Yet had this people no inconsiderable share in the work of achieving that independence which made the present of our country a glorious possibility. They secured what they believed to be their own rights, at the same time they contributed to the adjustment of the claims of her sister communities. There is no pretension, in the present pages, to giving what will be new to specialists in Vermont history. But to the general reader, and to the student of the philosophy of human events, there is much, we hope, both new and instructive. The firm bearing of the brave and hardy settlers of the Hampshire Grants, and the important part they played in the War of the Revolution, give to the material of this little book somewhat of a national interest. Indeed, but for timely services of the Green Mountain Boys, it is more than possible the cause of America might have been lost. [Illustration: Indians fishing by torchlight.] CHAPTER I. GEOGRAPHICAL OUTLINE AND SETTLEMENT. Stephen A. Douglas has been credited with the remark that Vermont is an excellent place to emigrate from. Though small in area, with a surface singularly broken by mountain ranges, wracked by frosts and covered with snows five months of the year, yet her internal economy has proved favorable to the growth of both brain and brawn: in the halls of Congress, as well as in the pursuits of science and literature, she maintains her place right gallantly. That long and irregular lake on the northwest boundary bears the name of the great European discoverer and explorer, Champlain, who here sought, and vainly, for a northwest passage to Cathay. The loveliness of its shores, and the unsurpassed picturesqueness of its islands, endear it to the tourist. Twice it has been the scene of a naval combat. The Green Mountains,[A] from which the state takes its name, run lengthwise through the central portion, about midway between the Connecticut River on the east and Lake Champlain on the west. The sides of these mountains are clad with the perpetual verdure of their hardy evergreens, the verdant mosses and winter grasses clinging to their towering summits. The principal streams, rising among these mountains and following the natural declivities, find their way into this river and lake, except those flowing northerly into Lake Memphremagog.