New York and Its Institutions, 1609

Among all the blackened names that darken the pages of New York history, no one has stood forth so conspicuously, or been so emphatically a hissing and a by-word among all classes, as that of Benedict Arnold. He was born of respectable parentage at Norwich, Conn., January 3, 1740, where he received the usual common-school education of his day, being designed by his friends for a mercantile career. His early associations and habits gave evidence of an unprincipled, adventurous, and changeable nature, which unfortunately grew worse and worse through all his career. His greatest talent was doubtless in military pursuits, where he always appeared as an intrepid, dashing, and successful chieftain. Among the first at the outbreak of the Revolution to abandon business and mount the saddle, he was during the early northern campaigns more conspicuous than any other, exhibiting everywhere a genius and fortitude challenging the respect of friend and foe. But his treacherous and selfish nature, his vanity and extravagance, were everywhere as conspicuous as his military successes, resulting in repeated perplexities and difficulties, rendering him forever unpopular and an object of public suspicion. Overlooked and slighted by Congress in its army appointments, convicted of peculation and reprimanded by his superiors, and strangely ambitious for luxury and display, he satanically resolved to betray his country''s cause, and sell his influence for a bag of gold.

He was probably long restrained from this traitorous undertaking by the counsels of Washington, who highly appreciated his abilities, though he disapproved of his unscrupulous conduct. Recovering from a wound received in battle, he was appointed to the command of Philadelphia. Here he married for his second wife Miss Margaret Shippen, whose father was subsequently chief justice of Pennsylvania, and was at that time considered one of the chief men of the State, though strongly attached to the tory interest. His wife was one of the chief belles of the city, and probably added some stimulus to his extravagant temper. She had been an intimate friend of Major André, with whom she continued to correspond after her marriage, and which probably paved the way for the undying dishonor of her husband. Having resolved on great treachery, Arnold sought and obtained from Washington command of West Point, one of the principal bulwarks of the country and the key to the interior. His iniquitous correspondence with British officials is believed to have been continued for eighteen months before its detection. In this he proposed to so dispose of the troops at West Point that the place, with all its forces and munitions, would fall an easy conquest; for which he was to be rewarded with a General''s commission in the royal army, and a purse of £10,000 of English gold. Deserting his country which had raised him from obscurity, robbing her of his influence and service, seeking with artful strategy to enslave her patriots and desolate her plains, in the period of her deepest poverty and distress, he committed one of those unpardonable crimes which the world has never been able to overlook. Twice he narrowly escaped capture; a singular providence, however, ordered that his crime should not be wiped out with his blood, but that, through the twenty-one years of his ripened manhood, his dejected crest should be blazoned with the marks of his infamy, and that he should live and die a despised exile from the land of his nativity.