“On the seventh day of May, A. D. 1779, before me, Plunket Fleeson, Esq., one of the justices, etc., for the city of Philadelphia, comes colonel John Fitzgerald, late aid-de-camp to his excellency general Washington, and being duly sworn according to law, deposeth and saith: That on the evening of the day on which the British forces left Philadelphia, he and Major David S. Franks, aid-de-camp to major Arnold, went to the house of miss Brackenberry, and lodged there that night; and _the next morning, major Franks having gone down stairs, the deponent going into the front room of the said house_, to view colonel Jackson’s regiment then marching into the city, _saw lying in the window two open papers_; that on casting his eye on one of them, he was surprised _it contained instructions to the said major Franks to purchase European and East Indian goods in the city of Philadelphia, to any amount, for the payment of which the writer would furnish major Franks with the money, and the same paper contained also a strict charge to the said Franks not to make known to his most intimate acquaintance that the writer was concerned in the proposed purchase_; that _these instructions were not signed_, but appeared to the deponent to be in the handwriting of major general Arnold, whether or not there was a date to it the deponent doth not recollect; that the other paper contained instructions signed by major general Arnold, directing major Franks to purchase for the said general Arnold some necessaries for the use of his table; that _the deponent compared the writing of the two papers and verily believes that they were both written by major general Arnold’s own hand; and soon afterward major Franks came into the room and took the papers away_, as the deponent supposes. And further the deponent saith not. “Sworn, etc. John Fitzgerald.” That such a charge involved as much the trial of Major Franks as General Arnold, will at once appear. The statements in the charge argue close association between Arnold and Franks. Yet in Franks’ written record of himself in 1789 he passes over this Philadelphia period thus lightly: “In 1778, after the evacuation of Philadelphia by the British Army & on the arrival of Count D’Estaing I procured Letters of recommendation from the Board of War ... and joined him off Sandy Hook, I continued with that Admiral until he arrived at Rhode Island, where on the failure of the Expedition I returned to Philadelphia where my military duty called me.” No reference here, nor anywhere in his record, to a closeness of bond between the two which his testimony, now offered from the records, amply proves to have existed. “The judge-advocate produced major Franks, aid-de-camp to major General Arnold, who was sworn. “Q. On General Arnold’s arrival in Philadelphia, do you know whether himself or any person on his account, made any considerable purchases of goods? “A. I do not.