Farewell, your servant and friend,
F * * y.
HAMILTON TO LAURENS.
September, 1780.
Since my return from Hartford, my dear Laurens, my mind has been too little at ease to permit me to write to you sooner. It has been wholly occupied by the affecting and tragic consequences of Arnold’s treason. My feelings were never put to so severe a trial. You will no doubt have heard the principal facts before this reaches you. But there are particulars, to which my situation gave me access, that cannot have come to your knowledge from public report, which I am persuaded you will find interesting.
From several circumstances, the project seems to have originated with Arnold himself, and to have been long premeditated. The first overture is traced back to some time in June last. It was conveyed in a letter to Colonel Robinson; the substance of which was, that the ingratitude he had experienced from his country, concurring with other causes, had entirely changed his principles; that he now only sought to restore himself to the favor of his king, by some signal proof of his repentance; and would be happy to open a correspondence with Sir Henry Clinton for that purpose. About this period he made a journey to Connecticut: on his return from which to Philadelphia, he solicited the command of West Point; alleging that the effects of his wounds had disqualified him for the active duties of the field. The sacrifice of this important post was the atonement he intended to make. General Washington hesitated the less to gratify an officer who had rendered such eminent services, as he was convinced the post might be safely intrusted to one who had given so many distinguished specimens of his bravery. In the beginning of August he joined the army and renewed his application. The enemy, at this juncture, had embarked the greatest part of their forces on an expedition to Rhode Island; and our army was in motion to compel them to relinquish the enterprise, or to attack New-York in its weakened state. The General offered Arnold the left wing of the army, which he declined, on the pretext already mentioned, but not without visible embarrassment. He certainly might have executed the duties of such a temporary command; and it was expected from his enterprising temper, that he would gladly have embraced so splendid an opportunity. But he did not choose to be diverted a moment from his favorite object; probably from an apprehension that some different disposition might have taken place, which would have excluded him. The extreme solicitude he discovered to get possession of the post, would have led to a suspicion of treachery, had it been possible, from his past conduct, to have supposed him capable of it.
The correspondence thus begun, was carried on between Arnold and Major André, Adjutant-General to the British army, in behalf of Sir Henry Clinton, under feigned signatures, and in a mercantile disguise. In an intercepted letter of Arnold’s, which lately fell into our hands, he proposes an interview, “to settle the risks and profits of the copartnership;” and, in the same style of metaphor, intimates an expected augmentation of the garrison; and speaks of it as the means of extending their traffic. It appears, by another letter, that André was to have met him on the lines, under the sanction of a flag, in the character of Mr. John Anderson. But some cause or other, not known, prevented this interview.
The twentieth of last month, Robinson and André went up the river in the Vulture sloop-of-war. Robinson sent a flag to Arnold with two letters; one to General Putnam, inclosed in another to himself; proposing an interview with Putnam, or, in his absence, with Arnold, to adjust some private concerns. The one to General Putnam, was evidently meant as a cover to the other, in case, by accident, the letters should have fallen under the inspection of a third person.
General Washington crossed the river, on his way to Hartford, the day these dispatches arrived. Arnold, conceiving he must have heard of the flag, thought it necessary, for the sake of appearances, to submit the letters to him, and ask his opinion of the propriety of complying with the request. The General, with his usual caution, though without the least surmise of the design, dissuaded him from it, and advised him to reply to Robinson, that whatever related to his private affairs, must be of a civil nature, and could only properly be addressed to the civil authority. This reference fortunately deranged the plan; and was the first link in the chain of events that led to the detection. The interview could no longer take place in the form of a flag, but was obliged to be managed in a secret manner.
Arnold employed one Smith to go on board the Vulture the night of the twenty-second, to bring André on shore, with a pass for Mr. John Anderson. André came ashore accordingly; and was conducted within a picket of ours to the house of Smith, where Arnold and he remained together in close conference all that night and the day following. At daylight in the morning, the commanding officer at King’s Ferry, without the privity of Arnold, moved a couple of pieces of cannon to a point opposite to where the Vulture lay, and obliged her to take a more remote station. This event, or some lurking distrust, made the boatmen refuse to convey the two passengers back, and disconcerted Arnold so much, that by one of those strokes of infatuation which often confound the schemes of men conscious of guilt, he insisted on André’s exchanging his uniform for a disguise, and returning in a mode different from that in which he came. André, who had been undesignedly brought within our posts in the first instance, remonstrated warmly against this new and dangerous expedient. But Arnold persisting in declaring it impossible for him to return as he came, he at length reluctantly yielded to his direction, and consented to change his dress, and take the route he recommended. Smith furnished the disguise, and in the evening passed King’s Ferry with him, and proceeded to Crompond, where they stopped the remainder of the night, at the instance of a militia officer, to avoid being suspected by him. The next morning they resumed their journey, Smith accompanying André a little beyond Pine’s Bridge, where he left him. He had reached Tarrytown, when he was taken up by three militia men, who rushed out of the woods and seized his horse.
At this critical moment, his presence of mind forsook him. Instead of producing his pass, which would have extricated him from our parties, and could have done him no harm with his own, he asked the militia men, if they were of the upper or lower party; distinctive appellations known among the enemy’s refugee corps. The militia men replied, they were of the lower party; upon which he told them he was a British officer, and pressed them not to detain him, as he was upon urgent business. This confession removed all doubts; and it was in vain he afterwards produced his pass. He was instantly forced off to a place of greater security, where, after a careful search, there were found, concealed in the feet of his stockings, several papers of importance, delivered to him by Arnold! Among these, were a plan of the fortifications of West Point; a memorial from the engineer on the attack and defence of the place; returns of the garrison, cannon, and stores; copy of the minutes of a council of war held by General Washington a few weeks before. The prisoner, at first, was inadvertently ordered to Arnold; but on recollection, while still on the way, he was countermanded, and sent to Old Salem. The papers were inclosed in a letter to General Washington, which, having taken a route different from that by which he returned, made a circuit that afforded leisure for another letter, through an ill-judged delicacy, written to Arnold with information of Anderson’s capture, to get to him an hour before General Washington arrived at his quarters; time enough to elude the fate that awaited him. He went down the river in his barge to the Vulture with such precipitate confusion, that he did not take with him a single paper useful to the enemy. On the first notice of the affair, he was pursued, but much too late to be overtaken.