The Rangers; or, The Tory's Daughter: A Tale Illustrative of the Revolutionary History of Vermont and the Northern Campaign of 1777Thompson, Daniel P. (Daniel Pierce)
History
The Rangers; or, The Tory's Daughter: A Tale Illustrative of the Revolutionary History of Vermont and the Northern Campaign of 1777
Thompson, Daniel P. (Daniel Pierce)
Vermont -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Fiction
Although the portion of the revolutionary party, whose movements we have
been more particularly describing, acting on the supposed and probably
actual frauds of their opponents, had thus secured Bart's vote, and the
votes of two or three others, perhaps equally illegal, yet the event
soon showed that their policy in so doing was a mistaken one, and
calculated to defeat the very object they intended to promote; for, as
will always be the result where one party attempts to adopt the wrongful
measures of their opponents, the tories, now armed with the fact that
they had detected the other party in a wrong more glaring, because more
public, than any they had perpetrated, made use of the advantage
with such effect as to bring over several, intending to support the
resolutions, to change their intention, and go against them. And, in
addition to this, by way of retaliating, and of making good at least all
the ground lost by the questionable votes forced upon them, they brought
forward every minor they could find approximating the size of a man,
and boldly demanded their admittance to the polls. An opposition was,
indeed, attempted to a measure so manifestly illegal, by the leaders of
the other party; but they had become too much disarmed by the acts of
their own partisans to produce any sensible effect; and their voices
were soon drowned by the clamors of the tories, who now admitted the
boys by acclamation. This, as will be anticipated, decided the contest.
On counting the votes, the resolution was found to have been rejected
by more than a dozen majority-a victory which the tories failed not to
announce by shouts of exultation, which out-thundered those of their
opponents in their late short-lived triumph. The friends of freedom,
being thus caught in their own trap, or, at least, worsted by the
indiscretion of their own friends, now pretty much yielded the contest:
while the victorious Yorkers and tories had everything in their own
way, electing their town officers, passing denunciatory and royal
resolutions, and continuing their discussions unopposed till it was
nearly dark, when the meeting broke up in noisy confusion.
“Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!” was now heard crying the well-known voice of
Constable Fitch, as he mounted a stump in the yard; while near by stood
a gang of his confederates, hedging in Woodburn's cow and oxen, which
the former had found the means to have on the spot, in readiness for the
sale, the moment the assembly broke up. “Oyez! A cow and oxen, taken
on execution, now about to be sold to the highest bidder, gentlemen. We
will take the oxen first; as fine a yoke as ever drew plough Who will
give us the first bid? Shan't dwell three minutes. Who bids, I say? One
pound bid, gentlemen; one pound ten! one pound ten! and on Mr. Peters.
Who bids higher?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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