"but is there an individual in the enjoyment of it, saving your oppressors? Who among you dare speak or write what he thinks against the tyranny which has robbed you of your property, imprisons your persons, drags you to the field of battle, and is daily deluging your country with your blood?" Again, "what is America now but a land of widows, orphans and beggars? As to you who have been soldiers in the continental army, can you at this day want evidence that the funds of your country are exhausted, or that the managers have applied them to their own private uses? In either case, you surely can no longer continue in their service with honor and advantage. Yet you have hitherto been their supporters in that cruelty which, with an equal indifference to yours as well as to the labor and blood of others, is devouring a country that from the moment you quit their colors will be redeemed from their tyranny.' These proclamations failed of the effect which they were designed to produce, and notwithstanding all the hardships, sufferings and irritations which the Americans were called to encounter, "Arnold remains the solitary instance of an American officer who abandoned the side first embraced in the contest, and turned his sword on his former companions in arms. "I am mistaken," says Washington in a letter to a friend, "if at this time Arnold is undergoing the torments of a mental hell. From some traits of his character which have lately come to my knowledge, he seems to have been so hacknied in crime, so lost to all sense of honor and shame, that while his faculties still enable him to continue his sordid pursuits, there will be no time for remorse." "This man," says Hamilton, "is in every sense despicable. In addition to the scene of knavery and prostitution during his command at Philadelphia, which the late seizure of his papers has unfolded, the history of his command at West Point is a history of little as well as of great villanies. He practised every dirty act of peculation, and even stooped to connections with the sutlers of the garrison to defraud the public." A respectable officer, in a letter to a friend, speaks of Arnold in the following language. "It is not possible for human nature to receive a greater quantity of guilt than he possesses. Perhaps there is not a single obligation, moral or divine, but what he has broken through. It is discovered now, that in his most early infancy, hell marked him for her own, and infused into him a full proportion of her own malice. His late apostacy is the summit of his character. He began his negociations with the enemy, to deliver up West Point to them, long before he was invest ed with the command of it, and whilst he was still in Phila delphia; after which, he solicited the command of that post from the ostensible cause that the wound in his leg incapa citated him for an active command in the field." His papers contain the most authentic and incontestible proofs of his crime, and that he regarded his important employments only as affording him opportunities to pillage the public with im punity. The crimes of this unprincipled conspirator are thus summed up. Treason, avarice, hypocricy, ingratitude, barbarity, falsehood, deception, peculation and robbery. He aimed to plunge a dagger into the bosom of his country, which had raised him from the obscurity in which he was born, to honors which never could have been the object even of his hopes. He robbed his country at the time of her deepest distress, having directed his wife to draw all she could from the commissaries' store, and sell or store it, though at a time when the army was destitute of provisions. He robbed the soldiers when they were in want of necessaries, and defrauded his own best friends who trusted and had rendered him the most essential services. He spoke contemptuously of our allies, the French, and his illiberal abuse of every character opposed to his fraudulent and wicked transactions, exceeds all description. For the sake of human nature it were to be wished that a veil could forever be thrown over such a vile example of depravity and wickedness. An effigy of Arnold, large as life, was constructed by an artist at Philadelphia, and seated in a cart, with the figure of the devil at his elbow, holding a lantern up to the face of the traitor to show him to the people, having his name and crime in capi tal letters. The cart was paraded the whole evening through the streets of the city with drums and fifes playing the rogue's march, with other marks of infamy, and was at tended by a vast concourse of people. The effigy was finally hanged for the want of the original, and then committed to the flames. Yet this is the man on whom the British have bestowed ten thousand pounds sterling as the price of his treason, and appointed to the rank of brigadier general in their service. It could scarcely be imagined that there was an officer of honor left in that army, who would debase himself and his commission by serving under or ranking with Benedict Arnold! In January, 1781, Arnold was by Sir Henry Clinton invested with the command of one thousand seven hundred men, supported by a naval force, on an expe rendition to Virginia, where he committed extensive ravages on the rivers and along the unprotected coast, plundering the plantations to the extent of his power. According to report, he shipped off a cargo of negroes, which he had stolen, to Jamaica, and sold them for his own emolument. Having taken an American captain prisoner, he inquired of him, what the Americans would do with him if he should fall into their hands; the officer replied, they would cut off the leg spirt that was wounded at Saratoga and bury it with the honors of war, and hang the remainder of his body on a gibbet. In September, 1781, Arnold was again vested with a command is co and sent on a predatory expedition against New London, in Connecticut, his native state. After taking possession of the fort, they made a merciless slaughter of the men who defendof ed it, and destroyed an immense quantity of provision, stores isher and shipping; sixty dwelling houses and eighty four stores were destroyed, and about one hundred inhabitants were deprived of their habitations, and most of them of their all. This terminated the career of this monster of wickedness in America. At the close of the war, he accompanied the Croyal army to England. "The contempt that followed him and he ject ab through life," says a late elegant writer,* " is further illused t trated by the speech of the present Lord Lauderdale, who, perceiving Arnold on the right hand of the king, and near his person, as he addressed his parliament, declared, on his return to the commons, that however gracious the language he had heard from the throne, his indignation could not but be highly excited, at beholding, as he had done, his majesty supported by a traitor." "And on another occasion, Lord Surry, since duke of Norfolk, rising to speak in the house of commons, and perceiving Arnold in the gallery, sat down with precipitation, exclaiming, I will not speak while that man,' pointing to him, is in the house."" ·fair He purchased in England a quantity of goods which he brought over to New Brunswick; the store and goods took fire, and the whole were consumed; but according to report, they were insured to a much greater amount than their real value. After this event no further laurels remained for him to achieve; he recrossed the Atlantic, and died in London, June 14th, 1801. * Alexander Garden, Esquire. Anecdotes of the Revolutionary War. Whig and tory Parliament impose a duty on tea-a cargo of tea destroyed in Boston unite and be invincible Liberty poles erected, tories disciplined Town of Boston invested The British practise the maxim, divide and conquer-We enjoin, New England clergy advocate whig principles General Gage's proclamation declaring the Province of Massachu- Attempts to dissuade the author from engaging in the army The author repairs to the Provincial Congress and offers himself a Battle on Breed's hill-General Warren slain Visits the forefathers' rock at Plymouth Result of the battle The author passes a medical examination and is appointed to the -- General Washington appointed Commander in Chief-Arrives at Generals Lee and Gates arrive at Cambridge View of General Washington 33 Cannonade from our works and from the enemy Congress issue paper money Riflemen arrive at camp, their expert shooting Dr. Benjamin Church detected in a treacherous correspondence with the enemy ib. 34 PAGE 5 9 11 14 ib. ib. ib. ib. 25 30 1 |