284 Major Andre and General Arnold. 



pale and motionless into the arms of one of the guests. The terri- 

 fied Mary flew to assist her, and in a few minutes succeeded in 

 restoring her to consciousness. To an anxious inquiry from her 

 terrified sister as to the cause of her sudden illness, Beatrice replied 

 by a significant pressure of the hand, but attributed it to the oppres- 

 sive heat of the room. The sisters soon after quitted the assembly, 

 and it was then known that the emotions produced by the sudden 

 intelligence of Arnold's good fortune had caused her to swoon; and 

 her agitation was ascribed to the joy she experienced in the re-estab- 

 lishment of her husband in the confidence of Washington ; but there 

 was a more powerful reason for Mrs. Arnold's emotion than the 

 restoration of her husband to favour she saw in an instant that the 

 point was gained which put America in his power and that he could 

 now, by one well-directed and bold effort, crush her struggling inde- 

 pendence, and throw into the scale of the cause she revered, a pre- 

 ponderance which could not easily be counteracted. But for this 

 incident, which was not remembered until after the discovery of 

 Arnold's treachery, it would never have been known that he had 

 disclosed his plans to his wife, so profound had been his dissimulation. 



We will not pursue this debased man through the tortuous chan- 

 nels by which he brought his traitorous plots to the verge of accom- 

 plishment ; a traitor to his own country he dared not trust those to 

 whom he was about to sell himself, and in making the bargain for 

 his treachery, though he haggled like a pedlar, and was anxious to 

 receive the price of his ignominy in hand, the most he could obtain 

 was the promise of thirty thousand pounds, and an assurance that he 

 should obtain a similar rank in the British army to that he then held 

 in the republican forces, that of brigadier general. 



Such were the terms upon which Arnold agreed to surrender to 

 the English army West Point and its subjacent ports, and to effect 

 this it was agreed that he should deliver to Clinton plans of the forts, 

 and instructions necessary for the safe guidance of the British troops 

 when they should be sent to take possession of the fortress. Arnold 

 consented to these arrangements, but he stipulated that Major John 

 A'ndre, at that time an aide-de-camp to General Clinton, and his inti- 

 mate friend, should be made the depositary of all the particulars of 

 the enterprise he meditated. Arnold, who was privy to the attach- 

 ment that subsisted between his sister-in-law and the young English 

 soldier, and knew him to be possessed of courage and fidelity, selected 

 him as the person with whom he might w\th the greatest confidence 

 entrust his secret, while Clinton, who esteemed his protege for his 

 noble disposition and prompt energy, gladly consented to commit 

 to his young friend the management of this important business, 

 which, if successful, would entitle him to the most distinguished 

 honours his country could confer. 



A correspondence was now opened between Arnold and Andre, 

 under the fictitious names of Gustavus and Anderson. Mercantile 

 transactions were the ostensible objects of the letters, but they were 

 worded iii such an ambiguous manner that they conveyed to the par- 

 ties in the secret every necessary information on the subject of their 

 deeper enterprise. 



