of his villainy on this occasion makes it probable that there were good grounds for the suspicions with which some people had for a long time regarded him, although Washington, by putting him in command of the most important position in the country, showed that his own confidence in him was unabated. The successful execution of the plot seemed to call for a personal interview between Arnold and Clinton's adjutant-general, Major John André, who was entrusted with the negotiation. Such a secret interview was extremely difficult to bring about, but it was effected on the 21st of September, 1780. After a marvellous chapter of accidents, André was captured just before reaching the British lines. But for his hasty and quite unnecessary confession that he was a British officer, which led to his being searched, the plot would in all probability have been successful. The papers found on his person, which left no room for doubt as to the nature of the black scheme, were sent to Washington; the principal traitor, forewarned just in the nick of time, escaped to the British at New York; and Major André was condemned as a spy and hanged on the 2d of October. [Sidenote: Battle of King's Mountain, Oct. 7, 1780.] Only five days after the execution of André an event occurred at the South which greatly relieved the prevailing gloom of the situation. It was the first of a series of victories which were soon to show that the darkness of 1780 was the darkness that comes before dawn. After his victory at Camden, Lord Cornwallis found it necessary to give his army some rest from the intense August heat. In September he advanced into North Carolina, boasting that he would soon conquer all the states south of the Susquehanna river. But his line of march now lay far inland, and the British armies were never able to accomplish much except in the neighbourhood of their ships, where they could be reasonably sure of supplies. In traversing Mecklenburg county Cornwallis soon found himself in a very hostile and dangerous region, where there were no Tories to befriend him. One of his best partisan commanders, Major Ferguson, penetrated too far into the mountains. The backwoodsmen of Tennessee and Kentucky, the Carolinas, and western Virginia were aroused; and under their superb partisan leaders--Shelby, Sevier, Cleaveland, McDowell, Campbell, and Williams--gave chase to Ferguson, who took refuge upon what he deemed an impregnable position on the top of King's Mountain. On the 7th of October the backwoodsmen stormed the mountain, Ferguson was shot through the heart, 400 of his men were killed and wounded, and all the rest, 700 in number, surrendered at discretion. The Americans lost 28 killed and 60 wounded. There were some points in this battle, which remind one of the British defeat at Majuba Hill in southern Africa in 1881.