The Idaho world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1864-1918, 1872-04-18

was entirely exhausted. But Colonel
Burr, in his old age, was accustomed to
give very different accounted the mat
ter. He had known Mrs Arnold from
her infancy, and he always declared that
she knew all about her husbands trea-
son from the beginning, and he used to
relate q scene which he said he witness
ed at the house of Mrs. Provost, whom
he afterwards married, which somewhat
confirms his opinion. Mrs. Arnold, it
will be remembered, was sent home to
her father, escorted by party OF horse
men, and remained for night at the
house of Mrs. Provost, where Colonel
Burr was. Mrs. Arnold, he said, burst
into the room dressed in riding habit,
and was about to speak to the lady OF
the house when, seeing him in the dim
twilight of the apartment and not rec
ognizirg him, she asked anxiously:
Gam | safe? Is this gentleman a
friend?"
Upon discovering who he was, she
told them how she had deceived General
Washington, Colonel Hamilton, and the
other American officers by her frantic
outcries; and she declared that she not
only knew of the treason, but it was
she who had induced her husband to
commit it.
This was Colonel Burr's story, to
which the reader may give the credit
which he thinks it deserves Arnold
himself, does not say that she was ig-
norant of his intention to surrender the
fortress. In the we'll known letter which
he sent back to General Washington
from the Vulture, he says:
From the known humanity of your
excellency, | am induced to ask your
protection of Mrs Arnold, from every
insult and injury that mistaken ven
geance Of my country may expose her
TO- Ii ought TO fall only on me; she is
as good and as innocent as ali angel,
and is incapable Of doing wrong
The authorities of Pennsylvania be-
licved, with Burr. that she was a traitor.
Her papers were seized. and although
nothing was found in them 10 crimnate
her, she was not permitted 10 remain At
her fathers house, which she said she
desired Ia do. Her father offered 10 give
security that. during the war. she would
write lao letters 10 her husband, and
send to the government. unopened any
letters she might receive from him.
His offer was refused. and they ordered
her 10 depart, and not return during the
war. Being then obliged To join her
husband in New York, she soon rccoy-
cred her spirits, and shouc in society.
TO use the language Of the time. "a star
.of tie first magnitude" In England.
too. whittier she accompanied her nus
band. she attracted much attention for
her beauty, and was much tiatterod in
tory circles The British Government
gave Arnold. in compensation for his
American losses, something less than
seven thousand pounds, and settled upon
his family pension Of n thousand
pounds year; which was 10 bc contin-
ued rs long as either the husband or the
wife survived. Their family increased
in England. Arnold, finding himself
pinched upon an income of thirteen
hundred pounds per annum, went upon
a trading voyage to Halifax; with what
success is not known. 1t was thought
by some that he was glad to leave Eng
land for awhile, to escape the contempt
in which he was held even by those
who had employed him.
Mrs. Arnold lived to 1904, when she
died, aged forty-three years. That in
FAINT son whom she held in her arms. as
described above, entered the British ar
my in 1898, rose to the rank of lieu
tenantgeneral and was still living as
late as 1851 One of her grand-chil-
dren is clergyman in the Church of
England, and, it is said, a very worthy
gentleman, who has conversed with
American visitors upon his grandfather
in rational and becoming manner.
Two of her sons settled in Canada,
where they acquired competent estates,
and were living in 1929.
The WITNESS WHO KNEW ALL ABOUT IT. |