No reply came to him from Congress. No one paid him the smallest attention. His testimonials were ignored and even the presence of the French fleet had no power to rouse Congress from a stony indifference. He was in despair. “He had brought with him,” said Parton, “only a hundred pounds, not expecting to be detained in America many weeks. When at last given audience, he told his story to distrustful and estranged employers. All the friends of Arthur Lee, all the ancient foes of France, and a large proportion of the faction who desired to put Horatio Gates into the place of Washington, were disposed to believe the foul calumnies sent over by every ship from Paris.” As a matter of fact the time of his arrival in Philadelphia was not well suited to a fair consideration of Deane’s claims. The city recently had been evacuated by the British Army. During the occupation, Toryism had been rampant and the state was retaliating with indictments for treason. Disputes over questions of jurisdiction engaged the civil authorities in quarrels with Arnold, the commander of the garrison, who numbered among his sympathizers Silas Deane and the mercantile class. Arnold, after his brilliant exploits at Saratoga, had seen himself thrust aside at the moment of victory to make way for Gates. Wounded at Saratoga, and burning for revenge, Arnold was already so much disgusted with the Continental Congress that he began seriously to wish to see Great Britain triumph. Washington had put him in command of the garrison at Philadelphia in June, 1778. The reigning belle of the Quaker City was at that moment Miss Margaret Shippen, “the most beautiful and fascinating woman in America.” She was the daughter of a wealthy merchant, who along with his whole class, was eager for the war to come to an end through a speedy adjustment with Great Britain, whose liberal offers, since the surrender of Burgoyne, seemed more than satisfactory to their moderate patriotism. No sooner had Arnold entered into his new post than he fell a captive to the charms of the young woman in question, then under twenty years of age. “As no one kept a finer stable of horses, nor gave more costly dinners than Arnold,” it was natural that he should invite the Tory friends of the young lady whose hand he hoped to win. Although he was “thirty-five years of age and a widower with two sons” ... his handsome face, his gallant bearing and his splendid career, made him acceptable. In the fall their engagement was publicly announced, while the Tory sentiments of the commander of the fort of Philadelphia became definitely fixed. The bitterness of his own grievances against Congress led him to give ear willingly to the complaints poured out by the exasperated French commissioner, whose patriotism was also rapidly vanishing in the gulf of his private wrongs.