d in the auxiliary corps, the good understanding
thenceforth established among the officers, helped Washington in his
difficult task. From the first the superiority of the general was
admitted by the French as well as by the Americans; naturally, and by the
mere fact of the gifts he had received from God, Washington was always
and everywhere chief of the men placed within his range and under his
influence.

This natural ascendency, which usually triumphed over the base jealousies
and criminal manoeuvres into which the rivals of General Washington had
sometimes allowed themselves to be drawn, had completely failed in the
case of one of his most brilliant lieutenants; in spite of his inveterate
and well-known vices, Benedict Arnold had covered himself with glory by
daring deeds and striking bravery exhibited in a score of fights, from
the day when, putting himself at the head of the first bands raised in
Massachusetts, he had won the grade of general during his expedition to
Canada. Accused of malversation, and lately condemned by a court-martial
to be reprimanded by the general-in-chief, Arnold, through an excess of
confidence on Washington's part, still held the command of the important
fort of West Point: he abused the trust. Washington, on returning from
an interview with Count de Rochambeau, went out of his way to visit the
garrison of West Point: the commandant was absent. Surprised and
displeased, the general was impatiently waiting for his return, when his
aide-de-camp and faithful friend, Colonel Hamilton, brought him important
despatches. Washington's face remained impassible; but throughout the
garrison and among the general's staff there had already spread a whisper
of Arnold's treachery: he had promised, it was said, to deliver West
Point to the enemy. An English officer, acting as a spy, had actually
been arrested within the American lines.

It was true; and General Arnold, turning traitor to his country from
jealousy, vengeance, and the shameful necessities entailed by a
disorderly life, had sought refuge at New York with Sir Henry Clinton.
Major Andre was in the hands of the Americans. Young, honorable, brave,
endowed with talents, and of elegant and cultivated tastes, the English
officer, brought up with a view to a different career, but driven into
the army from a disappointment in love, had accepted the dangerous
mission of bearing to the perfidious commandant of West Point the English
general's