Treacherous Beauty

by Stephen Case

  St. John could no longer be home to the Arnolds. Finally Peggy would get her wish to return to England, away from this place of speculation and resentment and infidelity. Hannah remained in Canada with Richard and Henry, but Peggy and Arnold left with the younger children in late 1791, bound for London.551 Before their departure they held an auction for some of their goods, including the Wedgwood giltware, the Nankeen china, the globe, and “a lady’s elegant saddle and bridle.” The twelve chairs for the dining table were sold to one of Arnold’s lawyer friends. Later known in St. John as the “traitor’s chairs,” they were destroyed in that city’s great fire of 1877.

  “We had a very rough and disagreeable voyage home,” Arnold wrote to a St. John friend, “but our reception has been very pleasant, and our friends more than well attentive to us since our arrival. The little property that we have saved from the hands of a lawless ruffian mob and more unprincipled judges in New Brunswick is perfectly safe here, as well as our persons from insult. . . . I cannot help viewing your great city as a shipwreck from which I have escaped.”552

  The Arnold family moved onto Holles Street in London’s Cavendish Square area, near their previous neighborhood of Portman Square. Four years earlier on that very same street, the infant who would become the poet Lord Byron was born, but his family had since moved away.553 Now Holles Street was Peggy’s home. She had left America for good. No more sideways sneers on the newly paved roads of Philadelphia. No more ruffians in the frozen lanes of a not-yet-boomtown in eastern Canada.

  Peggy was happy to escape, too, but she faced a host of challenges in England—four children to raise and a husband to keep out of trouble. And not just any husband, but a proud, insecure, overreaching man who was intent on battling old enemies and making new ones.

  CHAPTER 19

  Unmanned

  In two letters in the summer of 1792, Peggy told the story of how she was almost widowed, and how she nearly went insane with worry, and how—by her estimation, at least—it all ended splendidly for the Arnold family. “Should the public papers of a few days back reach you,” Peggy wrote her father, “you will observe a paragraph mentioning that General Arnold is killed in a duel with the Earl of Lauderdale.”554

  The rumor was untrue—at least so far, Peggy wrote. But the report of Arnold’s death “was for some time so generally believed that our friends were flocking to the house to console with and make me offers of service.”

  The dispute had begun with remarks made in Britain’s House of Lords by James Maitland, Earl of Lauderdale, about a matter that had nothing to do with Arnold. Rather, Lauderdale meant to denounce the Duke of Richmond for establishing a military “flying camp” to intimidate citizens who were seeking political reform. Lauderdale said, according to Peggy’s telling, “that he did not know any instance of political apostasy equal to the Duke of Richmond’s, except General Arnold’s.”555

  Peggy apparently heard about the comment before Arnold did, because she wrote that she tried to keep the news from her husband, an attempt that seemed to cause friction between them. “This is a subject to which of course he is to me silent,” she wrote, “and all that I can obtain from him are assurances that he will do nothing rashly and without the advice of his friends.” Peggy knew her place. She could argue against a confrontation, but she could not stop her fractious husband from demanding either an apology or a duel. “For, weak woman that I am, I would not wish to prevent what would be deemed necessary to preserve his honor.”

  Dueling, which would be outlawed in England in 1819, was a reckless bit of macho political posturing that occasionally had lethal results, despite the fact that most participants had no intention of either dying or killing.556 In 1789 a bullet fired by a duel opponent had grazed the hair of the king’s second son, Prince Frederick Augustus, Duke of York, who declined to fire back.557 The same year as Arnold’s confrontation with Lauderdale, a duel in London’s Hyde Park showed the ridiculousness of the ritual. The so-called Petticoat Duel pitted Lady Almeria Braddock against a Mrs. Elphinstone, who had allegedly made a disparaging remark about Lady Almeria’s age. The women fired at ten paces and missed, though a ball went through Lady Almeria’s hat. Swords were the next weapon of choice, and Lady Almeria punished Mrs. Elphinstone with an arm wound, after which they called it a day.558

  Peggy was right to worry about Arnold’s fate if he insisted on a duel: People did indeed die in such “trial by combat.” The most famous American dueling fatality would occur a dozen years later and involve a man well known to Peggy—Alexander Hamilton, one of the Founding Fathers she had wrapped around her finger at Robinson House. Hamilton was killed by Aaron Burr, second husband of Peggy’s friend Theodosia Prevost, three weeks before Peggy’s own death in 1804.559

  The complicated choreography following Lauderdale’s insult was common for the times, and was outlined by Peggy in the account to her father. First Arnold asked Lauderdale whether he had uttered the insulting remark. Lauderdale said he had, and “made a kind of apology for it, but it not satisfying the general, he drew up such a one as he would accept, which his lordship refused to sign.” Then they agreed to a “meeting”—a duel—at seven o’clock on a Sunday morning near Kilburn Wells outside of London, with the Arnolds’ friend Lord Hawke accompanying the general and former prime minister Charles James Fox as Lauderdale’s second.560 “It was agreed that they should fire at the same time, upon a word given, which the general did, without effect,” Peggy wrote. “Lord Lauderdale refused to fire, saying he had no enmity to General Arnold. He at the same time refused making an apology, and said the general might fire again, if he chose.” Arnold refused to do such a dishonorable thing, but declared that he would not leave the field unless Lauderdale either apologized or fired. If Lauderdale would do neither, Arnold threatened to speak “such expressions to him as would oblige him” to shoot.

  Peggy described these negotiations as if they were logical and sensible, yet they were in fact utterly absurd. First Arnold had threatened to shoot Lauderdale because of his insult. Now Arnold threatened to insult Lauderdale if he would not shoot.

  The seconds met privately to discuss the next step, allowing Arnold and Lauderdale to chat by themselves. Arnold “told his lordship that he did not come there to convince the world that he dare fight, but for satisfaction for the injury done his character.” Lauderdale and his second conferred, and then the lord “came forward and said he had no enmity to General Arnold—that he did not mean to asperse his character or wound his feelings, and was sorry for what he had said. General Arnold said he was perfectly satisfied with this apology, provided the seconds, as men of honor, declared he ought to be so, which they without hesitation did.” Lord Lauderdale also expressed his concern for Peggy’s feelings, and offered to pay a visit to offer his apologies personally. It is unknown whether that meeting ever took place.

  The tension of the whole affair was too much for Peggy: “What I suffered for near a week is not to be described; the suppression of my feelings, lest I should unman the general, almost at last proved too much for me; and for some hours, my reason was despaired of. I was confined to my bed for some days after, but am now so much better that I shall go out [for] an airing this afternoon.”

  In the end, the whole situation was a triumph, at least in Peggy’s mind. “It has been highly gratifying to find the general’s conduct so much applauded, which it has been universally, and particularly by a number of the first characters in the kingdom, who have called upon him in consequence of it. Nor am I displeased,” she added, “at the great commendations bestowed on my own conduct upon this trying occasion.” Though driven to bed and to hysterics, undoubtedly alarming both her servants and her children, she had kept her feelings locked away inside the house on Holles Street. She had avoided “unmanning the general” in public.

  The Arnolds, believing that their reputation was burnished by their honorable handling of the duel, launched an appeal to
Prime Minister William Pitt to gain further recompense for their unsuccessful treason and Arnold’s brief service with the British army more than a decade earlier. They realized that Pitt would consult Clinton, and began lobbying the general heavily. Arnold reanimated his argument that John André had shown a willingness to pay him ten thousand pounds rather than the six thousand that Clinton had initially agreed to. Clinton, no doubt tired of Arnold, responded with the same statement he had issued years earlier during financial wrangling: “My ideas of your services while you acted with the king’s troops have been already communicated to the secretary of state. I am no longer in a situation either to notice or reward them.”561

  Peggy also wrote Clinton, in her most genteel manner: “Surrounded by a numerous little family, without the means of educating and supporting them in a style at all equal to what the former part of my life promised . . . you will not be surprised that every maternal feeling is awakened and that I am deeply interested in General Arnold’s present application to Mr. Pitt. . . . From your justice I have everything to hope. May I presume to solicit your friendship?”562 To the modern eye, Peggy’s appeal for help may seem less than persuasive. There was no guarantee that, just because Peggy was born to wealth, she was entitled to it for the rest of her life. Nor was it the crown’s problem that the Arnolds had gambled and lost at West Point and then had gambled and lost again in New Brunswick. Peggy and Arnold were once-affluent people who were desperately afraid of slipping into the middle class and were begging for government welfare to make them wealthy again.

  When Arnold finally managed an audience with Pitt after several visits to his home and office, he made essentially the same argument as Peggy, asking that the British government restore him to “the style of the first people of America, by whom I was respected and beloved and among whom I had many friends.” But the question was obvious: If his former life in America had been so desirable, why had he abandoned it in the first place?

  Arnold asked Pitt for a gargantuan amount: twenty-five thousand pounds, the rough equivalent of four million dollars in today’s currency.563 He also sought to be named governor of the Lesser Antilles island of Dominica in the Caribbean. Instead, in July 1793, a year after the duel with Lauderdale, the Arnolds received a reward that seemed to address Peggy’s “maternal feeling”: Each of their four children would receive a government pension of one hundred pounds per year.564

  A few months later, Peggy’s last child was on the way. Mrs. Arnold had been pregnant six times in about eight years—more often pregnant than not—followed by a gap of six years before her seventh one. This time Arnold did not wait for his child’s delivery before embarking on a new quest for fortune. He returned to the sea in the spring of 1794, bound for the Caribbean.

  Peggy set a clear course for her four older children: They would attend school so that the boys could ultimately serve the military and Sophia could one day serve a marriage. With money tight, the family took less sumptuous quarters in the same general area of London, on Queen Anne Street in the Cavendish Square area. James Boswell had written the famed Life of Samuel Johnson at home on that very street only a few years earlier. Like Peggy, he had chosen Queen Anne because it was both genteel and reasonably priced.565

  William Fitch Arnold, Peggy’s youngest son, was born there in June 1794 and was named for an American Loyalist in exile who had fought on the British side at Bunker Hill and whose sisters Ann and Sarah were Peggy’s closest friends in London. The Loyalist died in fighting against Maroons—descendants of runaway slaves—in Jamaica little more than a year after his namesake’s birth.566

  Peggy was determined that she was done with childbirth. Writing to congratulate Canadian friends upon the birth of a baby, she declared: “For my own part, I am determined to have no more little plagues, as it is so difficult to provide for them in this country.”567

  Around the time that Peggy’s last “little plague” was born, she received sad news about the woman who had brought her into the world. Margaret Francis Shippen was dead of a stroke at age fifty-eight. Her father wrote: “I have lost the staff of my age and care not how soon I follow her.”568 Yet her father’s correspondence was reminiscent of his letter thirty-four years earlier in which he discussed a business voucher before announcing Peggy’s birth. This new letter, describing how his wife’s passing had broken his heart, included a postscript inquiring about an interest payment on one of Peggy’s investments.

  In their lifelong correspondence, Peggy and her father liked to move beyond niceties. After he sent her a painted portrait of himself, she responded that “the sight of it occasioned sensations I never before experienced,” but then complained that “the eyes, particularly the right one, are very bad, and the heavy brow very much unlike yours.” She told him that the painting was “invaluable” to her as long as she covered up the eyes so she didn’t have to look at them.569

  Peggy sometimes seemed to detest the very things she loved. That included her father’s portrait, and it also included her husband, whose infidelity and recklessness tortured Peggy at times. As she cared for her new baby William, Benedict Arnold was engaged in the last grand adventure of his life. It was a lengthy one that would tax his wife and family.

  Just after Arnold set out to seek his fortune in the Caribbean, a storm forced him to take refuge at an inn in Falmouth on England’s far southwestern tip. There he encountered one of the giants of the age, the French diplomat Talleyrand, who was fleeing his nation’s Reign of Terror. Talleyrand was not told Arnold’s name but only that he was an American general. He asked for letters of introduction that he could use in America, and Arnold told him, “I am perhaps the only American who cannot give you letters for his own country. . . . All the relations I had there are now broken.”570 Talleyrand quickly realized he was talking to the famous traitor Benedict Arnold.

  Proceeding to the Caribbean, Arnold fell into a trap as he entered the harbor of Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadaloupe, just after it had been captured from British forces by fighters loyal to France’s revolutionary government.571 Held prisoner aboard a French ship, Arnold gave his name as John Anderson—the same pseudonym that John André used fourteen years earlier. And like André, his claim of being an innocent merchant was disbelieved.

  Peggy, an astute reader of newspapers and observer of geopolitics, was fully aware of the danger in Guadaloupe. “I am now in a state of most extreme misery,” she wrote her stepson Richard, “from the report of your father’s being a prisoner to the French at Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadaloupe.”572 Peggy noted that another report had indicated Arnold was safe, but she concluded correctly that he indeed had been captured, since his last letter had reported that he was headed for Pointe-à-Pitre and the French took control four days later.

  Yet Arnold did not remain a prisoner long. He effected a brilliant escape through bribery and sheer grit, and paddled a raft and then a boat to safety aboard the British man-of-war Boyne, anchored off the island.

  The commander of British forces in the area was General Sir Charles Grey—the “No Flint” Grey who had commanded André on bloody missions in the American Revolution. It is unclear whether Grey fully forgave Arnold for André’s death, but at least he didn’t feed Arnold to the sharks. While Grey refused to allow Arnold to take a command as a brigadier general, he welcomed his efforts over a year’s time to secure food for the British force. A junior officer wrote that Arnold “fastened himself onto Grey with a tenacity which the general’s undisguised disgust was powerless to shake.”573 Arnold made himself indispensable in the islands, not only offering his own money up-front to buy food for Grey’s soldiers but also helping British planters organize a militia to put down a slave rebellion. Disease and warfare were rampant, but Arnold seemed to be in his element. He found himself “considerably improved in fortune and infinitely more in health than when I left England, and though I have experienced the distress of burying two-thirds of my acquaintances in these islands s
ince I came out, I had scarcely an hour’s sickness.”574

  Peggy, on the other hand, struggled both emotionally and physically in her husband’s absence. When he returned in the summer of 1795, he found her “very much an invalid, but as her disorder is in a great measure nervous, I hope she will soon get the better of it.”575

  Peggy had complained of one ailment or another her entire adult life—indeed, her letters are full of aches and pains—but now she seemed to be getting worse. She suffered excruciating headaches, referring to “my head which is too full of blood.”576 And she told her father about the swelling of her limbs and a “general fullness.”577 Upon the advice of a doctor, she cut her food and drink intake in half. Also, she wrote, “I am to take no kind of medicine and never fatigue myself with exercise.” She seemed annoyed that she didn’t have more convincing symptoms. “Nobody, to look at me, could suppose I wanted the advice of medical people, as my appearance indicates the most florid health,” she wrote. “My appetite is uncommonly good, and my digestion such that I never find any quantity or quality of food disagree with me.”

  Given all that, it’s difficult not to wonder whether some of Peggy’s health problems were in her head. They became one of the primary story lines of her later years—along with her careful attention to family finances and great devotion to her children and stepchildren.

  Her eldest stepson, Benedict Arnold VI, was a constant cause of worry. Against the advice of his father, he assumed his military commission and went off to fight against the French. “We have not heard from poor Ben for a long time past, and have reason to fear he is a prisoner,” Peggy wrote to her stepson Richard in mid-1794.578 And indeed he was held captive in a French prison for two years. Like his father, he did not know when to quit, and he volunteered as an artillery officer in the Caribbean, again over his father’s objections. Wounded in the leg while serving in Jamaica, he made the same choice as his father by refusing amputation but was less lucky. He died from gangrene.