Details
ARNOLD, BENEDICT, Major General, Continental Army, Traitor. Autograph document signed ("B. Arnold," with paraph), St. Pierre, Martinique, 15 October 1794. One page, large 4to, small remnants of wax seal on verso. Fine condition.
AN AMERICAN TRAITOR PURSUES AN AMERICAN THIEF
Arnold, having left the British Army, which he found uncongenial, was operating as a merchant in the West India trade, and maintained commercial establishments in several West Indian ports. Here, Arnold composes a reward notice, probably for publication in a newspaper. The manuscript is headed "Advertisement #50 reward," and specifies that, "Mr. John Parker lately a Clerk in my store at Guadaloupe...on the 8 October absconded with Cash & Property of mine to the amount of five or six hundred pounds, and at the same time [has]...secreted or taken away cash & Book of Accounts from said Store to conceal the extent of his frauds, whereby I am greatly perplexed to settle my accounts with other people, I do hereby offer a reward of fifty pounds...." In a postscript, Arnold adds: "It is supposed he is gone to some of the Neutral Islands and will go from thence to America being a native of Philadelphia, and lately resident there as a printer."
Provenance:
1. The Richards Collection (sale, Parke Bernet Galleries, 1 March 1960, lot 26).
2. Joseph M. Roebling (sale, Sotheby Parke Bernet, 27 April 1981, lot 7).
AN AMERICAN TRAITOR PURSUES AN AMERICAN THIEF
Arnold, having left the British Army, which he found uncongenial, was operating as a merchant in the West India trade, and maintained commercial establishments in several West Indian ports. Here, Arnold composes a reward notice, probably for publication in a newspaper. The manuscript is headed "Advertisement #50 reward," and specifies that, "Mr. John Parker lately a Clerk in my store at Guadaloupe...on the 8 October absconded with Cash & Property of mine to the amount of five or six hundred pounds, and at the same time [has]...secreted or taken away cash & Book of Accounts from said Store to conceal the extent of his frauds, whereby I am greatly perplexed to settle my accounts with other people, I do hereby offer a reward of fifty pounds...." In a postscript, Arnold adds: "It is supposed he is gone to some of the Neutral Islands and will go from thence to America being a native of Philadelphia, and lately resident there as a printer."
Provenance:
1. The Richards Collection (sale, Parke Bernet Galleries, 1 March 1960, lot 26).
2. Joseph M. Roebling (sale, Sotheby Parke Bernet, 27 April 1981, lot 7).