Jameson penned a hasty line to Arnold, saying merely that he sent forward, under the charge of Lieutenant Allen and a guard, a certain John Anderson, who had been taken while going towards New York. He had a passport, said Jameson, signed in your name ; and a parcel of papers taken from under his stockings, which 1 think of a very dangerous fendency. He then described these papers, and added that he had sent them to General Washington.

There appears to have been some misgiving in the mind of

* For ilie AndrJ papers, s^e Grpenburgh.

COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER. 4G1

Jameson, althougli he was not prepared lo suspect the patriotism and political fidehty of his commanding general. Washington said afterwards that, eitiier on account of his "egregious folly, or bewildered conception, he seemed lost in astonishment, and not to know what he was doing." Tfiis is as lenient a judgment, perhaps, as can be passed on his conduct. No one ever doubted the purity of his intentions. Perceiving the mischievous tendency of the papers, and knowing them to have been copied by Arnold, at the same moment that he sent Andre under guard to West Point, he dispatched an express with the papers to meet General Washington, tlien supposed to be on the road returning from his interview with the French commanders at Hartford. Two reasons were subsequently assigned by Jameson, for a course which seemed so extraordinary to every body else; first, that he thought the affair was an imposition by the British, intending to destroy the confidence of the Americans in Arnold ; secondly, that, not knowing the Vulture was up the river, he supposed Arnold could not get to the enemy, without passing through the American out-posts on the lines, where he would be taken.