Major André was with Sir Henry Clinton at the siege and capture of Charleston in the spring of 1780, and there is clear evidence that he played the part of a spy in that tragedy. It is asserted that Edward Shrewsberry, a respectable citizen of Charleston, but a suspected Tory, was ill at his house on East Bay during the siege. His Whig brother, who belonged to the American army, frequently visited him. He saw at his Tory brother's house, on several occasions, a young man clad in homespun, who was introduced to him as a Virginian, also belonging to the patriot army. After the capitulation, and the British were in possession of the city, the Continental soldier saw at the house of his sick brother the same young man, but in different apparel, who was introduced to him as Major André, of the British army. His brother afterward confessed that the major and the homespun-clad young "Virginian" were one and the same man. To another visitor this young man in homespun was introduced by Shrewsberry as "a back-country man who had brought down cattle for the garrison." He was afterward informed that the cattle-driver was Major André. If these assertions be true--and there is no reason for doubting their truth--Major André did not hesitate, when an occasion offered, to play the part of a spy for the benefit of his king and country. Six months afterward, when circumstances had placed him in that position, and he was a prisoner, he expressed, in a letter to Washington, a desire to rescue himself from "an imputation of having assumed a mean character for treacherous purposes or self-interest." In the early autumn of 1780 Major André was made adjutant-general of the British forces in America. He was then busy in consummating the intrigue and conspiracy with Arnold. The time had arrived when it had become necessary to bring matters to a head--to settle upon a definite plan and time for action, terms, etc. Arnold had, at his own earnest solicitation, been appointed to the command at West Point and its dependencies in August, and had resolved to surrender that strong post into the hands of the enemies of his country. It was an object of covetous desire on the part of the British, for the possession of it would open a free communication between New York and Canada, which they had been endeavoring to secure ever since the invasion of Burgoyne in 1777. The subject of the surrender of West Point was the burden of the correspondence between Arnold and André early in September.