correspondence between Arnold and Clinton,--one of the most accomplished
officers in the British army, Major André. No influence--not even his
deeply moved sympathy--could induce Washington to interfere with the
decision of the court-martial that André should be hanged as a spy, so
dangerous did the commander deem the attempted treachery. The English
have erected to the unfortunate officer a monument in Westminster Abbey.

The contemplated surrender of West Point to the enemy suggests the
demoralization which the war had already produced, and which was
deplored by no one more bitterly than by Washington himself. "If I were
called upon," he writes, "to draw a picture of the times and of men,
from what I have seen, heard, and in part know, I should in one word say
that idleness, dissipation, and extravagance seem to have laid fast hold
of most of them; that speculation, peculation, and an insatiable thirst
for riches seem to have got the better of every other consideration...;
that party disputes and personal quarrels are the great business of the
day; whilst the momentous concerns of an empire, an accumulating debt,
ruined finances, depreciated money, and want of credit ... are but
secondary considerations."

All war produces naturally and logically this demoralization, especially
in countries under a republican government. Profanity, drunkenness, and
general recklessness as to money matters were everywhere prevailing
vices; and this demoralization was, in the eyes of Washington, more to
be dreaded than any external dangers that had thus far caused alarm and
distress. "I have," wrote he, "seen without despondency even for a
moment, the hours which America has styled her gloomy ones; but I have
beheld no day since the commencement of hostilities that I have thought
her liberties were in such imminent danger as at present."