ambition to capture, he had only about eighty still following. He was returning to St. John’s next morning, and when two miles from Longueuil he met John Brown, now Colonel in command of a considerable force at La Prairie. These two, retiring to a house with some others, conceived the plan of attacking Montreal. The plan was for Brown with two hundred followers to cross over the St. Lawrence in canoes above the town, and Allen’s party below it; each would silently approach the gate at his end of the city; Brown’s party would give three Huzzas! Allen’s would respond and then both would fall to. It was a brilliant idea and elated Allen. Montreal, captured by a force of two to three thousand and the easy fall of the rest of Canada had been the vision put before congress often enough. “I still maintain my views,” says Colonel Easton before the congress of Massachusetts on June 6, 1775, “that policy demands that the colonies advance an army of two or three thousand men into Canada and environ Montreal. This will inevitably fix and confirm the Canadians and Indians in our interests.” On June 13, 1775, Benedict Arnold wrote to congress, sketching out a plan by which with an army of 2,000 men, Chambly and St. John’s should be cut off with 700 men, 300 more should guard the boats and the line of retreat and a grand division of 1,000 should appear before Montreal, whose gates on the arrival of the Americans were to be opened by friends there “in consequence of a plan for that purpose already entered into by them.” On May 29th Allen, over confident, had written to the Continental Congress: “Provided I had but 500 men with me at St. John’s when we took the king’s sloop, I would have advanced to Montreal.” On June 2d he wrote to the New York congress: “I will lay my life on it that with 1,500 men and a proper train of artillery I will take Montreal,” and on July 12th to Trumbull that if his Green Mountain Boys had not been formed into a battalion under certain regulations and command he would further “advance then into Canada and invest Montreal.” Here, then, was Allen to attempt to take the city of his dreams with a smaller force than his dreams provided for! He had forgotten, perhaps, that Carleton was in that city. He was elated that he had added about thirty English Americans to his force, but he was sorry that Thomas Walker had been communicated with at his home in L’Assomption. Night came on. Allen’s little fleet spent all the night being driven backward and forward by the currents, but at last after six crossings were made to land his men in the limited number of available boats, on the morning of the 25th the daring invaders were all landed at Longue Pointe. But they heard no Huzza! from Brown’s party from the other side of the city. Brown had either known better or was jealous of Ethan Allen’s desire to claim the capture of Montreal, as he had done that of Ticonderoga.