Arnold’s reckless daring at the battle of Saratoga, though gaining the victory, resulted in rendering him a cripple for life. Incapacitated for active service, he was placed in command at Philadelphia when that city was evacuated by the British, on the 17th of June, 1778. At this point Arnold’s downward career began. There are just grounds to believe that he entered into a secret contract to enrich himself at the expense of the public; and finding many of the wealthiest of the citizens to be Tories, he used all his influence in their behalf, hoping, no doubt, for a pecuniary reward. His second marriage with Miss Shippen bound him still more closely to the Tory faction.[2] In November, 1778, Gen. Joseph Reed was elected president “of the executive council of the State” of Pennsylvania, and in the discharge of his duties, brought the delinquencies of Arnold to the notice of Congress. A court-martial on Jan. 26, 1780, sentenced him to be reprimanded by the commander-in-chief. In addition to the public disgrace, he was now cut off from various sources of revenue by which he had been striving to ward off a threatened bankruptcy, and his pecuniary affairs became sadly involved through extravagance and wild speculations. Unsuccessful in his attempt to obtain a loan from the French minister, De la Luzerne, he appears to have entered into correspondence with the British, but soon found that to obtain any considerable sum of money from that quarter, he must have control of some place worth the purchase. Accordingly, having many warm friends in Congress and in the army, he brought strong pressure to bear upon Washington to grant him the command of West Point. Yielding at length, though reluctantly, Arnold was assigned to this important post, and immediately put himself in direct communication with the British commander-in-chief, Sir Henry Clinton. On the night of the 21st of September, 1780, Major André was sent by the latter to obtain personally from Arnold all the information necessary to capture West Point and the posts on the line of the Hudson. Arnold’s elaborate plans, however, miscarried; André was captured, West Point saved, and Arnold obliged to fly. Though receiving the military rank and the money promised him by Sir Henry Clinton,--ten thousand pounds sterling and a commission as brigadier in the British army, he was almost as much detested by the English as by the Americans, and after some brutal outrages in Virginia and Connecticut, ended his days in obscurity in London, on the 14th of June, 1801. [2] His first wife was Margaret, daughter of Samuel Mansfield of New Haven, by whom he had three sons, Benedict, Richard, and Henry. MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE.