h its destination, but fall into
the hands of its bitterest enemy, Lord North, contained an account of
his ill treatment and possible fate, and closed with the request that if
retaliation upon the Tory and other prisoners in its power should be
found necessary, it might be exercised not according to his own value or
rank, but in proportion to the importance of the cause for which he
suffered.

The English ministry concluded evidently to treat him henceforth as a
prisoner of war entitled to an honorable exchange, rather than a rebel
deserving an ignoble death, and he was returned to America, where he was
confined, with varieties of usage, in Halifax, and afterward in New
York.

While in the latter place, and suffering from hunger and long ill
health, he was approached by a British officer, authorized to offer him
the command of a royalist regiment, and the gift of thousands of acres
of land at the close of the war, in any part of the American colonies he
might select, providing he would forsake the patriot cause and take oath
of allegiance to the crown. Colonel Allen rejected this overture with
great scorn, assuring the officer that he had as little land to promise
him as had the devil when making a similar one.

"Thereupon," said Allen, "he closed the conversation and turned from me
with an air of dislike, saying I was a bigot."

An exchange of prisoners at length freed him from a situation so full of
personal hardship and mental anguish, and he hastened home to his
family, from whom he so long and cruelly had been separated.

His only son had died in the meantime, and his wife and daughters, not
expecting his arrival, were not at Bennington in time to receive him.
But his neighbors and friends flocked in from miles around to give him
greeting, and although it was the Sabbath, a day strictly observed in
those parts, the enthusiasm of the joyful occasion could neither be
postponed nor suppressed, and its expression found vent in the firing of
cannon and happy huzzas.

The "Hampshire Grants" in his absence had become the full-fledged "State
of Vermont," knocking for admission at the doors of the Continental
Congress.

Ethan Allen at once was appointed General of the Vermont State Militia,
and although he did not again join the American army, his natural gifts
of diplomacy were of inestimable service to the country, and the number
of men he could summon at a moment's notice to his command, served to
hold in check