with very little ostensible
business. His improbable statements, his associations with persons
hostile to the American cause, his visits to places of bad reputation,
as well as his whole general conduct, rendered him a suspected person.

He was arrested on the twenty-second of September following his arrival
by the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety, but was afterwards paroled upon
his solemn declaration and promise that "on the honor of a soldier and a
gentleman he would not bear arms against the American United Colonies,
in any manner whatever, during the present contest between them and
Great-Britain;"[A] yet, on the twenty-sixth of the next November, he
makes a tender of his services to the British government, in a letter
addressed to General Gage, and was encouraged to communicate more
definitely his proposals.[B]

[Footnote A: Journals, p. 259.]

[Footnote B: Journals, p. 261.]

On the second day of December, a little more than a month later, in
shabby garb he calls upon President Wheelock, at Hanover, New Hampshire.
After speaking of his absence in Europe, during which, he said, he had
fought two battles in Algiers, under the Dey, he officiously tendered
his aid in a proposed effort to obtain a grant of land for Dartmouth
College. The President distrusted him, but treated him civilly. At the
close of the interview he returned to the tavern where he passed the
night, and left the next morning without paying his reckoning.[A]

[Footnote A: Same, p. 118.]

Again, on the nineteenth of the same month, at Medford, Massachusetts,
he addresses a letter to General Washington, soliciting an interview,
but his reputation was such that the Commander-in-Chief declined to see
him.[A]

[Footnote A: Same, p. 263.]

Even this did not discourage him. With an effrontery truly wonderful, on
the twenty-fifth of June, 1776, after he had been arrested in South
Amboy and brought to New York, he expressed to the Commander-in-Chief
his desire to pass on to Philadelphia, that he might there make a secret
tender of his services to the American Congress.[A]

[Footnote A: Same, p. 273.]

However, by this time, his duplicity had become so manifest that a few
days after this interview (July 2, 1776) the New Hampshire House of
Representatives passed a formal vote recommending his arrest,[A] which
was supplemented two years later (November 19, 1778) by a decree of
proscription.

[Footnote A: New Hampshire Prov. Papers vol. VIII, p. 1