Nuts for Future Historians to Crack

by Unknown

In justification to myself, I have thought it necessary to point out your false state of facts, in these particulars; the multitude of lesser ones, relating to military matters, I shall pass over, as this publication is already necessarily lengthened beyond my first intention.

As I hinted, in my letter of 10th September last, that "charges of the same nature had been, some time since, made against you," by Arnold; you say, you "allow full weight to so respectable a connexion and testimony;" to which you made no reply, though from the rank and character of Arnold at that time, they merited your notice. Arnold having received his information from me, it cannot be concluded, that I meant by his testimony to strengthen my own assertion; but merely to show, that having before been charged, you did not reply; from which many believed it true. And when he apologized to me for inserting it in his defence without my permission, I remarked, that an apology was unnecessary, from the public manner in which I had mentioned it.

Arnold was commanding officer in this city, very generally visited by officers of the army, citizens and strangers. I received the usual civilities from him, and returned them; and often met him at the tables of gentlemen in the city. To my civilities, at that time, I thought him entitled from the signal services he had rendered his country; services infinitely superior to those you so much boast of; he stood high, as a military character, even in France, and after your prosecution, he was continued in command by Congress; appointed first, by the commander-in-chief, to the command of the left wing of the army, and afterwards to that important post of West Point, where his treacherous conduct exceeded, I fancy, even your own idea of his baseness. To what, then, do your insinuations amount? They cannot criminate me, without an implied censure on Congress and the commander-in-chief. But why contaminate my name, by connecting it, in this instance, with such a wretch? when you, yourself, at his trial, with a half-shamed face, seemed to apologize for being his prosecutor, and became his fulsome panegyrist. It consisted, however, with that artifice and cunning which has ever been the sum of your abilities, and the whole amount of your wisdom.

Your remarks on my letter of the 10th December, 1777, are so inconsistent, that I shall bestow a few observations on them. "So strong and virulent," you say, "was my antipathy to the constitution, and such my enmity to those who administered it, that you believe I would have preferred any government to that of Pennsylvania, if my person and property would have been equally secure;" and yet it seems, in the next sentence you say, "but it was our lot to meet again, a few days before the battle of Monmouth; here we were again united in confidence and danger." If you really thought I would prefer any government to that of Pennsylvania, why did you then take so much pains to show, that we again united in "confidence and danger," at the battle of Monmouth, so many months after I had discovered that virulent antipathy, and which now hath extorted such gross reflections?

You say, my breast was burning with disappointed ambition; but how does this appear, when, immediately upon the formation of the new government, I was appointed the first of three brigadiers, which created me commanding officer of the militia. Could my ambition be gratified further? But to obviate every objection, let me suppose you meant, that I wished to rise to power in the civil line,—which, however, has never been insinuated before,—let me here call to your memory, how easy the task was for any character to rise to the first offices of government. I confess, I do not think so meanly of myself, as to have dreaded any rivalship from some of the candidates of those days; nor do I mean, by this declaration, to insinuate any extraordinary merit, when I estimate mine by that of those I have alluded to. I could not have consented to make the sacrifices required; but you, however, and some others, as much opposed to the essential parts of the constitution as I was, freely made them, and broke through every obligation of faith and honour.

The charge you have brought against a party in the state, of an opposition to its constitution, deserves some attention. I will digress a little from my main subject to examine how far this charge is true, and how far the thing is in itself criminal.

Government is generally so reverenced among men, that those who attempt to subvert any system of it whatever, have to contend against a very natural prejudice. But this prejudice can only be in degree with the antiquity of its establishment; for modern error, how high soever its authority, has but little claim to our veneration. This concession made, could it be expected that our novel constitution, liable at first blush to so many important objections, should not have its opponents; but that in a moment it should be submitted to, as implicitly as if it had had the sanction of ages? What circumstance was there, in the production of this whimsical machine, that should silence, at once, all the remonstrances of reason and sense against it? Was it not worth a pause to examine, whether this coat, wove for ages, would fit us or our posterity before we put on; or whether this gift of our convention would not prove our destruction? From an apprehension that it would, an opposition was formed, that included a majority of the state. Did those who composed it, think it criminal to prevent the singular ideas of a convention, from being carried into execution, against an almost general sentiment; or did they not rather conceive it safe and better for the community still to go on in the administration of governmental affairs by those temporary expedients we had been in the habits of, until their constitution could be revised?

This idea, patriotic as it was, was defeated by the obstinate enthusiasm of some, who trembled for this New Jerusalem of their hopes, and by the scandalous desertion of others, and especially yourself. The ends of opposition being thus rendered unattainable, but at the hazard of convulsions, that might endanger the great American cause, the same virtue that began it, ended it, and it has long since ceased to act.

This is a well-known state of facts; but what it did not suit with your own by-purposes to admit, could not be expected from your integrity; you have, therefore, constantly kept up the alarm of a constitutional opposition, and, on every occasion, referred to this false cause, that honest and useful opposition which was created by your weak, though violent and tyrannical administration.

That you was called to the chair of government, by the unanimous vote of council and assembly, you have often boasted, with a view of conveying to the world an idea, that even the gentlemen opposed to the constitution approved the choice. But they neither esteemed you as a gentleman, nor approved your public conduct. They knew there was a majority in assembly in favour of your election, and as their grand object was the obtaining a resolution of that body, recommending the calling a convention for revising the constitution, some of the party entered into an engagement for this purpose, and your election was negotiated. You were to use your endeavours to prevail on the Council to enforce the recommendation of the assembly by a similar resolution. From your own acknowledgment at the City Tavern, the resolution of the Council was never obtained, or even moved for, by you, and for this flimsy reason, that no formal information, of such resolution having passed, had been communicated to you; though known to all the world; and that it could not be expected that Council would "tag" after the assembly, in a measure relating to the public. Yet you had the effrontery to assert, that "every engagement on your part," was strictly performed.