of former acts, he
issued a proclamation to "the inhabitants of America," in which he
strove to cleanse himself from blame. This address, teeming with
flimsy protestations of patriotism, reviling Congress, vituperating
France as a worthless and sordid ally of the Crown's rebellious
subjects, met on all sides the most contemptuous derision. Arnold
passed nearly all the remainder of his life--eleven years or
thereabouts--in England. He died in London, worn out with a nervous
disease, on June 14, 1801. It is a remarkable fact that his second
wife, who had till the last remained faithful to him, suffered
acutely at his death, and both spoke and wrote of him in accents of
strongest bereavement.

To the psychologic student of human character, Benedict Arnold
presents a strangely fascinating picture. Elements of good were
unquestionably factors of his mental being. But pride, revenge,
jealousy, and an almost superhuman egotism fatally swayed him. He
desired to lead in all things, and he had far too much vanity, far
too little self-government, and not half enough true morality to
lead with success and permanence in any. The wrongs which beyond
doubt his country inflicted upon him he was incapable of bearing
like a stoic. Virile and patriotic from one point of view, he was
childish and weak-fibred from another. He has been likened to
Marlborough, though by no means so great a soldier. Yet it is true
that John Churchill won his dukedom by deserting his former
benefactor, James II, and joining the Whig cause of William of
Orange. If the Revolution had been crushed, we cannot blind our eyes
to the fact that Arnold's treason would have received from history
far milder dealing than is accorded it now. Even the radiant name of
Washington would very probably have shone to us dimmed and blurred
through a mist of calamity. Posterity may respect the patriot whose
star sinks in unmerited failure, but it bows homage to him if he
wages against despotism a victorious fight. Supposing that Arnold's
surrender of West Point had extinguished that splendid spark of
liberty which glowed primarily at Lexington and Bunker Hill, the
chances are that he might have received an English peerage and died
in all the odor of a distinction as brilliant as it would have been
undeserved. The triumph of the American rebellion so soon after he
had ignominiously washed his hands of it, sealed forever his own
social doom. That, it is certain, was most severe and