mbition--the
equal of the proudest noble, the lauded servant of a grateful prince.
It seems almost incredible that he should have persevered in his
design after the very lenient decision of his judges, who acquitted
him of all save the most trifling of the charges against him,
and decreed that he should merely receive a reprimand from the
commander-in-chief. Every one knows the encouraging and beautiful
advice with which this slight censure was tempered, and must recognize
the fine manly spirit that prompted it: it should have sunk deeply
into the culprit's heart and made of him the grateful friend of
Washington for ever. It did indeed sink deeply, but it was into a
traitor's heart, and it rankled there.

It is very possible that here, in this lovely retreat on the banks
of the Schuylkill, in the long summer days of 1780, was matured the
slowly-ripening plot, which but for its timely discovery must have
seriously imperiled, if not altogether lost to us, the glorious
inheritance we have held these hundred years. One can fancy the
martial figure of the brave, bad man pacing back and forth beneath
these very trees perhaps, absorbed in bitter reflections on his real
and fancied wrongs--the rapid promotion of men younger than himself
both in years and services, whilst his own bold deeds had met with but
tardy acknowledgment from a cold and cautious Congress; the long array
of debts which arose like spectres to harass him even in this peaceful
Eden; and, worst of all, the humiliating remembrance of Washington's
rebuke. It cannot be denied that the temptation to free himself from
the toils in which his own dishonest course had entangled him must
have beset the unhappy man with almost resistless power. With his
hopelessly impaired character, and weighed down by debts he had
no means of discharging--for he could scarcely hope for an early
settlement of his accounts from a Congress already impoverished by an
expensive war--to remain in the army was, to a man of Arnold's proud,
selfish nature, almost out of the question. By going over to the
enemy he could at once shake off associations which were now become
intolerable to him, gain perpetual immunity from his liabilities, and
secure for himself a life of distinction and luxury. He grasped at the
delusive vision and was lost for ever.

In August of this year he received the coveted appointment to the
command of West Point, and Philadelphia saw him no more. He took up
his reside