His Congress dollars and his prog,
His military speeches,
His corn-stalk whiskey for his grog,
Black stockings and blue breeches.
The satirist brings his doggerel to a close by observing that it is necessary to check the current of his satire,—
Lest the same warrior-drover Wayne
Should catch and hang the poet!
AN ENGLISH VIEW OF ANDRÉ AND ARNOLD.
Many historians have been inclined to blame Washington for unnecessary severity in not acceding to the request of the prisoner (André), that he might be shot instead of hanged. We cannot agree with them: the ignominious death was decided upon by Washington—after much and anxious deliberation, and against his own feelings, which inclined to grant the prayer—as a strictly preventive punishment; and it had its effect. The social qualities and the letters of André, although they are always brought forward in his favor, do not extenuate but rather aggravate his crime, as they show that, whatever his moral principles may have been, he had the education of an English gentleman. If any thing, his memory has been treated with too great leniency. If monuments are to be erected in Westminster Abbey to men of such lax morality, it is time for honesty to hide its head.
The conduct of Sir Henry Clinton, in receiving Arnold when he fled to the English ranks, and giving him a high command, is only in keeping with his countenance of the plot that cost André his life. Arnold, who seems to have been a miserable scoundrel, born to serve as a foil to the virtuous brightness of George Washington, might have redeemed his character by giving himself up in place of André, who was entrapped by Arnold’s cowardice and over-caution; but such a piece of self-sacrifice never entered his head. A villain himself, he never believed in the success of the struggle of honest men, and his conduct after obtaining the protection of Sir Henry Clinton proves this beyond a doubt. Let him rest with all his British honors thick upon him.—English Newspaper.