The Late Years of Benedict Arnold

by Jane Merrill, John Endicott

2022 · McFarland

The life of Benedict Arnold, the American Revolutionary War general who attempted to surrender West Point to the British in 1780, didn't end after he betrayed his American compatriots. In the newly formed United States, he was condemned as a conspirator and in Britain, he was suspected of the same. He quickly left America, spent a short time in London, and largely operated in Canada and the Caribbean as a smuggler, a mercenary and a pariah. Although much has been written about Arnold's famous fall from grace, this book is the story of a charismatic man of vaulting ambition. With new research and photographs, it delves into his last twenty years. Arnold remains fascinating as a toppled hero and a flagrant traitor. Another American general wrote in the 1780s that Arnold "never does anything by halves"; indeed, he lived on a big scale. This study documents each of the various points of the globe where the restless Arnold operated and lived, pursuing wealth, status, and redemption.

In a Defiant Stance

by John P. Reid

1990 · Penn State Press

The minimum of violence accompanying the success of the American Revolution resulted in large part, argues this book, from the conditions of law the British allowed in the American colonies. By contrast, Ireland's struggle for independence was prolonged, bloody, and bitter largely because of the repressive conditions of law imposed by Britain. Examining the most rebellious American colony, Massachusetts Bay, Professor Reid finds that law was locally controlled while imperial law was almost nonexistent as an influence on the daily lives of individuals. In Ireland the same English common law, because of imperial control of legal machinery, produced an opposite result. The Irish were forced to resort to secret, underground violence. The author examines various Massachusetts Bay institutions to show the consequences of whig party control, in contrast to the situation in 18th-century Ireland. A general conclusion is that law, the conditions of positive law, and the matter of who controls the law may have more significant effects on the course of events than is generally assumed.