of the lawless region in which all three had taken refuge
and which afterwards became Vermont. Ethan Allen, the
gigantic leader of the wild Green Mountain Boys, had a
price on his head. Seth Warner, his assistant, was an
outlaw of a somewhat humbler kind. Benedict Arnold, the
third invader, came from Connecticut. He was a horse-dealer
carrying on business with Quebec and Montreal as well as
the West Indies. He was just thirty-four; an excellent
rider, a dead shot, a very fair sailor, and captain of
a crack militia company. Immediately after the affair at
Lexington he had turned out his company, reinforced by
undergraduates from Yale, had seized the New Haven powder
magazine and marched over to Cambridge, where the
Massachusetts Committeemen took such a fancy to him that
they made him a colonel on the spot, with full authority
to raise men for an immediate attack on Ticonderoga. The
opportunity seemed too good to be lost; though the
Continental Congress was not then in favour of attacking
Canada, as its members hoped to see the Canadians throw
off the yoke of empire on their own account. The British
posts on Lake Champlain were absurdly undermanned.
Ticonderoga contained two hundred cannon, but only forty
men, none of whom expected an attack. Crown Point had
only a sergeant and a dozen men to watch its hundred and
thirteen pieces. Fort George, at the head of Lake George,
was no better off; and nothing more had been done to man
the fortifications at St Johns on the Richelieu, where
there was an excellent sloop as well as many cannon in
charge of the usual sergeant's guard. This want of
preparation was no fault of Carleton's. He had frequently