against the United States were great, and he looked to them for
the means of extricating himself from the embarrassments in which his
indiscretions had involved him; but the commissioners to whom his
accounts were referred for settlement, had reduced them considerably;
and, on his appeal from their decision to congress, a committee
reported that the sum allowed by the commissioners was more than he
was entitled to receive.

He was charged with various acts of extortion on the citizens of
Philadelphia, and with peculating on the funds of the continent. Not
the less soured by these multiplied causes of irritation, from the
reflection that they were attributable to his own follies and vices,
he gave full scope to his resentments, and indulged himself in
expressions of angry reproach against, what he termed, the ingratitude
of his country, which provoked those around him, and gave great
offence to congress. Having become peculiarly odious to the government
of Pennsylvania, the Executive of that state exhibited formal charges
against him to congress, who directed that he should be arrested and
brought before a court martial. His trial was concluded late in
January, 1779, and he was sentenced to be reprimanded by the
Commander-in-chief. This sentence was approved by congress and carried
into execution.

From the time the sentence against him was approved, if not sooner,
his proud unprincipled spirit revolted from the cause of his country,
and determined him to seek an occasion to make the objects of his
resentment, the victims of his vengeance. Turning his eyes on West
Point as an acquisition which would give value to treason, and inflict
a mortal wound on his former friends, he sought the command of that
fortress for the purpose of gratifying both his avarice and his
hate.[42]

[Footnote 42: The author is informed by General Lafayette that Arnold,
while commanding at West Point, endeavoured to obtain from General
Washington the names of his secret emissaries in New York, and his
means of communicating with them. He pressed Lafayette, who had also
his private intelligencers, for the same information. His applications
were of course unsuccessful. It cannot be doubted that his object was
to commit the additional crime of betraying them to Sir Henry
Clinton.]

To New York, the safety of West Point was peculiarly interesting; and,
in that state, the reputation of Arnold was particularly high. To its
delegation he addressed