ikely to have ties with both sides, regrets for
the friends he has lost, misgivings in respect to the course he has
adopted. In April, 1779, Arnold had begun his treason by expressing
discontent at the alliance with France then working so disastrously.
His future lay before him; he was still under forty; he had just married
into a family of position; he expected that both he and his descendants
would spend their lives in America and he must have known that contempt
would follow them for the conduct which he planned if it was regarded
by public opinion as base. Voices in Congress, too, had denounced the
alliance with France as alliance with tyranny, political and religious.
Members praised the liberties of England and had declared that the
Declaration of Independence must be revoked and that now it could be
done with honor since the Americans had proved their metal. There was
room for the fear that the morale of the Americans was giving way.

The defection of Arnold might also have military results. He had
bargained to be made a general in the British army and he had intimate
knowledge of the weak points in Washington's position. He advised
the British that if they would do two things, offer generous terms to
soldiers serving in the American army, and concentrate their effort,
they could win the war. With a cynical knowledge of the weaker side of
human nature, he declared that it was too expensive a business to bring
men from England to serve in America. They could be secured more
cheaply in America; it would be necessary only to pay them better than
Washington could pay his army. As matters stood the Continental troops
were to have half pay for seven years after the close of the war and
grants of land ranging from one hundred acres for a private to eleven
hundred acres for a general. Make better offers than this, urged Arnold;
"Money will go farther than arms in America." If the British would
concentrate on the Hudson where the defenses were weak they could drive
a wedge between North and South. If on the other hand they preferred
to concentrate in the South, leaving only a garrison in New York, they
could overrun Virginia and Maryland and then the States farther south
would give up a fight in which they were already beaten. Energy and
enterprise, said Arnold, will quickly win the war.

In the autumn of 1780 the British cause did, indeed, seem near triumph.
An election in England in October gave the ministry an increase