that the British were aware of the fall of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, and that troops were apparently on the move toward Saint-Jean. Arnold decided to act immediately. Rowing all night, Arnold and 35 of his men brought their bateaux near the fort. After a brief scouting excursion, they surprised the small garrison at the fort, and seized supplies there, along with , a seventy-ton sloop-of-war. Warned by their captives that several companies were on their way from Chambly, they loaded the more valuable supplies and cannons on the George, which Arnold renamed the . Boats that they could not take were sunk, and the enlarged fleet returned to Lake Champlain. This activity was observed by Moses Hazen, a retired British officer who lived near the fort. Hazen rode to Montreal to report the action to the local military commander, and then continued on to Quebec City, where he reported the news to General Carleton on May 20. Major Charles Preston and 140 men were immediately dispatched from Montreal to Saint-Jean in response to Hazen's warning. Fifteen miles out on the lake, Arnold's fleet met Allen's, which was still heading north. After an exchange of celebratory gunfire, Arnold opened his stores to feed Allen's men, who had rowed in open boats without provisions. Allen, believing he could seize and hold Fort Saint-Jean, continued north, while Arnold sailed south. Allen arrived at Saint-Jean on May 19, where he was warned that British troops were approaching by a sympathetic Montreal merchant who had raced ahead of those troops on horseback. Allen, after penning a message for the merchant to deliver to the citizens of Montreal, returned to Ticonderoga on May 21, leaving Saint-Jean just as the British forces arrived. In Allen's haste to escape the arriving troops, three men were left behind; one was captured, but the other two eventually returned south by land. Aftermath Ethan Allen and his men eventually drifted away from Ticonderoga, especially once the alcohol began to run out, and Arnold largely controlled affairs from a base at Crown Point. He oversaw the fitting of the two large ships, eventually taking command of Enterprise because of a lack of knowledgeable seamen. His men began rebuilding Ticonderoga's barracks, and worked to extract armaments from the rubble of the two forts and build gun carriages for them. Connecticut sent about 1,000 men under Colonel Benjamin Hinman to hold Ticonderoga, and