Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1846-09-24
That child was BENEDICT ARNOLD.

Near half a century had passed awav 1t was
night in that New England town, where, forty
five years before, that mother, in the calmness Of
the Sabbath evening, brought her babe and laid
it on the sar
1t was midnight. The village girl had bid
den her lover last good night that good old
father had lifted bis voice in prayer with his
children all around hint was midnight and
the village people slept soundly in their beds.
All at once, rising from the deep silence, a
horrld shrek went up to the midnight sky
All at once blaze of fire burst over the roof
Look yonder That father murdered on his own
threshod-that mother stabbed in the midst of
her chiIdren-that maiden kneeling there, plead
ing for life, as the sharp steel crashes into her
brain!
Then the blood flows in the startled streets
then British troopers fit to and fro in the red
light-then rising in the centre of the town,
that quiet village church, with its rustic steepIe,
towers into the blaze.
And there--oh Father of mercy-there, in
that steople, stands soldier with dark cloak
he stands, with folded arms, and from that height
surveys with calm joy the horrd scene of mas
sacrc below.
Now, mother of Arnold look from Heaven
and weep! Fory-fve years ago, you laid your
child upon the sacramento altar of this church,
and now he stands in yonder steepe, drinking
in with a calm joy the terrible cries of old men,
and trembling women, and little children,
hewn down in hdeous murder before his very
eyes
Look there, aud learn what a devil Remor$c
can make of such man.
Here are the faces he has known in childhood
the friends of his manhood-the matrons, who
were little girls when he was boy--here they
are hacked by British swords, and he looks on
and smiles
AT last, the cries are stiIIed in DEATH the last
flash of the burning town glares over the steepe,
and there, attred in that scarlet uniform, his
bronzed face stamped with the conflicts of
hldeous passions-there smiling still amid
the scene of ruin and blood stands BENEDIcr
ARNOLD.
That was the last act of the traitor on our
soil. In few days he sailed from our Shores
and came back no more
And now as he goes yonder on his awful way,
while millions curse the echo of his name,
in yonder lonely room two orphans bless that
name
What is this you say Orphans bless the
name of Arnold! Yes, my friends-for there
was night when those orphans were without
crust of bread, while their father lay mouIdering
on the sod Of Bunker Hill. Yes, the Legisla-
ture of Massachusetts had left these children to
the cold mercy of the world and that when they
bore his name who fell on Bunker Hll-the
immortal WARREN
While they sat there, hungry and cold, no fire
on the hearth, not crust of bread upon the
table, their eyes fixed upon the fearful face of
the good woman who gave them the shelter Of a
roof a letter came, and in its folds five hundred
dollars from Benedict Arnold
This at the very moment when he was steeIing
his soul to the guilt Of Treason. This at the
moment when his fortune had been scattered in
banquets and pageants-when assailed by clam
orous creditors, he was ready to sell his soul
for gold.
From the last wreck of his fortune, all that
had been left from the parasites who fed upon
him, while they could, and then stung the hand
that fed them, he took five hundred dollars and
sent them to the children of his comrade, the
patriot Warren.
Is it true, that when the curse of a wronged
orphan quivers, up yonder, the angels of God
shed tears at the sound of wo? Then at the
awful hour when Arnold's soul went up to judy
ment, did the prayers of Waren's orphan chill
dren 60 up there, and like angels, plead for him
with God
V'ho Noftonou