of the unfortunate men who had, by compulsion, borne arms in the British service, and were afterwards found enlisted under the American banner. Many of these persons suffered immediate death. Their houses were burnt, and their families obliged to fly, naked, to the wilderness to seek some miserable shelter.

From the desultory movements of the British after the battle of Camden, and the continual resistance and activity of the Ameri cans, attack and defeat, surprise and escape, plunder, burning, and devastation, pervaded the whole country, when the aged, the helpless, the women, and the children, alternately became the prey of opposite partisans. But the defeat of Major Ferguson, a favorite British officer, early in the autumn of 1780, was a blow that discovered at once the spirit of the people, and displayed to Comwallis the general disaffection of that part of the country where he had been led to place the most confidence. Ferguson had for several weeks taken post in Tryon county, near the mountains in the western part of Carolina. He had there collected a body of royalists, who, united with his regular detachments, spread terror and dismay through all the adjacent country. This aroused to action all the patriots who were capable of bearing arms. A body of militia collected in the highlands of North Carolina, and a party of riflemen, forming a numerous and resolute band, determined to drive him from his strong hold at King's Mountain. The Americans were under various commanders, who had little knowledge of each other, yet they combined their operations with so much skill and resolution that they totally defeated the British. This action was fought on the 7th of October, 1780. Ferguson with one hundred and fifty of his men were killed, and seven hundred made prisoners, from whom were selected a few, who, from motives of public zeal or private revenge, were immediately executed. This bloody deed was done by some of those fierce and uncivilized chieftains, who had spent most of their lives in the mountains and forests.

While Cornwallis was thus embarrassed by various unsuccessful attempts in the Carolinas, Clinton made a diversion in the Chesapeake, in favor of his designs. A body of about three thousand men was sent thither, under General Leslie. He was directed to take his orders from Cornwallis; but not hearing from him for some time after his arrival, he was at a loss in what manner to proceed. In October, he received letters from Cornwallis, directing him to repair to Charleston, to assist with all his forces, in the complete subjugation of the Carolinas.

Early in the year 1780, the Hon. Henry Laurens, of South Carolina, late president of congress, was entrusted with a mission to

Holland, to negotiate a treaty with the Dutch, but he was unfortunately captured on his voyage by the British, and sent to England, where he experienced all the suffering of a severe imprisonment in the tower of London, usually inflicted on state criminals.

CHAPTER LXIV.

Treason of General Arnold.-Capture and execution of Major André.-Fidelity of three American soldiers.- Catastrophe of Captain Hale.-Adventure of Champe. -Revolt of the Pennsylvania line.-Mutiny of the Jersey troops quelled.-Hos tile movements of Spain against Great Britain.-Conquest of West Florida by the Spaniards of Louisiana.-Conduct of the Dutch government.-War between Great Britain and Holland.-Imprisonment of Mr. Laurens in London.--Mission of Mr. Adams to Holland.

THE year 1780 was marked by the treason of General Arnold, who deserted the American cause, sold himself to the enemies of his country, and engaged in the British service. He was a man without principle from the beginning; and before his treachery was discovered, he had sunk a character, raised by impetuous valor attended with success, without being the possessor of any other intrinsic merit. He had accumulated a fortune by peculation, and squandered it discreditably, long before he formed the plan to betray his country. Montreal he had plundered in haste; but in Philadelphia he went to work deliberately to seize everything he could lay hands on, which had been the property of the disaffected party, and converted it to his own use. He entered

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into contracts for speculating and privateering, and at the same time made exorbitant demands on congress, for compensation for his services. In his speculations he was disappointed by the common failure of such adventures; in the other attempt he was rebuffed and mortified by the commissioners appointed to examine his accounts, who curtailed a great part of his demands as unjust, and for which he deserved severe reprehension. Involved in debt by his extravagance, and reproached by his creditors, his resentment wrought him up to a determination of revenge for this public ignominy.

The command of the important post at West Point, on the Hudson, had been given to Arnold. No one suspected, notwithstanding the censures that had fallen upon him, that he had a heart base enough treacherously to betray his military trust. Who made the first advances to negotiation, is uncertain; but it appeared, on a scrutiny, that Arnold had proposed overtures to Clinton, characteristic of his own baseness, and not very honorable to the British commander, if viewed apart from the usages of war, which too frequently sanction the blackest crimes. His treacherous proposals were listened to, and Clinton authorized Major Andre, his adjutant general, a young officer of great integrity and worth, to hold a personal and secret conference with the

The British sloop of war Vulture had been stationed for some time at a convenient place in the river to facilitate the design; it was also said that Andre and Arnold had kept up a friendly correspondence on some trivial matters, previous to their personal interview, which took place on the twenty-first of September, 1780. Andre was landed in the night near West Point

on a beach, without the military boundaries of either army. He there inet Arnold, who communicated to him the state of the army and garrison at West Point, the number of men considered as necessary for its defence, and a return of the ordnance, and the artillery corps. These accounts he gave Andre in writing, with plans of all the works.

The conference continued so long that it did not finish in time for the safe retreat of Andre. He was conducted, though without his knowledge or consent, within the American posts, where he was obliged to conceal himself in company with Arnold, until the ensuing morning. The Vultute, in the meantime, from which he had been landed, shifted her station while he was on shore, and lay so much exposed to the fire of the Americans, that the boatmen whom Arnold had bribed to bring Andre to the conference, refused to venture a second time on board. This rendered it impossible for him to return to New York by water; and he was reduced to the necessity of hurrying, like a disguised criminal, through the posts of his enemies. Furnished with a passport from Arnold, under the name of Anderson, he had nearly reached the British lines, when he was suddenly arrested within the American posts, by three private soldiers. He was instantly aware of his desperate situation,-taken in the night, in a disguised habit, under a fictitious name, with a plan of the works at West Point concealed in his boots, containing the situation, the numbers and the strength of the American army. He offered a purse of gold, an elegant gold watch, and other very tempting rewards, if he might be permitted to pass unmolested to New York. But his captors, rejecting all pecuniary rewards, had the fidelity to convey their prisoner immediately to the head quarters of the American army. Such instances of patriotism and such contempt for private interest, when united with duty and obligation to the public, are so rare, that the names of John Paulding, David Williams and Isaac Vanwert ought never to be forgotten in American history.

When Arnold was first apprized of the detection of Andre, he was struck with astonishment and terror. He called for a horse, mounted instantly, and rode down a craggy steep, never before passed on horseback. He took a barge, and showing a flag of truce, passed the fort at Verplank's Point, and soon found himself safe beneath the guns of the Vulture. Before he took leave of the bargemen, he made them very generous offers, if they would act as dishonorably as he had done; he promised them higher and better wages, if they would desert their country, and enlist in the service of Britain; but they spurned at the offer. Arnold