seat, and the Speaker in Mr. Dana's. When he, Mr. Lyon, 
 talked of contending, or fighting with the people of Connec 
 ticut, Mr. Griswold asked, if he had not better take his wooden 
 sword. I thought he did not hear it, as I looked at him, think 
 ing it a pressing question, and he did not change countenance, 
 
28O MATTHEW LYON 
 
 but continued his conversation with the Speaker. Mr. Gris- 
 wold then said, he does not hear me, or I said he does not hear 
 you, I do not recollect which. Mr. Griswold afterwards went 
 on the outside of the bar, and standing by Mr. Lyon, laid his 
 hand on his arm, and said, ' You could not change the opinion 
 of a single hostler in the State of Connecticut/ Mr. Lyon 
 then talked of setting up a press in Connecticut, and fighting 
 them on their own ground. Mr. Griswold then said, you will 
 fight them with your wooden sword. Mr. Lyon then spit in 
 his face. Upon this, Mr. Griswold stepped back with his 
 right foot, looked steadily at Mr. Lyon, and stiffened his arm 
 as if going to strike. Mr. Dana then observed, they would 
 consider of this matter; and I said, this is not the place; there 
 is a time and a place for everything. Mr. Griswold wiped 
 his face with his handkerchief, and went out with his col 
 league. 
 
 " Samuel W. Dana, of Connecticut, deposed as follows: 
 "A very short time before the commission of the outrage 
 now under consideration I stepped within the bar, and stood 
 near the end of the desk which is in front of the seat usually 
 occupied by myself, the Speaker being then in that seat. 
 From the tenor of the conversation I judged that the member 
 from Vermont had been speaking of his ability to effect some 
 great object in Connecticut; when Mr. Griswold replied, ac 
 cording to my present recollection, to this effect : ' You could 
 not, if you should go into Connecticut with your wooden 
 sword and candle ;' alluding, as I then apprehended, to a report 
 in circulation, which, as also that of the sword, I knew to have 
 been heard by Mr. Griswold and by the member from Ver 
 mont. On this the member from Vermont spit in Mr. Gris- 
 wold's face. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 28l 
 
 " Considering the observations of some gentlemen of the 
 committee, perhaps, in justice to the member from Vermont, 
 I ought to mention that, while Mr. Griswold was in Mr. Har 
 per's seat, I was in the passage leading from the eastern door 
 of the hall to the Speaker's table, and conversed for a short 
 time with Mr. Griswold and Mr. Brooks, when I was informed 
 that Mr. Griswold had spoken to the member from Vermont, 
 and alluded to the report of the wooden sword. On inquiring 
 what answer was made to this by the member from Vermont, 
 Mr. Griswold observed that he believed it was not heard by 
 the member from Vermont, as he made no answer to it. This 
 was before the conversation which immediately preceded the 
 personal outrage offered to Mr. Griswold, and, I think, at a 
 different time from any which I have before mentioned. 
 
 " Chauncey Goodrich, Esq., of Connecticut, deposed as fol-. 
 lows: 
 
 " The only information I have on the subject, relates to a 
 conversation with Mr. Lyon, relative to his having been 
 cashiered in the Army. I came from New York to this place, 
 this session, in a stage taken by Mr. Champlin, together with 
 him, Mr. Otis and Mr. Lyon. We were the only persons in 
 the stage for a considerable part of the way. I had but little 
 personal acquaintance with Mr. Lyon before this time. Mr. 
 Lyon, on the way, seemed to be disposed to give us the history 
 of his life. It was filled up, according to the account he gave 
 us, with many singular and ludicrous anecdotes. The ludi 
 crous anecdotes that he told of himself, in a jocular manner, 
 produced from the gentlemen with him a kind of pleasantry. 
 
 " I think either immediately, or some time before Mr. Lyon 
 adverted to the subject, something was said of Mr. Lyon's 
 
282 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 having been in the Army; I cannot be very minute in the ac 
 count he gave. I recollect his saying that allusions to his 
 having been cashiered had been in the public papers, that it 
 was a matter of great mortification; that he could not bear to 
 hear of the affair; that it happened when he was young. He 
 said that he was a subaltern officer of a corps stationed on the 
 frontier, at a great distance from the main Army, and without 
 support; that the officers and men were uneasy, and discon 
 tented with their situation; that they considered it as being 
 too exposed; that he, at a certain time, was out with a party 
 of the men ; that when he returned, he found the corps to which 
 he had belonged either had abandoned, or were abandoning 
 (I cannot say certainly which), their post; that they went to 
 some distance, where they made a halt; that he endeavored to 
 persuade them to return, they refused, the officers insisted that 
 he should go to headquarters to General Gates, and make a 
 representation of their situation; he went, upon being intro 
 duced to General Gates, and introducing the subject, General 
 Gates damned him for a coward, and ordered that he should 
 go into the custody of a guard ; that he, Mr. Lyon, insisted on 
 his rights, as an officer, not to be put under guard. That the 
 Adjutant-General, an aid of General Gates, said something on 
 the subject, and Mr. Lyon was finally arrested, tried with the 
 rest of the officers, by a court martial, and sentenced to be 
 cashiered from the Army. 
 
 " I do not recollect having mentioned this conversation to 
 Mr. Griswold, my colleague. 
 
 " Christopher G. Chaplin, Esq., of Rhode Island, deposed 
 as follows: 
 
 " I have attentively considered the evidence given to the 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 283 
 
 Committee of the Whole, by Mr. Goodrich, and to the best 
 of my recollection, it is correct. 
 
 " Joseph B. Varnum, a Esq., of Massachusetts, deposed as 
 follows : 
 
 " On the day on which the House were balloting for man 
 agers of the impeachment of William Blount, the ballots being 
 collected, and the tellers counting them, I was standing at 
 the fire in the west part of the House, in company with other 
 gentlemen ; the Speaker having left his chair, and the members 
 generally their seats. Mr. Lyon came up to the exterior of 
 the circle round the fire, and observed, that he imagined there 
 would be a bustle; that he had spit in Griswold's face. I ob 
 served to him that I was exceedingly sorry for it, and asked 
 him how a thing of the kind could possibly have taken place. 
 Mr. Lyon then told me the circumstances which he said pro 
 voked him to do the act. 
 
 " Q. Did Mr. Lyon tell you that he heard Mr. Griswold 
 twice use the expression respecting the wooden sword? 
 
 "A. Yes. 
 
 " The following narrative was given by Mr. Lyon, in the 
 course of his defence before the Committee of Privileges, on 
 Thursday, the 1st of February: 
 
 " Gentlemen of the Committee : After having heard so much 
 about the ' wooden sword/ an expression, the repetition and 
 application of which in an indignant manner has caused you 
 this present trouble, I hope you'll indulge me with a patient 
 hearing to a short narrative of the circumstance which 
 awakens my feelings, and utterly disables me from bearing 
 such reflections. 
 
 Representative Varnum was the great-grandfather of a recent 
 Surrogate of New York, Hon. James M. Varnum. 
 
284 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 " Twenty-one years have elapsed since the unfortunate af 
 fair, during which, it has slept in oblivion, until party rage 
 and party newspapers tore open the wound in my breast. 
 
 " To pursue the narrative : General St. Clair, who presided 
 at the Court Martial, which condemned me, in the summer 
 succeeding that misfortune, recommended me to General 
 Schuyler, informing him (as I suppose) of my ill-usage and of 
 my subsequent services, and obtained for me a commission 
 of Paymaster to a Continental regiment commanded by Colo 
 nel Seth Warner, which commission entitled me to the rank 
 of Captain. In this I was again unfortunately led into trouble, 
 as the officers of the regiment had, previous to my appoint 
 ment, petitioned Congress for the restoration of the former 
 Paymaster, who had been cashiered, and was the son of a Con 
 gressman of Connecticut. 
 
 " Notwithstanding the coldness this created towards me, 
 and the consequent bickerings, no officer ever thought proper 
 to mention to me the unhappy affair of the preceding summer. 
 In this regiment I served at the capture of Burgoyne; and the 
 succeeding spring when my family could return to my planta 
 tion, from which Burgoyne's invasion had drove them, at the 
 solicitation of Governor Chittenden, and many other friends, 
 I resigned at a time when the officers of the regiment, almost 
 all, had become reconciled, and wished my stay. Immediately 
 on my resignation I was appointed Captain in the militia, and 
 to several civil offices under the authority of the State of 
 Vermont, which had newly formed a Constitution and set up 
 government. 
 
 " In the year 1778, I was appointed a member of the Legis 
 lature, in which station I served my country ever since, save 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 285 
 
 two years, until my appointment to Congress. I held a station 
 in the militia, until the command of the regiment I lived in, 
 with a full Colonel's commission, was given me. I moved to 
 where I now reside about the close of the war, and I hare had 
 no concern with military matters, nor been a candidate for any 
 military position since. 
 
 " Thus circumstanced, gentlemen of the committee, I must 
 appeal to your own feelings, whether it belonged to me to re 
 ceive with impunity the aggravated insult offered me by that 
 young gentleman, Mr. Griswold. The station I now hold 
 points out to you the propriety of giving full credit to the plain 
 story I now tell you, especially as it is corroborated by evi 
 dence. The proper testimony to support this narrative I will 
 procure and lay before the public as soon as the situation of the 
 evidences will admit. 
 
 " I shall conclude with making some observations on the 
 testimony, all of which corroborates that I was standing with 
 out the bar conversing with the Speaker, who sat on an out 
 side chair; the subject I believe it is apparent was Mr. Nicho 
 las's motion. I did not like the opposition given to it by the 
 Connecticut members. I insisted they did not act with the 
 sense and understanding of the people of that State. This 
 led to saying many other things; though my discourse was 
 directed to the Speaker, it appears I had the wit and raillery 
 of five or six gentlemen from New York and Connecticut to 
 withstand and reply to; it appears that I supported it with 
 good humor. 
 
 " It appears also, by the testimony, that Mr. Griswold, in 
 Mr. Harper's seat, gave me a most cutting insult. The 
 Speaker whom I was in conversation with, heard it as well as 
 
286 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 some others; they testify that I did not appear to hear it. 
 Why not hear it as well as they? For no other reason than 
 to keep up the prevailing good humor. But Mr. Griswold, 
 not satisfied with the insult already given, says to one of the 
 witnesses, ' He does not hear me/ and removes and intrudes 
 himself to my side, pulls me by the arm to call my attention, 
 and then more particularly and more deliberately repeats the 
 insult, knowing it to be the most provoking abuse that one 
 gentleman could possibly offer another. 
 
 " Under all these circumstances, I cannot but entertain the 
 fullest assurance that I stand justified for the repulse of that 
 deliberate insult offered me by Mr. Griswold, in the view of 
 the Committee of the House of Representatives, and of every 
 man of honor or feeling who shall ever hear the story. 
 
 "Thursday, February 15. 
 
 " FRACAS IN THE HOUSE. 
 
 " (About a quarter past eleven o'clock, after prayers, whilst 
 the Speaker was in his Chair, and many members in their 
 places, but before the House had been called to order, and 
 before the Journal had been read, Mr. Griswold entered the 
 House, and observing Mr. Lyon in his place (who was writ 
 ing), he went up to him with a pretty strong walking stick 
 in his hand, with which he immediately began to beat him 
 with great violence. Mr. G.'s approach was observed by 
 Mr. Lyon, but before he could get from behind his desk 
 he had received some severe blows. As soon as he got on 
 the floor of the House he endeavored to lay hold of Mr. G. 
 (having no stick or weapon in his hand), but he was pre 
 vented from so doing by Mr. G.'s falling back, and the contin 
 ual blows with which he was assailed. At length getting 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 
 
 behind the Speaker's chair, Mr. Lyon snatched up the tongs 
 from the fire; the combatants then closed and came down to 
 gether on the floor, Mr. G. being uppermost. The mem 
 bers of the House who till now seemed to look on with 
 amazement at the scene, without an attempt to put an end 
 to it, got round the parties and separated them, but not 
 before Mr. L. had aimed a blow at Mr. G.'s head with the 
 tongs, but which he parried off. The Speaker was now called 
 upon to desire the members to take their seats, and form the 
 House. Whilst this was doing, the two enraged members met 
 again without the bar, and but for the doorkeeper and some 
 gentlemen present, would have renewed the combat. Order 
 having been obtained (at least as much as it was possible to 
 obtain from the agitated state of the House), the Clerk pro 
 ceeded to read the Journal, and the business of the day was 
 entered upon. It continued till one o'clock, when from the 
 perturbation which was naturally occasioned by such a scene, 
 and it being evident that business was very little attended to 
 by a great part of the House, a motion for an adjournment 
 was made and carried. It will be seen that no notice was 
 taken of this proceeding in the course of the sitting.) 
 
 " Friday, February 16. 
 
 " CASE OF GRISWOLD AND LYON. 
 
 " Immediately upon the Journals having been read, 
 " Mr. Davis of Kentucky, rose and proposed the following 
 resolution for the adoption of the House : 
 
 " ' Resolved, That Roger Griswold and Matthew Lyon, 
 members of this House, for violent and disorderly behaviour 
 committed in the House, be expelled therefrom.' 
 
288 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 " Mr. Nicholas hoped the resolution would be permitted to 
 lie on the table. 
 
 " Mr. Davis saw no reason for delaying a decision upon this 
 resolution. He thought the conduct of these gentlemen had 
 been so grossly violent, and so notorious to most of the mem 
 bers of the House, that there need be no hesitation in deciding 
 upon it. And as he believed neither the dignity, the honor, 
 nor peace of that House could be preserved while these mem 
 bers remained in it, he hoped the House would be unanimous 
 in voting their expulsion. 
 
 " Mr. Thatcher did not see why the innocent should be 
 punished with the guilty. The gentleman who brought for 
 ward this proposition, he supposed, did not wish this. From 
 what he saw of the affray, he did not think Mr. Lyon deserved 
 to be punished for the part he acted. He certainly received a 
 severe beating, but he appeared to be passive from the begin 
 ning to the end; and he did not think Mr. Lyon ought to be 
 expelled because he was beaten. 
 
 " Mr. J. Parker seconded the motion for the expulsion of 
 these members, because he believed there would be no peace 
 in the House until they were expelled. He was sorry the 
 gentleman from Massachusetts should have said he saw noth 
 ing but what was passive on the part of Mr. Lyon. He 
 himself saw more, and that gentleman must have seen it if 
 he had his eyes about him. He said, that after the offending 
 members had been separated, Mr. Lyon met Mr. Griswold 
 without the bar of the House and began to belabor him with 
 his cane, when they were again separated. 
 
 " Mr. Otis proposed the following resolution for adoption : 
 
 "'Resolved, That Roger Griswold and Matthew Lyon, 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 289 
 
 members of this- House, be respectively required by the 
 Speaker to pledge their words to this House, that they will 
 not commit any act of violence upon each other during this 
 session; and that if either refuse to make such engagements, 
 the party refusing shall be committed to the custody of the 
 Sergeant-at-Arms, until he shall comply with this obligation.' 
 
 " Mr. Sewall understood a motion had been agreed to in 
 relation to the affair of yesterday, which might produce an 
 expulsion of the members in question. 
 
 " The question was then taken on the resolution and carried 
 by a large majority, there being 73 votes in favor of it. 
 
 " The Speaker asked, whether it was the pleasure of the 
 House that the Sergeant-at-Arms should be sent for Mr. 
 Lyon. 
 
 " Mr. Sitgreaves said it might not be convenient for Mr. 
 Lyon to attend the House; he asked whether the resolution 
 might not be sent to him, and his answer be received in writ 
 ing? 
 
 " Mr. Nicholas supposed, that if both gentlemen prepared 
 a declaration in writing, and presented it to-morrow, it would 
 answer the purpose. 
 
 " Mr. Harper replied, the mischief intended to be guarded 
 against might in the mean time be done. 
 
 " Mr. Gallatin said, he had just been called out by a member 
 of the House, who had asked him whether he thought it 
 would be proper for Mr. Lyon to attend the House. He sup 
 posed, therefore, if the Sergeant-at-Arms were sent for him, 
 he would immediately attend. 
 
 " Mr. Harper hoped the Sergeant-at-Arms would be sent. 
 
 " The Speaker said, as soon as the Clerk had made a copy 
 
MATTHEW LYON 
 
 of the resolution, the Sergeant-at-Arms would wait upon Mr. 
 Lyon with it. 
 
 " Mr. Lyon having entered, 
 
 " The Speaker said, the members from Connecticut and Ver 
 mont being now in their places, he should proceed to read the 
 resolution which had been entered into by the House. (He 
 then read the resolution.) 
 
 " As soon as it was finished reading, 
 
 " Mr. Griswold rose and said, he should not hesitate to enter 
 into the proposed engagement. 
 
 " Mr. Lyon also rose and said, he was ready, as it was the 
 wish of the House, to agree to the proposition. 
 
 "The Speaker said, then you do accordingly agree to the 
 proposition? 
 
 " Both answered, ' I do agree.' 
 
 " Mr. James Gilles pie's Testimony. 
 
 " James Gillespie being sworn, saith, that on Thursday 
 morning, the I5th instant, he came into the House of Repre 
 sentatives after prayers, and the Speaker had taken the Chair; 
 that whilst he was warming himself at the fire next on the 
 right of the door, he saw Matthew Lyon, the member from 
 Vermont, come to the letter bag, and was putting in some 
 letters, as he, this deponent, passed him going into the House; 
 that he also saw Roger Griswold sitting in a chair a small 
 distance from the Speaker's seat, with a large walking stick 
 standing near him; that I went immediately to the alphabet 
 and made search for my letters, and as I turned to my seat to 
 read them, I heard a noise of blows, etc. ; on looking that way, 
 I saw Roger Griswold strike Matthew Lyon, who was in 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 29! 
 
 his place near the center of the front desk opposite to 
 the Speaker's seat where he was then sitting, that as 
 Mr. Lyon was getting round the desk he received 
 two or three blows, and on attempting to close in 
 with Mr. Griswold, he, Mr. Lyon, received several strokes 
 with the stick from Mr. Griswold. That the deponent 
 conceiving, from the complexion of the affair, that it was a 
 preconcerted plan, did not interfere, but asked the Speaker to 
 call to order, which he declined, although the call was loud 
 from different parts of the House. That as Mr. Lyon ad 
 vanced on Mr. Griswold, he retreated back towards the win 
 dow near the Speaker's seat, by which Mr. Lyon became pos 
 sessed of a pair of tongs and struck at Mr. Griswold, on which 
 Mr. Griswold closed with him and they fell, and in a little 
 time were parted. That Mr. Lyon expressed disapprobation 
 at being parted, and said, as he was rising, I wish I had been 
 let alone awhile. That the deponent recollects that, as he 
 turned to his seat, he saw Mr. Sewall, from Massachusetts; 
 and on he, the deponent, expressing his disapprobation of such 
 conduct, Mr. Sewall replied it was right, for we ought to have 
 done them justice, and expelled Mr. Lyon; to which I 
 answered, take to yourselves all the justice and credit that 
 appertains to it; and went and read my letters, and heard no 
 more for some time; when, looking up I saw Mr. Sitgreaves 
 going out of the south passage, with a walking stick, I be 
 lieve, for Mr. Griswold; and then, and not before, the House 
 was called to order, when this deponent thinks it was more 
 than half past eleven o'clock. 
 
 "JAMES GILLESPIE. 
 
 " Sworn and subscribed, the I7th February, 1798. 
 " Coram : Reynold Keen. 
 
292 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 " Questions by Mr. Sewall. 
 
 " Question. Did not the conversation you suppose to have 
 happened with me, take place when you was, and I appeared to 
 be, agitated with the confusion of the scene? 
 
 " Answer. It was. I returned to my desk to read my letters 
 from the first scene, and I presume somewhat agitated. 
 
 " Question. Are you in any degree positive of the words 
 you state to have heard from me? 
 
 " Answer. To the best of my recollection, these were the 
 words used, or they were words to the same effect. 
 
 "Mr. Havens' s Testimony. 
 
 " Some short time after eleven o'clock, the House attended 
 on prayer. After this was over, I was walking in the south 
 end of the hall without the bar, and saw Mr. Lyon come in, 
 with his cloak on, and go to his seat, which is the fourth from 
 the end of that front row of seats which is on the left side of 
 the passage leading up to the Speaker's chair. I saw him pull 
 off his cloak and take his seat, and perceived that he had a 
 small cane in his hand, which he either put between his legs, 
 or leaned against a chair beside him, in such manner that 
 the end of it was under the long desk that was before him. 
 After he sat down, he appeared to be engaged either in writ 
 ing or reading the papers that were before him. 
 
 " It was then about half past eleven, and the Speaker was 
 sitting in his chair, but had not called the House to order; 
 and I then saw Mr. Griswold coming from the north end of 
 the hall across the area in front of the Speaker's chair, with a 
 large yellow hickory cane in his hand. Although I was look 
 ing that way as I was walking, I did not notice him much 
 until he came within about six or eight feet of Mr. Lyon. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 293 
 
 He was then walking across the floor in a sidelong manner 
 towards Mr. Lyon, and Mr. Lyon was sitting with his face 
 down looking on his papers, and, as I presume, did not per 
 ceive the approach of Mr. Griswold ; and, if my memory serves 
 me right, I think he was sitting with his hat on. As soon as 
 Mr. Griswold had come in front of Mr. Lyon, he struck him 
 with all his force over his head and shoulders, with the smallest 
 end of his cane, repeating his blows as fast as possible. Mr. 
 Lyon, I think, received three blows in this posture before he 
 rose to disengage himself from the desk that was before him 
 and the chairs that were on each side of him. He appeared 
 to be then trying to recover his cane, which was under his 
 desk, but could not do it by reason of the violence of Mr. Gris- 
 wold's blows over his head and shoulders. He then rose from 
 his seat and got out at the end of the desk, defending himself 
 with his arms against the blows of Mr. Griswold, and then 
 rushed towards Mr. Griswold and Mr. Griswold retreated 
 towards the front of the Speaker's chair, and endeavored to 
 keep Mr. Lyon at a distance from him, that he might strike 
 him more conveniently with his cane. There was no person 
 sitting in the same row of seats with Mr. Lyon when this as 
 sault began. The Speaker was in his chair; and as soon as 
 the assault commenced, I expected he would cry out ' order/ 
 with a loud voice, but he did not. I was induced to suppose 
 this, because I always understood that the rule of the House 
 gave the Speaker a right to call the members to order after 
 the hour to which the House stood adjourned, although there 
 might not be a sufficient number of members present to pro 
 ceed to business. 
 
 " From the situation in which I stood I could not well per 
 ceive how this happened, but I saw Mr. L. on the floor with 
 
294 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 Mr. G.'s head and shoulders on his breast, and Mr. G.'s legs 
 were directed towards me as I came from the other end of the 
 room. Mr. L. was then endeavoring to disengage himself 
 from Mr. G., and had raised himself partly up, and I then per 
 ceived that he had a black eye. I then seized hold of Mr. G.'s 
 left leg to pull him away from Mr. L., and another member, 
 whom I afterwards noticed to be my colleague, Mr. Elmendorf, 
 seized at the same time hold of Mr. G.'s right leg with the same 
 view. As soon as we had done this, Mr. Speaker cried out to me 
 and said, 'That is not a proper way to take hold of him.' I 
 asked him why? He replied, ' You ought to take hold of him 
 by the shoulders.' I said it would not hurt him to pull him a 
 foot or two on the carpet. We then in this manner pulled 
 Mr. G. from off Mr. L., and by this time a number 
 of other members had gathered round, and the affray appeared 
 to be over. I then walked back to the south end of the hall, 
 to the place where I stood when the assault began. Mr. G. 
 then passed by me, and went to the easternmost shelf on which 
 water stands for the use of the members, and was drinking 
 when Mr. L. passed by me with his small cane in his hand, and 
 went to the same shelf to drink with Mr. G. As soon as Mr. 
 L. had drunk a little, he looked up, and perceiving that it was 
 Mr. G. who stood close by him, he said, 'Is it you?' and struck 
 at him with his cane, and hit him upon his left shoulder or 
 cheek. I observed that Mr.L.'s blow was but a feeble one, and 
 Mr. G. then retreated from him six or eight feet. I then saw 
 Mr. Sitgreaves run to the southeast corner of the room and get 
 a large hickory cane, and passing by Mr. L. with a good deal 
 of animation in his countenance, he put the cane in Mr. G.'s 
 hand. Mr. L. then put himself in a posture of defence, and 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 
 
 said, ' Come on/ I then cried out ' Order! ' and Mr. Thom 
 son, from New Jersey, then stepping up and looking me full in 
 the face said, ' What is the matter? ' I replied, I would have 
 no more fighting here. Mr. G. then retired, and Mr. Speaker 
 called the House to order, and so the affray ended. 
 
 " Mr. Gordon's Testimony. 
 
 " When separated, I saw Mr. G. go towards the outside of 
 the bar, I suppose with a view to take some water. Shortly 
 afterwards I saw Mr. L. making towards that part of the 
 House where Mr. G. was. He approached Mr. G., who was 
 standing at the entrance to the bar, and struck him with a cane. 
 Mr. G.'s cane was instantly handed him, and he was making 
 again towards Mr. L., when there was a loud call to order for 
 the first time; this was instantly repeated by the Speaker. I 
 laid hold of Mr. G., sundry persons threw themselves between 
 him and Mr. L., and Mr. G. instantly retired and took his seat. 
 
 " William Gordon. 
 
 " Mr. Elmendorfs Testimony. 
 
 " From my seat, which is the second in the third row, almost 
 directly behind Mr. Lyon's, which is the middle seat in the 
 front row, I observed him in the same posture immediately 
 before I heard the first blow of a cane ; upon hearing which, I 
 observed him still sitting, with his arm in the position of cover 
 ing his head and warding off blows, and the other in feeling, 
 as I thought, for a cane on the floor, beside or before him. I 
 saw Mr. Griswold at this time on the open floor directly before 
 him, beating him with all the strength and dexterity apparently 
 in his power, with a cane of the stoutest kind of American made 
 hickory, and repeating his blows as fast as I thought he could 
 
296 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 make them. Under this pressure, Mr. Lyon in a defenceless 
 state, made out of his seat side-ways, being hemmed in before 
 and behind by the desks and seats, so that it was wholly out of 
 his power to escape a single blow, or to interrupt Mr. Griswold 
 in the act of beating him. Immediately, I myself, for one, 
 rose in my seat, and loudly and repeatedly called out to the 
 Chair for order. I heard the same call from different parts of 
 the House ; but I did not observe nor hear any effort from the 
 Speaker to restore it, or any personal attempt by any one near 
 to interfere and prevent the attack. On the contrary, I think I 
 distinctly heard the Speaker reply that the House had not yet 
 been called to order, as a reason for not interfering at all. As 
 soon as Mr. Lyon had got out of the row of seats, he made 
 towards Mr. Griswold, and made every effort to close with 
 him, as it appeared to me. Mr. Griswold, on his part, 
 avoided this, by holding him off with his left arm, stepping 
 back, and continuing to beat Mr. Lyon with his cane, as 
 before, until in this way they both got to the fire-place, to the 
 left of the Speaker's chair. I then heard the noise of the tongs, 
 and immediately after saw them have hold of each other, and 
 Mr. Griswold's cane falling out of his hand. Soon after they 
 both fell, having hold of each other, Mr. Griswold partly upon 
 Mr. Lyon. At this time I got to the place where they were 
 engaged, and called out to part them. I heard the same cry 
 from behind the chair, and I also heard the opposite cry from 
 others, not to part them. Mr. Havens and myself each took 
 hold of Mr. Griswold's legs, and, I think, together, drew him 
 off from Mr. Lyon. At the same time, I think, I saw others 
 have hold of Mr. Lyon. When the Speaker observed Mr. 
 Havens and myself taking hold of Mr. Griswold, he, with ap- 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 297 
 
 parent warmth, as if thereby to prevent our interfering, called 
 out, in substance, as nearly as I can recollect, ' What! take hold 
 of a man by the legs! that is no way to take hold of him/ Not 
 withstanding, I persevered, and, I think, Mr. Havens assisted 
 me, in drawing Mr. Griswold apart from Mr. Lyon. Mr. Lyon 
 went direct from that place to his seat, where he got a small 
 cane, and went from thence south of the bar, where I saw him 
 and Mr. Griswold soon after meeting, and Mr. Lyon making 
 up to him, Mr. Griswold retiring from Mr. Lyon, and Mr. 
 Lyon making a blow at him with his cane, which Mr. Griswold, 
 I think, received on his arm or shoulder. 
 
 " The loud cry of ' order ' from all parts of the House, and 
 from the chair, here put an end to the affray. 
 
 " Mr. Stanford's Testimony. 
 
 " When the riot commenced in the Hall of Congress, on the 
 morning of the I5th instant, between Mr. Griswold and Mr. 
 Lyon, it was about twenty or thirty minutes after eleven 
 o'clock. Prayers were over, but the House was not yet called 
 to order. Sitting in my chair, I was attentively reading some 
 letters I had just received. In an instant, the sudden bustle 
 arrested my notice. Not having observed either of the parties 
 enter the Hall, I then saw Mr. Griswold on the area of the 
 floor, with an apparently heavy stick, making .a blow (perhaps 
 not the first) at Mr. Lyon, who was between his desk and chair, 
 in an half rising position. This blow, I think, he received on 
 his left arm or shoulder, and a second as he was disengaging 
 himself from among the desks and chairs. Once possessing 
 the floor, he essayed to join Mr. Griswold, who evaded him by 
 a retrograde step, and a third blow, which fell upon Mr. Lyon's 
 
298 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 head, his hat being off. Then beating back a little to the left 
 of the Speaker's desk as Mr. Griswold approached, repeating 
 his strokes, Mr. Lyon again attempted to close in with him, 
 but failed, and made suddenly behind the Speaker's desk, 
 which, with the crowding members, for a moment intercepted 
 my view. Then instantly again I saw Mr. Lyon with a pair of 
 tongs elevated for a stroke at Mr. Griswold, which seemed to 
 be somewhat parried, so as not to be fully made. A collision, 
 I think, of the stick, tongs and persons now took place, Mr. 
 Griswold about this time lost his stick; thus clung, they came 
 down together. The fall, I rather think, I did not see, from 
 the intervening members ; but when down, they appeared to be 
 grappled about the head and shoulders, and Mr. Griswold 
 rather uppermost. The confusion of the House was great, and 
 the cry of t Part them ' pretty general. Thus, while some gen 
 tlemen were disentangling their hands, others had Mr. Gris 
 wold by the legs, and were pulling him away, which was 
 effected. 
 
 " The Speaker, standing on the steps of his desk, said that 
 it was either unfair or ungentlemanly to take a man thus by the 
 legs. General McDowell then observed, that he (the Speaker) 
 had acted his part in the business ; and the Speaker asking what 
 he said, General McDowell repeated his observation, and the 
 Speaker answered, what could he do, the House was not called 
 to order, he could not help the event. The General replied he 
 supposed he could not. 
 
 " The parties having been separated, and left at large, they 
 casually met again after a small space, at the south water-stand 
 without the bar, when Mr. Lyon, as soon as he appeared to 
 discover who it was, raised his stick, which he had got hold of 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 299 
 
 in the interval, and struck Mr. Griswold on the shoulder or 
 arm. The stroke was quite light, being hastily made, and with 
 a stick not very large. Mr. Griswold then beat back to the 
 entrance of the bar, where some one, I think Mr. Sitgreaves, 
 ran, and met him with a similar or the same stick, which he had 
 lost in the first rencontre. Mr. Lyon, also, after striking, 
 stepped back from the water-stand, elevated his stick, and stood 
 in an attitude of defence. Now it was that the Speaker called 
 to order, and no other conflict ensued. Mr. Griswold 
 presently returned to his seat, and Mr. Lyon remained at the 
 water-stand. 
 
 " CASE OF GRISWOLD AND LYON. 
 
 " The House proceeded to consider the report of the Com 
 mittee of Privileges, of the twentieth instant; and the same 
 being again read in the words following, to wit : 
 
 " ' The Committee of Privileges, to whom was referred a 
 resolution in the following words: 
 
 ' ' Resolved, That Roger Griswold and Matthew Lyon, mem 
 bers of this House, for riotous and disorderly behavior, com 
 mitted in the House, be expelled therefrom,' with instructions 
 to report the evidence in writing, have, according to the order 
 of the House, proceeded to take the evidence, which they here 
 with report; and they report further, that it is their opinion 
 that the said resolution be disagreed to. ? 
 
 " Mr. Giles thought it would comport more with the dignity 
 of the House to decide this business without going into a Com 
 mittee of the Whole, as he believed every one had made up his 
 mind upon it. If gentlemen intended by the course hereto 
 fore taken to raise the dignity of the House, he thought they 
 
3OO MATTHEW LYON 
 
 had deceived themselves; for he believed the House was never 
 in a less dignified attitude than during that discussion. 
 
 " The question on agreeing to the report of the committee, 
 which recommended a disagreement to the resolution for an 
 expulsion of the two members was then taken, and stood yeas 
 73, nays 21. 
 
 " Mr. R. Williams proposed a resolution in the following 
 words : 
 
 " ' Resolved, That Roger Griswold and Matthew Lyon for 
 riotous and disorderly behavior in this House, are highly cen 
 surable, and that they be reprimanded by the Speaker in the 
 presence of this House/ 
 
 " And the yeas and nays were taken, and stood, yeas 47, 
 nays 48." 
 
 Lyon was not expelled; Griswold was not even censured. 
 The spasm of virtue which broke out among the Federalist 
 sticklers for the proprieties when Mr. Lyon was the offender, 
 and the purists and saints were bent on purging the temple of 
 the Democratic sinner, evaporated into thin air as soon as 
 Griswold rushed in with his stick and proved the arguments 
 of his friends to be the idle vaporings of humbug and false 
 pretenses. The purists and saints became the apologists and 
 upholders of Griswold, that most flagrant violator of law and 
 order who has ever cut loose as bully and bruiser on the floor 
 of the American Congress. 
 
 A history of Congressional brawls, fisticuffs and duels would 
 be replete with many tragic, some amusing, and numerous dis 
 graceful scenes, as a glance at a few of them will disclose. 
 
 Andrew Jackson elected to Congress from Tennessee in 
 1796, and soon transferred to the Senate, challenged his col- 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 3OI 
 
 league Senator William Cocke to fight with pistols. Com 
 promised. 
 
 Senator James Gunn, of Georgia, in 1796 challenged Abra 
 ham Baldwin, a member of Congress from the same State, to 
 fight a duel. Senator Frederick Frelinghuysen, of New 
 Jersey, bore the challenge. Baldwin laid the whole corre 
 spondence before the House, saying, he was opposed to duel 
 ling. A committee was appointed with Madison at its head, 
 and Gunn and Frelinghuysen apologized. In his apology 
 Gunn got off a parting shot at Baldwin by observing, " that 
 though the place in which Mr. Baldwin has thought proper to 
 disclose this transaction is quite unexpected, it shall be to him 
 an inviolable sanctuary." Apologies received were satisfac 
 tory to the dignity of the House. 
 
 In 1819 Senator Armisted C. Mason, of Virginia, the friend of 
 Matthew Lyon, fought a bloodthirsty duel at Bladensburg with 
 his cousin Col. John McCarty of the same State. Mason was 
 killed at the first fire, and profound feeling of national horror 
 was aroused. At an earlier day John C. Calhoun, of South 
 Carolina, and Thomas P. Grosvenor, of New York, had a diffi 
 culty in the House, and a duel was narrowly prevented. 
 Daniel Webster, of Massachusetts, and John Randolph, of 
 Virginia, had a Congressional misunderstanding, and the latter 
 challenged the former, who declined to submit the question to 
 the code duello. When Henry Clay, of Kentucy, was Secre 
 tary of State under John Quincy Adams, John Randolph made 
 a speech in the Senate denouncing Adams and Clay in terms 
 of unparalleled severity. Clay challenged Randolph, and 
 Colonel Benton, who was second to the latter, has a very in 
 teresting account of the fight in his "Thirty Years' View in the 
 
3O2 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 United States Senate." Colonel Benton himself had a terrible 
 hand to hand pistol and sword fight with Andrew Jackson at 
 Nashville, next killed Mr. Lucas, of Missouri, in a duel, and 
 afterwards came near being killed himself on the floor of the 
 Senate by the irrepressible Henry S. Foote, Senator from Mis 
 sissippi. " Let the assasin shoot," exclaimed Old Bullion, ad 
 vancing upon his foe, as Governor Foote during a stormy de 
 bate drew out his pistol and was leveling it at the Missourian, 
 when several other Senators rushed between the two and pre 
 vented a collision. Governor Foote at a subsequent day had 
 a quarrel in the Senate with Col. Jahn C. Fremont, of Califor 
 nia. The dispute was renewed in the lobby, when Foote 
 knocked down the Pathfinder. On another occasion Foote 
 and Jefferson Davis, the two Senators from Mississippi, had a 
 fight at the breakfast table in Mr. Price's boarding house on 
 Capitol Hill. William H. Crawford, of Georgia, killed his 
 man in one duel, and in another was wounded by Gov. John C. 
 Clark, of Georgia. In 1838 Representatives Turney, of Ten 
 nessee, and Bell of the same State, had a free fight on the floor 
 of the House. In 1840 Henry A. Wise and George W. Hop 
 kins, both of Virginia, got into a wordy war in the House. 
 Jesse A. Bynam crossed over to Rice Garland's seat, and when 
 in his hearing insulted him directly. Garland struck Bynam a 
 heavy blow. " They had a fisticiff bout till they were parted," 
 says John Quincy Adams in his Memoirs and Diary, and adds, 
 " There was an electrical shock of confusion in the House." 
 The Speaker called to order " and," the ironical ex-President 
 concludes, " the lamentation speeches began." The same Mr. 
 Bynam, of North Carolina, and Daniel Jenifer, from Maryland, 
 subsequently fought a duel. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 303 
 
 In 1841 Representative John McKeon, of New York, spoke 
 in favor of striking out the appropriation for the Mission to 
 Naples. Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, and John Stanley, of 
 North Carolina, took part in the debate. Stanley called Wise 
 a liar, who crossed over to the former's seat and struck him. 
 A fight ensued on the floor. A rush, confusion, chaos for a 
 few minutes, and then a call to order. Wise rose and apolo 
 gized to the House, but said he could not brook the insult. 
 Stanley said he had no apology to offer, and that he would have 
 whipped Wise if let alone. In 1844 Congressmen Thomas L. 
 Clingman, of North Carolina, and William L. Yancey, of Ala 
 bama, fought a duel ; after an exchange of shots the affair was 
 settled. The saddest duel since that of Mason and McCarty 
 in 1819 was the one in 1838 between Representative Jonathan 
 Cilley, of Maine, the schoolmate and friend of Longfellow and 
 Hawthorne, and Representative William J. Graves, of Ken 
 tucky. Cilley was killed and popular indignation ran high 
 against those who had anything to do with the fatal meeting. 
 Indeed I may say that the three fatal duels of Burr and Hamil 
 ton, McCarty and Mason, and Graves and Cilley contributed 
 more powerfully than all the rest together to render the odious 
 practice unpopular, and to do away with the " erudite dis 
 crimination of a hair trigger." On one occasion Gen. Andrew 
 Jackson challenged Gen. Winfield Scott, who declined to fight. 
 On another (1832) General Samuel Houston, of Texas fame, 
 ferociously beat Representative Wm. Stanberry, of Ohio, with 
 a stick, on Pennsylvania avenue. 
 
 The nearest approach to Griswold's attack on Lyon in 1798 
 which has ever occurred in Congress was the attack on Senator 
 Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, on the floor of the Senate 
 
304 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 by Representative Preston S. Brooks, of South Carolina, on 
 the 22d of May, 1856. The Senate was not in session, but a 
 few members were in their seats when Brooks attacked Sumner 
 with a cane, and beat him with all the severity which Griswold 
 had employed against Lyon. Sumner, though a large man, 
 did not display Lyon's pugnacity (perhaps he was disabled and 
 could not), but the attack on him by Mr. Brooks, although Mr. 
 Sumner had dealt savagely in debate with Senator Butler, the 
 uncle of Brooks, was justly and very generally denounced as 
 an outrage. During the same year John Sherman, of Ohio, 
 and John M. Wright, of Tennessee, had a scuffle on the floor of 
 the House. Seizing a box of wafers Sherman attempted to 
 throw a handful of them into Wright's face, who on his part 
 dealt Sherman a blow with his fist on the head. The latter 
 attempted to draw his pistol, but before he could do so mem 
 bers rushed between and separated them. In 1858 Galusha A. 
 Grow, of Pennsylvania, and Lawrence M. Keitt, of South 
 Carolina, had a regular slugging match in Congress. The 
 conflict spread to others, and between thirty and forty members 
 were fighting fiercely in front of the Speaker's desk. Gen. 
 William Barkesdale, of Mississippi, who afterwards fell at 
 Gettysburg, rushed at Mr. John Covode, of Pennsylvania, who 
 seized a heavy spittoon and was about to throw it at Barkes 
 dale, but at that moment somebody grasped the latter by the 
 hair of the head, which proved to be a wig and came off in the 
 fierce swoop, leaving him perfectly bald, with pate glittering 
 in the gaslight. Everyone was moved to laughter, when the 
 Sergeant-at-Arms, with his uplifted mace and helped by his 
 posse, finally became able to stem the heady fight. " Last 
 night we had a battle royal in the House," says Alexander H. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 305 
 
 Stephens in a letter to his brother, dated February 5, 1858. 
 " Thirty men at least," he writes, " were engaged in the fisti 
 cuff. Fortunately no weapons were used; if any had been on 
 hand it would probably have been a bloody one." Since the 
 civil war not one duel that I can recall has taken place as a 
 result of Congressional wrangling. Perhaps people got 
 enough fighting at that dreadful period to last for a long time 
 to come. Laird, of Nebraska, and Cobb, of Indiana, fought in 
 the lobby in 1886, and Congressman Lowe, of Alabama, chal 
 lenged warrior John Logan, Senator from Illinois, in 1879 f r 
 words spoken in debate, but the challenge was not accepted. 
 Fists and cudgels, disgraceful as they are among our en 
 lightened statesmen, are not after all so bad as hair-triggers 
 and carbines. A black eye or bloody nose is better than a 
 funeral with widow and orphans. 
 
 The first Congressional battle has never been eclipsed in 
 celebrity by any subsequent conflict in the annals of Congress. 
 Lyon and Griswold hold the ribbon as the most celebrated 
 Hotspurs who have yet entered the Congressional arena. 
 
306 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PERSONAL WAR OF ADAMS AGAINST LYON THE ALIEN AND 
 SEDITION LAWS AIMED AT THE VERMONTER HAMILTON AT 
 THE BACK DOOR OF THE ADMINISTRATION THE X Y Z IM 
 POSTURE WAR WITH FRANCE IMMINENT HAMILTON DE 
 STROYS HIMSELF BY INTRIGUE LYON, LIKE JOHN HAMPDEN, 
 
 BECOMES TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE -HIS INDICTMENT, TRIAL 
 AND CONVICTION RE-ELECTION WHILE IN PRISON AND TRI 
 UMPHANT RETURN TO CONGRESS. 
 
 '"PHE reader of the last chapter could scarcely fail to be im 
 pressed with the truth of Jefferson's vivid account of the 
 afflicting persecutions visited upon the Democratic minority 
 by the Federalists in Congress during the administration of 
 Mr. Adams. Matthew Lyon, accustomed to speak in the lan 
 guage of no master, raised the standard of revolt, and, as Chap 
 lain Ashbel Green worded it, he refused to be made by the 
 " dominant Federal party the butt of their ridicule."* 
 
 The fracas with Griswold who, the Rev. Dr. Green asserts, 
 was " confessedly the aggressor," 6 and the failure of the de 
 termined effort of the Federalists to expel Lyon, proved the 
 first check to the brow-beaters. But a more important result 
 of that failure was its effect upon the President. It roused 
 the bull dog in John Adams, who by nature was quite as com 
 bative as Matthew Lyon himself. The President had taken a 
 
 o " The Life of Ashbel Green," V. D. M., p. 267. 
 6 Ibid, same page. 
 
JOHN ADAMS. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 307 
 
 dislike to the Vermont member ever since his outspoken re 
 marks, at the preceding session, in opposition to Congressmen 
 trooping through the streets to the Executive Mansion to make 
 their obeisance and answer to his Majesty's speech. The 
 President's vanity was wounded by Lyon's pungent description 
 of the ceremony as " a boyish piece of business." Cobbett 
 was let loose upon the offender, Chipman became a whisperer 
 of forgotten gossips, the Griswold incident followed, and all 
 to no purpose the Federal hue and cry was raised against the 
 Vermont Democrat. 
 
 After the mortifying failure of the dominant party to cast 
 him out of Congress, Lyon became a thorn in the President's 
 side, an enemy who must be dealt with summarily by John 
 Adams himself. A presidential election was approaching, the 
 contest might be close nay, might reach the House of Rep 
 resentatives for ultimate decision; who could know that this 
 aggressive Democrat might not have the vote of a State at his 
 command, who give assurance that he might not be able to 
 write across the House of Adams Ichabod, thy glory has de 
 parted? Out of the fear of such grave possible contingencies 
 were ushered into life those misbegotten twins the Alien and 
 Sedition Laws. Lyon was an Irishman, Lyon was a bold, 
 outspoken opponent of the Federal party and all its measures. 
 He must be gotten rid of in one or the other of the two nets. 
 If he escaped the perils of Scylla for aliens, the sedition drag 
 net must surely wreck him on Charybdis. Mr. Jefferson in 
 clined to the opinion that those odious measures were framed 
 primarily to catch Albert Gallatin and Mr. Volney, but Lyon 
 was the first man arrested, and I am persuaded that he was the 
 principal person aimed at by President Adams. Colonel Lyon 
 
308 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 remarked to General Stevens Thompson Mason, Senator from 
 Virginia, who was sitting- at his side during the vote in the 
 House on the passage of the Sedition act, that he was con 
 vinced the measure was intended to catch members of Con 
 gress, and most probably would be brought to bear upon him 
 self first victim of all. a And it happened precisely as he 
 then predicted. 
 
 Once having made up his mind upon any subject, John 
 Adams was not to be deterred from his purpose, if it was pos 
 sible to carry it out. Advice was rejected, and advisers were 
 apt to be snubbed for their pains. Bills against the citizen, 
 bills against aliens, some of them, like Kosciuscko, Volney, 
 Dr. Cooper and Matthew Lyon, among the most patriotic 
 adopted Americans, and bills defining and affixing penalties 
 of sedition in terms which made even Englishmen, whom it 
 was meant to help, start at the wrench they gave to civil liberty, 
 were forced through Congress with whip and spur by the blind 
 partisans of an infuriated President, such as Dana, Griswold, 
 Sewall, Harper, Bayard, Dayton, and their fellow madmen in 
 the Senate. These congeners of despotism forgot the pro 
 phecy: "They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the 
 whirlwind." Even the London newspapers expressed as 
 tonishment at John Adams's rule or ruin excesses. " I en 
 close you a column," writes Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor 
 of Caroline, " cut out of a London paper, to show you that the 
 English, though charmed with our making their enemies our 
 enemies," (the French), " yet blush and weep over our sedition 
 
 a Letter of Colonel Lyon to General Mason, from Vergennes Jail, 
 October 14, 1798. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 309 
 
 law." a One of the curious features of those monarchial 
 days was the absurd custom of sending forward plethoric, 
 Oriental addresses to the President from various cities and 
 towns throughout the country, fumes of flattery importing 
 nothing but servile adulation, and couched in language which 
 would make a king blush for his sycophants. 
 
 " The answers of Mr. Adams to his addresses," exclaims 
 the thoughtful Madison, " form the most grotesque scene in 
 the tragi-comedy acting by the Government. They present 
 not only the grossest contradictions to the maxims, measures 
 and language of his predecessor, and the real principles and 
 interests of his constituents, but to himself. He is verifying 
 completely the last feature in the character drawn of him by 
 Dr. Franklin, however his title may stand to the two first, 
 'Always an honest man, often a wise one, but sometimes wholly 
 out of his senses.' " 
 
 Can it be possible that President Adams regarded all this 
 speechifying and addressing him as anything more than mere 
 echoes of rhetoric? Perhaps he took it seriously. He told 
 General Washington that it afforded him great comfort, and 
 was " very precious " to him. 6 Echoes of praise to one's 
 face are a poor substitute for the addresses of orators. But 
 after all, are not nine-tenths or more of congressional speeches, 
 pulpit oratory and platform lectures, leaving out of view the 
 turgid utterances of flatterers and courtiers entirely, the mere 
 counterfeits of true eloquence? Are they not the echoes of 
 real things not real things themselves, vanishing voices full 
 of emptiness, or " of sound and fury signifying nothing? " 
 
 o " Jefferson's Works/' IV, 260. 
 
 6 " Works of John Adams," VIII, 573. 
 
3IO MATTHEW LYON 
 
 But real speeches, no one except an orator makes them, no 
 one save a great orator clothes them with life, and no one but 
 a good man can be a great orator. Quintilian says it, and 
 Quintilian is right, nullus orator nisi vir bonus. I am truly 
 glad that those vagabond addresses to our Presidents, " ap 
 probatory/' as Mr. Adams styles them, and the congressional 
 street pageants, against which Matthew Lyon lifted up 
 his solitary voice in the heyday of the old Federal party, as 
 well as the monarchy-breeding birthdays, have passed into 
 limbo, with much other rubbish that then encumbered the 
 earth. 
 
 It is doubtful whether even so faction-ridden, narrow-minded 
 a body as the Fifth Congress could have been brought up to 
 the starting point in the race to muzzle the press and annihilate 
 the liberty of the person, if Alexander Hamilton had not com 
 bined with John Adams to subvert the Constitution by the 
 passage of the alien and sedition laws. Hamilton was too clear 
 headed a man not to perceive the dangers ahead; but he had 
 ulterior designs of his own to accomplish, and in spite of his 
 known dislike of Adams, he now joined hands with that furious 
 gentleman in the dance of death. Centralization of Govern 
 ment on an English model was his dream, and the alien and 
 sedition acts as means to an end, coarse and brutal means 
 which shocked Hamilton's keener sense of choice of weapons, 
 the scimetar, not the battle-axe being his preference, recon 
 ciled antipathies and forced the game. The headlong John 
 Adams sometimes startled the shrewd Alexander Hamilton, 
 but on went the dance, until locked arms the merry pair dis 
 appeared over the yawning precipice. " I have this moment 
 seen a bill brought into the Senate," said Hamilton in a letter 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 31 1 
 
 to Wolcott, June 29, 1798, " Entitled 'A bill to define more 
 particularly the crime of Treason, etc.' There are provisions 
 in this bill which, according to a cursory view, appear to me 
 highly exceptionable, and such as, more than anything else, 
 may endanger civil war." a 
 
 Hamilton knew the full meaning of that profound observa 
 tion of Madison, the father of the Constitution, " Perhaps it is 
 a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be 
 charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended, from 
 abroad." How true it was then when there was an astute 
 Hamilton to work up his countrymen over " danger, real or 
 pretended, from abroad;" and alas, how true it is at this very 
 day when our would-be Hamiltons are endeavoring to kindle 
 a like flame which imperceptibly may spread into a destruc 
 tive conflagration. A war with France was the royal road 
 to the realization of the Hamilton dream. Our war to-day 
 in Asia sheds a lurid light on the long cherished Monroe doc 
 trine, and the farewell address of Washington becomes in such 
 a presence a solecism and solemn mockery of words. How 
 subtly Hamilton played his hand the memoirs of the various 
 worthies of that day clearly reveal. Monroe was recalled from 
 France, and grossly traduced by Adams and Pickering. New 
 ministers or special envoys were despatched to Talleyrand and 
 the mad Directory. Pinckney, a Hamilton man, Marshall, a 
 Hamilton man, and Gerry, an Adams man, vice Dana another 
 Hamilton man, declined, were the trio of envoys sent out to 
 France to pick a quarrel, rather than compose strife and restore 
 harmony between the two countries. Hamilton strenuously 
 sought to prevent the selection of Elbridge Gerry, the only 
 
 o " Works of Hamilton," VI, 307. 
 
312 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 man of the three not under his influence, and was infinitely 
 disgusted at the obstinacy of John Adams, never more for 
 tunately for the welfare of the country brought into play, in 
 insisting upon Gerry's appointment, and drawing from the 
 flush hand of his adversary one of his three best trumps. 
 While Pinckney and Marshall were strong anti-Gallicans, 
 Gerry felt lingering regard for our ally and mainstay in the 
 war of Independence. 
 
 The French government temporized with the envoys, and 
 delayed their recognition. During this period of suspense, 
 Messieurs X, Y and Z, (Hottinguer, Bellamy and Hauteval,) 
 three enterprising swindlers whom Pinckney and Marshall 
 credited to Talleyrand, but whom Talleyrand indignantly re 
 pudiated, and demanded the names of the culprits as soon as 
 he heard of their operations, clandestinely opened secret nego 
 tiations with our envoys. This was a windfall to Hamilton. 
 No sooner were the envoys' despatches received, containing 
 particulars of the confidence game, before his hectoring partisan 
 in the State Department, Timothy Pickering, set foolish John 
 Adams into a towering rage, and laid a train of combustibles 
 before Congress, by sending the despatches to both Houses 
 with the most incendiary communication ever received by the 
 law making body from a cabinet officer in the whole history 
 of the United States. Hamilton at the back door had read 
 the X, Y, Z despatches as soon as Adams ; indeed it is probable 
 that he was often more the President than the man occupying 
 that office, as his sway over the Cabinet was greater, and 
 through those faithless men he knew everything and directed 
 many things that transpired in Executive circles. 
 
 The miserable impostors, W, X, Y and Z, whose farrago 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 313 
 
 adroitly worked up by Pickering, came within a hair's breadth 
 of precipitating a war between France and the United States, 
 first enjoined inviolable secrecy upon our envoys, next claimed 
 for their pseudo-diplomacy the approval of Talleyrand and sanc 
 tion of the Directory, as the best channel of approach, and then 
 proceeded to submit, among other things, the following de 
 mands, which the envoys told them they had no power to 
 grant: 
 
 ist. A loan by the United States to the Directory, as a con 
 dition precedent to the suspension of the, order to capture 
 American vessels; 
 
 2d. A bribe of fifty thousand pounds sterling for the French 
 Ministry and four of their corps.* 
 
 Pinckney and Marshall soon left Paris in disgust, and the 
 Anglo-American party were encouraged by this step which 
 the two envoys said they were almost compelled by the French 
 to take, to expect war as the outcome of such a breach of 
 hospitality. Hamilton was furious with Gerry for staying be 
 hind, and his faction opened the flood-gates of abuse upon that 
 virtuous man, as they had done before upon the upright James 
 Monroe. Had Gerry come back with the other envoys, war 
 indeed would have followed. But the French government was 
 not blind to the schemes of the English party, and Talleyrand 
 was quite a match at intrigue for Hamilton. Meantime Hamil 
 ton was in the ascendant at home. The publication of the X, 
 Y, Z despatches, and Pickering's firebrand, roused patriotic 
 Americans of both parties throughout the whole Union to a 
 pitch of warlike feeling against France, such as long years 
 afterwards swept over the North against the South, when 
 a " Life and Works of John Adams," VIII, 568. 
 
314 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 General Beauregard, upon the approach of the fleet secretly 
 despatched from New York by Mr. Seward, opened fire upon 
 Fort Sumter. A provisional army was voted by Congress, 
 and General Washington was appointed by the President, 
 Commander-in-Chief. In the interchange of views between 
 Mr. Adams and General Washington entire harmony prevailed, 
 until, as Adams stoutly maintained, and later publications of 
 their writings would appear to make probable, Hamilton's 
 ambition to become the practical head of the army as First 
 Major-General under Washington, and more especially as In 
 spector-General of the whole of the forces of the United States, 
 was brought to bear in a secret manner upon General Wash 
 ington, and made that venerable man a partisan of Hamilton. 
 Then Adams began to get restive. He himself had out- 
 Heroded Herod in vociferation for war, and for the passage 
 of the alien and sedition laws, and alarmed thoughtful men by 
 what Colonel Lyon truthfully described as his " continual grasp 
 for power," and " unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp." But 
 Hamilton as dictator sorely chafed the President. 
 
 Talleyrand, through one of his agents, Pichon, opened com 
 munications with William Vans Murray, American Minister 
 to the Hague, and Elbridge Gerry informed President Adams 
 that Talleyrand on behalf of the Directory had assured him of 
 their unqualified 'willingness to receive any ambassador sent 
 by the United States to France, with a view to a lasting peace 
 between the two nations. The X, Y, Z imposture, which had 
 thrown the United States into a war fever, in the light of these 
 overtures, began to lose its potency. General Washington, al 
 though a true friend of Hamilton, put private friendship 
 behind him whenever it interfered with patriotic duty. Joel 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 315 
 
 Barlow wrote Washington a frank and manly letter from Paris, 
 telling him in the most positive manner that France wanted 
 peace with this country. Although he had never received a 
 letter from Barlow before, and was inclined to regard him in an 
 unfriendly light, and although some friction had been created 
 between John Adams and himself in relation to Hamilton, 
 Washington immediately sent Barlow's letter to the President, 
 urged its most dispassionate consideration, and offered to reply 
 to it in any terms which President Adams might dictate. I 
 can recall few actions in Washington's whole life, in view of 
 all the circumstances, which reveal the reserved strength and 
 majesty of his patriotism more strikingly than his conduct at 
 this trying moment. The Hamilton faction had once swayed 
 him in the Edmund Randolph affair from that inflexible im 
 partiality which was habitual to him; in the present crisis 
 with France he had arrayed himself on the side of Hamilton 
 and against the President, but when the cause of his country 
 was put in the balance, all else became insignificant, and Wash 
 ington sheathed his sword, and advised Adams to make one 
 more stand for peace with France. 
 
 Hamilton often played too fine a game of petty politics for 
 a statesman of his calibre. A few weeks before the expiration 
 of the political year in New York, he wrote to John Jay, 
 Governor of that State, May 7, 1800, urging him to override 
 the popular will, as expressed at the ballot box, by a stretch 
 of arbitrary power which would disgrace a ward politician. 
 The people of New York had just elected a new Democratic 
 Legislature for the express purpose of choosing through that 
 agency presidential electors. Having submitted the choice to 
 the people and lost, Hamilton wanted Jay to reconvene the 
 
316 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 rejected Federalist Legislature to perform the duty of appoint 
 ing presidential electors which the people had taken away 
 from them, and given to others at the polls. But in the opinion 
 of Hamilton the defeat of Jefferson as President of the United 
 States would be more important than the laws of decency or 
 the voice of the people at the ballot box, and he advised the 
 Governor to take this despotic, or as he was pleased to call 
 it, " legal and constitutional step, to prevent an atheist in re 
 ligion, and a fanatic in politics, from getting possession of 
 the helm of state." a Governor Jay, as Hamilton knew, 
 was a very religious man, and a thorough Federalist in politics, 
 but unfortunately for the present purpose, he was also a high 
 toned, honorable man. The adroit appeal to him was fruitless. 
 "Atheist " and " fanatic " are words nowhere to be found in 
 the Constitution or the laws, and in no sense could they be 
 applied with justice to Mr. Jefferson. Von Hoist and Bryce, 
 and other foreign bookmakers, Henry Cabot Lodge and Theo 
 dore Roosevelt, and others of our own political pamphleteers, 
 have held up Alexander Hamilton to admiration as the exemplar 
 of most of the civic virtues, and easily first of American states 
 men; but the future historian will revise the words of these 
 eulogists, and draw the character of Hamilton in colors more 
 sober and subdued. What a contrast he presents to Governor 
 Jay in this proposal to stifle the voice of the people. The only 
 notice the Governor deigned to take of Mr. Hamilton's un 
 scrupulous request was the following lofty rebuke endorsed 
 upon his letter : " Proposing a measure for party purposes, 
 which I think it would not become me to adopt." 6 
 
 " Works of Alexander Hamilton," VI, 438. 
 
 & " Life of John Jay," by his Son William Jay, I, 414. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 317 
 
 President Adams, after pouring forth one tirade after an 
 other against France, and after having gone beyond Hamilton 
 in fastening the alien and sedition laws upon the country, at 
 last regained his senses, and opened his eyes to the fact that 
 Hamilton had been running his great office by aid of his 
 cabinet, while he himself had been playing Ajax defying the 
 lightning, locking up Matthew Lyon in jail, and driving 
 Frenchmen by the ship load back to Europe. After he heard 
 from Gerry, read the denials of Talleyrand, beheld the fine 
 Machiavellian hand of Hamilton coming between him and the 
 appointing power to the army, felt its coercive influence almost 
 to a rupture between himself and the father of his country, 
 the old Braintree hero waked up in earnest, and resolved to 
 be the pack-horse no longer of the cunning men who sur 
 rounded him. The climax was reached when Washington in 
 tervened to compel the appointment of Hamilton over Knox 
 and Pinckney. " There has been too much intrigue in this 
 business with General Washington and me/' exclaimed Mr. 
 Adams ; " if I shall ultimately be the dupe of it, I am much 
 mistaken in myself." 6 
 
 In a short time the explosion came. Without consulting a 
 single member of his cabinet, for he now distrusted them, with* 
 out a word of warning to any Federalist, the President nomi 
 nated William Vans Murray, Minister Plenipotentiary to 
 
 In a letter to James Lloyd, February 17, 1815, John Adams, re 
 ferring to Hamilton, wrote thus: "Washington had compelled me 
 to promote * * * the most restless, impatient, artful, indefatigable, 
 and unprincipled intriguer in the United States, if not in the world, 
 to be second in command under himself." " Life and Works of John 
 Adams," X, 124. 
 
 *Ibid, VIII, 588. 
 
MATTHEW LYON 
 
 France, and by a single stroke of his pen scattered into the 
 region kites the warlike schemes of Hamilton, the would-be 
 Oliver Cromwell, and of all the anti-Gallicans and Anglo- 
 Americans in the country. The nomination fell like a thunder 
 bolt upon the Senate. The Federalists induced the President 
 to add Patrick Henry and Oliver Ellsworth as joint envoys 
 with Murray. But Hamilton was down and out. Wonderful 
 man that he was, surpassed by no one of his day as a statesman 
 but by Jefferson, and equalled by no one since as a political 
 economist but by Calhoun, Alexander Hamilton was yet an 
 intriguing politician whose limitations were greatly increased 
 by inordinate ambition, and a despotic, and sometimes an un 
 scrupulous temper. Strange was the drift of events by which 
 he became the only Federalist in the United States who ad 
 vocated the choice of Jefferson as President, and that too in 
 the self-same year in which he had opposed his election on 
 the ground that he was " an atheist in religion and a fanatic 
 in politics." But it was the New York politician, bent on a 
 party triumph at any cost over his hated rival Aaron Burr, 
 who wrote that disreputable letter. He threw off the habits 
 of a trickster, and rose to the stature of a patriot a few months 
 later, when he advised the Federalist marplots in Congress 
 to save their party from annihilation, and themselves from dis 
 grace, by voting for Jefferson and against the Cataline Burr for 
 President. Not one of them had the sense to take Hamilton's 
 advice, although a Massachusetts Senator, Mr. Lodge, a few 
 years ago, ignoring the facts of history, made a futile attempt 
 to attribute Jefferson's election to the vote of James A. Bayard, 
 of Delaware, in blissful ignorance of the fact that Bayard did 
 not vote for Jefferson at all, but in the thirty-six ballots of 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 319 
 
 the House voted thirty-five times for Burr, and when the final 
 ballot was taken he put in a blank vote. a Not the least credit 
 for the defeat of Burr is due to a single Federalist in Congress, 
 except Lewis R. Morris who was absent when the last ballot 
 was taken; not the remotest to any Federalist in the United 
 States, with the solitary exception of Alexander Hamilton. 
 He deserves much honor for that great service, but the chief 
 credit belongs to Matthew Lyon, as F. S. Drake 6 and Charles 
 Lanman c have said truthfully, and as the ungarbled facts of 
 history abundantly establish. 
 
 When the alien and sedition bills were under discussion in 
 the House, the Federalists adopted their usual haughty tactics, 
 and with insolent demeanor answered the constitutional argu 
 ments of the Democrats against the measures by coughs, 
 laughter and personalities. On one occasion when the 
 minority tried to amend an obnoxious feature of one of the 
 bills, Harper, Bayard and Speaker Dayton, under the plea 
 of urgency, compelled the Democrats to give way by lung 
 power and brow beating, and demanded a viva voce vote. 
 Lyon took the floor in the face of a storm of invective from 
 the majority side, and demanded that every man be put on 
 record, that it might be known to all the world who were the 
 friends and who the enemies of the Constitution. As defeat 
 was certain, Gallatin, Macon and other Democrats asked Lyon 
 to withdraw his demand for the ayes and nays, but unawed 
 by the clamor of the Federalists, and unmoved by the request 
 of his less unyielding Democratic friends, Lyon was inflexible, 
 
 a Letter of James A. Bayard in " Niles's Register," November 16, 
 1822. 
 
 & " Dictionary of American Biography," p. 571. 
 c " Dictionary of Congress," p. 368. 
 
32O MATTHEW LYON 
 
 stood out against all short cuts to despotism, and like John 
 Hampden, when Charles the First sent to collect the ship 
 money tax, refused to pay tribute to arrogant power, Hampden 
 by a single farthing, Lyon by a single concession. He re 
 newed his demand for the ayes and nays, but on a call of the 
 House the Speaker ruled that one-fifth of the members not 
 having risen, the motion was lost. Inch by inch he fought 
 the Federalists, and I cannot help thinking that Lyon, rather 
 than Gallatin, in this great constitutional battle, was the real 
 leader of the minority. The meagre reports of the debates 
 at that day give no satisfactory insight to the true situation 
 in the House. There were but two or three reporters of the 
 proceedings, and all save one of them for a time were dropped 
 by the Federalists. In the days of the venerable Charles 
 Thompson, the old " perpetual secretary " of the Continental 
 Congress, the proceedings were better reported, and in our 
 own day, the shorthand art and enlarged facilities have still 
 more fully increased the accuracy of the Congressional reports ; 
 but in the days of the alien and sedition acts I have been aided 
 in only the smallest way by the Annals of Congress. The 
 newspapers, the letters of members of the House and Senate 
 to their constituents, against which John Adams complained 
 so bitterly, but which were the main channels of the friends 
 of liberty at that day to reach the people, and the memoirs 
 and works of the statesmen of the period since published, all 
 these, rather than the Annals of Congress, have furnished the 
 true relation and voice of history, by which I have been enabled 
 to write this part of Lyon's biography. 
 
 The feeling of exasperation which Lyon provoked against 
 himself in the minds of John Adams and his cabinet, and in 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 321 
 
 those of the leaders of the Senate and House, is a fair indica 
 tion of his prominent part in the struggle. When they could 
 not bring him to terms in debate, the Federalists would demand 
 the previous question, and some of Lyon's most persistent 
 strokes were made in protests against that gag law of debate. 
 He attacked the tyranny of the previous question with a vigor 
 equal to, but in terms not so learned and profound as those 
 employed on the same floor a few years afterwards by William 
 Gaston, one of the most eloquent men who has ever figured 
 in the Congress of the United States. We have a full report 
 of the great speech of Gaston against the tyranny and usurpa 
 tion of the previous question, January 19, 1816. Here is a 
 short passage from it which shows that he, like Lyon, was in 
 earnest in championing the cause of freedom of debate : " The 
 House/' said Judge Gaston, " may not allow debate on a 
 motion for adjournment, or a question whether language be 
 indecorous, but if it forbid the duly constituted agent from 
 performing his regular and proper functions, it is then unsurpa- 
 tion, not right; it is abuse of power, not regulation. The 
 privilege of the Representative to declare the will, to explain 
 the views, to make known the grievances and to advance the 
 interests of his constituents, was so precious, in the estimation 
 of the authors of our Constitution, that they have secured 
 to him an irresponsibility elsewhere, for whatever may be ut 
 tered by him in this House ; ' for any speech or debate in 
 either House, they (the Senators and Representatives) shall 
 not be questioned in any other place.' The liberty of speech 
 is fenced round with a bulwark, which renders it secure from 
 external injury here is its citadel its impregnable fortress. 
 Yet here, even here, it is to be strangled by the bowstring of 
 
322 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 the previous question. In vain may its enemies assail it from 
 without; but within, the mutes of despotism can murder it 
 with impunity." a 
 
 In spite of all opposition, of the calm closet reasoning of 
 Gallatin, the fiery eloquence of Giles, the sturdy fidelity of 
 Macon, the unanswerable arguments of Livingston, the Hamp- 
 den-like resistance of Lyon, the alien and sedition bills were 
 carried through Congress by the imperious majority, and 
 became the law of the land. John Adams was armed with 
 two weapons which Mr. Jefferson solemnly declared meant 
 monarchy, with a reigning dynasty of the Adams or Hamilton 
 family on the throne, or the restoration of George the Third, 
 as King. Thus wrote Jefferson to Stevens Thompson Mason : 
 
 " Monticello, October n, 1798. 
 
 "Dear Sir. The X, Y, Z fever has considerably abated 
 through the country, as I am informed, and the alien and sedi 
 tion laws are working hard. I fancy that some of the State 
 Legislatures will take strong ground on this occasion. For 
 my own part, I consider those laws as merely an experiment 
 on the American mind, to see how far it will bear an avowed 
 violation of the Constitution. If this goes down, we shall im 
 mediately see attempted another act of Congress, declaring 
 that the President shall continue in office during life, reserving 
 to another occasion the transfer of the succession to his heirs, 
 and the establishment of the Senate for life. At least, this may 
 be the aim of the Oliverians, while Monk and the Cavaliers 
 (who are perhaps the strongest) may be playing their game for 
 the restoration of his most gracious Majesty George the Third. 
 
 a Speech of Judge Gaston of North Carolina, on the Rules and 
 Orders of the House, " Annals I4th Congress," p. 702. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 323 
 
 That these things are in contemplation, I have no doubt; nor 
 can I be confident of their failure, after the dupery of which 
 our countrymen have shown themselves susceptible. Adieu. 
 
 " Yours affectionately, 
 
 " THOMAS JEFFERSON." 
 
 In an examination of the voluminous writings of John 
 Adams, I find passages of great bitterness against Matthew 
 Lyon. Even after his retirement to private life, Adams in 
 dulged in occasional outbursts against foreigners, never omit 
 ting Lyon from the objurgations. Here is an extract from a 
 letter of Mr. Adams to Christopher Gadsden of South Caro 
 lina: " Quincy, 16 April, 1801. Is there no pride in Ameri 
 can bosoms? Can their hearts endure that Callender, Duane, 
 Cooper and Lyon, should be the most influential men in the 
 country, all foreigners, and all degraded characters? 
 Foreigners must be received with caution, or they will destroy 
 all confidence in government." 6 
 
 To Benjamin Stoddert Mr. Adams wrote still more fiercely, 
 a few weeks after he left Washington: " Quincy, 31 March, 
 1801. If we had been blessed with common sense, we should 
 not have been overthrown by Philip Freneau, Duane, Callen 
 der, Cooper and Lyon, or their great patron and protector. 
 A group of foreign liars encouraged by a few ambitious native 
 gentlemen, have discomfited the education, the talents, the 
 virtues, and the property of the country. The reason is we 
 have no Americans in America." 
 
 Fifteen years later he still harps on the same string. " To 
 
 " Jefferson's Works/' IV, 258. 
 
 b " Life and Works of John Adams," IX, 584. 
 
 c lbid, IX, 584. 
 
324 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 James Lloyd. Quincy, 6 February, 1815. Mr. Randolph in 
 his letter to you says : ' The artillery of the press has long 
 been the instrument of our subjugation.' . . . And which 
 were the presses that formed the fortresses? And who were 
 the engineers that directed this artillery? Mr. Randolph's 
 own dear Cooper, Matthew Lyon, etc." 
 
 With Argus eyes the Federalists, after the passage of the 
 alien and sedition laws, were watching every movement and 
 utterance of Lyon, and John Adams yearned for an oppor 
 tunity to put him in a dungeon. Lyon, aware of their purposes, 
 became more circumspect, and took care to utter nothing which 
 would make him liable to arrest. He instinctively felt that he 
 was the man they were after, and determined to disappoint Mr. 
 Adams and his myrmidons. But his prudence was unavailing; 
 his hopes of fair treatment were all illusory. When John 
 Hampden refused to pay the few shillings assessed against 
 him as ship money, and went to law with the king to test its 
 constitutionality, Charles the First won a barren victory in the 
 Exchequer Chamber, by a vote of seven to five of the judges, 
 the smallest vote possible by which a victory could be won. 
 But by that victory Charles lost his throne and his head. Five 
 of the judges sustained Hampden and voted against the writ. 
 "Till this time," says Lord Clarendon in his celebrated historic 
 picture of Hampden, " he was rather of reputation in his own 
 county, than of public discourse or fame in the kingdom; but 
 then he grew the argument of all tongues, every man inquir 
 ing who and what he was, that durst at his own charge sup 
 port the liberty and prosperity of the kingdom. The judg 
 ment proved of more advantage and credit to the gentleman 
 
 "Ibid, X, 116. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 325 
 
 condemned than to the king's service." In the long Parlia 
 ment during a fierce debate, shortly before the king entered 
 the Parliament House to demand the surrender of the five re 
 fractory members with Hampden at their head, " we had 
 sheathed our swords in each other's bowels," says an eye 
 witness, " had not the sagacity and great calmness of Mr. 
 Hampden, by a short speech, prevented it." 6 Hampden was 
 put into a cell, but the English people set him free, and swept 
 away the tyrant who imprisoned him. Over forty years after 
 Matthew Lyon was imprisoned in Vergennes jail by John 
 Adams, and fined a thousand dollars under the odious sedition 
 law, the likeness between Lyon and Hampden as martyrs of 
 liberty was depicted by Waddy Thompson, of South Carolina, 
 in an eloquent speech in the House of Representatives at Wash 
 ington. It was delivered during a debate on the bill to refund 
 the fine Matthew Lyon had paid, with interest to his heirs, and 
 no doubt had much influence in securing the passage of the bill. 
 " How stands this matter? " said Mr. Thompson. " Why, 
 a man who ranked among the patriots of his country, who 
 was cast into prison under an odious law, one who de 
 served a monument, and had it in the heart of every true man, 
 and who stood up, one in ten thousand, against power and 
 corruption, yet this man was entitled to no thanks from those 
 who came after him. Here was a man who, like the illustrious 
 patriot of England, John Hampden, had stood up against 
 power in high places, for which he had suffered ignominy and 
 been thrust into the cell of a felon, and yet in these times 
 objection was made to remunerating his heirs, because the 
 
 Macaulay on Lord Nugent's " Memorials of Hampden." 
 & Ibid. 
 
MATTHEW LYON 
 
 man had been too poor to pay the fine himself. That country 
 must be base, indeed, which would sanction such a plea. That 
 country no longer deserved to be free which would deny jus 
 tice to a suffering patriot on such grounds. (Mr. Thompson 
 here produced a copy of the order of the President of the 
 United States, to the marshal of Vermont, requiring him to 
 keep Lyon in custody until the fine and costs were paid.) 
 Yes, said Mr. T. to keep him in jail until he rotted, unless 
 the money should be paid. (He also produced a copy of the 
 certificate from the marshal showing that the terms of the 
 sentence had been complied with, and that Matthew Lyon was 
 consequently discharged.) Now, after what he had read, would 
 any gentleman get up and defend the Government against this 
 claim? Here was the testimony of the Hon. Warren R. Davis 
 in his report, than whom a man with a purer heart and a better 
 head never lived, speaking of the money as having been paid, 
 and also the certificate of the marshal to show that the fine had 
 been exacted from this patriot, who dared to stand up for 
 those great rights which Milton praised as above all others man 
 could enjoy, namely, the right to speak, to write, or to publish. 
 But (said Mr. T.) if there was no other way of getting rid of 
 the money, I would burn it, rather than it should remain to 
 pollute the treasury any longer. The country ought to be 
 glad of any excuse of getting rid of money wrung from the 
 pockets of a patriot by such an odious law." a 
 
 The events which now transpired in the career of Matthew 
 Lyon strikingly confirm the appositeness of the .analogy to 
 Hampden so forcibly dwelt upon by Waddy Thompson. 
 During the summer of 1798, after the adjournment of Con- 
 
 <* " Congressional Globe," 26th Congress, 1840, p. 413. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 327 
 
 gress, Colonel Lyon returned to his home in Fair Haven, and 
 announced to his friends that he would be a candidate for re 
 election to the next Congress. As his enemies had grossly 
 misrepresented his views, and held him up to popular reproach 
 as a tool of France and enemy of the United States in the 
 pending controversy between the two countries, he prepared 
 a letter for publication in which he denned his real opinions 
 and attitude upon public questions. This letter he sent to 
 Dr. Williams, editor of the Rutland Herald, who refused on 
 any terms to admit it into his columns. Dr. Williams has 
 written a History of Vermont, but his conduct on this occasion, 
 in refusing a hearing to the other side argues rather un 
 favorably for the impartiality of his History. Colonel Lyon 
 was not the man to be reduced to silence in this summary way. 
 He forthwith announced a new semi-monthly publication, the 
 first issue of which appeared on the ist of October, 1798. By 
 the courtesy of the assistant librarian of Yale College, 
 Mr. F. B. Dexter, I have before me, as I write, the original 
 impression of this first issue. On the outside page appears 
 the aggressive name in the words following: 
 
 " The public are here presented with No. I, of Lyon's Re 
 publican Magazine, entitled The Scourge of Aristocracy and 
 Repository of Important Political Truths." The title of the 
 magazine is repeated on the first page inside, followed by the 
 words, " By James Lyon." This was the oldest son of the 
 Colonel, and although the son was editor, the father's contri 
 butions became the leading feature of the periodical. The 
 Scourge is printed on coarse paper, but the type is good and 
 new. The salutatory begins thus: 
 
 (< The public utility of such a publication in a free govern- 
 
328 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 ment, even in a time of tranquillity, is so universally acknowl 
 edged by Republicans, that there needs no argument to prove 
 it." It then proceeds to discuss the value of truth " at this 
 agitated and awful crisis, when everything is industriously cir 
 culated, which can corrupt or mislead the public sentiment, 
 and prepare the American mind for a state of abject slavery, 
 and degrading subjection to a set of assuming High Mighti 
 nesses in our own country, and a close connection with a cor 
 rupt, tottering monarchy in Europe, which has long been in 
 tolerable to every man whose breast contains the smallest 
 spark of the amor patriae. When every aristocratic hireling, 
 from the English Porcupine, the summit of falsehood, detrac 
 tion and calumny, in Philadelphia, down to the dirty Hedge 
 hogs and groveling animals of his race, in this and the neigh 
 boring States, are vomiting forth columns of lies, malignant 
 abuse and deception, The Scourge will be devoted to politics, 
 and shall commemorate the writings, essays and speeches of 
 the ablest pens and tongues, in the Republican interest. Its 
 great object shall be to oppose truth to falsehood, and to lay 
 before the public such facts as may tend to elucidate the real 
 situation of this country." 
 
 One or two short articles which appear in the first number 
 are here reproduced: 
 
 " From the Vergennes Gazette : The inhabitants of the 
 northern counties were prevented last week from availing 
 themselves of their Representatives' liberality, by misfortune 
 equally singular and extraordinary. As the driver of the stage 
 was industriously circulating the five hundred papers so gener 
 ously paid for by the patriotic member, at the Jacobin press, 
 the horses disdaining to prostitute their services, set off full 
 speed, and left the precious cargo in the mud; the driver es- 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 329 
 
 caped ' with limbs unbroken/ but dreading the consequences 
 in future, solemnly swore he would have nothing to do with 
 the papers, consequently they were left in a: worse plight (if 
 possible) than when they issued from the press." 
 
 Upon the foregoing the Scourge remarks: 
 
 " The above is a true specimen of the low, dirty, deceitful 
 manner which the supporters of the present administration 
 take to deceive the people. . . . The insinuation contained in 
 the paragraph I have here copied, I can assert, and produce the 
 proof, if necessary, is a downright lie, in toto and I think such 
 language is good enough for such villains." 
 
 The movements of Bonaparte are thus chronicled: 
 
 " The public are undoubtedly anxiously waiting the arrival 
 of something decisive respecting the future destination, and 
 real object of the immortal and unmatched hero, Buonaparte. 
 All that I can announce with certainty, respecting his move 
 ments since the sailing of the Toulon fleet, is his capture of 
 Malta, an island in the Mediterranean between Naples and 
 Africa, inconsiderable in territory, containing 150,000 inhabi 
 tants, extremely rich, being thought a safe retreat from French 
 intrusion, and of course resorted to by all monied emigrants 
 from France, Rome and the various emancipated aristocracies. 
 Detached from other objects, Malta would seem an inconsider 
 able conquest for the French to make at this day; but taking 
 into view the object, which from the latest accounts I presume 
 they have, it must be considered the most important acquisition 
 possible in Europe, and will become to them what Gibraltar 
 is to the English. The cutting through of the Isthmus of Suez, 
 in a direct line is, indeed, not possible; but a junction of the 
 Mediterranean Sea with the Arabian Gulph, in a certain sense, 
 is possible. This will ensure to France the sovereignty of 
 
330 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 Egypt and the trade of all the eastern world, and Malta will 
 become their stronghold and warehouse." 
 
 But the principal attraction of the first number of the 
 Scourge was Colonel Lyon's political letter which Dr. Williams 
 would not publish. The Colonel adopted the ingenious 
 method of Cicero laid down in his De Oratore, and presented 
 his views in colloquy. The Federalists were disappointed by 
 this very adroit letter, which did not contain one word even 
 constructively seditious. I here present it. 
 
 A letter from Col. Matthew Lyon, Member of Congress 
 form the Western District of Vermont, to his constituents : 
 
 " FELLOW CITIZENS : At a time when all tongues which have 
 been accustomed to move for hire, and two presses under the 
 influence of those wretched calumniators are incessantly em 
 ployed to abuse, vilify and falsely accuse me when any de 
 fence of mine will not be admitted in the Rutland paper and 
 when the communication between Windsor and this place is 
 so greatly impeded; I am induced to have recourse to this 
 method of a pamphlet publication, which I cannot but believe 
 will be excusable, under the existing circumstances. 
 
 " While virulence and villainy is carried to such a height, 
 as even to assert that I dare not, nor cannot defend myself; 
 a conversation which I had a few days since, with an honest 
 neighbor, on these subjects has occurred to me, as the plainest 
 and readiest method to communicate my ideas; I therefore 
 present you with a transcript of it, as near as I recollect. 
 
 " Neighbor. I am glad to see you, Colonel Lyon. The 
 newspapers are so full of one thing or another about you, that 
 I have been for some time past determined, as soon as I saw 
 you, to know what you had to say to these things. I see you 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 331 
 
 are charged with being opposed to our Government. What 
 have you to say to it? 
 
 " Lyon. It was my fortune to be called to take my seat 
 in Congress, at a time when the French, under pretence of 
 aggression on trie part of our Government, were making the 
 most unwarrantable aggressions on the commerce of this 
 country. I found many so exasperated as to be ready to go 
 directly into a war with France; and it appeared to me, that 
 nothing but the dread of a contrary opinion of the people of 
 the United States prevented, at that time, the awful plunge. 
 I had been accustomed to consider war the greatest national 
 evil; I have seen the dreadful sufferings and calamities attend 
 ant on one war; I very well knew, although that war was a 
 war of necessity, and had for its object, on our part, our very 
 existence as a nation, as well as the saving of the lives and 
 properties of those who had taken an active part in it, that 
 many were tired out with its troubles and perplexities to that 
 degree, that nothing but the seeming interposition of a kind 
 Providence could have brought it to a favorable issue on our 
 part. I could see no other object, or pretence of object, in 
 the war we were invited into, than merely the defence of our 
 commerce on the ocean. This I considered as impossible to 
 be done to the full satisfaction of the merchants, even at the 
 expense of the whole landed property of the country. Of con 
 quest, reparation, or profitable captures, there could be no 
 hope on our part. Submission to terms which had deprived 
 the shipping of America of the carrying trade of France, had 
 been adopted, and many other sacrifices had been made, rather 
 than involve this country in a war with England. My desire 
 for peace at that time, made me to acquiesce in those measures ; 
 
332 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 and I could devise no way to avoid a war, but by a sacrifice 
 of the future profits of that commerce which had become ex 
 posed to depredations. About one-half of the members of 
 the House of Representatives appeared to be of that opinion. 
 We were sensible of the injury individuals must suffer by 
 such a line of conduct, and were willing to have made them 
 some reparation. With this disposition we adjourned in July, 
 1797, with more hopes of a speedy conclusion of the war in 
 Europe, than from the proposed negotiation. Although many 
 changes had taken place in Europe, during the recess of Con 
 gress, yet the hoped for conclusion of their wars had not ar 
 rived, and the first despatches from our envoys informed us 
 of new regulations of the French Government, which would 
 be further injurious to our commerce, as well as of their cold 
 reception, long delay and dull prospects. These things af 
 fected the resentment of those who had determined, if possible, 
 to keep our country out of the war as much, perhaps, as of 
 those who gave vent to their rage by exclamations for war; 
 yet we could see no possible advantage to accrue to this 
 country by a war with a nation near 4,000 miles from us. We 
 felt strong in ourselves, and unconquerable in our internal 
 situation; but external and offensive war, we could not con 
 sider to be the occupation, the business, or the interest of 
 Americans, who have neither men nor money to spare, nor a 
 taste for conquest. We could not be willing to see our coun 
 try embark in an endless and useless contest concerning a 
 commerce in which but a small part of the community were 
 interested. We could not but be sensible that the cost of the 
 war must fall on the landed interest, without the most distant 
 prospect of retribution. We foresaw that many millions 
 would be sunk. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 333 
 
 " Neighbor. Have not the French given sufficient provo 
 cation to this country, to justify us in going to war with them? 
 
 " Lyon. According to notions that have been entertained 
 in Europe, among nations who have been in habits of war, 
 who make a trade of it, who live so thick that they are quar 
 reling, as it were, for a spot of ground to stand upon, and per 
 petually conquering and plundering one another, there is no 
 doubt but that the French have given us tenfold provocation 
 for a declaration of war against them; but a country situated 
 like this, secured as it were from them by an immense ocean, 
 with a country in our possession craving a population of at 
 least twenty or thirty fold, should never think of war as a 
 trade, nor wage it with any nation, farther than in case of an 
 invasion of their territory, to rise in mass, and drive out the 
 invaders, returning to their farms and their homes immediately. 
 
 " Neighbor. You seem not to regard the commerce of this 
 country; don't you know that the agricultural interest of this 
 country cannot flourish without commerce? 
 
 " Lyon. I regard the commerce of the country so much, 
 that I wish for markets for all its spare produce, and I am 
 willing it should be so managed, that Americans should be 
 our carriers, if they choose; but I am not so attached to that 
 commerce which, as it were, forces upon this country unneces- 
 saries, upon credit, and creates thousands of law suits and 
 bankruptcies, as to consent to involve my country in an ever 
 lasting war, for the mere name of defending it without tlie 
 power. I had much rather leave the carriage of the produce 
 of this country to foreigners; had that been the case, instead 
 of our arming, and the Europeans known it some months ago, 
 produce of this country would have borne a much better price. 
 
334 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 It is but very little interesting to the back country people 
 whether our produce is carried away by Americans or by 
 foreigners. We have room and employ for all our people, 
 if not one of them go to sea. The merchants, after they have 
 got their will with respect to a naval armament, and a law to 
 cut off the intercourse with France and its colonies; and after 
 our coast is clear of the privateers that infest it, are afraid to 
 send out their vessels; and after all our marine has cost, and 
 they have taken one small privateer schooner, produce has 
 fallen at least one-third since the last winter. Another con 
 sideration with regard to foreign commerce, you must know, 
 neighbor, is, that the people who make their own necessaries 
 in back countries are not interested in it equally with those on 
 and about the seashore and navigable rivers, were we able to 
 defend it. Every one who is not in favor of this mad war, 
 is branded with the epithet of Opposers of Government, Disor- 
 ganizers, Jacobins, &c. I do not understand what people can 
 mean by opposition to Government, applied to the Represen 
 tatives of the people, in that capacity. We have been accus 
 tomed to suppose that Representatives are sent to vote and 
 support by their arguments their own opinions, and that of 
 their constituents, and to act for the interest of their country. 
 It is quite a new kind of jargon to call a Representative of the 
 people an Opposer of the Government, because he does not, 
 as a Legislator, advocate and acquiesce in every proposition 
 that comes from the Executive. I have no particular interest 
 of my own, in crossing the views of the Executive. When a 
 proposition comes from that quarter,, which I think, if gained, 
 will be injurious to my constituents and the Constitution, I 
 am bound by oath, as well as by every consideration of duty, 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 335 
 
 to oppose it; if out-voted it is my duty to acquiesce; I do so; 
 but measures which I opposed from duty, as injurious and 
 ruinous to the liberty and interest of this country, in Congress, 
 you cannot expect me to advocate at home. You never heard 
 of my giving opposition to Government, by being concerned in 
 a mob, or by encouraging any kind of riot or insurrection, 
 except what comes in the lying Tory papers printed in New 
 York and Philadelphia, where they know nothing of my 
 character. 
 
 " Neighbor. I have known you thirty-four years, and have 
 never heard of a thing of the kind, unless your opposition to 
 the unjust claims of Britain and New York, were to be called 
 Opposition to the Government. Your enemies say, you have 
 joined the interest of the French, and wish to see this country 
 subjugated by them. What have you to say to that? 
 
 " Lyon. Slander of this kind, is authorized by the party 
 who advocate the war, from highest to lowest. The name 
 of Mr. Jefferson, the Vice-President of the United States, is 
 sometimes joined in the same line of an abusive British tory 
 newspaper with my own, both called traitors, and for the same 
 reason, our opposition to the war. Mr. Livingston, of New 
 York, Mr. Nicholas, of Virginia, Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Giles, 
 and indeed all the Republican members are used in the same 
 manner, and are noticed in those vile vehicles of slander in 
 proportion to their efforts to save their country from ruin. 
 The country printers are generally in a strife to shew their 
 attachment to what appears to be the ruling party in the 
 Government. They disseminate this kind of abuse against 
 the Republicans, in order to please the officers of Govern 
 ment at Philadelphia, from whom they expect employment 
 
MATTHEW LYON 
 
 to print the governmental matters, in proportion to their zeal 
 in their cause. The country printers are surrounded by law 
 yers and idlers, who wish to fish in troubled waters, and hope 
 for offices by means of wars and new taxes. You cannot but 
 observe the old tories and their off-spring have universally 
 joined in the acclamation for war, and the denunciation of 
 every Republican. This accounts for the abuse you see 
 against me and some others, in a certain paper printed some 
 where between a thousand and fifteen miles from this, which 
 is conducted by a person of that class, a man of great learn 
 ing, the same who some years ago took refuge in this State 
 from a prosecution for forgery. As for myself, I never suf 
 fered my wishes for the welfare of any other nation to occupy 
 my mind or by any means to interfere with my zeal for the 
 service of this country; as soon as I saw the French were 
 robbing our merchants, and destroying the commerce of this 
 country, I felt all that sympathy for the sufferers, and that in 
 dignation towards the plunderers that any honest man would 
 do on seeing a strong man and a stranger, abuse a weak one, 
 and his neighbor and friend. This aversion toward the French 
 has increased, as the French depredations and abuses of this 
 country make a war that would be an evil to them only, or 
 a means to prevent their further depredations, I should not 
 have hesitated one moment in giving my assent to it; but when 
 I could see but little injury that we could do them, and the 
 vast calamity it would cause to this country, I could not concur 
 in any measure which in my opinion led to it." 
 
 This very able and conservative letter was to have been con 
 tinued in the next number of the paper, but before that was 
 issued Colonel Lyon had become a prisoner of State in Ver- 
 gennes jail. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 337 
 
 No sooner had the " Scourge of Aristocracy " made its ap 
 pearance, before the Black Cockades of President Adams were 
 in motion against Colonel Lyon. There was nothing action 
 able in the above letter to his constituents, and a letter written 
 by him June 20, 1798, and mailed at Philadelphia long before 
 the enactment of the sedition law, was desperately seized 
 upon as affording the only pretext for his indictment. There is 
 scarcely a doubt that tke appearance of the " Scourge of 
 Aristocracy " was one of the impelling causes of his prosecu 
 tion. Word reached him to get out of the way until the excite 
 ment might blow over, but he refused, and stood his ground. 
 .When the process server came, he expressed his readiness to 
 go at once, and promised to be in court when wanted. So 
 general was the confidence in his character for integrity that 
 the marshal's deputy made no demur, and Colonel Lyon ap 
 peared in court on the following Saturday morning to plead to 
 the indictment. That distinguished law writer, Francis Whar- 
 ton, in his " State Trials of the United States," says : 
 
 " It was in the recess between the two sessions that the trial 
 took place. It was undoubtedly a bold step on the part of the 
 administration, for the alleged libels were written before the 
 passage of the law, though published afterwards. The defend 
 ant was an active member of the House of Representatives, 
 where the vote was so equally balanced as to make his with 
 drawal of national political consequence; and he was then a 
 candidate for re-election. A conviction under these circum 
 stances was calculated to inflame the country; nor was this 
 feeling allayed by the publication throughout the land of a 
 letter from Lyon himself to General Mason, then a Senator 
 from Virginia."* 
 
 " State Trials of the United States," by Francis Wharton, p. 339. 
 
MATTHEW LYON 
 
 He was convicted and imprisoned with every appliance of 
 cruelty and despotism at the command of the administration 
 brought into play against him. A wretched turnkey, instead 
 of taking his prisoner, as it was his duty to do, to the District 
 jail, carried him off forty miles to a loathsome pen at Ver- 
 gennes, where his victim was immured among the vilest 
 criminals. For a time this miscreant denied Colonel Lyon 
 the use of pen and ink. But the indignation excited among the 
 people compelled Fitch to relax that much of his cruelty, and 
 the prisoner was again permitted under harsh restrictions to 
 communicate with one or two of his friends. Presently Ver 
 mont was in a blaze of anger. The Green Mountain Boys, 
 whom Lyon had led in many a hard fought battle against 
 Yorkers in the Hampshire Grants era over a quarter of a cen 
 tury before, were up in arms. The surviving Minute Men who 
 had scaled the hill at Ticonderoga side by side with Matthew 
 Lyon under the lead of Ethan Allen in the first offensive fight 
 of the Revolution, were now ready to shoulder their rusty flint 
 locks once more. The adherents of Governor Chittenden, 
 veterans who had marched side by side with Lyon when he 
 followed Seth Warner into Canada, fought under Stark at Ben- 
 nington, and carried his gun among the victors of Saratoga, 
 rallied now as they did in the Revolution to the side of their 
 ancient comrade in arms. Here was one of the last survivors 
 of the Old Guard who had come with the Connecticut pioneers 
 out of the hive of Litchfield county, nursing mother of the 
 mountain republic, with Remember Baker, Thomas Chitten 
 den, Ethan and Ira Allen, Seth Warner and Jonathan Fassett, 
 to found Vermont and carry her through the great wars to 
 peace and independence, cast now into a felon's cell, because he 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 339 
 
 would not submit to tyranny, nor surrender the right won by 
 precious blood, and written and safeguarded in wax and parch 
 ment in the Constitution, the American right of free speech 
 and the freedom of the press. 
 
 And the people were resolved to efface the blot on the fair 
 fame of Vermont, tear down the jail, and set free their Repre 
 sentative. Nor was the indignation merely local, nor confined 
 to the State. All over the Union Matthew Lyon was regarded 
 as a political martyr, and as in England, when John Hampden, 
 for asserting the rights of the people, was cast into prison by 
 Charles the First, so now in the United States the persecution 
 of a member of Congress in the same despotic fashion by John 
 Adams for asserting similar rights, was everywhere regarded 
 as a stab to liberty, and the President, like the King, was made 
 to pay the penalty by the loss of his great office. As we had 
 no Oliver Cromwell, the headsman's axe was mercifully spared, 
 and the likeness in that respect, to the honor of America, re 
 mained imperfect. 
 
 Matthew Lyon's letters began now to come out of Ver- 
 gennes jail, and his brave spirit was unbroken, his cheerfulness 
 and admonitions to obey all laws, even bad ones, until they 
 should be repealed, were so impressive, and the vigor of his 
 pen was such, that even the administration became alarmed, 
 and efforts to buy him off, or to connive at his escape, in order 
 to shake his hold on the public, were resorted to by leading 
 Federalists. " He held the pen of a ready writer," says the 
 Vermont antiquarian, Rev. Pliny H. White, " clear, racy and 
 idiomatic. If occasion required, he could handle the weapons 
 of invective almost as murderously as Junius. His letters to 
 John Adams, to William Duane, and to Elias Curtis, are worth 
 
34O MATTHEW LYON 
 
 reading by all who wish to know the full powers of the English 
 language. His addresses to his constituents, at various times, 
 will also repay perusal. There are frequent sentences in them 
 which have the terseness and pungency of epigrams. He was 
 never lavish in the use of words, but gave his readers an idea 
 in every sentence." 
 
 Like Hampden in the long Parliament when he prevented 
 his partisans, as Macaulay relates, from sheathing their swords 
 in the bowels of the royalists, so too did Matthew Lyon pre 
 vent the Green Mountain Boys from tearing down the Ver- 
 gennes jail, and setting him free. He advanced to the window 
 of his cell and addressed the thousands who had assembled in 
 the words of wisdom and forbearance, advised obedience to all 
 laws, no matter whether good or bad, and in a loud voice, 
 which was heard by every one present, urged them to correct 
 abuses at the polls, and not to add to them by lawless violence. 
 
 The learned law writer, Francis Wharton, in his " State 
 Trials," dwells with evident admiration upon the prisoner's de 
 meanor at this trying moment. " Lyon's imprisonment," says 
 he, " was enforced with a rigor which excited the great mass of 
 his constitutents to such a pitch as to lead to a popular rising, 
 the avowed object of which was to tear down the prison. This, 
 however, he succeeded in suppressing, and in fact his whole 
 demeanor was marked with great prudence and tact. His 
 wife, with her sisters, the daughters of Governor Chittenden, 
 having one day visited him, the usual barrier to their entrance 
 was removed, and she was permitted to enter the cell. At 
 
 " Life and Services of Matthew Lyon," an address before the 
 Vermont Historical Society, in the presence of the General Assembly 
 of Vermont, by Pliny H. White, 1858. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 34! 
 
 this moment some less prudent friend intimated that now was 
 the period to escape. ' That he shall not do/ said the prisoner's 
 wife, ' if I stand sentinel myself/ The spirit, energy and de 
 votion shown by this eminent lady during her husband's im 
 prisonment, gave fresh vigor to his supporters, and courage to 
 himself. So awkward did his position become to the adminis 
 tration, that the Cabinet panted for an excuse to liberate him. 
 His determination to give up nothing on the one hand, coupled 
 with his constant and watchful exhortations to his supporters 
 to yield the most implicit obedience to the law, made the dif 
 ficulty peculiarly embarrassing. .Had he apologized on the 
 one hand, or stormed on the other; had he either petitioned for 
 a pardon, or connived at a rescue; he could easily have been 
 disposed of. But neither of these would he do. An attempt 
 to induce him to take the former step, backed, it was intimated, 
 by a high promise, failed. An attempt to involve him in the 
 latter, he himself frustrated." 
 
 Whatever trepidation and desire to extricate themselves 
 from a bad situation the cabinet, dominated by Hamilton, 
 may have experienced, it is quite certain that President Adams 
 never relented, and felt no qualms of conscience over the suffer 
 ings of Matthew Lyon. When a petition on behalf of Colonel 
 Lyon, signed by several thousand Vermonters, was sent to 
 him, he sternly asked whether the prisoner had signed it, and 
 learning that he had not, he treated Mr. Ogden, chairman of 
 the committee, a highly esteemed citizen of Vermont, with 
 great rudeness for bringing him such a paper. " I omitted to 
 mention," says Jefferson in a letter to Madison, January 3,1799* 
 *' that a petition has been presented to the President, signed by 
 
 o " Wharton's State Trials of the United States," p. 342. 
 
342 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 several thousand persons in Vermont, praying a remitment of 
 Lyon's fine. He asked the bearer of the petition if Lyon him 
 self had petitioned, and being answered in the negative, said, 
 ' penitence before pardon/ " 
 
 One of the first letters written by Colonel Lyon, after the 
 interdict on his writing anything had been removed, was the 
 celebrated letter to General Stevens Thompson Mason, the 
 distinguished Senator from Virginia. It was published exten 
 sively by the Democratic newspapers throughout the Union, 
 and intensified the indignation of the people against the ad 
 ministration. It became a powerful weapon in the hands of 
 the friends of the Republican or Democratic candidates, Jef 
 ferson and Burr, at the next Presidential election, and proved 
 a deadly blight to the prospects of the Federalist candidates, 
 Adams and Pinckney. The following is the letter: 
 
 " [To General Stevens Thompson Mason.] 
 
 " In jail at Vergennes (the only 
 city in Vermont, it contains 
 about sixty houses and seventy 
 families), October 14, 1798. 
 
 " DEAR GENERAL, 
 
 " I take the liberty to trouble you with the recital of what 
 has happened to me within about ten days pas*. 
 
 " On Thursday, the 5th of this month, I was informed that 
 a grand jury had been collected to attend the federal court 
 at Rutland, about fifteen miles from my place of residence; 
 that they were selected from the towns which were particu 
 larly distinguished by their enmity to me; that the jury was 
 "Jefferson's Works." IV. 262. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF. CONGRESS 343 
 
 composed of men who had been accustomed to speak ill of 
 me; that they had received a charge to look to the breaches of 
 the sedition law; and that they had some publications of mine 
 under consideration. The same night a friend called, and 
 assured me that a bill was found against me, and urged me 
 to be out of the way of being taken he declared to me, that it 
 was the wish of many of my friends. He informed me that 
 the petit jury were taken from the same towns where the grand 
 jury were; and that from every examination there were not more 
 than two out of the fourteen which were summoned, who had 
 not opposed me in the late election. He mentioned several 
 zealous partisans for Presidential infallibility among them, and 
 one who had been lately writing the most virulent things 
 against me, in his own name, which were published in a news 
 paper. My answer to all this was, it could not be honourable 
 to run away I felt conscious that I had done no wrong, and 
 my enemies should never have it to say that I ran from them. 
 An officer of the court had been in my neighborhood the same 
 evening to summon witnesses. I had told him, if the court 
 wanted me, he need bring no posse, he might come alone, I 
 would go with him, there should be no resistance. Accord 
 ingly on Friday evening, the same officer, a deputy marshal, 
 came with a warrant for my apprehension, which he gave me 
 to read, and accepted of my word and honour as bail to meet 
 him at Rutland court-house the next morning about nine 
 o'clock. I was there accordingly; and soon after the court was 
 opened I was called to the bat to hear the indictment read. It 
 consisted of three counts; the first for having maliciously, &c., 
 with intent, &c., written, at Philadelphia, a letter dated the 
 2Oth of June, and published the same at Windsor, in the news- 
 
344 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 paper called the Vermont Journal, containing the words follow 
 ing: 
 
 " 'As to the Executive, when I shall see the efforts of that 
 power bent on the promotion of the comfort, the happiness, 
 and accommodation of the people, that Executive shall have 
 my zealous and uniform support; but whenever I shall, on the 
 part of the Executive, see every consideration of the public 
 welfare swallowed up in a continual grasp for power, in an 
 unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, and 
 selfish avarice; when I shall behold men of real merit daily 
 turned out of office, for no other cause but independency of 
 sentiment; when I shall see men of firmness, merit, years, abili 
 ties, and experience, discarded in their applications for office, 
 for fear they possess that independence, and men of meanness 
 preferred for the ease with which they take up and advocate 
 opinions, the consequence of which they know but little of 
 when I shall see the sacred name of religion employed as a 
 state engine to make mankind hate and persecute one another, 
 I shall not be their humble advocate/ 
 
 " The second count consisted of having maliciously, &c., 
 and with intent, &c., published a letter, said to be a letter from 
 a diplomatic character in France, containing two paragraphs, 
 in the words following: 
 
 " ' The misunderstanding between the .two governments 
 (France and the United States) has become extremely alarm 
 ing; confidence is completely destroyed, mistrusts, jealousy, 
 and a disposition to a wrong attribution of motives, are so 
 apparent, as to require the utmost caution in every word and 
 action that are to come from your Executive. I mean, if your 
 object is to avoid hostilities. Had this truth been understood 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 345 
 
 with you before the recall of Monroe, before the coming and 
 second coming of Pinckney; had it guided the pens that wrote 
 the bullying speech of your President, and stupid answer of 
 your Senate, at the opening of Congress in November last, 
 I should have probably had no occasion to address you this 
 letter. 
 
 " ' But when we found him borrowing the language of Ed 
 mund Burke, and telling the world that although he should 
 succeed in treating with the French, there was no dependence 
 to be placed on any of their engagements, that their religion 
 and morality were at an end, that they would turn pirates and 
 plunderers, and it would be necessary to be perpetually armed 
 against them, though you were at peace; we wondered that 
 the answer of both Houses had not been an order to send 
 him to a mad house. Instead of this the Senate have echoed 
 the speech with more servility than ever George III experi 
 enced from either House of Parliament.' 
 
 " The third count was for aiding and abetting, &c. in pub 
 lishing the same. I was called upon to know if I was ready 
 to plead to the indictment. I answered, that I was always 
 ready to say I was not guilty of the charges in the indictment, 
 but that I was not provided with counsel, there being no person 
 at Rutland I was willing to trust with my cause; I had sent to 
 Bennington for two gentlemen on whom I could rely, Messrs. 
 Fay and Robinson, who would be here by Monday. It was 
 then signified to me, that I might have the trial postponed 
 until the session of the court in May next. This I could not 
 wish for, as that session was to be at Windsor, over the moun 
 tain,, where they were sure of having a unanimous jury, such 
 as they wanted. 
 
346 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 " In the fourteen jurymen before me I thought I saw one 
 or two persons who knew me, and would never consent to say 
 that I was guilty of an intention of stirring up sedition; I was 
 unwilling to remain under a censure of the kind; for these 
 reasons I chose to come to trial; I accordingly gave bonds 
 for my appearance the next Monday. Saturday and Sunday 
 were violent stormy days, and at the opening of the court on 
 Monday I had heard nothing of my counsel, nor my mes 
 senger; I so informed the court, and told them I thought we 
 should hear from them in an hour, for which time the court 
 adjourned. Within that time my messenger returned, with 
 news that Mr. Fay's wife was very sick, and Mr. Robinson, 
 who is a member of the Legislature, was preparing to attend, 
 and could not be at Rutland so soon as that time. Mr. Smith, 
 who is our Chief Justice, was present, although he and I had 
 been formerly competitors for the representation of this dis 
 trict in Congress; he is a republican, and many of my friends 
 are now his friends; they applied to him to assist me, and I 
 understood he had consented. Thus circumstanced, I pro 
 ceeded to trial. So ignorant was I of. law proceedings, that 
 I expected to object off the inveterate part of the jury, with 
 out giving particular reasons, or supporting them by evidence ; 
 I was, therefore, unprepared. The Attorney for the United 
 States was called on to say if he had any objections to the 
 jury. He said he had to a Mr. Board; he believed he had given 
 an opinion in the cause; to prove which, he called upon a 
 deputy sheriff, who swore he had some conversation on the 
 Saturday before with Mr. Board, in which he understood Mr. 
 Board to speak as if he thought that Mr. Lyon would not 
 be condemned, or some such thing; Judge Paterson inquired 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 347 
 
 if there was not enough for the panel without him, Mr. Board. 
 He was answered, there were thirteen more. Mr. Board was 
 ordered off. Thus was the only man sworn away that knew 
 me enough to judge of my intentions. No one doubts that 
 the deputy sheriff began a discourse with Mr. Board on pur 
 pose to have something to swear. Mr. Board said, he ex 
 pected that was the case when he came to him, and he care 
 fully avoided conversing with him. I objected to two of the 
 jury on account of their violent opposition to me; and although 
 unprepared with regard to truth, I called on some persons 
 present to see if they could recollect any virulence made use 
 of by those two; and I sent for the newspaper to prove the 
 abuse of the one who had published ; the Judge observed, that 
 a difference in political opinion could be reason against a jury 
 man, and as there were twelve beside, he ordered the person 
 who had been libelling me, off. Here I pleaded to the jurisdic 
 tion of the court, on account of the unconstituionality of the 
 law. My plea was overruled, but I was told I might make 
 use of the arguments in any other stage of the trial. 
 
 " The attorney, on the part of the United States on the first 
 count, produced my original letter, on which was the Phila 
 delphia postmark, July 7. He attempted to bring some evi 
 dence to show that the letter did not arrive at Windsor until 
 after the I4th of July; the printer's boy thought it did not 
 arrive until the 2oth, and Mr. Buck saw the setting from it 
 about the 23rd, or later; I acknowledged the letter. As to the 
 second count several evidences were brought to swear they 
 heard me read the letter, said to be the Letter from a diplomatic 
 character in France, from a manuscript copy, supposed to be 
 in my own handwriting; they were inquired of whether the 
 
MATTHEW LYON 
 
 reading of the letter caused any tumult. One of the evidences, 
 a young lawyer, and another person an associate of his, said 
 that they thought it did at Middletown. One of them said 
 he heard a person say, there must be a revolution, and they 
 both agreed that there was a noise and some tumult after the 
 reading of that letter and some other papers. On my. inquir 
 ing of them the cause of the tumult, and their opinion, if there 
 would have been any tumult there, if they had not followed me 
 on purpose to make a disturbance? they acknowledged, they 
 thought if they had not been there, there would have been no 
 disturbance; and they also agreed, that the tumult was caused 
 by the other people's disliking their being there, and their con 
 duct then; they agreed also that I refused to give an opinion 
 upon the letter. 
 
 "In proof of the third count, the Attorney produced evi 
 dence to show that the printed pamphlet, entitled a Copy of 
 a letter from a Diplomatic character in France, was taken 
 from a manuscript in my hand, and the printer said he received 
 the copy from my wife. The evidence all agreed that I had 
 ever been opposed to the printing of the letter, and gave for 
 reason, that I had promised the gentleman to whom the origi 
 nal had been written, that I would not suffer it to be printed. 
 
 The young lawyer said that I told him, there were not above 
 one or two passages in the letter which could be called sedi 
 tious. 
 
 " The attorney proceeded to sum up the evidence, and dwelt 
 on everything which he thought proper to point out the ap 
 pearance of evil intentions. As soon as he had seated him 
 self, or before Judge Paterson rose and was proceeding to 
 give his charge to the jury, I interrupted him with an inquiry 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 349 
 
 into the cause why I should not be heard; he politely sat down 
 and directed me to proceed. My defence consisted of an ap 
 peal to the jury, on the unconstitutionality of the law, the inno 
 cence of the passage in my letter, and the innocence of the 
 manner in which I read the letter. It was said I spoke two 
 hours and upwards. Mr. Smith declined speaking, as he was 
 unprepared. The attorney replied as decently as any man of 
 his profession and principles would. The charge from the 
 judge was studiedly and pointedly severe. After telling the 
 jury, if they leaned any way, it ought to be in favour of the 
 defendant, he proceeded to dwell on the intention and wicked 
 ness of it, in the most elaborate manner; he descended to in 
 sinuate that the Barlow letter, as it was called, was a forgery; 
 he said, let men of letters read that letter and compare it with 
 Barlow's writings, and they would pronounce it none of his. 
 He told the jury that my defence was merely an appeal to their 
 feelings, calculated to excite their pity; but mercy, he said, did 
 not belong to them, that was lodged in another place; they 
 were to follow the law, which he explained in his own way, 
 and supported the constitutionality of it. The jury retired 
 about eight o'clock in the evening, and in about an hour they 
 returned with a verdict, Guilty! The Judge observed to me, 
 that I had then an opportunity to show cause why judgment 
 should not be pronounced against me, and to show what was 
 my ability or inability to pay a fine, as a man of large prop 
 erty, in such a case, ought to be obliged to pay a greater 
 fine than one of smaller property. I replied, I did not ex 
 pect anything that I should say would have any influence on 
 the court, in the present stage of the business. The judge said 
 I might think of it until morning, and the court adjourned 
 
35O MATTHEW LYON 
 
 until nine o'clock next morning; I then attended, and after 
 being called upon, I observed to the court in reply to what 
 had been said to me upon the score of property, that a few 
 days ago I owned a property, which I estimated, some years 
 since, at twenty thousand dollars; in the present state of the 
 affairs of our country, I did not expect it would fetch half 
 that sum. I had lately made over all the productive part of 
 it, to secure some persons who were bound to me for debts, 
 to the amount of sixteen or seventeen hundred dollars; there 
 still remained enough to be worth much more than the court 
 -were empowered to fix the fine at; but in the present scarcity 
 of cash, and the prospect of lands soon to be sold very cheap, 
 I did not know that I could possibly raise two hundred dollars 
 in cash upon it. 
 
 " The judge, after an exordium on the nature of the offence, 
 the malignity of it in me, particularly being a member of 
 Congress, and the lenity of the Sedition Bill, which did not 
 allow the judges to carry the punishment so far as common 
 law did, pronounced sentence that I be imprisoned four calen 
 dar months., pay a fine of one thousand dollars, and stand com 
 mitted until the judgment should be complied with. This 
 sentence was unexpected to all my friends as well as myself; 
 no one expected imprisonment. 
 
 " The marshal is a man who acted as clerk to some persons 
 whom I had occasion to transact some business with about a 
 dozen years since, when he first came into this country, in 
 which he behaved so that I have ever since most heartily 
 despised him ; this he has no doubt seen and felt. The moment 
 sentence was pronounced, he called me to him and ordered 
 me to sit down on a certain seat in the court house; he called 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 351 
 
 two persons to give me in charge to, one of them the person 
 who followed me to Middletown to insult me, and was on 
 the trial improved as an evidence. I asked if they would go with 
 me to my lodgings a few minutes, so that I might take care 
 of my papers? I was answered in a surly manner, No; and 
 commanded to sit down. I stood up. After the court ad 
 journed, I inquired what was to be done with me until my 
 commitment. I expected I should be confined in the prison 
 in Rutland, the county where I lived; I was told that the 
 marshal was authorized to imprison me in what jail in the 
 State he pleased, and that I must go to Vergennes, about forty- 
 four miles north of Rutland, and about the same distance from 
 my seat at Fair Haven. I inquired what were the accommoda 
 tions there? and was answered in a manner peculiar to the 
 marshal himself, that they were very good. I told the marshal, 
 since it had become my duty to go there, he needed no assis 
 tance, I would go with him. He said he would not trust to 
 that, and prepared two troopers, with their pistols to guard 
 me. He ordered me to ride just before them; in this manner 
 'I left Rutland. After riding a few miles he overtook us and 
 rode by us; he rode pretty fast and whispered to one of the 
 young men; I learned his intention was, to get to Middlebury, 
 the shire town of Addison county, in order to throw me into 
 a dirty dungeon-like room for that night. I did not mend my 
 pace; he came back and scolded; insulted and threatened; he 
 repeated it. His friends, I was told, expostulated with him, 
 and the humane young men, who were employed as guards, 
 told him they would rather watch me all night than that I 
 should be thrown into the jail ; we lived at a tavern about four 
 miles short of Middlebury jail; the young men watched: the 
 
352 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 next day we arrived at this place ; there are two roads to come 
 into it, one comes up straight to the jail-house, by but two 
 or three houses; the other is circuitous, taking almost the 
 whole length of the little city in its course. I was foremost 
 and inclined to take the nearest road, but the gentleman, by. 
 that route, would lose a share of his triumph; he ordered us 
 in a peremptory tone into the circuitous road through the city. 
 On the way from Rutland, he undertook to direct me, and 
 stop me as to speaking, and told me I should not have the 
 use of pen, ink and paper. On Wednesday evening last I was 
 locked up in this room, where I now am ; it is about sixteen 
 feet long by twelve wide, with a necessary in one corner, which 
 affords a stench about equal to the Philadelphia docks in the 
 month of August. This cell is the common receptacle for 
 horse-thieves, money-makers, runaway-negroes, or any kind 
 of felons. There is a half-moon hole through the door, suffi 
 cient to receive a plate through, and for my friends to look 
 through and speak to me. There is a window place on the 
 opposite side, about twenty inches by sixteen, crossed by nine 
 square iron bars; all the light I have is through this aperture; 
 no fire-place in the cell, nor is there anything but the iron 
 bars to keep the cold out; consequently I have to walk smartly 
 with my great coat on, to keep comfortably warm some morn 
 ings. 
 
 " On Thursday morning last, I asked a friend for his pen 
 and ink, in presence of the jailer. It was offered me; but the 
 jailer said, it was against his orders, I must not have it. The 
 marshal paid me a visit on Thursday evening, he examined the 
 cell, looked on my little table to see what was there : but found 
 nothing but Volney's Ruins, the late laws, some of the Presi- 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 353 
 
 dent's messages, and a list of the petit jury. I inquired of him 
 before, or then, what situation I was to consider myself in with 
 regard to the use of pen and ink? His answer was, I might 
 use them; but he must see everything I sent out of the jail, 
 if I concluded otherwise, (looking at a chain that lay on the 
 floor,) he said he would put me in a situation in which I could 
 not write. I asked him what he meant by that? He told me I 
 was at his disposal, and if I did not behave like a prisoner, he 
 would send me to Woodstock jail. I told him there would 
 be one advantage in that, he would not be there always, and 
 I should get rid of the sight of him. On Friday, for the first 
 time, two brothers-in-law were admitted to come in to see me. 
 Some of my friends expostulated with the marshal on the sub 
 ject of denying me pen and ink; and in the evening I observed 
 a man hammering on the prison door. You seem much con 
 cerned about that door (said I) ; there has scarce been an hour 
 since I came here, but there has been some person hammering 
 at the door, or putting on new bolts or bars. It is all useless, 
 said I; if I wished to come out, they could not hold me; and 
 as I do not, if my limits were marked by a single thread, I 
 would not overstep it. He replied, he was only nailing up an 
 advertisement. Next morning, when the house was very still, 
 I heard some person step up and read the advertisement on 
 the door; it contained a preamble concerning my having com 
 plained that I was debarred the use of pen and ink and paper, 
 and a declaration that I had leave to furnish myself with those 
 things, and use- them as I thought proper, signed by the 
 marshal. As soon as I could get my eye on a person that 
 would go and fetch General Clark, my friend and brother-in- 
 law, who is a member of the legislature now sitting here, I sent 
 
354 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 one. He came. I desired him to read the advertisement, and 
 tell me what I should do concerning Fitch, the marshal. He 
 said he would go and see Fitch, and see how he explained the 
 business; he went to Fitch's house, but could not find him; 
 some other business occupied him the rest of the day. T next 
 morning sent for a number of friends, who got admittance, 
 and after some conversation on the subject before the jailer, 
 and getting his explanation of the advertisement, that he con 
 sidered me now allowed to write, without submitting my pro 
 ductions to the marshal, I was solemnly invested with pen and 
 ink. The first use I have made of it, after a line to my wife, 
 is to write you this long, prolix account of the fruits of this 
 beloved Sedition bill. You may remember that I told you, 
 when it was passing, that it was doubtless intended for the 
 members of Congress, and very likely would be brought to 
 bear on me the very first; so it has happened, and perhaps I, 
 who have been a football for dame fortune all my life, am 
 best able to bear it. I have long disobeyed your injunction 
 to write to you, waiting to be able -to give you an account of 
 the elections. 
 
 " The noise that has been made about the public and private 
 negotiations of our envoys at Paris, has answered the pur 
 poses of the aristocrats completely, (on the other side of the 
 mountain, I mean, Morris's district,) to exasperate the unthink 
 ing people against every republican. Governor Robinson had 
 more than half of the votes on this side of the mountain; but 
 Tichenor has got a great majority; in the whole he had 6,211; 
 Robinson, 2,805, beside, I am told, there were about five 
 hundred for him, which were lost by inaccurate returns; there 
 were also 332 scattering votes. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 
 
 355 
 
 " MONDAY, October 15. 
 
 " I have just learned that Morris is re-elected, and I have 
 received the list of the votes for Representatives to Congress 
 in this district; they stand for your friend, 
 
 " Lyon 
 " Williams, 
 " Chipman, 
 
 " Spencer, 
 
 " Israel Smith, 
 
 3482. 
 1,554, 
 
 285, 
 
 274, 
 
 30 
 
 6,995 
 3,482 
 
 an aristocratic candidate. 
 
 an aristocratic candidate, brother to 
 your little horse-nail maker. 
 
 and several other aristocrats. 
 
 and several other republicans. 
 
 given in for Governor, and the Rep 
 resentatives of the several towns in 
 Assembly, by one accident or an 
 other, put into the box for Repre 
 sentatives to Congress. 
 
 " I remain, with unabated affection, 
 
 " Your obedient servant, 
 
 " M. LYON." 
 
 For many years the official record of the case of Matthew 
 Lyon was suppressed, and not even the victim himself could 
 procure a copy of it. Mr. Wharton sought for it diligently, 
 but in vain, when writing his elaborate work, " The State Trials 
 of the United States." The Adams party was ashamed of it, 
 and tried to bury it from view. " The materials of this case," 
 says Mr. Wharton, " which with the greatest difficulty, I have 
 collected, are drawn chiefly from the New York ' Spectator ' 
 
35^ MATTHEW LYON 
 
 of October 24, 1798, a paper then said to be under Mr. Hamil 
 ton's control, and of course decidely Federal, and from the 
 'Aurora' of November 15, 1798, whose politics were equally 
 decided the other way. I have made very general inquiries 
 for fuller details, but the Vergennes paper of that day goes no 
 further than those just cited, and I understand that a fuller 
 report is not now to be obtained." 
 
 Lyon complained of injustice and hard treatment on the part 
 of Judge Paterson. His charge to the jury as given by Whar- 
 ton, and his imputation of forgery of the Barlow letter, sus 
 tain the complaint of Lyon, and with the ruffianly conduct of 
 marshal Fitch to the prisoner, which a decent judge would not 
 have tolerated, all go to prove that Paterson was a fit tool of 
 tyranny, if not as murderously inclined as a Norbury, still be 
 longing to the same detestable family of judicial sleuths. 
 
 After a long, and as I feared fruitless search, like Mr. Whar- 
 ton's, for the official record of this celebrated trial, I at last dug 
 it out of a forgotten Congressional report. Those ponderous 
 tomes John Randolph once likened to mausoleums of the 
 dead, "Why publish them?" quoth the Knight of Roanoke. 
 " Nobody reads them ; nobody is expected to read them." 
 And Longfellow wittily corroborates Randolph: "Thanks," 
 wrote the poet to Charles Sumner, " for your letter of four 
 lines, one of which I could not read! Thanks for the four 
 volumes of ' The Globe,' none of which I shall read! " 
 
 But these old reports and public documents are of value 
 to the historian, and from the pages of this one, I am enabled 
 to rescue from oblivion the official record, evidently softened, 
 and pruned of many of its harsh features, of the trial of Mat- 
 
 " State Trials of the United States," p. 331. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 357 
 
 thew Lyon. The counts and specifications and cumbrous, 
 common law tautology of the indictment will be dreary enough 
 to the average lay reader, but lawyers and judges may be in 
 terested in a case which is the most serious blot on their pro 
 fession in the annals of the American judiciary. For forty 
 years the case of Matthew Lyon continually recurred in the 
 proceedings and debates of the United States Senate and 
 House of Representatives, for a reparation of the crime against 
 the Constitution in the only possible way, by refunding to the 
 victim or his heirs the fine and costs, with interest in full on 
 the money, iniquitously wrung from his pocket. Year after 
 year justice was thwarted, and the ill-gotten money remained 
 in the treasury. But year after year the American conscience 
 revolted and came back to the case, and many of the foremost 
 of our statesmen made that national wrong against a patriotic 
 citizen the text of eloquent arguments for restitution. The 
 memory and name of John Adams were darkened by those 
 denunciations of the alien and sedition laws, and in truth 
 until that money was taken out of the treasury in i84o and 
 paid to the heirs of Matthew Lyon, then long since gone to 
 his reward, the character of John Adams, in many respects 
 one of the noblest in the history of the Republic, remained 
 unvindicated from an act of oppression which had proved the 
 Iliad of all his woes. 
 
 " CASE OF MATTHEW LYON. 
 
 Mr. McLean, of Kentucky, from the committee appointed on 
 the memorial of Matthew Lyon, made a report thereon, accom 
 panied with a bill for his relief; which, by leave of the House, 
 was presented, read the first and second time, and committed 
 
358 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 to a Committee of the Whole to-morrow. The report is as 
 follows : 
 
 The petitioner states that, in violation of that provision of 
 the Constitution of the United States of America which says 
 " Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech 
 or of the press," Congress in July, 1798, passed the act com 
 monly called the sedition law; that, some time previous to the 
 passage of this bill, there appeared in the Philadelphia Fed 
 eral papers a violent attack upon his character extracted from 
 the Vermont Journal, charging him with many political enor 
 mities, particularly with the high crime of opposing the Execu 
 tive; that he wrote a reply to this charge in Philadelphia, on 
 the 2oth of June, 1798, and on the same day put the letter, 
 directed to the editor of the said Vermont Journal, into the 
 post office at Philadelphia, twenty four days before the pas 
 sage of the sedition law. For the publication of this letter 
 he was indicted in October following, in the circuit court of 
 the United States in the Vermont district. In the same indict 
 ment, he was charged with publishing a copy of a letter from 
 an American diplomatic character in France to a member of 
 Congress in Philadelphia; also for aiding, assisting, and abet 
 ting in the publication of said letter. 
 
 He states said letter was written by Joel Barlow to Abraham 
 Baldwin then a member of Congress: He denies that he 
 printed said letter, or aided or abetted in the printing of it; 
 but, on the contrary, that he used his endeavors to suppress 
 it, by destroying the copies which came into his possession. 
 He states that, owing to the political party zeal which pre 
 vailed in the United States at that time, much unfairness was 
 used in the trial, both by the marshal in summoning the jury, 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 359 
 
 and the judge who presided, in his instructions to them, and 
 thereby a verdict of guilty was returned against him by the 
 jury; and upon that verdict the court sentenced him to pay 
 a fine of $1,000, the costs of suit, be imprisoned four calen 
 dar months, and until the fine and costs were paid. He 
 states that, by virtue of said judgment, he was arrested and con 
 fined in a dungeon, the common receptacle of thieves and mur 
 derers, fifty miles distant from the place of his trial, although 
 there was a decent roomy jail in the county in which he lived, 
 and in the town where the trial was had, which jail the Fed 
 eral Government had the use of; that much severity was ex 
 ercised towards him during his imprisonment; that he lan 
 guished in the loathsome prison more than six weeks in the 
 months of October, November, and December, in the cold 
 climate of Vermont, without fire, before he was allowed, at 
 his own expense, to introduce a small stove, or to put glass 
 into the aperture which let in a small glimmer of light through 
 the iron grate. 
 
 He states that he is poor, and asks Congress to refund to 
 him $1,000, the fine which he has paid, the costs of suit, for 
 one hundred and twenty-three days' pay as a member of Con 
 gress, while he was unconstitutionally detained from a seat 
 in that body, reasonable damages for being suddenly deprived 
 of his liberty, put to great expense, and disabled from paying 
 that attention to his concerns, which, in other circumstances, 
 he would have been allowed to do, and such interest on those 
 sums as public creditors are entitled to. 
 
 Your committee state that the prosecution against the said 
 petitioner, the judgment, imprisonment, and payment of 
 $1,000, the fine, and $60.96, the costs of suit, are proved by a 
 
360 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 copy of the record of proceedings in said cause, which is made 
 a part of this report. The committee are of opinion that the 
 law of Congress under which the said Matthew Lyon was 
 prosecuted and punished was unconstitutional, and therefore 
 he ought to have the money which has been paid by him re 
 funded; but, should they be mistaken as to the unconstitu 
 tionally of this law, yet they think there are peculiar circum 
 stances of hardship attending this case which call for relief. 
 Your committee, therefore, ask leave to report a bill. 
 OFFICIAL RECORD OF THE CASE CERTIFIED. 
 
 The President of the United States to all who shall see these 
 presents, greeting: 
 
 Know ye, that among the pleas of our circuit court of sec 
 ond circuit of the United States, in the Vermont district, there 
 is a certain record remaining, in the words following, to wit : 
 
 United States of America, 
 
 Vermont District, to wit: 
 
 Pleas of the circuit court of the said United States, at their 
 term begun and held at Rutland, within and for the said Ver 
 mont district, on Wednesday the 3rd day of October, in the 
 year of our Lord 1798, and of the independence of the United 
 States the twenty-third, before the honorable William Pater- 
 son, esq., one of the associate justices of the Supreme Court 
 of the United States, and the honorable Samuel Hitchcock, 
 esq., district judge within and for the said Vermont district, 
 and judges of said circuit court according to the form of the 
 statute in such case made and provided. 
 
 United States versus Matthew Lyon. 
 
 Be it remembered that, at a term of the circuit court of the 
 said United States, begun and held at Rutland, within and 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 361 
 
 for the district aforesaid on the third day of October, in the 
 year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and ninety-eight 
 and of the independence of the said United States the twenty- 
 third, before the honorable William Paterson, esq., one of 
 the associate justices of the Supreme Court of the said United 
 States, and the honorable Samuel Hitchcock, esq. district 
 judge within and for the said district of Vermont, judges of 
 the said circuit court, according to the form of the statute in 
 such case made and provided, the grand jurors within and 
 for the body of said district of Vermont, to wit: Eli Cogswell, 
 Nathan Pratt, David Osgood, Ozias Fuller, Royal Crafts, Abner 
 Mead, Gideon Horton, Abraham Gilbert, Ebenezer Worster, 
 John Mott, Thomas Hammond, Adgate Lothrop,John Penfield, 
 Ebenezer Hopkins, Brewster Higly, Zadock Remington, Abi- 
 jah Brownson, and Joel Culver, good and lawful freeholders of 
 the said district, then and there empanelled, sworn and charged 
 to inquire, for the said United States, and for the body of the 
 district aforesaid, did present, that Matthew Lyon, of Fair 
 Haven, in the said district of Vermont, being a malicious and 
 seditious person, and of a depraved mind and wicked and dia 
 bolical disposition, and deceitfully, wickedly and maliciously 
 contriving to defame the Government of the United States, 
 and with intent and design to defame the said Government of 
 the United States, and John Adams, the President of the 
 United States, and to bring the said Government and Presi 
 dent into contempt and disrepute; and with intent and design 
 to excite, against the said Government and President the 
 hatred of the good people of the United States, and to stir 
 up sedition in the United States, at Windsor, in the said dis 
 trict of Vermont, on the 3ist day of July last, did, with force 
 
362 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 and arms, wickedly, knowingly, and maliciously write, print, 
 utter, and publish, and did then and there cause and procure 
 to be written, printed, uttered and published, a certain scan 
 dalous and seditious writing, or libel in form of a letter, di 
 rected to Mr. Spooner, (meaning Alden Spooner, printer and 
 publisher of a certain weekly newspaper, in Windsor afore 
 said, commonly called Spooner's Vermont Journal,) signed 
 by the said Matthew Lyon and dated at Philadelphia on the 
 2oth day of June last; in which said libel of and concerning 
 the said John Adams, President of the United States, and the 
 Executive Government of the United States, are contained, 
 among other things, divers scurrilous, feigned, false, scandal 
 ous, seditious, and malicious matters, according to the tenor 
 following, to wit: ' As to the Executive, (meaning the said 
 President of the United States) when I shall see the effects 
 of that power (meaning the executive power of the United 
 States, vested by the Constitution of the United States in the 
 said President) bent on the promotion of the comfort, the 
 happiness, and accommodation of the people, (meaning the 
 people of the United States,) that Executive (meaning the 
 President of the United States) shall have my (meaning the 
 said Matthew Lyon's) zealous and uniform support. But 
 whenever I (meaning the said Matthew Lyon) shall, on the 
 part of the Executive, (meaning the said John Adams, Presi 
 dent of the United States) see every consideration of public 
 welfare swallowed up in a continual grasp for power, in an 
 unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation or 
 selfish avarice; (meaning the said Matthew Lyon) shall be 
 hold men of real merit daily turned out of office, for no other 
 cause but independency of sentiment; (meaning that men of 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 363 
 
 real merit, holding offices under the laws and Constitution 
 of the United States, were daily, by the said John Adams, 
 as President of the United States, turned out of office for 
 the cause of having independency of spirit) when I (meaning 
 the said Matthew Lyon) shall see men of firmness, merit, 
 years, abilities, and experience, discarded in their applica 
 tions for office for fear they possess that independence, and 
 men of meanness preferred, for the ease with which they can 
 take up and advocate opinions, the consequence of which 
 they know but little of; (meaning that men of firmness, years, 
 merit, ability, and experience, were, by the said John Adams, 
 as President of the United States, in violation of the duties 
 of his said office neglected in appointments to office under 
 the laws and Constitution of the United States, and discarded 
 in their applications for such offices and appointments; and 
 that men of meanness, who are unfit for the exercise of such 
 offices, under the laws and Constitution of the United States, 
 were, by the said John Adams, as President of the United 
 States, preferred to such offices and appointment, on account 
 of the ease with which they took up and advocated opinions, 
 of the consequences of which they were ignorant); when I 
 (meaning the said Matthew Lyon) shall see the sacred name 
 of religion employed as a State engine to make mankind hate 
 and persecute one another, I (meaning the said Matthew 
 Lyon) shall not be their humble advocate ; ' (meaning that 
 the sacred name of religion was, by the said John Adams, in 
 his capacity of President of the United States, employed as 
 an engine of State to make mankind hate and persecute each 
 other:) to the great scandal and infamy of the said John 
 Adams in his capacity of President of the United States, and 
 
364 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 to the great scandal and infamy of the said Government of 
 the said United States. And so the jurors aforesaid, upon 
 their oaths aforesaid, do say that the said Matthew Lyon, at 
 Windsor aforesaid, on the 3ist day of July aforesaid, did, 
 knowingly, wickedly, deceitfully, and maliciously with intent 
 and design to defame the said Government of the United 
 States, and the said John Adams, President of the United 
 States, and to bring the said Government and President of 
 the United States into contempt and disrepute with the good 
 people of the United States, and to excite against them, the 
 said Government and President of the United States, the 
 hatred of the good people of the United States, and with 
 intent and design to stir up sedition within the United States 
 against the Government thereof, write, print, utter, and pub 
 lish, and cause and procure to be written, printed, uttered 
 and published, for the purpose aforesaid, the said false, feigned, 
 scandalous, and malicious writing and libel aforesaid, contain 
 ing, among other things, the said divers scurrilous, false, 
 feigned, scandalous, seditious, and malicious matters afore 
 said, in contempt of the good and wholesome laws of the 
 United States, to the evil and pernicious example of others 
 in like case offending against the statute of the United States 
 in such case made and provided, and against the peace and 
 dignity of the United States. 
 
 And the jurors aforesaid, upon their oaths aforesaid, do 
 further present, that the said Matthew Lyon, being a malicious 
 and seditious person, and of a depraved mind, and of a wicked 
 and diabolical disposition, also deceitfully, wickedly, and ma 
 liciously contriving to defame the Government, and with in 
 tent to defame John Adams, Esquire, President of the United 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 365 
 
 States, and with intent to defame the Senate of the United 
 States, being one branch of the Congress of the United States, 
 and to bring the said Government, President and Senate into 
 contempt and disrepute, and to excite against the said Gov 
 ernment, President and Senate the hatred of the good people 
 of the United States, and with intent and design to stir up 
 sedition within the United States, did, at Fair Haven, in the 
 said district of Vermont, on the 1st day of September now 
 last past, with force and arms wickedly, knowingly, and ma 
 liciously write, print, utter, and publish, and then and there 
 did cause and procure to be written, printed, uttered, and 
 published, a certain false, feigned, scandalous and seditious 
 writing, or libel, entitled ' Copy of a letter from an American 
 diplomatic character in France to a member of Congress in 
 Philadelphia ', in which said writing, or libel, of and concern 
 ing the said Government of the United States, and the said 
 President and Senate of the United States, and of and con 
 cerning the speech of John Adams, Esquire, then President 
 of the United States, and of and concerning the answer of 
 the said Senate to the said speech, are contained, among other 
 things, divers scurrilous, feigned, false, scandalous, seditious, 
 and malicious matters according to the tenor following, to 
 wit : ' The misunderstanding between the two Governments 
 (meaning the Governments of the said United States and 
 France) has become extremely alarming; confidence is com 
 pletely destroyed; mistrusts, jealousy, and a disposition to a 
 wrong attribution of motives are so apparent, as to require 
 the utmost caution in every word and action that are to come 
 from your Executive, (meaning the Executive Government 
 of the United States) I mean if your object is to avoid hos- 
 
366 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 tilities. Had this truth been understood with you (meaning 
 the people of the United States) before the recall of Monroe, 
 (meaning James Monroe, the late Ambassador from the 
 United States to the Republic of France,) before the coming 
 and second coming of Pinckney (meaning Charles C. Pinck- 
 ney, one of the late Envoys Extraordinary from the United 
 States to the said Republic of France); had it guided the pens 
 that wrote the bullying speech of your President (meaning 
 the said speech of John Adams, then and still President of 
 the United States, to both Houses of Congress at the opening 
 of their session in November, 1797,) and stupid answer of 
 your Senate, (meaning the Senate of the United States, being 
 one house of the Congress of the United States), at the open 
 ing of Congress (meaning the Congress of the United States) 
 in November last, (meaning at the session of the said Congress 
 in November, in the year of our Lord 1797,) I should prob 
 ably have had no occasion to address you this letter, (mean 
 ing the said writing or libel;) but when we found him (mean 
 ing the said John Adams, President as aforesaid) borrowing 
 the language of Edmund Burke, and telling the world that, 
 although he should succeed in treating with the French, 
 (meaning the Government of France,) there was no depend 
 ence to be placed on any of their engagements, (meaning the 
 engagements of the said Government of France;) that their 
 religion and morality (meaning the religion and morality of 
 the French nation) were at an end; that they (meaning the 
 French nation) had turned pirates and plunderers, and it 
 would be necessary to be perpetually armed against them 
 (meaning the said French nation;) though you are at peace, 
 we (meaning the people of France) wondered that the answer 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 367 
 
 of both Houses (meaning both Houses of the Congress of the 
 United States) had not been an order to send him (meaning 
 the said John Adams, Esquire, President of the United States) 
 to a mad-house. Instead of this, the Senate (meaning the 
 Senate of the United States) have echoed the speech (meaning 
 the said speech of said John Adams, as President of the 
 United States) with more servility than ever George the Third 
 (meaning the King of Great Britain) experienced from either 
 House of Parliament ', (meaning the Parliament of Great 
 Britain;) to the great scandal and infamy of the said Govern 
 ment of the said United States, and the said John Adams, 
 President of the United States, and the said Senate of the 
 United States, being one of the Houses of the Congress of 
 the United States. And so the jurors aforesaid, upon their 
 oaths, aforesaid, do say that the said Matthew Lyon, at Fair 
 Haven, aforesaid, on the 1st day of September aforesaid, did, 
 knowingly, wickedly, deceitfully, and maliciously, with intent 
 and design to defame the said Government of the United 
 States, and the said John Adams, President of the United 
 States, and the Senate, being one House of the Congress of 
 the United States, and to bring the said Government, Presi 
 dent, and Senate of the United States into great contempt 
 and disrepute with the people of the United States, and to 
 excite against them, the said Government, President and Sen 
 ate of the United States, the hatred of the good people of the 
 said United States, and with intent to stir up sedition within 
 the United States against the Government thereof, write, 
 print, utter, and publish, and cause and procure to be writ 
 ten, printed, uttered, and published, for the purpose aforesaid, 
 the said false, feigned, scandalous, and malicious writing and 
 
368 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 libel aforesaid, containing, among other things, the said divers 
 scurrilous, false, feigned, scandalous, and seditious matters 
 aforesaid, in contempt of the good and wholesome laws of the 
 United States, to the evil and pernicious example of others in 
 like case offending against the statute of the United States in 
 such case made and provided, and against the peace and dig 
 nity of the said United States. 
 
 And the jurors aforesaid, upon their oaths aforesaid, do 
 further present, that the said Matthew Lyon, being a malicious 
 man, of a depraved mind, and of a wicked and diabolical dispo 
 sition, and also deceitfully, wickedly, and maliciously con 
 triving to defame the Government of the said United States, 
 and with intent and design to defame the said Government, 
 and the said John Adams, Esquire, President of the said 
 United States, and the Senate, being one of the Houses of 
 the Congress of the said United States, and to bring the said 
 Government, President, and Senate of the United States into 
 disrepute, and contempt, and with intent to excite the hatred 
 of the good people of the United States, against the said 
 Government and the Senate of the United States, and to stir 
 up sedition within the said United States against the Govern 
 ment thereof, did, at Fair Haven, aforesaid, on the 1st day 
 of September, aforesaid, for the purpose aforesaid, with force 
 and arms, knowingly, wickedly, deceitfully, maliciously, and 
 willingly assist, aid, and abet in the falsely and maliciously 
 writing, printing, uttering, and publishing a certain false, 
 feigned, scandalous, and seditious -writing, or libel, entitled 
 ' Copy of a letter from an American diplomatic character in 
 France to a member of Congress in Philadelphia; ' in which 
 said writing, or libel, of and concerning the Government of 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 369 
 
 the United States, and the said President and Senate of the 
 said United States, and of and concerning the said speech 
 of the said John Adams, as President of the United States, 
 to both Houses of the Congress of the United States, and 
 of and concerning the answer of the said Senate of the United 
 States, to the said speech of the said John Adams, President 
 of the United States, in which said writing, or libel, among 
 other things, are contained divers false, feigned, scandalous 
 and seditious matters, according to the tenor following, to 
 wit : ' Had this truth been understood with you (meaning the 
 people of the United States) before the recall of Monroe, 
 (meaning James Monroe, Ambassador from the United States 
 to the Republic of France,) before the coming and second 
 coming of Pinckney, (meaning Charles C. Pinckney, one of 
 the Envoys Extraordinary from the United States to the said 
 Republic;) had it guided the pens that wrote the bullying 
 speech of your President, and the stupid answer of your Sen 
 ate at the opening of Congress, in November last, (meaning 
 the speech of the said John Adams, as delivered by him to 
 both Houses of the Congress of the United States at the open 
 ing of their session, in November last, and the answer of the 
 Senate, being one of the Houses of the said Congress, to the 
 said speech,) I should probably have had no occasion to ad 
 dress you this letter/ (meaning the said writing, or libel, last 
 mentioned.) ' We (meaning the people of France) wondered 
 that the answer (meaning the answer to the said speech) of 
 both Houses (meaning both Houses of the Congress of the 
 United States) had not been an order to send him (meaning 
 the said John Adams, President of the United States) to a 
 mad-house; ' to the great scandal and infamy of the said John 
 
370 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 Adams, in his said capacity of President of the United States, 
 to the great scandal and infamy of the said Senate, being one 
 of the Houses of Congress of the United States, and to the 
 great scandal and infamy of the Government of the said United 
 States. And so the jurors aforesaid, upon their oaths afore 
 said, do say that the said Matthew Lyon, with force and arms, 
 at Fair Haven, aforesaid, in the district aforesaid, on the first 
 day of September aforesaid, did, knowingly, willingly, wick 
 edly, and maliciously, and with intent, and design to defame 
 the said John Adams, President of the United States, and the 
 said Senate, being one of the Houses of the Congress of the 
 United States, and the said Government of the United States, 
 and to bring the said Government, President, and Senate into 
 contempt and disrepute with the good people of the United 
 States, and to excite against them, the said Government, Presi 
 dent, and Senate of the United States, the hatred of the good 
 people of the said United States, and with intent to stir up 
 sedition within the said United States against the Govern- 
 men thereof, aid, assist, and abet in the maliciously writing, 
 uttering, and publishing, for the purposes aforesaid, the said 
 false, feigned, scandalous, and malicious writing and libel last 
 aforesaid, containing, among other things, the said divers, 
 scurrilous, false, feigned, scandalous, seditious, and malicious 
 matters aforesaid, in contempt of the good and wholesome 
 laws of the United States, to the evil and pernicious example 
 of others in like case offending, contrary to the form, force 
 and effect of the statute of the United States in such case made 
 and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the United 
 States. 
 Whereupon, the marshal of the district aforesaid is com- 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 371 
 
 manded forthwith to apprehend the said Matthew Lyon, if 
 to be found within his district, and him safely keep, to answer 
 to the charges whereof he here stands indicted. 
 
 And afterwards, to wit, on the sixth day of the same October 
 aforesaid, at Rutland aforesaid, before the court aforesaid, here 
 cometh the said Matthew Lyon, under the custody of Jabez 
 G. Fitch, Esq., marshal of the district aforesaid, and by the 
 said marshal being brought, in his own proper person, to the 
 bar of the said court here, was forthwith demanded, concern 
 ing the premises in the said indictment above specified and 
 charged upon him, how he will acquit himself thereof; he, the 
 said Matthew Lyon, saith that he is not guilty thereof, and 
 for trial puts himself upon the country; and Charles Marsh, 
 Esquire, attorney for the said United States within and for the 
 district aforesaid, who prosecutes for the said United States 
 in his behalf, doth the like. 
 
 Therefore, let a. jury of good and lawful freeholders of the 
 district aforesaid, on the eighth day of the same October afore 
 said, at Rutland, in the district aforesaid, by whom the truth 
 of the matters aforesaid may be better known who are not 
 of kin to the said Matthew Lyon to recognise, upon their 
 oath, whether the said Matthew Lyon be guilty or not guilty 
 of the charges of which he stands indicted as aforesaid ; because, 
 as well the said Charles Marsh, Esquire, who prosecutes for the 
 said United States in his behalf, as the said Matthew Lyon, 
 have put themselves upon that jury for trial of said issue. 
 
 And afterwards, to wit, on the same eighth day of October 
 aforesaid, at Rutland, in the district aforesaid, before the same 
 court aforesaid, came as well the said Charles Marsh, Esquire, 
 who prosecutes for the said United States in this behalf, as 
 
37 2 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 the said Matthew Lyon, in his own proper person; and the 
 jurors of the jury aforesaid, by the said Marshal for this pur 
 pose empannelled and returned, to wit, John Ramsdel, Jabez 
 Ward, John Hitchcock, jun., Bildad Orcutt, Andrew Leach, 
 Daniel June, Joshua Goss, Philip Jones, Josiah Harris, 
 Ephraim Dudley, Moses Vail, and Elisha Brown, who, being 
 called, came, and being elected, tried, and sworn to speak the 
 truth of and concerning the premises, upon their oaths say that 
 the said Matthew Lyon is guilty of the charges of which he 
 stands indicted aforesaid, in form aforesaid, as by the indict 
 ment aforesaid is supposed against him. And, upon this, it is 
 forthwith demanded of the said Matthew Lyon, if he hath any 
 thing further to say wherefore the said court here ought not, 
 on the premises aforesaid, and verdict aforesaid, to proceed 
 to judgment against him, who nothing saith. And afterwards, 
 to wit, on the ninth day of the same October aforesaid, at 
 Rutland, in the district aforesaid, before the court aforesaid, 
 came the said Matthew Lyon, in his own proper person. 
 
 Whereupon, all and singular the premises being seen, and 
 by the judges of the court here fully understood, it is consid 
 ered and ordered by the court that the said Matthew Lyon 
 be imprisoned four calendar months; that he pay a fine of 
 one thousand dollars, and the costs of this prosecution; and 
 that he stand committed until this sentence be complied with. 
 Costs of prosecution taxed at sixty dollars and ninety-six cents. 
 
 Judgment entered this ninth day of October, A. D. 1798. 
 
 By order of court : 
 
 CEPHAS SMITH, JUN., Clerk. 
 
 Mittimus issues October 9, 1798, at eight o'clock, forenoon. 
 
 CEPHAS SMITH, JUN., Clerk. 
 
 I hereby certify that the preceding is a true copy of the 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 373 
 
 record, examined and collated this 2ist day of December, A. D. 
 
 1819, by me. 
 
 JESSE GOVE, Clerk Vt. Dist. 
 
 District of Vermont, to wit: 
 
 The President of the United States to the Marshal of the 
 District of Vermont. 
 
 Whereas Matthew Lyon, of Fair Haven, in the county of 
 Rutland, in the district of Vermont, before the circuit court of 
 the United States, begun and held at Rutland, within and for 
 the said district, on the third day of October, in the year of 
 our Lord one thousand seven hundred and ninety-eight, and of 
 the independence of the said United States the twenty-third, 
 was convicted of writing, printing, uttering, and publishing 
 certain false, scandalous, and seditious libels, and of aiding, 
 abetting, and assisting therein, contrary to the form, force, and 
 effect of the statute entitled ' An act in addition to an act en 
 titled An act for the punishment of certain crimes against the 
 United States/ and sentenced to imprisonment for the term 
 of four calendar months, to pay a fine of one thousand dollars 
 to the United States, and the costs of this prosecution, taxed 
 at sixty dollars and ninety-six cents, as appears of record, 
 whereof execution remains to be done: Therefore, 
 
 By the authority of the United States, you are hereby com 
 manded to imprison him, the said Matthew Lyon, in either 
 of the jails of the United States, within and for the district of 
 Vermont, for 'the term of four calendar months from the date 
 hereof: and on his (the said Matthew Lyon's) neglect or re 
 fusal to pay said fine and costs, you are to keep and detain 
 him, the said Matthew, in imprisonment as aforesaid, until he 
 pay the said fine and costs, with fifty cents for this writ, and 
 
374 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 the costs of commitment, together with your fees, or until he 
 be otherwise discharged according to law. And of this writ, 
 with your doings herein, make due return according to law, at 
 our said court, on the first day of May next. 
 
 Witness, the honorable Oliver Ellsworth, Esquire, Chief 
 Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, at Rutland 
 aforesaid, the ninth day of October, at eight o'clock, forenoon, 
 A. D. one thousand seven hundred and ninety-eight, and of 
 the independence of the said United States the twenty-third. 
 
 CEPHAS SMITH, JUN., Clerk. 
 District of Vermont, October 10, 1798. 
 By virtue of the within writ, or warrant of commitment, I 
 committed the body of the within-named Matthew Lyon, with 
 in the prison in the city of Vergennes, and left a true and at 
 tested copy of this writ, with my endorsement thereon, with 
 the keeper of said prison. 
 
 Fees of commitment, fifty cents. 
 
 Attest: JABEZ G. FITCH, Marshal. 
 
 District of Vermont, 
 Vergennes, the 9th day of February, 
 8 o'clock A. M. 1799. 
 
 The within-named Matthew Lyon, having complied with the 
 within warrant, is hereby discharged from his confinement. 
 Attest: S. FITCH, Marshal's deputy." 
 
 The election for Congress in Colonel Lyon's district took 
 place in September, 1798, when the National and State au 
 thorities combined their forces to beat him. His popularity 
 was so much feared as to induce the nomination of five strong 1 
 
 <* " Annals i6th Congress, with Appendix Containing Important 
 State Papers and Public Documents," 1620, pp. 478 et seq. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 375 
 
 candidates with a view of dividing the Democrats and drawing 
 away votes from Lyon. In a total poll of 6,989, he received 
 3,482, Williams 1,544, Chipman 1,370, Abel Spencer 268, 
 Israel Smith 226, scattering 99. This brought Lyon within 
 26 votes of a clear majority over all, and was extremely galling 
 to his opponents. His arrest followed almost immediately, 
 attesting the folly and desperation of the Federalists. As no 
 one got a majority, there was no election in September, and 
 another trial of strength at the polls took place in December, 
 while Lyon was in Vergennes jail, in close confinement. I 
 know of no other instance in American history where such 
 a thing has occurred. The President of the United States 
 and his whole party were actively engaged on one side, Mat 
 thew Lyon in his cell, backed by his old associates, the Green 
 Mountain Boys, on the other. The result was an overwhelm 
 ing victory for the prisoner, who proved more powerful in 
 shackles than John Adams in the Presidency. Lyon received 
 4,576 votes, Williams 2,444, an d the votes for all the other 
 candidates added to those for Williams, fell about 600 short 
 of Lyon's telling majority. 
 
 There was nothing left for Adams to do but to keep him 
 in prison. Fitch called in Federalist lawyers of the Chipman 
 stripe to spell out more sedition in Colonel Lyon's letters 
 from behind the bars, in order that, if he contrived to pay 
 his fine and get his discharge, the body snatchers could take 
 him again on mesne process. Meantime Colonel Lyon put 
 in many anxious hours thinking how to raise the money in 
 his stringent circumstances, to satisfy the vengeful judgment 
 of Paterson against him. But fortunately he was not the only 
 lover of liberty who was thinking about the matter. Jefferson, 
 
376 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 and Madison, and Monroe, and Gallatin, and John Taylor of 
 Caroline, and Stevens Thompson Mason of Loudoun, and the 
 entire phalanx of Republicans in Congress, did their share of 
 the thinking. Apollos Austin, the wealthy Jeffersonian Demo 
 crat of Orwell, Vermont, he too was thinking and pondering. 
 Inspired by editor Anthony Haswell, a sufferer in the same 
 cause, the yeomanry of Vermont, who erst heard the guns 
 rattle at Bennington, ran their hands down their gaunt pockets 
 for the poor man's mite to fling their shillings and quarters 
 and half dollars into a wallet of ransom money. General 
 Mason, away down in old Virginia, 
 
 " Land of true feeling, land forever mine! " 
 
 lined his saddle-bags with a thousand and sixty dollars in 
 gold coin, and started North. Apollos Austin took incredible 
 pains to gather together a thousand and sixty more in great 
 big silver dollars, and went from Orwell to Vergennes with 
 his strong box on the day of Lyon's delivery, since the fluc 
 tuations of shinplasters put paper money out of the question 
 when dealing with alien and sedition laws' Shylocks. Mat 
 thew Lyon might have laid aside his anxieties and spared 
 himself the sacrifice of buying that lottery grant whereby he 
 realized enough money on the prizes he sold of his houses, 
 mills, factories and lands, not only to pay the fine and costs, 
 but to have a surplus left to his credit of three thousand dol 
 lars. 6 But General Mason paid the money, and to this day 
 the descendants of Colonel Lyon reverence his memory, and 
 name their children after him. c The Senator, the same gentle- 
 
 a " Vermont Governor and Council for 1791-1804," Vol. IV, pp. 
 495-96. 
 
 & " Life and Services of Matthew Lyon," by Pliny H. White, p. 22. 
 
 c See letter of thanks of the Republicans or Democrats of Vermont 
 to Stevens Thompson Mason, United States Senator from Virginia, 
 in the "Vermont Gazette," March 28, 1799. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 377 
 
 man to whom Lyon had made the prediction at his seat in 
 the House, on the passage of the sedition bill, that he himself 
 would be its first victim, set out from Virginia in full time 
 to reach Vermont by the day Lyon's term of imprisonment 
 would expire. He carried, I repeat, in his saddle-bags, slung 
 across his good steed, a thousand and sixty dollars in gold, the 
 sum required to pay the fine and costs, in which the prisoner 
 was cast, before he could be enlarged. 
 
 It was a beautiful sight to see this Cavalier from the South 
 land riding abroad into the far North, with ransom for his 
 imprisoned friend. How Walter Scott would have rejoiced 
 to be present as this knightly Senator rode forth on his mis 
 sion of loyalty and unselfish devotion; how he would have 
 revelled over those gold laden saddle-bags. The Southerners 
 are called sons of chivalry. Here was chivalry and true knight 
 hood, such as the Wizard of the North depicts. What a pic 
 ture of General Mason Sir Walter would have left us. There 
 is nothing in the pages of Ivanhoe or the Talisman more 
 romantic than Mason's ride to Vergennes jail, to strike the 
 shackles from the American John Hampden, Matthew Lyon 
 of Vermont. 
 
 Admiral Dewey is not the first Vermonter to whom his 
 countrymen have awarded a festival day. Matthew Lyon re 
 ceived one equally as impressive a hundred years ago. Dewey 
 came back, as Nelson would have come, had he lived, victor 
 over a foreign foe. Lyon came back, cheered like Hampden 
 by the plaudits of his countrymen, on a triumphal journey 
 from a prison to Congress. The vast multitude that welcomed 
 Lyon as he emerged from his cell, and who followed him on 
 his rejoicing way, " reached," says a Vermont writer, " from 
 
MATTHEW LYON 
 
 Vergennes, as they traversed Otter Creek upon the ice, nearly 
 to Middlebury." 
 
 Mr. White, in his interesting account of the scene, relates 
 that " Lyon's enemies had made preparations to have him 
 arrested as soon as he was discharged from jail ; but no sooner 
 had the marshal opened the prison doors, and announced to 
 him that he was free, than he shouted ' I am on my way to 
 Philadelphia/ and stepping out, started at once on his journey. 
 Congress had been in session some months, and his privilege 
 as a member secured him from arrest. His journey," adds 
 Mr. White, " was a triumphal march. A great concourse of 
 people accompanied him on his way, with the American flag 
 at the head of the procession; and as they passed along, the 
 inhabitants of the towns on the line of march assembled 
 numerously to greet him. Even children partook of the spirit 
 of the occasion. As he passed a school house in Tinmouth, 
 the children were paraded at the roadside, and one of them 
 offered the following sentiment : ' This day satisfies Federal 
 vengeance. Our brave Representative, who has been suffer 
 ing for us under an unjust sentence, and the tyranny of a 
 detested understrapper of despotism, this day rises superior to 
 despotism.' On his arrival at Bennington, he was welcomed 
 by a large assemblage of Republicans, who greeted him with 
 cheers, original songs and a formal address, to which he briefly 
 responded, and then pursued his journey." 6 
 
 Hon. William Slade, a Representative from Vermont, in a 
 speech in Congress, delivered May 23, 1840, said: "The 
 Democrats of the day gathered in a great assembly round the 
 
 " Vermont Governor and Council," IV, 495. 
 
 " Life and Services of Matthew Lyon," by Pliny H. White, p. 22. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 379 
 
 jail, an assembly not equalled by any I have ever seen, save 
 the Grand Convention at Baltimore, and a voluntary contri 
 bution was called for and taken up; but before it could be 
 applied, the fine had been paid, either through the intervention 
 of Colonel Lyon's friends in another county, or by his own 
 means. As soon as Lyon was at the jail door, he proclaimed 
 that he was on his way to Congress. The cavalcade which 
 attended him stopped at my father's house, and there all par 
 took of cakes and hard cider in true Democratic style/' 
 
 ^It would extend these pages too much to multiply accounts 
 of the progress of Colonel Lyon to the seat of Government. 
 As he drove off with his noble wife seated by his side in a 
 sleigh drawn by four horses, the rejoicing of many thousands 
 of people attended him on his way. A mighty concourse 
 joined his company in the journey through the State, and simi 
 lar scenes of acclamation and escort of great processions of 
 people were kept up during the whole journey through New 
 York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. I will conclude the 
 description by quoting what a very graphic writer says in a 
 volume published in 1899, in the Henry E. Scudder American 
 Commonwealth Series, now being issued by Houghton, Mifflin 
 and Company. The author is Mr. Rowland E. Robinson. He 
 remarks : 
 
 " Measures were taken for the payment of Lyon's fine in 
 indisputably legal tender, one citizen of the State providing 
 the sum in silver dollars, and one ardent Republican from 
 North Carolina coming all the way from that State with the 
 amount in gold." Mr. Robinson must correct an error which 
 has crept in here in another edition, which he has borrowed 
 
 " Congressional Globe," 26th Congress, p. 413. 
 
380 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 from Mr. Roswell Bottom's article on the subject in the fourth 
 volume of the Vermont Governor and Council. It was 
 Senator Mason of Virginia, not of North Carolina, who 
 brought the gold. " But Lyon's political friends," continues 
 Mr. Robinson, " desired to share the honor of paying his fine, 
 and it was arranged that no person should pay more than one 
 dollar. No sooner had he come forth from prison than his 
 fine was paid, and he was placed in a sleigh and driven up 
 the frozen current of Great Otter to Middlebury, attended, 
 it is said, by an escort in sleighs, the train extending from the 
 one town to the other, a distance of twelve miles. With half 
 as many, he might boast of a greater following than had passed 
 up the Indian Road under any leader since the bloody days 
 of border warfare, when Waubanakee chief or Canadian par 
 tisan led their marauding horde along the noble river." 
 
 Mr. Bayard in a spirit of folly and spleen offered a resolu 
 tion on Colonel Lyon's arrival at Philadelphia, and reappear 
 ance in Congress, expelling him from his seat. Forty-nine 
 Federalists voted for it, but forty-five Democrats voted against 
 it, and defeated it under the constitutional two-thirds law. Lyon 
 was back to stay, without the leave of Bayard or Harper or 
 Adams, or any or all of the Black Cockades of the President, 
 in or out of Congress. 
 
 On the 2 ist of January, 1801, during a debate in the House 
 on a resolution to continue in force the sedition law, Colonel 
 Lyon made the following remarks : " In the course of the 
 debate on the present motion, my condemnation and imprison 
 ment have been introduced by gentlemen whom I highly re- 
 
 " Vermont A Study of Independence," by Rowland E. Robinson, 
 1899, P. 262. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 381 
 
 spect, but without many of the agitations which belonged to 
 that very extraordinary case. A number of gentlemen have 
 told the Committee that they would avoid the discussion of 
 my case in compliment to my feelings all of whom, except 
 the gentleman from South Carolina, have done their' utmost 
 to wound those feelings. But I can tell those gentlemen it 
 is now too late; I do not thank them for their pretended ten 
 derness; they have heretofore lacerated those feelings by their 
 irritating and abusive language, until I have become perfectly 
 callous to anything that can come from that quarter. I do 
 not think by any means, that they should go round my case 
 out of delicacy to me rather let them defend the indicting 
 me under the sedition law, for writing and publishing a letter 
 dated the 2Oth June, and sent about that time by me to the 
 post office of Philadelphia, which carried the postmarks 
 of Philadelphia, July 7th, seven days before the law passed 
 Let them defend the judge in charging the jury to find me 
 guilty of malicious intentions, on the ground of my own known 
 political principles; my opposition in Congress to the Execu 
 tive, where there was no proof whatever against me of such 
 principles. 
 
 "Again, let those gentlemen justify the judge in sending a 
 man from the jury, because a creature of a party swore that, 
 at a previous time, he had heard that juror say something like 
 this: that it was his belief that Mr. L. would not be found 
 guilty. This was a man who was summoned through a mis 
 take, and it was necessary to get rid of him some way or other. 
 Let them defend the conduct of the judge who, in his charge, 
 in order to exasperate the jury against me, descended to de 
 grade his office so much as to tell them I was guilty of forging 
 
382 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 the writing called ' Barlow's letter.' ' Let/ said the jud.r^, 
 ' men of letters read that letter and compare it with Barlow's 
 writings, and they will pronounce it to be none of his/ Let 
 those gentlemen defend the marshal in carrying me, in the 
 most contumelious and degrading manner, upwards of forty 
 miles from the door of the jail of the county where I lived, 
 which is a jail of the United States. Let them defend that 
 marshal for throwing me into a stinking cell of about ten 
 feet by sixteen, the common receptacle of thieves, murderers 
 and runaway negroes, without anything to keep the cold out 
 where the light came in, and keeping me there four months, 
 nearly one month of which without fire, not having the liberty 
 to procure myself a stove, although in a cold, inclement season, 
 whilst the house contained comfortable rooms in plenty, which 
 I could have hired had I been allowed to do it ; but he refused, 
 notwithstanding my application to him, and the entreaties of 
 several of my friends, offering a security of $100,000 bail for 
 my continuance in the appointed room during the time of my 
 confinement. 
 
 " Unless gentlemen can defend these things, let them speak 
 no more of the superiority of this law over the common law, 
 nor vindicate it upon the limits of its punishment being as 
 signed, the contrary of which I think my experience abun 
 dantly proved." 
 
 a " Annals of Sixth Congress, 1799-1801," pp. 973, ft <g. 
 
THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 383 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE ELECTION OF JEFFERSON TO THE PRESIDENCY COALITION 
 OF BURR AND THE FEDERALISTS FIERCE PARLIAMENTARY 
 STRUGGLE AND DEFEAT OF THE FEDERAL PARTY LYON'S 
 DECISIVE VOTE HIS CELEBRATED LETTER TO EX-PRESIDENT 
 ADAMS. 
 
 T N a notice of Matthew Lyon in Collins's " History of Ken 
 tucky," an admirable work, the following observations 
 occur: "Just before the close of this term, on February 17, 
 1801, on the 36th ballot, Colonel Lyon decided the painful and 
 protracted seven days' voting for President, by casting his vote 
 and that of Vermont for Thomas Jefferson, making him 
 President in preference to Aaron Burr." a 
 
 It is time to strip the mask from those Federalists of 1801 
 who, presuming upon the ignorance of the American people, 
 have claimed the credit to themselves for Jefferson's election. 
 The romancers in history, like Hildreth and Henry Cabot 
 Lodge, and certain foreign bookmakers who have galloped 
 through the country scribbling as they rode, select James A. 
 Bayard as the hero who bore into the presidency upon his 
 broad shoulders the timid, intriguing, otherwise beaten 
 Thomas Jefferson. And quite a number of our recent political 
 pamphleteers have accepted this rodomontade as sober truth. 
 Mr. Bayard hated Mr. Jefferson with bitter intensity, but it 
 never was in his power, at any period during the fierce contest, 
 
 Collins's " History of Kentucky," II, 491. 
 
384 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 to defeat him, although he made most strenuous exertions to 
 accomplish that result. It is no wonder Benjamin Watkins 
 Leigh, in a moment of impatience, once inveighed against the 
 Muse of History as " a lying old jade," and advised people to 
 pay no attention to what she might record. In the same vein, 
 but with more precision, the profound English historian, Dr. 
 Lingard, rejects what is called the philosophy of history, and 
 more accurately describes it as the philosophy of romance. 
 
 The two greatest sinners in spreading abroad those fables in 
 relation to the memorable contest of 1801, were James A. 
 Bayard and Robert Goodloe Harper. Relying upon the 
 bucolic innocence of his contemporaries, Mr. Bayard, in 1802, 
 explained his reason on the floor of the House for voting the 
 preceding year for Burr and against Jefferson by declaring that 
 " he gave his vote to the one whom he thought the greater and 
 better man." And yet the same Mr. Bayard had written to 
 Alexander Hamilton in 1801, and said that Burr's talents were 
 of so low an order as to have excited his contempt for what he 
 calls the " unprincipled man," and he cited as a proof of his 
 incapacity, " tell it not in Gath ; publish it not in the streets 
 of Askelon," Burr's failure to deceive one blockhead, and to 
 buy two corruptionists. 6 This was " the greater and better 
 man " than Jefferson. Bayard's deposition in the Gillespie v. 
 Smith case, in 1806, alleges a bargain of Bayard with Jeffer 
 son, which Jefferson declared absolutely false. Gen. Samuel 
 Smith, through whom Bayard said he made the bargain, de 
 nied it, and sustained Jefferson's statement. Why did not Mr. 
 Bayard vote for Jefferson, if he had a bargain or an under- 
 
 " Annals of Congress for 1801-2," p. 6318. 
 " Hamilton's Works," VI, 522. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 385 
 
 standing with him? That is the crucial question. Actions speak 
 louder than words. But Robert Goodloe Harper, who after 
 wards wrote a long string of forcible feeble denials of the more 
 frank admissions made by Mr. Bayard in an unguarded 
 moment just after the close of the contest in the House, was 
 undoubtedly the greatest plotter of all the Federalists who tried 
 to rob Mr. Jefferson of his victory, and to seat a man in the 
 presidency who had not received a single vote for that high 
 office. What must be thought of the unsteadiness of purpose 
 of Mr. Harper who wrote the letter quoted below, and then 
 voted in the end a blank ballot? As soon as he knew that 
 Jefferson and Burr had won the election over Adams and 
 Pinckney for President and Vice-President of the United 
 States, he instantly took advantage of a clumsy provision of 
 the Constitution which then made the two highest candidates, 
 if they received, as Jefferson and Burr did receive, an equal 
 number of votes, both eligible to the Presidency, and threw the 
 election in such a case into the House of Representatives, and 
 he made stealthy, desperate efforts to defeat Jefferson. Burr 
 had not received a vote for the office, but that clumsy, blunder 
 ing provision, which the American people immediately after 
 sponged out of the Constitution with righteous indignation, 
 gave Mr. Harper his opportunity, and here is the tricky, 
 seditious firebrand he forthwith wrote to Aaron Burr : 
 
 " Washington, December 24, 1800. 
 My Dear Colonel, 
 
 The votes of Tennessee are come in and decide the tie. The 
 language of the Democrats is, that you will yield your preten 
 sions to their favorite; and it is whispered that overtures to 
 
386 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 this end are to be, or are made to you. I advise you to take 
 no step whatever, by which the choice of the House of Repre 
 sentatives can be impeded or embarrassed. Keep the game 
 perfectly in your own hands, but do not answer this letter, or 
 any other that may be written to you by a Federal man, nor 
 write to any of that party. 
 
 Your friend, sincerely, 
 
 ROBT. G. HARPER."* 
 
 Thus it appears that this Federalist did all that was in his 
 power to precipitate a contest which threatened the overthrow 
 of the Constitution, and a dissolution of the Union, to be ac 
 companied very likely with civil war. That these calamities 
 were invited by the foregoing letter is made plain by the events 
 which followed. Mr. Burr " kept the game in his own hands," 
 and the contest for President kindled a flame of excitement and 
 uproar throughout the Union which but for one State in New 
 England, held steady and law abiding by the iron will and un 
 flinching determination of Matthew Lyon, most probably 
 would have plunged the land in bloody civil war. Burr 
 despatched his secret emissaries to Washington, and the Essex 
 Junto and Southern doughfaces joined them in opening an 
 agency for the purchase of votes. Every appliance and blan 
 dishment by which cupidity and ambition could be assailed 
 and won over were put into clandestine operation. Hamilton, 
 who deserves the greatest credit for his opposition to him, well 
 described Burr as the Cataline of America, but so deftly did 
 Burr manage this conspiracy to buy votes and cheat the people 
 out of their President, that to this day when all believe it, few 
 
 o " Niles's Register," January 4, 1823. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 387 
 
 can satisfactorily prove it. He was a master at concealment, 
 though as Washington and Hamilton had seen the real man 
 through all his arts at an earlier day, so now Jefferson took his 
 gauge and measure, and was prepared for Mr. Burr even when 
 he came with a whole Congress of Federalists at his heels, buy 
 ing, and cajoling, and seducing whomsoever he found in the 
 market for sale. 
 
 Harper was the mouthpiece employed by the Federalists to 
 sound Burr. The preceding letter makes that plain. But his 
 own admissions are not wanting to prove it. " I was present," 
 afterwards said Mr. Harper, " at all the general deliberations 
 of the Federal members on this momentous subject, which 
 were frequent and very anxious. I may, I think, safely say 
 that I was as much in the confidence of those gentlemen, and 
 as well acquainted with their private and individual views, as 
 any other person. I had a great deal of full and free com 
 munication with them, individually and privately, which I have 
 every reason to believe was frank and confidential."* Harper 
 was a gentleman, and his word cannot be doubted on this sub 
 ject. Meantime he had married the accomplished daughter of 
 the richest man in America, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, and 
 the impetuous South Carolina Federalist had become the con 
 servative Baltimore lawyer. The Marylanders previously had 
 been ruled by the Federalists, and Carroll, Chase and Thomas 
 did not like Jefferson. But they were now thoroughly 
 frightened over the impending loss of the capital of the United 
 States, should they persist in voting for Burr. Poor Mr. 
 Harper was in a dilemma. The people of Maryland were 
 
 a Letter of Robert Goodloe Harner, in " Niles's Register," January 
 4, 1823. 
 
388 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 sending in petitions signed by thousands of Federalists, Demo 
 crats, men and women, everybody, Eastern Shore men, Balti 
 more men, Prince George's county, Charles county, and St 
 Mary's county men, from every district, urging the election of 
 Jefferson. They were rising en masse to implore their foolish 
 Federalist Congressmen not to vote for Burr, as they would 
 surely lose the Federal city by persisting in that mad course. 
 In this awkward predicament Harper finally deserted Burr, and 
 put in a blank vote on the last ballot. 
 
 Bayard was just as badly frightened as the Marylanders y 
 since Delaware was threatened with the loss of Statehood, and 
 might yet become in the event of a dissolution, what the 
 Philadelphians insisted she was in fact, a Borough of Pennsyl 
 vania. But Bayard was a more outspoken man than Harper, 
 and a few moments after the last ballot was announced in the 
 House, he sat down and wrote a confidential letter to a friend 
 in Wilmington, Delaware, in which he revealed all the secrets 
 of the Federalists, said they were bent on revolution, and would 
 rather go without a government than to vote for Jefferson, 
 and told how the result of an election was finally brought 
 about on the 36th ballot. a This letter was probably not meant 
 for publication, and was not published until twenty-two years 
 afterwards, when Mr. Harper and other gentlemen of the 
 beaten party found all the plausible stories and explanations 
 which they had been circulating during those many years, in 
 order to molify the wrath of the American people against the 
 Federalists of 1801, suddenly and effectually annihilated by the 
 unexpected publication of Mr. Bayard's tell-tale letter. This let 
 ter clearly revealed the fact that the Federalists had lent them- 
 
 o " Niles's Register," November 16, 1822. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 389 
 
 selves to a desperate scheme of making Burr President, 
 although he had not received a vote for that office. He styled 
 them revolutionists, ready to go without a government rather 
 than to vote for Jefferson, who, he declared, did not receive a 
 single Federal vote during the whole thirty-six ballots that were 
 taken in the House. Harper, who for years had been picturing 
 the old Essex Junto and the Connecticut Blue Lights as saints 
 and sages, wriggled and denied and evaded, but it was of no 
 use, for here was Mr. Bayard, as if risen from the dead, denying 
 it all, and depicting them as tools of Aaron Burr, and down 
 right revolutionists. Harper wrote a long, feeble apology for 
 " Niles's Register/' minimizing the charges of Bayard, and try 
 ing to explain them away. a He seemed to have forgotten his 
 own letter to Burr, urging him to keep the game in his own 
 hands, and to observe a conspirator's silence while hatching 
 schemes for capturing the succession. 
 
 But there were his father-in-law, Charles Carroll of Carroll- 
 ton, and all his fellow Federalists, looking beyond this election 
 to the probable loss of the District of Columbia as a permanent 
 seat of government. In a letter to his wife, January 15, 1801, 
 Albert Gallatin remarks: 
 
 " Maryland is afraid about the fate of the Federal city, which 
 is hated by every member of Congress without exception of 
 persons or parties." 6 A French lady addicted to epigrams, 
 who was in the Federal city at this period, observed that 
 " Georgetown had houses without streets, and Washington 
 streets without houses." Congressmen, according to WoLcott, 
 had to live " like scholars in a college, or monks in a monas- 
 
 a Published in " Niles's Weekly Register," January 4, 1823. 
 b " Life of Albert Gallatin," by Henry Adams, p. 254. 
 
390 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 tery, crowded ten or twenty in one house." Tom Moore's 
 pleasantries respecting squares in morasses and obelisks in 
 trees, with Goose Creek, and Tiber, and Modern Rome galore, 
 are well remembered. But Gouverneur Morris was even more 
 sarcastic than the Irish bard. " We want nothing here," wrote 
 the Senator from New York, " but houses, cellars, kitchens, 
 well informed men, amiable women, and other little trifles of 
 this kind to make our city perfect."* Mrs. Abigail Adams dis 
 covered on her arrival, " here and there a small cot, without a 
 glass window, interspersed among the forests." Everybody 
 seemed to be anxious to get away from " the Indian place with 
 the long name in the woods on the Potomac." 
 
 No wonder that the Marylanders were demoralized. Hav 
 ing won the capital after a desperate struggle, they read its 
 doom in the eyes of Congressmen, and knew, if no President 
 was chosen, its loss was inevitable. This selfish fear alone 
 made them desert Burr, although Jefferson did not get a single 
 Federal vote from Maryland throughout the contest. Salutary 
 fear also disciplined Mr. Bayard in a similar manner. His 
 alarm for Delaware, not his patriotism, as he himself bluntly 
 admitted, controlled his final action. To John Adams he thus 
 wrote : " Representing the smallest State in the Union, without 
 resources which could furnish the means of self-protection, I 
 was compelled by the obligation of a sacred duty, so to act, as 
 not to hazard the Constitution, upon which the political exis 
 tence of the State depends.'" 1 That is, Delaware was threatened 
 with extinction, and in order to save his little State, Bayard, 
 
 Gibbs's " Administrations of Washington and Adams," II, 239. 
 5 Sparks's " Life and Writings of Gouverneur Morris," III, 129. 
 " Mrs. Adams's Letters," II, 239. 
 d Randall's " Life of Jefferson," II, 622. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 3QI 
 
 who had voted thirty-five times for Aaron Burr, voted blank 
 on the last ballot. Is it not sublime impudence on the part of 
 political pamphleteers to set up a claim that James A. Bayard 
 elected Jefferson President? If no President should be chosen 
 before the 4th of March, the Government would be dissolved. 
 A new convention of the States would next be called, and 
 then a long farewell to Washington as the Federal capital. 
 Poor little Delaware, shorn in such contingency, of her con 
 sequence in the Senate and House, would probably become a 
 Borough of Pennsylvania. " The very word convention," 
 wrote Jefferson to Monroe, " gives them the horrors." 
 
 The preposterous claim that the Federalists elected Jefferson 
 should never be advanced in any book claiming the respectable 
 title of history. " He appears to have been indebted to them," 
 says Dr. Randall in his " Life of Jefferson," " in the same 
 manner and degree that he who is not blown up by a mine on 
 which he stands, is indebted to the forbearance of his foe who 
 could not fire it without rendering himself the first and certain 
 victim." 6 
 
 Eight States voted for Jefferson, six for Burr, and two were 
 divided making sixteen States, the whole number. If one 
 more vote came to Jefferson, it would be enough to elect. 
 From the first we now know, that Matthew Lyon would give 
 that vote. Gouverneur Morris, Senator from New York, was 
 entirely opposed to the election of a man as President who had 
 not received a single vote of the people for the office. He was 
 the uncle of Lewis R. Morris, the member from Vermont, who 
 divided the vote of that State with Matthew Lyon. The 
 
 " Jefferson's Works," IV, 354. 
 6 Randall's " Jefferson," II, 602. 
 
392 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 Senator was able to control his nephew's vote. Why then, it 
 may be asked, was it cast thirty-five times for Burr? The itch 
 for office is the probable answer to that question. Jefferson 
 thus explains it: " February the I4th. General Armstrong 
 tells me, that Gouverneur Morris, in conversation with him to 
 day, on the scene which is passing, expressed himself thus: 
 ' How comes it/ says he, * that Burr, who is four hundred miles 
 off, (at Albany,) has agents here at work with great activity, 
 while Mr. Jefferson, who is on the spot, does nothing? ' This 
 explains the ambiguous conduct of himself and his nephew, 
 Lewis Morris, and that they were holding themselves free for a 
 prize; i. e., some office either to the uncle or nephew." a 
 
 The correspondence of Senator Morris makes it clear that he 
 opposed Burr. December 19, 1800, in a letter to Hamilton, he 
 said: "Since it was evidently the intention of our fellow- 
 citizens to make Mr. Jefferson their President, it seems proper 
 to fulfil that intention/' 6 February I, 1801, he said, in a letter 
 to Robert Troup, speaking of the balloting of the States in the 
 House: " One is divided, and one is doubtful, that is to say, it 
 will be for Mr. Jefferson, or divided." February 20, 1801, he 
 wrote to Robert R. Livingston, and said : " I greatly dis 
 approved, and openly disapproved, the attempt to choose Mr. 
 Burr." d 
 
 Energetic efforts to capture the vote of Matthew Lyon in the 
 profligate scramble were made. Jefferson charges that 
 Bayard offered inducements of high office to Samuel Smith of 
 Maryland, and tempted Robert R. Livingston of New York. 
 
 o " Jefferson's Works," IX, 202-3. 
 6 Sparks's " Morris," III, 132. 
 Ibid, 150-151. 
 < Ibid, 154. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 393 
 
 " To Dr. Linn," he adds, " they have offered the government 
 of New Jersey."" Aaron Burr, we learn on the same high 
 authority, in conversation with Colonel Hitchburn of Massa 
 chusetts, said: "Why, our friends must join the Federalists, 
 and give the President. ' But/ says Hitchburn, ' who is to be 
 our Vice-President? ' Colonel Burr answered, ' Mr. Jeffer 
 son.' " 6 Even if they succeeded in getting all these votes, the 
 traffickers still needed Vermont to make the majority. They 
 might as well have tried to topple the highest peak of the 
 Green Mountains into Lake Champlain as to attempt to cap 
 ture that State. Lyon was a born fighter of corruption and 
 corruptionists. 
 
 I again quote Jefferson. He had invited Lyon to dinner at 
 the President's house, and makes this note on one of the 
 topics discussed: "December the 31, 1803. After dinner to 
 day, the pamphlet on the conduct of Colonel Burr being the 
 subject of conversation, Matthew Lyon noticed the insinua 
 tions against the Republicans at Washington, pending the 
 Presidential election, and expressed his wish that every thing 
 was spoken out that was known ; that it would then appear on 
 which side there was a bidding for votes, and he declared that 
 John Brown of Rhode Island, urging him to vote for Colonel 
 Burr, used these words: ' What is it you want, Colonel Lyon? 
 Is it office, is it money? Only say what you want, and you 
 shall have it.' " But like Horatius at the Bridge, Lyon stood 
 firm, a host in himself, until finally Representative Morris, 
 nephew of the anti-Burr Senator, withdrew from the House, 
 and Lyon cast the vote of Vermont for Jefferson, giving him 
 
 " Jefferson's Works," IX, 202. 
 6 Ibid, 204. 
 Ibid, 204. 
 
394 
 
 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 the ninth State, a majority, and electing him. " The Federal 
 ists," says Gallatin, " had but one proper mode to pursue, and 
 that was for the whole party to come over; instead of which 
 they contrived merely to suffer Mr. Jefferson to be chosen, 
 without a single man of theirs voting for him." 
 
 In addition to the fears of Bayard for his little Borough of 
 Delaware, and of the Marylanders for the Capital, the whole 
 New England delegations began to snuff danger to the North 
 and South of them. The two boldest Governors in America, 
 McKean in Pennsylvania, and Monroe in Virginia, were arm 
 ing, and General Darke's brigade at Harpers Ferry was getting 
 ready to march on Washington, and " know the reason why " 
 Jefferson should not be President.* If any usurper had been 
 chosen by the Federal rump, he undoubtedly would have been 
 overthrown by an aroused people. " It was rumored," said 
 Albert Gallatin in a letter to Henry A. Muhlenberg, written so 
 late as May 8, 1848, " and though I did not know it from my 
 own knowledge, I believe it was true, that a number of men 
 from Maryland and Virginia, amounting, it was said, to fifteen 
 hundred (a number undoubtedly greatly exaggerated), had de 
 termined to repair to Washington on the 4th of March for the 
 purpose of putting to death the usurping, pretended Presi 
 dent." This of course he only meant in case the scheme had 
 been carried out. 
 
 All honor to Matthew Lyon at this great crisis of American 
 history. The Federalists under the arrogant orders of John 
 
 " Life of Gallatin," p. 263. 
 
 b Speech of John Randolph of Roanoke in the House of Representa 
 tives, January 31, 1817; "Annals of the I4th Congress," pp. 805-806. 
 " Life of Albert Gallatin," p. 249. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 395 
 
 Adams had thrown him into a dungeon to get him out of the 
 way, but they could not keep him there, and were now con 
 fronted with a Democratic State in the hitherto solid phalanx 
 of New England Federalism, the vote of which State was at 
 last in the keeping and custody of this fearless Democrat. On 
 every ballot Vermont gave one-half of its vote for Thomas 
 Jefferson, and on the thirty-sixth or last one Lyon prevailed by 
 the retirement of Morris, and placed Vermont with Virginia 
 on the side of the man who was the people's choice for Presi 
 dent. " The public mind," says the antiquarian, Pliny H. 
 White, " was in the highest degree agitated with the contest. 
 The House remained in session without formal adjournment," 
 {he might have added that John Randolph charged Bayard 
 with bringing about this session or sitting- in the vain hope of 
 starving the Democrats into surrender,) " for seven successive 
 days ; and the excitement both in and out of the House rose to 
 such a height as to render it absolutely necessary to the public 
 welfare that the controversy should be ended in one way or 
 another. The Federalists becoming convinced that it was im 
 possible to elect Burr, reluctantly decided to allow Jefferson to 
 be chosen. It was arranged that Mr. Morris should absent 
 himself from the next balloting, which he accordingly did, and 
 Lyon cast the vote of Vermont for Jefferson, giving him the 
 ninth State that was needed to secure his election. He took 
 considerable credit to himself for his vote." a And well might 
 he do so. Like those who fought on Saint Crispin's day, that 
 vote of patriots made them a "band of brothers." If Lyon lived 
 for a hundred years, never again would it be in his power to 
 
 o " Life and Services of Matthew Lyon," an address by Pliny H. 
 White, p. 23. 
 
396 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 render his beloved country so signal a service. If it were 
 needed, but it is not, I might extend this chapter to undue 
 limits by extracts from contemporary opinion, and the writings 
 of others of subsequent periods, to prove that Lyon had routed 
 the Federalists or Burrites, and made certain the triumph of 
 the great apostle of Democracy in that epoch-making struggle 
 in the House of Representatives. " Colonel Matthew Lyon," 
 says F. S. Drake in his instructive work commemorative of the 
 worthies of the Republic, " gave the vote that made Jefferson 
 President." " The fact," says Charles Lanman, private secre 
 tary and esteemed friend of Daniel Webster, " of his (Lyon) 
 giving the vote that made Jefferson President is well known." 6 
 Colonel Lyon's second term in Congress terminated at the 
 same time with Mr. Adams's term in the Presidency, which 
 circumstance, and the signal part he took in the defeat of the 
 old Braintree statesman, suggested to him a valedictory letter 
 that he addressed to the ex-President. I like this letter as a 
 piece of English composition better than Mr. Hamilton's cele 
 brated letter on "The Public Conduct and Character of John 
 Adams." It is less studied and elaborated, not as smooth in 
 construction, and without Mr. Hamilton's rare skill as a dialec 
 tician. But its animus is better, its motive less unjustifiable, and 
 its satirical strokes are more spontaneous and incisive. The 
 graces of the schools did not belong to Lyon in nearly the same 
 degree as they pervaded the rhetorical periods of Hamilton, 
 but a native wit, a genuine pathos break forth now and again 
 from the less cultivated but hardly less vigorous pen of the 
 Vermonter that are missing in the statelier letter of the ex- 
 
 " Dictionary of American Biography," p. 571. 
 & " Dictionary of Congress," p. 368. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 397 
 
 Secretary of the Treasury. I look in vain in Hamilton's cold 
 and rather stilted sentences for anything as pungent as Lyon's 
 description of the President's sycophants, who " furnished 
 piping hot addresses every morning for breakfast," " studied 
 your palate and changed the cookery of the dish oftener than 
 your kitchen servants," and the Dean Swift-like sarcasm of the 
 allusion to "Joe Thomas." "Your old friend, Joe Thomas, I 
 am told, can scarcely find duds to cover his nakedness; I am 
 surprised you did not make him a judge." The account of the 
 "benevolent Mr. Ogden," and the President's rudeness to him, 
 is in another vein, and proves Lyon an orator who could lay 
 hold of the human heart and touch its hidden springs with 
 natural eloquence. The letter is dated one minute after the 
 close of the President's term of ofHce, and in view of the cruel 
 treatment its author had endured at the hands of Mr. Adams, 
 and the dramatic ending of the fierce political battle between 
 the two distinguished combatants, I am induced to reproduce 
 it here in full, as a pendant to the election of Mr. Jefferson by 
 virtue of the vote of the prisoner of Vergennes jail. 
 
 Letter from Matthew Lyon, late Representative in Congress 
 from the State of Vermont, to Citizen John Adams. 
 
 " City of Washington, 
 59 minutes before one, a. m. 
 
 March 4, 1801. 
 Fellow Citizen: 
 
 Four years ago this day, you became President of the United 
 States, and I a Representative of the people in Congress ; this 
 day has brought us once more on a level; the acquaintance 
 
 oFrom the "Historical Magazine," December, 1873, vol. II, p. 360 
 ei seq. 
 
398 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 we have had together entitles me to the liberty I take, when 
 you are going to depart for Quincy, by and with the consent 
 and advice of the good people of the United States, to bid you 
 a hearty farewell. This appears to me more proper, as I am 
 going to retire, of my own accord, to the extreme western 
 parts of the United States, where I had fixed myself an asylum 
 from the persecutions of a party, the most base, cruel, assum 
 ing and faithless, that ever disgraced the councils of any nation. 
 That party are now happily humbled in " dust and ashes, before 
 the indignant frowns of an injured country," but their deeds 
 never can be forgotten. 
 
 In this valedictory, I propose, without further ceremony, 
 to bring to your view, a retrospect of some part at least, 
 of your public conduct during the last four years. In 
 doing this, I shall not trouble you or myself with 
 the fair promises in your inauguration speech, nor those 
 three volumes, in which is displayed your love of roy 
 alty and Great Britain. Your early endeavors to in 
 volve this country in an endless war, and draw forth her 
 resources on the side of monarchy against republicanism, forms 
 a trait in your history which much more deserves my notice. 
 Your first speech to the Fifth Congress, containing groundless 
 insinuations, that Charles C. Pinckney was authorized to dis 
 cuss and investigate the demands of the French nation for 
 redress, of what they called grievances, presaged with your 
 retirement and when looking over that speech I beg you to 
 reflect on the base manner in which you abused Mr. Monroe, 
 and the French government, because he had, according to his 
 instructions, cultivated a good understanding with that govern 
 ment; and on your childish nonsense about dividing the people 
 from the government. I hope, sir, you are not past blushing 
 at what a school boy would be ashamed of. The people of 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 399 
 
 this country can never be divided from the government; you 
 have brought yourself into hatred and contempt with them, 
 but they never could be induced to view you and your execu 
 tive officers as the government. No! The government they 
 love and respect, and have accordingly put it into better hands. 
 You will now have leisure, sir, to look over your second 
 speech to the same Congress, when I hope you will recollect 
 how you swelled and strutted when you were abusing the 
 nation you were hyprocritically pretending to make up differ 
 ences with. 
 
 Look at the list of laws which you sanctioned that session, 
 giving new and unconstitutional powers to yourself. You will 
 have time to review all the fulsome addresses to you from a 
 misguided multitude ; I will not pretend to describe the sensa 
 tions they will produce, when you reflect how they buoyed up 
 your pride, flattered your vanity, and persuaded you the day 
 was approaching and nigh at hand, when an hereditary crown 
 would be offered you. Read over your answers, sir, which 
 invoked more and more addresses, until the whole store of 
 the folly and sycophancy of our country became exhausted. 
 Pitiful indeed must be your feeling in passing home through 
 the now Democratic State, New Jersey, which formerly so 
 copiously furnished you with piping hot addresses every morn 
 ing for breakfast; the servility of a few of their abandoned 
 citizens studied your palate and changed the cookery of the 
 dish oftener than your kitchen servants. Should you stop at 
 Philadelphia how melancholy must it seem to you; McPher- 
 son's band of Cockade boys are dispersed or grown up into 
 Democrats, no Federal mobs there now to sing Hail Colum 
 bia and huzzar for John Adams, and terrify your opposers. 
 Hopkinson's lyre is out of tune, Cobbett and Liston are gone, 
 the Quakers are for the living President, and your old friend 
 
400 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 Joe Thomas, I am told, can scarcely find duds to cover his 
 nakedness; I am surprised you did not make him a judge. 
 
 I beg pardon for the digression, but let me advise you to 
 take water at the Federal City, and land at the nearest port 
 of Quincy; the condolence of your old confederates, all along 
 from this to Quincy, and the silent contempt of the multitude, 
 will be too hard for you to bear, so soon after your fall, and 
 may deprive you of the little reason you have left. 
 
 But to return to the review of your administration as re 
 spects your endeavors to plunge the nation into all the horrors 
 of war, after you found that the X, Y and Z fabrications did 
 not blind the people sufficiently to their own interests, and 
 after you found France would not be provoked by you to a 
 declaration of war; that they had prudently overlooked all your 
 bullying rhapsodies, and offered to meet you in the work of 
 reconciliation, on the terms yourself had proposed, you in 
 sulted the patience and good sense of the American people, 
 by withholding the public communication nearly throughout 
 a whole session of Congress, and then after some of your ter 
 giversations, put the business of negotiation in such a train, 
 as has kept this country more than two years longer in a 
 state of half war which has destroyed some of the most valu 
 able branches of her commerce, and left the stable and essen 
 tial article of tobacco in the hands of the planter, or obliged 
 him to sell it at one-third of its real value to British specu 
 lators, who have five-folded the price to the French. 
 
 You came to the administration, sir, under the most 
 favorable auspices at the time when if there were parties in 
 this country, they were by no means hostile to each other; 
 when the increasing revenue was sinking the public debt ; when 
 the Federal judiciary held a share of popularity in this country, 
 and were regarded with respect; when the contributions 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 4OI 
 
 toward the public expense sat tolerably easy on the people, 
 when this country was considered as an asylum for the op 
 pressed of all nations, and there was a great influx of foreign 
 riches, industry and ingenuity; when this country was happy 
 in the freedom of speech and of the press; when the Consti 
 tution was considered a barrier against legislative, executive 
 and judicial encroachments, and before the people were divided 
 into castes of gentlemen and simple men ; before offices, places 
 and contracts, were considered as the exclusive right of the 
 favorite caste. Reflect a little, sir, and see this awful change 
 made in four short years. I will give you a slight view of it. 
 You commenced your career, sir, by professions which prom 
 ised to unite all honest men to you, but they were mere pro 
 fessions; your mad zeal for monarchy and Britain, your love 
 of pomp, your unhappy selection of favorites, your regard- 
 lessness of the public treasure, the hard earnings of your 
 fellow citizens, has divided the people into parties and fostered 
 among them envy, malice and rancorous hatred towards each 
 other; father has been set against son, and son against father, 
 brother against brother, neighbors and friends have lost their 
 former relish for the social enjoyments. 
 
 Under your administration, sir, a system of appointments 
 has been established by which implicit faith in your infalli 
 bility and a knack of discoloring the truth became the only 
 qualification to office, or to entitle a person to a contract. 
 
 Under your administration, sir, useless and expensive em 
 bassies have prevailed to an alarming degree. Offices and 
 officers, almost without number, have been created and ap 
 pointed, all out of the favored caste; while merit and abilities 
 have been disregarded; capable, discerning and popular men 
 have, by you and your minions, been discharged from the 
 service of their country, without being vouchsafed a reason 
 
4O2 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 for their degradation. Your administration, sir, has been 
 famous for contracts; there is not a doubt but in future the 
 secret records of your Navy Office will be studied by your 
 friend Wm. Pitt, and those he wishes to give favorite contracts 
 to s ; there the oldest and the wickedest British speculators may 
 learn new modes of managing advantageously about contracts. 
 
 The judiciary, sir, under your untoward administration, have 
 made alarming encroachments on the rights of man ; they have 
 adopted the British maxim of non-expatriation, in the face 
 of every principle heretofore held dear in this country, and 
 in contradiction to many of the State Constitutions. They 
 have been endeavoring to introduce the crude, cruel, undi 
 gested, inapt and obsolete system of the common law into 
 our national jurisprudence; and they have, in defiance of the 
 express prohibition in the Constitution made pass for treason, 
 a crime defined in laws by another name, and there decreed 
 to be punished by fine and imprisonment. Your conscience 
 recoiled at this ; it seems you were not prepared for everything. 
 Your old friend Hamilton abuses you for the only good thing 
 you ever did in your life; he ought to have excused you, and 
 recollected how your imagination had been tortured by the 
 ghost of Jonathan Robbins. Your confederate in that case, 
 Judge Bee, it seems you have provided well for in this world, 
 but there is another world, to which you have sent poor 
 Jonathan, where you must both meet him. May you by sin 
 cere repentance be prepared for that awful meeting. 
 
 Under your administration, sir, and with your consent, your 
 fellow-citizens have had a heavy addition to the tax on salt; 
 their houses and lands have been subjected to an unprece 
 dented tax; a tax on licenses for selling the liquor but just 
 before taxed; as well as an odious tax on paper, parchment 
 and vellum has been instituted; and the taxes on some other 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 403 
 
 articles of consumption have been raised. These heavy and 
 additional contributions have not sufficed you to have the 
 command and disposition of: No. Many millions have been 
 borrowed at an enormous interest, to satiate the appetites of 
 the greedy courtiers for which the future earnings of your 
 fellow-citizens stand pledged. 
 
 An -Alien Law, sir, bears your signature, which unconstitu 
 tionally subjected to your sovereign will the liberty and banish 
 ment of every alien, whatever might be his connections in, 
 and attachment to this country; and the terms of citizenship 
 have been rendered almost inaccessible, by which the best 
 disposed and the most able and useful emigrants have been 
 deterred from coming to this country; and many have been 
 obliged to fly from your vindictive wrath. 
 
 Perhaps in no one instance has our Constitution, our sacred 
 bill of rights, been more shamefully, more barefacedly tram 
 pled on, than in the case of the passage of the bill called the 
 Sedition Law. This, sir, was your darling hobby horse. By 
 this law you expected to have all your follies, your absurdities, 
 and your atrocities buried in oblivion. You thought by its 
 terrors to shut the mouths of all but sycophants and flatterers, 
 and to secure yourself in the Presidency at least; but how 
 happily have you been disappointed, the truth has issued 
 from many a patriot pen and press, and you have fallen, 
 never, never to rise again. 
 
 It has availed you little, sir, to have me fined $1,000, and 
 imprisoned four months for declaring truth long before the 
 Sedition Law was passed; to have Holt and Haswell fined $200 
 and imprisoned two months each; the one for calling the 
 late disbanded army a standing army, and the other for pub 
 lishing the sentiments of your Secretary of War, in his letter 
 to General Darke; to have Cooper fined $400 and imprisoned 
 
404 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 six months, because he resented your publishing his con 
 fidential application to you for an office he was truly worthy 
 of. You complained of the breach of confidence in the case 
 of Tench Coxe, but you had forgot your perfidy to Cooper. 
 Those attempts to stifle an investigation of your conduct only 
 accelerated your fall. When you have read thus far you 
 cannot but recollect the benevolent Mr. Ogden, and your rude 
 ness to him, that man who had formerly been your panegyrist, 
 and who possessed as great a share of the milk of human 
 kindness as ever filled the breast of man, who took a journey of 
 400 miles through the Northern regions, to carry the petitions 
 of the Vermonters for their Representative, and to try his 
 powers of persuasion on Mr. Adams. Mercy for his favorite 
 friend was to be his theme. I told Mr. Ogden that you were 
 vindictive and revengeful, and that he would be disappointed. 
 His good nature would not suffer him to believe me. He 
 tried the experiment; he failed; but how cruel was it of you, 
 sir, to add insult to unkindness. After your refusing to comply 
 with his request, he said you could not let him go without 
 morosely telling him that you supposed it was in his behalf 
 you had been solicited for an office in the Customs in Connec 
 ticut, and that his interference in behalf of Colonel Lyon had 
 put it out of your power to do him any favor. Cruel indeed! 
 It was enough to disappoint his expectations of flying to his 
 imprisoned friend with the joyful news of his enlargement. 
 It was too much to tell him his own hopes were all blasted; 
 it broke his heart. Sir, he had not hoped so much on his 
 own account as on account of the aged, unprovided widow of 
 General Wooster who would have shared with him the emolu 
 ments. That office, I understand, was among the sacrifices 
 your old friend, the General, made at the commencement of 
 the Revolutionary war. But, sir, the good Mr. Ogden wants 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 405 
 
 no place now from you or any other earthly potentate. He 
 has got a place in Abraham's bosom, and he no doubt looks 
 down from heaven on you with ineffable pity and tender com 
 passion. 
 
 It is a long time, sir, since I have intended myself the honor 
 of at this time writing you a valedictory. I have, however, 
 put it off from time to time, as we are apt to do about things 
 that concern others more than they do ourselves. Inevitable 
 business has caused me to neglect this duty until the last 
 moment, when I have been obliged to hurry the thing over 
 much against my inclination. You will be kind enough to 
 pardon the many essential omissions I have necessarily been 
 guilty of. There is no doubt but by the time you read thus 
 far your conscience, seated as it is, will be ready to supply 
 many of the defects of my memory. 
 
 I must finish my letter, sir, where you finish your adminis 
 tration, that is with your late nominations. I have been told, 
 sir, that you have given one Secretaryship and four Judgeships 
 for laying the ghost of Jonathan Robbins, besides Judge Bee's 
 appointment; or, in other words, you give as a premium to 
 the man who made the most learned and perplexing speech 
 in your favor, the Secretaryship. It is a maxim with the 
 lawyers and popish priests, I believe, that the greater the vil 
 lainy to be exculpated from, the greater the fee. 
 
 The Secretaryship became precarious, the service rendered 
 was great indeed, and not to be forgotten. The judiciary was 
 the only permanent fund to be applied to, and so long as there 
 was a brother or a sister to make claim, they, it seems, have 
 been ordered to .draw upon it until all were satisfied. The 
 same fund has served you an excellent purpose for legacies 
 to your poor and distant relatives, as well as for rewarding 
 the tories who have been the firmest friends to your adminis- 
 
406 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 tration. Through the whole of your late nominations you 
 have proceeded, sir, as if you took counsel from the infernal 
 regions. Some men, (who are not thought very highly of 
 either,) have spurned your nominations avowedly to avoid the 
 disgrace they confer. 
 
 I am told, sir, that when you was Vice-President you 
 boasted that for the casting vote upon Mr. Madison's propo 
 sitions you would not take ten thousand pounds. By your 
 administration you have rendered that vote fatal to your coun 
 try, and made it cost them millions. You seem now more 
 than ever bent on mischief. Your vindictive spirit prompts 
 you to do everything in your power to give the succeeding 
 administration trouble; but you are as unfortunate in this as 
 in most of your calculations. Your creatures are generally 
 pliant reeds; they will bend to and fawn upon anybody that is 
 in power. It was power they worshipped in you, not John 
 Adams. 
 
 Come, pray sir, cool yourself a little. Do not coil round 
 like the rattlesnake, and bite yourself. No, betake yourself to 
 fasting and prayer awhile. It may be good for both body 
 and soul. That is a safer remedy for an old man in your 
 situation than the letting of blood. 
 
 Suffer me to recommend to you that patience and resig 
 nation which is characteristic of the holy religion you profess. 
 I hope and pray that your fate may be a warning to all 
 usurpers and tyrants, and that you may, before you leave this 
 world, become a true and sincere penitent, and be forgiven 
 all your manifold sins in the next. I repeat it, this is the 
 sincere wish and prayer of your fellow-citizen, 
 
 M. LYON." 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 407 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 WESTWARD HO! FOUNDS EDDYVILLE, KY. COL. LYON'S SON 
 CHITTENDEN OTHER DESCENDANTS SCHOOLS OF JEFFER 
 SON AND MARSHALL LYON's RETURN TO CONGRESS LEAD 
 ING POSITION VIOLENT PERSONALITIES BETWEEN JOHN 
 RANDOLPH AND COL. LYON AARON BURR GERMS OF PRO 
 TECTIVE SYSTEM LYON OPPOSES EMBARGO AND CONGRES 
 SIONAL CAUCUS TO NOMINATE PRESIDENT IN RETIREMENT 
 
 FACTOR TO THE CHEROKEE NATION RE-ELECTED TO CON 
 GRESS FROM ARKANSAS HIS DEATH AT SPADRA BLUFF. 
 
 T N his letter to ex-President Adams, Colonel Lyon an 
 nounces his intention of removing from Vermont 
 to the far Southwest. Governor Chittenden, his father- 
 in-law, General Ethan Allen, his old commander in arms and 
 family connection, and most of his intimate Revolutionary as 
 sociates among the Green Mountain Boys had passed to their 
 eternal reward. The John Adams or Chipman party had sub 
 jected Colonel Lyon to such persecutions during the alien and 
 sedition reign of terror, and were still besetting his path with 
 so many petty annoyances, that he determined to leave the 
 beloved State to the service of which he had given the best 
 years of his life. His departure was a notable event in the 
 history of Fair Haven. The people gathered in sorrow to 
 say farewell to the founder and father of the town. Among 
 them was a youth who was so deeply impressed with the 
 scene that he was able seventy years afterwards to recall in 
 
408 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 a letter to the author of the History of Fair Haven the white 
 canvassed caravan of Matthew Lyon as it wound its way 
 along Poultney river on the long journey to the more primi 
 tive settlement in the forests of Kentucky. This was the 
 venerable Rev. N. S. S. Beaman, D. D. In a letter, written 
 when he was 84 years of age, the Reverend Doctor says: " I 
 knew Col. Matthew Lyon, and when I was quite a small lad 
 I was intimately acquainted with his family, especially with 
 one of his sons, Chittenden, named, I suppose, from Governor 
 Chittenden. We all familiarly called him ' Chit.' He was a 
 bright boy, but inflammable and impulsive as a torpedo or 
 a witch quill. I came very near becoming involved in an 
 Irish row with him because I modestly declined pledging him 
 in a ' brandy smash/ in improved modern parlance, then called 
 a * brandy sling/ which he had paid as one of the heads of 
 opposite parties in a game of base ball. 
 
 " Of the other children of Colonel Lyon I knew less than 
 of ' Chit/ because we were about of the same age, he being 
 less than one year older than myself. The family removed 
 to Kentucky, then known as ' the new State.' I well remem 
 ber watching the emigrant wagons, as they passed through 
 Hampton, making a fine display of their imposing white can 
 vas, proclaiming their departure to the great unknown South 
 west. It was a thing to be remembered and talked about. 
 
 " Colonel Lyon's wife was highly spoken of, and they had 
 one daughter famed for personal beauty and many accom 
 plishments. My impression is that she and others died soon 
 after arriving in Kentucky. Colonel Lyon was a member of. 
 Congress from Vermont, and was re-elected from; his new 
 residence. He was a native of the Green Isle of the ocean, 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 409 
 
 and possessed all the qualities of his race. He had talents, but 
 they were rough and unhewed from the quarry, and would 
 have appeared more comely in the eyes of most men if he had 
 been subjected to the polish of the chisel/' 
 
 The Federalists had created a public opinion that Matthew 
 Lyonwas,as this reverend writer calls it, "rough and unhewed," 
 but those who knew him better appreciated his strokes more 
 than those of commonplace college bred men, no matter how 
 much polished by the chisel. The distance between medi 
 ocrity and genius is immeasurable. The man against whom 
 John Adams staked and lost the whole power of his adminis 
 tration had achieved his victory largely by his pen. The 
 eloquence which, according to Thompson, electrified the Ok} 
 Council of Safety and carried through Ira Allen's bill of con^ 
 fiscation against the Tories; which rebuked the insolence ol 
 a Connecticut Congressman in the debate on the motion to 
 excuse Lyon from attendance in the procession that packed 
 through the streets to answer the President's speech, and 
 made that Puritan gentleman's appeal Allen, I think, was his 
 name to " high blood " and " American accent " the occasion 
 for the repudiation of Salem witchcraft, New Haven blue laws, 
 and " Cromwell's bastards," very clearly proved that Matthew 
 Lyon's tongue was as ready as his pen, and as fearless and 
 tripping as the best of them. At a scolding match he did 
 not lower his colors even before the Ithuriel spear of John 
 Randolph himself. But Dr. Beaman's description of the emi 
 grant train is interesting as the testimony of an eye witness. 
 Colonel Lyon was in his element as a pioneer. Daniel Boone 
 
 " History of Fair Haven, Vermont," by Andrew N. Adams, pp. 
 273-274- 
 
MATTHEW LYON 
 
 was not more at home than he in the primeval forest, the vast 
 wilderness, the frontier line just beyond the outskirts and 
 haunts of civilization. I have often followed in fancy the 
 Colonel on his long journey from Vermont to Kentucky. 
 Leading his numerous retinue across the mountains of Penn 
 sylvania, thence the following spring embarking with them 
 down the Ohio and up the Cumberland to Eddyville, this 
 pioneer it seems to me may have been in the mind of Leutze 
 when he depicted just such a scene on canvas. The visitor 
 to the National Capitol has perhaps paused before Leutze's 
 picture of " Westward Ho," hung upon one of the landings 
 of a staircase approach to the gallery of Congress. The 
 pioneer has reached a mountain summit and gazes enraptured 
 on the promised land to the west. As he scales the rugged 
 eminence his animated spirit seems to infuse new life into 
 the wearied emigrants, and suggests appropriately the strug 
 gles and hopes of that hardy race of American pioneers with 
 which the great West has been populated. Never has one 
 set out who carried with him more of the founder's soul of 
 pious Aeneas than Matthew Lyon on his way to establish the 
 town of Eddyville, Kentucky. 
 
 After Nashville and Clarksville, this town became the 
 busiest emporium of trade on the Cumberland river. It so 
 continued until the dawn of the railroad era. The mammoth 
 steamers plying between New Orleans and Nashville made 
 Eddyville a principal landing place. There came for ship 
 ment the teeming products of the rich back counties of Chris 
 tian, Caldwell, Hopkins and other counties of that fertile 
 region, their tobacco and corn and fat cattle crowding the 
 busy wharves and occupying days in loading, while one round 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 411 
 
 of festivities after another in the spacious saloons of the 
 steamers made a very fairy land of those floating palaces. 
 Steamboat officers on the Mississippi and Western rivers were 
 a race apart of right royal entertainers. 
 
 After the adjournment of Congress in 1801 Colonel Lyon 
 passed some weeks in Virginia at the country seat of his friend 
 General Mason, and continuing his trip made a prospecting 
 tour through Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and the 
 Northwest. He stopped for some time at the Hermitage with 
 his friend, General Andrew Jackson, and it is said that it was 
 by his advice he was influenced in the selection of his future 
 home. Mrs. Roe informed me that in her childhood she 
 frequently saw General Jackson when he visited her father's 
 house at Eddyville, and Mr. L. E. Chittenden of New York, 
 former Register of the Treasury in the days of Abraham Lin 
 coln, stated in a letter to me in 1883 that it was largely due 
 to Andrew Jackson that Matthew Lyon emigrated from Ver 
 mont to Kentucky. Hildreth, in his " History of the United 
 States," has several references to the intimacy between the 
 two famous men. A few years later when Aaron Burr was 
 plunging into treason, it was in Colonel Lyon's power, and 
 he spared no efforts to break the spell of Jackson's infatuation 
 for that strange and magnetic plotter whom Hamilton truth 
 fully described as the American Cataline. 
 
 I must make a farewell quotation here from a writer whom 
 I have had frequent occasion throughout these pages to men 
 tion, Rev. Pliny H. White. This gentleman's accuracy as a 
 chronicler I have always admired, and his conception of the 
 character of Matthew Lyon is in the main correct, although 
 his want of acquaintance with facts and particulars in Lyon's 
 
412 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 early life somewhat detracts from his biographical address 
 upon him before the Vermont Historical Society. Referring 
 to Lyon's departure from Vermont, Mr. White says : " He 
 made a tour to the West and South in search of a new home, 
 passing through Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and the North 
 west territory, and everywhere receiving marked civilities, 
 public and private. He selected what is now Eddyville, in 
 Lyon county, Kentucky, as the place of his future residence. 
 Here he removed a part of his family with some other Ver 
 mont families, which he had persuaded to emigrate, and com 
 menced building the town, which having fairly started, he 
 brought out the rest of his family and a number of other 
 families." 
 
 The first contingent, besides artisans, to arrive in Kentucky 
 of the Lyon colony was chiefly made up of the members of 
 the family by his first marriage, James Lyon, his two married 
 daughters with their husbands, John Messenger and Dr. 
 George Cadwell and their families, and Loraine, the youngest 
 daughter of his first wife, or Laura, as Mrs. Roe calls her in 
 the volume entitled " Aunt Leanna, or Early Scenes in Ken- 
 tncky." Colonel Lyon returned to the East and removed 
 the other members of his family to Kentucky, consisting of 
 his second wife, daughter of Governor Chittenden, and her 
 young children, and several other Vermont families, deter 
 mined to follow the fortunes of Lyon in the new country. The 
 beautiful young Loraine, favorite child of Colonel Lyon and 
 grand niece of Ethan Allen, after whose daughter she took 
 her name, fell sick soon after her arrival at Eddyville, and 
 
 o Address of Rev. Pliny H. White on the " Life and Services of 
 Matthew Lyon." 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 413 
 
 died during her father's absence in the East. This was the 
 first death among these settlers that occurred in Kentucky. 
 Mrs. Roe, in the book mentioned, gives an interesting narra 
 tive of the expedition in which so many Vermonters accom 
 panied her father to the Southwest. Many of his friends at 
 Fair Haven asked him to take them in his train. After duly 
 considering the project, and his means of carrying it out, 
 Colonel Lyon assembled his Fair Haven neighbors around 
 him, and laid before them an outline of his plans. I subjoin 
 from his daughter's book, Mrs. Roe, the following interesting 
 particulars: " Our pioneer looked upon them with feelings 
 he dared scarce to express. At length, after weighing and 
 considering the matter in his own mind, and examining his 
 purse, he made them the following proposition: That he 
 would take as many mechanics as would go with him, with 
 their families, defray their expenses on the journey, and deed 
 them a home on their arrival; and they should work for him 
 at a reasonable compensation, until they paid him for the 
 same. In consideration of these inducements ten families con 
 cluded to go with him, and seek their fortunes in the far- 
 famed West. Accordingly arrangements were made, and they 
 bid farewell to the land of steady habits and all that was dear 
 to their hearts there, and started for their new home in the 
 romantic wilds of Kentucky. They traveled as far as Pitts 
 burgh that fall (1799), and there remained through the winter. 
 The mechanics were employed during the winter in construct 
 ing flat-boats." a Mrs. Roe next conducts the emigrants down 
 the Ohio, and thus continues: 
 
 o " Aunt Leanna, or Early Scenes in Kentucky/' pp. 17-18, by Mrs. 
 Eliza A, Roe, Chicago, 1855. 
 
414 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 " One pleasant morning about the 1st of July 1800, as the 
 Colonel was promenading the deck, he said: ' Madam Lyon/ 
 (this was his customary manner of addressing his wife) ' if you 
 will come this way I will show you the first sign of our new 
 home. Do you see those bluffs in the distance? ' ' I do/ 
 said she. 'Well, at the foot of those, in a beautiful bottom 
 or valley, our Western home is situated. . . . There, there/ 
 added the Colonel, ' I see the large sycamore tree that stands 
 on the banks just where we must land. Boys, we will give 
 them a few guns to let them know we are coming/ The gun 
 they had with them was a small cannon one that was used in 
 the Revolutionary war the report of which had brought to 
 the bank of the river all the inhabitants of the settlement. 
 
 "'It is they! It is they!' said Mrs. Messenger, who was 
 the Colonel's oldest daughter. ' It is just like father to fire 
 those guns/ 
 
 " ' It is they without doubt/ said Mrs. Cadwell, ' and who 
 shall break to them the sad intelligence of the death of dear 
 Laura? ' ' I cannot/ said Mrs. Messenger and Mrs. Cadwell, 
 both at the same moment. 
 
 " ' I will save you both the painful task/ said Dr. Cadwell, 
 who was the husband of the second daughter, and Laura's 
 physician." 
 
 Colonel Lyon and his wife, when they landed, were taken 
 aside by Dr. Cadwell, who in as gentle a manner as he could 
 employ broke the sad news to them. The death of his beauti 
 ful daughter pierced as with a sword the heart of the grief- 
 stricken Colonel. "After a visit to Laura's grave," says Mrs. 
 Roe, "they became composed and began to think of the 
 future." 
 
 a/W., p. 23,* *ff. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 41$ 
 
 Dr. Cadwell and Mr. Messenger remained in Kentucky only 
 a few years. They removed with their families to Illinois. 
 Mrs. Roe, who was an ardent abolitionist, assigns negro 
 slavery as the cause of their departure. She makes this further 
 remark which, if correct, adds a bit of history highly interest 
 ing to the people of Illinois : " Twice in his life did Dr. Cad- 
 well give the casting vote in the Legislature of Illinois on the 
 subject of slavery, and the last time the matter was settled 
 permanently in favor of freedom." a 
 
 Of James Lyon, the Colonel's oldest son, who had acquired 
 the printer's trade at Philadelphia under his father's illustrious 
 friend Benjamin Franklin, and next was a busy man of affairs 
 at Fair Haven, I have gleaned further particulars from various 
 letters written by his father, his brother Chittenden, and by 
 no less a personage than Thomas Jefferson, with whom James 
 Lyon was well acquainted. After living at Eddyville for many 
 years he removed to South Carolina, where he passed the last 
 years of his life. I think it probable that he was the same 
 person referred to by Matthew S. Lyon of Evansville, Indiana, 
 in a letter written to me by the latter gentleman in the year 
 1881. Reference to this letter is made in a former chapter. 
 An unfinished autobiography left by old Colonel Lyon, after 
 having been gnawed by mice in the attic, finally fell into the 
 hands of this grandson, Matthew S. Lyon, who could not 
 possibly decipher it. "Some years later," he says, "the 
 MS. was taken by a relative of his (Mason R. Lyon, I think) 
 to Alabama. If I am not mistaken this Lyon was engaged in 
 
 <*Ibid., p. 44. Mrs. Roe's book was the first Abolition story pub 
 lished in this country. The first edition appeared many years before 
 the second. 
 
4l6 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 publishing a newspaper. I think he gave up the idea of 
 restoring it himself, as I have never heard anything from him 
 or it since." The description answers James Lyon, and al 
 though my correspondent mentions his name conjecturally as 
 Mason R. Lyon, it is not unlikely he really meant James. In 
 another letter to me, May 4, 1881, he recalls one or two pas 
 sages of his grandfather's autobiography, less mutilated than 
 the rest. This one in particular in relation to Matthew Lyon's 
 departure when a boy from Ireland struck me as very graphic : 
 " He says in his MS. that in the gray light of the morning 
 of the day fixed for the departure of the vessel he bundled 
 up his little effects, stole into the chamber of his mother, 
 snatched a last kiss while she slept, and before the tears 
 were dry on his boyish cheek, the vessel had spread her 
 white wings and turned her prow to the land of promise 
 which beckoned him on with an inscrutable force to his fate, 
 whatever it might be, in the new world." 
 
 In January, 1805, Matthew Lyon wrote from Washington 
 to his old friend at Fair Haven, Judge James Witherell, and 
 informed him that his son James Lyon was engaged in ship 
 building on his own account at Eddyville, and by good lucR 
 and business management had made considerable money. 
 Some years later James had it in his power to aid Mr. Jeffer 
 son in hunting down a rascal who had attempted to swindle 
 the venerable ex-President, as the following interesting letter 
 discloses: 
 
 " Monticello, September 5, 1811. 
 
 " Sir. I enclose you the copy of a letter from a James L. 
 Edwards, of Boston. You will perceive at once its swindling 
 object. It appeals to two dead men, and one (yourself) whom 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 4*7 
 
 he supposes I cannot get at. I have written him an answer 
 which may perhaps prevent his persevering in the attempt, 
 for the whole face of his letter betrays a consciousness of its 
 guilt. But perhaps he may expect that I would sacrifice a 
 sum of money rather than be disturbed with encountering a 
 bold falsehood. In this he is mistaken; and to prepare to 
 meet him, should he repeat his demand, and considering that 
 he has presumed to implicate your name in this attempt, I 
 take the liberty of requesting a letter from you bearing testi 
 mony to the truth of my never having made to you, or within 
 your knowledge or information, any such promise to your 
 self, your partner Morse, or any other. My confidence in 
 your character leaves we without a doubt of your honest aid 
 in repelling this base and bold attempt to fix on me practices 
 to which no honors or powers in this world would ever have 
 induced me to stoop. I have solicited none, intrigued for 
 none. Those which my country has thought proper to con 
 fide to me have been of their own mere motion, unasked by 
 me. Such practices as this letter-writer imputes to me would 
 have proved me unworthy of their confidence. 
 
 " It is long since I have known anything of your situation 
 or pursuits. I hope they have been successful, and tender 
 you my best wishes that they may continue so, and for your 
 own health and happiness." 
 
 The descendants of Colonel Lyon have been numerous, and 
 well and favorably known in Kentucky and other States. The 
 most distinguished of them was his son Chittenden Lyon, a 
 prominent member of Congress during the administrations of 
 
 Letter of Thomas Jefferson to James Lyon, " Works of Jefferson," 
 VI, 10. 
 
MATTHEW LYON 
 
 General Jackson. Lyon county took its name from him, and 
 the people of Kentucky held him in honor and affection. His 
 nature, like that of his father, was bold, generous and chivalric. 
 In stature he was a Hercules, and one of the handsomest men 
 of his time. I was anxious to procure his (picture for this 
 volume, and sought for it in vain from several of his descend 
 ants. His son Matthew S. Lyon, of Evansville, Indiana, in 
 the letter already mentioned, says : " There is no likeness of 
 my father in existence. He died before photography came in, 
 and while in politics, unlike some of our men of mark, he 
 had no ambition to see his picture in public places. His fine, 
 manly and handsome face (he was the finest looking man I 
 ever saw) would have made a splendid picture. He died at 
 fifty-four, and had not a wrinkle on his face. His weight 
 was ordinarily 240 pounds." I was in the end fortunate 
 enough to obtain the picture which this son did not think 
 was in existence, but Col. E. C. Machen, his grandson, 
 procured a good pencil sketch or etching of Chittenden Lyon 
 from a member of his family in the West, which is reproduced 
 in these pages. 
 
 Another of his sons, the late Thompson A. Lyon of Louis 
 ville, who aided me more than any other person in collecting 
 data and materials for this biography, thus wrote in reply to 
 my question as to the accuracy of Rev. Dr. Beaman's descrip 
 tion of his father, Chittenden Lyon, as a " torpedo " or " witch- 
 quill:" "From all I have heard, together with my recollection 
 of my father, I am inclined to think that Dr. Beaman's ac 
 count of his youth is correct. He was a ' broth of a boy/ with 
 so much of the blood of his father, that he was ever ready 
 for a hand to hand fight on the shortest notice. When I 
 
CHITTENDEN LYON. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 419 
 
 was a boy my father was known and called by everybody, 
 old and young, 'Uncle Chit/ He was universally popular 
 and greatly beloved. A prominent characteristic of his was to 
 take sides with the weaker party in any difficulty." He was 
 a man of wealth, and great energy, and business ability. 
 When his father in his latter years was embarrassed in his 
 pecuniary affairs, this noble son came to his relief, advancing 
 over $28,000,, at that time an immense sum, out of his own 
 pocket to discharge the liabilities. His habits were more con 
 vivial than his father's, and he would pass the social glass 
 freely. But Matthew Lyon was a strictly sober man, while 
 Chittenden Lyon, though not dissipated, kept a generous side 
 board, and indulged in moderate potations. The unamiable 
 John Quincy Adams speaks of him in his Memoirs rather 
 spitefully, and describes a debate in Congress at 2 o'clock in 
 the morning, with Chittenden Lyon addressing the House " as 
 drunk as a lord." a The son of Matthew Lyon was hardly a 
 favorite of the son of John Adams, but whatever the vitriolic 
 John Quincy Adams thought or said, the fact is undisputed 
 that Chittenden Lyon was a man generally and justly esteemed 
 and loved, and every Kentuckian had a soft place in his heart 
 for " Uncle Chit." I subjoin a letter of his which contains 
 family history of much interest : 
 
 " House of Representatives, 
 
 Washington, D. C, April 5, 1828. 
 To Hon. James Witherell: 
 
 Dear Sir. Your esteemed favor of the I7th ultimo was 
 received this morning, and letter contained therein was handed 
 to Colonel Watson. 
 
 " Memoirs of John Quincy Adams," VIII, 532. 
 
42O MATTHEW LYON 
 
 It gives me great pleasure to receive this attention from 
 the long and much valued friend of my lamented father, and 
 brings to my mind the scenes of my childhood. I well recol 
 lect you and your family, and regret to learn that so many 
 of them have, like my own connection, ' gone the way of all 
 flesh.' You enquire after my mother. She is no more ; she 
 survived my father about 18 months, worn down with grief 
 and affliction for the misfortune and death of her husband and 
 two children in less than two years ; but she found consolation 
 and resignation in religion. She had been for the last twelve 
 years of her somewhat eventful life an exemplary member of 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church, and died in full hope and 
 faith of sleeping in the arms of her God. My eldest half- 
 brother, James Lyon, died in South Carolina about four years 
 since, poor. My eldest half-sister, Ann Messenger, and her 
 family reside in Illinois near Belleville. Her husband is in 
 comfortable circumstances, and very respectable. Sister 
 Pamelia resides in the same State; her husband, Dr. Geo. Cad- 
 well, died some two years since, leaving seven unmarried 
 daughters, and no son, (his only one having died some years 
 before him) in moderate circumstances. My half-brother, 
 Elijah G. Galusha, resides in Kentucky, near me. He married 
 the daughter of Mr. Throop, and is a poor farmer. My eldest 
 own sister, Minerva, resides in Beavertown, Penn. Her hus 
 band, Dr. Catlett, late surgeon in the United States Army, 
 died a little more than three years ago, in moderate circum 
 stances. My sister Aurelia died about nine months before 
 my father, leaving two orphan children. Her husband, Dr. 
 H. Skinner, died about two years before her, and left a pretty 
 little estate for their children. My brother Matthew lives 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 421 
 
 within two miles of my residence, (Eddyville, Ky.,) and is 
 doing very well in fact, getting rich, for he minds the main 
 chance and dabbles but little in politics, but is a candidate for 
 elector on the Jackson ticket. My sister, Eliza Ann, born in 
 Kentucky, resides also in the State of Illinois. She married a 
 worthy man, but poor, and moved to that State about one 
 year ago. My youngest brother, Giles, also born in Ken 
 tucky, and who lived with my mother, died in the 2oth year of 
 his age, about five months before my mother. 
 
 Of those who went with or followed my father, besides our 
 family, G. D. Cobb, who married Modena Clark, resides at 
 Eddyville; has a large and respectable family, but is reduced 
 in his circumstances in consequence of losing a valuable farm, 
 which was taken by a prior claim after a long law suit, which 
 he had highly improved. Captain Throop has been dead 
 many years; he died as he lived, poor. His wife, second 
 daughter, and youngest son went to her brother, Samuel Vail, 
 at Baton Rouge, La., and are all dead. His eldest son, John, 
 resides at Eddyville, a vagabond. His daughter, Betsy, is a 
 widow. Samuel C. Clark resides with G. D. Cobb; is poor, 
 and has lost one leg, amputated close up to the body ; and last, 
 old General Whitehouse, whom you no doubt recollect, fol 
 lowed my father to Kentucky, and survived both my father 
 and mother, and several of the younger branches of the family, 
 died about eighteen months since, having been a charge on 
 my hands for many years. 
 
 In answering your enquiries I have necessarily been led into 
 a long, and to you, somewhat uninteresting letter, while a long 
 speech was making upon the Tariff bill, which is still under 
 consideration in the House of Representatives. 
 
422 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 I have had a severe indisposition since my arrival here, 
 which confined me near a month, but I am now perfectly re 
 covered. I have had the misfortune to lose my wife since I 
 left home. She died on the 4th of February, and has left me 
 a family of five young children, the eldest 10 years, the young 
 est 3 months and 4 days. 
 
 Please present my respects to your good lady. 
 
 Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 CHITTENDEN LYON."* 
 
 This worthy son of a worthy father died at the comparatively 
 early age of fifty-four, on the 23d of November, 1842. One 
 of his daughters, to whom the heritage of beauty in a marked 
 degree belonged, Miss Margaret A. Lyon, married Mr. Willis 
 B. Machen, who became a Senator in Congress, and in the 
 election of 1872 received the electoral vote of Kentucky for 
 the office of Vice-President of the United States. Wishing to 
 procure a brief sketch of this grandson by marriage of 
 Matthew Lyon, I requested a Kentucky gentleman who was 
 well acquainted with Mr. Machen, to send me a short account 
 of his life, and from his interesting letter the following ex 
 tracts are taken: 
 
 " Eddyville, Ky., November 22, 1899. 
 Hon. J. Fairfax McLaughlin, 
 
 New York City : 
 
 Dear Sir. Replying to yours of recent date, it gives me 
 very great pleasure to furnish the information you desire. 
 
 Hon. Willis Benson Machen was born in Caldwell (now 
 Lyon) county, Ky., April 5, 1810, and died September 29, 
 1893. All his life was spent in Lyon county. 
 
 A. N. Adams's " History of Fair Haven," pp. 424-425. 
 
WILLIS B. MACHEN, 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 423 
 
 There can be no question but what the absolute respect of 
 all who knew him fixed his status as a pure-minded Christian 
 gentleman in the highest sense of the word. He drew the 
 strong and weak alike to him through his manliness as a man, 
 his tremendous force as an individual, and his fairness under 
 all circumstances. He never temporized with wrong in the 
 slightest degree. He was never known to shirk a duty, be it 
 great or small. Even his political opponents always accorded 
 to him honesty of belief and integrity of purpose. He de 
 spised trickery and this quality in him made it impossible for 
 him to live in that retirement best suited to his tempera 
 ment. He had no natural taste for public life, though he was 
 pushed into positions of trust in matters of church and state. 
 Where large affairs of business requiring force of character, 
 tact, skill, experience, foresight, and immense energy were 
 involved, he was generally selected by the courts to take 
 charge of them, and some of the largest and most complicated 
 estates in this section of country were handled by him with 
 consummate skill. No taint of suspicion ever crossed his 
 private life, nor was any impurity of motive ever imputed to 
 him by those who knew him. 
 
 His mind and abilities were of a high order, and from com 
 parative obscurity, such as life on the frontier necessitated in 
 his youth, he rose upon his own merits to prominence, because 
 his neighbors who knew him best instinctively turned to him 
 when counsel or leadership were needed. He was always a 
 Jefferson- Jackson Democrat, and in early manhood was a pro 
 nounced factor in framing the Constitution of Kentucky. ,His 
 unquestioned leadership as a layman in the Methodist Church 
 (South) was attested by his regular selection as a delegate to 
 
424 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 their annual and quadrennial conferences. His advice was 
 seemingly indispensable in affairs of that denomination. 
 
 First as a member of the convention which framed the Consti 
 tution of Kentucky, afterwards as a member of the State Senate 
 and House of Representatives, then as a member of the Con 
 federate Congress, afterwards a Senator of the United States 
 from this State, he was always the same courtly gentleman, 
 holding the respect of his political opponents, and the admira 
 tion and affection of his friends and allies. 
 
 He married Margaret A., a granddaughter of Col. Matthew 
 Lyon, and the writer heard this from the lips of the late David 
 Watts of your city, who became the head of the foremost to 
 bacco house of its day: ' When I stood up with Willis Machen 
 as his best man, he and his bride were the handsomest, the 
 most aristocratic looking, and best matched couple I ever saw 
 in my life/ This was said after Mr. Watts had had great 
 opportunity to see people in all the great centers of the world. 
 He added : ' My opinion has never changed.' 
 
 Colonel Machen won his way in the world by force of his 
 own character, though he was justly proud of his ancestry, 
 and here where he is buried he is mourned by all who knew him 
 as one of the tenderest, and yet one of the fairest and firmest 
 of men; an honor to his State and his country, and the pride 
 of the community in which he spent a lifetime. 
 
 In one of the Democratic conventions (I do not recollect 
 which), he was presented and voted for by the Kentucky dele 
 gation as their choice for Vice-President. 
 
 He was the most thoroughly self-respecting man I ever 
 knew, without a taint of self-consciousness or self-importance 
 that repels people. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 425 
 
 In all the relations of life he measured up to the best tradi 
 tions of American manhood and Christian requirement. As 
 son, husband, father and friend, he was ever considerate of and 
 true to the relation. While he was not the eldest of a large 
 family of brothers and sisters, he was the foremost, though all 
 were conspicuous leaders in their circles and communities. 
 
 Mr. Machen was born and bred in this county, and I have 
 often heard him tell of his taking the products of his father's 
 farm to New Orleans on flatboats built in Matthew Lyon's old 
 shipyard, and walking back, 1,100 miles, with the proceeds of 
 the same in his pocket. This was before the days of traveling 
 facilities, when it required both intelligence and stamina of a 
 high order to meet the requirements of the time. Mr. Machen 
 afterwards became joint proprietor of iron furnaces, and a 
 forge from which were turned out great sugar kettles for the 
 Louisiana planters, and it was at a furnace once owned by him 
 that Wm. Kelly invented what is known as the Bessemer 
 process for making steel. After many years of waiting for the 
 proper recognition of his invention, during which Bessemer 
 reaped an enormous fortune, investigation showed so unmis 
 takably that Kelly was the inventor, Congress recognized his 
 claims by extending the patent in this country for seven years, 
 thus giving Kelly a fortune that came from royalties. * But 
 few people know while traveling over the finest railroads in 
 the world, that the process of making the rails was invented in 
 Lyon county. 
 
 Taken all in all, certainly this generation in this community 
 will not look upon W. B. Machen's like again. Perhaps no 
 man that ever lived in the community will be more missed by 
 God's poor than he, and according to that Christianity which 
 
426 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 he professed and practised all his life, when Willis Machen 
 passed over to a beautiful beyond, Lazarus must have waited 
 with outstretched arms to welcome him to the other shore." 
 
 A picture of Senator Machen, which my correspondent was 
 good enough to send me, is reproduced in this volume. 
 
 The late Thompson A. Lyon of Louisville, Kentucky, to whom, 
 I repeat, I am more indebted for original materials in the prepa 
 ration of this book than to any other person, was a grandson, 
 as is also his former business partner, Mr. John H. Roe, of old 
 Colonel Lyon. These two gentlemen were the agents for 
 Kentucky and Tennessee of the Equitable Life Assurance So 
 ciety of New York. Mr. Thompson A. Lyon had been in im 
 paired health for a considerable time before his death, which 
 took place in New York at the residence of his nephew, Col. 
 E. C. Machen, in that city on the I3th of August, 1899. I 
 called on him at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel a few weeks prior 
 to his decease, and he expressed a warm desire to read the 
 advance sheets of this volume. I sent them to him, and 
 Colonel Machen, who had in the meantime removed his uncle 
 from the hotel to his own residence, told me that he read them 
 with the keenest interest. Never have I witnessed more tender 
 devotion to an invalid than this nephew showed throughout. 
 Everything that medical skill, unwearied nursing, and love 
 could bestow was lavished by him on Mr. Lyon. Mrs. Lyon 
 was summoned from Louisville, and reached New York in time 
 to give her fond ministrations to her stricken one, and soothe 
 the last hours of a noble and devoted husband. His remains 
 were carried back to Kentucky for burial among his kindred. 
 The qualities of Thompson A. Lyon were marked. His love of 
 truth, desire to serve and oblige others, straightforward 
 
EDWARD C. MACHEN. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 427 
 
 methods, and great industry, reminded me very much of all I 
 had read of his grandfather, and to his zeal and indefatigable 
 industry am I, and are my readers indebted for many of the 
 lost threads which he rescued from oblivion, and furnished for 
 this biography. 
 
 Other descendants there are of note, deserving of a place 
 in these pages. General Hylon B. Lyon, of Eddyville, is a 
 grandson of Colonel Lyon. A graduate of West Point in 
 the class of '56, a brave officer in the United States army, who 
 saw service in Florida, California, Oregon, Washington Ter 
 ritory, Idaho and Montana, and who joined the Confederate 
 army in 1861, he was at the close of the civil war in command 
 of the Department of Western Kentucky. Frank Lyon, a son 
 of the General, is a lieutenant in the United States navy, and 
 on board the Oregon took part, in the glorious sea fight off 
 Santiago. Still another great-grandson of Matthew Lyon is 
 the Hon. William P. Hepburn of Iowa, one of the leaders of 
 the Republican party, and a conspicuous member of the present 
 Congress. Mr. Hepburn, like his distinguished ancestor, is a 
 man of national reputation. 
 
 There is some account of Colonel Lyon in that extremely 
 rare book, " A Pioneer History of Illinois," by Governor Rey 
 nolds, a copy of which I once happened upon in the hands of 
 Mr. Charles L. Woodward, who, since Sabin, is the leading 
 authority in Americana among the New York book 
 sellers. I was frightened off by the price of the little 
 volume, twelve or fifteen dollars, but the unique Mr. Wood 
 ward, who is as original in his ways as he is deep in the 
 mysteries of first editions, addressing me by a nickname which 
 he had somehow come to bestow on me, said: "Here, Mr. 
 
428 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 Adirondack, if you don't want to buy it, borrow it," and thrust 
 the book upon me. 
 
 I subjoin an extract from Governor Reynolds's pages: 
 
 " In the year 1799 sailed down the Ohio river Matthew Lyon 
 and family, with John Messinger and Dr. George Cadwell, 
 and their respective families. These last two named were the 
 sons-in-law of Lyon, and all settled in Kentucky. Messinger 
 was a good mathematician, and wrote a manual or handbook 
 intended for convenience in practical surveying. Messinger 
 and Cadwell left Kentucky in 1802, and landed in the Ameri 
 can Bottom not far from old Fort Chatris. They settled in 
 Illinois. 
 
 " Matthew Lyon had obtained a considerable celebrity as a 
 member of Congress, from the State of Vermont. He was a 
 native of Ireland, had been in the Revolution, and was a warm 
 advocate of Thomas Jefferson and Republicanism, against John 
 Adams and Federalism. He possessed some talents, and 
 much ardor and enthusiasm. While he was in Congress he 
 had a difficulty with a member of the Federal party and spit 
 in his face. He was up before Congress for contempt; but 
 speeches were the only result. He was extremely bitter 
 against the administration of Adams, and he was fined and 
 imprisoned under the alien and sedition laws. While he was 
 in prison, in the State of Vermont, his friends elected him to 
 Congress, and took him out of confinement, to serve them in 
 the Congress of the United States. 
 
 " He represented his district in Congress from Kentucky for 
 several terms; and was always, during a long and important 
 life, an excessively warm and enthusiastic partisan in politics. 
 He was at last appointed an Indian agpent for the Southern 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 429 
 
 Indians, and died there at an advanced age. Long after his 
 death Congress paid back to his heirs the fine he paid with 
 interest. It was considered in Congress that the fine was paid 
 under a void law, and that it was due to principle as well as to 
 his descendants, to refund the amount paid and interest. I 
 voted in Congress to refund the fine and interest to his heirs. 
 
 " Matthew Lyon was a droll composition. His leading trait 
 of character was his zeal and enthusiasm, almost to madness 
 itself, in any cause he espoused. He never seemed to act cool 
 and deliberate, but always in a tumult and bustle, as if he were 
 in a house on fire, and was hurrying to get out. His Irish im 
 pulses were honest, and always on the side of human freedom. 
 This covers his excessive zeal." Governor Reynolds evi 
 dently had but slight knowledge of Matthew Lyon. 
 
 In looking over the Edwards Papers in the Chicago " His 
 torical Society's Collections," Vol. Ill, I observed a reference 
 to Lyon, and the following foot note, p. 28, " Lyon was an 
 Irishman who emigrated to America in 1759, an( ^ founded the 
 town of Fairfield, Vermont, in 1783. This was the town in 
 which Chester A. Arthur was born." The note is continued 
 on the next page, 29, and is as follows : " It might be added 
 that he (Lyon) went to St. Louis in 1811, and in 1812 became 
 a candidate for delegate to Congress from Louisiana Territory, 
 but was beaten by Edward Hempstead." The year of his ar 
 rival in America was 1765, and the town he founded is Fair 
 Haven. His going to St. Louis, and unsuccessful candidacy 
 
 " A Pioneer History of Illinois; Containing the Discovery in 16731, 
 and the History of the Country to the Year 1818, When the State 
 Government was Organized." By John Reynolds, pp. 276-277. 
 Belleville, 111. Published by N. A. Randall, 1852. 
 
43 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 for Congress in the Louisiana Territory are interesting facts, 
 some reference to which is found in Lyon's correspondence. 
 
 The following letter from Colonel Lyon was addressed to 
 Ninian Edwards: 
 
 " Washington, February 10, 1804. 
 
 Dear Sir. Your favor of the i8th ult. came to hand yester 
 day. I am sorry my letter from here did not reach you before 
 you despaired of hearing from me, not so much on Dr. Catlett's 
 account as some other considerations. 
 
 When I came here I had in view to recommend the doctor 
 for the place of Secretary of the new Territory to be formed 
 in Upper Louisiana. There are so many candidates that I had 
 almost given it up. The talk now is to annex to Indiana Ter 
 ritory for the present all down to N. Madrid, below that until 
 it comes opposite to Fort Adams to the Natchez Territory, so 
 form one new Territorial Government. 
 
 The Doctor's concern with victualing the army has led him 
 to wish for an appointment of Surgeon's Mate; for this I 
 wanted no additional interest, and was happy accidentally to 
 find John T. Mason capable of giving his character. Should 
 I think of anything further for him I may apply to Mr. Wirt. 
 
 Georgia cession has occupied Congress the three last days, 
 and the question (which is, shall our Commissioners proceed 
 with the compromise?) is not yet taken. Mr. Randolph says 
 no ; he had rathe,r give it back to the Indians ; he had rather the 
 United States should lose the whole in a law suit; he had 
 rather call out the National force and spend the National 
 treasure to defend it. Other Southern members say they 
 don't wish for the compromise; they are satisfied to have the 
 country remain uncultivated. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 43! 
 
 I fancy that the Southern gentry begin to be alarmed for 
 their markets. They begin to see that in proportion as the 
 Western country grows in population and industry, their 
 markets for tobacco, flour and cotton will be overstocked; the 
 Northern people want our cotton, hemp and lead, and they 
 don't care how much other produce we have to spare, as they 
 intend to be the carrier. 
 
 The horrid kind of government first- proposed for the new 
 acquired Territory may perhaps be imputed to this- jealousy. 
 I am, sir, with great respect, 
 
 Your very humble servt, 
 
 MATTHEW. LYON. 
 
 Hon. Ninian Edwards." 
 
 In the year 1802 Livingston county returned Matthew Lyon 
 to the Legislature of Kentucky, where he figured so prom 
 inently, that at the next election, in 1803, he was elected to 
 Congress, and was continuously re-elected to that body until 
 1811. How different was the situation of political affairs on 
 his return to Washington from that in which he was placed 
 when last a member of Congress. Now he was not only on 
 the majority side of the House, but he became at once a con 
 spicuous and acknowledged leader of that phalanx of patriotic 
 statesmen who, having fought i:he good fight and won it in 
 1 80 1, had returned to Washington to establish a representative 
 government, in the dual sense of sovereignty which has made 
 the Republic the pride and glory of Americans, the beacon 
 light to the oppressed nations of Europe, and the happiest, be 
 cause the freest people in the family of nations. I have fol 
 lowed with extreme care the course of events during the time 
 
432 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 of Mr. Jefferson, and have striven to divest myself of any pre 
 possession, and any prejudice in favor of one set of men or 
 against another set of men, trying to grasp the true meaning 
 of the words used by Jefferson in his inaugural, " We are all 
 Republicans we are all Federalists," and of those other words 
 of his, " Still one thing more, fellow-citizens a wise and 
 frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one 
 another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their 
 own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take 
 from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned." 
 
 Madison and Gallatin in the cabinet, Macon, Randolph, 
 Giles, Nicholas, and Lyon in the House, a Senate veering from 
 Federalism to the State-rights school, these were the execu 
 tive and legislative agencies which gathered about Jefferson to 
 build up a government upon the plan laid down in his in 
 augural. The judiciary remained to the Federalists. Marshall 
 was the residuary legatee of Alexander Hamilton, and right 
 ably and firmly did he devote his great intellect to stem the tide 
 of Jeffersonian Democracy which had set in irresistibly every 
 where else except in the Supreme Court. During the trial of 
 Aaron Burr the President and Chief Justice strained every 
 nerve, the one against the other. The Court became then as 
 afterwards, at the time of the Dred Scott decision, unpopular 
 with the people. Jefferson reflected sharply on the course of 
 Marshall, and almost implied a miscarriage of justice. William 
 H. Seward and Charles Sumner denounced Chief Justice Taney 
 in savage language, and appealed to a " higher law." 
 
 Burr had been held to bail by the Chief Justice in the sum 
 of $10,000 for a misdemeanor, and was about to be proceeded 
 against by the government for high treason. His lawyer, Mr. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 433 
 
 Wickham, at this juncture invited a company of his friends, in 
 cluding Chief Justice Marshall and Burr, to a dinner party, ap 
 prising the former of the acceptance of the invitation by the 
 latter, and both appeared at the same table among the guests. 
 Tucker, in his " Life of Jefferson," states, " there was an 
 evident impropriety in this association between parties thus 
 related to the public and to each other, and no one was after 
 wards more sensible of it than the Chief Justice himself, but," 
 adds Tucker, " it was not an act of deliberation, but merely 
 inconsiderate." If Wickham had not apprised Marshall of 
 Burr's intended coming, Tucker's apologetic words would 
 have more meaning. 
 
 The Federalists made much malicious gossip over Jefferson's 
 letter to Mazzei. It was a business letter with " a single para 
 graph only of political information," says Jefferson, in a long 
 communication to Martin Van Buren, written June 29, 1824. 
 " In this information there was not one word," says its author, 
 " which would not then have been, or would not now be ap 
 proved by every Republican in the United States. * * * 
 This paragraph, extracted and translated, got into a Paris paper 
 at a time when the persons in power there were laboring under 
 very general disfavor, and their friends were eager to catch 
 at straws to buoy them up. To them, therefore, I have always 
 imputed the interpolation of an entire paragraph additional 
 to mine, which makes me charge my own country with ingrati 
 tude and injustice to France. There was not a word in my 
 letter respecting France, or any of the proceedings or relations 
 between this country and that. Yet this interpolated para 
 graph has been the burden of Federal calumny * * * and 
 is still quoted * * * as if it were genuine, and really writ- 
 
434 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 ten by me. And even Judge Marshall makes history descend 
 from its dignity, and the ermine from its sanctity, to exagger 
 ate, to record, and to sanction this forgery. In the very last 
 note in his book, he says, ' a letter from Mr. Jefferson to Mr. 
 Mazzei, an Italian, was published in Florence, and re-published 
 in the Moniteur, with very severe strictures on the conduct of 
 the United States.' And instead of the letter itself, he copies 
 what he says are the remarks of the editor, which are an ex 
 aggerated commentary on the fabricated paragraph itself, and 
 silently leaves to his reader to make the ready inference that 
 these were the sentiments of the letter. Proof is the duty of 
 the affirmative side. A negative cannot be possibly proved. 
 But in defect of impossible proof of what was not in the origi 
 nal letter I have its press-copy still in my possession. It 
 has been shown to several, and is open to any one who wishes 
 to see it. I have presumed only that the interpolation was 
 done in Paris. But I never saw the letter in either its Italian 
 or French dress, and it may have been done here, with the 
 commentary handed down to posterity by the judge."* 
 
 The Burr trial and the Mazzei letter furnish proofs of the 
 antagonism which continued to the end between Marshall and 
 Jefferson. Both great and good men, both founders of schools 
 of politics diametrically opposite to each other in tenets and 
 tendencies, time must solve the question, if it has not done so 
 already, which of the two has bequeathed the better system 
 to the American people 
 
 Before the close of the year 1802 the promises of the In 
 augural Address were in a large measure fulfilled. Jefferson 
 in the presidency, and John Randolph, chairman of the Com- 
 Randall's " Life of Jefferson," III, 610. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 435 
 
 mittee of Ways and Means, and administration leader in the 
 House, had wrought wonders. Both State-rights men of the 
 strictest school, they worked together, and hewed to the line. 
 Never in his long career did Mr. Randolph appear more favor 
 ably as a statesman than during the first administration of 
 
 ' Jefferson. His oratorical powers were of the highest order, 
 and I once was told by a distinguished member of Congress 
 who had heard him, the Hon. William Lucas of Virginia, that 
 his eloquence stirred the soul more than that of Gay, Calhoun 
 or Webster, the renowned triumvirate of a later day. Mr. 
 Lucas referred particularly to Randolph's speech in the Vir 
 ginia Convention of 1829-30. With marvellous talents, he 
 possessed also creative genius. His English is more idiomatic 
 than that of any of our statesmen. His perceptive 
 faculty, like that of Edgar A. Poe or Lord Jeffreys of the 
 Edinburgh Review, was of an acute kind which laid open to 
 his mental vision the true relations of a subject under discus 
 sion. His wit particularly distinguished him. Abraham Lin 
 coln is the only other one among our public men who ap 
 proached Randolph in this talent. The Virginian once said 
 that the paternity of two-thirds of the bastard wit of his day 
 was laid improperly at his door. A more recent generation has 
 
 . attributed to Mr. Lincoln a vast quantity of more or less witty 
 sayings, the origin of much of which is perhaps similarly spu 
 rious. But the caustic Democratic orator from Virginia, and 
 the genial Republican President from Illinois, saw like Sheri 
 dan or Dickens the humorous side of subjects, and flashed 
 with irresistible drollery, generally by a single word or phrase, 
 such as going out of his way to kick a sheep, or swapping 
 horses while crossing a stream, into the mirth provoking lights 
 
MATTHEW LYON 
 
 and shades of their theme. A clever scribe might furnish a 
 book quite instructive and entertaining, the materials for which 
 could be culled from the speeches, letters and sayings of our 
 two most famous emancipationists, the one having set free four 
 hundred of his own slaves, the other four million belonging to 
 other people. But alas and alack, Randolph fell away from 
 Jefferson, his former political idol, and Saint Thomas of Can 
 terbury, a name he was fond of calling him by, henceforth be 
 came a derided tutelary, Saint Thomas of Cantingbury. Dur 
 ing the three or four years that they worked shoulder to 
 shoulder they had reduced the army and navy to what was 
 barely necessary. Only enough soldiers remained to garrison 
 the widely separated small posts on the frontiers, in general 
 merely a captain's company, in no case more than two or three 
 companies, and none ever large enough to need a field officer. 
 Jefferson took pride in saying that it was not possible to bring 
 those garrisons together, because it would be an abandonment 
 of their posts. Congress abolished executive patronage and 
 preponderance, under the lead of Randolph, by cutting down 
 one-half the offices in the United States, Jefferson fully con 
 senting. Internal taxes were wiped out, and provision was 
 made notwithstanding to pay the public debt in eighteen years. 
 " Congress," exclaimed the exultant President in a letter to 
 Kosciusko, "have lopped off a parasite limb planted by their 
 predecessors in the judiciary body for party purposes; they are 
 opening the door of hospitality to fugitives from the oppres 
 sions of other countries ; and we have suppressed all those pub 
 lic forms and ceremonies" (Matthew Lyon must have been re 
 joiced), " which tended to familiarize the public eye to the har 
 bingers of another form of government. The people are nearly 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 437 
 
 all united. Their quondam leaders infuriated with a sense of 
 their impotence", (Hamilton at New York as "Decius" was 
 still firing paper bullets at Jefferson), " will soon be seen or 
 heard only in the newspapers which serve as chimneys to carry 
 off noxious vapors and smoke; and all is now tranquil, firm 
 and well, as it should be."* 
 
 Matthew Lyon at this time was in the Kentucky Legislature. 
 In 1801 he had closed his career in Congress as a member from 
 Vermont. President Jefferson offered to appoint him to the 
 responsible and lucrative office of Commissary-General of the 
 Western Army. 5 Lyon declined the honor, and the President 
 appointed his son, James Lyon, whose devotion to Democracy 
 had been well proved, to a clerkship under the government. 
 Hildreth, the unscrupulous slanderer of Jefferson and Ran 
 dolph, singles out this appointment as occasion for another 
 slur upon the President." 
 
 Having served a term among the Kentucky lawmakers, Col. 
 Lyon came to Congress once more as one of the representa 
 tives of the Blue Grass Commonwealth. A ready debater, an 
 authority upon parliamentary rules, educated in public affairs 
 by a quarter of a century's service in State and National legis 
 latures, "he is said," remarks Wharton, "by those who recol 
 lect him at this stage to have been a man of respectable bear 
 ing, and of frank and almost engaging manner. " d The word 
 "almost" might imply that Mr. Wharton had some doubt about 
 it. This is not surprising when the reader recalls Cobbett's 
 
 "Jefferson's Works. IV. 430-431. 
 
 5 Wharton's " State Trials of the United States," p. 343. 
 
 c Hildreth's " History of the United States," 2d series, II, 468. 
 4 Wharton's " State Trials of the United States," p. 343. 
 
438 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 lampoons, and the avalanche of Federal caricatures of Lyon. 
 Wharton derived his opinion from the newspapers. The truth 
 is Lyon was a man of comely appearance, of imposing carriage, 
 and strikingly intellectual countenance. The learned editor of the 
 "Records of the Governor and Council of Vermont," Mr. E. P. 
 Walton, has many references to Col. Lyon by those who knew 
 him intimately, and his appearance, when brought in question, 
 is always commented upon favorably. Mr. Walton, as well 
 as a writer in the Vermont Historical Magazine, and another 
 in Deming's Catalogue, lead me to suppose that he was a 
 splendid looking man. Mr. Walton compares him to the dis 
 tinguished Udney Hay, or rather Hay to Lyon, and says: 
 "Col. Udney Hay was a descendant from an eminent family 
 of that name in Scotland, and the colonel himself is said to 
 have been highly educated and distinguished for his talents 'a 
 gentleman, an imposing man, rather of the Matthew Lyon 
 cast/ " 
 
 Our Kentucky representative was sworn in at the called ses 
 sion, October 17, 1803, and no other member was better known 
 than he in all parts of the Union. He took his seat on the 
 majority side, to the victory of which he had so largely con 
 tributed. In looking over the pages of Dennie's Philadelphia 
 Port Folio, the leading Federal paper after Porcupine, and a 
 great improvement on Cobbett, I find many articles on the 
 Democrats, and among the chiefs of the party the name of 
 Lyon frequently occurs. The Federal wits out of a job had 
 more time to write than formerly, and Dennie, the " Lay 
 Preacher," prepared quite a literary melange every week, bi 
 ography, travels, poetry and a modicum of spiteful and some- 
 *" Vermont Governor and Council/' II, p. 50. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 439 
 
 times filthy essays on politics and politicians. A rather pedan 
 tic writer, under the title of "Climenole, A Review Political and 
 Literary," contributed regular essays to the Port Folio. In the 
 seventh number, March 17, 1804, occurs the following; "I see 
 nothing to hinder our Jeffersons and Burrs, our Gallatins, Liv 
 ingstons and Lyons, from being placed, in the estimation of 
 future ages, on the same floor of democratic citizenship with 
 Cethegus and Cataline, Spartacus, Antony and Thersites. 
 * * * I found that on the birthday of our illustrious Jeffer 
 son, as also on that of Cethegus, the Hare and the Hydra were 
 in present conjunction. When Burr and when Cataline came 
 into the world, the fox and the serpent were ascendant. At the 
 moment of the birth of Gallatin and Spartacus the heart of the 
 scorpion was in right aspect with the wolf's jaw. The canis 
 and ursa major were in hostile aspect on the nativity of Ther 
 sites and Matthew Lyon; while on that of Chancellor Living 
 ston and Mark Antony there was a singular coincidence of the 
 star in the eye of the Bull, with that under the Goat's tail." a 
 
 This astrological badinage indicates Lyon's party standing. 
 Jefferson's friendship for him has already been adverted to in 
 these pages. Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury, 
 Gideon Granger, Postmaster-General, Nathaniel Macon, 
 Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Senator 
 Stevens Thompson Mason, were among his warmest friends. 
 John Randolph, leader of the House, in his celebrated speech 
 at Charlotte Court House, Virginia, in reply to Patrick Henry, 
 in 1799, spoke of Lyon in the following terms: 
 
 "At this moment, while I am addressing you, men of Char 
 lotte, with the free air of heaven fanning my locks and God 
 
 Port Folio, March 17, 1804, p. 82. 
 
440 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 knows how long I shall be permitted to enjoy that blessing 
 a representative of the people of Vermont Matthew Lyon 
 his name lies immured in a dungeon, not six feet square, 
 where he has dragged out the miserable hours of a protracted 
 winter for daring to violate the royal maxim that the King 
 can do no wrong. This was his only crime. He told his people, 
 and caused it to be printed for their information, that the 
 President, rejecting men of age, experience, wisdom, and inde 
 pendency of sentiment, appointed those who had no other merit 
 but devotion to their master; and he intimated that the ' Presi 
 dent was fond of ridiculous pomp, idle parade, and selfish 
 avarice.' I speak the language of the indictment. I give in 
 technical and official words the high crime with which he was 
 charged. He pleaded justification I think the lawyers call it 
 and offered to prove the truth of his allegations. 
 
 " But the court would allow no time to procure witnesses or 
 counsel ; he was hurried into trial all unprepared ; and this rep 
 resentative of the people, for speaking the truth of those in 
 authority, was arraigned like a felon, condemned, fined and 
 imprisoned." a Many years after, when Lyon was no longer in 
 Congress, he petitioned that body to refund his fine, and again 
 John Randolph denounced the alien and sedition laws, and ad 
 vocated the passage of a bill granting to this patriot, who had 
 suffered unjustly, the relief he sought. 6 In view of several 
 savage parliamentary encounters between Lyon and Randolph, 
 which had taken place previously on the floor of the House, the 
 conduct of the Virginian on the latter occasion was not only 
 just, but singularly magnanimous. 
 
 Garland's " Life of John Randolph," I, p. 138. 
 &"Aruials of i2th Congress." 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 44! 
 
 \Vlien Randolph went into opposition, assailed the adminis 
 tration, and organized the Quids, there were three men to 
 whom Jefferson severally turned to take his place, Nicholas, 
 Wirt and Lyon, any one of whom it was thought might be 
 leader of the House. He predicted that John Randolph would 
 go the way of Charles Fenton Mercer, first out of party lines, 
 and finally while pretending to dislike the Federalists 
 as much as ever, he would be merged in that party, and at 
 last would openly affiliate with them. Mercer had quietly 
 passed into political obscurity, a fate which, in a letter to Mon 
 roe, Jefferson predicted would overtake the Knight of 
 Roanoke. But Jefferson was smarting under injuries inflicted 
 by the fiery tongue of Randolph, and he proved a poor prophet 
 in consigning him to such an ending. The truth was, which 
 he forgot for the moment, such men as Jefferson and Randolph 
 are not born every day, and whether they go into opposition 
 or are sticklers for party regularity, they draw a space about them, 
 within which they move and have their being, a sort of charmed 
 circle, inaccessible to ordinary men, and from which they cannot 
 be dislodged. As a matter of fact Randolph was not extin 
 guished, but as Congressman, in which position the men of 
 Charlotte kept him as long as he wished to remain, as United 
 States Senator by the choice of Virginia, which loved him and 
 was proud of him, and as Ambassador to Russia by the appoint 
 ment of Andrew Jackson, who knew how to recognize men 
 according to their merits, John Randolph was a positive 
 factor all his life in the national councils, and in the estimation 
 of the American people. Self-willed and wayward, he lost his 
 party influence after 1805, but he continued to be during his 
 whole career the most picturesque figure in American politics. 
 
442 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 When Vice-President Calhoun, in 1826, was sharply attacked 
 by John Quincy Adams, President of the United States, for 
 not calling John Randolph to order in the Senate, Calhoun 
 made this reply: "Who is Mr. Randolph? For more than a 
 quarter of a century he has been a member of Congress, and 
 during the whole time his character has remained unchanged. 
 Highly talented, eloquent, severe, and eccentric; always 
 wandering from the question, but often uttering wisdom 
 worthy of a Bacon, and wit that would not discredit a Sheridan ; 
 every Speaker had freely indulged him in his peculiar manner, 
 and none more freely than the present Secretary of State, while 
 he presided in the House of Representatives." 
 
 In regard to Mr. Nicholas, he was a very good debater and 
 a well equipped representative, but he was not forceful as a 
 leader of men. In a preceding chapter Mr. Gallatin's opinion 
 of him is given, by which it appears he was a pure and able 
 gentleman, but hardly the person to lead a stormy Congress. 
 William Wirt was a fine speaker and a good lawyer, but never 
 displayed qualities necessary to a successful politician. Colonel 
 Lyon was of a different mould, and came nearer to the require 
 ments of the position than either Nicholas or Wirt. He was 
 essentially a man of action, accustomed by nature and habit to 
 control men, as well as being a Democrat of long experience 
 and courage of the Andrew Jackson type. 
 
 In the course of a warm discussion of the celebrated Georgia 
 claims in the House on the loth of March, 1804, speeches were 
 made by Caesar A. Rodney, of Delaware, John and Thomas 
 
 a Letters of J. Q. Adams, signed " Patrick Henry," published in the 
 National Journal in 1826, and of J. C. Calhoun, signed " Onslow." 
 published in the National Intelligencer, in 1826. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 443 
 
 M. Randolph, of Virginia, and Matthew Lyon, of Kentucky. 
 The Yazoo frauds had aroused the public mind, and Messrs. 
 Madison, Gallatin and Lincoln, Secretaries of State, the Treas 
 ury and War, as Commissioners on the part of the United 
 States, had heard and endeavored to settle by compromise the 
 claims of Georgia, and those holding under the Georgia act of 
 1795, to the vast territory in dispute. John Randolph had de 
 nounced the frauds committed, and opposed any settlement of 
 the Yazoo controversy. Lyon on the contrary wished to see 
 the country settled, and the compromise on the basis of the 
 report of Madison, Gallatin and Lincoln amicably carried out. 
 After he finished his argument in reply to the two Randolphs 
 and Mr. Rodney, Mr. James Elliot of Vermont took the floor, 
 and began his speech in this language: 
 
 "I am extremely happy, sir, that the task which I had as 
 signed myself, of replying to the speeches of the gentlemen 
 from Virginia and Delaware, has been anticipated by the able, 
 and I will take the liberty to say, unanswerable speech of the 
 gentleman from Kentucky. If the destinies of the American 
 people are to be governed by the counsels of an individual; if 
 the system of an individual is to be adopted, give me not the 
 system of the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Rodney), or that 
 of either of the gentlemen from Virginia (Mr. John Randolph 
 or Mr. Thomas M. Randolph), but that of the gentleman 
 from Kentucky (Mr. Lyon). He has displayed an equal su 
 periority in argument and in correctness of principle."" 
 
 The Yazoo grants undoubtedly owed their inception to a 
 gigantic fraud, no less than the bribery and purchase of a 
 majority of the Georgia Legislature in 1795, by which the 
 
 " Annals of Eighth Congress" (1803-4), P- 1162. 
 
444 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 grants became legalized. Innocent third parties who took 
 title under that law had rights which could not be disregarded. 
 John Randolph, then a boy, was on a visit to Georgia at the 
 time that this scandalous law was passed, and shared in the 
 indignation of the people of that State against the legislative 
 iniquity. A land company had been formed to protect inno 
 cent purchasers, at the head of which was Gideon Granger, 
 now Postmaster-General. Randolph's rage against all who 
 had part or parcel in the Yazoo business embraced Granger in 
 its scope, and some writer has compared his Yazoo philippics 
 to those of Demosthenes against the Macedonian. This ag 
 gressive assault was directed against all members of Con 
 gress, especially those from the Eastern States, who favored a 
 compromise, and he did not spare the National Commissioners, 
 Madison, Gallatin and Lincoln, who had recommended that 
 such compromise on the concession of five millions only, out 
 of forty millions of acres, should be made in favor of innocent, 
 bona fide purchasers under the Georgia law. Matthew Lyon 
 favored the compromise. Some irritation was created among 
 the Eastern members of Congress by Mr. Randolph's fierce 
 invectives. His barbed arrows flew in every direction, and a 
 few members went so far in their complaints as to hold Mr. 
 Jefferson responsible for Randolph, who was still chairman of 
 the Committee of Ways and Means, and therefore, regarded as 
 the mouthpiece of the administration. His attacks on the 
 Cabinet ought to have silenced such complaints, but they did 
 not, and the Federalists, observing the family quarrel among 
 the Democrats, were not slow to add fuel to the flame. Fisher 
 Ames's organ, the Boston Repertory, the ablest of the Essex 
 Junto papers, was extremely busy at this period in agitating 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 445 
 
 and promoting the dissensions. Those among the Democrats 
 who complained of Randolph's personalities were compli 
 mented as spirited, independent men, and no one came in for 
 so large a share of unexpected encomiums as Matthew Lyon, 
 who had been writing several pretty sharp letters to the Ken 
 tucky Palladium against the "dog-in-the-manger" policy of the 
 Virginia party, by which he meant John Randolph. 
 
 Politics make strange bed-fellows. Saturnian times seemed 
 to have returned, and the lion and the lamb to be lying down 
 together. Matthew Lyon and Roger Griswold, on this measure, 
 were acting and voting on the same side, and the stern Ken 
 tucky Democrat, whom the Federalists had been vilifying for 
 so many years, was rapidly becoming a "bigger man" than the 
 Knight of Roanoke, a true hero in their eyes, who would no 
 longer submit, even to please his favorite, Jefferson, to the 
 lash of a Virginia aristocrat. If Matthew Lyon was a reader 
 of Virgil, he must have thought of those words of the Man- 
 tuan bard, " I fear the Greeks bringing presents/' Others no 
 doubt recalled them, and Hildreth informs us that "Randolph 
 complained bitterly and it was a curious instance of political 
 mutation that Lyon and Griswold, who had once come into 
 such fierce collision, should now be united against the leader 
 of the Republicans in the House." In the course of the de 
 bate Randolph declared "we have had to contend against the 
 bear of the arctic and the lion of the torrid zone." This was 
 perhaps a sarcastic slap at the Postmaster-General and Colonel 
 Lyon. "He poured out," says Hildreth, "a torrent of abuse on 
 Granger, agent of the claimants, whom he accused of bribing 
 members. Nor did Madison, Gallatin and Lincoln, who, as 
 Hildreth's " History of the United States," 2d series, II, p. 542. 
 
'446 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 Commissioners, had recommended a compromise of the claims, 
 entirely escape. Granger thought it necessary to send a letter 
 to the House, asking an investigation into his conduct a re 
 quest which was got rid of by a postponement. " a 
 
 The reader of a former chapter of this book has become aware 
 of the treatment and language, unprecedented in violence, to 
 which the Federalists had subjected Colonel Lyon. But 
 a better acquaintance with him revealed the true character of 
 the man, his ability, defiant rectitude, powers as a debater, and 
 downright honesty and courage. Every one of them who had 
 voted for his expulsion and who still remained in Congress, 
 with the solitary exception of Dana, of Connecticut, not only 
 became reconciled to Lyon, but had offered to him ample 
 apologies for his former harsh conduct. I have before me an 
 original letter of Col. Lyon to President Monroe, dated June 
 7, 1817, in which particular reference to this subject is made. 
 Of the Federalists he says : "Mr. Bayard, their champion, who 
 took the lead in persecuting me, through Mr. John Rowan, 
 solicited an interview with me, in order to acknowledge to me 
 his regret for having mistaken my character and joined in a 
 preposterous persecution against me. To this solicitation I 
 yielded, taking with me Mr. Russell and two other Republican 
 members from New York State. In their presence, in the 
 presence of Mr. Rowan, and of the principal Federal members 
 of Congress, Mr Bayard repeated his professions of regret for 
 his former conduct toward me, of his esteem for me, and of his 
 desire to be on terms of amity with me, until all present ex 
 claimed that I ought to be satisfied. Mr. Bayard was the last 
 of a considerable number of those who voted for my ex- 
 
 "Ibid., p. 542. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 447 
 
 pulsion, and had made to me the amende honorable, previous 
 to which I did not speak with them unless the public business 
 required it. Mr. Dana was the only member in either House 
 when I left Congress who had not gone through this cere 
 mony of those who had voted for my expulsion." 
 
 If the Federalists hoped to profit by the Yazoo scandal 
 they were destined to a bitter disappointment. Jefferson was 
 re-elected President by a vote so overwhelming that it ap 
 proached unanimity. Even Massachusetts, New Hampshire, 
 Rhode Island and Vermont joined the Democratic or Republi 
 can column, and every State in the Union, except Connecticut 
 and Delaware, voted for Jefferson and Clinton. The electoral 
 votes stood 162 to 14, Maryland having contributed 2 of the 
 14 Federal votes in the electoral colleges. "This," groans Hil- 
 dreth, "was the whole of the lean minority, fourteen in all, 
 which the Federalists were able to muster." a Before the elec 
 tion Jefferson wrote to Elbridge Gerry, and said: "I sincerely 
 regret that the unbounded calumnies of the Federal party have 
 obliged me to throw myself on the verdict of my country for 
 trial, my great desire having been to retire, at the end of the 
 present term, to a life of tranquillity; and it was my decided 
 purpose when I entered into office. They force my continu 
 ance. If we can keep the vessel of State as steadily in her 
 course for another four years, my earthly purposes will be ac 
 complished, and I shall be free to enjoy, as you are doing, my 
 family, my farm, and my books." 6 
 
 Mr. Granger had spoken to the President respecting a 
 rumored coalition between the Federalists and dissatisfied Re- 
 
 Ibid., p. 532. 
 
 " Works of Jefferson," IV, 536. 
 
448 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 publicans in the Eastern States. In referring to this rumor, 
 Jefferson said in a letter to Granger: "The idea was new to me. 
 * * * The Federalists know, that eo nomine, they are gone 
 forever. * * * I cannot believe any portion of real 
 Republicans will enter into this trap; and if they do, 
 I do not believe they can carry with them the mass 
 of their States. It will be found in this, as in all 
 other similar cases, that crooked schemes will end by over 
 whelming their authors and coadjutors in disgrace."* His 
 confidence was not misplaced, as the astonishing vote by which 
 he was re-elected showed. Yet the calm, farseeing President 
 was not inattentive to the divisions in Congress among the 
 Democrats, and he sought, without giving just cause of offense 
 to Mr. Randolph, whom Speaker Macon had re-appointed 
 Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, to conciliate 
 the good will of other Democrats in whose integrity and sound 
 principles he had confidence. On the I7th of January, 1806, 
 the President sent for Barnabas Bidwell, a Democratic member 
 from Massachusetts, and intrusted to him a secret message 
 which resulted in the passage of a bill, appropriating two mil 
 lions of dollars for "extraordinary expenses of foreign inter 
 course." The object was the purchase of the Floridas, and as 
 France controlled Spain, the money was to be used in the dis 
 cretion of the Executive, very probably for the most part in 
 France. Mr. Randolph, already irritated by his differences 
 with Gideon Granger, the Postmaster-General, and displeased 
 at the selection by the President of Mr. Bidwell on the present 
 occasion for the communication of a confidential message 
 which would involve an appropriation of money, was disposed 
 "Ibid., pp. 542-3. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 449 
 
 to regard it as a slight to himself as Chairman of the Committee 
 of Ways and Means. Strictly speaking it was not as friendly a 
 course as the President had formerly adopted, but whether Mr. 
 Randolph himself was not responsible for this extension of 
 confidence to another member, instead of to himself, it perhaps 
 might not be easy to deny. " I reprobated " said the angry 
 Randolph a short time after, "this back-stair influence. I had 
 always flattered myself that it would be a thousand years hence 
 before our institutions would have given birth to these Charles 
 Jenkinsons in politics." The breach now was irreparable. 
 Randolph became the censor of the administration, as he had 
 long been the schoolmaster of the House. Jefferson had left 
 it to Congress to fix the amount of the appropriation for "ex 
 traordinary expenses" in dealing with Spain and France. Ran 
 dolph made that the formal ground of his opposition, although 
 he had done precisely the same thing Jefferson now asked two 
 years before in the Louisiana purchase. He charged dissimu 
 lation and cowardice on the President. Some of his speeches 
 at this time are fine bursts of eloquence, but they have been 
 forgotten because the groundwork was not inherently strong, 
 and the logic of facts was against him. 
 
 He had inspired fear among the members by the bitter irony 
 of his wit, and the audacity with which he exercised it upon 
 those who crossed his path. Matthew Lyon was quite as fear 
 less and audacious a man when once started as Randolph him 
 self, and it was not long before it became very probable that 
 these two interesting and original characters would clash. If 
 Randolph now drew the sword and threw away the scabbard 
 to enter the lists against Jefferson, Lyon with still more fearful 
 
45O MATTHEW LYON 
 
 odds against him had defied John Adams in the meridian of his 
 power. 
 
 The defection of the leader of the House left his mantle to 
 be worn by a new aspirant, if one might appear. The truth of 
 history compels the admission that no one took his place, be 
 cause there was no one qualified to take it. In administration 
 circles Col. Lyon was looked to as the Hector to defend the 
 citadel from the new enemy, and evidences are not wanting of 
 his close relations with the President and Cabinet. Aaron 
 Burr, the late Vice-President, whose lynx-eyed shrewdness al 
 lowed but little that was passing to escape his observation, was 
 aware of Lyon's influence, and he sought his friendly offices to 
 secure from Mr. Jefferson a foreign embassy. He first pro 
 cured General Wilkinson to sound Col. Lyon on this subject, 
 who assured the General that Burr could not obtain an em 
 bassy, but that he might be elected to a seat in Congress from 
 Tennessee. Burr not satisfied with Wilkinson's effort, made the 
 attempt in person to enlist Lyon in his support. "In the winter 
 of 1805," says General Wilkinson, "while Burr and myself were 
 both in the city of Washington, I anxiously wished him to be 
 appointed to some foreign embassy. My views are fully dis 
 closed in the deposition of Colonel Lyon." On the 25th of 
 February, 1811, Lyon testified before the Congressional Com 
 mittee, appointed to inquire into the conduct of General Wil 
 kinson, and from his deposition the following is an extract: 
 
 "Some time in the winter, 1805, coming one morning from 
 Alexandria, by way of the Navy Yard, and passing by the 
 house where the General (Wilkinson) lived, he called on me to 
 
 " Memoirs of My Own Times," by General James Wilkinson, II, 
 p. 280. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 45! 
 
 come in; after congratulating him on his appointment as Gov 
 ernor, and some other conversation, Colonel Burr's name was 
 mentioned. .Colonel Burr had no claim to friendly attentions 
 from me. I had no acquaintance with him before the contest 
 concerning the Presidential election. I had resisted the solici 
 tations of my friends, who wished to introduce me to him in 
 March, 1801, on account of his misconduct in that affair. 
 
 * * * The General entered warmly into his praise, and 
 talked of a foreign embassy for him. This, I assured him, 
 could not be obtained. * * * He informed me he had, at Col 
 onel Burr's request, made an appointment for me to call on him. 
 
 * * * I called. * * * Colonel Burr * * * said 
 he was very glad to see me." The witness detailed 
 his conversation with Burr, and continued: "In stat 
 ing this conversation, I give the substance of all the other 
 conversations I had that winter with Col. Burr at Washington, 
 except that in some of them the embassy was talked of. He 
 observed that my friend Wilkinson thought I would be a 
 proper person, in a blunt way, to mention it to the President. 
 He asked me, if I dared to tell the President that he ought to 
 send Col. Burr on the foreign embassy talked of? I told him 
 very bluntly, I would not." a 
 
 In the letter to President Monroe, already referred to, Col. 
 Lyon gives an interesting account of an interview between 
 himself and the Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin, in 
 relation to Governor Claiborne. It throws no little light upon 
 the value attached to Lyon's judgment by President Jefferson 
 
 <* Col. M. Lyon's deposition before the committee appointed by 
 Congress to inquire into the conduct of General Wilkinson. " Me 
 moirs of My Own Times," by General Wilkinson, II, Appendix, 
 LXVIII. Deposition given in full posted. 
 
45 2 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 and Mr. Gallatin. The following is an extract from the letter: 
 "In the phalanx of Republican Senators will appear next win 
 ter my friend, Governor Claiborne, who is warmly attached to 
 me. * * * He was once in imminent political danger. I 
 called at Mr. Gallatin's office one morning in the spring after we: 
 had obtained New Orleans. He looked very much disturbed. 
 He inquired if I had heard how Qaiborne had been playing 
 the devil at Orleans. 'He had ruined himself, he had forfeited 
 his station, he had been guilty of the most unpardonable impro 
 priety. I have just come from the President, who is provoked 
 to the highest pitch against Claiborne, who by a legislative act 
 
 of his own has created a bank of dollars capital, 
 
 and for years duration. The act must be disavowed, 
 
 and he discarded for the attempt. I had made arrangements 
 for the establishment of a branch of the bank of the United 
 States there, and it is understood by the directors that no other 
 bank is to be allowed there/ Thus raved the cool, the de 
 liberate Mr. Gallatin, while the rash, the inconsiderate M. Lyon 
 begged of him calmly to reflect on the real nature of the charge 
 against Claiborne. I insisted that whether the act was prudent 
 or otherwise, the Governor had not exceeded his powers, and it 
 being a grant to individuals, an attempt to rescind it would be 
 disgraceful, and cause disagreeable irritation. I told him what 
 ever the Executive thought proper to do with Claiborne, they 
 must let the, bank alone; there will soon be business for both 
 banks in that important town. I recollected putting my letters 
 unopened at the Post Office in my pocket. On examining the 
 bundle I found one from James Lyon, then at New Orleans, 
 explaining the business, and soliciting my good offices with the 
 Executive if necessary. Mr. Gallatin read it, and returned im- 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 453 
 
 mediately to the President. Claiborne's sentence was miti 
 gated to a reproof." 
 
 So early as October, 1804, Randolph grew restive under the 
 increasing evidence of Lyon's unwillingness to submit to be 
 led by him, and on this very subject of Qaiborne and his New 
 Orleans bank Randolph urged that Qaiborne should be 
 cashiered. On the I4th of that month he wrote from Bizarre 
 to Gallatin, and said : "On the subject of Louisiana you are also 
 apprised that my sentiments coincide with your own ; and it is 
 principally because of that coincidence that I rely upon their 
 correctness. But as we have the misfortune to differ from that 
 great political luminary, Mr. Matthew Lyon, on this as well 
 as on most other points, I doubt whether we shall not be over 
 powered." Claiborne's retention would seem to show he was 
 overpowered, and it did not increase his love for Lyon. A few 
 months later when the Yazoo question was again under dis 
 cussion in the House, Randolph's pent up rage against Gran 
 ger and Lyon burst all bounds, and he made one of the most 
 furious attacks on them both ever witnessed in Congress. He 
 did not spare even Gallatin himself. Henry Adams, who never 
 loses an opportunity to vent his hereditary spite on Mr. Ran 
 dolph, says : "With the malignity of a bully he attacked Gideon 
 Granger, the Postmaster-General, who could not answer him, 
 and he only met his match in Matthew Lyon, whose old ex 
 perience now, to the delight of the Federalists, enabled him 
 to meet Randolph with a torrent of personal abuse, and to tell 
 him that he was a jackal and a madman with the face of a 
 monkey." Mr. Adams did not like Mr. Randolph, and omits 
 
 " Life of Albert Gallatin," p. 329. 
 
454 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 his attack from the account he gives of the quarrel, in his Life 
 of Gallatin. I subjoin it here : 
 
 "A few evenings since," said Randolph in his onslaught on 
 Lyon, "a profitable contract for carrying the mail was offered 
 to a friend of mine who is a member of this House. You must 
 know, sir, that the person so often alluded to maintains a 
 jackal, fed, not as you would suppose, upon the offal of con-, 
 tract, but with the fairest pieces in the shambles; and at night, 
 when honest men are in bed, does this obscene animal prowl 
 through the streets of this vast and desolate city, seeking whom 
 he may tamper with. Well, sir, when this worthy plenipoten 
 tiary had made his proposal, in due form, the independent man 
 to whom it was addressed saw at once its drift. 'Tell your prin 
 cipal/ said he, 'that I will take his contract, but I shall vote 
 against the Yazoo claim, notwithstanding/ Next day, he was 
 told there had been some misunderstanding of the business, 
 that he could not have the contract, as it was previously be 
 spoken by another."* 
 
 Lyon the next day paid his respects to Randolph by the fol 
 lowing retort: 
 
 "The Postmaster-General has not lost my esteem, nor do I 
 think his character can be injured by the braying of a jackal, 
 or the fulminations of a madman. But, sir, permit me to inquire 
 from whom these charges of bribery, of corruption, and of rob 
 bery, come? Is it from one who has for forty years, in one ' 
 shape or other, been intrusted with the property and concerns 
 of other people, and has never wanted for confidence, one 
 whose long and steady practice of industry, integrity, and well 
 doing, has obtained for him his standing on this floor? Is it 
 
 o " Annals of Eighth Congress " (1804-5), p. 1106. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 455 
 
 from one who sneered with contempt on the importunity with 
 which he was solicited to set a price on the important vote he 
 held in the last Presidential election? No, sir, these charges 
 have been fabricated in the disordered imagination of a young 
 man whose pride has been provoked by my refusing to sing en 
 core to all his political dogmas. I have had the impudence to 
 differ from him in some few points, and some few times to 
 neglect his fiat. It is long since I have observed that the very 
 sight of my plebeian face has had an unpleasant effect on the 
 gentleman's nose, for out of respect to this House and to the 
 State he represents, I will yet occasionally call him gentleman. 
 I say, sir, these charges have been brought against me by a 
 person nursed in the bosom of opulence, inheriting the life 
 services of a numerous train of the human species, and extensive 
 fields, the original proprietors of which property, in all prob 
 ability, came no honester by it than the purchasers of the 
 Georgia lands did by what they claim. Let that gentleman apply 
 the fable of the thief and the receiver, in Dilworth's Spelling 
 Book, so ingeniously quoted by himself, in his own case, and 
 give up the stolen men in his possession. I say, sir, these 
 charges have come from a person whose fortune, leisure and 
 genius have enabled him to obtain a great share of the wis 
 dom of the schools, but who in years, experience, and the 
 knowledge of the world and the ways of man, is many, many 
 years behind those he implicates a person who, from his rant 
 in this House, seems to have got his head as full of British con 
 tracts and British modes of corruption as ever Don Quixote's 
 was supposed to have been of chivalry, enchantments and 
 knight errantry a person who seems to think no man can be 
 honest and independent unless he has inherited land and 
 
456 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 negroes, nor is he willing to allow a man to vote in the people's 
 elections unless he is a landholder. 
 
 "I can tell that gentleman I. am as far from offering or re 
 ceiving a bribe as he or any other member on this floor; it is a 
 charge which no man ever made against me before him, who 
 from his insulated situation, unconversant with the world, is 
 perhaps as little acquainted with my character as any member 
 of this House, or almost any man in the nation, and I do most 
 cordially believe that, had my back and my mind been supple 
 enough to rise and fall with his motions, I should have escaped 
 his censure. 
 
 "I, sir, have none of that pride which sets men above being 
 merchants and dealers; the calling of a merchant is, in my 
 opinion, equally dignified, and no more than equally dignified 
 with that of a farmer, or a manufacturer. I have a great part 
 of my life been engaged in all the stations of merchant, farmer 
 and manufacturer, in which I have honestly earned and lost a 
 great deal of property, in the character of a merchant. I act 
 like other merchants, look out for customers with whom I can 
 make bargains advantageous to both parties ; it is all the same 
 to me whether I contract with an individual or the public ; I see 
 no constitutional impediment to a member of this House serv 
 ing the public for the same reward the public gives another. 
 Whenever my constituents or myself think I have contracts in 
 consistent with my duties as a member of this House, I will 
 retire from it. 
 
 "I came to this House as a representative of a free, a brave, 
 and a generous people. I thank my Creator that He gave me 
 the face of a man, not that of an ape or a monkey, and that He 
 gave me the heart of a man also, a heart which will spare to its 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 457 
 
 last drop in defence of the dignity of the station my generous 
 constituents have placed me in. I shall trouble the House no 
 farther at this time, than by observing that I shall not be de 
 terred by the threats of the member from Virginia from giving 
 the vote I think the interest and honor of the nation require; 
 and by saying if that member means to be understood that I 
 have offered contracts from the Postmaster-General, the asser 
 tion or insinuation has no foundation in truth, and I challenge 
 him to bring forward his boasted proof."* 
 
 Had Col. Lyon lived long enough, he would not only have 
 beheld John Randolph nobly acting on his blunt advice by 
 emancipating all his hundreds of slaves, but John G. Whittier, 
 the poet of the Abolitionists, chanting songs of praise to his 
 philanthropy in the following strain: 
 
 " Bard, Sage and Tribune! in himself 
 All moods of mind contrasting, 
 The tenderest wail of human woe, 
 The scorn-like lightning blasting; 
 The pathos which from rival eyes 
 Unwilling tears could summon, 
 The stinging taunt, the fiery burst 
 Of hatred scarcely human! 
 
 Mirth sparkling like a diamond shower 
 From lips of life-long sadness; 
 Clear picturings of majestic thought 
 Upon a ground of madness; 
 And over all Romance and Song 
 A classic beauty throwing, 
 And laurelled Clio at his side 
 Her storied pages showing. 
 
 All parties feared him; each in turn 
 
 Beheld its schemes disjointed, 
 
 As right or left his fatal glance 
 
 And spectral finger pointed. 
 
 Sworn foe of Cant, he smote it down 
 
 With trenchant wit unsparing, 
 
 And, mocking, rent with ruthless hand 
 
 The robe Pretence was wearing. 
 
 " Annals of Eighth Congress" (1804-5), PP- 1125-1126. 
 
458 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 He held his slaves; yet kept the while 
 His reverence for the Human; 
 In the dark vassals of his will 
 He saw but Man and Woman! 
 No hunter of God's outraged poor 
 His Roanoke valley entered; 
 No trader in the souls of men 
 Across his threshold ventured. 
 
 And when the old and wearied man 
 Lay down for his last sleeping, 
 And at his side, a slave no more, 
 His brother-man stood weeping, 
 His latest thought, his latest breath, 
 To Freedom's duty giving, 
 With failing tongue and trembling hand 
 The dying blest the living." 
 
 The above speech of Lyon is much stronger than the apoc 
 ryphal one attributed at a later date to Tristam Burgess. I 
 have searched the records carefully and find no such speech 
 there, and do not believe any such was ever made in Congress 
 as that ascribed to Tristam Burgess against John Randolph. 
 Mr. Burgess was addicted to making up or padding remarks 
 which took five minutes to utter in Congress into long printed 
 pamphlets in Rhode Island, which would have taken hours to 
 deliver in the House. He was charged with this by George Mc- 
 Duffie on the floor of the House, and an appeal to the record of 
 debates confirmed the charge. Randolph's alleged reply to 
 Burgess is, of course, purely fictitious. But Matthew Lyon's 
 retort and Randolph's attack which provoked it were made and 
 are in the Annals of Congress, and created great excitement at 
 Washington when they were delivered. Lemuel Sawyer, a 
 member of Congress at the time, relates an amusing anecdote 
 in his " Biography of John Randolph," which I subjoin: 
 
 "Upon the eve of adjournment, he (Randolph) went up to 
 Mr. Quincy to take his farewell. * * * In passing out of the 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 459 
 
 Hall with his friend Garnett he encountered near the door a 
 Lyon (Matthew, of Kentucky), and offered him his hand. 
 Mr. Lyon drew back, and observed that he could not find it 
 in his heart to shake hands with Mr. Randolph, because he had 
 
 called him 'a d d old rascal/ Mr. Randolph appealed to 
 
 Mr. Garnett, who confirmed Mr. Lyon's statement, and Mr. 
 Randolph replying, 'it can't be helped/ departed without ex 
 changing the farewell with him/' 
 
 The situation of affairs, with the world given over to two 
 freebooters, England and France, had now become des 
 perate. The Orders in Council and the Berlin Decree had made 
 the United States on the ocean the plaything of Napoleon and 
 the Mephistophelian Canning. John Randolph was in revolt, 
 and Lyon could have been leader of the House, if the words 
 of Jefferson in a letter, February 28, 1807, to Wilson Cary 
 Nicholas, had not been exactly true. "There is no one whose 
 talents and standing, taken together, have weight enough to 
 give him the lead/'* There is not a doubt Lyon's "talents" 
 were ample, but owing to himself his "standing" was more than 
 doubtful. Like Henry Clay, he had become a disciple of the 
 protective doctrines of Matthew Carey, doctrines which Jeffer 
 son called heretical to the end of his life. Indeed, nearly a 
 quarter of a century before, in the year 1785, Col. Lyon sowed 
 the germs of high tariffs in the Assembly of Vermont. I quote 
 from its Journal: "Duty on Nails proposed and dismissed. 
 In Assembly, October 17 (1785). A petition signed by Mat 
 thew Lyon, praying that a duty of two pence pr. pound might 
 be laid on all nails brought into this State, which would be a 
 
 " A Biography of John Randolph of Roanoke," by Lemuel Sawyer, 
 New York, 1844, p. 47- 
 
 &" Jefferson's Works," V, 48. 
 
460 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 sufficient encouragement for him to build a slitting mill, was 
 read and dismissed."" And the following comment on this 
 proposal is made by the observant editor of the Historical So 
 ciety Collections of the same State: "Lyon, on another occa 
 sion asked for the exclusive right, for the term of eighteen 
 years, of splitting bar-iron into nail-rods, which was not 
 granted. Here are germs of the protective policy afterwards 
 adopted by Congress in tariffs and patent laws." b Lyon had 
 been encouraged by the passage in the Assembly, four days 
 earlier, of an act authorizing the State, on his petition, to sell 
 to him broken cannon, mortars, etc., at Mount Independence, 
 to be used in making bar-iron, to come forward with the hap 
 pily ineffectual prayer to lay a duty on nails. There were Jeffer- 
 sonian Democrats in the Vermont Assembly, even in those 
 primitive days. Jefferson was at a loss to account for Henry 
 Clay's hostility to himself in 1807. Clay, before this time, 
 thought Jefferson a persecutor, an opinion into which he had 
 been duped by Aaron Burr, and which deception he afterwards 
 resented by refusing Burr his hand when they met in New 
 York. But apart from this, Harry of the West was already so 
 enamored by Mathew Carey's paternalism in government that 
 in 1807 he offered resolutions in the United States Senate 
 which were adopted, calling on the Secretary of the Treasury 
 " to prepare and report to the Senate at their next session, a 
 plan for the application of such means as are within the power 
 of Congress, to the purposes of opening roads and making 
 canals; together with a statement of undertakings of that 
 nature which, as objects of public improvement, may require and 
 
 a " Vermont Assembly Journal," II, 519- 
 
 a " Collections of the Vermont Historical Society," II, pp. 428-429. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 461 
 
 deserve the aid of government."* 1 Mathew Carey, in his "New 
 Olive Branch," and "Essays on Political Economy," and his 
 son, Henry C. Carey, in his "Principles of Political Economy," 
 have made Pennsylvania the hotbed of the protective system 
 in the United States. Henry Clay, in spite of many opinions to 
 the contrary, was always from his first appearance in national 
 politics in 1806, an ardent disciple of Mathew Carey. And it 
 must be confessed that Matthew Lyon, in view of his high 
 tariff utterances in Congress during 1807, and the succeeding 
 two years, was still strongly tinctured on that subject with 
 what Mr. Jefferson always styled political heresy. One of 
 Jefferson's latest letters, that to William B. Giles, December 
 26, 1825, was called forth by Henry Clay's schemes of pater 
 nalism when Secretary of State under John Quincy Adams. 
 
 "I see, as you do, and with the deepest affliction," exclaimed 
 the venerable patriot, "the rapid strides with which the Federal 
 branch of our Government is advancing towards the usurpa 
 tion of all the rights reserved to the States, and the consolida 
 tion in itself of all powers, foreign and domestic; and that, too, 
 by constructions which, if legitimate, leave no limits to their 
 power. Take together the decisions of the Federal Court, the 
 doctrines of the President and the misconstructions of the con 
 stitutional compact acted on by the Legislature of the Federal 
 branch, and it is but too evident that the three ruling branches 
 of that department are in combination to strip their colleagues, 
 the State authorities, of the powers reserved by them, and to 
 exercise themselves all functions, foreign and domestic. Under 
 the power to regulate commerce they assume indefinitely that 
 also over agriculture and manufactures, and call it regulation 
 
 " Annals of Congress " (1806-7). 
 
462 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 to take the earnings of one of these branches of industry, and 
 that, too, the most depressed, and put them into the pockets of 
 the other, the most flourishing of all. And what is our re 
 source for the preservation of the Constitution? Reason and 
 argument? You might as well reason and argue with the 
 marble columns encircling them. * * * They now look 
 to a single and splendid government of an aristocracy, founded 
 on banking institutions and moneyed incorporations under 
 the guise and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures, 
 commerce and navigation, riding and ruling over the plundered 
 ploughman and beggared yeomanry. " a 
 
 Here then the reader has the explanation of Henry Clay's 
 course in the Senate in 1806 and 1807, of open hostility to Mr. 
 Jefferson. Burr had poisoned his mind. The President was 
 aware of his enmity, but confessed his total ignorance of the 
 cause of it in a letter to Mr. Cooper, written at Monticello, 
 September I, 1807. In this letter he says: " It is true, as you 
 have heard, that a distance has taken place between Mr. Clay 
 and myself. The cause I never could learn or imagine. I 
 had always known him to be an able man, and I believed him 
 an honest one. I had looked to his coming into Congress with 
 an entire belief that he would be cordial with the administra 
 tion, and even before that I had always had him in my mind 
 for a high and important vacancy which had been from time to 
 time expected, but is only now about to take place. I feel his 
 loss, therefore, with real concern, but it is irremediable from 
 the necessity of harmony and cordiality between those who are 
 to manage together the public concerns. Not only his with 
 drawing from the usual civilities of intercourse with me (which 
 
 " Works of Jefferson," Vol. VII, p. 426 et seq. 
 
THE HAMPDEIS OF CONGRESS 463 
 
 even the Federalists, with two or three exceptions, keep up), 
 but his open hostility in Congress to the administration leave 
 no doubt of the state of his mind as a fact, although the cause 
 be unknown." 
 
 Andrew Jackson had also been seduced into antagonism to 
 Jefferson by the maleficent Burr, and went to Richmond, at 
 the time of Burr's trial, according to old Mr. W. H. Sparks in 
 his " Memories of Fifty Years," an unreliable book, where he 
 roundly abused the President. Sparks says : " When on his 
 (Burr's) trial at Richmond, Jackson went there, and was found 
 on the street haranguing the people in Burr's favor, and de 
 nouncing the prosecution and the President. Subsequently, 
 however, he denounced Burr, and pretended that he had de 
 ceived him." 6 But little reliance can be placed on the garrul 
 ous Sparks, who wrote his book in old age when his memory 
 had faded. Randall, however, has a reference to Jackson's hos 
 tility at this time. But it is probable that Matthew Lyon 
 warned Jackson against Burr, and opened his eyes to his real 
 character. 
 
 In the light of Lyon's deposition in the Wilkinson investi 
 gation before a congressional committee in 1811, the depon 
 ent's relations with Burr are revealed, and show a set purpose 
 on Burr's part to reach Jackson through Lyon. In reality 
 Burr could not have felt any friendship for Lyon, for he had 
 tried in vain to corrupt him through Brown of Rhode Island 
 in 1 80 1 in the contest for President between Jefferson and 
 Burr. Lyon, above all others, had been instrumental in Burr's 
 defeat. Hamilton, next to Lyon, had worked hardest for that 
 
 " Jeff arson's Works," V, 183. 
 P. 200. 
 
464 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 object. Burr's feelings were probably very bitter against both. 
 Lyon testified that Burr asked him in 1805 to solicit Jefferson 
 to appoint him to a foreign embassy, and that he bluntly re 
 fused to make such a request. He next expressed a wish to 
 accompany Lyon by boat from Pittsburgh to Kentucky. 
 Lyon's boat was to start on a certain day; Burr's boat would 
 not be ready to start for a day or two later. " Colonel 
 Burr arrived at Pittsburgh," Lyon deposed, " the evening be 
 fore I left that place. He assured me General Wilkinson 
 would be on in a day or two, and begged of me to wait their 
 company. I gave him to understand that my business would 
 not admit of my waiting one moment for the company of any 
 ceremonious gentleman. In all the journies of my long life 
 I had not waited half an hour for the company of any man."* 
 Lyon was evidently not taken by the proposal. Thirty-six 
 hours after his departure, " by extraordinary exertions of his 
 hands," Burr overtook him. " We lashed together," says 
 Lyon, "to Marietta; he stopped at Blennerhassett's." At 
 Washington Wilkinson also had solicited Lyon's aid for Burr, 
 and while Lyon refused to interest himself for him with Presi 
 dent Jefferson, he had suggested that by going early to Ten 
 nessee Burr might be returned from there to Congress. In 
 his deposition Lyon states that Burr did not appear to take 
 more than a languid interest in this suggestion. His schemes 
 in the East kept him at Philadelphia, and Lyon assured Wil 
 kinson that this delay had destroyed any chance for election 
 which Burr might have had by a prompt departure for Nash 
 ville. Whatever his motive, Burr seemed determined to stick 
 
 " Memoirs of My Own Times," by General James Wilkinson, Ap 
 pendix, No. LXVIII. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 
 
 to Lyon. "At the falls of Ohio," I again quote from the dep 
 osition, " where I had considerable business, he overtook me ; 
 there I repeated to him that the delay he had made had ruined 
 his prospects of election, as that prospect depended solely on 
 domestication. At the falls he changed his flat boat for a small 
 boat, which he ordered to Eddyville (where I live), and rode to 
 Nashville." He was received by the leading people at Nash 
 ville, including General Jackson, with great eclat, but soon re 
 turned to Colonel Lyon's house at Eddyville. " I inquired if 
 anything had been said about the election," continues the depo 
 sition. " He answered, ' not one word/ I observed that he 
 ought to think no more of it. In answer, he said he had little 
 doubt of being elected a delegate from Orleans Territory, but 
 he would choose to be a member, and insisted that I should 
 write to a friend of mine (who had paid him the most marked 
 attention) to see if the thing could be yet set on foot, and to 
 inform him he would be a resident in Tennessee. At the time 
 of the election he requested me to communicate the answer to 
 him at Natchez. I complied with his wishes, the answer I 
 received being unfavorable to him." Hildreth says that Lyon's 
 friend, to whom Burr urged him to write, was " probably Jack 
 son.""" About the same time, in reply to a letter of Wilkinson, 
 
 Lyon wrote, " B lost the prospect in Tennessee, by not 
 
 pursuing the road I pointed out for him." The last question 
 propounded by the committee respecting Burr, and Lyon's 
 answer, were as follows: " Did you not believe him sincere? 
 In answer to which I say, no doubt he would have been sin 
 cerely rejoiced to have been elected. There seemed too much 
 mystery in his conduct. I suspected him to have other objects 
 <* Hildreth's " History of the United States," 2d series, II, 597. 
 
466 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 in view, to which I could not penetrate. These objects I then 
 believed were known to General Wilkinson ; but I had no idea, 
 at that time, of his having any treasonable project in his head." a 
 It was not long before Lyon became satisfied that both Burr 
 and Wilkinson required watching, and from his speeches in 
 Congress it is evident that his friendship for Wilkinson, a fellow 
 soldier in the Revolution, was at an end, and that he deemed 
 Burr, to whom he had refused to be introduced in 1801, with 
 his mysterious projects, dangerous, sinister and probably bent 
 on treason. Entertaining these views it is not difficult to im 
 agine what Colonel Lyon must have said to his neighbor and 
 cherished friend Andrew Jackson. Apart from some account 
 which Mrs. Roe, Colonel Lyon's daughter, communicated to 
 me, but which being the recollections of a very old lady cannot 
 be deemed historical proof, the internal evidence makes it ex 
 tremely probable that Lyon warned Jackson to be on his guard 
 with Burr, and as Lyon was in confidential relations with Jef 
 ferson and Gallatin, it is likely that the secret knowledge which 
 Jackson obtained about this period of Burr's and Wilkinson's 
 schemes was confided to his ears by Matthew Lyon. Jackson 
 changed abruptly. He had allowed his nephew to go into 
 service with Burr, which showed he then trusted him, but he 
 soon sent off express a confidential letter to Governor Clai- 
 borne putting him on his guard against Wilkinson, and more 
 than hinting that the government was threatened by a secret 
 plot. " I fear," said he, " there is something rotten in the state 
 of Denmark." It is my opinion that Lyon, who was in a posi 
 tion to learn administration secrets, opened the eyes of General 
 Jackson to the existence of a dangerous conspiracy. Mr. 
 Wilkinson's Memoirs, Appendix No. LXVIII. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 467 
 
 Jefferson, who trusted Wilkinson, though Lyon had ceased to 
 do so, wrote to Governor Claiborne, January 3, 1807, " Be 
 assured that Tennessee, and particularly General Jackson, are 
 faithful." 6 In a former chapter of this volume I called atten 
 tion to a scurrilous article by Peter Porcupine, in 1797, holding 
 up to public ridicule Jefferson, Jackson, Monroe, Gallatin and 
 Lyon. It is a curious coincidence that Lyon's relations to all 
 of those distinguished Democrats continued to the end most 
 intimate and loyal. If he baffled Burr in his treasonable mach 
 inations, and revealed to Jackson the true character of the man, 
 it was the most important service he had rendered to his coun 
 try since he gave Jefferson the ninth and decisive vote in 1801. 
 
 Colonel Lyon's early associations with New England men 
 were revived considerably during his latter days in Congress. 
 He opposed the embargo and made several strong speeches 
 against it. This brought him into sympathy with the distin 
 guished Josiah Quincy, between whom and himself a cordial 
 friendship sprung up in Congress, which continued throughout 
 the remainder of Colonel Lyon's life. But when Quincy 
 threatened the secession of Massachusetts from the Union, 
 Lyon, then in Kentucky, wrote him earnestly to frown upon 
 that mad scheme, and made one of the most pathetic and elo 
 quent appeals he ever uttered to the patriotism of Massachu 
 setts. He said : " The step I most dread and have ever 
 dreaded seems ready to be taken; I mean the separation of the 
 States, and that through the folly of the National Government. 
 * * * Yet I still hope that New England will act worthy 
 of themselves. * * * Permit me, my dear sir, once more 
 to remind you of the importance of preserving the Union to 
 
 Randall's Life of Jefferson, III, 186. 
 
468 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 the last extremity. Besides the reasons commonly urged and 
 well enforced by Mr. Dexter, your dextrous Democratic can 
 didate, the New England people ought to consider their very 
 limited boundary, the extensive, vacant world west of them, 
 to a share of which they are entitled ; the importance of keeping 
 open the roads through which their vast surplus population 
 can emigrate into other parts of the same Nation, carrying with 
 them their steady habits, their industry and their ingenuity, to 
 which every other people pay deference and give place. My 
 good friend, I frequently hear from you. I observe your ef 
 forts to restore our Nation to its usual state of health and 
 peace with pleasure. I read with indignation the foolish rav 
 ings of those who hate you because they know you not." 
 
 Colonel Lyon's most serious mistake as a public man was 
 his opposition to the war of i8i2 % It probably lost him his 
 seat in Congress. Having been thrown out of alignment with 
 his party upon the policy of an embargo and non-intercourse, 
 he drifted by easy gradation into opposition upon the subject 
 of war. But his opposition was not factious. At best it was 
 a temporary aberration from his usual clear-sighted, practical 
 judgment upon questions of public policy. He did not sulk 
 in his tent, but built gunboats for the war at his shipyards and, 
 being too old himself to go, sent his sons to the field to do- 
 battle for their country. A few years after his vision cleared, 
 and he frankly admitted in a letter to President Monroe June 
 7, 1817, that he had undergone a change of mind. " What 
 ever," said he, " I might have thought of the untimeliness of 
 the late war, I now consider it the most fortunate war for the 
 world that mankind ever experienced, as had it not been for 
 the lesson that war has taught Europeans, there would prob- 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 469 
 
 ably, before this time, have been on foot a crusade of the old 
 world for the destruction of the liberties of the new world, 
 which might have been attended with the most disastrous 
 consequences." 
 
 Colonel Lyon not only acted with the opposition against 
 the embargo, but more especially in condemning the right of a 
 Congressional Caucus to nominate candidates for President 
 and Vice-President. He continued always to be a Democrat, 
 yet his attitude on these important questions in the House of 
 Representatives cost him his seat at the next election, and for 
 the time undermined his popularity in Kentucky; just as his 
 old antagonist in many a fierce debate, John Randolph of 
 Roanoke, for the same reason was left at home in Virginia. 
 Colonel Lyon was among the very first to oppose the prevail 
 ing custom of putting forth candidates for President by a 
 Congressional Caucus, and although the custom survived for 
 some years longer, it was finally abandoned. His speeches in 
 Congress, and his letter in 1822 to Niles's Register, aided pow 
 erfully in educating the public mind to the necessity of reform 
 ing the system and lodging the duty of choosing candidates 
 where it rightly belonged, with the people of the several States. 
 National nominating conventions, composed of delegates 
 chosen by the people on the same basis as they elect represen 
 tatives and senators to Congress, at last superseded the caucus 
 system, and vindicated the sagacity of Lyon in his advocacy of 
 the change. But his stinging strictures on the nomination of 
 Mr. Madison probably contributed in no slight degree to the 
 loss of his seat in Congress. It was known that he preferred 
 James Monroe to any other man as Mr. Jefferson's successor, 
 and even after Mr. Madison was elected, and on the very day 
 
47O MATTHEW LYON 
 
 before the Senate and House met jointly to count the votes 
 and declare the result, Lyon made a strong anti-embargo 
 speech, in which, with characteristic boldness, he attacked the 
 hero of the hour as the " Caucus President." 
 
 " We have," he said, " a Constitution which provides for the 
 meeting of 142 members in this House and 34 in another to 
 consult for the common good and provide for the safety of 
 this Nation. We may talk here, here we may vote, here we 
 may meet to collect a majority to order the registering of the 
 decrees of a sort of Jacobin Club called a caucus, who hold 
 their midnight convocations to consult, not the good or the 
 safety of the Nation, no ; that could be best done here no, sir, 
 it is to consult what can be done to save the party, not the 
 Old Republican of 1798; no, that party is broken down. I 
 don't hear that yourself (Mr. Macon) and many others of that 
 Old Republican party meet in those caucuses, those nightly 
 meetings. It is, it seems, the Embargo party who meet in 
 the Senate rooms under pretense of consulting and devising 
 means for the national benefit, yet in their discussions they can 
 not avoid dwelling upon the dangerous situation of their party. 
 It was in the great or little caucuses that this war-whoop com 
 menced; it was there discussed and recommended as a party- 
 saving measure. It seems that we are in future to look for 
 all national measures to be first canvassed in those midnight 
 meetings by those self-created caucus gentry. It seems that 
 every measure proposed for national benefit, however applica 
 ble to the state of this Nation, is to be scouted out of this 
 House at the first glance, merely because it is not the child of 
 this caucus; our work is thus to be laid out for us in the mid 
 night caucuses, and we are to be called upon to be present 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 47! 
 
 while these measures receive a vote of sanction in this House, 
 which is in future to act the part of Bonaparte's mock Parlia 
 ment. We are to meet to-morrow here to attend the register 
 ing of the election of a caucus President; we are to have a 
 caucus army, I understand, a caucus non-intercourse, a caucus 
 loan of ten millions, equal to the whole capital of the Bank 
 of the United States. And all this not to save the Nation, 
 but the Embargo party." 
 
 Colonel Lyon was so busily engaged in superintending the 
 building of a fine vessel at his shipyards in Eddyville about 
 the beginning of the war of 1812, and loading it with a valu 
 able cargo, that he neglected his political interests, and this, in 
 connection with his waning popularity, lost him the election 
 for the Twelfth Congress. His vessel was wrecked on the 
 Mississippi during the trip to New Orleans, and together with 
 the greater part of the valuable cargo was lost. His wealth 
 had already been impaired by the first embargo, and this last 
 stroke of adverse fortune reduced him from affluence to com 
 parative poverty. His son Chittenden assumed his liabilities, 
 as before stated, to the amount of twenty-eight thousand dol 
 lars, and with his other sons, who were all prosperous, came 
 to a beloved father's assistance. But Colonel Lyon was a 
 proud man, and his unbroken spirit chafed under the restraints 
 of dependence, even upon those whose delight it was to ren 
 der to him the offices of love and duty. 
 
 For the first time in his life he turned to his old political 
 
 associates at Washington in quest of official preferment. He 
 
 wrote in 1818 to Senator Armisted C. Mason of Virginia, the 
 
 son of that devoted friend in the dark days of 1798, Gen. 
 
 Annals loth Congress, February 7, 1809, pp. 1420-1422. 
 
47*' MATTHEW LYON 
 
 Stevens Thompson Mason, and to another staunch friend, the 
 celebrated Nathaniel Macon of North Carolina, and soon 
 learned from eack of those gentlemen that they had brought 
 his application to the notice of President Monroe, who ex 
 pressed much sympathy and respect for Colonel Lyon, and 
 an intention to appoint him to a good office. 
 
 In 1820 the President appointed him United States Factor 
 to the Cherokee Nation in the Territory of Arkansas, and the 
 old statesman immediately set out for the then frontier regions 
 of the Union west of the Mississippi. The same indomitable 
 spirit which blazed a path through the primeval forests of 
 Vermont and Kentucky was not yet quenched, and soon Spadra 
 Bluff, his new home on the Arkansas river, about 140 miles 
 above Arkansas City, felt the impulse of that energy and enter 
 prise which the founder of the towns of Fair Haven and Eddy- 
 ville had displayed everywhere during his long and eventful 
 life. The people of Arkansas elected Colonel Lyon as their 
 second delegate to the Congress of the United States, a fur 
 ther proof of his magnetic character in every situation of life. 
 
 But he did not live to take his seat. His astonishing activity 
 was as marked now as at any period of his life, and he seemed 
 to forget that there were any limits upon his vital resources. 
 He performed a journey shortly before his death which the 
 hardy people among whom he resided long talked of with 
 astonishment as truly extraordinary. The Arkansas Gazette, 
 in the month of May, 1822, published an account of this jour 
 ney, and Niles's Register for June 29, 1822, copied it as a 
 memorable performance. At the beginning of that year Col 
 onel Lyon built a flat boat at Spadra Bluff and loaded it with 
 furs, peltries and Indian commodities, and on the I4th of Feb- 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 473 
 
 ruary launched it on the Arkansas river, bound under his own 
 charge to New Orleans. The long trip was successfully made, 
 and his collection of furs, peltries and Indian commodities was 
 exchanged at New Orleans for factory supplies, storekeepers' 
 goods, various utensils for the Cherokees, iron ware, such as 
 he used to turn out at his Fair Haven forge and Eddyville 
 foundry, and the machinery for a gigantic cotton gin which 
 he was erecting, the largest one up to that period ever seen in 
 Arkansas. The return passage was begun in the roughest 
 weather of an inclement season, but it did not chill the fires 
 of the old pioneer, for on the way back, like another Daniel 
 Boone, he longed to thread once more the Kentucky forests, 
 and after ascending the Mississippi to the mouth of White 
 river, he there stored his cargo and set out for a flying visit 
 to his old hearthstone and friends at beloved Eddyville. He 
 soon returned, having gone through a journey within three 
 months, in his seventy-third year, of over three thousand miles. 
 All this was accomplished in wintry weather and against cur 
 rents so adverse that oftentimes on his trip down the river 
 from Arkansas his boat ran aground, when he was the first 
 to jump into the water " to shove her off; " and again in 
 ascending the stream on his return to Spadra Bluff he guided 
 the hands while they dragged along the grounded boat, and 
 always insisted upon doing his share in " rowing, steering or 
 cordelling." The editor of the Arkansas Gazette saw Colonel 
 Lyon as he ascended the river, and could not discover that the 
 long journey had, in the least, affected his health. But he 
 was mistaken. " This," says Wharton, " was the last time he 
 was to drop down the current of the Mississippi, or visit, by 
 way of an interlude, his second home in Kentucky, for robust 
 
4/4 MATTHEW LYON 
 
 as he was, the chill of old age was at hand, and, like the night 
 of northern climates, was destined to drop upon him without 
 the notice of an intermediate twilight." 
 
 Among the family records piously preserved after his death 
 by his bereaved widow and children at his old home in Eddy- 
 ville, the account was kept of Colonel Lyon's last illness and 
 death at far off Spadra Bluff. An old and faithful retainer, 
 George Skinner, like another Scottish seneschal, not only 
 served him in Vermont, and went with him to Kentucky, but 
 with a devotion that never relaxed, followed him across the 
 Mississippi to the distant nation of the Cherokees. Skinner 
 related with what precision his master, when his sickness be 
 gan, ordered every detail, the hours for medicine, the adjust 
 ment of business, his farewell messages to loved ones, and then 
 occurred his placid death like an infant falling asleep. Scenes 
 of childhood seemed to flit before him, as is often the case with 
 the old. Again he wandered through the Vale of Avoca, in 
 his native Wicklow, and perhaps thought of Moore's famous 
 lines, 
 
 " Sweet Vale of Avoca how calm could I rest 
 In thy bosom of shade with the friends I love best, 
 Where the sorrows we feel in this cold world shall cease, 
 And our hearts like thy waters be mingled in peace." 
 
 Matthew Lyon died at Spadra Bluff on the ist of August, 
 1822, lamented by the whole American people; a man of action 
 and deeds which left their impress on his times; a patriot in 
 every fibre, whose vote made a President; a pioneer along 
 whose pathway Romance walked side by side with History: a 
 hero whose memory is cherished in Kentucky and Vermont 
 among the foremost and bravest of their sons. 
 
THE HAMPDEN OF CONGRESS 475 
 
 The remains of Matthew Lyon were interred at Spadra Bluff, 
 but in the year 1833 his son Chittenden Lyon and other mem 
 bers of Col.Lyon's family resolved to transfer the body to Ken 
 tucky, and re-inter it at Eddyville. This was accordingly done, 
 and the ceremonies of the reburial drew together an immense 
 assemblage of the friends of Matthew Lyon. A handsome 
 monument was erected over the grave, with suitable inscrip 
 tions commemorative of the founder of Eddyville. Old men 
 still living remember the impressive services, and speak of the 
 bringing home of "bell and burial" for the beloved founder, as 
 the most solemn event in the history of the town. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 WHAT WAS COLONEL LYON'S CHURCH? 
 
 While collecting materials for this biography I addressed 
 inquiries to the descendants of Matthew Lyon in regard to 
 his religious faith. A remark in his letter to John Adams, " It 
 is a maxim with the lawyers and popish priests, I believe, that 
 the greater the villainy to be exculpated from, the greater the 
 fee," had led me to suppose that he was not a Catholic. 
 Another remark by Colonel Lyon, March 27, 1810, during a 
 speech he made in the House in opposition to the embargo 
 and non-intercourse as useless self-punishment, served still 
 more to' strengthen the impression that he was no Catholic. 
 That remark was as follows : " They would not believe us 
 when we told them the attribute or thing they called virtue 
 was mere monkish self-flagellation and debasement." 
 
 But occasionally letters came to hand which left the ques 
 tion in doubt as to his real religious convictions. In Con 
 necticut and Vermont Lyon had been thrown exclusively from 
 his fifteenth year into the society of Puritans and other non- 
 Catholics. In Kentucky he found a flourishing Catholic 
 colony, the history of which has been admirably sketched by 
 the late Archbishop Martin John Spalding. Associations and 
 environment often have much to do with the state of religious 
 opinion. Lyon formed an intimate acquaintance and friend 
 ship with Father Abell and Father Durbin, well-known priests, 
 
478 APPENDIX 
 
 of Kentucky. A great-granddaughter of his, in a letter now 
 before me, says : " Have you met our cousin the Catholic 
 
 priest, or do you know anything of the Hennessy affair at 
 
 Lyon's Iron Works in Vermont in 1796? " Mr. L. E. Chit- 
 tenden, great-grandson of Governor Thomas Chittenden of 
 Vermont, and Register of the Treasury under Abraham Lin 
 coln, wrote, February 3d, 1881, in relation to Matthew Lyon: 
 " I do not think he adhered to any religious creed whatever, 
 not even that of his Catholic ancestry/' April 4th, 1881, ex- 
 Senator W. B. Machen, who married Lyon's granddaughter, 
 wrote: "He was probably Catholic in his faith, but no re 
 ligionist in his practice. His wife was a Methodist." Mr. 
 Thompson A. Lyon, July 2ist, 1881, said as follows: "You 
 wrote me sometime ago to know something as to the religious 
 belief of grandfather. From an anecdote I heard of him to 
 day I am inclined to think he was a Catholic, as he was 
 frequently visited by Father Abell of Washington county, who 
 was in that day a prominent priest in this State." Another 
 descendant, Mrs. Mary Shelby Wyatt, of Fredonia, Kentucky, 
 April 17, 1899, wrote as follows: "There is one point I wish 
 you would hunt up about our great-grandfather, was he a 
 Catholic or Protestant? My mother told me one of her earliest 
 recollections was of hearing old Father Durbin celebrate mass 
 in her father's house. This would seem to indicate the family 
 were Catholic." Miss Fannie M. Hepburn, another de 
 scendant, December 6th, 1899, said: " In reply to your inquiry 
 as to the religious faith of my great-grandfather, Col. Matthew 
 Lyon, I regret that I cannot give you any satisfactory informa 
 tion. I know that he was not a member of any church, and 
 I believe there is no record of his ever having made a pro- 
 
APPENDIX 479 
 
 fession of religious faith." After diligent inquiry, the above 
 meagre information is all I have been able to obtain in rela 
 tion to Colonel Lyon's religious opinions. 
 
 LYON'S TESTIMONY BEFORE A CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE 
 APPOINTED TO INQUIRE INTO THE CONDUCT OF GENERAL 
 JAMES WILKINSON. 
 
 " COLONEL M. LYON'S DEPOSITION. 
 
 Questions proposed to the honorable Mr. Lyon, by General 
 Wilkinson. 
 
 Have you any knowledge of Colonel Burr's intention to 
 offer himself as a candidate to Congress for the State of 
 Tennessee, before you left this city in the spring, 1805; if so, 
 will you be pleased to state the particulars? 
 
 Did not Colonel Burr cross the mountains that spring, de 
 scend the Ohio, and proceed to Nashville, in Tennessee, with 
 the professed intention to canvass for the proposed election 
 to Congress, and did you not believe him sincere? 
 
 Did you see or converse with Colonel Burr, after he reached 
 the western country, concerning his election to Congress, from 
 the State of Tennessee? 
 
 Did you not, in a letter to General Wilkinson, dated Novem 
 ber 19, 1805, make allusion to the said election of Burr, in the 
 
 following terms : " B lost the prospect in Tennessee, by 
 
 not pursuing the road I pointed out for him?" 
 
 To the honourable committee of the House of Representatives of 
 the United States. 
 
 The undersigned, in answering the questions, proposed by 
 General Wilkinson, and handed him by the chairman of the 
 
48o 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 committee, considers himself bound to explain the state of his 
 acquaintance, with both General Wilkinson and Colonel Burr. 
 
 With General Wilkinson, I have had acquaintance, since the 
 retreat of the army from Ticonderoga, in 1777. His conduct 
 during that memorable campaign, which ended with the cap 
 ture of Burgoyne, and his army, endeared him to me: he 
 seemed to be the life and soul of the headquarters of the army : 
 he, in the capacity of Adjutant-General, governed at head 
 quarters. He was a standing correction of the follies and 
 irregularities, occasioned by the weakness and intemperance 
 of the commanding general. This regard for General Wilkin 
 son, followed him through the various stages of his public 
 life. 
 
 I was, in the time of Adams's administration, distressed, for 
 fear he was entangled with that party : from this anxiety, I was 
 measurably relieved by the General's conduct on the change 
 of the administration. In an interview at my house, in Ken 
 tucky, in the spring or summer, 1802 or 3, he explained and 
 elucidated his conduct, on that point, to my satisfaction; of 
 course, when I came to Congress from Kentucky, in 1803, 
 I was friendly disposed towards him, and when we met, we did 
 not fail to express our reciprocal affection. I was so much the 
 General's friend, that on his appointment as Governor of Louis 
 iana, I recommended him in my circular letter, of which I 
 sent many copies to my friends in that territory. 
 
 Some time in the winter, 1805, coming one morning from 
 Alexandria, by way of the navy yard, and passing by the house 
 where the General lived, he called on me to come in; after 
 congratulating him on his appointment as Governor, and some 
 other conversation, Colonel Burr's name was mentioned. 
 
APPENDIX 481 
 
 Colonel Burr had no claim to friendly attentions from me. 
 I had no acquaintance with him before the contest concerning 
 the presidential election. I had resisted the solicitations of my 
 friends, who wished to introduce me to him in March, 1801, 
 on account of his misconduct in that affair; yet when I saw 
 him persecuted for what I considered no more than fair play 
 among duellists, I advocated him: this brought about an 
 acquaintance, by no means intimate. In the course of the 
 conversation between the General and myself, we regretted 
 the loss of so much talent as Colonel Burr possessed; we 
 viewed him on the brink of a precipice, from which, in a few 
 days, he must fall; from the second station in the nation, he 
 must fall to that of a private citizen. 
 
 The General entered warmly into his praise, and talked of 
 a foreign embassy for him. This I assured him, could not be 
 obtained. The General then asked me, if I could not think of 
 something, which would do for the little counsellor? I replied, 
 that he might very readily become a member of the congress, 
 which were to meet the coming winter, and in the present 
 state of parties, considering the eclat with which he was likely 
 to leave the senate, he might very probably be speaker. The 
 General was eager to know how he could be elected to con 
 gress. I explained; let Colonel Burr mount his horse the 
 fourth of March, and ride through Virginia to Tennessee, 
 giving out that he intends settling at Nashville, in the practice 
 of the law. Let him commence the practice, and fix himself 
 a home there; his rencounter with General Hamilton, will not 
 injure him. Let him attend the courts in that district. Let 
 him in July next, intimate to some of the numerous friends 
 (his pre-eminent talents and suavity of manners will have made 
 
482 APPENDIX 
 
 for him) that he would willingly serve the district in congress ; 
 they will set the thing on foot, and he is sure to be elected; 
 there is no constitutional bar in the way. As I finished this 
 explanation, the General rose, and in a seeming ecstasy clapped 
 his hands on my shoulders, exclaiming with an oath, this will 
 do, it is a heavenly thought, worthy of him who thought it. 
 He rang the bell, ordered his boots, and said he would go 
 instantly to inform the little counsellor, and would call on me 
 in the House in the course of two or three hours; he did so, 
 and informed me he had, at Col. Burr's request, made an ap 
 pointment for me to call on him. I was punctual. Col. Burr 
 lived at Mr. Wheaton's, near the north side of Pennsylvania 
 avenue, not far from Rhodes's. It was in the evening. I 
 knocked, or pulled the bell, several times, before a servant 
 came, who informed me that Col. Burr was not to be seen, 
 he was engaged with company. I gave the servant my name, 
 and directed him to go and tell Col. Burr, that I had called. 
 Col. Burr came, and invited me up stairs, and requested me 
 to sit with Mrs. Wheaton half an hour, when he would be 
 with me. In about three quarters of an hour he came, and 
 apologised for his delay. I observed to him, that he had a 
 large company, among whom I had recognized the voices of 
 Generals Wilkinson* and Dayton, although I had not heard of 
 the latter gentleman's being in town; I hoped he had not 
 hurried himself from them on account of seeing me; that I 
 had been well entertained by Mr. and Mrs. Wheaton, and 
 would have been so an hour or two longer, if he wished to 
 remain with his company. Colonel Burr said the meeting was 
 
 <*General Wilkinson was then engaged with Burr and Dayton, on 
 the subject of the Canal, proposed to be cut at the Rapids of the Ohio. 
 
APPENDIX 483 
 
 about some land concern, in the western country, and they 
 had gone as far as they could with it at that time; my coming- 
 had been no interruption; he was very glad to see me, and 
 soon commenced on the subject of the coming election in Ten 
 nessee. I repeated what I had said to General Wilkinson. He 
 admitted the probability of success in the course I pointed out; 
 but did not seem to be so much enamoured with the project as 
 General Wilkinson. He said, he was obliged on the fourth 
 of March, to go to Philadelphia, from thence he would go to 
 Pittsburgh, and thence to the western country by water. I 
 offered him a passage in my boat from Pittsburgh, if he should 
 be there when I should have done my business on the Monon- 
 gahela, and descended to Pittsburgh. I assured him, however, 
 all chance of obtaining the election in Tennessee, would be 
 jeopardised, if not lost, by such a delay. He told me he had 
 ordered a boat prepared for him at Pittsburgh ; and he talked as 
 if his business in Philadelphia was indispensable, as well as his 
 voyage down the Ohio. In stating this conversation, I give 
 the substance of all the other conversations I had that winter, 
 with Col. Burr at Washington, except that in some of them, 
 the embassy was talked of. He observed that my friend Wil 
 kinson, thought I would be a proper person, in a blunt way, 
 to mention it to the President. He asked me, if I dared to tell 
 the President that he ought to send Col. Burr, on the foreign 
 embassy talked of? I told him very bluntly, I would not. 
 
 Colonel Burr arrived at Pittsburgh, the evening before I left 
 that place. He assured me, General Wilkinson would be on 
 in a day or two, and begged of me to wait their company. I 
 gave him to understand, that my business would not admit of 
 my waiting one moment for the company of any ceremonious 
 
484 APPENDIX 
 
 gentleman. In all the journeys of my long life, I had not 
 waited half an hour for the company of any man. 
 
 By extraordinary exertions of his hands, (his boat being light, 
 and mine being heavy loaded and frequently aground) Colonel 
 Burr overtook me in about thirty-six hours after I left Pitts 
 burgh, and we lashed together to Marietta: he stopped at Blen- 
 nerhassett's. At the falls of Ohio, where I had considerable 
 business, he overtook me; there I repeated to him that the 
 delay he had made, had ruined his prospect of election, as that 
 prospect depended solely on domestication. At the falls, he 
 changed his flat boat, for a small boat, which he ordered to 
 Eddyville, (where I live) and rode to Nashville. The news 
 papers described his arrival and reception there, as one of the 
 most magnificent parades that ever had been made at that 
 place. They contained lists of toasts, and great dinners, given 
 in honour of Colonel Burr; every body at and near Nashville, 
 seemed to be contending for the honour of having best treated, 
 or served Colonel Burr. This I had expected, and when Colo 
 nel Burr called on me, on his way from Nashville, to his boat, 
 I inquired if any thing had been said about the election. He 
 answered, not one word. I observed, that he ought to think 
 no more of it. In answer he said, he had little doubt, of being 
 elected a delegate from Orleans territory, but he would choose 
 to be a member, and insisted, that I should write to a friend 
 of mine (who had paid him the most marked attention) to see if 
 the thing could be yet set on foot, and to inform him, he would 
 be a resident in Tennessee. At the time of the election, he 
 requested me to communicate the answer to him at Natchez. I 
 complied with his wishes, the answer I received being unfavour 
 able to him. About the same time, in answer to a letter re- 
 
APPENDIX 485 
 
 Reived from General Wilkinson, I probably wrote the words, 
 recited by the General in his question to me. What I had done 
 for Colonel Burr, was almost wholly dictated by my friendship 
 for the General. That letter of the General's, was preserved by 
 accident, among a bundle of uninteresting papers, for four or 
 five years ; since then it has been here, and is now presented to 
 the committee. 
 
 I have now answered all the questions presented me, except 
 that couched in the words, " Did you not believe him sincere?" 
 In answer to which I say, no doubt he would have been sin 
 cerely rejoiced to have been elected. There seemed too much 
 mystery in his conduct. I suspected him to have other objects 
 in view, to which I could not penetrate. These objects, I then 
 believed, were known to General Wilkinson ; but I had no idea 
 at that time, of his having any treasonable project in his head. 
 I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 M. LYON. 
 
 [Affirmed to, on the 25th February, 1811, before E. Bacon, 
 Chairman of a Committee, appointed to inquire into the con 
 duct of Brigadier-General James Wilkinson."] 
 
 The following Letter accompanies the above Deposition. 
 
 [" PRIVATE.] 
 
 Massac, June itfh, 1805. 
 
 Dear Sir. An opportunity offering by Captain Bird, I em 
 brace it to drop you a line of remembrance. 
 
 I have been here since the 4th instant, and should have sent 
 
486 APPENDIX 
 
 for you, if I had expected so long a detention, as I wish youii 
 opinion on several subjects, inconvenient to letter. 
 
 The organizations and appointments of my predecessors, 
 with the system of jurisprudence which has been introduced, 
 may, I fear, subject me to some unpleasant and unprofitable 
 alternatives. In general, it costs much more to undo than to 
 do, but I believe it is always better to correct evils, than to 
 submit to them. 
 
 I shall reach St. Louis, before the first of next month; shall 
 confirm the past by proclamation, and will take time for obser 
 vation and inquiry, before I make a step. From what I have 
 seen and heard here, I find opinions of men and things, beyond 
 the great river, depend so much on sympathies and antipathies, 
 that I can place no confidence in what I do hear. Whom do 
 you think best entitled to consideration, merits being equal, 
 the voluntary or involuntary vassals of Spain? Will you come 
 to see us, and when? I beg you to believe, a visit from you 
 will give me pleasure. I shall be obliged to send back some 
 boats for stores and provisions, and about twenty-two days 
 hence, you may find a passage up from this place to St. Louis. 
 Captain Lewis is mounting the Mississippi. He has sent back 
 a large boat from his wintering ground, about 1600 miles up 
 the Missouri, and by Indian report, was then about 900 miles 
 from its source, from whence I expect, he will return in the 
 autumn. It is said, Meigs does not accept his appointment; 
 in that case, Easton will be the only officer of the government 
 with me. The commissioners of land claims, are Mr. Lucas, 
 (of congress) Mr. Penrose of Philadelphia, and a Mr. Donald 
 son of Baltimore, recorder; they and the secretary, are all be 
 hind. Colonel Burr left this the loth. I have furloughed D. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 Bissell, agreeably to my promise to you; he goes by New 
 
 Orleans. 
 
 Farewel, God bless you. 
 
 JAMES WILKINSON." 
 Honourable M. Lyon" a 
 
 MATTHEW LYON TO JOSIAH QUINCY. 
 
 I discovered that very friendly personal relations existed be 
 tween Colonel Lyon and the celebrated Josiah Quincy, and ad 
 dressed a letter to President Quincy's son and biographer, Mr. 
 Edmund Quincy, not knowing of his death. My letter was 
 answered by Miss Eliza Susan Quincy, his sister, who I after 
 wards learned had aided her brother materially in writing the 
 Life of their distinguished father. Miss Quincy replied as 
 follows : 
 
 " WOLLASTON, MASS., May 16, 1881. 
 Mr. MCLAUGHLIN: 
 
 Your letter of May loth was received by H. P. Quincy, 
 M. D., the son of my late brother, Edmund Quincy, and given 
 to me to answer. 
 
 My brother Edmund was in his 7oth year; he enjoyed his 
 health and intellectual vigor to the last, and died of apoplexy, 
 on the 1 7th of May, 1877, deeply regretted by his family and 
 friends, by whom he was greatly beloved and valued. I en 
 close a poetical tribute to his memory by his intimate friend, 
 J. R. Lowell, our present Minister in England. 
 
 In reply to your request, I enclose two letters of Mr. Lyon's, 
 which you need not return. They are very good letters, and 
 I shall hope you will send me a copy of your Memoir when it 
 is published. If I find any more of these letters I will send 
 
 ^Wilkinson's Memoirs, II. Appendix, No. LXVIII. 
 
488 APPENDIX 
 
 them, but I believe these are all which exist. Mr. Lyon was 
 an occasional, not a regular, correspondent of Mr. Quincy. 
 
 Sincerely yrs., 
 
 ELIZA SUSAN QUINCY. 
 
 The letters, kindly presented to me by Miss Quincy, are here 
 
 subjoined : 
 
 " EDDYVILLE, December 13, 1812. 
 
 Hon. JOSIAH QUINCY. 
 
 My good friend: By the last mail I received Documents 
 under your stamp; this is the only evidence I have had for 
 some time that I am remembered by a man I very much 
 respect. 
 
 I may tell you that I am very pleased with the part Massa 
 chusetts has acted in the Political Drama before us, her Gov 
 ernor has won my heart; her Assembly have acted like men 
 who sincerely loved their country, but the New England States 
 are (I see) beaten in the Political race for President. The 
 Democratic spirit has carried the Nation far on toward ruin, 
 but I cannot, will not despair for this Nation at the foundation 
 of which I have labored with as much zeal as a devotee ever 
 labored for Heaven or his God. You must not despair. 
 Massachusetts must not despair; let me see no disposition in 
 her to disunion. She must save the Nation she created; she 
 has the greatest power and influence to do so. She is now 
 regenerated on the ancient principles of the Revolution, let 
 her move majestical toward the main object, the salvation of 
 the Nation, and all will be well. Should she move one step 
 toward a disssolution of the Government, she loses every 
 friend in the western country; she loses her own importance, 
 
APPENDIX 489 
 
 and her treachery may sink the Nation she has raisea. Why, 
 my dear sir, have you withdrawn from the public stage of ac 
 tion? You cannot say you were poor, or spending your for 
 tune at a rate you could not afford. We are not made to live 
 for ourselves; where God and nature have given talents and 
 opportunities, the community with which we act and are con 
 nected have a claim on him to whom these talents and oppor 
 tunities are given. You have had much mortification it is 
 true, but you have been paid for it in the consolation of the 
 men whose opinions are with yours, men whom you know to 
 be true patriots. 
 
 I see my old antitype J. Adams is yet noticed. I cut out 
 two slips from a newspaper merely to tell you by the inclosure 
 of them, that such were my opinions of him and his son many 
 years ago. He and I offered for electors, and fared much alike. 
 I have always told you that the people of the Western country, 
 notwithstanding their strong prejudices in favor of Virginia, 
 were docile, but they must be talked to face to face, they must 
 be informed, they must be courted. I have not had leisure for 
 these things, but the misfortunes that have befallen me in 
 consequence of the Embargoes and War have left me at leisure 
 to attend to these things, and I will do it. I was invited to be 
 a candidate for their delegate in Missouri Territory, and those 
 who invited me as well as myself were persuaded I was eligible; 
 the people of the Territory were anxious for my service, but a 
 group of interested lawyers persuaded them I was ineligible, 
 and the thing was given up. I was in that Territory on that 
 and other business when the hopeless election was here. It 
 is said that my rival Hopkins is dead; I think this report is not 
 true, but he is politically dead, and when opportunity presents, 
 
490 APPENDIX 
 
 I will make those exertions the custom of this country requires 
 in order to be elected. Give my respects to my friends, and 
 assure them I have not forgotten them; they will be a majority 
 in the next Congress, and they can check the progress of the 
 Nation to ruin. 
 
 I write by this mail to my brother Chittenden, and shall not 
 repeat to him what I have said to you. 
 
 With affectionate regard, I am truly your friend, 
 
 M. LYON." 
 
 SECOND LETTER TO MR. QUINCY. 
 
 " EDDYVILLE, April 6th, 1814. 
 Hon. JOSIAH QUINCY. 
 
 Dear Sir: The step I most dread and have ever dreaded 
 seems ready to be taken, I mean the separation of these States, 
 and that through the folly and apathy of the National Govern 
 ment, the audacity and ignorant daring insolence of its sup 
 porters on the one part, and the want of patience and forbear 
 ance of the suffering people of the North and East on the 
 other. Those sufferings are great, very great indeed, and such 
 in point of magnitude and provocation as no other people with 
 equal spirit and understanding would bear, when they could 
 throw off the burthen with the same convenience; yet I still 
 hope that New England will act worthy of themselves. They 
 are truly the most enlightened people on earth, they can shift 
 better under adverse circumstances, of course bear with priva 
 tions better than any other people on earth, and my daily 
 prayer is that they continue their allegiance to the Union until 
 God shall turn the hearts of their domestic oppressors, or 
 until Providence shall force a peace on our rulers which they 
 cannot refuse. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 I know, my dear Sir, that the gasconading threats of the 
 would-be conquerors of Canada cannot intimidate the sons of 
 the men who refused to submit to British mandates, and sup 
 ported that refusal with energy and effect in the field of battle. 
 
 When I reflect on the danger of separation, I ask myself 
 what is this danger incurred for? and it seems to me like noth 
 ing at all; there are no orders in council now to contend about; 
 nearly all the ports England declared to be blockaded are now 
 open to Neutrals; we have declared that we will not employ 
 British seamen, which will in treaty draw from the British Min 
 istry a declaration that while we act up to that declaration they 
 will not molest our seamen. I hope Bonaparte's humiliation 
 has emancipated our government, so that they are not obliged 
 to carry on this War in obedience to his mandate, and instead 
 of a peace between some of the Northern States and Britain 
 we shall hear soon of a National peace with that power. I 
 confess the prospect is not so brilliant as I wish, when I see 
 the names of those appointed to negotiate, and when I observe 
 the delay and the place our Government has chosen for nego 
 tiation. If they had been in right earnest they would have 
 sent a mission direct to London, and ere this had a cessation of 
 hostilities. 
 
 Permit me, my dear sir, once more to remind you of the im 
 portance of preserving the Union to the last extremity. Be 
 sides the reasons commonly urged, and well enforced by Mr. 
 Dexter, your dexterous democratic candidate, the New England 
 people ought to consider their very limited boundary; the ex 
 tensive vacant world west of them, to a share of which they are 
 entitled ; the importance of keeping open the road for their vast 
 surplus population to emigrate into other parts of the same 
 
492 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 Nation, carrying with them their steady habits, their industry 
 and their ingenuity, to which every other people pay deference 
 and give place. I can remember when nine-tenths of the peo 
 ple of New York State were Dutch, when their population was 
 inferior to that of Rhode Island. They are the first of the 
 States now, and they are New England people. Ohio State 
 will contain within a few years a majority of New England 
 people; several counties in Virginia have majorities of New 
 England people. You would be surprised to see how the 
 little Colony from New England here has Yankeefied the peo 
 ple. These are considerations of no small weight, and ought 
 to be thrown in the scale against the present sufferings of New 
 England. They have a right to consider that their suffermgs 
 and vexations will be immeasurably compensated by keeping 
 open the door for their posterity to emigrate to comfort, opu 
 lence and consideration, if not to eminence. 
 
 I am, with truly affectionate regard, your friend, 
 
 M. LYON. 
 
 P. S. My good friend: I frequently hear from you. I ob 
 serve your efforts to restore our Nation to its usual state of 
 health and peace with pleasure. I see with indignation the 
 foolish ravings of those who hate you because they know you 
 not. I take your word for it that to remember me is not un 
 pleasant to you. I would like to see the sentiments contained 
 herein published. 
 
 M. L." 
 
 I was informed by the late Mr. Thompson A. Lyon, of 
 Louisville, that among the most intimate of his grandfather's 
 friends were Nathaniel Macon of North Carolina, styled by Jef- 
 
APPENDIX 493 
 
 ferson " Ultimus Romaiiorum" Stevens Thompson Mason of 
 Virginia, and Albert Gallatin, the ablest of America's early 
 financiers. My informant said that his grandfather received 
 many letters from these gentlemen, some of which were of 
 great historical value. He went to Eddyville from his home in 
 Louisville to search for them for me, but unfortunately all 
 were gone, and the quest was unsuccessful. The following 1 
 letter from Mr. Gallatin is taken from his published works: 
 
 LETTER FROM ALBERT GALLATIN TO MATTHEW LYON. 
 
 " NEW YORK, May 7, 1816. 
 
 Sir. I was much gratified by the receipt of your friendly- 
 letter of 29th October last, which ought to have been sooner 
 acknowledged, but which I will not, before my departure for 
 Europe, leave unanswered. I am sorry for your losses, but 
 hope that the property you have left will be sufficient to make 
 you as comfortable as your active industry and knowledge of 
 business certainly deserve. 
 
 The war has been productive of evil and good, but I think 
 the good preponderates. Independent of the loss of lives, and 
 of the losses in property by individuals, the war has laid the 
 foundation of permanent taxes and military establishments, 
 which the Republicans had deemed unfavorable to the happi 
 ness and free institutions of the country. But under our for 
 mer system we were becoming too selfish, too much attached 
 exclusively to the acquisition of wealth, above all, too much 
 confined in our political feelings to local and State objects. 
 The war has renewed and reinstated the national feelings and 
 
 <* Writings of Albert Gallatin, edited by Henry Adams, vol. I, p. 700- 
 701. 
 
494 APPENDIX 
 
 character which the Revolution had given, and which were 
 daily lessened. The people have now more general objects of 
 attachment with which their pride and political opinions are 
 connected. They are more Americans ; they feel and act more 
 as a nation; and I hope that the permanency of the Union is 
 - thereby better secured. 
 
 It is with reluctance that I have accepted the French mis 
 sion ; and I hope that my absence will be short, and that I will 
 soon be able to return with my family in the bosom of my 
 friends and country. My private business, to which I had 
 during the last fifteen years hardly attended, has suffered and 
 will continue to suffer. Amongst other objects, I fear I may 
 have lost the tract of 666 2-3 acres on Cumberland River, hav 
 ing never taken any measures to remove the man who had 
 taken possession. I do not know his name; and I will thank 
 you to communicate it to Mr. Robert Alexander, President of 
 the Bank of Kentucky, at Frankfort, together with any infor 
 mation you have respecting that man's claim and disposition, 
 and the quality and value of the land. I have given to Mr. 
 Alexander a power of attorney for my Kentucky lands, and 
 told him that you would give him that information. 
 
 Mrs. Gallatin sends you her compliments. I never received 
 your letter respecting a glass-house and the procuring of glass- 
 blowers. I would attend to it if I knew what capital you and 
 your friends can employ in the establishment. On that point 
 success depends. There must be no embarrassment, or busi 
 ness would be ruinous. I commenced mine with about ten 
 thousand dollars, and made no profit during the first years, nor 
 until the capital amounted to near twenty thousand. That 
 now employed in our glass-works, including outstanding debts, 
 
APPENDIX 495 
 
 exceeds forty thousand, and gives us an annual profit of about 
 eight thousand, of which only one-seventh part belongs to 
 me. I must observe that there is an inconvenience in your 
 situation. You are below the greater part of the fast-improv 
 ing country north of the Ohio, in which the great consumption 
 of glass takes place. The works situated high up the Ohio, at 
 Pittsburg and above, have in that respect a great advantage. 
 At New Orleans market you must meet the competition of the 
 cheap German glass. 
 
 I have lost three old friends, Mr. Savary, Thos. Clare, and 
 Mr. Smilie. You have heard that Dr. Jones, of Virginia, Rich 
 ard Brent, and Stanford, of North Carolina, are also dead. 
 With sincere regard, &c., 
 
 ALBERT GALLATIN." 
 
 LETTER OF COLONEL LYON TO SENATOR ARMISTED C. MASON. 
 
 The losses of Colonel Lyon, referred to by Mr. Gallatin, led 
 to the first application for office, except from the people at the 
 ballot-box, which Lyon ever made to government. It proved 
 successful. President Monroe, unlike Mr. Madison, was his 
 friend, and appointed him United States Factor to the Cherokee 
 Nation. Colonel Lyon had been more in the habit of bestowing 
 patronage on others than asking for it on his own behalf. This 
 letter to Mr. Mason, who soon after fell in a duel, is interesting 
 and of historic value. 
 
 I am indebted for it to the granddaughter by marriage of 
 President Monroe, Mrs. S. L. Gouverneur, Jr., of Washington, 
 D. C. With a kindness which I cannot too gratefully acknowl 
 edge, Mrs. Gouverneur copied it for me from the collection of 
 President Monroe's invaluable literary remains. The State 
 
49 6 APPENDIX 
 
 Department was negotiating for the purchase by Government 
 of the collection, and hence Mrs. Gouverneur could not send 
 me the original. If all the possessors of valuable documents 
 were as obliging as this cultivated lady, our literary men would 
 be greatly assisted and benefited: 
 
 " FRANKFORT, /any. i6th, 1817. 
 Hon. ARMISTED C. MASON: 
 
 Dear Sir: I am here to repel an attempt to remove the Seat 
 of Justice from Eddyville and have spent the Christmas holi 
 days with your friends. 
 
 Until I saw him here I had but little acquaintance with your 
 brother Jack. I am extremely pleased with him, and I do 
 hope you will succeed in getting him the place of District 
 Judge. Should he obtain the appointment I do believe he will 
 do honour to the station, to the family, and to himself. 
 
 By having lost a fine vessel, and the greater part of a valu 
 able cargo at the commencement of the late War, and by an 
 immense loss occasioned by the first Embargo, I am reduced to 
 dependence on my children children whom I had properly 
 educated to business, to morals, to integrity, and a proper sense 
 of honour. They are in a good way, and will ever use me 
 kindly, but dependence is dependence, however the kindness 
 of friends may soften it. By giving all my attention to the 
 building that ship and providing that cargo, I lost the pending 
 election, and my standing in the Nation, and my situation is 
 so remote, that I found when I came here that I was as much 
 of a stranger as if I had just come from Russia. Having 
 taken it in my head for the first time in my life to ask from 
 the Government an office, I know of no person so proper to 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 apply through as the son of my long lost, best friend, and I do 
 this because my situation with the Delegation of this State is 
 such that I have nothing to expect from them. I know 
 neither of our Senators. I never was intimate with Mr. Clay, 
 and he knows I always preferred Mr. Pope to him; Johnson 
 and Desha have long hated me for my opposition to the Em 
 bargo System. McLean, Sharp and Taul represent my old 
 district, to the first I have always had an aversion, the 
 second, if he ever was a friend, he was a cold one, the last was 
 a friend. All three impute to my pen a portion of that zeal 
 against the Compensation law which has allowed them to stay 
 at home in future.* McKee only do I know of the balance of 
 the Kentucky delegation. He thinks well of me, but as we 
 live remote from each other and we have corresponded but 
 little since I left Congress, I have no more to expect from him 
 than a good word whenever he is called upon. 
 
 I see there is a probability of a Territorial Government in 
 the Eastern part of the new Mississippi Territory. I have long 
 wished to remove to that country. The climate would suit me; 
 I believe my life, health and strength have been lengthened ten 
 years by my removal from Vermont. There has been a con 
 stant removal to that country from my old Congressional Dis 
 trict, and the best friends I have had in the Western country are 
 there. Not having the means to establish myself I wish for 
 one of the appointments there which the Government will have 
 in their power to bestow, and I may be thought qualified to 
 fill. 
 
 Believing you will be disposed to serve me, and thinking 
 
 " salary grab," like that of 1873, proved fatal to nearly every 
 member who voted for it. 
 
498 APPENDIX 
 
 it no more than proper that you should be able to speak of me 
 understanding!}-, I will give you a short sketch of my political 
 life. 
 
 X *In 1774 when British encroachments on our rights was rais 
 ing the spirit of resistance, I laid before the youngerly men in 
 my neighborhood, in the country now called Vermont, a plan 
 for an armed association which was adopted. We armed and 
 clothed ourselves uniformly. We hired an old veteran to teach 
 us discipline, and we each of us took the command in turn, so 
 that every one should know the duty of every station. With 
 a part of this company of Minute Men, immediately after the 
 Lexington battle I joined Ethan Allen. Eighty-five of us took 
 from one hundred and forty British veterans, the fort Ticonde- 
 
 / '*v -*>~ 
 
 ta^s/roga, which- -contained the artillery and warlike stores which 
 drove the British from Boston, and aided in taking Burgoyne 
 and Cornwallis. That fort contained -wben-we took -it more 
 cannon, mortar pieces and other military stores than could be 
 found in all the revolted Colonies. At the rate captors have 
 oJ*tt*-- been paid in the late War, our phmder which we gave to the 
 Nation without even pay for our time was worth more than a 
 
 million of dollars. I persuaded many of the Royal Irish 
 
 Company taken there to join us, who afterwards distinguished 
 themselves in our cause. In the same month, April 1775, for 
 the purpose of taking an armed sloop in the Lake it was neces- 
 \ sary to mount two heavy pieces of ordnance at Crown Point. 
 Our European artillery ists said it could not be obtained: with 
 out a ruinous delay. With the assistance of a few back-woods 
 men, and some timber readily procured, I mounted them and 
 put the match to the first cannon ever fired under the auspices 
 of the American Eagle, whose renown has spread far and wide. 
 
APPENDIX 499 
 
 The first summer I was appointed one of the first Revolution 
 ary adjutants. In 1776 I accepted of a second Lieutenancy in 
 a corps designed for the defense of the Vermont frontier; their 
 destination was to be fixed by the Committee of Safety, of 
 which I was a member. General Gates influenced by design 
 ing Tories, ordered the party then consisting of less than 100 
 men, 70 miles in advance of our army, and within 40 miles of 
 the enemy's grand army; the men knowing this was contrary 
 to the will of the Committee of Safety, their fathers, and their 
 friends, mutinied and left the station. The officers were blamed 
 by the exasperated Gates, and I who had done everything to 
 support the General's orders was, with the rest of the officers, 
 cashiered. Not discouraged by this ill usage, and being re 
 ceived with open arms by my Colonel, and the other officers of 
 my militia regiment, I was in my station of Adjutant in the 
 retreat from Ticonderoga in 1777, and on account of the ser 
 vices I rendered that army in that difficult retreat, the Generals 
 who had seen me abused the year before, procured for me an 
 appointment of Paymaster in the regiment on the Continental 
 Establishment, with the rank of Captain in the army. In this 
 situation, besides attending to the duties of my station, I with 
 my gun and bayonet was in many rencounters, and assisted at 
 the taking of Burgoyne, and had the honour and pleasure of 
 seeing his army pile their arms. In 1778 the regiment having 
 lost near two-thirds of its number in the many battles and 
 affairs of 1777, was ordered to the Southward, where it was 
 expected it would be incorporated with other regiments, and 
 the supernumerary officers discharged. At the request of my 
 Vermont friends I resigned my station in the army, and the 
 next week was chosen and appointed a Captain in the militia. 
 
5 APPENDIX 
 
 I was immediately appointed Paymaster-General of the Troops 
 and the Militia of the State, Secretary to the Governor and 
 Council, and assistant to the Treasurer. At the next election 
 I was chosen a member of the Legislature, to which station I 
 was afterwards 18 times re-elected. Twice I was returned from 
 two places, having a home in both. One place chose me fear 
 ing the other would neglect me. In 1778 and 1779 our militia 
 was much employed on the frontiers of New York and Ver 
 mont; they had the choice of regimental officers, and such was 
 my reputation among them that in 1780 I had the vote of every 
 officer and every soldier in the Regiment to fill the vacancy 
 occasioned by the loss of our chief Colonel. The unanimity 
 was occasioned by the Lieutenant Colonel insisting that the 
 command of the regiment ought to be given to me, and that 
 the example he set ought to be followed by the Majors and 
 every officer that outranked me. This station I held until by 
 the Peace I was allowed to move out of the bounds of the regi 
 ment on to lands I owned in the country that had been occu 
 pied by the enemy. At this time I renounced every public 
 station, except that of representing the people in Conventions 
 or Legislature, besides serving in many clerkships. I was fre 
 quently solicited to be a Judge, and once was appointed against 
 my will and refusal. Although I lost almost all my property 
 in the early part of the War by the encroachment of the 
 enemy, and my giving my whole time to military pursuits, I 
 had so attended to my affairs in the more advanced stages of 
 the war, and towards its close, that I was able under the most 
 favorable auspices to set agoing a number of mills and manu 
 factures which made me rich ; so that when the struggles com 
 menced between aristocrats and democrats, I had wealth, high 
 
APPENDIX 501 
 
 political standing, an established character, and powerful con 
 nections attached to me by long riveted confidence, as well as 
 matrimonial affinity, to throw in the scale. Nature, reflection 
 and patriotism led me to take the Democratic side. 
 
 On a sudden I was surrounded by newspapers containing 
 high toned British doctrines flowing in upon us from the hire 
 ling presses of New Hampshire in the east, Sedgwick & Co. in 
 the south, New York apostates in the west, and Royalists of 
 Canada in the north. Tory doctrines were flowing freely from 
 the favoured presses of Vermont. The Republicans, save the 
 family with which I was connected, were poor all were parsi 
 monious ; while they cried out for a Republican press, and flat 
 tered me on the score of my wealth and generosity, they would 
 not advance a cent. I gave $1000 for press, types and appa 
 ratus. I hired a printer, the best Republican essays were 
 selected. My pen was not idle; newspapers were dispensed, 
 pay or no pay, by carriers who were to give half the price, but 
 they always complained they could not collect their half. I 
 had a paper mill, I had pamphlets containing these essays ready 
 to give every traveler. By this means the Republican doc 
 trines were scattered through the Northern States which are 
 now bearing fruit. By my exertions to keep Vermont in 
 formed, the district I lived in was in the worst of times repre 
 sented by a Republican, and when it was thought that Israel 
 Smith was growing luke-warm the people sent me to Congress. 
 Besides the original cost of my press and types which were so 
 worn out in the public service that I could not sell them for 
 $100, the keeping that press going did not cost me less thaa 
 $3000 in five years. 
 
5O2 APPENDIX 
 
 In '98 and '99 Mr. Jefferson pressed me much to obtain st 
 printer to print a Republican paper at Staunton. After con 
 siderable inquiry I could persuade no one I thought compe 
 tent to the undertaking willing to go there; I had a nephew 
 brought up in my family a pretty good workman and indus 
 trious, but not likely to make an editor; I stated this to Mr. 
 Jefferson; he said he would do, the editorship would be at 
 tended to by a friend on the spot. At his request communi 
 cated through your father I brought him to Philadelphia, and 
 he was at the cost of the Virginia Republicans set up in Staun 
 ton. After a little while he complained that the funds pro 
 vided were exhausted that the paper would not support itself, 
 but he thought if he could get a small book store, he could 
 make a living out of both. I procured for him $1000 worth of 
 books and sent them to him. After worrying along for some 
 time he got sick and in debt; his office and the remnant of the 
 book store were sold to pay his debts. I have never received 
 a cent for my $1000. 
 
 ^ You can but recollect our victory over Federalism by Mr. 
 Jefferson's election, and the part I bore in that memorable 
 transaction. Had I left the House, my colleague would have 
 given the vote of Vermont. Dent would have left the House 
 also, and Maryland's vote would have been for Burr, and Linn 
 would have changed his vote ; he had repeatedly signified to me 
 that he would; in that case Burr would have been elected. 
 Brown of Rhode Island was placed by my side for the purpose 
 of corrupting me; he did his best. It was believed by your 
 father and many others that I might have received $30,000 
 merely to absent myself. I have no claim on this score, except 
 the claim I have to having it remembered I did my duty under 
 
APPENDIX 53 
 
 circumstances which might have been considered by some as 
 temptations. I could not be tempted by all the wealth of the 
 aristocracy to fail in the duty I owed the nation at that time. 
 Last August the people of the District were extremely anxious 
 to have me represent them in Congress again. But previous to 
 our having knowledge of the Compensation Law, and the 
 stir occasioned by it, I had pledged myself to support one Pat- 
 ton a smart sensible lawyer in an adjoining county who had 
 been of use to us in the Legislature of the State. When he 
 could not be elected, they wished him to consent to my offer 
 ing; he persisted he could be elected. New offered and was 
 elected when his supporters chiefly voted for him, because they 
 would not have a lawyer. The probability is that at the next 
 election I can be elected if my luck changes. 
 
 From Mr. Madison I have nothing to expect, although 
 I do not think there is a man in the world that has 
 a higher opinion of my political knowledge or integrity. 
 I have conversed much with him on matters wherein we 
 differed; he has felt the weight and justice of my obser 
 vations. He has felt the weight of my pen when it has 
 followed his, but he knows I opposed his election, and that 
 I always preferred Mr. Monroe to him, whom I have ever 
 esteemed. I was pleased when he went to France. I was one 
 of those who at Philadelphia gave him a public welcome home 
 when Mr. Adams and his party turned a scornful eye to him. 
 When I took the tour of Virginia on my way to this country, 
 agreeably to the wishes of your father and his friends, I zeal 
 ously recommended James Monroe for Governor, and a gen 
 eral ticket for President. I spent more than a month in Vir 
 ginia on that tour; being just out of prison, I was looked 
 
504 APPENDIX 
 
 to as a martyr, and every word had weight. I urged his ap 
 pointment to the English Embassy. I was pleased with his 
 conduct there and with his Treaty. I defended and ever de 
 fended his character; I defended him in the papers in our part 
 of Kentucky, while the papers hereabouts were vilifying and 
 belittling him. I lost my election for elector by 80 votes be 
 cause the printers in this part of the State, whose papers chiefly 
 circulate in the greater part of the lower third part, or nearer 
 half of the State, which formed our district, would not insert 
 my name as a candidate, so that I have nothing to fear from a 
 difference of opinion between Mr. Monroe and myself. 
 I am, dear sir, with great respect and affection, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 M. LYON. 
 
 P. S. I have written to my old friend Macon, to friend 
 McKee, and to my old acquaintance Tichenor in the Senate. 
 
 I wish you to converse with them on the subject. 
 
 M. L." 
 
 A POLITICAL CURIOSITY. 
 
 The Appendix would be incomplete without Colonel Lyon's 
 letter to Niles's "Register," written in April, 1822, three months 
 before his death, and published in the " Register " December 
 7, 1822. Mr. Niles, in introducing it .in his columns, says: 
 " It contains a large portion of wholesome truth, and may be 
 regarded as that which we have called it a political curiosity." 
 But it is deeply to be regretted that the editor saw fit to omit 
 Lyon's opinions of several candidates for the Presidency, and 
 his frank and free remarks on their claims and competency. 
 
APPENDIX 505 
 
 He knew public men thoroughly, and was in the habit of tell 
 ing the truth inflexibly. Hence the pity his manly opinions 
 were suppressed by timid Mr. Niles. This letter is in Colonel 
 Lyon's characteristic style, and, as his last public utterance, 
 may be regarded as a farewell address to his fellow- 
 citizens : 
 
 "Mr. Niles: A quotation from a Washington city paper, 
 exulting in the continued carnival and the constant routine of 
 dissipation kept up in that Modern Venice, has roused the dor 
 mant pen of a man of old times, and led him to request a place 
 in your Register for his lucubrations on the much agitated 
 subject, the next presidential election. Nothing could more 
 accord with the feelings and opinions of those I converse with, 
 than your determined opposition to a congressional caucus on 
 this subject. No place so improper for president-making as 
 Washington, in which the most eminent sycophants of the 
 nation are gathered together. 
 
 What habits of dissipation and extravagance have the rulers 
 of this republican nation descended to since the declaration of 
 our independence. In those days we recollected with consola 
 tion and pleasure what was said to their master by the Spanish 
 envoys sent to treat with the revolted Netherlander, whose 
 negotiators furnished their frugal meals from their own wallets: 
 " Such men," said the haughty Spaniards, " cannot be con 
 quered, their frugality will save them." In former times, we 
 prided ourselves in the simplicity of our habits, and the unos- 
 tentatiousness of our rulers. 
 
 Luxury, dissipation, extravagance and effeminacy, their con 
 comitants, have been the destruction of many ancient nations 
 besides proud Rome, which from being mistress of the world, 
 
506 APPENDIX 
 
 has dwindled to the mere patrimony of a pontiff. Every per 
 son conversant with the history of the French revolution, 
 knows that the dissipation, the luxury, the debauchery, effemi 
 nacy and the rapacity of the court, brought on the bloody 
 scenes and the heartrending miseries which that giddy nation 
 has suffered. We have before us the warning fate of the 
 British nation, where the avails of the hard earnings and the 
 life labor of thousands and tens of thousands are screwed 
 from them to glut the rapacity of an individual, who regards 
 them less than he does his dogs. Time was when the people 
 of the British Isles would not have borne with this; but, with 
 the people's money, the devouring government buys men 
 and arms to enable it to wrest the means of defence from the 
 oppressed, build prisons to incarcerate, and gallowses to hang 
 those on who dare to murmur or complain. However distant 
 from us this state of things may seem to be, dissipation, ex 
 travagance and luxury is the sure road that leads to it. Our 
 civil list expenditure has increased within about thirty years, 
 faster than ever did that of Great Britain: while our popula 
 tion has been increasing at the rate of from four to ten, the 
 expenditure for support of our national government has more 
 than ten folded; for the year 1790, $141,492.73 cents was the 
 appropriation ; of late years more than a million and a half has 
 been appropriated for the support of the civil list. About two 
 thirds of this sum, besides a considerable share of many other 
 appropriations, is spent in our beggarly capital, too much of 
 which is applied to purposes of corruption and political pros 
 titution. In 1790, when the necessaries of life were about the 
 same price that they are now, $16,750 paid the salaries of the 
 secretaries, the comptroller, the auditor, the treasurer, and the 
 
APPENDIX 5O7 
 
 register, and $800 each was appropriated for the salary of th^ 
 first clerks. In 1821, there was appropriated for the salaries 
 of the officers of the same denomination $51,500, and $1,800 
 were given to an inferior clerk. 
 
 It is not merely on account of the number of mendicants 
 begging alms in the streets, that I call Washington our " beg 
 garly capital." They are much easier got rid of than the beg 
 gars to be met with in higher life. 
 
 While I sojourned in that City I was almost daily assailed 
 by a host of clerks complaining of the parsimony of congress, 
 the scanty pittance allowed them, and the expenses of living. I 
 have often been tired with hearing one or other of them com 
 pare his salary and his duties with those of more favored clerks, 
 always insisting that his duties were more important and more 
 difficult than the other whose salary was higher. I recollect 
 one of the clerks lamenting, that he had to give two dollars 
 that morning for about a quart of green peas, and a dollar for a 
 pair of small chickens. This was so early in the season that I 
 had not imagined that the peas were in bloom, and when I 
 thought chickens of that year could not be fit to eat. I ob 
 served to him that flour was selling at six dollars a barrel, and 
 bacon at eight cents a pound and that the price of a few 
 quarts of such peas would purchase a cow, which could get her 
 living in the common while she gave milk for his children. As 
 for his part, he replied, that he could not eat bacon, and did 
 not like milk, and his children were not used to them. 
 
 The next class of beggars were the officers and their assist 
 ants in waiting about congress hall. Those by their civilities, 
 their attentions, their gestures and their intimations, were con 
 stantly reminding the members of their wants and wishes. 
 
508 APPENDIX 
 
 Whenever I fell in company with a number of the officers 
 of the army, I was sure of being reminded of the parsimony of 
 congress, and of being told how poorly they were paid. 
 
 The judges of the District of Columbia (a District which 
 ought to pay its own judges) were, one or other of them, ever 
 complaining of the parsimony of congress, and begging for a 
 larger salary. 
 
 The most importunate beggars of all were the higher officers. 
 With those I have occasionally dined, and where the greatest 
 profusion prevailed. There might be seen fresh beef, pork and 
 butter from Maryland, mutton from Pennsylvania, hams from 
 Burlington, turkeys and chickens from Virginia, pickled beef 
 and codfish from Massachusetts, potatoes from Carolina and 
 from Maine; wild fowl and fresh fish from the Potomac; sal 
 mon from Canada; oysters from New York; olives and spices 
 from both the Indies; raisins and figs from the Mediterranean; 
 nuts from Germany, Italy and the Mississippi; brandy from 
 Nantz ; rum from Jamaica ; gin from Holland ; cheese from the 
 Netherlands, from England and from Connecticut; wines from 
 Spain, France, Germany, Portugal, Madeira and the Cape of 
 Good Hope ; and porter from London. 
 
 While the cloth was removing and the glasses replacing, 
 some sycophant, (perhaps a member of congress) was sure to 
 commence a dissertation on the parsimony of our government, 
 and the inadequate compensation given to our officers. The 
 more 'frequently the glasses were emptied the more attention 
 was paid to the orator, until his doctrine was echoed from side 
 to side. Too often have the guests carried the infatuation away 
 with them, and I have had occasion to entreat them to resume 
 their reason and their common sense referring them to what 
 
APPENDIX 509 
 
 their eyes had seen and their lips had tasted, to convince them 
 that instead of being parsimonious the government gave too 
 much to their officers, when they enabled them to feed their 
 guests in a style so far above the medium of good-living. I 
 reminded them that man was much the creature of fashion and 
 imitation, and begged them to look around and consider what 
 a number there was plunging themselves into ruin and misery, 
 by their endeavors to furnish a table like that we had lately 
 sat at, always insisting that it was impolitic, as well as immoral 
 to appropriate the hard earnings of the people for the encour 
 agement and support of such voluptuousness. 
 
 I have been led to these recollections and reflections by the 
 perusal of the before mentioned extract from a Washington 
 City paper, which says, " This place can never be tedious. The 
 pleasures of the day are succeeded by the pleasures of the 
 night; for the president and his four secretaries, by means of 
 drawing rooms and parties have appropriated the nights to 
 pleasure as well as the day." One would be led to believe 
 that members of congress and strangers of distinction would 
 be surfeited by this continued succession of delights, and " like 
 the bee, die on the rose in aromatic pain." But no such thing 
 their appetites are rather sharpened than blunted by per 
 petual indulgence, and the poor secretaries, who are all looking 
 up to the presidency, are obliged to feed and plaister them on 
 all occasions. 
 
 Is it for this that the people of the nation send representa 
 tives to Washington, and pay each of them $56 a week? Is 
 it to spend their nights in revelry and their days in slumber, 
 that they have been sent there? Is it to enable the higher 
 officers of government " to feed and plaister," to corrupt and 
 
510 APPENDIX 
 
 prostitute their representatives, that they have suffered the late 
 great increase of their salaries to pass almost unnoticed? If 
 this apathy is continued, they will only merit the political deg 
 radation and perdition which infallibly await them. 
 
 I by no means consider it amiss for the president to invite 
 'members of congress and strangers of distinction to call upon 
 him and dine with him, or for a drawing room entertainment, 
 once in a while, to be given at his house. At those convivial 
 meetings, the president has an opportunity to become person 
 ally acquainted with his guests, and they with him and with 
 one another. Their sentiments and opinions are frequently 
 interchanged. This practice prevailed in the early stages of 
 the government, and, for its support, a superb mansion, ready 
 furnished, is provided, and $25,000 salary for the president is 
 appropriated. But, at the rate things seem to be going on, the 
 poor secretaries are not to leave off feeding and plaistering, nor 
 congress giving, until each of them has $25,000 a year to sup 
 port the magnificent ' succession of delights/ those ' pleasures 
 by day ' and ' pleasures by night,' so boastingly spoken of by 
 the Washington editor who tells us the secretaries are all 
 looking to the presidency ; and it seems by the run of the tale, 
 that one or other of them is expected to be foisted into the 
 presidential chair by this banqueting and revelry. 
 
 It has been too much the practice of the candidates for the 
 electorship to pledge themselves to vote for this or that par 
 ticular candidate. This practice, as well as the congressional 
 caucus, ought to be discarded, and by the legislature of every 
 State naming the persons they wish to be the next president 
 and vice-president, that the electors will be able to select men 
 who will give satisfaction to the nation. Satisfaction to the 
 
APPENDIX 511 
 
 nation is the main point as the elements and principles of our 
 government are so plain and simple, that there are more than 
 one thousand honest, well informed men in the States who are 
 as capable of administering the government for four or eight 
 years, as any of the most celebrated candidates hitherto spoken 
 of, while the number of exceptionable characters, who aspire 
 to the station, is comparatively small. 
 
 Hoping and believing that the legislatures of the States will 
 generally fall into the practice of nomination, I have amused 
 myself with contemplating the extended field of choice which 
 will be presented to the electors. 
 
 I hope the presidential chair will never be filled by a man 
 under sixty years of age, until there shall be a constitutional 
 bar against electing the same person oftener than once or 
 twice. A president of the United States possesses such vast 
 powers and prerogatives, and such immense patronage, has 
 so many offices and favors to bestow, and so much public 
 money to disburse, that it is next to impossible to oust one 
 who shall act with a common share of prudence and foresight. 
 Had Gen. Washington chosen to accept a third election, al 
 though not without objection, he would have obtained it by 
 seven eighths of the electoral votes. So with Mr. Jefferson, 
 he had early to announce his solemn determination not to ac 
 cept a third election, in order to avoid solicitation, and to 
 him we owe the rule which forbids any person to look for a 
 third election to the presidency. It is but a rule however. I 
 have never been better pleased with the political course of a 
 president than that of Mr. Monroe, yet I have trembled for 
 fear that he would be induced, by the sycophancy which sur 
 rounds him, to agree to accept a third election." 
 
512 APPENDIX 
 
 Mr. Niles abruptly cuts off Colonel Lyon here, with this 
 editorial remark: 
 
 " The writer then proceeds to mention several persons who, 
 he supposed, might be nominated by the several States, and 
 gives his remarks freely on their claims and competency, &c., 
 all of which we think it better to omit. He concludes with 
 these words : ' Such are the opinions of a man of old times, 
 written on the Mississippi, in April, 1822.' " 
 
 FINIS. 
 
GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 Adams, John, Introduction, 82. 
 127, 128, 169, 195, 202, 208, 209, 
 210, 219, 220, 306, 307, 308, 309, 
 310, 311, 312, 314, 317, 323, 324, 
 339, 34i, 357, 375, 380, 396, 397- 
 
 Adams, Abigail, 210, 390. 
 
 Adams, Samuel, 54, 128, 132, 135, 
 169. 
 
 Adams, John Quincy, 302, 419. 
 
 Adams, Charles Francis, 220. 
 
 Adams, Henry, 210, 230, 453. 
 
 Adams, C. N., 202. 
 
 Addison, Vermont, 84. 
 
 Addresses to President, 309, 310. 
 
 Aeneas, Pious, 410. 
 
 Age of Homespun, 75, 193. 
 
 Alien and Sedition Laws, Intro 
 duction, i, 208, 307, 3120, 322. 
 
 Aliens, 308. 
 
 Albany, New York, 84, 112, 130. 
 Convention, 52. Officials, in, 
 113, 117. 
 
 Algonquin Indians, 52, 83. 
 
 Allen, Ethan, Introduction, 66, 
 69, 71, 80, 81, 82, oo, 91, 92, 93, 
 94, 95, 98, ioo, 102, 103, 104, 
 106, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 
 118, 131, 156, 157, 162, 163, 165, 
 I7i, 175, 176, 191, 407. 
 
 Allen, Ira, 79, 80, 81, 82, 103, 129, 
 142, 143, 144, 145, 148, 151, 152, 
 156, 157, 163, 170, 171, 175, 176, 
 177. 
 
 Allen, Zimri, 81. 
 
 Allen, Heman, 81. 
 
 Allen, Fanny, 192. 
 
 Allen, Loraine, 191, 192. 
 
 Allen, John, 221, 223. 
 
 Alliance between France and 
 United States, 155. 
 
 Alphonso and Daltnda, 206. 
 
 American captain with whom 
 Matthew Lyon sailed, 34, 38. 
 
 America, 96, 168. 
 
 American Livy, 131; forces, 132, 
 133; generals, 134; independ 
 ence, 144; colonies, 169; revolu 
 tion, 169. 
 
 Ancient Woodbury, History of, 
 by Wm. Cothren, 30, 44, 45, 47, 
 48, 59, 63, 64, 66, 90, 196. 
 
 Annals of Fifth Congress, 248 to 
 300, 320. 
 
 Anti-Gallicans, 312. 
 
 Appleton's Cyclopedia, art Mat 
 thew Lyon, 29. 
 
 Apprentice system, prices under, 
 68. 
 
 Arkansas Territory, 165, 472, 473, 
 
 474- 
 
 Army, Provisional, 314, 
 Arlington, Vermont, 59, 60, 156, 
 
 157, 159, 166, 167, 175, 192, 193, 
 
 194, 195. 
 
 Arnold, Benedict, 67, 131, 132. 
 Aspect of iniquity, 173. 
 Assumption of debts of States, 
 
 219. 
 
 Aston, Sir Richard, 14. 
 Astrological badinage, 439. 
 
 5*3 
 
514 
 
 GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 Aurora, The, 229, 235, 236, 237. 
 Austin, Apollos, 376. 
 Autobiography of Matthew 
 Lyon, 27, 415. 
 
 Bacon, Jabez, 41, 44, 45, 63, 64, 
 
 65, 66, 67, 68, 72, 196- 
 Back door of Cabinet, Hamilton 
 
 at, 220, 312. 
 
 Bailey, General, of Newbury, 149. 
 Baker, Remember, 48, 66, 80, 81, 
 
 156. 
 
 Baker, Joel C, 09, 164. 
 Balance of power, 101. 
 Ballad, Democratic, 227. 
 Baldwin and Gunn difficulty, 302. 
 Bancroft, George, 55, 103, 127, 
 
 131, 168. 
 Barkesdale, Gen. Wm. and John 
 
 Covode, fight in the House, 
 
 304- 
 
 Barlow, Joel, 315. 
 Barre, Colonel, 59. 
 Barrett, Justice, 190. 
 Barrington, Sir Jonah, I, 212. 
 Basswood paper, 199. 
 Battle of Bennington, 155, 157, 
 
 161, 174. 
 
 Batten-Kill, 137. 
 Bayard, James A., 318, 319, 380, 
 
 383, 384, 38& 388, 389, 390, 391. 
 
 His reconciliation with Col 
 onel Lyon, 446. 
 Bayley, Jacob, 142. 
 Beaman, Rev. N. S. S., 180, 407, 
 
 408, 409- 
 
 Beauregard, General, 314. 
 Bcecher, Rev. Lyman, 77. 
 Beecher, Rev. Henry Ward, 201. 
 Bell-Turney fight in Congress, 
 
 302. 
 Benedict, Abel, 157. 
 
 Benjamin, Sally, To6. 
 
 Bennington Mob, 106, 113. 
 
 Bennington, 85, 91, 136, 137, 143. 
 
 Bennington Gazette, 206. 
 
 Benton- Jackson fight, 302. Ben- 
 ton kills Lucas, 302. 
 
 Berkeley, Bishop George, 6, 38. 
 
 Births and birthdays, 32, 310. 
 
 Black Cockades, 337. 
 
 Blackwood's Magazine, 55. 
 
 Bladensburg, Mason-McCarty 
 duel at, 301. 
 
 Blessington, Lady, Introduction. 
 
 Bludgeon, Griswold attacks 
 Lyon with a, 228. 
 
 Blue Laws, 76, 88. 
 
 Blue Lights, 389. 
 
 Board of Trade, English, 52, 103, 
 106. 
 
 Boxing school, Congress a, 235. 
 
 Bold Sweeper, Matthew Lyon 
 called, 204. 
 
 Blount, Charles, 91. 
 
 Boone, Daniel, 82, 136. 
 
 Boston Repertory, 445. 
 
 Boundary lines, 104, 107, III. 
 
 Bookbinder, Lyon a, 15. 
 
 Boyish piece of business, 222. 
 
 Bradley, Benjamin, 98. 
 
 Bradley, Daniel, 98. 
 
 Bradley, Stephen R., 170, 180. 
 
 Breda, Treaty of, no. 
 
 Brinley Library, Sale of, 208. 
 
 Brown, John, of Rhode Island, 
 
 393- 
 
 Brown, Major, 116, 117. 
 Brownson, Timothy, 176. 
 Brooks, Preston S., assaults 
 
 Charles Sumner, 304. 
 Brooks, Congressman, 231. 
 Brook, The Roaring, 99. 
 British America, 101, 161, 163. 
 
GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 515 
 
 Brycc 4 JaTncs, 310, 
 
 Burke, Edmund, 6, 16, 37, 56. 
 
 Bushnell, Rev. Horace, 75. 
 
 Buncomb, American, not Eng 
 lish in order, 202. 
 
 Burgoyne, General, 114, 126, 130, 
 132, 133, 135, 137, 140, 141, IS5, 
 156, 164, 175. 
 
 Butler, Prof. James Davie, 83, 
 169, 178. 
 
 Burr's conspiracy and intrigues, 
 228, 318, 385, 3&5, 387, 391, 392, 
 393, 411, 432, 450, 463, 464. 
 
 Bynam and Garland fight in Con 
 gress, 302. Bynam and Jenifer 
 duel, 302. 
 
 Byron, Lord, 233. 
 
 By the bulls that redeemed me, 
 Matthew Lyon, 35. 
 
 By the bull that bought me, 
 Rudyard Kipling, 218. 
 
 Cadwell, Dr. George, marries 
 
 Colonel Lyon's daughter, 80. 
 
 His anti-slavery vote, 412, 413, 
 
 415. 
 
 Calhoun, John C, 9, 74, 86, 442. 
 Camden, Battle of, 128, 129. 
 Canada, 118, 119, 130, 1331, 134, 
 
 168, 174. 
 
 Canaan, Connecticut, 70, 8Lj. 
 Canning, The Mephistophelean, 
 
 459- 
 
 Carey, Matthew, 461. 
 Carey, Henry C., 461. 
 Carpenter, Benjamin, 142, 148, 
 
 150, 151- 
 Carpenter's vile Life of Jefferson, 
 
 169. 
 
 Carroll, Bishop John, 226 
 Carleton, General, 117, n8L 
 
 Catholics and Protestants, 13. 
 
 Cavaliers, The, 50. 
 
 Ceremonies under Adams, 436, 
 437- 
 
 Champlain, Samuel, Father of 
 New France, 82, 95. 
 
 Champlain, Lake, 81, 82, 85, 95. 
 
 Charles the First, 50. 
 
 Charles the Second, no. 
 
 Charlotte, General Gates escapes 
 to, 128. 
 
 Chestnut horse, The, of William 
 of Orange, 6. 
 
 Chesterfield, Lord, 226. 
 
 Chatham, Lord, 52, 57, 73. 
 
 Chipman, Nathaniel, 99, 170, 176, 
 177, 180, 181, 182, 183, 215, 216, 
 217, 218, 224, 225. 
 
 Chipmans, The, 80. 
 
 Chipman, Samuel, 99, 102. 
 
 Chipman, Daniel, 145. His Life 
 of Seth Warner, 116. 
 
 Chittenden, Thomas, Introduc 
 tion, 60, 69, 72, 80, 82, 84, 85, 
 87, 89, 127, 129, 136, 142, 144, 
 147, 149, 156, 157, 162, 163, 164, 
 165, 166, 167, 169, 170, 171, 173, 
 174, 175, 176, 177, 181, 182, 193, 
 407. 
 
 Chittenden, Bethuel, 72, 98. 
 
 Chittenden, Martin, 89. 
 
 Chittenden, L. E., 229, 411. 
 
 Chittenden, Hannah, 193, 194. 
 
 Christmas at Litchfield, 77. 
 
 Church, Judge Samuel, 69, 74, 77, 
 
 79, 9i. 
 Cilley, Jonathan, killed in a duel 
 
 by Wm. J. Graves, 303. 
 Clinton, Gov. George, 115, 169. 
 
 170. 
 Clarendon, Vermont, 97. 
 
GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 Clarendon, Lord, 324. 
 Clingman, T. L., and W. L. 
 
 Yancey fight a duel, 303. 
 Clark, Henry, 216. 
 Clark, Elisha, 99. 
 Clark, Nathan, 142, 143, 148, 150, 
 
 152. 
 
 Clay, Henry, 301, 460. His hos 
 tility to Jefferson, 462, 463. 
 Cobbett, William, 35, 212, 213, 
 
 214, 215, 224, 235, 240, 241, 242, 
 
 243, 244, 245, 246, 247. 
 Cochran, Colonel, 156, 227. 
 Colden, Governor, 46, 100, 106. 
 Colonial Assemblies, 52, 58. 
 Collins, Richard, 7, 28, 195, 383. 
 Collections of Chicago Historical 
 
 Society, 429, 43O, 43 1. 
 Commissioners of Sequestration, 
 
 143, 178, 179- 
 Commission for investigation of 
 
 defective titles, 19. 
 Compromise at last, 103. 
 Congregationalists, 77. 
 Connecticut, 170. 
 Connecticut local histories, 29, 
 
 31, 61, 81, 82, 84, 88, 108, 131, 
 
 139- 
 Connaught, Second exodus from, 
 
 12. 
 
 Convention, The word, gives 
 
 them the horrors, 391. 
 Conway Cabal, 128. 
 Confiscation, First act of, 153. 
 Confederacy of the Five Nations, 
 
 83- 
 Confederation, Vermont seeks to 
 
 enter the, 101, 176. 
 Congress, Introduction, 82, 84, 
 
 115, 120, 127, 128, 132, 139, 155, 
 
 158, 165, 170, 171, 174, 232, 234, 
 
 300, 301, 310. 
 
 Cottiers, The, 37. 
 
 Continental Congress, 115, 117, 
 
 131. 
 Cothren, Wm., 30, 44, 61, 62, 64, 
 
 65, 67. 68, 70. 
 Continental Establishment, 94, 
 
 138, 156, 163. 
 Council of Censors, 179. 
 Coxe, Tench, 214. 
 Crawford, Wm. H., kills his 
 
 man in one, and later is 
 
 wounded in another duel, 302. 
 Cornwall, Connecticut, 70, 84. 
 Cromwell, Oliver, 20, 50, 51. 
 Crown, The, 52, Lawyers, 57, 
 
 58- 
 
 Crown Point, 114, 123, 134. 
 Crucial question, 104. 
 Curran, Sarah, 2. 
 Catlett, Dr., 430, 431. 
 
 Dana, H. S., 158, 159, 160, 161, 
 162. 
 
 Dana, Congressman, 224, 446. 
 
 Darby Narrows, 65. 
 
 Dartmouth, Lord, 97, 106. 
 
 Davenport, John, 76. 
 
 Davis, Jefferson, in a chance 
 medley, 302. 
 
 Dawson, Henry B., 103, 197, IQ& 
 
 Dayton, Jonathan, 228, 232, 319. 
 
 Debates in Congress, meagre re 
 ports of, 320. 
 
 Delaplace, Commandant of Ti- 
 conderoga, 131. 
 
 Dent, Congressman, 227. 
 
 De Puy's, H. W., Ethan Allen 
 and Green Mountain Heroes, 
 117. 
 
 Desmond, Earl of, 22. 
 
 De Vergennes, Count, 92. 
 
 Devon Charter, etc., 104, 107. 
 
GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 517 
 
 Dexter, Samuel, 489. 
 
 Dexter, Mr., Assistant Librarian 
 
 of Yale College, 327. 
 Dorset Convention, 129, 159, 160, 
 
 166. 
 
 Douglas, Stephen A., 98. 
 Drake, F. S., 28. 
 Duane, James, 103. 
 Dublin, 2, 15, 16, 23. 
 Dulany, Daniel, the elder, 40, 72. 
 Dulany, Daniel, the younger, 
 
 oracle of the law, 55, 57, 73. 
 Dutch, The, of New York, 95, 
 
 96. West India Company, no. 
 Dwight, Timothy, 77, 85, 86, 87, 
 
 89, oo, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 196, 
 
 197. 
 
 Early Scenes in Kentucky by 
 Mrs. E. A. Roe, 99. 
 
 Eastern troops, 132. 
 
 East and West Unions, 171. 
 
 Eaton, Theophilus, 76. 
 
 Eddyville Colony, Introduction, 
 412. 
 
 Ejectment suits at Albany, 112. 
 
 Ellsworth, Oliver, 318. 
 
 Emigrant train of Colonel Lyon, 
 412. 
 
 Embargo, The, 114. 
 
 Emmet, Robert, 2. 
 
 Emmons, Benjamin, 159. 
 
 England, 51, 52, 83, 96, 101, 156. 
 
 English, The, 134, 168, 177. 
 
 English Board of Trade, 103. 
 
 English colonization in America, 
 50. Liberty, 57. 
 
 English language, 2. Irish Par 
 liament, 20. 
 
 English newspapers on Alien and 
 Sedition laws, 308. 
 
 Enos, General, 176. 
 
 Envoys to France, 311. 
 Europe, 100. 
 
 European Settlements in Amer 
 ica, by Edmund Burke, 37. 
 
 Fair Haven. Introduction, 80, 
 87, 88, 161. Gazette, 206. 
 
 Famine in Ireland, n. 
 
 Farmers' Library, 206. 
 
 Fassett, Captain, 130, 157. John, 
 176. 
 
 Fay, Joseph, 130, 142. 
 
 Fearon's Sketches of America, 
 
 43- 
 
 Federalist rhymers, 35. Party, 
 165. Killed by John Adams, 
 209. 
 
 Federal doggerel and Democratic 
 ballad, 227. Newspapers on 
 Lyon-Griswold fracas, 238, 239. 
 
 Federal city ridiculed by French 
 lady, 389, and by Wolcott, 
 Moore, Morris and Mrs. 
 Adams, 390. 
 
 Federal Constitution, 102, 103. 
 
 Fermoy, General, 132. 
 
 Ferrisburg, 81. 
 
 Fessenden's verses, 35. He calls 
 Lyon the Dagon of Democ 
 racy, 36. 
 
 Final war and slaughter, 101. 
 
 Findlay cited by Jefferson re 
 specting Harper, 209. 
 
 Fitch, the brutal marshal, 338. 
 Villany of exposed, 381. 
 
 Foote, Rev. Dr., 73. 
 
 Foote, Senator H. S., draws pis 
 tol on Colonel Benton, knocks 
 down John C. Fremont, and 
 has a breakfast table fight with 
 Jefferson Davis, 302. 
 
 Fort Edward, 137, 140. 
 
GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 Fort or Mount Defiance, 130. 
 
 Fountain sources of State sover 
 eignty, 58. 
 
 France, 51, 83, 96. Alliance with 
 United States, 155, 167. 
 
 Francis, Colonel, killed, 134, 
 135- 
 
 Frankfort, Kentucky, 113, 156. 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin, 24. His ac 
 count of Irish Parliament, 25, 
 26. Employs James Lyon, 80, 
 95. His life by Matthew Lyon, 
 206. 
 
 Frazer, Colonel, 134. 
 
 Freemen of the Provinces, 57. 
 
 French, The, 95. Old French 
 war, loo. 
 
 Gage, General, 106. 
 
 Galusha, Mrs. Beulah, second 
 wife of Colonel Lyon, Intro 
 duction, 62. The Galushas, 80, 
 166. 
 
 Gallatin, Albert, 210. Lam 
 pooned by Porcupine, 214. 
 Extracts from his letters, 229, 
 230, 231, 319, 376, 389. Re 
 markable letter, 394, 432. Let 
 ter to Colonel Lyon, 491, 492, 
 493- 
 
 Gaston, William, 321. 
 
 Gates, Horatio, 119, 120, 121, 122, 
 
 127. Breaks with Washington, 
 
 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 136, 138, 
 139, 160, 163, 177, 180. 
 
 Georges, The three first, 120. 
 George, Lake, 84, 95- 
 George the Second, 107. 
 George the Third, 155. 
 Georgia students, 78. 
 
 Gerry, Elbridge, 311, 312. 
 
 Gibbon on Roman Empire, 209. 
 
 Gilbert's, Miss, Fair Haven 
 Reminiscences, 67, 196. 
 
 Golden, The, Belt of Ireland, i. 
 
 Gordon, William, English histor 
 ian, 132, 136. 
 
 Goshen, 84. 
 
 Gould, James, 74, 77. 
 
 Gouverneur, Mrs. S. L., Jr., 60, 
 493- 
 
 Governor and Council, 157. 
 
 Governor, Provincial, 58. 
 
 Graham's, Dr. John A., account 
 of Colonel Lyon, 197. 
 
 Granger, Gideon, 446. 
 
 Grants of money, 58. 
 
 Grattan, Henry, 2, 16, 22. 
 
 Great Jehovah, The, and Con 
 tinental Congress, 113. 
 
 Great Britain, 172. 
 
 Green Mountains, 82, 84, 85, 95, 
 98, 100. 
 
 Green Mountain Boys, 71, 78, 91, 
 96, 101, 113, 116, 119, 129, 135, 
 151, 170, 171, 172, 173, 338. 
 
 Green, Rev. Ashbel, on Lyon, 
 226, 227, 229, 306. 
 
 Grenville carries through the 
 Stamp Act, 53. 
 
 Griswold, Roger, 71, 158, 218, 
 225, 226. The fight with Lyon, 
 228, 233, 247 to 300. 
 
 Gross fabrications, 180. 
 
 Grow, G. A., and L. M. Keitt, 
 fight in Congress; others en 
 gaged, 304. 
 
 Gunn-Baldwin Quarrel in Con 
 gress, 301. 
 
 Gurney, Fort, 84. 
 
GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 519 
 
 Haldimand intrigue. Origin of 
 at Governor Wolcott's house 
 in Litchfield, 78, 101, 106, 162, 
 163, 169, 171, 172, 174, 176, 177, 
 178, 181, 217. 
 
 Hall's, Hiland, History of Ver 
 mont, 97, 103. 
 
 Hamilton, Alexander, 101, 169, 
 195. Apostle of Centralization, 
 219, 220, 310, 311, 312. In the 
 ascendant, 313, 314, 315- Down 
 and out, his character, 318, 
 319, 386. 
 
 Hampshire Grants, 89, 93, 98. 
 Origin of controversy, 100. No 
 historian of it, 102, 120, 141, 
 159, 1 60, 1 66. 
 
 Hancock, John, 169. 
 
 Hannah, Hugh, 62, 63, 67, 68, 72. 
 
 Harper, Robert Goodloe, 209, 
 227, 232, 319. His tell-tale let 
 ter to Burr, 385, 386, 387, 388. 
 
 Harper's Ferry Armory, 69. 
 
 Hartford, 64. 
 
 Harvey, Peter, on Webster and 
 Jefferson, 201. 
 
 Haswell, Anthony, 376. 
 
 Hawley, Jehiel, 156. 
 
 Hazleton, John, 69. 
 
 Hearts of Steel Boys, 13. 
 
 Heights of Abraham, 83. 
 
 Henry, Patrick, 58, 59, 141, 318. 
 
 Hepburn, William P., 427. 
 
 Herrick, Colonel, 144, 155. 
 
 Hessians, The, 134. 
 
 Hibernia Dominicana, 3. 
 
 Hildreth's History, 437. 
 
 Hillsborough, Gates escapes to, 
 128. 
 
 Hinman's Historical Collections, 
 44, 67, 131, 210. 
 
 Historic drama, 207. 
 
 Hitchcock, Samuel, Ira Allen to, 
 
 177- 
 
 Holstein and Holland, n. 
 Hopkins, John, of Salem, 98. 
 Hosford, Miss, niece of Ethan 
 
 Allen; Introduction, 62. Her 
 
 marriage to Colonel Lyon, 70, 
 
 72. 
 
 House of Representatives, 82. 
 Howe, General, 130, 132. 
 Hubbardton, 133, 134, 135, 142, 
 
 174- 
 
 Hudson, Hendrick, sells his prov 
 ince to Dutch, no. 
 
 Hudson river, 84, 136, 137. 
 
 Hunter, R. M. T., 87. 
 
 Humorous view of Spitting Matt 
 and Roger Knight of Rheum- 
 ful Countenance, 227. 
 
 Independence, American, 144. 
 Inhabitants of the Grants flee, 
 
 175- 
 Insurrections in the North of 
 
 Ireland, 8. 
 Intrigue of British and Vermont- 
 
 ers, 170. 
 
 Irish- American Hampden, i. 
 Irish fairs, i. State Trials, 44. 
 
 Race, 18. 
 Irish and English Parliaments, 
 
 20. 
 
 Iroquois Indians, 83, 100. 
 Irving, Washington, 93, 94, 127, 
 
 131, 168. 
 
 Ives, Abraham, 98. 
 Ives, Lent, 98. , 
 
 Ives, Nathaniel, 98. 
 
 Jackson, Abraham, 98, 160. 
 Jackson, Joseph, 98. 
 
520 
 
 GENERAL INDEX, 
 
 Jackson, Andrew, 9, 213, 214, 226, 
 
 303, 465- 
 
 Jackson, Stonewall, 9, 73. 
 
 James the First, 19, 50. 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, 54, 80, 82, 195, 
 210, 214, 219. Apostle of De 
 mocracy, 219, 227, 231, 232, 233, 
 307, 322, 376, 39i, 392, 416, 417, 
 433, 437, 441, 447, 448, 462, 463, 
 467. 
 
 Jericho, 122, 125, 129, 130, 159, 
 163, 176. 
 
 Johnson, One, of Gnibb street, 
 214. 
 
 Junius, 54- 
 
 Kent, Chancellor, 55, 86. 
 Kentucky, 62, 82, 101, 136, 407 to 
 
 431, 437, 438, 471, 473, 474- 
 Key, Philip Barton, 55. 
 Keys of Champlain, 115. 
 Kilbourne's, P. K., Litchfield 
 
 Biographical History, 30, 61. 
 King, The, 106, 112. 
 King's Mountain, Battle of, 155. 
 Kittera, Congressman, 227. 
 Kipling, Rudyard, paraphrases 
 
 Lyon's oath, 218. 
 
 Lafayette, Marquis de, 64. 
 
 Land of Steady Habits, 88. 
 
 Lake Champlain, 82, 84, 100, 130, 
 132. 
 
 Lanman, Charles, 28. 
 
 Laurens, Colonel, Envoy to 
 France, 95. 
 
 Laud, Archbishop, called by 
 Puritans Short Horns of Anti- 
 Christ, 77. 
 
 Lee, General Charles, 128. 
 
 Lecky's Leaders of Irish Opin 
 ion, 8, 22. 
 
 Legislature Of Vermont on 
 Wheels, 92. 
 
 Leigh, Benjamin Watkins, 384. 
 
 Leavenworth, Jesse, 60. 
 
 Leinster, second exodus from, 
 12. Three hundred and eighty- 
 five thousand acres "dis 
 covered" in, 19. 
 
 Lexington, Battle of, 113, 114. 
 
 Linn, Dr., of New Jersey, 318. 
 
 Lingard the historian, 384. 
 
 Litchfield County Convention, 
 66, 69, 73. Its famous Law 
 School and social life, 75, 76. 
 Its Pioneers, 78, 80, 84, 09, 166. 
 Nursing Mother of Vermont, 
 169. 
 
 Lodge, H. C, 316. 
 
 Lossing, Benson J., the historian, 
 28. 
 
 Lucas, Charles, the Irish leader, 
 18, 22, 23, 25. 
 
 Lucas, William, on John Ran 
 dolph's eloquence, 435. 
 
 Lyon, Chittenden, 62. His boy 
 ish fists resent Wooden Sword, 
 179. Described by Dr. Bea- 
 man, 180, 417, 421. 
 
 Lyon, James, 24, 206, 415. 
 
 Lyon, Loraine, daughter of Mat 
 thew, her death, 81, 408, 412, 
 414. 
 
 Lyon, Beulah, second wife of 
 Matthew, date of her birth, 32. 
 Her noble character, 341. 
 
 Lyon, Matthew S., 27, 416. 
 
 Lyon, Thompson A., 163, 425, 
 426. 
 
 Lyon, Ann, Pamelia and Lor 
 aine, daughters of Matthew, 80. 
 
 Lyon, Margaret A., marries 
 Senator W. B. Machen, 422. 
 
GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 52* 
 
 Lyon, General Hylon B., 426. 
 
 Lyon, Lieutenant Frank, in sea 
 fight off Santiago, 427. 
 
 Lyon, Matthew. His parents, 6. 
 His father said to have been 
 executed, 7. Set out for Amer 
 ica in 1765 during second 
 
 , Irish exodus, 12. His mother, 
 14. He adopts five youngest 
 children of Mrs. Edwards, his 
 sister, 15. His school days, 15. 
 His democratic spirit, 17. Op 
 poses parades of Congressmen 
 through streets, 24. Publishes 
 a Life of Franklin, 26. Models 
 himself on Dr. Lucas, 26. 
 Lyon's autobiography lost, 27. 
 Errors as to his age, 28. His 
 true age, 29. Career in Con 
 necticut, 31. Family record, 
 31. Children of his second 
 marriage, 32. Births and 
 deaths, 32. Dates of his own 
 birth and death, 32. Sources 
 of this biography, 33. Why he 
 left Ireland, 35. Does not an 
 swer his traducers, 36. Fare 
 well to his mother; sails as 
 cabin boy, 38. His indentures 
 to Jabez Bacon, 41. His sick 
 ness at sea, 42. Arrives in year 
 of Stamp Act, 44. Reaches 
 Ancient Woodbury; Bacon's 
 example, 45. Same scenes in 
 Wicklow and New York, with 
 a difference, 47. Lyon in Con 
 necticut, 59, 60. His descend 
 ants, 60. Further accounts of 
 Lyon and his marriage in Con 
 necticut, 61, 62. Bought for a 
 pair of stags, 68. His stand 
 
 ing; becomes a Connecticut 
 freeman, 71, 80. His children; 
 closing days in land of Steady 
 Habits; departure for Hamp 
 shire Grants, 80 to 113. War; 
 made Adjutant in the army, 116. 
 Second lieutenant; military af 
 fairs, 119 to 121. Stroke of 
 misfortune; tried by court 
 martial and dismissed by Gen 
 eral Gates from army; his Con 
 gressional narrative of the af 
 fair and of Gates's injustice; 
 British irruption into Vermont; 
 his wife and children take 
 refuge in Connecticut; Lyon's 
 military exploits, 121 to 175. 
 He moves to Arlington, 175 to 
 178. Impeached but proves 
 his innocence and defeats his 
 enemies; chastises Nathaniel 
 Chipman; record of his im 
 peachment and triumphant vin 
 dication here for first time col 
 lated and brought to light in 
 authentic shape, 179 to 190. 
 Ethan Allen uncle of Lyon's 
 wife; his intimacy with Lyon; 
 anecdote of his daughter Lor- 
 aine Allen and Matthew Lyon; 
 her friendship for him; his mar 
 ried life; has four children; 
 death of his wife; becomes 
 wealthy; Governor Chittenden 
 and Colonel Lyon crush out 
 Toryism at Arlington; they be 
 come warm friends; Lyon's 
 marriage to the Governor's 
 daughter, the widow Beulah 
 Galusha; his great business 
 qualities; Deputy Secretary of 
 
522 
 
 GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 the Council; Secretary of 
 Board of War; Lyon's Works; 
 founder of Fair Haven in 1783; 
 high tributes to him by Dr. 
 Graham, E. P. Walton, H. B. 
 Dawson and Dr. Dwight, 191 
 to 197. Lyon's character; 
 pioneer Democrat of New Eng 
 land; doctrinaire and thunder 
 bolt; candidate for United 
 States Senate in 1791; his in 
 flexible perseverance described 
 by Pliny H. White; elected to 
 Congress; his busy schemes 
 and works at Fair Haven; ex 
 tract from his letter to Presi 
 dent Monroe; a ship builder; 
 he fosters literature; Dr. Will 
 iams refuses to insert his letter 
 in Rutland Herald; Lyon starts 
 the Scourge of Aristocracy; 
 indicted, convicted, fined and 
 imprisoned; 109 to 208. Perse 
 cution of Lyon kills Alien and 
 Sedition laws; he reinforces 
 Albert Gallatin in Congress; 
 his trenchant speech on high 
 blood and royal ceremonies in 
 the House; Federalists raise 
 hue and cry against him; Gris- 
 wold insults him; Lyon spits 
 in his face; subject referred to 
 a committee; detailed narrative 
 of the affair, and of the fierce 
 and combined attack on Lyon 
 of the Federalists who tried to 
 expel him; letters of public 
 men on the scenes in the 
 House, humorous side of the 
 fracas; newspaper accounts; 
 the testimony before Congress; 
 
 the arguments and final failure 
 to expel him, 209 to 305. The 
 Lyon-Griswold fight rouses 
 the bull dog in John Adams, 
 306. Alien and Sedition laws 
 passed to crush Lyon, 307. 
 Striking similarity between the 
 case of John Hampden and 
 that of Matthew Lyon; in Ver- 
 gennes jail; his letter to Gen 
 eral Mason; speech from his 
 cell window; the long lost 
 official report of his trial; great 
 multitude present at his re 
 lease; a welcome like that to 
 Admiral Dewey; Lyon de 
 scribes his imprisonment in a 
 speech in Congress, 324 to 381. 
 Lyon's vote elects Jefferson 
 President; Bayard, Harper, 
 Hildreth and Lodge answered, 
 and their claims refuted by his 
 torical facts; Lyon's pungent 
 letter to ex-President Adams; 
 he removes to Kentucky; 
 founds Eddyville; elected to 
 the State Legislature and again 
 to Congress; his commanding 
 station on the majority side of 
 the House; placates Gallatin's 
 angry feelings towards Gov 
 ernor Claiborne; savage debate 
 between John Randolph and 
 Matthew Lyon, 395 to 455- 
 Lyon opposes war of 1812, at 
 tacks Madison and loses his 
 seat in the House, 456 to 470. 
 President Monroe appoints 
 Colonel Lyon Factor to the 
 Cherokee Nation; he is elected 
 to Congress once more from 
 
GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 523 
 
 Territory o* Arkansas; the old 
 pioneer's last famous journey; 
 his illness and death; his re 
 ligious faith; his letter against 
 disunion to Josiah Quincy; his 
 letter to Senator A. C. Mason; 
 his deposition on Wilkinson 
 and Burr; his farewell letter in 
 Niles's Register a political cu 
 riosity, 472 to 502. 
 
 Machen, Willis B., 422 to 425. 
 
 Machen, Edward C., Introduc 
 tion, 426. 
 
 Macon, Nathaniel, 319, 470, 490- 
 
 Madison, James, 232 to 235. His 
 letter on John Adams, 309, 376, 
 432. 
 
 Maine, two ships from, 65. 
 
 Manchester, 85, 135, 137, 140, 142, 
 143, 145, 159, 160. 
 
 Mansfield, Lord, 53, 54. 
 
 Marshall, Chief Justice, S3 to 57, 
 311, 312. Opposes Jefferson, 
 432, 434, 435. 
 
 Maryland deserts Burr to save 
 Federal capital, 387, 390. 
 
 Mason, Stevens Thompson, 135, 
 138, 156, 161. His ride to Ver- 
 gennes jail, 376, 377, 49* 
 
 Mason, Armisted C., 61. Slain 
 in a duel, 113, 301. Lyon's let 
 ter to, 494 to 502. 
 
 Massachusetts, 82, 84, 85, 101, 105, 
 106. Boundary line of, 107, 
 131, 135, 170. 
 
 Mattocks, Samuel, 99. 
 
 Mazzei letter a forgery, 433, 434. 
 
 Me Gee, Thomas D'Arcy, 10, 40. 
 
 McMahon, John V. L., 59. 
 
 Messenger, John, 80, 412. 
 
 Middlebury, 123. 
 
 Middle States, 131. 
 
 Mifflin, General, 128. 
 
 Military Grants, 100. 
 
 Miller, Warner, 199. 
 
 Ministry, The, 106. 
 
 Minute Men of Vermont, 114, 
 
 115- 
 
 Mississippi river captains, 410. 
 
 Molyneux the friend of Lockev 
 17. His Case of Ireland, 21. 
 
 Monarchic Masque, 210. 
 
 Monarchy threatened, 212. 
 
 Monarchy-breeding birthdays, 
 310. 
 
 Monroe, James, 60, 214, 311, 376, 
 468, 469, 472. 
 
 Montcalm, 83, 118. 
 
 Montgomery, General, 117. Or 
 derly book of, 118. His death 
 at Quebec, 118, 131. 
 
 Montpelier, 144. 
 
 Montreal, 117. 
 
 Mount Independence, 132. De 
 fiance or Sugar Hill, 133. 
 
 Moore, Tom, 5, 474. 
 
 Morris, Lewis R., 319, 39L 393- 
 
 Morris, Gouverneur, 391. 
 
 Morris's Litchfield, 62. 
 
 Mowgli's Oath, adapted by Rud- 
 yard Kipling from Colonel 
 Lyon, 218. 
 
 Munster, second exodus from, 
 12. 
 
 Murray, William Vans, appointed 
 Minister to France, 317. 
 
 Myrmidon, A, seizes a Green 
 Mountain Boy, 102. 
 
 Navigation Act, 56. 
 Newbury, 149. 
 
 New England, 83, 86, 87, 131, 141, 
 169. 
 
524 
 
 GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 New France, 52, 83. 
 
 New Hampshire, 82, 97, 101, 105. 
 Boundaries of defined, 107, 115, 
 170. 
 
 New Hampshire Grants, 61, 78, 
 81, 121. 
 
 New Haven, 64. 
 
 New Netherlands, 104, 1 10. Cap 
 tured in 1660 by English, no. 
 Recaptured in 1673 by Dutch, 
 no. Surrendered by Treaty of 
 Breda to English the next year, 
 no. 
 
 Newton, Sir Isaac, 26. 
 
 New world, 169. 
 
 New York Historical Magazine 
 on Matthew Lyon, 198. 
 
 New York, 65. Market, 65, 78, 
 86. Documentary History of, 
 97. Officials, loo, 101, 105, 106. 
 Land jobbers in, in. Sheriffs 
 of, in collision with Vermont- 
 ers, 112, 131, 132, 141, 169, 170. 
 
 Niles's Register, Matthew Lyon's 
 letter in, 502 to 510. 
 
 Non-Importation Act of 1699, 13, 
 
 North, Lord, 113. 
 
 Northern Department, 131, 148. 
 
 North and South, balance of 
 power between, 101. 
 
 North Wallingford, 160. 
 
 Napoleon Bonaparte, 459. 
 
 Oak Boys, 13. 
 
 O' Byrnes, The Clan of the, 3. 
 
 O'Callaghan, Dr. E. B., on New 
 York boundaries, 109. His 
 Documentary History of New 
 York, 117. 
 
 O'Connor, Matthew, Irish his 
 torian, 7, 12. 
 O'Connell, Daniel, 22. 
 O'Kavanaghs, The Clan of the, 
 
 3- 
 
 Old Council of Safety in Ver 
 mont, 130, 142 to 146, 151 to 
 153, 157 to 163. 166, 172. Its 
 secrets buried, 178. 
 
 Old Guard, or Democratic Re 
 publican party founded by 
 Governor Chittenden and Mat 
 thew Lyon, 176, 182. 
 
 Old Noll in Ireland, 4. 
 
 O'Leary, Father, 6, 17. 
 
 Old World, 169. 
 
 Olin, Gideon, 142, 148. 
 
 O'Neil, The, 22. 
 
 Onion River Land Company, 81. 
 
 Onion, or Winooski river, 85, 
 122, 123, 130. 
 
 Oracles of Reason, Ethan Allen's, 
 91. 
 
 Orators and flatterers, Distinc 
 tion between, 309. 
 
 Otis, Harrison Gray, 224. 
 
 Otis, James, 54, 58. 
 
 OTooles, The Clan of the, 3. 
 
 Otter Creek, 87, 138. 
 
 Paris, Celebration of surrender 
 of Cornwallis at, 96. Treaty 
 of, 100. 
 
 Parker, Isaac, 227. 
 
 Parliament, The, 52. 
 
 Paterson's, Judge, arbitrary con 
 duct on the bench, 356, 381. 
 
 Paumperaug Valley, 64. 
 
 Pawlet, 137. 
 
 Peep of Day Boys, 13. 
 
 Pendleton, Edmund, 232. 
 
GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 525 
 
 Peter Porcupine, William Cob- 
 bett as, unrivalled scold of 
 American politics, 212, 213, 214, 
 235. His Gazette on Lyon- 
 Griswold fight, 240 to 247. 
 Lampoons Jefferson, Monroe, 
 Gallatin, Jackson and Lyon, 
 
 467- 
 
 Pennsylvania, Forests of, 168. 
 People of Vermont want to pay 
 
 Colonel Lyon's fine, 376. 
 Phelps, James H., 160. 
 Phooca, The phantom steed, 4. 
 Pickering, Timothy, 311. His 
 
 extraordinary communication 
 
 to Congress, 312. 
 Pilgrims, The, of Plymouth, 95. 
 Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth, 
 
 3H. 
 
 Pinckney, Thomas, 227, 232. 
 
 Pitt, William, the elder, on tax 
 ing America, 49. 
 
 Pittsford, 119. 
 
 Plantagenets, The, 18. 
 
 Plowden's History of Ireland, 12. 
 
 Plymouth, Patent of, by James 
 the First, 107. 
 
 Poore, Ben Perley, 28. 
 
 Porter, Gen. Peter B., 74. 
 
 Port Folio, Dr. Dennie's, 439. 
 
 Portraits of history, 215. 
 
 Poultney river, 88. 
 
 Poyning's Law, 21. 
 
 President of Congress, 94. 
 
 President of the United States, 
 
 87- 
 
 Presidential election of 1801; er 
 rors of Hildreth, Lodge, and 
 others on it, 383. 
 
 Prices under apprentice system, 
 68. 
 
 Printer and bookbinder, Mat 
 thew Lyon a, 15. 
 
 Proclamation, Savage, by Bur- 
 goyne, 141. 
 
 Proprietary or Governor, 58. 
 
 Protestants and Catholics, 13. 
 
 Provincial Congress of New 
 York, 116, 117. 
 
 Puffendorf on the Law of Na 
 tions, 172. 
 
 Puritan and Patroon, 100. 
 
 Quakers, The, 76. 
 
 Queen Anne, 20. 
 
 Questionable affair, 176. 
 
 Quids, The, organized in Con 
 gress by John Randolph, 441. 
 
 Quincy, Josiah, 60, 61, 89. Col 
 onel Lyon's letters to, 486 to 
 490. 
 
 Quincy, Miss Eliza Susan, sends 
 author Colonel Lyon's original 
 letters to her father, 60. Her 
 own letter, 485, 486. 
 
 Quintilian on Mountaineers, 4. 
 On orators, 310. 
 
 Rack- Rents, n. 
 
 Randall, Joseph, 98. 
 
 Randall, Dr., on 1801 election, 
 
 391- 
 
 Randolph, Edmund, 219. 
 
 Randolph, John, of Roanol^e, on 
 true leaders, 202. Challenges 
 Daniel Webster to fight a 
 duel, 301. His revelations of 
 warlike plans to seat Jefferson 
 in 1801 in Presidency, 394. 
 Results achieved by Jefferson 
 
526 
 
 GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 and Randolph, 436. He votes 
 to refund Lyon's fine, 440. 
 Leads the Quids; Jefferson 
 underrates Randolph, 441. 
 Randolph assails Gideon 
 Granger and excites hostility 
 in his party, 444. Clash im 
 pending between Lyon and 
 Randolph, 449. The Virginian 
 attacks Bidwell and breaks 
 with Jefferson, 449. No one 
 able to take his place as leader 
 of House, 450. He attacks 
 Lyon who retorts fiercely, 453, 
 454. Sawyer's anecdote, 458, 
 Whittier's poem on Randolph 
 as Bard, Sage and Tribune, 458. 
 Reported attack of Tristam 
 Burgess on Randolph a myth, 
 458. The Randolph-Clay duel, 
 301. 
 
 Redemptioners, 34. 
 
 Read, David, 162. 
 
 Reeve, Tapping, 74, 77. 
 
 Regiment of Rangers, 153. 
 
 Report of a British spy, 162, 163. 
 
 Revolution, The, 93, 103, 113, 131, 
 134, 135, 161, 169. 
 
 Revolutionary gun of Colonel 
 Lyon, 414. 
 
 Reynolds' s Governor, Sketch, ,of 
 Lyon, 427, 428. 
 
 Riedesel, Baron, 134, 135. 
 
 Roaring Brook, The, 99. 
 
 Robin Hood, Ethan Allen called, 
 100. 
 
 Robinson, Captain, 81. Moses, 
 142, 176. Samuel, 142. The 
 two Robinsons, 147, 150. 
 
 Robinson, Beverley, the Tory, 
 171. 
 
 Robinson, R. E., on immense 
 multitude that accompanied 
 Lyon from Vergennes jail; In 
 troduction, 379, 380. 
 
 Roe, Mrs. Eliza A., daughter of 
 Matthew Lyon, 7, 29. She cor 
 rects errors about her father, 
 37. Her letter to author rela 
 tive to her father's emigration, 
 39, 41, 69. Her book of recol 
 lections of Frontier Life, 99. 
 Another book, An Abolition 
 story, by Mrs. Roe, 99. Inci 
 dents of her father's removal to 
 Kentucky quoted from her 
 book, 411 to 414. 
 
 Roe, John H., 425. 
 
 Rood, Azariah, 130. 
 
 Rothschild, the Napoleon of fi 
 nance, 66. 
 
 Roundheads, The, 50. 
 
 Rowan, Archibald Hamilton, 43. 
 Calls Congress a " boxing 
 school," 235. 
 
 Rowley, Tom, the Shoreham 
 bard, 98, 142, 148, 150. 
 
 Royce, Stephen, 99. 
 
 Rush, Dr., 128. 
 
 Rutland, 87, 164. 
 
 Rutland Herald, 206. 
 
 Rutledge, John, 227. 
 
 Sabine's Loyalists gives names of 
 swarms of Tories, 201. 
 
 Safford, Samuel, 176. 
 
 St. Clair, Gen. Arthur, 130 to 136. 
 His army, 137, 139. 
 
 St. Kevin and the Lady, 5. 
 
 St. Leger's, General, tell-tale let 
 ter, 79, 173- 
 
GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 527 
 
 Salem Gazette on Colonel Lyon, 
 
 199- 
 Salisbury, Connecticut, 69, 70, 72, 
 
 90, 91. 
 Saratoga, 128, 132, 140, 155, 157, 
 
 170, 173, 174. 
 
 Sanderson, Rev. H. H., 100, 164. 
 Scourge of Aristocracy, 24, 76, 
 
 80, 207, 208, 327 to 337. 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 5, 377. 
 Scott, the backwoodsman of 
 
 Wallingford, 98. 
 Scotch Irish, a propitiatory name, 
 
 9- 
 
 Scotchmen, Thrifty, 19. 
 
 Schleswig-Holstein question, 103. 
 
 Schuyler, Gen. Philip, restores 
 Lyon to Continental army, and 
 appoints him paymaster, 126, 
 131, 132, 137 to 140. 
 
 Secret negotiations of Vermont- 
 ers with the British, 171. 
 
 Sedition law, 165. 
 
 Senate and House of Representa 
 tives in Philadelphia, 236. 
 
 Severe rebuke of John Jay to 
 Alexander Hamilton, 316. 
 
 Sewall, Samuel, introduces reso 
 lution to expel Matthew Lyon 
 from Congress, 227. 
 
 Seward, William H., 314, 432. 
 
 Seymour, Horatio, 74. 
 
 Sheffield, 84. 
 
 Sheehy, Rev. Nicholas, butchered 
 by English, Introduction. 
 
 Sheehy, Edmund, put to death by 
 English, Introduction. 
 
 Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 16. 
 
 Sheridan, Gen. Philip, 226. 
 
 Sherman, John, and J. M. 
 Wright in a sharp scuffle on 
 floor of the House, 304. 
 
 Shillalah, Forest of, i. 
 Shorthand reporters, 320. 
 Skeensborough, 133, 135, 137. 
 Slade's State Papers, 143, 178. 
 
 His speech on welcome to 
 
 Colonel Lyon, 378. 
 Smallpox in American army, 118. 
 Smith, John Cotton, 77. 
 Smith, Congressman, 227. 
 Snobbium Gatherum, Ladies of, 
 
 210. 
 
 Sons of Liberty, 46, 59, 113. 
 South Carolina students, 78, 80. 
 
 State of, 87. 
 Southey, Robert, 86. 
 Southern students at Litchfield, 
 
 78. 
 
 Spafford, Jonathan, 84, 166. 
 Sparks's, Jared, Life of Ethan 
 
 Allen, 104. On the Intrigue, 
 
 177- 
 
 Spencer, Benjamin, 97. 
 Spencer, Squire, a traitor, 149. 
 Spenser, Edmund, the poet, 3. 
 Spies and informers, 14. 
 Springfield Armory, 69. 
 Spooner, Paul, 142, 148, 149. 
 
 Mr. Spooner, 206. 
 Squatter Sovereignty, 98. 
 Stamp Act passed, 46. Stamps 
 
 surrendered to mayor of New 
 
 York, 46, 53-, 56, 58, 63, 66. 
 Stark, Gen. John, 79, 91, 142, 169, 
 
 173, 174- 
 
 Stars and Stripes, 156. 
 State Archives at Albany, 117. 
 State Trials of the United States, 
 
 82. 
 Stephens, Alexander H., 226. 
 
 He describes a fist fight on 
 
 floor of Congress, 305. 
 
528 
 
 GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 Stephens, Linton, 226. 
 Stockbridge, 84. 
 Stone, Col. William L., 174. 
 Storm, Violent, during meeting 
 
 of Vermonters, 141. 
 Story's, Judge, Law School, 74- 
 Strafford, The remorseless, 19. 
 Street pageants by Congressmen, 
 
 3io. 
 
 Strongbow in Ireland, 4. 
 Strong, John, 84. 
 Struggles of Vermont, 175. 
 Stuart, The, dynasty, i& 
 Sullivan, General, 119, 133- 
 Sumner, Charles, 432. 
 Sunderland, 143, 157- 
 Supreme Court of United States, 
 
 432. 
 
 Swarms of Irish arrive in Amer 
 ica, 43- 
 
 Swift, Dean, 12, 17 His Drap- 
 ier's Letters, 21. 
 
 Swiss, The, Cantons, 91. 
 
 Talleyrand a match for Hamil 
 ton at intrigue, 313, 3M- 
 
 Taney, Roger B., 432. 
 
 Taylor, George, signer of Dec 
 laration of Independence, a re- 
 demptioner, 40, 73. 
 
 Taylor, John, of Caroline, 376. 
 
 Tell, William, 91. 
 
 Territory of Arkansas, 165. 
 
 Thackeray, W. M., on Washing 
 ton, 168. 
 
 Thebaud's, Father, Irish Race, 
 Past and Present, 19. 
 
 Thompson's, D. P., address and 
 quotations from speech of Mat 
 thew Lyon, 144, 145, 148, 162. 
 
 Thompson's, Dr., History of Ver 
 mont, 134. 
 
 Thompson, Charles, the old Per 
 petual Secretary of the Con 
 tinental Congress, 320. 
 
 Thompson, Waddy, of South 
 Carolina, makes a vigorous 
 speech, and secures restitution 
 of Colonel Lyon's fine, 325. 
 He compares him to John 
 Hampden, 325. 
 
 Ticonderoga, 71, 84, 85, 92, 95, 
 97, 113. First offensive blow 
 of Americans, 113 to 115, 129 
 to 133, 135, 142, 161, 174, 180. 
 Its warlike implements beaten 
 into plough shares, 196. 
 
 Tinmouth, 72, 98. 
 
 Tithes, ii. 
 
 Tomlinson, Isaac, 67. 
 
 Tory speculators, 113. Influence 
 General Gates, 120, 136, 152, 
 156, 162, 166. Their names 
 suppressed, 178. Become Fed 
 eralists, 201. They destroy that 
 party, 201. They dislike Jeffer 
 son and Lyon, 201. 
 
 Tracy, Uriah, 74. 
 
 Traitor, A, in Vermont, 146. 
 
 Travels of Dr. Dwight in New 
 England and New York, 85. 
 
 Treaty of Paris, 53. 
 
 Trumbull's Colonial Records, 64. 
 
 Trumbull, John, 134. 
 
 Tryon, Governor, 97. Puts a 
 price on Ethan Allen's head, 
 102. 
 
 Tucker, Prof. George, 210. 
 
 Tucker, John Randolph, Intro 
 duction. 
 
 Tudors, The, 18. 
 
 Tupper, Sergeant, 79, 173. 
 
GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 529 
 
 Turney, Congressmen, and Bell 
 engage in a free fight on floor 
 of House, 302. 
 
 Ulster, The Irish of, 9. 
 
 Union, Admission of Vermont 
 to, 102. 
 
 United States, 101, 172. People 
 of, roused to warlike pitch 
 against France, 313. 
 
 United States Statute for pro 
 tection of women, 42. 
 
 Upset price for Vermont, $30,000, 
 102. 
 
 Valley of Lake Champlain, 82, 
 
 85. 
 
 Valley Forge, 94. 
 Vander Donck's outlines of New 
 
 York boundaries, 109. 
 Vattel, 172. 
 
 Venable, Congressman, 227. 
 Vergennes, Count de, 168. 
 Vergennes Jail, 26, 338 to 355, 
 
 374 to 380, 382. 
 Vermont, 62, 78. Child of Litch- 
 
 field county, 79, 82, 85, 88, 93. 
 
 Lands of, 100, 101. Fortune's 
 
 favorite child, 101, 102, 105, 129, 
 
 135. Historical Society, 140. 
 
 Constitution adopted, 141, 142, 
 
 148, 156, 158, 161, 162, 167, 170, 
 
 171, 172, 174, 177. 
 Vermonters, 113, 115, 173. 
 
 Honest shame of, 178. 
 Vermont families, a number of 
 
 them go to Kentucky with 
 
 Colonel Lyon, 413. 
 View of the State of Ireland, by 
 
 Edmund Spenser, 3. 
 Virginia, 141. 
 
 Volunteers, Irish, Grattan and 
 
 the, 22. 
 Von Hoist, Dr. H. K, 316. 
 
 Wadleigh, F. A., 157. His ac 
 count of Tory tribulations, 181. 
 
 Wallingford, 72, 85, 87, 97 to 99. 
 Centennial of, 99, 100, 113, 119, 
 129, 159. Whigs of, 160, 164. 
 
 Walpole, Robert, 49. 
 
 Walpole, Horace, 127. 
 
 Walshes, Clan of the, 3. 
 
 Walton, E. P., of Montpelier, 
 102, 144, 157, 158, 162, 163. His 
 opinion of Matthew Lyon, 195, 
 197, 198- 
 
 Warner, Seth, at Ancient Wood- 
 bury, 48, 66, 80, 82, 91. Lieu 
 tenant Colonel, 116. His ser 
 vices in Canada, 117 to 121, 133 
 to 135, 139, 140, 142, 155, 156, 
 163, 165, 171, 226. 
 
 Washington, George, 64, 04, 95, 
 96, 127. Gates's open rupture 
 with, 128, 131, 134, 147. Sides 
 with Hamilton against Adams, 
 219, 311. Commander-in-Chief, 
 314. An eye opener, 314. 
 Sinks the partisan in the 
 patriot, 315. Fathoms Burr, 
 387. 
 
 Washington City, Great changes 
 at, after Jefferson's election, 
 
 431- 
 
 Watchman, The Vermont, 158. 
 Weare, Governor, 170. 
 Webster, Daniel, Epigram of, 58, 
 
 86. His remark on Jefferson, 
 
 201. 
 Wentworth, Benning, 81, 100, 
 
 102, 105, 107, in. 
 
530 
 
 GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 West Haven, 88. 
 
 West Hill, 98. 
 
 Western Republic, 169. 
 
 Westward the course of Empire, 
 Berkeley, 38. 
 
 Westward Ho! Colonel Lyon 
 sets out for Kentucky, 410. 
 
 Wexford County, Ireland, 3. 
 
 Wharton, Francis, his State Trials 
 of United States, Introduction, 
 28, 33, 82. On Lyon's trial, 
 337. Extols Lyon's demeanor, 
 340. 
 
 White Boys, Introduction, 6, 13. 
 
 Whitehall, Letters patent from, 
 107. 
 
 White, Pliny H., his account of 
 Colonel Lyon, 42, 59, 60, 141, 
 158, 163, 164, 165, 195, 339, 378, 
 395- 
 
 Whittier, John G., his Song of 
 the Vermonters, 167. His 
 poem on John Randolph, 455. 
 
 Wicklow, birthplace of Matthew 
 Lyon, Introduction, i. Its 
 scenery, 2. Manners of peo 
 ple, 2. 
 
 Wilkinson, Gen. James, his trib 
 ute to Matthew Lyon, 137. He 
 relates how Lyon rescued army 
 from Burgoyne. His letter to 
 Colonel Lyon, 483 to 485. 
 
 Williams, Dr., 103. Editor of 
 Rutland Herald, 206. Refuses 
 to publish Colonel Lyon's let 
 ter, 326. 
 
 Williams, Congressman, 227. 
 
 William of Orange, 6, 20, 51. 
 Confirms New York-Connecti 
 cut agreement, 108. 
 
 Williamstown College, alma 
 mater of President Garfield, 84. 
 
 Williston, 85, 87. 
 
 Wilson, F. A., sends to author, 
 Lyon's family record, 31. 
 
 Windsor Convention, 140, 141, 
 142, 1 60. 
 
 Windsor Journal, 199, 206. Pub 
 lishes Lyon's letter for which 
 he was indicted, 207. 
 
 Winooski Falls, 81. 
 
 Wise, Henry A., A wordy war, 
 302. His fight with John Stan 
 ley in House, 305. 
 
 Wolcott, Oliver, Sr., 74, 77. 
 
 Wolcott, Oliver, Jr. His in 
 credible treachery to John 
 Adams, 220. Stinging com 
 ment of Charles Francis 
 Adams, 220. 
 
 Wolfe, Gen. James, 83, 118. 
 
 Wooden, The, sword, brandished 
 at Philadelphia, 215. 
 
 Woodruff's History of Litchfield 
 County, 30, 61, 62. 
 
 Woodstock, 158. 
 
 Wooster, General, 119. 
 
 Wright, Jonathan, 130, 133. 
 
 Yale College, 77- College buys 
 Scourge of Aristocracy, 208. 
 
 Yazoo frauds. Secretaries Madi 
 son, Gallatin and Lincoln as 
 United States Commissioners 
 favor compromise of dispute, 
 443. Subject warmly debated 
 in House, 443. Lyon pro 
 nounced great debater by Mr. 
 Elliot, 443. The scandal does 
 not help the Federalists, 447- 
 
 Yorkers, 93, 100, 102, 113. 
 
GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 531 
 
 Yorktown, 96, 155. 
 Young, The, Pretender, 6. 
 Young, Thomas, 92. 
 
 X Y Z imposture, 211, 312. A 
 
 blackmailing scheme, 313. Like 
 Fort Sumter it fired the popu 
 lar heart, and war with France 
 was narrowly averted, 314. 
 
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 Matthew Lyon. 
 
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