Part 15

The advantages of the Bank may consist in this: in the profits of the contracts made with Government, which should bear interest to be annually paid in specie; in the loan of money at interest, say six per cent.; in purchasing lives by annuities, as practised in England, etc. The benefit resulting to the Company, is evident from the consideration, that they may employ, in circulation, a great deal more money than they have specie in Stock, on the credit of the real property which they will have in other use. This money will be employed, either in fulfilling their contracts with the public, by which also they will gain a profit; or in loans at an advantageous interest, or in annuities.

The Bank may be allowed to purchase plate and bullion, and coin money; allowing Government a part of the profit. I make the Bank notes bear interest, to obtain a readier currency, and to induce the holders to prefer them to specie, to prevent too great a run upon the Bank, at any time, beyond its ability to pay.

If Government can obtain a foreign loan, it should lend to the Bank, on easy terms, to extend its influence, and facilitate a compliance with its engagements. If Government could engage the States to raise a sum of money in specie, to be deposited in Bank in the same manner, it would be of the greatest consequence. If Government could prevail on the enthusiasm of the people, to make a contribution in plate for the same purpose, it would be a master-stroke. Things of this kind sometimes succeed in popular contests; and, if undertaken with address, I should not despair of its success: but I should not be sanguine.

The Bank may be instituted for a term of years by way of trial; and the

## particular privilege of coining money, be for a term still shorter.

A temporary transfer of it to a particular Company, can have no inconvenience, as the Government are in no condition to improve this resource; nor could it, in our circumstances, be an object to them; though, with the industry of a knot of individuals, it might be a valuable one to them. A Bank of this kind, even in its commencement, would answer the most valuable purposes to Government and to the proprietors: in its progress, the advantages will exceed calculation. It will promote commerce, by furnishing a more extensive medium, which we greatly want, in our circumstances. I mean a more extensive valuable medium. We have an enormous nominal one at this time, but it is only a name.

In the present unsettled state of things in this country, we can hardly draw inferences from what has happened in others; otherwise I should be certain of the success of this scheme: but I think it has enough in its favor to be worthy of trial.

I have only skimmed the surface of the different subjects I have introduced. Should the plans recommended come into contemplation, in earnest, and you desire my further thoughts, I will endeavor to give them more form and particularity. I am persuaded a solid Confederation, a permanent army, a reasonable prospect of subsisting it, would give us treble consideration in Europe, and produce a peace this winter.

If a Convention is called, the minds of all the States, and the people, ought to be prepared to receive its determinations by sensible and popular writings, which should conform to the views of Congress. There are epochs in human affairs when _novelty_ even is useful. If a general opinion prevails that the old way is bad, whether true or false, and this obstructs or relaxes the operations of the public service, a change is necessary, if it be but for the sake of change. This is exactly the case now. ’Tis a universal sentiment, that our present system is a bad one, and that things do not go right on this account. The measure of a Convention would revive the hopes of the people, and give a new direction to their passions, which may be improved in carrying points of substantial utility. The eastern States have already pointed out this mode to Congress: they ought to take the hint and anticipate the others.

And, in future, my dear sir, two things let me recommend, as fundamental rules for the conduct of Congress: to attach the army to them by every motive; to maintain an air of authority (not domineering) in all their measures with the States. The manner in which a thing is done, has more influence than is commonly imagined. Men are governed by opinion: this opinion is as much influenced by appearances as by realities. If a Government appears to be confident of its own powers, it is the surest way to inspire the same confidence in others. If it is diffident, it may be certain there will be a still greater diffidence in others; and that its authority will not only be distrusted, controverted, but contemned.

I wish, too, Congress would always consider, that a kindness consists as much in the manner as in the thing. The best things done hesitatingly, and with an ill grace, lose their effect, and produce disgust rather than satisfaction or gratitude. In what Congress have at any time done for the army, they have commonly been too late. They have seemed to yield to importunity, rather than to sentiments of justice or to a regard to the accommodation of their troops. An attention to this idea, is of more importance than it may be thought. I, who have seen all the workings and progress of the present discontents, am convinced, that a want of this has not been among the most inconsiderable causes.

You will perceive, my dear sir, this letter is hastily written, and with a confidential freedom: not as to a member of Congress, whose feelings may be sore at the prevailing clamors; but as to a friend, who is in a situation to remedy public disorders; who wishes for nothing so much as truth; and who is desirous of information, even from those less capable of judging than himself. I have not even time to correct and copy; and only enough to add, that I am, very truly and affectionately, dear sir,

Your most obedient servant, A. Hamilton.

SCHUYLER TO HAMILTON.

1780.

My Dear Sir:

Your favor of the 17th I received on that day. That of the 13th has taken a tour to Albany and was delivered me this moment.

Commissioners will be appointed to meet the Eastern Convention; I believe Judge Hubbard, Mr. Benson, the Attorney General, and myself, will go; the two gentlemen I have mentioned are as deeply impressed as men can be with the necessity of more power in the directing councils, or what would be better in our present situation, ----. The lower house are for it, but the upper timid, although heartily disposed to every measure which will give vigor.

I was too much indisposed to undertake the journey to Hartford, and continue so much so that I am obliged to quit this before the Legislature rises.

I am informed Gates is to have the thanks of the Senate for not despairing of the Commonwealth, but that they do not mean to tread wholly in the steps of the Romans, and confine him to subordinate commands; he is to have a potent army, and to drive Cornwallis and his crew into the sea with more rapidity than he flew to Hillsborough.

Pray entreat the General and the gentlemen of his family to accept of my best wishes, in which you always partake.

I am, dear Sir, Affectionately yours, etc., P. Schuyler.

Col. Hamilton.

HAMILTON TO MISS SCHUYLER.

September 6, 1780.

Most people here are groaning under a very disagreeable piece of intelligence just come from the southward, that Gates has had a total defeat near Camden, in South Carolina. Cornwallis and he met in the night of the fifteenth, by accident, marching to the same point. The advanced guards skirmished, and the two armies halted and formed till morning. In the morning a battle ensued, in which the militia, and Gates with them, immediately ran away, and left the Continental troops to contend with the enemy’s whole force.

They did it obstinately, and probably are most of them cut off. Gates, however, who writes to Congress, seems to know very little what has become of his army. He showed that age and the long labors and fatigues of a military life had not in the least impaired his activity, for in three days and a half he reached Hillsborough, one hundred and eighty miles from the scene of action, leaving all his troops to take care of themselves, and get out of the scrape as well as they could.

He has confirmed, in this instance, the opinion I always had of him. This event will have very serious consequences to the southward. People’s imaginations have already given up North Carolina and Virginia; but I do not believe either of them will fall. I am certain Virginia cannot. This misfortune affects me less than others, because it is not in my temper to repine at evils that are past, but to endeavor to draw good out of them, and because I think our safety depends on a total change of system, and this change of system will only be produced by misfortune.

A. Hamilton.

HAMILTON TO DUANE.

September 6, 1780.

My Dear Sir:

The letter accompanying this has lain by two or three days for want of an opportunity. I have heard since of Gates’s defeat: a very good comment on the necessity of changing our system. His passion for militia, I fancy, will be a little cured, and he will cease to think them the best bulwark of American liberty. What think you of the conduct of this great man? I am his enemy personally, for unjust and unprovoked attacks upon my character; therefore what I say of him ought to be received as from an enemy, and have no more weight than as it is consistent with fact and common sense. But did ever any one hear of such a disposition or such a flight? His best troops placed on the side strongest by nature, his worst on that weakest by nature, and his attack made with these. ’Tis impossible to give a more complete picture of military absurdity. It is equally against the maxims of war and common sense. We see the consequences. His left ran away, and left his right uncovered. His right wing turned on the left has in all probability been cut off. Though, in truth, the General seems to have known very little what became of his army.

Had he placed his militia on his right, supported by the morass, and his Continental troops on his left, where it seems he was most vulnerable, his right would have been more secure, and his left would have opposed the enemy; and instead of going backward when he ordered to attack, would have gone forward. The reverse of what has happened might have happened.

But was there ever an instance of a General running away, as Gates has done, from his whole army? And was there ever so precipitous a flight? One hundred and eighty miles in three days and a half. It does admirable credit to the activity of a man at his time of life. But it disgraces the General and the soldier. I always believed him to be very far short of a Hector, or a Ulysses. All the world, I think, will begin to agree with me.

But what will be done by Congress? Will he be changed or not? If he is changed, for God’s sake overcome prejudice, and send Greene. You know my opinion of him. I stake my reputation on the events, give him but fair play.

But, above all things, let us have, without delay, a vigorous, government, and a well constituted army for the war.

Adieu, my dear Sir, A. Hamilton.

COL. FLEURY TO HAMILTON.

Boston, September 7, 1780.

If you do write to me, direct your letters to General Heath, and under his cover. I cannot tell why till I see you; I want it much.

The enemy have left Martha’s Vineyard. It is reported they sailed to the southward.

I beg you would remember me to my friend Laurens; I have written to him, but he keeps silent.

I do not like your situation at Lee’s Fort: you throw the glove to Clinton; he will take it, and we are not near enough to be your seconds. Our sick increase; not much; but they increase.

Farewell, your servant and friend, F * * y.

HAMILTON TO LAURENS.

September, 1780.

Since my return from Hartford, my dear Laurens, my mind has been too little at ease to permit me to write to you sooner. It has been wholly occupied by the affecting and tragic consequences of Arnold’s treason. My feelings were never put to so severe a trial. You will no doubt have heard the principal facts before this reaches you. But there are

## particulars, to which my situation gave me access, that cannot have

come to your knowledge from public report, which I am persuaded you will find interesting.

From several circumstances, the project seems to have originated with Arnold himself, and to have been long premeditated. The first overture is traced back to some time in June last. It was conveyed in a letter to Colonel Robinson; the substance of which was, that the ingratitude he had experienced from his country, concurring with other causes, had entirely changed his principles; that he now only sought to restore himself to the favor of his king, by some signal proof of his repentance; and would be happy to open a correspondence with Sir Henry Clinton for that purpose. About this period he made a journey to Connecticut: on his return from which to Philadelphia, he solicited the command of West Point; alleging that the effects of his wounds had disqualified him for the active duties of the field. The sacrifice of this important post was the atonement he intended to make. General Washington hesitated the less to gratify an officer who had rendered such eminent services, as he was convinced the post might be safely intrusted to one who had given so many distinguished specimens of his bravery. In the beginning of August he joined the army and renewed his application. The enemy, at this juncture, had embarked the greatest part of their forces on an expedition to Rhode Island; and our army was in motion to compel them to relinquish the enterprise, or to attack New-York in its weakened state. The General offered Arnold the left wing of the army, which he declined, on the pretext already mentioned, but not without visible embarrassment. He certainly might have executed the duties of such a temporary command; and it was expected from his enterprising temper, that he would gladly have embraced so splendid an opportunity. But he did not choose to be diverted a moment from his favorite object; probably from an apprehension that some different disposition might have taken place, which would have excluded him. The extreme solicitude he discovered to get possession of the post, would have led to a suspicion of treachery, had it been possible, from his past conduct, to have supposed him capable of it.

The correspondence thus begun, was carried on between Arnold and Major André, Adjutant-General to the British army, in behalf of Sir Henry Clinton, under feigned signatures, and in a mercantile disguise. In an intercepted letter of Arnold’s, which lately fell into our hands, he proposes an interview, “to settle the risks and profits of the copartnership;” and, in the same style of metaphor, intimates an expected augmentation of the garrison; and speaks of it as the means of extending their traffic. It appears, by another letter, that André was to have met him on the lines, under the sanction of a flag, in the character of Mr. John Anderson. But some cause or other, not known, prevented this interview.

The twentieth of last month, Robinson and André went up the river in the Vulture sloop-of-war. Robinson sent a flag to Arnold with two letters; one to General Putnam, inclosed in another to himself; proposing an interview with Putnam, or, in his absence, with Arnold, to adjust some private concerns. The one to General Putnam, was evidently meant as a cover to the other, in case, by accident, the letters should have fallen under the inspection of a third person.

General Washington crossed the river, on his way to Hartford, the day these dispatches arrived. Arnold, conceiving he must have heard of the flag, thought it necessary, for the sake of appearances, to submit the letters to him, and ask his opinion of the propriety of complying with the request. The General, with his usual caution, though without the least surmise of the design, dissuaded him from it, and advised him to reply to Robinson, that whatever related to his private affairs, must be of a civil nature, and could only properly be addressed to the civil authority. This reference fortunately deranged the plan; and was the first link in the chain of events that led to the detection. The interview could no longer take place in the form of a flag, but was obliged to be managed in a secret manner.

Arnold employed one Smith to go on board the Vulture the night of the twenty-second, to bring André on shore, with a pass for Mr. John Anderson. André came ashore accordingly; and was conducted within a picket of ours to the house of Smith, where Arnold and he remained together in close conference all that night and the day following. At daylight in the morning, the commanding officer at King’s Ferry, without the privity of Arnold, moved a couple of pieces of cannon to a point opposite to where the Vulture lay, and obliged her to take a more remote station. This event, or some lurking distrust, made the boatmen refuse to convey the two passengers back, and disconcerted Arnold so much, that by one of those strokes of infatuation which often confound the schemes of men conscious of guilt, he insisted on André’s exchanging his uniform for a disguise, and returning in a mode different from that in which he came. André, who had been undesignedly brought within our posts in the first instance, remonstrated warmly against this new and dangerous expedient. But Arnold persisting in declaring it impossible for him to return as he came, he at length reluctantly yielded to his direction, and consented to change his dress, and take the route he recommended. Smith furnished the disguise, and in the evening passed King’s Ferry with him, and proceeded to Crompond, where they stopped the remainder of the night, at the instance of a militia officer, to avoid being suspected by him. The next morning they resumed their journey, Smith accompanying André a little beyond Pine’s Bridge, where he left him. He had reached Tarrytown, when he was taken up by three militia men, who rushed out of the woods and seized his horse.

At this critical moment, his presence of mind forsook him. Instead of producing his pass, which would have extricated him from our

## parties, and could have done him no harm with his own, he asked the

militia men, if they were of the _upper_ or _lower_ party; distinctive appellations known among the enemy’s refugee corps. The militia men replied, they were of the lower party; upon which he told them he was a British officer, and pressed them not to detain him, as he was upon urgent business. This confession removed all doubts; and it was in vain he afterwards produced his pass. He was instantly forced off to a place of greater security, where, after a careful search, there were found, concealed in the feet of his stockings, several papers of importance, delivered to him by Arnold! Among these, were a plan of the fortifications of West Point; a memorial from the engineer on the attack and defence of the place; returns of the garrison, cannon, and stores; copy of the minutes of a council of war held by General Washington a few weeks before. The prisoner, at first, was inadvertently ordered to Arnold; but on recollection, while still on the way, he was countermanded, and sent to Old Salem. The papers were inclosed in a letter to General Washington, which, having taken a route different from that by which he returned, made a circuit that afforded leisure for another letter, through an ill-judged delicacy, written to Arnold with information of Anderson’s capture, to get to him an hour before General Washington arrived at his quarters; time enough to elude the fate that awaited him. He went down the river in his barge to the Vulture with such precipitate confusion, that he did not take with him a single paper useful to the enemy. On the first notice of the affair, he was pursued, but much too late to be overtaken.

There was some color for imagining it was a part of the plan to betray the General into the hands of the enemy. Arnold was very anxious to ascertain from him the precise day of his return; and the enemy’s movements seem to have corresponded to this point. But if it was really the case, it was very injudicious. The success must have depended on surprise; and as the officers at the advanced posts were not in the secret, their measures might have given the alarm; and General Washington, taking the command of the post, might have rendered the whole scheme abortive. Arnold, it is true, had so dispersed the garrison, as to have made a defence difficult, but not impracticable; and the acquisition of West Point was of such magnitude to the enemy, that it would have been unwise to connect it with any other object, however great, which might make the obtaining of it precarious.

Arnold, a moment before the setting out, went into Mrs. Arnold’s apartment, and informed her that some transactions had just come to light, which must for ever banish him from his country. She fell into a swoon at this declaration: and he left her in it, to consult his own safety, till the servants, alarmed by her cries, came to her relief. She remained frantic all day; accusing every one who approached her, with an intention to murder her child (an infant in her arms); and exhibiting every other mark of the most genuine and agonizing distress. Exhausted by the fatigue and tumult of her spirits, her phrensy subsided towards evening, and she sank into all the sadness of affliction. It was impossible not to have been touched with her situation. Every thing affecting in female tears, or in the misfortunes of beauty; every thing pathetic in the wounded tenderness of a wife, or in the apprehensive fondness of a mother; and, till I have reason to change the opinion, I will add, every thing amiable in suffering innocence; conspired to make her an object of sympathy to all who were present. She experienced the most delicate attentions, and every friendly office, till her departure for Philadelphia.

André was, without loss of time, conducted to the head quarters of the army, where he was immediately brought before a Board of General Officers, to prevent all possibility of misrepresentation, or cavil on the part of the enemy. The Board reported, that he ought to be considered as a spy, and, according to the laws of nations, to suffer death; which was executed two days after.