“You have now arrived at a sensible conclusion, General Arnold,” argued Barclugh. “There is no use for you to be a beggar after such abilities as you have shown and such services as you have rendered your country. I am the direct representative of His Majesty, George III. You prepare the passports. Be candid with me, and I can relieve your financial difficulties. I will communicate with you in a few days; in the meantime, come down to my office, and I will loan you whatever money you need temporarily. “Good day, sir,” concluded Barclugh, as he left Arnold’s office, rejoicing to himself at Arnold’s total subjection to money. CHAPTER XI Whenever conspirators engage to carry out a plot, they at once begin to construct arguments justifying means to their ends. At the present day we observe oily worded arguments made in the public press to gild the corruption of virtue by the influence and power of money; and no flight of the imagination is required to determine exactly the same influence at work to-day in our money-bag circles which shows its corruption in the following letter addressed to Arnold in 1778: “Dear General: “Among the Americans who have joined the rebel standard, there are very many good citizens whose only object has been the happiness of their country. Such, then, will not be influenced by motives of private interest to abandon the cause they have espoused. They are now offered everything which can render the Colonies really happy and this is the only compensation worthy their virtue. “The American Colonies shall have their Parliament, composed of two Chambers, with all its members of American birth. Those of the upper house shall have titles and rank similar to those of the House of Peers in England. All their laws, and particularly such as relate to money matters, shall be the production of this assembly, with the concurrence of a Viceroy. Commerce in every part of the globe subject to British sway shall be as free to the people of the thirteen Colonies as to the English of Europe. They will enjoy, in every sense of the phrase, the blessings of good government. They shall be sustained, in time of need, by all the power necessary to uphold them, without being themselves exposed to the dangers or subjected to the expenses that are always inseparable from the conditions of a state. “Such are the terms proffered by England at the very moment when she is displaying extraordinary efforts to conquer the obedience of her Colonies.