While these events were taking place, Colonel Seth Warner was bringing the rear-guard across the lake, and was immediately sent with a hundred men to take possession of the fort at Crown Point, in which were only a sergeant and twelve men.  This was done without difficulty, and a hundred more cannon captured.

The dispute between Arnold and Allen was now renewed, Massachusetts supporting the one, Connecticut the other.  While it was being settled, the two joined in an expedition together, with the purpose of gaining full possession of Lake Champlain, and seizing the town of St. Johns, at its head.  This failed, reinforcements having been sent from Montreal, and the adventurers returned to Ticonderoga, contenting themselves for the time being with their signal success in that quarter, and the fame on which they counted from their daring exploit.

The after-career of Ethan Allen was an interesting one, and worthy of being briefly sketched.  Having taken Ticonderoga, he grew warm with the desire to take Canada, and, on September 25, 1775, made a rash assault on Montreal with an inadequate body of men.  The support he hoped for was not forthcoming, and he and his little band were taken, Allen, soon after, being sent in chains to England.

Here he attracted much attention, his striking form, his ardent patriotism, his defiance of the English, even in captivity, and certain eccentricities of his manner and character interesting some and angering others of those with whom he had intercourse.

Afterwards he was sent back to America and held prisoner at Halifax and New York, in jails and prison-ships, being most of the time harshly treated and kept heavily ironed.  He was released in 1778.

A fellow-prisoner, Alexander Graydon, has left in his memoirs a sketch of Allen, which gives us an excellent idea of the man.  “His figure was that of a robust, large-framed man worn down by confinement and hard fare....  His style was a singular compound of local barbarisms, scriptural phrases, and Oriental wildness....  Notwithstanding that Allen might have had something of the insubordinate, lawless, frontier spirit in his composition, he appeared to me to be a man of generosity and honor.”

Among the eccentricities of the man was a disbelief in Christianity,—­much more of an anomaly in that day than at present,—­and a belief in the transmigration of souls, it being one of his fancies that, after death, his spiritual part was to return to this world in the form of a large white horse.

On his release he did not join the army.  Vermont had declared itself an independent State in 1777, and sought admittance to the Confederation.  This New York opposed.  Allen took up the cause, visited Congress on the subject, but found its members not inclined to offend the powerful State of New York.  There was danger of civil war in the midst of the war for independence, and the English leaders, seeing