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Rh  (q.v.) and some of the other leaders seemed inclined to accept these overtures, but for various reasons, the chief of which was the general success of the American cause, the scheme was soon abandoned. The difficulties with New Hampshire were adjusted in 1782, the west bank of the Connecticut being accepted as the final boundary, but New York refused to abandon her claims until 1790. In the meantime, Vermont continued as an independent state without any recognition from Congress until its admission into the Union on the 4th of March 1791. The legislature wandered about from town to town until 1808, when the capital was permanently located at Montpelier. In presidential campaigns the state has been Federalist, 1792–1800; Democratic-Republican, 1804–1820; Adams-Republican, 1824–1828; Anti-Masonic, 1832; Whig, 1836–1852; and Republican since 1856. During the War of 1812 Vermont troops took part in the battles of Chippewa, Lundy’s Lane, Lake Erie and Plattsburgh; but the only engagement in the state itself was the defence of Fort Cassin (at the mouth of Otter Creek in the N.W. corner of the present Addison county) in 1813. On the 19th of October 1864 a small band of Confederate soldiers under Lieutenant B.H. Young crossed the frontier from Canada and raided the town of St Albans. A few of the inhabitants were wounded and one was killed and about $200,000 was taken from the vaults of the local banks. St Albans was also the headquarters of an attempted Fenian invasion of Canada in 1870. Since 1815 a considerable proportion of the native stock has migrated to the W., but the loss has been partially offset by an influx of French Canadians. The wool-growing industry has been almost entirely destroyed by the competition of Australia and the West, and the people are now engaged mainly in dairy-farming, timbering, granite- and marble-quarrying, and in keeping summer boarders.

.—For physical description and material on minerals see the Report on the Geology of Vermont: Descriptive, Theoretical, Economical and Scenographical (2 vols., Claremont, N.H., 1861); G. H. Perkins, Reports of the State Geologist, especially vols. iv., v., vi., new series (Concord, N.H., 1904, 1906, 1908); and &ldquo;Underground Waters of Vermont&rdquo; in Water Supply and Irrigation Paper No. 114 (Washington, 1905) of the U.S. Geological Survey; T. Nelson Dale, The Granites of Vermont (ibid., 1909), an abstract of which appears in the sixth volume of the state Report mentioned above; and Henry M. Seely, &ldquo;The Geology of Vermont,&rdquo; pp. 53-67, vol. 5 (1901) of The Vermonter.

For the government of the state see The Revised Laws of Vermont (Rutland, 1881); the Vermont Legislative Directory, published biennially at Montpelier; the biennial reports of the secretary of state, the auditor, the treasurer, the commissioner of state taxes, the superintendent of education, the supervisors of the insane, &c., and the annual reports of the inspector of finance. See also L. H. Meader, The Council of Censors (Providence, 1899); F. A. Wood, The History of Taxation in Vermont (New York, 1894), and G. G. Bush, History of Education in Vermont (Washington, 1900).

For a general bibliography of Vermont history see M. D. Gilman, Bibliography of Vermont (Burlington, 1897). The standard authorities for the period before 1791 are: Ira Allen, Natural and Political History of the State of Vermont (London, 1898); B. H. Hall, History of Eastern Vermont to the Close of the Eighteenth Century (2 vols., New York, 1858, 2nd ed., Albany, 1865); and Hiland Hall, History of Vermont from its Discovery to its Admission into the Union in 1791 (Albany, 1868). A more recent book, based almost entirely on these three, but containing a few sketchy supplementary chapters, is R. E. Robinson, Vermont (Boston, 1892) in the &ldquo;American Commonwealths&rdquo; Series. See also Records of the Council of Safety and Governor and Council of Vermont (8 vols., Montpelier, 1873–1880); Vermont Historical Society, Collections (2 vols., Montpelier, 1870–1871); Proceedings (1 vol., Montpelier, 1898); and Report of the Regents of the University of New York on the Boundaries of the State of New York (2 vols., Albany, 1874–1884).

VERMOREL, AUGUSTE JEAN MARIE (1841–1871), French journalist, was born at Denicé, France, on the 21st of June 1841. A radical and socialist, he was attached to the staff of the Presse (1864) and the Liberté (1866). In the latter year he was appointed editor of the Courrier Français, and his attacks on the government in that organ led to his imprisonment. In 1869 he was editor of the Réforme, and was again imprisoned for denouncing the government. On the overthrow of the Empire in 1870 he was released and took an active part in the Commune. He was dangerously wounded while fighting at the barricades, taken prisoner and removed to Versailles, where he died on the 20th of June 1871.

VERMOUTH, an alcoholic beverage, the basis of which consists of a fortified and aromatized white wine. The best French vermouth is made from the white wines of the Hérault district. The wine is fortified with spirit up to a strength of about 15% of alcohol, and is then stored in casks exposed to the sun’s rays for a year or two. Another portion of the wine is fortified up to a strength of about 50% of alcohol, and in this various aromatic and tonic materials are macerated, in casks which are exposed to the sun in the same way as the bulk of the wine. The two liquids are then mixed in such proportions as to make the strength of the ultimate product about 17% of alcohol by volume. Excellent vermouth is also manufactured in Italy, the produce of that country being generally of a “sweet,” that made in France of a “dry” type.

VERNACULAR (Lat. verno, dim. vernaculus, a slave born in his master’s house), a term meaning native or indigenous, belonging to the country where a person is born. The word is practically confined in English usage to language, whether of the country as a whole or of particular dialects or idioms.