, and they
were nearly ready when the second raid on Durham was proposed. The boys
knew that the matter had been discussed by Colonel Allen and the other
leaders for some time, for Justice Spencer still continued to disobey
the orders of the Council of Safety, and the matter could not be
ignored. It was past the middle of November when the commander of the
Green Mountain Boys and some of his followers set out in the direction
of Durham, and Lot and Enoch hurried their own going, determined to hide
their canoe when once they reached the Otter and join in the descent
upon Clarendon village.

It was eleven o'clock at night, November 20th, that Colonel Allen,
Captain Baker, and more than a score of their friends, entered the
settlement with all the care and circumlocution of Indians. Nuck and Lot
Breckenridge had joined the party at supper time in a certain rendezvous
of Allen's in the woods, having hidden their canoe and traps on the bank
of the Otter several miles away. The attacking force of Green Mountain
Boys was heavily armed and might have been bound upon an expedition
against Fort Ticonderoga itself, one might imagine. But a show of force
was thought to be necessary to overawe the Yorkers who made up more than
half the population of the village.

The Green Mountain Boys awakened nobody in their approach to the house
of Justice Spencer, until the leader himself thundered at the door and
demanded that the New York official come down. After some parley, and
seeing that there was no help for his case, Spencer descended and, as
the next day was Sunday and nothing could be done then, the prisoner was
hidden in the house of Mr. Green, some mile and a half from the
settlement, until Monday morning. Early on that day, a still larger
force of Grants men having gathered, as well as settlers whose titles
had been derived from New York, Justice Spencer was taken to the door of
his own house and tried.

The inquest, with Allen, Warner, Baker, and Cochran, sitting in
judgment, was carried forward with all due formality, although the
judges were the principal accusers of the prisoners, and the sentence
was finally pronounced that the prisoner's house be burned and he
himself give his bond to not again act as a New York justice. At this
the doughty justice broke down, for he plainly saw that his captors were
quite able, and in the mind, to carry out the sentence. He told the
court that if his house were burned his store of dry go