Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6: A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more than 200 of the most prominent personages in History — John Shaqi
Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6: A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more than 200 of the most prominent personages in History
History
Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6: A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more than 200 of the most prominent personages in History
Biography
One year later he was appointed to the command of Philadelphia, and
here he married the daughter of a prominent citizen, Edward Shippen.
This was his second marriage; he had been a widower for a number of
years before its occurrence, and the father of three sons. Every
chance was now afforded Arnold of wise and just rulership. In spite
of past disputes and adventures not wholly creditable, he still
presented before the world a fairly clean record, and whatever minor
blemishes may have spotted his good name, these were obscured by the
almost dazzling lustre of his soldierly career. But no sooner was he
installed in his new position at Philadelphia than he began to show,
with wilful perversity, those evil impulses which thus far had
remained relatively latent. Almost as soon as he entered the town he
disclosed to its citizens the most offensive traits of arrogance and
tyranny. But this was not all. Not merely was he accused on every
side of such faults as the improper issuing of passes, the closing
of Philadelphia shops on his arrival, the imposition of menial
offices upon the sons of freemen performing military duty, the use
of wagons furnished by the State for transporting private property;
but misdeeds of a far graver nature were traced to him, savoring of
the criminality that prisons are built to punish. The scandalous
gain with which he sought to fill a spendthrift purse caused wide
and vehement rebuke. For a man of such high and peculiar place his
commercial dabblings and speculative schemes argued most deplorably
against him. There seems to be no doubt that he made personal use of
the public moneys with which he was intrusted; that he secured by
unworthy and illegal means a naval State prize, brought into port by
a Pennsylvanian ship; and that he meditated the fitting up of a
privateer, with intent to secure from the foe such loot on the high
seas as piratical hazard would permit. His house in Philadelphia was
one of the finest that the town possessed; he drove about in a
carriage and four; he entertained with excessive luxury and a large
retinue of servants; he revelled in all sorts of pompous parade.
Such ostentation would have roused adverse comment amid the simple
colonial surroundings of a century ago, even if he had merely been a
citizen of extraordinary wealth. But being an officer intrusted with
the most important dignities in a country both struggling for its
freedom and impoverished as to funds, he now played a part of
exceptional shame and folly.
Naturally his arraignment before the authorities of the State soon
followed. The Council of Pennsylvania tried him, and though their
final verdict was an extremely gentle one, its very mildness of
condemnation proved poison to his truculent pride. Washington, the
commander-in-chief, reprimanded him, but with language of exquisite
lenity. Still, Arnold never forgave the stab that was then so
deservingly yet so pityingly dealt him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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