To open communication with the leading men therein, and to ascertain the feeling of the New England States, in all of which, except Vermont, the party opposing the administration of Madison was in the ascendant, Sir James Craig, Governor-General of Canada, employed an adventurer named John Henry, a naturalized citizen of the United States. Coming from Canada, he passed through Vermont, tarrying awhile at Burlington and Windsor. From the first town he wrote an unwarranted favorable report to his employer, representing that Vermont would not sustain the government in case of war; but, on reaching Windsor, he was led to give a less favorable representation. He then journeyed through New Hampshire, and, at length arriving at Boston, wrote many letters in cipher to Sir James. He represented the opposition of the New England Federalists to the administration to be of so violent a nature that, in case of war, they would at least remain neutral, and probably would bring about a separation of those States from the Union, and their formation into a dependency of Great Britain. Having performed the duty assigned him, he received from the British government, as reward for his services, not the appointment he asked, but only compliments. In retaliation for this poor requital, he divulged the whole correspondence to President Madison, receiving therefor the sum of $50,000. In the manifesto of the causes of war, this attempt at disruption was declared to be an "act of greater malignity than any other." On the 18th of June, 1812, an act was passed by Congress declaring war against Great Britain. A considerable proportion of the citizens of the United States were strongly opposed to a resort to arms, believing that all disputes might have been adjusted more certainly by further negotiations than by the arbitrament of war, for which the nation was so ill-prepared. So it was in Vermont. Of the 207 members of the Assembly which was that year elected, seventy-nine were Federalists opposed to the war, who made earnest protest against a resolution of the majority, declaring that those who did not actively support this measure of the government "would identify themselves with the enemy, with no other difference than that of locality." But the overwhelming majority of Republicans, with a governor of their own politics, framed the laws to their own liking. An act was passed prohibiting all intercourse between the people of Vermont and Canada without permit from the governor, under a penalty of $1,000 fine and seven years' imprisonment at hard labor; also, an act exempting the bodies and property of officers and soldiers of the militia from attachment while in actual service, and levying a tax of one cent per acre on all lands, for arming and supporting the militia to defend the frontiers.