We have had occasion to allude to it several times already.

•SMITHS IIOUSK, OX TEEASOX ' HILL.

c

Arnold was a brave soldier, but a bad man. He was wicked in boyhood, and in early manhood his conduct was marked by traits that promised ultimate disgrace. Impulsive, vindictive, and unscrupulous, he was personally unpopular, and was seldom without a quarrel with some of liis companions in arms. This led to continual irritations, and his ambitious aims were often thwarted.) He fought nobly for freedom

THE HUDSON. 289

during the earlier years of the war, but at last his passions gained the mastery over his judgment and conscience.

^\rnold twice received honourable wounds during the war -- one at Quebec, the other almost two years later at Saratoga ; ■•• both were in the leg.Y The one last received, while gallantly fighting the troops of Burgoyne, was not yet healed when, in the spring of 1778, the British army, under Sir Henry Clinton, evacuated Philadelphia, and the Americans, under Washington, came from their huts at Valley Forge to take their places. rArnold, not being able to do active duty in the field, was appointed military governor of Philadelphia. Fond of display, he there entered upon a course of extravagant living that was instrumental in his ruin.^ He made his head-quarters at the fine old mansion built by William Penn, kept a coach and four, gave splendid dinner parties, and charmed the gayer portions of Philadelphia society with his princely display, filis station and the splendour of his equipage captivated the daughter of Edwai'd Shippen, a leading loyalist, and afterwards chief justice of Pennsylvania ; she was then only eighteen years of age. Her beauty and accomplishments won the heart of the widower of forty. They were married. Staunch Whigs shook their heads in doubt concerning the alliance of an American general with a leading Tory family?^