The British, at the time, and some of their writers afterwards, attacked Washington for insisting on this mode of execution, but there never was an instance in his career when he was more entirely right.  Andre was a spy and briber, who sought to ruin the American cause by means of the treachery of an American general.  It was a dark and dangerous game, and he knew that he staked his life on the result.  He failed, and paid the penalty.  Washington could not permit, he would have been grossly and feebly culpable if he had permitted, such an attempt to pass without extreme punishment.  He was generous and magnanimous, but he was not a sentimentalist, and he punished this miserable treason, so far as he could reach it, as it deserved.  It is true that Andre was a man of talent, well-bred and courageous, and of engaging manners.  He deserved all the sympathy and sorrow which he excited at the time, but nothing more.  He was not only technically a spy, but he had sought his ends by bribery, he had prostituted a flag of truce, and he was to be richly paid for his work.  It was all hire and salary.  No doubt Andre was patriotic and loyal.  Many spies have been the same, and have engaged in their dangerous exploits from the highest motives.  Nathan Hale, whom the British hanged without compunction, was as well-born and well-bred as Andre, and as patriotic as man could be, and moreover he was a spy and nothing more.  Andre was a trafficker in bribes and treachery, and however we may pity his fate, his name has no proper place in the great temple at Westminster, where all English-speaking people bow with reverence, and only a most perverted sentimentality could conceive that it was fitting to erect a monument to his memory in this country.

Washington sent Andre to the gallows because it was his duty to do so, but he pitied him none the less, and whatever he may have thought of the means Andre employed to effect his end, he made no comment upon him, except to say that “he met his fate with that fortitude which was to be expected from an accomplished man and gallant officer.”  As to Arnold, he was almost equally silent.  When obliged to refer to him he did so in the plainest and simplest way, and only in a familiar letter to Laurens do we get a glimpse of his feelings.  He wrote:  “I am mistaken if at this time Arnold is undergoing the torment of a mental hell.  He wants feeling.  From some traits of his character which have lately come to my knowledge, he seems to have been so hackneyed in villainy, and so lost to all sense of honor and shame, that, while his faculties will enable him to continue his sordid pursuits, there will be no time for remorse.”  With this single expression of measureless contempt, Washington let Arnold drop from his life.  The first shock had touched him to the quick, although it could not shake his steady mind.  Reflection revealed to him the extraordinary baseness of Arnold’s real character, and he cast the thought of him out forever, content to leave the traitor to the tender mercies of history.  The calmness and dignity, the firmness and deep feeling which Washington exhibited, are of far more interest than the abortive treason, and have as real a value now as they had then, when suspicion for a moment ran riot, and men wondered “whom they could trust.”