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MAJOR ANDRE AND GENERAL ARNOLD, 



By J. STIRLING COYNE. 



IT was in the morning of a clear day in January 1779, that the 

 hitherto peaceful village of Morristown in New Jersey became the 

 theatre of a strange and imposing solemnity,- the trial by court- 

 martial of the brave and talented, but unprincipled, American 

 General Arnold, on charges of acts of extortion, rapine, and injus- 

 tice, committed during his recent military command in Philadelphia, 

 preferred against him by the executive council of that city. The 

 virtuous hero of America's new-born independence had been directed 

 by Congress to investigate the numerous allegations made by the 

 irritated inhabitants of Pennsylvania against Arnold, and it was in 

 pursuance of these instructions that Washington, assisted by the dis- 

 creetest of the bold hearts and unwarped minds by whom he was 

 surrounded, had summoned Arnold before a court composed of his 

 fellow-officers to reply to these accusations, which the accused loudly 

 asserted had no foundation but in the malicious envy of his prose- 

 cutors. 



Vainly had Arnold employed every artifice of intrigue or persua- 

 sion to set aside the proceedings against him, or to bias the members 

 of the court in his favour the inflexible integrity of the commander- 

 in-chief, and the no less stubborn honesty of the republican officers, 

 baffled his ingenuity. Finding himself foiled in his subterfuges, he 

 concentrated all his powerful energies and abilities for a bold defence, 

 and relying on his natural effrontery and the fame which his intre- 

 pidity as a soldier had earned, he threw himself desperately into the 

 breach and awaited with seeming confidence the public ordeal 

 which was to purify his impugned character, or send him forth in the 

 eyes of his country a disgraced and fallen man. 



A day was at length fixed on for the court-martial, and the place 

 selected for the proceedings, as already stated, was the then infant 

 settlement of Morristown, upon whose neighbouring savannah might 

 be seen the white tents of the republican army glistening on the 

 green sward like pearls upon an Emir's robe. At every instant 

 groups of men, whose thoughtful countenances witnessed the im- 

 portance of the subject which engrossed their thoughts, and whose 

 garb, half military, half civilian, marked the double profession of the 

 citizen-soldiery might be seen hurrying towards the unostentatious 

 edifice which served the simple inhabitants as a town-hall and court 

 of justice. 



" It can never beT said a young and high-spirited-looking soldier, 

 eagerly addressing an aged comrade as they bent their steps 

 towards the general point of attraction on that day, " It can never 

 be, Jacob ! " he repeated, jerking his rifle with an impatient gesture 

 on his shoulder, and checking his rapid pace which had brought him 

 a few steps in advance of his more staid companion, " that Arnold 

 the brave and gallant Arnold he who has carved his path to fame 



