His offers were rejected; he was searched, suspicious papers were found in his boots, and he was carried before Colonel Jamison, the commanding officer on the lines. The papers found upon André, who still maintained the name of Anderson, a supposed inhabitant of New York, were found to contain precise accounts of the state of the forces, ordnance and defences of West Point and its dependences, with the artillery orders, critical remarks on the works, the amount of men on duty each day, together with interesting particulars, which had been laid before a council of war by the commander-in-chief. Although these papers were in the handwriting of Arnold, Jamison, unable to believe that his commanding officer was a traitor, forwarded them by express to Washington at Hartford, and sent the prisoner to Arnold, informing him of his assumed name, his passport, and that papers of a very suspicious character had been found upon him. Circumstances favoured Arnold in various ways. Major Talmadge, who had been absent, returning at this moment, retained André, though the letter went forward to Arnold, and the express, with the papers themselves, sent to Washington, missed him on the road, he being then on his return to Hartford. Washington’s aides-de-camp, who preceded him, were breakfasting with Arnold when Jamison’s letter arrived. Pretending that it was an immediate call to visit one of the forts on the other side of the river, Arnold rose from table, called his wife up stairs, told her sufficient to throw her into a fainting-fit, mounted a ready-saddled horse, rode to the river-side, threw himself into a barge, passed the forts, waving a handkerchief by way of flag, and ordered his boatmen to row for the Vulture. Safe on board, he wrote a letter to Washington, declaring that the love of his country had been the ruling principle of his life; but the main purpose of the letter was to ask protection for his wife, whom he declared innocent of what he had done.[35] When André found that Arnold had escaped, and that no means of delivery remained for himself, he wrote a letter to Washington, avowing his name and character. The imputation of treachery and the dread of appearing in the base light of a spy, appeared worse to him than death. Strange, that a noble nature, such as André’s unquestionably was, had not perceived from the first that the whole transaction was base, and that he was the tool of a second Judas. The burden and shame, however, of the consequences of his act bowed him down to the very dust, and he now besought of Washington that to whatever fate a rigorous policy might doom him, a decency of treatment might be observed which should testify that, though unfortunate, he was branded with nothing dishonourable, and that he was involuntarily an imposter. André was examined before a board of officers, and upon the very story which he himself told he was pronounced a spy, and as such was doomed to speedy death.