In 1779, Lord George Germain, the British Secretary of State for the Colonies, instructed General Sir Henry Clinton, the military commander-in-chief in North America, and Haldimand, then serving as governor of Quebec, to open negotiations with the Vermonters over the possibility of establishing Vermont as a separate British province [REF].
The first documented communication was a letter sent to Ethan Allen in March 1780 by Beverley Robinson, a noted New York Loyalist.