responsibilities, they soon evinced, by their conduct, that the confidence reposed in them had not been misplaced; for the glorious results of the field of Bennington, and the incessant and harassing warfare on the flanks of the enemy which both preceded and followed that event, and which drew forth from its despairing leader his best apology for his defeat and surrender, were, far more than is generally supposed, the fruits of the combined energy and talents of that unequalled little band of patriots and statesmen. [Footnote: A finer tribute of praise to the Green Mountain Boys could scarcely have been given, than the one involved in Burgoyne's letter to Lord Germain, written about the time of the battle of Bennington, in which he says, “The Hampshire Grants, a country unpeopled, and almost unknown, in the last war, now abounds in the most active and the most rebellious race of men on the continent, and hangs like a gathering storm on my left.”] But the particular time we have chosen for lifting the curtain from their secret proceedings was at the darkest and most disheartening hour they were doomed to experience, and before the united mind of their body had been brought to bear on any measure which afforded a reasonable promise of auspicious results. The army of Burgoyne was then hovering on their borders in its most menacing attitude. Marauding parties were daily penetrating the interior, and plundering and capturing the defenceless inhabitants, while each day brought the unwelcome news of the defection of individuals who had openly gone off to swell the ranks of the victorious enemy to whose alarming progress scarcely a show of resistance had yet been interposed. Nor was this the end of the chapter of trials and discouragements that awaited the council. Another blow was to be added, more calculated than all to test their firmness and bring home to their bosoms a sense of the perils of the crisis, and the necessity of immediate action, unless they should conclude to yield at once to the current of destiny which seemed to be setting so strongly against them. But let us present the mortifying and disgraceful event, to which we last alluded, in another form, in which the historic pen, that thus far in this chapter has only been employed, may be legitimately aided by the pencil of fancy, while we bring the leading individuals of this body to view, and sketch the details of a scene as truthful in outline as it was important in result.