Yet, when confronted by the actual outbreak of war, they were sorely perplexed. Self-interest inclined them to hold aloof from a rupture with the mother country when king and privy council were considering, with apparent favor to them, their controversy with New York; while on the other hand the ties of birth strongly bound them to their brethren of New England, and every impulse of patriotism impelled them to espouse the cause of their common country. Soon after receiving the news of the battle of Lexington, which Ethan Allen says almost distracted them, the principal officers of the Green Mountain Boys, and other prominent leaders, met at Bennington, and in the council chamber of the Catamount Tavern "attempted to explore futurity;" though they "found it to be unfathomable,"[59] they resolved to unite with their countrymen, whom they doubted not would, in the event of a successful issue of the conflict, freely accord to them the rights which they demanded. Without any knowledge of what was already brewing in the Grants, some gentlemen of Connecticut, who on the 26th of April met Benedict Arnold on his way to Cambridge with a company of volunteers, learned from him the defenseless condition of Ticonderoga and the great number of cannon there, and at once formed a plan for its capture. To carry it out, they procured L300 from the treasury of Connecticut. This was given to Noah Phelps and Bernard Romans, who immediately set forward toward the Grants, where it was thought best most of the men should be raised. Just after their departure, Captain Mott arrived at Hartford and proposed the same enterprise, to procure artillery and stores for the people of Boston, and being apprised of what was already on foot, agreed to join in the expedition. He set forth next day with five others, and at Salisbury was joined by eleven more. Arrived at Pittsfield it was determined, by the advice of Colonel Easton and John Brown, just returned from his Canadian mission, to raise a number of men before reaching the Grants, where it was thought the scarcity of provisions and the poverty of the inhabitants would make it difficult to raise and equip a sufficient number. Accordingly about forty men were recruited and made ready to march, in Jericho and Williamstown, by Colonel Easton and Captain Mott, while the others went on to Bennington. When, after this service, Easton and Mott were on their way to the same place, they were met in the evening by an express from their people with the news that Ticonderoga was reinforced and its garrison alert, and with the advice that, as it could not be surprised, the men recruited would better be dismissed. The news was discredited, the advice unheeded, and the colonel and the captain held forward for Bennington, rejoining their companions and finding the leading men of the Grants there in conclave. Captain Mott told his hesitating friends that the "account they had