am branded with nothing dishonorable, as no motive could be mine but the service of my king, and as I was involuntarily an impostor." This request was granted, and in the whole affair he was treated with the most scrupulous delicacy. André further wrote: "Gentlemen at Charleston on parole were engaged in a conspiracy against us; they are objects who may be set in exchange for me, or are persons whom the treatment I receive might affect." The charge of conspiracy against Gadsden and his fellow-sufferers was groundless, and had been brought forward only as an excuse for shipping them away from the city, where their mere presence kept the love of independence alive; to seek security by a threat of retaliation on innocent men was an unworthy act, which received no support from Sir Henry Clinton.

André was without loss of time conducted to the headquarters of the army at Tappan. His offence was so clear that it would have justified the promptest action; but, to prevent all possibility of complaint from any quarter, he was, on the twenty-ninth, brought before a numerous and very able board of officers. On his own confession and without the examination of a witness, the board, on which sat Greene; SaintClair, afterward president of congress; Lafayette, of the French army; Steuben, from the staff of Frederic II.; Parsons, Clinton, Glover, Knox, Huntingdon, and others, all well known for their uprightness - made their unanimous report that Major André, adjutant-general of the British army, ought to be considered as a spy from the enemy and to suffer death. The court showed him every mark of indulgence, and required him to answer no interrogatory which could even embarrass his feelings. He acknowledged their generosity in the strongest terms of manly gratitude, and afterward remarked to one who visited him that, if there were any remains in his mind of prejudice against the Americans, his present experience must obliterate them.

On the thirtieth the sentence was approved by Washington, and ordered to be carried into effect the next day. Clinton had already, in a note to Washington, asked André's release, as of one who had been protected by "a flag of truce and passports granted for his return." Washington replied by enclos

ing to the British commander-in-chief the report of the board of inquiry, and observed "that Major André was employed in the execution of measures very foreign to flags of truce, and such as they were never meant to authorize."

At the request of Clinton, who promised to present "a true state of facts," the execution was delayed till the second day of October; and General Robertson, attended by two civilians, came up the river for a conference. The civilians were not allowed to land; but Greene was deputed to meet the officer. Instead of presenting facts, Robertson, after compliments to the character of Greene, announced that he had come to treat with him. Greene answered: "The case of an acknowledged spy admits no official discussion." Robertson then proposed to free André by an exchange. Greene answered: "If André is set free, Arnold must be given up." Robertson then forgot himself so far as to deliver an open letter from Arnold to Washington, in which, in the event André should suffer the penalty of death, he used these threats: "I shall think myself bound by every tie of duty and honor to retaliate on such unhappy persons of your army as may fall within my power. Forty of the principal inhabitants of South Carolina have justly forfeited their lives; Sir Henry Clinton cannot in justice extend his mercy to them any longer if Major André suffers."

Meantime, André entreated that he might not die "on the gibbet." Washington and every other officer in the American army were moved to the deepest compassion; and Hamilton, who has left his opinion that no one ever suffered death with more justice and that there was in truth no way of saving him, wished that in the mode of his death his feelings as an officer and a man might be respected. But the English themselves had established the exclusive usage of the gallows. At the beginning of the war their officers in America threatened the highest American officers and statesmen with the cord. It was the only mode of execution authorized by them. Under the orders of Clinton, Lord Cornwallis in South Carolina had set up the gallows for those whom he styled deserters, without regard to rank. The execution took place in the manner that was alone in use on both sides.

Arrived at the fatal spot, he said: "I am reconciled to my fate, but not to the mode." Being asked at the last moment if he had anything to say, he answered: "Nothing but to request you to witness to the world that I die like a brave man."

It is a blemish on the character of André that he had begun his mission by prostituting a flag, had pledged his word for the innocence and private nature of his design, and had wished to make the lives of faultless prisoners hostages for his own. About these things a man of honor and humanity ought to have had a scruple; "but the temptation was great; let his misfortunes cast a veil over his errors." The last words of André committed to the Americans the care of his reputation; and they faithfully fulfilled his request. The firmness and delicacy observed in his case were exceedingly admired on the continent of Europe. His king did right in offering honorable rank to his brother, and in granting pensions to his mother and sisters; but not in raising a memorial to his name in Westminster Abbey. Such honor belongs to other enterprises and deeds. The tablet has no fit place in a sanctuary, dear from its monuments to every friend to genius and mankind.

As for Arnold, he had not feeling enough to undergo mental torments, and his coarse nature was not sensitive to shame. Though bankrupt and flying from his creditors, he preferred claims to indemnity, and received between six and seven thousand pounds. He suffered only when he found that baffled treason is paid grudgingly; when employment was refused him; when he could neither stay in England nor get orders for service in America; when, despised and neglected, he was pinched by want. But the king would not suffer his children to starve, and eventually their names were placed on the pension list.

Sir George Rodney returned to the West Indies, and, so far as related to himself, let the unsuccessful conspiracy sink into oblivion. For Clinton, the cup of humiliation was filled to the brim. "Thus ended," so he wrote in his anguish to Germain, "this proposed plan, from which I had conceived such great hopes and imagined such great consequences." He was, moreover, obliged to introduce into high rank in the British army, and receive at his council table, a man who

had shown himself so sordid that British officers of honor hated to serve with him. Arnold had the effrontery to make addresses to the American people respecting their alliance with France; to write insolent letters to Washington; to invite all Americans to desert the colors of their country like himself; to advise the breaking up of the American army by wholesale bribery. Nay, he even turned against his patron as wanting activity, assuring Germain that the American posts in the Highlands might be carried in a few days by a regular attack. No one knew better than Clinton that André was punished justly; yet in his private journal he aimed a stab at the fair fame of his humane adversary, whom he had not been able to overcome in the field nor by the practice of base deceit; and attributed an act of public duty to personal "rancor," for which no cause whatever existed. The false accusation proves not so much malignity in its author as feebleness.*

Washington sought out the three men who, "leaning only on their virtue and an honest sense of their duty," could not be tempted by gold; and on his report congress voted them annuities in words of respect and honor.

* In my narrative I have followed only contemporary documents, which are abundant and of the surest character, and which, taken collectively, solve every question. The most important are: The proceedings of the American court of inquiry; Clinton's elaborate letters to Lord George Germain of 11 and 12 October 1780; Narrative of correspondence and transactions respecting General Arnold in Sir Henry Clinton's letter of 11 October 1780; Clinton's secret letter of 30 October 1780; Clinton's report to Lord Amherst of 16 October 1780; Extract from Clinton's Journal in Mahon's England, vii., Appendix vii. to xi.; Journal of General Matthews; Trial of Joshua Hett Smith, New York, 1866; and especially Hamilton's account of André's affair in Works, i., 172-182. This last is particularly valuable, as Hamilton had the best opportunities to be well informed; and in his narrative, if there are any traces of partiality, it is toward André that he leaned. The reminiscences of men who wrote in later days are so mixed up with errors of memory and fable that they offer no sure foothold.

CHAPTER XXIX.

STRIVING FOR UNION.

1779-1781.

"OUR respective governments which compose the union," so ran the circular of congress to the states in the opening of the year 1779,"are settled and in the vigorous exercise of uncontrolled authority." The union itself was without credit and unable to enforce the collection of taxes. About one hundred and six millions of paper money were then in circulation, and in April 1779 stood at five cents. For the service of the year 1779, congress invited the states to pay by instalments their respective quotas of fifteen millions; and, further, to pay six millions annually for eighteen years, as a fund to sink all previous emissions and obligations. After these preliminaries, a new issue of a little more than fifty millions was authorized.

"The state of the currency was the great impediment to all vigorous measures;" it became a question whether men, if they could be raised, could be subsisted. The Pennsylvania farmers were unwilling to sell their wheat except for hard money. There was no hope of relief but from the central authority. To confederate without Maryland was the opinion of Connecticut; with nine or more states, of Boston; with "so many as shall be willing to do so," allowing to the rest a time during which they might come in, of Virginia.

Late in May congress apportioned among the states fortyfive millions of dollars more, though there was no chance that the former apportionment would be paid. Four times in the course of the year it sent forth addresses to the several states. Newspapers, town-meetings, legislatures, teemed with