The century that has nearly elapsed since Arnold’s defection has not served to lighten in any degree the load of obloquy that rests upon his name.  In the whole world no man has been found willing to undertake his defence; yet a believer in the dark old Calvinist doctrine might urge in the traitor’s favor the thousand invisible influences which from the very birth of the wretched man seem to have goaded him on in the downward path that led to his final disgrace and ruin.  His home-training, if such it might be called, was of the very worst.  His mother an ignorant, uncultured woman, his father a defaulter in middle life, in his age a sot, the boy was left to follow the promptings of his own will, naturally strong and turbulent.  His youth was stormy and insubordinate, his young manhood not without the reproach of dishonorable mercantile dealings, and even the splendor of his military achievements in the service of his country could scarcely blind the judgment of his warmest admirers to the suspicious stains upon his moral character.  That the last link in the chain of influences might not be wanting, Arnold, while in command of Philadelphia in 1778, fell deeply in love with and married the youngest daughter of Mr. Edward Shippen (afterward chief-justice), a distinguished lawyer of well-known Tory proclivities, although he was entirely acquitted of any share in the treasonable design of his son-in-law.  It does not appear that there was any very serious objection made in the Shippen household to the rebel general’s suit for the hand of the lovely Peggy.  Arnold was at this time about thirty-eight years of age, in the vigorous prime of a life whose declining years were destined to be passed in a sort of contemptuous tolerance among those with whom he had been at bargain and sale for the liberties of his country.  Covered with well-earned glory from his brilliant feats of bravery at the battles of Bemis Heights and Stillwater, and slightly lame from a severe wound in the leg received at Quebec, he was at last accorded his full rank in the army, and entered upon the military command of Philadelphia with every conceivable circumstance in his favor.  The stories of his courage and daring which had preceded him, aided by his handsome person and fine military bearing, combined to ensure his success in society, and he was at once given the entree to the best city families, from one of which he soon singled out the lady who became his wife.  Her father writes to Colonel Burd in January, 1779, that “General Arnold, a fine gentleman, lays close siege to Peggy,” and goes on to hint that a wedding may soon be expected.  If the traitor’s tongue was only half as persuasive as his pen, small wonder that the damsel capitulated.[4] “Dear Peggy,” sighs the ardent lover upon paper, “suffer that heavenly bosom (which cannot know itself the cause of pain without a sympathetic pang) to expand with a sensation more soft, more tender than friendship....  I have presumed to write to your papa, and have requested