Lear at Mount Vernon in 1786, anterior therefore to the time when
Washington became President. From this document I am permitted to copy a
passage entire. It is dated the 23d of October, '86. Mr. Drayton and Mr.
Izard, gentlemen of South Carolina, had been spending the day at Mount
Vernon. After dinner, the company still round the table, Washington was
led to speak of Arnold's treason, and Mr. Lear wrote down his account of
it in his Diary of that day. Although history has made us familiar with
that whole transaction in its essential facts, to hear it under such
circumstances from the lips of Washington, seems to impart to it new
interest. We listen with revived curiosity and attention when such a
narrator speaks. The copy from Mr. Lear's Diary, in which is recorded
this interesting dinner-table narrative, is in the words following:--


"MOUNT VERNON,
Monday, October 23d, 1786.

"Mrs. Washington went to Arlington with the two children. Sent a letter
directed to Mr. Samuel Storer to the post-office by Charles, who went up
to town (Alexandria) with Master Thompson and Lawrence Washington, who
had spent their vacation here. Mr. Drayton and Mr. Izard here all day.
After dinner General Washington was, in the course of conversation, led
to speak of Arnold's treachery, when he gave the following account of
it, which I shall put in his own words, thus: 'I confess I had a good
opinion of Arnold before his treachery was brought to light; had that
not been the case, I should have had some reason to suspect him sooner,
for when he commanded in Philadelphia, the Marquis la Fayette brought
accounts from France of the armament which was to be sent to co-operate
with us in the ensuing campaign. Soon after this was known, Arnold
pretended to have some private business to transact in Connecticut, and