The Governor of New York had threatened to drive the Vermonters into the Green Mountains, which occasioned their taking the name of “Green Mountain Boys.” The committees of safety passed a resolution in general council, in 1771, that no officer from New York be allowed to carry out of the Hampshire Grants any person, without permission given by the committees, or the military commanders. Surveyors of land under New York were forbidden to run any lines within the Grants; and transgressors in this particular were to be punished according to the judgment of a court formed among the military officers or elders of the people. “Hugh Monroe, an old offender, was taken, tried, and ordered to be whipped on his naked back. He was tied to a tree, and flogged till he fainted; on recovering he was whipped again till he fainted; he revived and underwent a third lashing till he fainted; his wounds were then dressed, and he was banished the district of the New Hampshire Grants.” These severities proved a salutary lesson, and the Green Mountain Boys became a terror to their adversaries. The convention next issued a decree forbidding all persons taking out grants, or confirmations of grants, under New York. This had the effect of uniting the settlers very much in the common cause. About the same time the Colonial Assembly of New York authorized the sheriffs to call out a _posse comitatus_ in case of opposition to the execution of their office; and the Governor offered a reward of £150 for Colonel Ethan Allen, and £50 each for Warner and five others therein named, to any person that should take and confine them in any jail in New York. As a measure of retaliation, Allen and the other proscribed persons offered a reward of £5 for the taking of John Taber Kemp, Attorney General of New York, and published the same in the newspapers of the day. The Supreme Court at Albany, having awarded a judgment on a writ of ejectment against James Breckenridge, of Bennington, the sheriff of Albany County summoned a posse to the number of seven hundred and fifty men to go and assist in serving the same. The officers collected about three hundred, and reaching Breckenridge’s house some hours in advance of the sheriff’s party, stationed their men in ambuscade in readiness to receive them.