of their passports, they traversed all the American posts without molestation.

They arrived, uninterrupted, a little beyond Pines-bridge, a village situated on the Croton; they had not, however, crossed the lines, although they could descry the ground occupied by the English vedettes. Smith, looking all around, and perceiving no one, said to André,-" You are safe, good bye," and retook at full speed, the road by which they had come. André, on his part, believing himself out of danger, and all further precaution superfluous, put spurs to his horse. He had proceeded four leagues onward with the same good fortune; he could see the Hudson once more, and was about entering Tarrytown, the border village, when a man, armed with a gun, sprung suddenly from the thickets, and seizing the reins of his bridle, exclaimed, "Where are you bound?" At the same moment, two others ran up who were armed in like manner, and formed with the first, part of the patrol of volunteer militia that guarded the lines. They were not in uniform, and André, preoccupied by the idea that he was no longer on enemy's ground, thought that they must be of his own party. It did not, therefore, occur to him to show them his passport, which was sufficient to deceive Americans, and could not alter his destination, if those who arrested him were of the English side.

Instead of answering their question, he asked them in his turn," Where they belonged to?" They replied, " to below," words referring to the course of the river, and implying that they were of the English party. "And so do I," said André, confirmed in his mistake by this stratagem. "I am," continued he, in a tone of command," an English officer on urgent business, and I do not wish to be longer detained." "You belong to our enemies," was the rejoinder," and we arrest you.

André, struck with astonishment at this unexpected language presented his passport; but this paper, after the confession he had just made, only served to render his case more suspicious. He offered them gold, his horse, and promised them large rewards, and permanent provision from the English government, if they would let him escape. These young men, whom such offers did but animate the more in their duty, replied that they wanted nothing. They drew off his boots, and detected the fatal papers. They no longer hesitated to carry him before Colonel Jameson, who commanded the out-posts. He claimed still, when questioned by that officer, the name of Anderson which was in his passport, and evinced no discomposure; he had recovered all his presence of mind, and forgetful of his own danger, thought only of Arnold's, and of the means of extricating him. To apprize him of it safely, he begged Jameson to inform the commanding officer of West-Point that Ander

son, the bearer of his passport, was detained. Jameson thought it more simple to order him to be conducted to Arnold. He was already on the way, and the thread of the conspiracy was about to be resumed in the interview of the accomplices, when the American Colonel recollecting that the papers found upon the prisoner were in the hand writing of Arnold himself, and adverting to the several extraordinary features of the business, sent, in all haste, after the pretended Anderson, and had him conveyed, under guard, to Öld Salem.

He despatched, at the same time, an express to Washington, charged with a letter containing a circumstantial account of this affair, and with the draughts, and other papers taken from the prisoner. But the commander in chief, who set out on the same day the 23d of September, to return to his army, had pursued a different route from that by which he went to Hartford, and the messenger was compelled to retrace his steps without having seen him. This delay proved the salvation of Arnold.

Jameson was a gallant soldier, but a man of an irresolute temper and of no great sagacity: moreover, treachery on the part of Arnold, appeared impossible to one of an ingenuous and honourable character. He began to view his first suspicions as an outrage to an officer distinguished as Arnold was, by so many noble exploits, and wishing to reconcile the deference due to him, with the performance of his own duty, he wrote him, that Anderson, the bearer of his passport, had been arrested on the 23d.

Arnold did not receive this intimation until the morning of the 25th: it was on a Monday, and the same, or the following day, had been selected for the consummation of the plot. Until that moment, he had believed success infallible. The exhilaration which this belief produced, was even remarked, and he pretended that it was occasioned by the speedy arrival of his general, "for whom he had pleasant news." He was busy with the appropriate arrangements for the reception of a body of more welcome visiters, when he received the letter of Jameson. Those who were present on the occasion, recollected afterwards, that he could not, at first, conceal his dismay and extreme agitation; but that recovering himself quickly, he said in a loud voice, that he would write an answer; and, dismissing all about him, withdrew, to reflect on the course which it was best to adopt.

The commander in chief might be absent yet a day or two:Jameson alone could have conceived suspicions; and such a man as Arnold, could find means of sealing his lips;-the enterprise had not then irretrievably failed. Until now, he had enjoyed the advantage of being without a confidant, and of having nothing to fear from the indiscretion or pusillanimity of any one: But this vicissitude gave a new face to things; and it was only by the aid of trusty persons, that he could effect the liberation of

André, and turn to account the residue of Washington's absence. He was, as various indications contributed to prove, still revolving these thoughts in his mind, without being able to come to any determination, when two American officers interrupted his musings.

They were sent by the commander in chief, and informed Arnold, that he had arrived that morning at Fishkill, a few leagues from West-Point, that he was to have set out a short ' time after them, and could not be far distant.

Thus did the most alarming circumstances rapidly succeed for each other. There was no room for further deliberation. The traitor had no alternative but a precipitate flight, to save him from an ignominious end. Suppressing his emotion, he told the two officers, that he wished to go and meet the general alone, and begged them not to follow him. He then entered the apartment of his wife, exclaiming-" All is discovered:-André is a priso"ner: The commander in chief will soon know every thing:"The discharge of cannon which you hear, is a salute, and an"nounces that he is not far off:-Burn all my papers:-I fly to New "York." He embraced her, as well as their infant child, whom she carried in her arms, and solely intent on his escape, left her, without waiting for her reply; mounted the horse of one of the two officers, and rushed towards the Hudson, from which his house was removed but a small distance. He had taken the precaution to have always ready a barge well manned:-he threw himself headlong into it, and caused the boatmen to make for the English sloop with all possible despatch. The barge bearing a flag of truce, was still visible from the heights, when Washington arrived. The two officers related to him, what they had witnessed. Arnold had absconded.. His wife in the agonies of despair, seemed to fear for her infant, and maintained an obstinate silence: No one knew how to explain these extraordinary incidents. The commander in chief repaired, without delay, to the fort of West-Point, where, however, he could learn nothing of a decisive import.

But some orders, issued by Arnold the day before, redoubled his suspicions: he returned to the quarters of the general, and at this instant Jameson's messenger presented himself and delivered the packet with which he was charged. Washington seemed, for a few minutes, as it were overwhelmed by the discovery of a crime which extinguished the glory of an American general, and wounded the honour of the American army. Those who were near him, anxiously interrogating his looks, kept, like him, a silence of astonishment. He broke it by saying "I thought "that an officer of courage and ability, who had often shed "his blood for his country, was entitled to confidence, and "I gave him mine. I am convinced now, and for the rest "of my life, that we should never trust those who are wanting

"in probity, whatever abilities they may possess.-Arnold has "betrayed us."

At these words, a kind of stupor seized all the auditors:They listened, with dismay, to the circumstances of the danger just past:-They were uncertain whether other perils. were not to be apprehended:-it was asked, whether the traitor might not have accomplices:-but, at the same time, the sentiment appeared to be unanimous, that he could not have found a single one in the United States. Washington himself was amazed at the security into which he had been lulled; and seemed to look back upon it with contrition as a remissness in the execution of the duties prescribed by his station: But all voices were raised at once to dissipate this scruple, and to applaud him for not having imagined a companion in arms, capable of so foul a treason. Meanwhile, the precautions required by the occasion were every where taken: General Heath, a faithful and vigilant officer, was substituted for Arnold, at West-Point: the commanders of the other posts, were admonished to be on their guard. Greene, who had been invested with the command of the army during the absence of Washington, recalled within the forts, the garrisons which the traitor had dispersed, and marched a strong division near to the lines. Hamilton lost not an instant in repairing to King's ferry, the last American post on the side of New York. He had the mortification to learn, that a very short time before his arrival, Arnold's barge had glided by with the swiftness of an arrow, and was then getting alongside the Vulture, some miles lower down, opposite Teller's point, an anchorage situated at the head of the great basin of the Hudson, which is called Tappan Bay. Livingston had remarked the barge that carried the fugitive, and, his suspicions being roused by the strange movements of the two or three days previous, would have stopped it, had not the sailors of his spy-boats been ashore when it passed.

It was, at first, thought impossible, that the two aid-de-camps of Arnold, colonel Warrick and major David Franks, should not have been initiated into the plot. They were asked if they had not observed the clandestine messages between Arnold and the English; if the dispositions made for the purpose of disarming the forts had not attracted their attention. They answered, that their general enjoyed the confidence of the commander in chief; that they had perceived nothing in his actions contrary to military laws and regulations; that they would have been the more backward to scrutinize his conduct, as they owed him obedience and lived in his family. Warrick was completely exculpated: David Franks was acquitted.

Messengers were sent to all the states of the Union and to the French general, to inform them of this event. The express who bore the news to congress travelled with such rapidity that he

reached Philadelphia on the same day that the discovery was made in the camp. The magistrates were immediately directed to enter the house of Arnold and to seize and examine his papers. They found nothing there relating to the conspiracy; but he had left memorandums which furnished ample proof that he was guilty of the extortions and peculation of which he had been accused two years before. Among the members of the committee charged with this search, there happened to be one of those men whom a natural restlessness and an inordinate zeal deprive of all discretion and delicacy; and who, to serve their political sect, will not scruple to go all lengths of severity and harshness against the opposite party. He found, in the apartment of Mrs. Arnold, some letters in which the Chevalier de La Luzerne was roughly handled. They were brought to this minister. He consigned them to the flames, without having read them.

The Committee found, also, several letters of André to this lady about indifferent matters; but, they were written from New-York and by an enemy. A few of the members advised that they should be made the subject of an accusation against her. The magistrate who, two years previous, had arraigned and prosecuted Arnold before congress, said to the most urgent of these advisers:-"Mrs. Arnold is an excellent "wife and a good mother; she is unhappy enough; do not let "us trouble her respecting her political sentiments."

Other particulars of the conduct observed towards her, exemplify more fully the national spirit and character. I shall proceed to mention the chief of them.

When her husband left her, in the manner I have described, to make his retreat to New-York, she fainted, and her servants were apprised of the circumstance only by the cries of the child whom she fed at the breast. Her senses returned on the application of the proper remedies; but abandoned as she was by her husband, in the midst of a people and an army whom he had so basely betrayed, it may be imagined that she suffered. ineffable anguish. She trembled lest he should have been arrested in his flight, and in the distraction of her fears, earnestly solicited his pardon. Washington had the delicate kindness to inform her that her husband had escaped his pursuers. Arnold thought only of her, as soon as he saw himself in safety. He wrote immediately, from on board the Vulture, the following letter to the commander-in-chief.

"September 25, 1780.

"SIR,-The heart which is conscious of its own rectitude, cannot attempt to palliate a step which the world may consider as wrong. I have ever acted from a principle of love of my country, since the commencement of the present unhappy con