Page:A French Volunteer of the War of Independence.djvu/112

88 His wife and children, whom he had left behind, were in our power. He was base enough to suppose that they would be held responsible for his crime, and insolently wrote to General Washington threatening severe reprisals, and the destruction of Washington's beautiful estate in Virginia if any harm happened to his family. The sole reply Washington made was to order Mrs. Arnold and her children to be conducted into the British lines, with every possible attention. It was, I believe, Colonel Hamilton who was charged with this duty, with instructions to spare them every possible inconvenience.

No event of importance happened during the next few weeks, but we learned that the British government was sending Commissioners to New York to arrange the terms of peace. One of these representatives was Lord Carlisle, a very young man. He was the cause of a scandal, the odium and ridicule of which af-