Sensibility and the American Revolution by Sarah Knott

Author:Sarah Knott
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2014-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

III

What of the imperial metropole and its affiliates? The loyalist and British press paid first attention to Benedict Arnold’s defection from the patriot cause: reprinting Arnold’s addresses to American inhabitants and the army and, in Britain, hopefully but mistakenly reporting the implication of certain Virginian members of Congress as well as the defection of various other Continental generals. No one likes a traitor. Arnold was castigated for being a “traiterous traitor” as well as a man of “mean and low extraction” and a mere “boat-builder.” A turncoat, it was widely held, is always poised to turn on his new protector. Some defended him: he was brave and experienced; he had acted from a “spirit which would have adorned nobility”; he had rushed to defend his country when he thought it wronged. Certainly, Arnold’s defection stoked hopes of imperial success; it proved that “this kingdom” had little to fear from the inroads of American rebellion.44

With regard to André, whereas the American loyalist press had little to say, British reactions barely fell short of canonizing the dead officer. (Indeed, in an oddly telling slip, many newspapers and their readers continued to refer to him as “Major St. André,” even as corrections abounded.)45 Within three days of the news arriving in London, there was a call for a House of Commons motion for a suitable monument in Westminster Abbey. London debating societies asked whether Clinton had been right not to hand over Arnold in exchange; a play performed at Westminster School celebrated their newly famous alumnus in a prologue. British commentators saw in him a “match for classical examples”; his “dauntless fortitude” made him like a heroic Greek. The Westminster Abbey monument showed him, following the inscription, “with that fortitude and resolution which had always marked his character … going, with unshaken spirit, to meet his doom.” André entered the history books as what he was widely and relievedly perceived to be: the first British hero of the war. The admiration took some of its edge from the contrast to Arnold. As one piece of doggerel penned by “a Lady” had it:

To what a pass are matters driven,

In this surprising age we live in,

When—curse on popular comotion,—

Rebellion gains a man promotion

And, when foul Treason dares exhibit

A Loyal subject on a Gibbet.

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