and it is very
probable that the unslaked thirst for just vengeance against Arnold was
partly responsible for the refusal of the American commanders to show
mercy. Andre's courage and dignity made a profound impression on them,
and there was a strong disposition to comply with his request that he
should at least be shot instead of hanged. But to that concession a
valid and indeed irresistible objection was urged. Whatever the
Americans did was certain to be scanned with critical and suspicious
eyes. Little could be said in the face of the facts if they treated
Andre as a spy and inflicted on him the normal fate of a spy. But if
they showed that they scrupled to hang him as a spy, it would be easy to
say that they had shot a prisoner of war.

Arnold was given a command in the South, and the rage of the population
of that region was intensified into something like torment when they saw
their lands occupied and their fields devastated no longer by a stranger
from overseas who was but fulfilling his military duty, but by a
cynical and triumphant traitor. Virginia was invaded and a bold stroke
almost resulted in the capture of the author of the Declaration of
Independence himself, who had been elected Governor of that State. In
the course of these raids many abominable things were done which it is
unnecessary to chronicle here. The regular English troops, on the whole,
behaved reasonably well, but Tarleton's native "Tories" were inflamed by
a fanaticism far fiercer than theirs, while atrocity was of course
normal to the warfare of the barbarous mercenaries of England, whether
Indian or German. It is equally a matter of course that such excesses
provoked frequent reprisals from the irregular colonial levies.

But aid was at last at hand. Already Lafayette, a young French noble of
liberal leanings, had appeared in Washington's camp at the head of a
band of volunteers, and the accession, small as it was, led to a
distinct revival of the fortunes of the revolution in the South. It was,
however, but a beginning. England, under pressure of the war with France
and Spain, lost that absolute supremacy at sea which has ever been and
ever will be necessary to her conduct of a successful war. A formidable
French armament was able to cross the Atlantic. A French fleet
threatened the coasts. Cornwallis, not knowing at which point the blow
would fall, was compelled to withdraw his forces from the country they
had overrun, and to concentr