CHAPTER XXXVIII.

Enlisting of Troops in the East. - Camp at Boston. - General Artemas Ward. Scheme to surprise Ticonderoga. — New Hampshire Grants. Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys. - Benedict Arnold. — Affair of Ticonderoga and Crown Point. A Dash at St. John's.

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T the eastward, the march of the Revolution went on with accelerated speed. Thirty thousand men had been deemed necessary for the defense of the country. The provincial Congress of Massachusetts resolved to raise thirteen thousand six hundred, as its quota. Circular letters, also, were issued by the committee of safety, urging the towns to enlist troops with all speed, and calling for military aid from the other New England provinces.

Their appeals were promptly answered. Bodies of militia, and parties of volunteers from New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, hastened to join the minute men of Massachusetts in forming a camp in the neighborhood of Boston. With the troops of Connecticut, came Israel Putnam, having recently raised a regiment in that province, and received from its Assembly the commission of brigadier-general. Some of

his old comrades in French and Indian warfare, had hastened to join his standard. Such were