He advised the British that if they would do two things, offer
generous terms to soldiers serving in the American army, and
concentrate their effort, they could win the war. With a cynical
knowledge of the weaker side of human nature, he declared that it
was too expensive a business to bring men from England to serve
in America. They could be secured more cheaply in America; it
would be necessary only to pay them better than Washington could
pay his army. As matters stood the Continental troops were to
have half pay for seven years after the close of the war and
grants of land ranging from one hundred acres for a private to
eleven hundred acres for a general. Make better offers than this,
urged Arnold; "Money will go farther than arms in America." If
the British would concentrate on the Hudson where the defenses
were weak they could drive a wedge between North and South. If on
the other hand they preferred to concentrate in the South,
leaving only a garrison in New York, they could overrun Virginia
and Maryland and then the States farther south would give up a
fight in which they were already beaten. Energy and enterprise,
said Arnold, will quickly win the war.
In the autumn of 1780 the British cause did, indeed, seem near
triumph.
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