army to Orangetown. Here he soon began to experience a renewal of those difficulties which had so nearly brought his army to dissolution during the winter.Notwithstanding the patriotick spirit which so lately blazed forth in every part of the union, his army was still without food, and without the reinforcements promised. On the 20th of August, he thus wrote to the Governour of Pennsylvania-"With every exertion I can scarcely keep the army in this camp, entirely continental, fed from day to day. It is mortifying that we should not, at this advanced period of the campaign, have magazines of provisions, for even one half of the men necessary for our intended operations. I have every assurance from the French land and sea commanders, that the second division may, without some very serious accident, be daily expected. Should we, upon the arrival of this reinforcement, be found (after all our promises of a cooperating force) deficient in men, provisions, and every other essential, your excellency can easily perceive what will be the opinion of our allies, and of all the world, and what will be the consequences in the deranged, distracted state of our affairs.".

"To me it will appear miraculous, if our affairs can maintain themselves much longer, in their present train. If either the temper or the resources of the country, will not admit of an alteration, we may soon expect to be reduced to the humiliating condition of seeing the cause of America, held up in America, by foreign arms. It may easily be shown, that all the misfortunes we have met with in the military line, are to be attributed to short enlistments. A great part of the embarrassments in the civil, proceed from the same source. The derangement of our finances is essenti

ally to be ascribed to it. The expenses of the war, and the paper emissions, have been greatly multiplied by it. We have had, a great part of the time, two sets of men, to feed and pay, the discharged men going home, and the levies coming in. The difficulties and cost of conveying men, have increased at every successive attempt, till among the present levies, we find there are some, who have received 150 dollars in specie, for five months service, while our officers are reduced to the disgraceful necessity of performing the duties of drill sergeants to them. The frequent calls upon the militia have also interrupted the cultivation of their land, and of course have lessened the quantity of the produce, occasioned a scarcity, and enhanced the prices. In an army so unstable as ours, order and economy have been impracticable. The discontents of the troops have been gradually matured to a dangerous extremity. Something satisfactory must be done, or the army must cease to exist, at the end of the campaign; or it will exhibit an example of more virtue, fortitude, self denial and perseverance, than has perhaps ever been paralled, in the history of human enthusiasm."

Soon after this, during the absence of Washington (who had gone to meet the two French commanders at Hartford, in Connecticut,) the discovery was made of Arnold's treachery. Major Andre, who had been employed on the part of the enemy to conduct the correspondence with Arnold, and for whose convenience and accommodation, a sloop of war had been sent up the Hudson, as near to West Point as she could approach without exciting suspicion, in one of his secret conferences with Arnold, had been detained to so late an hour that he was reduced to the neces

sity of spending the night with Arnold. The latter, contrary to an express stipulation with Andre, as was alleged, took him within the American lines, where he lay concealed the whole of the next day. At night, the boatmen refused to take him on board the Vulture, as some circumstances had made it necessary for her during the day to change her position to a more dangerous one, and Andre found himself compelled to attempt his return to New-York by land. Having changed his military dress for a plain coat, and received a passport from Arnold, under his assumed name of John Anderson, he passed the guards and outposts without suspicion, and was felicitating himself as he rode along on the following day, at his good fortune, when he was stopped by three of the New-York militia, John Paulding, David Williams, and Isaac Van Vert, who were out on a scouting party. Andre, deceived into a belief that they belonged to his own party, confessed himself a British officer, and was immediately secured. He endeavoured in vain afterwards, by the production of his passport, and the offer of his watch, and a large purse of gold, to procure his release: the three sturdy patriots -for surely nothing but patriotism, or what is the same thing, an honest, unsophisticated sense of duty to their country, could have actuated these simple countrymen-resolutely refused all his offers of reward, and conducted him to their commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Jameson. Andre, from a desire to save Arnold from immediate detection, still maintained his assumed name and character of Anderson, and begged permission of Colonel Jameson to write to General Arnold to inform him of his detention. This request, strange as it may seem, was granted;

and what makes it still more extraordinary is, that for some time previous to this affair, Jameson had entertained such strong suspicions of Arnold, as to have formed the design of seizing him at all hazards on the first occasion. His weakness in permitting notice to be given to Arnold, allowed the traitor an opportunity of escaping on board the Vulture, before Washington's arrival from Connecticut.

The papers found upon Major Andre, which contained a full developement of Arnold's plan for delivering West Point into the hands of the enemy, were immediately forwarded to General Washington, accompanied by a letter from the prisoner, avowing his real name and character. In this letter he endeavoured to show, that the correspondence and transaction in which he had been engaged, could not bring him under the description of a spy, as the only circumstance connected with it, which could tend to give him that character, had been forced upon him without his knowledge or concurrence; namely, his being within the American lines in disguise,-that his interviews with Arnold had been held on neutral ground, and under the orders of his General. Washington had halted at West Point on his way from Connecticut, where he expected to meet and confer with Arnold, which prevented his receiving the communication in time to prevent the escape. He took immediate measures to secure the safety of the fort, and on his arrival at head quarters, appointed a board composed of fourteen general officers, among whom were the Marquis de la Fayette and the Baron de Steuben, to decide upon the condition and punishment of Major Andre,

A

History produces no example of such delicacy of treatment towards a spy, as was shown to Major Andre; and that he bore that character in the acceptation of the term by the whole world, does not admit a moment's hesitation or doubt. It appeared, after his capture, that he was held in high esteem in the British army, was a gentleman of unblemished honour, of high integrity, and accomplished manners. Generals Sir Henry Clinton, Robinson, and the traitor himself, all wrote to Washington in behalf of the prisoner, and all endeavoured, by giving a sophistical interpretation to his proceedings, to do away the imputation of his being a spy-they went so far indeed, as to state, what the honesty of Major Andre disdained to confirm, that he had visited Arnold's camp under the sanction of a flag. Their attempt to save him by this falsehood, sufficiently proves that they had no hope of being able by arguments drawn from the laws and usages of war, to prove that he was not a spy.

The board appointed to try him, and of which General Greene was president, met on the 29th of September. Their conduct towards the unhappy young man, whose life was to depend upon their decision, was marked by every feeling of kindness, liberality and generous sympathy. So desirous did they seem to seek for circumstances of mitigation in the case, that they did not examine a single witness against him, and prefaced their interrogatories to himself, by desiring him not to answer a single question, that might be at all embarrassing to his feelings. Upon his own confessions, then, and after the most patient, candid, liberal hearing and construction of his statement, the board reported the following unanimous opinion: