In the early part of the fall of 1773, a large force of Green Mountain Boys, under Ethan Allen and other leaders, visited Clarendon and requested the Yorkers to comply with these resolutions, informing them if this were not done within a reasonable time the persons of the Durhamites would suffer. Justice Spencer absconded. No violence was used except on one poor innocent dog of the name of Tryon, and Governor Tryon was so odious that the dog was cut in pieces without benefit of clergy. This display of force and the threats that were very freely used, it was hoped, would be enough to secure submission, but the justices still issued writs against the New Hampshire settlers; other New York officials acted, and all were loud in advocating the New York title. A second visit to Durham was made. Saturday, November 20, at 11 P.M., Ethan Allen, Remember Baker, and twenty to thirty others surrounded Spencer's house, took him prisoner, and carried him two miles to the house of one Green, where he was kept under a guard of four men until Monday morning, and then taken "to the house of Joseph Smith, of Durham, innkeeper." He was asked where he preferred to be tried; he replied that he was not guilty of any crime, but if he must be tried, he should choose his own door as the place of trial. The Green Mountain Boys had now increased in number to about one hundred and thirty, armed with guns, cutlasses, and other weapons. The people of Clarendon, Rutland, and Pittsford hearing of the trial, gathered to witness the proceedings. A rural lawsuit still has a wonderful fascination for a rural populace. Allen addressed the crowd, telling them that he, with Remember Baker, Seth Warner, and Robert Cochran, had been appointed to inspect and set things in order; that "Durham had become a hornets' nest" which must be broken up. A "judgment seat" was erected; Allen, Warner, Baker, and Cochran took seats thereon as judges, and Spencer was ordered to stand before this tribunal, take off his hat, and listen to the accusations. Allen accused him of joining with New York land jobbers against New Hampshire grantees and issuing a warrant as a justice. Warner accused him of accepting a New York commission as a magistrate, of acting under it, of writing a letter hostile to New Hampshire, of selling land bought of a New York grantee, and of trying to induce people to submit to New York. He was found guilty, his house declared a nuisance, and the sentence was pronounced that his house be burnt, and that he promise not to act again as a New York justice. Spencer declared that if his house were burned, his store of dry-goods and all his property would be destroyed and his wife and children would be great sufferers. Thereupon the sentence was reconsidered. Warner suggested that his house be not destroyed, but that the roof be taken off and put on again, provided Spencer should acknowledge that it was put on under a New Hampshire title and should purchase a New Hampshire title.