Fifth. At Allen's request the truce offered by the British included New York's eastern frontier, and Vermont promptly responded to all calls upon her for help. Sixth. There is reason to believe that General Washington was informed by General Allen, in advance of the Haldimand negotiations, of their purpose. The state's peculiar frontier, threatened by Canada, unsupported by the other states, disturbed by internal dissensions, unable to defend herself by force, made it necessary to use strategy. No authority was given the commissioners by the executive or by the legislature to treat of anything but an exchange of prisoners. There is no record that I can find that an effort was made at any time to induce Vermonters at large to consider the subject of a British union. Indeed, Governor Chittenden, in 1793, giving a list of those in the secret, mentions only eight, although Ira Allen said, in 1781, that more were added. It seems to me that Allen shows in this correspondence the talent of a diplomat, a talent which our state needed in its formative period to supplement the audacity of the hardy Green Mountain Boys. There could be no question of disloyalty to the United States, because Vermont had never belonged to them. He was intensely loyal to his own state, for whose welfare he strove, and if Congress still refused to admit her to the Union, there was no other resource than to ally her with Great Britain in self-defence. CHAPTER XVI. ALLEN WITH GATES.--AT BENNINGTON.--DAVID REDDING.--REPLY TO CLINTON.--EMBASSIES TO CONGRESS.--COMPLAINT AGAINST BROTHER LEVI.--ALLEN IN COURT. When Allen bade adieu to Washington at Valley Forge, he rode on horseback to Fishkill with General Gates and suite, arriving at that place on the 18th of May, 1778, the very day his brother Heman died at Salisbury. The six or eight days occupied by the trip across New Jersey seems to have been one of unalloyed enjoyment to the hero of Ticonderoga. He tells us that Gates treated him with the generosity of a lord and the freedom of a boon companion. That this intercourse impressed Gates favorably with Allen his correspondence with General Stark later demonstrates. On Sunday evening, the 31st of May, Allen arrived at Bennington. The town being orthodox and Congregationalist, Sunday is observed with Puritanic severity, but he finds the people too jubilant for religious solemnity. The old iron six-pound cannon from Fort Hoosac is brought out and fired in honor of the new state of Vermont.