L96 THE WIPE 07 BENEDICT ARNOLD. eighteen had no results. Soon after coming of age lie entered the army, and, about two years after, his Honora gave her hand to that terrific being whom lovers are supposed to style with gnashing teeth — " another." In 1774, the year before the revolutionary war began, he was ordered to Canada to join his regiment. Scarcely had the contest begun when he was taken prisoner by General Montgomery at the capture of St. Johns ; and he was held on his parole for about fourteen months. The American troops, he says in one of his let- ters, robbed him of everything he had except a miniature of his Honora, which he concealed in his mantle ; and having preserved that, he thought himself lucky. He spent most of his time as a prisoner at Lancaster and Carlisle, in Pennsylvania, having the liberty to go to a distance of six miles from his appointed residence. His chief amusement was drawing and painting, and he gave instructions in those arts to the young people of the families he visited, some of whom preserve to this day specimens of his skill. The grandfather of the late Caleb Cope, of Philadelphia, of the eminent mercantile family of that name, was one of his pupils in 1776. There is still a tradition in those towns of his agreeable and polite behavior. After his exchange he was stationed for a while in the city of New York, where he held the rank of captain. He probably owed his further rise in the army to a memoir which he wrote upon the war, in which he embodied the results of his observations during his long confinement, and in preparing which he was aided by a journal care- fully kept, and illustrated by drawings of everything curious and rare that he had seen. The intelligence dis- played in this memoir procured him a staff appointment, and finally led to his being adjutant-general of the whole army. He was eminently fitted to shine upon a general's staff.
