The following letter from Dr. Franklin to the marquis de la Fayette, then serving in the American army, also makes mention of Arnold's treason, and hints at the price or reward he received from the British government for his treachery: this letter will also be found interesting in other respects. To the Marquis de la Fayette.

DEAR SIR,

Passy, May 14, 1781. YOU are a very good correspondent, which I do not deserve, as I am a bad one. The truth is, I have too much business upon my hands, a great deal of it foreign to my function as a minister, which interferes with my writing regularly to my friends. But I am nevertheless extremely sensible of your kindness in sending me such frequent and full intelligence of the state of affairs on your side the water, and in letting me see by your letters, that your health continues, as well as your zeal for our cause and country.

I hope that by this time the ship which has the honor of bearing your name, is safely arrived. She carries clothing for near twenty thousand men, with arms, ammunition, &c. which will supply some of your wants, and colonel Laurens will bring a considerable addition, if Providence favors his passage. You will receive from him the particulars, which makes my writing more fully by him unnecessary.

Your friends have heard of your being gone against the traitor Arnold, and are anxious to hear of your success, and that you have brought him to punishment. Inclosed is a copy of a letter from his agent in England, captured by one

• Copy of a letter from Mr. Meyrick, army agent in London, to
General Arnold.

a SIR,

Parliament street, 30th Jan. 1781. "I AM honored with your several letters, inclosing bills on Harley and Drummond to the amount of five thousand pounds, the receipt of which I have regularly by packet acknowleged. On the day they were paid I invested the amount in the fund you mentioned, and it was a very fa. vorable time. I flatter myself it will meet your approbation, also the mode in which it was done.

"As it is possible some directions might come from you for disposing of the money in some other mode, I thought it might not be so advan.

of our cruisers, and by which the price or reward he receiv. ed for his treachery may be guessed at. Judas sold only one

tageous to lock it up totally, as it might be a long while before I could receive a power of attorney from you to transfer, had I put it in your name; and meantime the dividend could not be received for your use. The mode I have adopted has been used in like cases, and can be instantly altered to any you direct, on your favoring me with a letter.

The account is as follows, viz.

Bought by Samuel and William Scholey, stock-brokers, for major-gene ral Arnold, 70001. stock, in new 4 per cents. a. 714, as follows: In name of major-general Benedict Arnold, 1007. stock a. 711 new 4 per cent consols.

Paid.

esq.}

4,987! 10s Od

There then remains of the 50004, three pounds, thirteen shillings and sixpence.

Thus, by this method, if I receive any instructions from you for employing your money in a different manner, I can sell out the 69004. and dispose of your money agreeable to your directions before this letter reaches you; and if it is your wish that it should remain in the funds, it can be placed under your name, by my transferring the 69007. and joining it to your 1002. The reason of my purchasing the latter sum in your name was, that you might have an account open. Also, the power of attorney now inclosed will enable me to receive the dividends on the whole 70001. stock, after I have made the transfer, should you choose { should do so. I hope I have made myself properly understood, and can assure you I have, to the best of my abilities, acted for you as myself. I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient, and most humble servant, Major-General Arnold. JAMES MEYRICK.

NB. In addition to this supposed purchase money of the general himself, the following pensions were afterwards granted to his family. By warrant dated July 20, 1783.

To Edward Shippen

James Robertson

George, and

Sophia Matilda

ARNOLD, 400%.

By warrant dated 12th June, 1805.

To Sophia Matilda Arnold,... 100%.

man, Arnold three millions. Judas got for his one man, thirty pieces of silver, Arnold not a halfpenny a head. A miserable bargain! especially when one considers the quantity of infamy he has acquired to himself, and entailed on his family.

The English are in a fair way of gaining still more enemies: they play a desperate game. Fortune may favor them as it sometimes does a drunken dicer; but by their tyranny in the East, they have at length roused the powers there against them; and I do not know that they have in the West a single friend. If they lose their India commerce, (which is one of their present great supports,) and one battle at sea, their credit is gone, and their power follows. Thus empires by pride, folly, and extravagance, ruin themselves like individuals. M. La Mothe Piquet has snatched from between their teeth, a good deal of their West India prey, having taken twenty-two sail of their homeward-bound prizes. One of our American privateers has taken two more, and brought them into Brest, and two were burnt; there were thirty-four in company, with two men of war of the line and two frigates, who saved themselves by flight, but we do not hear of their being yet got in.

I think it was a wise measure to send colonel Laurens here, who could speak knowingly of the state of the army. It has been attended with all the success that perhaps could reasonably be expected; though not with all that was wished. He bas fully justified your character of him, and returns thoroughly possessed of my esteem; but that cannot and ought not to please him so much as a little more money would have done for his beloved army. This court continues firm and steady in its friendship, and does every thing it can for us. Can we not do a little more for ourselves? My successor (for I have desired the congress to send me one) will find it in the best disposition towards us, and I hope he will take care to cultivate that disposition. You, who know the leading people of both countries, can perhaps judge better than any member of congress of a person suitable for this station. I wish you may be in the way to give your advice, when the matter is VOL. I. 3 G

agitated in that assembly. I have been long tired of the trade of minister, and wished for a little repose before I went to sleep for good and all. I thought I might have held out till the peace; but as that seems at a greater distance than the end of my days, I grow impatient. I would not, however, quit the service of the public, if I did not sincerely think that it would be easy for the congress, with your counsel, to find a fitter man. God bless you, and crown all your labors with

success.

With the highest regard and most sincere affection, I am, dear sir, &c. &c.

B. FRANKLIN.

Notwithstanding Dr. Franklin's various and important occupations, he occasionally amused himself in composing and printing, by means of a small set of types, and a press he had in his house, several of his light essays, bagatelles, or jeux d'esprit, written chiefly for the amusement of his intimate friends: among these were the annexed; printed on a half sheet of coarse paper, so as to imitate, as much as possible, a portion of a Boston newspaper.

The repeated accounts received from America of the horribly cruel manner in which the Indian allies of Great Britain prosecuted the war against the peaceable inhabitants of the United States; murdering defenceless farmers, with their wives and children, and carrying off their scalps, for the reward promised in proportion to the number, (said already to have amounted to two thousand), was the foundation of a project which he formed for awakening the feelings of humanity to a due sense of the barbarity which one of the cabinet ministers had avowed in the house of lords, as employing the means which Providence placed in their hands; the following letter shews the nature of the facts upon which he projected a series of newspapers, or of papers so printed as to imitate a paper at that time printed in Boston called the Boston Independent Chronicle.

To Mr. Hutton.

MY DEAR OLD FRIEND,

Passy, 7th July, 1782.

A LETTER written by you to M. Bertin, ministre d'etat, containing an account of the abominable murders committed by some of the frontier people on the poor Moravian Indians, has given me infinite pain and vexation. The dispensations of Providence in this world puzzle my weak reason; I cannot comprehend why cruel mén should have been permitted thus to destroy their fellow creatures. Some of the Indians may be supposed to have committed sins, but one cannot think the little children had committed any worthy of death. Why has a single man in England, who happens to love blood and to hate Americans, been permitted to gratify that bad temper, by hiring German murderers, and joining them with his own, to destroy, in a continued course of bloody years, near one hundred thousand human creatures, many of them possessed of useful talents, virtues, and abilities, to which he has no pretension! It is he who has furnished the savages with hatchets and scalping knives, and engages them to fall upon defenceless farmers, and murder them with their wives and children, paying for their scalps, of which an account kept in America, already amounts as I have heard to near two thousand. Perhaps the people of the frontiers, exasperated by the cruelties of the Indians, have been induced to kill all Indians that fall into their hands without distinction; so that even these horrid murders of our poor Moravians may be laid to his charge. And yet this man lives, enjoys all the good things this world can afford, and is surrounded by flatterers who keep even his conscience quiet by telling him he is the best of princes! I wonder at this, but I cannot therefore part with the comfortable belief of a divine Providence: and the more I see the impossibility from the extent and number of his crimes, of giving equivalent punishment to a wicked man in this life, the more I am convinced of a future state, in which all that here appears to be wrong shall be set right, all that is crooked made straight. In this faith let you and I, my friend,