Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 6.djvu/19

 BENEDICT ARNOLD 209 One year later he was appointed to the command of Philadelphia, and here he married the daughter of a prominent citizen, Edward Shippen. This was his second marriage ; he had been a widower for a number of years before its occur- rence, and the father of three sons. Every chance was now afforded Arnold of wise and just rulership. In spite of past disputes and adventures not wholly creditable, he still presented before the world a fairly clean record, and whatever minor blemishes may have spotted his good name, these were obscured by the almost dazzling lustre of his soldierly career. But no sooner was he installed in his new position at Philadelphia than he began to show, with wilful perversity, those evil impulses which thus far had remained relatively latent. Almost as soon as he entered the town he disclosed to its citizens the most offensive traits of arrogance and tyranny. But this was not all. Not merely was he accused on every side of such faults as the improper issuing of passes, the closing of Philadelphia shops on his arrival, the imposition of menial offices upon the sons of freemen performing military duty, the use of wagons furnished by the State for transporting private property ; but misdeeds of a far graver nature were traced to him, savoring of the criminality that prisons are built to punish. The scandal- ous gain with which he sought to fill a spendthrift purse caused wide and vehe- ment rebuke. For a man of such high and peculiar place his commercial dab- blings and speculative schemes argued most deplorably against him. There seems to be no doubt that he made personal use of the public moneys with which he was intrusted ; that he secured by unworthy and illegal means a naval State prize, brought into port by a Pennsylvanian ship ; and that he meditated the fitting up of a privateer, with intent to secure from the foe such loot on the high seas as piratical hazard would permit. His house in Philadelphia was one of the finest that the town possessed ; he drove about in a carriage and four ; he entertained with excessive luxury and a large retinue of servants ; he revelled in all sorts of pompous parade. Such ostentation would have roused adverse comment amid the simple colonial surroundings of a century ago, even if he had merely been a citizen of extraordinary wealth. But being an officer intrusted with the most important dignities in a country both struggling for its freedom and impover- ished as to funds, he now played a part of exceptional shame and folly. Naturally his arraignment before the authorities of the State soon followed. The Council of Pennsylvania tried him, and though their final verdict was an ex- tremely gentle one, its very mildness of condemnation proved poison to his truc- ulent pride. Washington, the commander-in-chief, reprimanded him, but with language of exquisite lenity. Still, Arnold never forgave the stab that was then so deservingly yet so pityingly dealt him. His colossal treason one of the most monstrous in all the records of history, soon afterward began its wily work. Under the name of Gtistavus he opened a correspondence with Sir Henry Clinton, an English officer in command at New York. Sir Henry at once scented the sort of villainy which would be of vast use to his cause, however he might loathe and contemn its designer. He instructed his aide-de-camp, Major John Andre, to send cautious and pseudo- 14