The Reign of George III. - (Continued.) page 10

Washington's only answer was to appoint a board of inquiry to examine the case, which consisted of twelve American officers and two foreigners, baron Steuben and La Fayette. The judge-advocate, Lawrence, was one of the board, and general Greene the president. Poor Andre was not allowed any advocate, any witness, or any friend. General Clinton, the moment he was aware of the arrest of Andre, sent a letter to Washington, stating that Andre had gone on shore under a flag of truce, and, at the time of his arrest, was travelling under a pass from Arnold, the commander of the district. To this letter was added one from Arnold, confirming both points, and asserting that, being then the commander of the district, he had a full right to issue such protections. Clinton therefore requested Washington to liberate Andre immediately. To this letter Washington did not deign the civility of a reply till after a lapse of four days, and after the board of officers had declared Andre a spy.

General Clinton, astonished at this extraordinary severity, so opposed to the whole mild tenor of the English in such cases throughout the war, wrote again immediately to Washington, stating that he thought the board could not be rightly informed of the whole circumstances of the case, and that it was of the highest consequence to humanity and Washington's own reputation that he should be fully apprised of the true facts before he put such a sentence into execution; that, to insure this, he was sending to him a deputation, consisting of lieutenant-general Robertson, the Hon. Andrew Elliot, lieutenant-governor, and the Hon. William Smith, chief-justice of New York. On the 13th of October the three commissioners arrived, but Washington refused to see any of them, and only permitted general Robertson to have an interview with general Greene. In this interview Robertson urged the fact, that Andre had gone ashore under a flag of truce, as proved by Arnold's own letter; but, unfortunately, Andre, with that incautious frankness which distinguished his whole proceedings, had admitted before the board that he had made no use of a flag of truce, and this was immediately seized on by Greene as decisive. Robertson then reminded Greene of the conduct of the English in such cases; of more than one instance, in which, at the intercession of the commander-in-chief, Sir Henry Clinton had delivered up acknowledged spies. He pointed out one especial case, that of captain Robinson, a clearly-proved American spy, who at Washington's particular intercession had been given up to him. He added that major Andre was high in the esteem of Sir Henry Clinton, and that this was an especial opportunity for Washington to return the courtesy - a courtesy which the English commander was anxious to promote, as tending greatly to soften the horrors of war.

But all such arguments were lost on Greene, and Robertson then spoke more firmly on the military law of the case. He declared that no military tribunal in Europe would decide the case of Arnold to be that of a spy; urged that the opinion of generals Rochambeau and Knyphausen should be taken on the subject. The fact is, that the greater part of the American generals had been taken from the plough- tail, and could not be supposed to be deeply read in military jurisprudence; but it was not their ignorance but their passion which misguided them. They were determined to hang Andre because Arnold had escaped from them, and all argument was thrown away. As we have been compelled to say before, we must repeat, that we believe that no such acts of public magnanimity can be found in the history of the American republic as are scattered through that of any other nation of modern times. Washington, who had always exceeded his countrymen in justice and moderation, at least in this case wholly abandoned himself to his resentment, refused this most righteous and proper plea to take the opinion of the only competent judges, and determined that the sentence should be executed without any mitigation.

Robertson did not content himself with his statements to Greene; he repeated them in a letter addressed direct to Washington himself, and Arnold once more renewed his statements and entreaties, but in vain. There was only one idea which influenced the American mind, and that was, if possible, to secure Arnold. It was, therefore, carefully suggested by Washington himself, though he did not venture to make a direct proposition on the subject - that Arnold should be given up, on the condition of Andre's liberation! Captain Aaron Ogden, who carried the letters from Washington and Andre to the British posts, was instructed to propagate this idea amongst the British officers at Paulus Hook, by whom it was conveyed to general Clinton, and, of course, rejected with the disgust inseparable from all honourable minds.

But it was not in this circuitous mode that this idea was alone offered to the English commander; general Greene proposed it directly to general Robertson in their official interview, and Robertson assured Sir Henry Clinton that he answered the mean suggestion only by a look of indignation. Andre himself prepared for the death, which he saw was inevitable, with resignation. He employed his prison hours in writing and sketching, and made a pen-and-ink portrait of himself, now preserved in the Trumbull Gallery at Yale College. One thing only troubled him; that was, that he must die by the halter, and not by a soldier's death. To escape this last and most undeserved ignominy, he addressed a letter to Washington on the 1st of 'October, entreating that this might be allowed. " Buoyed," he said, " above the terrors of death by the consciousness of a life devoted to honourable pursuits, and stained with no action that can give me remorse, I trust the request I make to your excellency at this serious period, and which is to soften my last moments, will not be rejected. Sympathy towards a soldier will surely induce your excellency and the military tribunal to adapt the mode of my death to the feelings of a man of honour. Let me hope, sir, that if aught in my character impresses you with esteem towards me - if aught of my misfortunes marks me the victim of policy and not of resentment - I shall experience the operation of these feelings in your heart, by being informed that I am not to die on a gibbet."

Washington did not even vouchsafe him a reply; but the next morning he was led forth to the gallows. He was dressed in his uniform as a British officer, and his behaviour was marked by firmness and composure, till he beheld the fatal tree, when he started, and said, " Must I, then, die in this manner?" But he added, "It will be but a momentary pang." He advanced to the gallows with a firm step, and bandaged his eyes himself with his handkerchief. Being then told that he might speak to the bystanders if he liked, he simply raised the bandage from his eyes, and said, " I pray you bear me witness that I meet my fate like a brave man."

No sooner was he thus executed like a felon, than his judges, the officers who had witnessed his conduct through these trying circumstances, and Washington himself, who in his anger had forgotten his usual courtesy and temper, were ready to bear. testimony to the fortitude and gentlemanly conduct and accomplishments of this too open and noble-minded young man, who was as yet only in his twenty-ninth or thirtieth year. Indeed, throughout the whole of the proceedings nothing could exceed the gentlemanly and communicative bearing of Andre. He seemed to feel it as a point of honour to conceal nothing regarding himself, to reveal nothing that might implicate any one else. Little care as Arnold had evinced for his safety till it was too late, he never dropped a syllable of censure upon him. On the other hand, all this fine and affecting demeanour was lost on the Americans, who, whilst they pretended to lament his fate, never ceased coolly to press it to a conclusion. And there can now be but one opinion on this transaction anywhere, except in America - that it is a blot upon their history, and upon their almost solitary great man, which nothing can ever wash out, and which the virtues and nobleness of the victim only render the darker. A monument was raised to the memory of Andre in Westminster Abbey, and his remains, in 1821, were removed from the soil where they had been so vindictively dishonoured, and carried to England.

Arnold continued to issue his addresses to the American people and army, in which he described the tyranny and deceitfulness of the American government in the blackest terms. He declared that he had always been disposed to accept the very liberal conditions of the mother country, and had seen, with increasing disgust, its disguise and concealment of the true proposals of England from the American people; that they had now reduced the States to a country of widows, orphans, and beggars; had allied themselves to a perfidious and bankrupt nation, which hated liberty and the protestant religion, and that the only security for rational freedom and liberty of conscience was in the return to the mild sway of England. Congress replied to these in many respects just reproaches with violent recriminations. On the part of the British, the conduct of the Americans to Andre produced no alteration in their spirit or temper. They never put into execution any of the menaces of retaliation only employed to endeavour to save that unfortunate officer. They continued to treat with the utmost mildness the Americans, who constantly offended against the laws of war; and even the forty gentlemen from Charlestown, who had flagrantly broken their parole, and gone over again to the American ranks, were merely transferred from the prison-ships to Pensacola and St. Augustine, in Florida, and there again their parole was allowed them, but under stricter surveillance. About this time some exchanges of prisoners were effected. Lincoln was given up for major-general Phillips, who had been prisoner since the surrender of Saratoga; but the congress still refused to keep their engagement with the army which there capitulated, and held it, in defiance of every principle of honour, to the end of the war.

Washington and all the principal officers now pressed on congress something like the conscription which France soon after adopted, for maintaining the army, insisting that the soldiers must also be engaged for the whole war, and that the officers must have half-pay for life. There was a loud outcry in congress on this, that the commander-in-chief was intending to make himself a dictator, as Cromwell had done, and that the States would only escape from one king to have another self-created; but the necessities of the case rose above these democratic clamours, and the proposals were carried, but with little relief to Washington, for the regulations were doggedly resisted in almost every direction, and even for the soldiers he had found it almost impossible to procure subsistence. He still continued to occupy his position on the highlands above the Hudson; Rochambeau in his camp on Rhode Island, and Clinton in New York, and all parties retired early into winter quarters.

During this year the Americans continued to hope for relief to themselves from the progress of the armed neutrality, but derived little good from it, though, through their exertions, they beheld Holland added to the open enemies of England. The czarina of Russia expressed her chagrin at the little effect which it produced, declaring that it was only an armed nullity; whilst her favourite and minister, Potemkin, declared to the British ambassador, Sir James Harris, that it had been conceived in mistake, had been perfected by vanity, and was only maintained on the part of the congress by pride and stubbornness. The French themselves, overwhelmed with debts and difficulties, showed symptoms of desiring to make peace. M. Necker proposed to lord North, in a private letter, a truce, which might be extended as seemed desirable, during which the belligerent powers in America should each hold the possessions which they had now in their power; but George III. would not for a moment listen to any such terms. At the same time, France openly feted Franklin, La Fayette, or any other person who had taken part in the American quarrel, not omitting such compliments in her seaports to Paul Jones, whenever he brought into them any of his prizes.

Spain continued the siege of Gibraltar, and entered, at the same time, into secret negotiations with England, through Mr. Hussey, an Irish priest, who had been chaplain to count Almadovar when ambassador in London. Hussey still remained in London, acting, as was strongly suspected, as a spy for the court of Spain; and, through him, Richard Cumberland, the private secretary of lord George Germaine, was induced to make the Spanish wishes known to the ministers. These were, to purchase Gibraltar from the English on conditions which should restore peace. It appears that these ideas were entertained so far as to induce lord George Germaine to state to Hussey that such a purchase might possibly be effected if Spain would, as an equivalent, yield to England the island of Porto Rica, the fortress and territory of Omao, in Honduras, sufficient coast to create a fort and erect a fortress in the Bay of Oran, on the coast of Africa, the purchase of all the artillery and stores in Gibraltar, together with the payment of two millions sterling for money already expended on the fortress, and if Spain engaged to afford no further assistance to Ms majesty's white subjects in America, but, on the contrary, should assist him in reducing them to obedience, and neither suffer any American ships to enter her ports nor American subjects to remain in his dominions.

Yet even these great requisitions did not seem sufficient to embolden the government to enter seriously on so unpopular a transaction as the surrender of Gibraltar. They soon grew frightened at their temerity, and receded from the negotiation. Afterwards, however, Richard Cumberland was allowed to accompany Hussey to Madrid, as a sort of private negotiator on this subject; but Cumberland remained there eight months, holding many secret conferences with Florida Bianca, the minister, which came to nothing. The English government would give no assurance of surrendering the rock, and all other terms of peace were treated with contempt. In the end, Cumberland returned to England four thousand five hundred pounds out of pocket, for he had been figuring in the character of a real ambassador in the Spanish capital, and now solicited reimbursement in vain. Of this sum which he expended, he assures us, in his Memoirs, that he never recovered one farthing.