[FN-2] Eighteen months before the consummation of his treason, General Arnold commenced writing to Sir Henry Clinton anonymously, and from time to time communicated to him important intelligence.—Sparks.
With a seeming desire of active service, Arnold had urged forward his trial, that, as he protested, he might be enabled the earlier to take the field. But in pursuance, no doubt, of his understanding with Sir Henry Clinton, his great anxiety was to obtain the command of West Point. With this view he wrote to General Schuyler, who was then in camp, as one of a Committee of Congress; and it is supposed that he likewise corresponded with Robert R. Livingston upon the subject. At all events, Mr. Livingston applied to General Washington for that station in behalf of Arnold. The application was successful, though not immediately. On the first of August Arnold was assigned to the command of the left wing of the army. Complaining, however, that his wounds were yet too painful to allow him to act with efficiency in the field, on the 3d of the same month he was directed to repair to West Point, and take the command of the post. [FN]
[FN] Letter of Washington to General Arnold, August 3,1790. See, also, note of Sparks to the same, and other antecedent letters.
It would be foreign to the main design of the present work, to recapitulate the history of this memorable instance of the blackest treachery. Suffice it to say, that, after his arrest, the conduct of André was characterised by candor, manliness, and honor. He was tried by a board of officers, and convicted on his own frank confessions, without the testimony of a single witness. His main object, after he saw his destiny was inevitable, was to relieve himself from the reproach of having been guilty of any act of personal dishonor; and to show that in fact he had bean compelled to assume the disguise in which he was taken, by Arnold himself. And when he had expiated his error by his life, the feeling was almost universal, that the iron hand of the law-martial had fallen upon the wrong individual. For, although, in regard to Andre himself it was doubtless right, under the circumstances of the case, that justice should be inexorable; yet humanity cannot but weep over the hard fate of the victim, while it marvels that an inscrutable Providence did not so order events as to bring Arnold to the gibbet on which the youthful stranger so nobly died. "Never, perhaps, did a man suffer death with more justice, or deserve it less," was the remark of a gallant soldier who was in attendance upon him during his imprisonment; and the account of his character, written by that officer, and his demeanor during the trying scenes intervening between his arrest and execution, cannot be read without exciting emotions of high admiration and profound regret. [FN] Happy, however, was his fate, compared with that of the arch-traitor, whose moral leprosy, like the plague-spot, caused him to be shunned through life by all honorable men—an object of loathing and scorn, to fill—unregretted by anyone—a dishonorable grave!
[FN] The document referred to is a letter published in the Pennsylvania Gazette of October 25th, 1790, written, as was supposed, by Alexander Hamilton, at that time an Aid-de-camp to the Commander-in-chief. There is, either in the library or the picture gallery of Yale College, New-Haven, a likeness of Major André, sketched upon paper, by himself, but a short time before his execution.
Resuming, again, the Indian relations of the North, the first occurrence to be noted is a visit made by several of the Oneida, Tuscarora, and Caughnawaga Indians to the French army in Rhode Island. The Caughnawaga Indians, residing at the Lachine rapids near Montreal, had been altogether in the interest of France down to the time of the conquest of Canada by the British and Provincial arms; and it was supposed that the ancient attachment of other branches of the Six Nations to the French had not been entirely lost. It was also recollected, that "when M. de Vaudreuil surrendered Canada to the English, he gave to the Indians, as tokens of recognizance, a golden crucifix and a watch; and it was supposed that a renewal of the impressions, which had been in some degree preserved among them by these emblems of friendship, might have the effect to detach them from the influence of the English, and strengthen their union with the Americans and French." [FN-1] That the British officers were apprehensive that an influence adverse to the cause of the King might be awakened among the Indians by the alliance of the French with the Americans, was rendered highly probable, from the pains taken by the former to impress them with a belief that no such alliance had been formed. [FN-2] Hence it was judged expedient by General Schuyler, who was then at Albany, that a delegation of the Indians should be sent to Rhode Island, where conviction of the fact might be wrought upon their senses by the substantial evidence of the fleet and army. [FN-3] Thirteen Oneidas and Tuscaroras, and five Caughnawagas, were accordingly despatched to Rhode Island, under the conduct of Mr. Deane the Interpreter. They arrived at Newport on the 29th of August, and were received with distinguished marks of attention by the French commanders. "Entertainments and military shows were prepared for them, and they expressed much satisfaction at what they saw and heard. Suitable presents were distributed among them; and to the chiefs were given medals representing the coronation of the French King. When they went away, a written address was delivered to them, or rather a kind of proclamation, signed by Count Rochambeau, copies of which were to be distributed among the friendly Indians." It was in the following words:—
[FN-1] sparks.