s boots must come off."

His boots were drawn off, and the concealed papers were found in his
stockings.

"My God!" exclaimed Paulding, "he is a spy."

They conducted their prisoner to North Castle, and he was finally hung
as a spy.

Arnold escaped to a British man-of-war, and figured thereafter as a
general in the king's army, despised even by those who commissioned him.

Near the close of the winter of 1781, and through the spring, the enemy
committed many depredations on our coast, in which Arnold played a
conspicuous part. In Virginia and Connecticut his command wantonly
destroyed a large amount of property. New London was burned under his
generalship. Washington employed every means possible to capture the
traitor, but in vain.

The British directed their chief efforts against the South, designing to
spread consternation by their terrible ravages. Richmond was laid in
ashes. Along the shores of the Potomac and Chesapeake they plundered and
burned. They threatened to destroy Washington's home at Mount Vernon,
and landed for the purpose of applying the torch to every building. The
agent, Lund Washington, saved the property from destruction by
furnishing the enemy with a large quantity of supplies. When the general
heard what his agent had done, he wrote to him as follows:

"I am very sorry to hear of your loss; I am a little sorry to hear of my
own; but that which gives me most concern is, that you should go on
board the enemy's vessels, and furnish them with refreshments. It would
have been a less painful circumstance to me to have heard that, in
consequence of your non-compliance with their request, they had burnt my
house and laid the plantation in ruins."

In July, 1781, Washington planned an attack upon New York by the
combined French and American forces. But his purpose was suddenly
changed by hearing that the portion of the French fleet at the West
Indies, under Count de Grasse, had sailed for the Chesapeake. Cornwallis
was at Yorktown with his command, and his capture would give the
Americans an illustrious prisoner. General Lafayette, who had returned
from France, was in Virginia, looking after the British general as well
as he could.

Immediately Washington put his army in motion for Virginia, leaving only
troops enough to guard the passes of the Hudson. He marched directly for
Williamsburg, to join Lafayette. On his way he called at Mount Vernon,
from which he had been absent six years. "Here, u