The New York claimants now sought to draw some of the prominent persons of the Grants to their interest by offers of New York titles on favorable terms, and by the bestowal of offices upon them, and they induced people of their own province to settle upon unoccupied New Hampshire Grants. By such means they hoped to smother the unmanageable element which had so far thwarted their attempts to gain control of the coveted region, and insidiously overcome the turbulent faction termed by them the "Bennington Mob." Committees of Safety were organized in several towns of the Grants, and a convention of the settlers decreed that no New York officer should be allowed to take any person out of the district without permission of the Committee of Safety, and that no surveys should be made there, nor lines run, nor settlements made, under the authority of New York. The punishment for violation of this decree was to be discretionary with a court formed by the Committee of Safety. Civil officers, however, were permitted to perform their proper functions in the collection of debts, and in other matters not connected with the controversy.[40] Thus the inhabitants of the Grants established a crude but efficient civil government of their own. FOOTNOTES: [27] _Doc. Hist. N. Y._ vol. iv. pp. 331, 332. [28] Williams's _Hist. of Vt._ vol. ii. pp. 12, 13. [29] _Doc. Hist. N. Y._ vol. iv. p. 332. [30] _Ibid._ p. 333. [31] _Doc. Hist. N. Y._ vol. iv. p. 353. [32] Slade's _State Papers_, p. 62. [33] _State Papers_, p. 20. [34] The fees to the governor of New Hampshire for granting a township were about $100. Under the government of New York, they generally amounted to $2,000, or $2,600. Williams's _Hist. Vt._ vol. ii. p. 9. [35] Governor Moore sneers at him as "a driver of an ox-cart for the sutlers." _Doc. Hist. N. Y._ [36] Thompson's _Vermont_, part ii. p. 21. [37] Slade's _State Papers_, p. 21. [38] _Doc. Hist. N. Y._ vol. iv. p. 422. [39] Thompson's _Vermont_, part ii. p. 22. [40] Thompson's _Vermont_, p. 22. CHAPTER V. THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS. A military force was organized, of which Ethan Allen was colonel commandant, and his active coadjutors, Warner, Baker, Cockran, Sunderland, and others, were captains. Of the name which they assumed, and which Vermonters are always proud to bear, Ira Allen says: "The governor of New York had threatened to drive the military (his opponents) into the Green Mountains, from which circumstance they took the name of Green Mountain Boys."[41]