310 HISTORY OK THE COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER. 



several persons we were acquainted with, whom we let pass. Presently 

 one of the young men who were with me, said, ' There comes a gentle- 

 man-like looking man who appears to be well dressed and has boots on, 

 and whom you had better step out and stop, if you don't know him. 

 (The party must have observed Andre rising the hill out of Sleepy Hol- 

 low; when first observed, he was walking his horse.) On that, I got up 

 and presented my firelock at the breast of the person and told him to 

 stand, and then I asked him which way he was going? 'Gentlemen,' 

 said he, ' I hope you belong to our party.' I asked him what party. He 

 said 'the lower party.' Upon that, I told him I did. Then he said, 'I 

 am a British officer out of the country on particular business, and I hope 

 you will not detain me a minute ; ' and to show that he was a British 

 officer he pulled out his watch, upon which I told him to dismount. 

 He then said, ' My God ! I must do anything to get along,' and seemed 

 to make a kind of laugh of it, and pulled out General Arnold's pass, 

 which was to John Anderson to pass all the guards to White Plains and 

 below; upon that he dismounted. Said he, 'Gentlemen, you had best 

 let me go, or you will bring yourselves into trouble ; for your stopping 

 me will detain the General's business, and said he was going to 

 Dobb's Ferry to meet a person there, and get intelligence for General 

 Arnold.' 



" Upon that I told him I hoped he would not be offended, that we 

 did not mean to take any thing from him. And I told him there were 

 many bad people who were going along the road, and I did not know 

 but perhaps he might be one." Mr. Paulding said further that he asked 

 the unknown gentleman his name, and he answered, " John Anderson." 

 That on seeing General Arnold's pass he should have let him go, if he 

 had not previously said he was a British officer ; (there was yet another 

 circumstance which tended greatly to increase their suspicions, viz : that 

 his pass was for White Plains and not the Tarrytown road;) and that 

 when he pulled out his watch, he understood it as a confirmation of that 

 assertion, and not as offering it to him. 



Mr. Williams confirmed the above statement with these particulars : 

 " We took him into the bushes, and ordered him to pull off his clothes, 

 which he did ; but, on searching him narrowly, we could not find any 

 sort of writings. We told him to pull off his boots, which he seemed 

 indifferent about ; but we got one boot off, and searched in that boot, 

 and could find nothing. But we found there were some papers in the 

 bottom of his stocking next to his foot, on which we made him pull his 

 stockings off, and found three papers wrapped up. Mr. Paulding looked 

 at the contents, and said he was a spy. We then made him pull off his- 



