“Mr. Barclugh, my life, thus far, has been full of hardship and bitterness. My honors have been won with a heart true to my country; no stigma yet rests upon my name; but my motives have been misjudged and maligned; the designs and calumny of wicked rivals have filled my life with despair.
“Then, my enemies have attacked the idol of my soul,—my wife and the mother of my child. Enough to arouse the bitterness of my being were the attacks upon my own actions, but when the opinions of my wife and her friends have to be scored and laid up against me I am driven to seek satisfaction.
“The one burden of my soul that bears me down to the depths of desperation, however, is that of my debts. I have always been used to having plenty for my simple needs, but the war has impoverished me, and I can not get my just dues from Congress. I owe the butcher, the baker and the footman. My wife’s social ambition I am not able to curtail. I am in the depths of embarrassment over my debts.
“If it were not for what I owe I could not consent to treason to extricate myself; but I am too deeply involved. Indeed, too deeply!” concluded Arnold as his voice choked, and huge tears trickled down his cheeks.
Not a word passed the lips of these men of iron for a period that seemed oppressively long.
At length Barclugh broke the silence, remarking compassionately:
“My dear General Arnold, your life has been worried to distraction by men of small and ungenerous natures. They have sought to elevate themselves by your undoing; but what must you expect from a government such as you have in these Colonies? There is no authority, no responsible head. You, in your case, have no appeal from a backbiting set of adventurers.
“But in government at home such services as you have rendered have the reward of a peerage and a grant from Parliament for the benefit of your family.
“There is no use talking further, you can serve your countrymen far more, by trying to put an end to these injustices, perpetrated by an irresponsible rabble upon personages of substance, than by trying to win independence,—for what?—A worse government, perhaps, than the one you have had as Colonists.”
“In any event, the Commissioners of His Majesty are willing to grant all the demands that the Colonists have asked for.