limb often reminded him, and it was only fitting
that he, who alone had destroyed a whole army of the enemy, should be
rewarded with due consideration. Congress had ever been unfriendly to
him and he had resented their action, or their failure to take proper
action, most bitterly. Throughout it all his personal feelings had
guided to a large extent his faculty of judgment, and for that reason he
viewed with mistrust and suspicion every intent and purpose, however
noble or exalted.

He had been violently opposed to the alliance with France from the
start. It was notorious that he abhorred Catholics and all things
Catholic. To take sides with a Catholic and despotic power which had
been a deadly foe to the colonists ten or twenty years before, during
the days of the French and Indian wars, was to his mind a measure at
once unpatriotic and indiscreet. In this also, he had been actuated by
his personal feelings more than by the study of the times. For he
loathed Popery and the thousand and one machinations and atrocities
which he was accustomed to link with the name.

The idea of forming a regiment of Catholic soldiers interested him not
in the numerical strength which might be afforded the enemy but in the
defection which would be caused to the American side. His scheme lay in
the hope that the Catholic members of Congress would be tempted to
resign. In that event he would obtain evident satisfaction not alone in
the weakness to which the governing body would be exposed but also in
the ill repute to which American Catholics and their protestations of
loyalty would fall.

Arnold deep down in his own heart knew that his motives were not
unmixed. He could not accuse himself of being outrageously mercenary,
yet he was ashamed to be forced to acknowledge even to himself that the
desire of gain was present to his mind. His debts were enormous. He
entertained in a manner and after a style far in excess of his modest
allowance. His dinners were the most sumptuous in the town; his stable
the finest; his dress the richest. And no wonder that his play, his
table, his balls, his concerts, his banquets had soon exhausted his
fortune. Congress owed him money, his speculations proved unfortunate,
his privateering ventures met with disaster. With debts accumulating and
creditors giving him no peace he turned to the gap which he saw opening
before him. This was an opportunity not to be despised.

"About that little matter--how soon mig