THREE:At the very time he received this appointment he was actually in correspondence with Colonel Robinson, an officer of General Clinton's staff, declaring that he was become convinced of the more righteous cause of the mother country, and that he was prepared to testify this by some signal service to his king. It was at the beginning of August of the present year when Arnold assumed his command at West Point; and Clinton lost no time in opening a direct correspondence with him, through which such singular advantages were offered. Sir Henry Clinton employed as his agent in this correspondence a young officer of high promise in his profession and of considerable literary talents, Major John Andr, Adjutant-General and aide-de-camp to Sir Henry. As Clinton was naturally anxious to bring this hazardous correspondence to a close, he pressed Arnold to come to a speedy decision, offering him rank in the army and a high reward in return for the promised servicesnamely, the surrender of West Point, with all its dependent forts and stores, including, as a matter of course, the command of the Hudson, and the terror and distrust which this act would spread through the American army. The absence of Washington at the meeting with Rochambeau at Hartford was seized on as a proper opportunity for a personal and final conference on the subject. Major Andr was selected by General Clinton to meet Arnold on neutral ground. The place selected was on the western bank of the Hudson, and Clinton strongly enjoined him to enter on no account within the American lines, to assume no disguise, nor to be the bearer of any written documents. Day dawned before the whole preliminaries were settled, though the chief point was determinednamely, that West Point should be surrendered to the English on the following Monday. Andr was prevailed on to remain with Arnold the greater part of the day; and then, on going down to the shore, he found that the boatman who had brought him out refused to carry him back. When Andr returned to Arnold at Smith's house, he gave him a pass, and advised him to travel by land to King's Ferry, and there to cross. He insisted that for this purpose he must assume a disguise, and travel under his assumed name of John Anderson. So little was Andr apprehensive of danger, that he not only disobeyed the injunction of his[278] commander-in-chief in this particular, but in the far more important one of carrying written papers, which he concealed in his boot.The retreat of George to Hanover was not merely to enjoy his native scenes and old associations; he felt himself insecure even on the throne of England, and the rebellion for the present quelled; he was anxious to form or renew alliances on the Continent to give strength to his position. The part which England had taken at the end of the war seemed to have alienated all her confederates of the Grand Alliance, and transferred their resentment to himself with his accession to the British Crown. Holland was, perhaps, the least sensible of the past discords; she had kept the treaty, and lent her aid on the landing of the Pretender; but she was at daggers drawn with Austria, who was much irritated by the Barrier Treaty, by which the Dutch secured a line of fortresses on the Austrian Netherlands. As for the Emperor, he was more feeble and sluggish than he had shown himself as the aspirant to the throne of Spain. He was a bigoted Catholic, little disposed to trouble himself for securing a Protestant succession, although it had expended much money and blood in defence of his own. On the contrary, he felt a strong jealousy of George, the Elector of Hanover, as King of England, and therefore capable of introducing, through his augmented resources, aggressive disturbances in Germany. The King of Prussia, his son-in-law, was rather a troublesome and wrangling ally than one to be depended upon.
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