Vermont kept small garrisons in the forts at Rutland, Castleton, and Pittsford, and the militia in readiness to turn out in force when required, while two companies of rangers patrolled the frontier to watch the movements of the enemy. Her troops responded promptly to calls to act against the common enemy, as was proved when, to intercept the marauding force of Sir John Johnson, which had been ravaging the Mohawk Valley, Governor Clinton marched with the militia of Albany to Lake George, and sent an express to the commanding officer at Castleton to meet him at Ticonderoga with such force as he could muster. A day later, Ebenezer Allen, now major of the Vermont rangers, sent him word that he had arrived at Mount Independence with more than two hundred men, and was expecting a hundred more to join him, trusting that the governor would furnish boats to transport them across the lake. Johnson slipped by to the northward and escaped, but Clinton wrote to the New York delegates in Congress that the punctuality of the "militia of the Grants in complying with his request with 240 men did them great honor." When, early in October, 1780, the British, as already stated, came up the lake with eight large vessels and more than a thousand men, their designs were against New York and not against Vermont, as the British policy was then to favor Vermont, with a view to future operations. Fort Anne was taken, and Fort George shared the same fate after the greater part of its garrison, consisting of eighty men of Warner's Continental Regiment under Captain Chipman, had been killed or captured by a superior force of the enemy, which they encountered when expecting to meet only a scout that had driven in one of their messengers sent to Fort Edward. Marking its course with destruction, this invasion of the enemy created such a panic on the New York frontier that but few men could be raised there to oppose it. In this alarm, Governor Clinton so far acknowledged the existence of the "ideal Vermont State" as to direct an officer to write to Governor Chittenden for assistance.[87] He was immediately answered that the militia of the State were at the North, but the militia of Berkshire, which had been sent for, would be forwarded on their arrival. Before the pacific intentions of the British were known, the militia of Vermont were called out. They immediately mustered at Castleton under General Ethan Allen, and the assembly, then in session at Bennington, adjourned, that the members might take the field. Vermont, late in October, agreed to the truce, when her militia were dismissed, save a small force of scouts.