With this arrangement the Connecticut troops were made acquainted, and, as the time of most of them would not be out before the 10th, they were ordered to remain in camp until relieved. Their officers assured Washington that he need apprehend no defection on the part of their men; they would not leave the lines. The officers themselves were probably mistaken in their opinion of their men, for on the 1st of December, many of the latter, some of whom belonged to Putnam’s regiment, resolved to go home immediately. Efforts were made to prevent them, but in vain; several carried off with them their arms and ammunition. Washington sent a list of their names to Governor Trumbull. “I submit it to your judgment,” writes he, “whether an example should not be made of these men who have deserted the cause of their country at this critical juncture, when the enemy are receiving reinforcements?” We anticipate the reply of Governor Trumbull, received several days subsequently. “The late extraordinary and reprehensible conduct of some of the troops of this colony,” writes he, “impresses me, and the minds of many of our people, with great surprise and indignation, since the treatment they met with, and the order and request made to them, were so reasonable, and apparently necessary for the defence of our common cause, and safety of our rights and privileges, for which they freely engaged.” We will here add, that the homeward-bound warriors seem to have run the gauntlet along the road; for their conduct on quitting the army drew upon them such indignation, that they could hardly get any thing to eat on their journey, and when they arrived at home they met with such a reception (to the credit of the Connecticut women be it recorded), that many were soon disposed to return again to the camp.[30] On the very day after the departure homeward of these troops, and while it was feared their example would be contagious, a long, lumbering train of waggons, laden with ordnance and military stores, and decorated with flags, came wheeling into the camp escorted by continental troops and country militia. They were part of the cargo of a large brigantine laden with munitions of war, captured and sent in to Cape Ann by the schooner Lee, Captain Manly, one of the cruisers sent out by Washington. “Such universal joy ran through the whole camp,” writes an officer, “as if each one grasped a victory in his own hands.” Beside the ordnance captured, there were two thousand stand of arms, one hundred thousand flints, thirty thousand round shot, and thirty-two tons of musket balls. “Surely nothing,” writes Washington, “ever came more _apropos_.”