Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 13.pdf/232

 Benedict Л mold on the Maine Border. BENEDICT

ARNOLD

ON

THE

MAINE

203

BORDER.

BY GEORGE J. VARNEY. AMONG the exhibits a few years ago at Though the traitor had received a small a town fair in the extreme southeast British command, with which he made his corner of Maine, was an old account book of raids on New London, Connecticut, and a general store kept by Colonel John Allan, Richmond, Virginia, he obtained neither mil on a small island in Eastport harbor, in the itary nor naval appointment after he left periocl immediately following the Revolu America, though he sought both with pas tion. It was startling to find among the en sionate earnestness. Consequently he had re tries a charge against Benedict Arnold. The- course to trade to support his failing estate. item was a gallon of rum; but there were He made at least two voyages to the West charges, at other dates, of lumber and other Indies, his object in both being frustrated articles. by the French successes there. Soon after Was Arnold haunting the border of the the definitive treaty of peace between Great two countries in furtherance of any senti Britain and the new nation, he removed with mental or public-spirited political project of his family from London to St. John, on the the time? Those who thus imagine do not river of that name in New Brunswick. know the nature of the man. First and In St. John he lived in the best style of the always he was looking out for himself, and town, associating only with people of the seeking the means to swim on the sea of highest social ranks, a large proportion of wealth and fashion. The success of his fam these being Tory refugees. Establishing a ily marked the largest stretch of his sympa storehouse at the Lower Cove, he placed it thies. in the immediate charge of the two younger Arnold's reputation previous to his ap of his three sons by his first marriage. At this time he possessed considerable pointment in the patriot army, according to the annals of the time, was not ethically ad means, being known to have carried on one mirable. His first temptation to disloyalty occasion £5000 in cash with him to the West Indies for the purchase of sugar. Besides resulted from his extravagant living in Phil adelphia, when in command in that city. So his commission in the British army in Amer far as known, his first deviation from a ica, he received as reward for his treason a patriotic course was when he formed a secret sum in gold (£6,315) to cover his alleged partnership for illicit trade within the enemy's losses in deserting the cause of his country. lines, which amounted to about one hundred Five thousand pounds of this he invested in and forty thousand dollars. A letter of Sir four per cent, consols, from which he real Henry Clinton to a friend shows that ized ¿7,000 in stocks. Thus while he had Arnold's inclination to change his allegiance really been bankrupt in a large amount, and was known to him eighteen months before escaped his creditors by joining the enemy, he was at once rehabilitated, and endowed the overt act of treason. When, on October 19, 1781, Cornwallis with a capital which was ample for the open surrendered his entire army to General ing of any mercantile business in that period. Washington, Lord North was heard to ex He appears subsequently to have received claim, "All is lost!" Arnold, too, saw that other favors, while after his death his wife his game was up; and, in the December fol and daughter were pensioned. The first ship built in the province of New lowing, he sailed for England, with his fam Brunswick was owned by Arnold before she ily, who had been permitted to join him.