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Re: Lafayette a Sinclair?



This is from Benedict Arnold by James Kirby Martin
""The place was Robinson's Landing on the east bank of the Hudson River, a
mile south of the Continental army's strategically vital West Point
defensive base on the opposite shore.  The hour was mid-morning, a few
minutes past ten o'clock.   For the past several months, Mjr. Gen. Arnold
had engaged in secret negotiations with military leaders, most notably Maj.
John André, adjutant general of the main British army based some 50 miles to
the south in NYC.....
   While Arnold was eating breakfast, two officers, Mjr. James McHenry and
Capt. Samuel Shaw, rode up with anticipated news.  Commander in Chief George
Washington, along with the dashing young Marquis de Lafayette, Artillery
Chief Henry Knox, and various staff aides, would soon reach Robinson's
House, where they had scheduled a meeting with Arnold and would be looking
forward to breakfast.  ....Within minutes, another officer, Lt. Solomon
Allen, rode up the east side of the Hudson to bring Arnold important
dispatches.  Before looking at them he asked Allen to sit down to breakfast
with the group.  ....As they talked, Arnold began looking at the dispatches.
Much to his astonishment, one letter contained personally disastrous news.
Major André, traveling south through the Highlands in disguise as John
Anderson, had been captured near Tarrytown.  On André's person was a pass
signed by Arnold as well as detailed sketches of the network of redoubts and
fortresses making up the West Point defensive network.  These incriminating
documents had been sent by courier to Washington who would certainly
comprehend his treason and he could appear at any moment in wrath.
    Arnold privately told Allen to be silent about André's capture, then
unruffled, excused himself from breakfast.  After giving his wife Margaret
"Peggy" Shippen a message about his need to quickly escape, downriver to the
British.   Just then his aide, Maj. David Franks, knocked on the door to
announce that Washington's personal servant had just ridden up and
Washington would be close behind.
    Arnold hobbled (shot twice in the leg) out the front door and waited
anxiously while his groomsman brought up a saddled horse.  An expert rider,
he was soon on his mount and galloping northward and then down a narrow
ravine that led to Robinson's Landing.  Much to his relief he found his
8-man boart crew alert and on duty, ready to serve him whenever he needed
water transportation.  Bolting onto the barge, he ordert the crew to put
muscle to their oars and row as they never had before--first into the center
of the Hudson and then downriver which would take them in one and a half to
2 hours to 20 miles to the British sloop of war Vulture to the south of
Tellers Point at the lower end of Haverstraw Bay.
.....Even though his scheming with André had gone awry, Arnold still hoped
that his defection would help destroy what he now believed was an errant,
misguided attempt to establish a new republich.   He even fancied himself a
pied piper of reconciliation that would bring other worthy patriots and
disgruntled soldiers to their senses to renounce the Revolution."
     I might add that Lt Col John, 11th Earl of Caithness was with the 76th
Foot;  wounded by a musket-ball while reconnoitering with Gen. Henry Clinton
at the siege of Charlestown, VA around April 1780 so he presumably had
returned to England by now and thus missed this drama that unfolded on
Clinton's ship on the Hudson River in Sept. 1780.
Laurel
=====================

> Benedict Arnold was at breakfast when he learned that British Major John
> Andre was captured. Sinclair blood flowed in Andre. Andre found himself
> deserted by Arnold's henchman, Tory Joshua Hett Smith, in what is now
"
>
> Sinclair


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