Montgomery now placed garrisons in Montreal, St. Johns and Chamblee, and made final preparations for descending the St. Lawrence, and co-operating with Arnold against Quebec. To his disappointment and deep chagrin, he found but a handful of his troops disposed to accompany him. Some pleaded ill health; the term of enlistment of many had expired, and they were bent on returning home; and others, who had no such excuses to make, became exceedingly turbulent, and indeed mutinous. Nothing but a sense of public duty, and gratitude to Congress for an unsought commission, had induced Montgomery to engage in the service; wearied by the continual vexations which beset it, he avowed, in a letter to Schuyler, his determination to retire as soon as the intended expedition against Quebec was finished. “Will not your health permit you to reside at Montreal this winter?” writes he to Schuyler; “I must go home, if I walk by the side of the lake. I am weary of power, and totally want that patience and temper so requisite for such a command.” Much of the insubordination of the troops he attributed to the want of tact and cultivation in their officers; who had been suddenly advanced from inferior stations and coarse employments. “An affair happened yesterday,” writes he to Schuyler on the 24th of November, “which had very near sent me home. A number of officers presumed to remonstrate against the indulgence I had given some of the king’s troops. Such an insult I could not bear, and immediately resigned. To-day they qualified it by such an apology, as put it in my power to resume the command.” In the same spirit he writes: “I wish some method could be fallen upon for engaging _gentlemen_ to serve. A point of honor and more knowledge of the world, to be found in that class of men, would greatly reform discipline, and render the troops much more tractable.” The troops which had given Montgomery so much annoyance and refused to continue with him in Canada, soon began to arrive at Ticonderoga. Schuyler, in a letter to Congress, gives a half querulous, half humorous account of their conduct. “About three hundred of the troops raised in Connecticut, passed here within a few days. An unhappy home sickness prevails. These all came down as invalids, not one willing to re-engage for the winter’s service; and, unable to get any work done by them, I discharged them _en groupe_. Of all the specifics ever invented for _any_, there is none so efficacious as a discharge for _this_ prevailing disorder. No sooner was it administered but it perfected the cure of nine out of ten; who, refusing to wait for boats to go by the way of Lake George, slung their heavy packs, crossed the lake at this place, and undertook a march of two hundred miles with the greatest good will and alacrity.”