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GENERAL WASHINGTON AND MAJOR

ANDRÉ.

1780.

WHEN in the course of my History of England I had to examine and compare the different authorities on the tragical fate of Major André, I could not fail to observe the statement by Miss Anna Seward, of a communication on this subject received from General Washington. She first related it briefly in a letter to Miss Ponsonby, of August 9, 1798 (Correspondence, vol. v., p. 142, ed. 1811), and next some three years later, with much more of detail. This last letter was addressed to Mr. Simmons, surgeon, in Manchester, and bears date January 20, 1802 (Correspondence, vol. vi., p. 1, ed. 1811).

Here, then, in its latter form, is the statement that Miss Seward makes:

"In the first paroxysm of anguish for the fate of my beloved friend,' I wrote that Monody under the belief that he was basely murdered, rather than reluctantly sacrificed to the belligerent customs and laws. I have since understood the subject better. General Washington allowed his aid-de-camp to return to England

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after peace was established and American independence acknowledged; and he commissioned him to see me, and request my attention to the papers he sent for my perusal. Copies of his letters to André, and André's answers, in his own hand, were amongst them. Concern, esteem, and pity were avowed in those of the General, and warm entreaties that he would urge General Clinton to resign Arnold in exchange for himself, as the only means to avert that sacrifice which the laws of war demanded. Major André's letters breathed a spirit of gratitude to General Washington for the interest he took in his preservation, but firmly declined the appliIcation to General Clinton. The other papers were minutes of the Court-Martial, from which it appeared that General Washington had laboured to avert the sentence against André, and to soften the circumstances of disguised dress, and those fatal drawings of the enemy's outworks and situation, which placed him in the character of a spy rather than that of a negotiator. The General's next fruitless endeavour was to have obtained the grant of poor André's petition to die a less disgraceful death. His voice, though commander of the American armies, counted but as one on the CourtMartial. General Washington did me the honour to charge his aid-de-camp to assure me that no circumstance of his life had given him so much pain as the necessary sacrifice of André's life; and next to that deplored event, the censure passed upon himself in a poem which he admired, and for which he loved the author."

This story much perplexed me, and I knew not what degree of weight to assign to it. On the one hand, it bears upon its face some most manifest inaccuracies; on the other hand, it comes in direct and positive terms from a lady, no doubt very tiresome, but of irreproachable character. In this dilemma I determined to apply to my friend Mr. Ticknor, the historian of Spanish literature, being well assured of his thoroughly upright mind, and that no personal or national prepossessions could divert him from the paramount interests of truth. I asked him to ascertain, if possible, to what aid-de-camp of Washington Miss Seward could have referred, and whether the papers of that aid-de-camp might contain anything either to corroborate or contradict her

statement.

The following correspondence ensued:

Mr. Ticknor to Earl Stanhope.

MY DEAR LORD,

Boston, April 25, 1855.

Immediately on receiving your first reference to Miss Seward's letter of January 20, 1802, I read it carefully. It is, no doubt, somewhat more positive and detailed in its statements than the one of August 9, 1798; but it is not more satisfactory to my mind, and is open to all the objections which, I think, are fatal to the first. One point, however, which, with your wonted historical perspicacity, you have hit upon, does much with me to clear up and explain the difficulties

of the case; I mean the fact that, as it was an aidde-camp of Washington that visited Miss Seward, the person in question must have been Colonel David Humphreys. Now Humphreys, whose home was in Boston during the latter years of his life, was well known to me;-a vain, presuming man, full of pretensions of all sorts, that exposed him to a good deal of ridicule in society, and especially full of pretensions to poetical distinction and to familiarity with literary notabilities in Europe, upon whose regard he founded claims for himself as a poet, which nobody hereabout was disposed to admit. Your mere suggestion of his name, therefore, threw at once a flood of light on the whole affair.

But to come to the point-à nos moutons. 1st. Miss S. speaks of Washington having "allowed his aid-decamp to return to England," &c., both the underscored words being founded on the natural but very heedless error of looking at the visit wholly from an English point of view. 2. She speaks of "Washington's letters to André" as containing " warm entreaties that he would urge General Clinton to resign Arnold in exchange for himself :”—quite incredible from its absurdity. 3. She says, "Washington laboured to avert the sentence:"_ again incredible and out of character. 4. She speaks of "Washington's fruitless endeavour to obtain the grant of poor André's petition to die a less disgraceful death:"-whereas André's petition is addressed only to General Washington, who had full power to grant it, which certainly not all the other officers of the army put together could have done after sentence rendered.

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And 5th, and finally, she speaks of Washington as a member of the Court-Martial, and as overruled there :whereas, everybody knows that he was not a member of it, and that it was within his unquestioned power to reverse or modify its decision to the last moment of poor André's life. He was commander-in-chief.

The only statement, therefore, that seems to need explanation, is the one you have indicated, namely, that the letters of André shown to Miss Seward are said by her to have been in André's "own hand," with which, of course, she ought to have been familiar; since, besides knowing him personally, she had-as I think it apFears from her poem-a correspondence with him. Now, it may not be a very gallant thing to say, but after having read a good many of her letters for the purpose of seeing her mode of stating facts, I give up her accuracy. I am not disposed to use about her language so harsh as that used by the inexorable Mr. Croker, but I think he substantially makes out his case. She is not, I am satisfied, a reliable authority; and if you have not lately looked over his notes to the first volume of 'Boswell,'-I mean those about Miss Seward! –I think that, on reading them again, you will agree with me. Indeed, as the two letters about Colonel Humphreys' visit to her are so much at variance with the known facts in André's case; as they were written only from recollection, so long after the occurrence of the visit--one being nearly twenty years after it; and as the accuracy of Miss Seward has been impeached on your side of the Atlantic, while, I apprehend, Colonel Humphreys' stands no better here, I must think the

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