the-french-artist/wikipedia_20220301.simple_sentence_embeddings huggingface dataset:
Benedict Arnold 
 Arnold told the Massachusetts Committee of Safety of his idea to seize Fort Ticonderoga in New York, which he knew was poorly defended.
Benedict Arnold 
 They made him a colonel on 3 May 1775, and he immediately rode off to the west, arriving at Castleton in the disputed New Hampshire Grants (present-day Vermont) in time to join with Ethan Allen and his men in the capture of Fort Ticonderoga.
Benedict Arnold 
 He followed up that action with a bold raid on Fort Saint-Jean on the Richelieu River north of Lake Champlain.
Benedict Arnold 
 When a Connecticut militia force arrived at Ticonderoga in June, he had a dispute with its commander over control of the fort, and resigned his Massachusetts commission.
Benedict Arnold 
 When the Second Continental Congress authorized an invasion of Quebec, in part on the urging of Arnold, he was passed over for command of the expedition.
Benedict Arnold 
 Arnold then went to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and suggested to George Washington a second expedition to attack Quebec City via a wilderness route through present-day Maine.
Benedict Arnold 
 This expedition, for which Arnold received a colonel's commission in the Continental Army, left Cambridge in September 1775 with 1,100 men.
Benedict Arnold 
 After a difficult passage in which 300 men turned back and another 200 died en route, Arnold arrived before Quebec City in November.
Benedict Arnold 
 Joined by Richard Montgomery's small army, he took part in the assault on Quebec City on 31 December, in which Montgomery was killed and Arnold's leg was shattered.
Benedict Arnold 
 Arnold, who was promoted to brigadier general for his role in reaching Quebec, maintained an ineffectual siege of the city until he was replaced by Major General David Wooster in April 1776.
Benedict Arnold 
 Arnold then traveled to Montreal, where he served as military commander of the city until forced to retreat by an advancing British army that had arrived at Quebec in May.
Benedict Arnold 
 He then directed the construction of a fleet to defend Lake Champlain, which was defeated in the October 1776 Battle of Valcour Island.
Benedict Arnold 
 His actions at Saint-Jean and Valcour Island played a notable role in delaying the British advance against Ticonderoga until 1777.
Benedict Arnold 
 During these actions, Arnold made a number of friends and a larger number of enemies within the army power structure and in Congress.
Benedict Arnold 
 He had established decent relationships with George Washington, commander of the army, as well as Philip Schuyler and Horatio Gates, both of whom had command of the army's Northern Department during 1775 and 1776.
Benedict Arnold 
 However, a dispute with Moses Hazen, commander of the 2nd Canadian Regiment, boiled over into a court martial of Hazen at Ticonderoga during the summer of 1776.
Benedict Arnold 
 Only action by Gates, then his superior at Ticonderoga, prevented his own arrest on counter charges leveled by Hazen.
Benedict Arnold 
 He had also had disagreements with John Brown and James Easton, two lower-level officers with political connections that resulted in ongoing suggestions of wrongdoing on his part.
Benedict Arnold 
 Brown was particularly vicious, publishing a handbill that claimed of Arnold, "Money is this man's God, and to get enough of it he would sacrifice his country".
Benedict Arnold 
 General Washington told Arnold to defend Rhode Island after the British captured Newport in December 1776.
Benedict Arnold 
 Arnold was near his home, so he visited his children, and he spent much of the winter in Boston, where he tried to convince a woman named Betsy Deblois to marry him.
Benedict Arnold 
 He wrote that "two or three other very good officers" might quit if Congress kept promoting people for political reasons instead of based on who could fight and lead the best.
Benedict Arnold 
 On the way, he heard a British force was marching toward a place in Danbury, Connecticut where the Continental army had put its supplies.
Benedict Arnold 
 Arnold, David Wooster, and Connecticut militia General Gold Selleck Silliman led the militia to stop them.
Benedict Arnold 
 Arnold he led a small group of soldiers to stop or slow down the British as they returned to the Atlantic Ocean.
Benedict Arnold 
 Because of his good leadership at Ridgefield and because Wooster had died, Congress promoted Arnold to major general, although he did not outrank people who had been promoted before him.
Benedict Arnold 
 Arnold had a Native American messenger go into the camp of British Brigadier General Barry St. Leger.
Benedict Arnold 
 St. Leger's Native American soldiers abandoned him, so St. Leger and the rest of his soldiers had to leave too.
Benedict Arnold 
 Arnold fought very well in the Battles of Saratoga, even though he argued with General Gates and Gates told him he could no longer lead in the field.
Benedict Arnold 
 During the second battle, Arnold, against Gates' orders, went to the battlefield and led attacks on the British defenses.
Benedict Arnold 
 Because of Arnold's bravery at Saratoga, Congress restored his command seniority, meaning he outranked people who had been promoted to the same rank before him.
Benedict Arnold 
 There he took part in the first recorded Oath of Allegiance along with many other soldiers, as a sign of loyalty to the United States.
Benedict Arnold 
 After the British withdrew from Philadelphia in June 1778 Washington appointed Arnold military commander of the city.
Benedict Arnold 
 Even before the Americans reoccupied Philadelphia, Arnold began planning to make money from the change in power there.
Benedict Arnold 
 He did many business deals designed to earn money from war-related supply movements and from his rank as a general.
Benedict Arnold 
 He wrote to Washington in May 1779, "Having become a cripple in the service of my country, I little expected to meet [such] ungrateful returns."
Benedict Arnold 
 During the summer of 1778, Arnold met Peggy Shippen, the 18-year-old daughter of Judge Edward Shippen, a Loyalist sympathizer who had done business with the British while they occupied the city.
Benedict Arnold 
 Peggy and her friends had learned how to write letters to the men they liked even when there were armies in between, even though the military did not want people to talk to the enemy.
Benedict Arnold 
 Joseph Stansbury, a Philadelphia merchant, helped Peggy and her friends send some of their messages.
Benedict Arnold 
 Stansbury, whose testimony before a British commission apparently erroneously placed the date in June, said that, after meeting with Arnold, "I went secretly to New York with a tender of [Arnold's] services to Sir Henry Clinton."
Benedict Arnold 
 Ignoring instructions from Arnold not to involve anyone else in the plot, Stansbury crossed the British lines and went to see Jonathan Odell in New York.
Benedict Arnold 
 Odell was a Loyalist working with William Franklin, the last Colonial Governor of New Jersey and the son of Benjamin Franklin.
Benedict Arnold 
 On 9 May Franklin introduced Stansbury to Major André, who had just been named the British spy chief.
Benedict Arnold 
 This was the beginning of a secret correspondence between Arnold and André, sometimes using his wife Peggy as a willing intermediary, that culminated over a year later with Arnold's change of sides.
Benedict Arnold 
 This first letter opened a discussion on the types of assistance and intelligence Arnold might provide, and included instructions for how to communicate in the future.
Benedict Arnold 
 Letters would be passed through the women's circle that Peggy Arnold was a part of, but only Peggy would be aware that some letters contained instructions written in both code and invisible ink that were to be passed on to André, using Stansbury as the courier.
Benedict Arnold 
 By July 1779, Arnold was providing the British with troop locations and strengths, as well as the locations of supply depots, all the while negotiating over compensation.
Benedict Arnold 
 At first, he asked for indemnification of his losses and £10,000, an amount the Continental Congress had given Charles Lee for his services in the Continental Army.
Benedict Arnold 
 General Clinton, who was pursuing a campaign to gain control of the Hudson River Valley, was interested in plans and information on the defenses of West Point and other defenses on the Hudson River.
Benedict Arnold 
 He also began to insist on a face-to-face meeting, and suggested to Arnold that he pursue another high-level command.
Benedict Arnold 
 Furthermore, Patriot mobs were scouring Philadelphia for Loyalists, and Arnold and the Shippen family were being threatened.
Benedict Arnold 
 Arnold was rebuffed by Congress and by local authorities in requests for security details for himself and his in-laws.
Benedict Arnold 
 The court martial to consider the charges against Arnold began meeting on 1 June 1779, but was delayed until December 1779 by General Clinton's capture of Stony Point, New York, throwing the army into a flurry of activity to react.
Benedict Arnold 
 In spite of the fact that a number of members of the panel of judges were men ill-disposed to Arnold over actions and disputes earlier in the war, Arnold was cleared of all but two minor charges on 26 January 1780.
Benedict Arnold 
 Arnold worked over the next few months to publicize this fact; however, in early April, just one week after Washington congratulated Arnold on the 19 May birth of his son, Edward Shippen Arnold, Washington published a formal rebuke of Arnold's behavior.
Benedict Arnold 
 Shortly after Washington's rebuke, a Congressional inquiry into his expenditures concluded that Arnold had failed to fully account for his expenditures incurred during the Quebec invasion, and that he owed the Congress some £1,000, largely because he was unable to document them.
Benedict Arnold 
 A significant number of these documents were lost during the retreat from Quebec; angry and frustrated, Arnold resigned his military command of Philadelphia in late April.
Benedict Arnold 
 Early in April, Philip Schuyler had approached Arnold with the possibility of giving him the command at West Point.
Benedict Arnold 
 Arnold reopened the secret channels with the British, informing them of Schuyler's proposals and including Schuyler's assessment of conditions and West Point.
Benedict Arnold 
 He also provided information on a proposed French-American invasion of Quebec that was to go up the Connecticut River. (
Benedict Arnold 
 On 16 June Arnold inspected West Point while on his way home to Connecticut to take care of personal business, and sent a highly detailed report through the secret channel.
Benedict Arnold 
 When he reached Connecticut Arnold arranged to sell his home there, and began transferring assets to London through intermediaries in New York.
Benedict Arnold 
 By early July he was back in Philadelphia, where he wrote another secret message to Clinton on 7 July which implied that his appointment to West Point was assured and that he might even provide a "drawing of the works ... by which you might take [West Point] without loss".
Benedict Arnold 
 General Clinton and Major André, who returned victorious from the Siege of Charleston on 18 June were immediately caught up in this news.
Benedict Arnold 
 Clinton, concerned that Washington's army and the French fleet would join in Rhode Island, again fixed on West Point as a strategic point to capture.
Benedict Arnold 
 Excited by the prospects, Clinton informed his superiors of his intelligence coups, but failed to respond to Arnold's 7 July letter.
Benedict Arnold 
 Arnold next wrote a series of letters to Clinton, even before he might have expected a response to the 7 July letter.
Benedict Arnold 
 In a letter of 11 July, he complained that the British did not appear to trust him, and threatened to break off negotiations unless progress was made.
Benedict Arnold 
 On 12 July he wrote again, making explicit the offer to surrender West Point, although his price (in addition to indemnification for his losses) rose to £20,000, with a £1,000 down payment to be delivered with the response.
Benedict Arnold 
 These letters were delivered not by Stansbury but by Samuel Wallis, another Philadelphia businessman who spied for the British.
Benedict Arnold 
 On 15 August he received a coded letter from André with Clinton's final offer: £20,000, and no indemnification for his losses.
Benedict Arnold 
 Due to difficulties in getting the messages across the lines, neither side knew for some days that the other was in agreement to that offer.
Benedict Arnold 
 Arnold's letters continued to detail Washington's troop movements and provide information about French reinforcements that were being organized.
Benedict Arnold 
 Washington, in assigning Arnold to the command at West Point, also gave him authority over the entire American-controlled Hudson River, from Albany down to the British lines outside New York City.
Benedict Arnold 
 While en route to West Point, Arnold renewed an acquaintance with Joshua Hett Smith, someone Arnold knew had done spy work for both sides, and who owned a house near the western bank of the Hudson just south of West Point.
Benedict Arnold 
 Once he established himself at West Point, Arnold began systematically weakening its defenses and military strength.
Benedict Arnold 
 Troops were liberally distributed within Arnold's command area (but only minimally at West Point itself), or furnished to Washington on request.
Benedict Arnold 
 He also peppered Washington with complaints about the lack of supplies, writing, "Everything is wanting".
Benedict Arnold 
 At the same time, he tried to drain West Point's supplies, so that a siege would be more likely to succeed.
Benedict Arnold 
 His subordinates, some of whom were long-time associates, grumbled about unnecessary distribution of supplies, and eventually concluded that Arnold was selling some of the supplies on the black market for personal gain.
Benedict Arnold 
 On August 30, Arnold sent a letter accepting Clinton's terms and proposing a meeting to André through yet another intermediary: William Heron, a member of the Connecticut Assembly he thought he could trust.
Benedict Arnold 
 Heron, in a comic twist, went into New York unaware of the significance of the letter, and offered his own services to the British as a spy.
Benedict Arnold 
 He then took the letter back to Connecticut, where, suspicious of Arnold's actions, he delivered it to the head of the Connecticut militia.
Benedict Arnold 
 Four days later, Arnold sent a ciphered letter with similar content into New York through the services of a prisoner-of-war's wife.
Benedict Arnold 
 This meeting was thwarted when British gunboats in the river, not having been informed of his impending arrival, fired on his boat.
Benedict Arnold 
 On the morning of 22 September James Livingston, the colonel in charge of the outpost at Verplanck's Point, fired on HMS Vulture, the ship that was intended to carry André back to New York.
Benedict Arnold 
 This action damaged the ship and she had to retreat downriver, forcing André to return to New York overland.
Benedict Arnold 
 Arnold wrote out passes for André so that he would be able to pass through the lines, and also gave him plans for West Point.
Benedict Arnold 
 On Saturday, 23 September André was captured, near Tarrytown, by three Westchester patriots named John Paulding, Isaac Van Wart and David Williams; the papers exposing the plot to capture West Point were found and sent to Washington, and Arnold's treachery came to light after Washington examined them.
Benedict Arnold 
 Meanwhile, André convinced the unsuspecting commanding officer to whom he was delivered, Colonel John Jameson, to send him back to Arnold at West Point.
Benedict Arnold 
 However, Major Benjamin Tallmadge, a member of Washington's secret service, insisted Jameson order the prisoner intercepted and brought back.
Benedict Arnold 
 Jameson reluctantly recalled the lieutenant delivering André into Arnold's custody, but then sent the same lieutenant as a messenger to notify Arnold of André's arrest.
Benedict Arnold 
 Arnold learned of André's capture the following morning, 24 September, when he received Jameson's message that André was in his custody and that the papers André was carrying had been sent to General Washington.
Benedict Arnold 
 Arnold received Jameson's letter while waiting for Washington, with whom he had planned to have breakfast.
Benedict Arnold 
 He made all haste to the shore and ordered bargemen to row him downriver to where the Vulture was anchored, which then took him to New York.
Benedict Arnold 
 From the ship Arnold wrote a letter to Washington, requesting that Peggy be given safe passage to her family in Philadelphia, a request Washington granted.
Benedict Arnold 
 He did, however, investigate the extent of the betrayal, and suggested in negotiations with General Clinton over the fate of Major André that he was willing to exchange André for Arnold.
Benedict Arnold 
 This suggestion Clinton refused; after a military tribunal, André was hanged at Tappan, New York on 2 October.
Benedict Arnold 
 Washington also infiltrated men into New York in an attempt to kidnap Arnold; this plan, which very nearly succeeded, failed when Arnold changed living quarters prior to sailing for Virginia in December.
Benedict Arnold 
 Arnold attempted to justify his actions in an open letter titled To the Inhabitants of America, published in newspapers in October 1780.
Benedict Arnold 
 In the letter to Washington requesting safe passage for Peggy, he wrote that "Love to my country actuates my present conduct, however it may appear inconsistent to the world, who very seldom judge right of any man's actions."
Benedict Arnold 
 The British gave Arnold a brigadier general's commission with an annual income of several hundred pounds, but only paid him £6,315 plus an annual pension of £360 because his plot failed.
Benedict Arnold 
 In December 1780, under orders from Clinton, Arnold led a force of 1,600 troops into Virginia, where he captured Richmond by surprise and then went on a rampage through Virginia, destroying supply houses, foundries, and mills.
Benedict Arnold 
 This activity brought Virginia's militia out, and Arnold eventually retreated to Portsmouth to either be evacuated or reinforced.
Benedict Arnold 
 The pursuing American army included the Marquis de Lafayette, who was under orders from Washington to summarily hang Arnold if he was captured.
Benedict Arnold 
 Reinforcements led by William Phillips (who served under Burgoyne at Saratoga) arrived in late March, and Phillips led further raids across Virginia, including a defeat of Baron von Steuben at Petersburg, until his death of fever on 12 May 1781.
Benedict Arnold 
 Arnold commanded the army only until 20 May when Lord Cornwallis arrived with the southern army and took over.
Benedict Arnold 
 One colonel wrote to Clinton of Arnold, "there are many officers who must wish some other general in command".
Benedict Arnold 
 Cornwallis ignored advice proffered by Arnold to locate a permanent base away from the coast that might have averted his later surrender at Yorktown.
Benedict Arnold 
 On his return to New York in June, Arnold made a variety of proposals for continuing to attack essentially economic targets in order to force the Americans to end the war.
Benedict Arnold 
 Clinton, however, was not interested in most of Arnold's aggressive ideas, but finally relented and authorized Arnold to raid the port of New London, Connecticut.
Benedict Arnold 
 On 4 September not long after the birth of his and Peggy's second son, Arnold's force of over 1,700 men raided and burned New London and captured Fort Griswold, causing damage estimated at $500,000.
Benedict Arnold 
 British casualties were high—nearly one quarter of the force was killed or wounded, a rate at which Clinton claimed he could ill afford more such victories.
Benedict Arnold 
 Even before Cornwallis's surrender in October, Arnold had requested permission from Clinton to go to England to give Lord Germain his thoughts on the war in person.
Benedict Arnold 
 When word of the surrender reached New York, Arnold renewed the request, which Clinton then granted.
Benedict Arnold 
 In London he aligned himself with the Tories, advising Germain and King George III to renew the fight against the Americans.
Benedict Arnold 
 In the House of Commons, Edmund Burke expressed the hope that the government would not put Arnold "at the head of a part of a British army" lest "the sentiments of true honor, which every British officer [holds] dearer than life, should be afflicted."
Benedict Arnold 
 To Arnold's detriment the anti-war Whigs had gotten the upper hand in Parliament, and Germain was forced to resign, with the government of Lord North falling not long after.
Benedict Arnold 
 Arnold then applied to accompany General Carleton, who was going to New York to replace Clinton as commander-in-chief; this request went nowhere.
Benedict Arnold 
 Other attempts to gain positions within the government or the British East India Company over the next few years all failed, and he was forced to subsist on the reduced pay of non-wartime service.
Benedict Arnold 
 His reputation also came under criticism in the British press, especially when compared to that of Major André, who was celebrated for his patriotism.
Benedict Arnold 
 One particularly harsh critic said that he was a "mean mercenary, who, having adopted a cause for the sake of plunder, quits it when convicted of that charge."
Benedict Arnold 
 In turning him down for an East India Company posting, George Johnstone wrote, "Although I am satisfied with the purity of your conduct, the generality do not think so.
Benedict Arnold 
 While this is the case, no power in this country could suddenly place you in the situation you aim at under the East India Company."
Benedict Arnold 
 In 1785 Arnold and his son Richard moved to Saint John, New Brunswick, where they speculated in land, and established a business doing trade with the West Indies.
Benedict Arnold 
 Arnold purchased large tracts of land in the Maugerville area, and acquired city lots in Saint John and Fredericton.
Benedict Arnold 
 Delivery of his first ship, the Lord Sheffield, was accompanied by accusations from the builder that Arnold had cheated him; Arnold claimed that he had merely deducted the contractually agreed amount when the ship was delivered late.
Benedict Arnold 
 While there he disentangled himself from a lawsuit over an unpaid debt that Peggy had been fighting while he was away, paying £900 to settle a £12,000 loan he had taken while living in Philadelphia.
Benedict Arnold 
 The family moved to Saint John in 1787, where Arnold created an uproar with a series of bad business deals and petty lawsuits.
Benedict Arnold 
 Following the most serious, a slander suit he won against a former business partner, townspeople burned him in effigy in front of his house as Peggy and the children watched.
Benedict Arnold 
 In July 1792 he fought a bloodless duel with the James Maitland, 8th Earl of Lauderdale after the Earl impugned his honor in the House of Lords.
Benedict Arnold 
 With the outbreak of the French Revolution Arnold outfitted a privateer, while continuing to do business in the West Indies, even though the hostilities increased the risk.
Benedict Arnold 
 He was imprisoned by French authorities on Guadeloupe amid accusations of spying for the British, and narrowly eluded hanging by escaping to the blockading British fleet after bribing his guards.
Benedict Arnold 
 He helped organize militia forces on British-held islands, receiving praise from the landowners for his efforts on their behalf.
Benedict Arnold 
 This work, which he hoped would earn him wider respect and a new command, instead earned him and his sons a land grant of  in Upper Canada, near present-day Renfrew, Ontario.
Benedict Arnold 
 Gout, which he had suffered since 1775, attacked his unwounded leg to the point where he was unable to go to sea; the other ached constantly, and he walked only with a cane.
Benedict Arnold 
 His doctors diagnosed him as having dropsy, and a visit to the countryside only temporarily improved his condition.