32
��Robert Rogers, the Ranger.
��asked to be made an English Baronet, with ;^6oo a year, and in addition to that, a Major in the army.* One is in doubt which to wonder at the most, the audacity of the bold adventurer, or the stupidity of the British public. But vaulting ambition had at length over- leaped itself. He failed of the coveted knighthood, and sank by degrees to his true level.
We see nothing more of Major Rog- ers until July, 1775, when he again appears, in America as a Major of the British Army retired on half pay. The object of his visit to his native land just at the beginning of our Revolutionary war was not satisfactorily apparent. Some considered him a militar)^ adven- turer, anxious to sell his serxdces to the highest bidder. Others regarded him as a British spy. He wandered over the country all the way from Pennsyl- vania to New Hampshire -v^ith very little ostensible business. His improb- able statements, his associations with per- sons hostile to the American cause, his visits to places of bad reputation, as well as his whole general conduct, ren- dered him a suspected person.
He was arrested on the twenty-second of September following his arrival by the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety, but was aftenvards paroled upon his solemn declaration and promise that "on the honor of a soldier and a gentleman he would not bear arms against the American United Colonies, in any manner whatever, during the present contest between them and Great- Britain ; " t yet, on the t\venty-sixth of
- Benjamin Roberts in a letter to Sir William John-
son, dated February 19, 1770, says: " Kingston has a most extraordinary letter from London, which says that Major Rogers was presented to his majesty and kissed his hand — that he demanded redress and retaliation for his sufferings. The minister asked what would content him. He desired to be made a Baronet, with a pension of ;^6oo sterling, and to be restored to his goverment at Michilimackinac, and have all his accounts paid. Mr. Fitzherbert is his particular friend." — [Journals, p. 256.
t Journals, p. 259.
��the next November, he makes a tender of his services to the British goverment, in a letter addressed to General Gage, and was encouraged to communicate more definitely his proposals.*
On the second day of December, a little more than a month later, in shabby garb he calls upon President Wheelock, at Hanover, New Hampshire. After speaking of his absence in Europe, during which, he said, he had fought two battles in Algiers, under the Dey, he officiously tendered his aid in a proposed effort to obtain a grant of land for Dartmouth College. The President distrusted him, but treated him civilly. At the close of the interview he returned to the tavern where he passed the night, and left the next morning without paying his reckoning, f
Again, on the nineteenth of the same month, at Medford, Massachusetts, he addresses a letter to General Washing- ton, soliciting an interview, but his repu- tation was such that the Commander-in- Chief declined to see him. J
Even this did not discourage him. With an effrontery truly wonderful, on the twenty-fifth of June, 1776, after he had been arrested in South Amboy and brought to New York, he expressed to the Connnander-in-Chief his desire to pass on to Philadelphia, that he might there make a secret tender of his services to the American Congress. §
However, by this time, his duplicity had become so manifest that a few days after this interview (July 2, 1776) the New Hampshire House of Representa- tives passed a formal vote recommend- ing his arrest,! which was supplemented two years later (November 19, 177S) by a decree of proscription.
- Journals, p. 261.
t Same, p. 118.
X Same, p. 263.
§ Same, p. 273.
I| New Hampshire Prov. Papers vol. viii, p. 185.
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