ict Arnold
became a traitor his property was at once seized, and his homestead at
Norwich, and all its contents, were confiscated. The pecuniary value of
this seizure was small, since Arnold's wasteful habits forbade any
increase of wealth, but there was his dwelling, and the little store,
with its uncouth sign, 'B. Arnold,' in which in his early day he had
carried on a petty trade. In Arnold's house were found large quantities
of papers, both of a private and public character. Among the former were
certain letters to his first wife, which we have read, and from which we
learned that her life was embittered by his habits of neglect and
dissipation. In one of these he alludes to a winter trip to Canada, with
a sleigh-load of whisky, on speculation. It is possible that this
journey prompted that grand expedition in which the whisky merchant
figured as a military leader. How strange the contrast between the
lonely pedlar, dealing out strong drink in the streets of Quebec, and
the victorious chieftain who, in company with Montgomery, attacked its
citadel! Some of these domestic letters contain confessions made to an
outraged wife, of a character too disgusting for recital. They show a
reach of depravity, which, considering those primitive times, in the
land of steady habits, was indeed strange. They prove that for years
Arnold had been rotten at heart, and that his treason, like that of
Floyd, arose from no sudden temptation, but was the end toward which his
whole life had been tending. It seemed impossible that such a man could
die without achieving infamy in some new and wondrous way. After reading
these revelations of domestic treachery, we need not be surprised at the
cool perfidy exhibited at West Point. Who but a monster of treason could
have penned the papers found in Andre's boot? Thus, 'No. 3, a slight
wood work--_very dry_--no bomb proof--a single abattis--no cannon--_the
work easily set on fire_.' 'No. 4, a wooden work about 10 feet high--no
bomb proof--2 six-pounders--a slight abattis.' 'North redoubt--stone
work 4 feet high--above the stone, wood filled in with earth--_very
dry_--bomb proof--no ditch--3 batteries within the fort--a poor
abattis--_the work easily fired with faggots dipped in pitch_.' We quote
the above, from the Andre papers in the State Library, to show the
culmination of a life morally base, and whose only redeeming feature,
_courage_, was rather the nerve of a desperado.

The Arnold papers we