It happened, that at this time, while Washington was considering the expediency of sending this expedition, the Congress had under consideration the subject of disarming the Tories in Queen's County, Long Island, where the people had refused to elect members to the Provincial Convention.[78] Two battalions of minute-men had been ordered to enter that county, at its opposite sides, on the same day, and to disarm every inhabitant who had voted against choosing members to the Convention.[79] A part of these orders were suddenly countermanded, and in place of the minute-men from Connecticut, three companies were ordered to be detailed for this service from the command of Lord Stirling. This change in the original plan was made on the 10th of January; and when Washington received notice of it from Lee, he seems to have understood it as an abandonment of the whole scheme of the expedition,--a course which he deeply regretted.[80] He thought, that the period had arrived when nothing less than the most decisive measures ought to be pursued; that the enemies of the country were sufficiently numerous on the other side of the Atlantic, and that it was highly important to have as few internal ones as possible. But supposing that Congress had changed their determination, he directed Lee to disband his troops so soon as circumstances would in his judgment admit of it.[81] Lee was at this time at Stamford in Connecticut, with a body of about twelve hundred men, whom he had raised in that colony, preparing to march to New York to execute the different purposes for which he had been detached. On the 22d of January,--the day before the date of General Washington's letter to him directing him to disband his forces,--he had written to the President of Congress, urging in the strongest terms the expediency of seizing and disarming the Tories;[82] and he immediately communicated to Washington the fact of his having done so. Washington wrote again on the 30th, informing Lee that General Clinton had gone from Boston on some expedition with four or five hundred men; that there was reason to believe that this expedition had been sent on the application of Tryon, the royal Governor of New York, who, with a large body of the inhabitants, would probably join it; and that the Tories ought, therefore, to be disarmed at once, and the principal persons among them seized. He also expressed the hope that Congress would empower General Lee to act conformably to both their wishes; but that, if they should order differently, their directions must be obeyed.[83]