"You are commissioned to hold Ticonderoga," said the messenger, "and so prevent the British using it against us."
"That we will do. Warner, give orders that all the cannon and the ammunition we can spare be sent as rapidly as possible to the patriots. We must help them all we can."
"That is the right way to talk, colonel; I feel ever so much better now; there is a rope ready for my neck if I fail."
The messengers who brought the news from the patriots of Massachusetts were entertained right royally, and took back with them a good impression of Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys.
But it was not an opinion only that they took back with them, for they had an escort of fifty men, and with them were twenty heavy cannon, with good ammunition, and a promise of as many more heavy guns as soon as horses could be procured to haul them.
"Tell Gen. Gage, if you see him," said Allen, "that the rope which he has for Sam Adams must be long enough and strong enough for Ethan Allen and his Mountain Boys, for they will never surrender as long as they have strength to shoulder a musket or draw a sword."
The day after the men left for Boston a letter from the governor of New Hampshire was received by Allen, ordering him to return home and lay down his sword.
To this letter Allen replied:
"I will gladly lay down my sword, for I hate fighting, but cannot do so until England recognizes the independence of the colonies or until the people themselves have concluded an honorable peace with Great Britain."
Arnold contrived to send a letter to New Hampshire and one to New Haven, in which he reported the "treachery and tyranny of the man Ethan Allen."