BENEDICT ARNOLD.
Westminster Abbey could not blot out that arraignment. Dr. Johnson did not know Benedict Arnold when he said, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." An American school-boy, if asked to name the greatest villain the world has produced, would unhesitatingly reply, "The traitor, Benedict Arnold." The sentence which history has passed upon him is eternal. Some voice is always repeating it.
Shortly after the peace of '83 Arnold was presented at court. While the king was conversing with him, Earl Balcarras, who had fought with Burgoyne in America, was announced. The king introduced them.
"What, sire," exclaimed the haughty old earl, refusing his hand, "the traitor Arnold!"
The consequence was a challenge from Arnold. The parties met, and it was arranged they should fire together. Arnold fired at the signal, but the earl, flinging down his pistol, turned on his heel, and was walking away, when his adversary called out,
"Why don't you fire, my lord?"
"Sir," said the earl, looking over his shoulder, "I leave you to the executioner."
The British attack on New London was not a blind stroke of premeditated cruelty, but a part of the only real grand strategy developed since the campaign of Trenton. Sir Henry Clinton had been completely deceived by Washington's movement upon Yorktown, and now launched his expedition upon Connecticut, with the hope of arresting his greater adversary's progress. Arnold was the suitable instrument for such work.
The expedition of 1781 landed on both sides of the harbor, one detachment under command of the traitor himself, near the light-house, the other at Groton Point. Fort Trumbull, being untenable, was evacuated, its little garrison crossing the river to Fort Griswold. Encountering nothing on his march except a desultory fire from scattered parties, Arnold entered New London, and proceeded to burn the shipping and warehouses near the river. In his official dispatch he disavows the general destruction of the town which ensued, but the testimony is conclusive that dwellings were fired and plundered in every direction by his troops, and under his eye.[318]