Adventure stories; Short stories, English -- Scottish authors; Soldiers -- Fiction
A four miles' march brought them to the Saddle river, which had
overflown its banks; the night was gloomy and tempestuous, and a body
of American regulars held the bridge. He was thus compelled to ford
the river, a task of great danger and difficulty. Rumour said that
'Moody was out,' and the mail instead of being sent as usual, by the
way of Pompton, was sent by another way under a guard. Selecting a
man whose voice, face, and tall figure resembled his own, he sent him
to a certain justice of the peace in another neighbourhood, who at
once fled to the woods, giving out everywhere that Moody was _there_.
To that quarter the Colonial troops were at once despatched, while
Moody captured the mail at another, and brought in all the despatches
relative to the important interview between General Washington and
Count Rochambeau in Connecticut. After this, Moody captured two more
bags of despatches, in one expedition being aided by his younger
brother, who must have been a mere lad, as he himself was then only
in his twenty-fourth year.
In October, 1781, Captain and Brevet-Major George Beckwith, of the
37th Regiment, then aide-de-camp to Lieutenant-General Baron
Knyphausen, informed Mr. Moody that a person named Addison had
suggested a project of great moment--to bring off all the books and
papers of the Congress! This Englishman had held some inferior
office under Thompson, the Secretary to the Congress, and, being a
prisoner of war, it was resolved that he should be released, return
to his old employment at Philadelphia, where Moody would visit
him--Major Beckwith vouching for his fidelity.
Moody undertook this perilous duty with the full knowledge that
Addison might deem him well worth betrayal; thus he stipulated that
the former was to be kept in ignorance that he had undertaken it.
Moody took with him only his brother John and another Scotsman, named
Marr, on whom he could rely, and a night--the 2nd of November--and
place were appointed where they were to meet the traitor Addison, in
the vicinity of Philadelphia.
They met him duly, but Lieutenant Moody kept a little in the
background lest his figure, which was a tall one, might be recognised
by Addison, who was at once accosted by his brother and Marr. The
former told them that everything was ready; that he had obtained
access to the most secret archives of the Senate House, and that next
evening he would deliver up all the books and papers they were in
quest of. Mutual assurances of fidelity were exchanged. They
crossed the river together in a boat for Philadelphia, unaccompanied
by Moody, whose first foreboding or suspicion was a right one, for
the perfidious Addison had already sold him and his companions to the
Congress!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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