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A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1875
Gentlemen, 9th March 1779. We are exceedingly unhappy in finding that our Letter of the 4th instant excited Emotions of so singular a nature: be assured, we did not mean to wound your feelings in any Degree, much less to such an Extreme.
No Prooffs were wanting to convince us of your Disposition to observe a respectful Attention to Congress and every Member of it; and we consider your's of the 5th instant which we received on the 6th as a clear Confirmation of it. (1)
On the 15th of February General Arnold's Letter to Congress praying an Enquiry and Trial on the Charges contained in the printed Proceedings of Council were referred to us: (2) on the 18th we informed his Excellency the President of it, and solicited the Assistance of Council in the Execution of our Enquiry. It is now the 9th of March, and we have not yet been able to obtain any Assistance or Evidence from You.
You request us to peruse impartially and attentively your's of the 25th of February, (3) which, you say, contains Reasons for not furnishing us with the Evidence on the above Charges. We have complied with your Request, and find that Nothing escaped our first Consideration of it: we did not then, nor do we now, see the force of your Reasoning. You say "the Resolves of the Board were framed and transmitted to the Members of Congress as to other Persons of Rank & Consequence not as forming a Complaint against General Arnold." Be pleased to recollect, that your Resolves were accompanied with the Reasons, on which you founded them, each of which is a specific Charge against the General: these Resolves and Reasons or specific Charges were, by Order of Council, printed and published: and by Order of Council printed Copies were put into the Hands of the Delegates of Congress: in Consequence of which Measure of Council, & by means of General Arnold's Letter, Congress became possessed of Information, that the General stood charged in the printed Proceedings of Council with Misconduct in no less than Eight Instances. Under these Circumstances, altho' your Conduct, as we have already stated it, clearly demonstrates, that you did not mean to form a Complaint against the General, yet as there was no Disavowal on your Part, or Retraction, of the Charges contained in your Proceedings under the Description of Reasons, public Justice required that Congress should direct an Enquiry; and surely public Justice required that you should furnish the Evidence which you were possessed of.
You say, the Proceedings and Publication of Council in General Arnolds Case are not Charges, but Judgments to which you are fully competent. We do not comprehend the Legality of such Judgments. Common Justice requires, that a Trial & Conviction should precede every Judgment of Condemnation, and common Humanity reprobates all Convictions founded on Ex parte Evidence behind the Back of the party accused.
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But as you say you are fully competent to the Judgments in General Arnold's Case, we cannot doubt their Legality.
If we have called upon you authoritatively for Evidence, we can only say, that our Letter of the 4th instant must be exprest in Terms very different from what we find in the original Draught of it. We were fully apprized of the Delicacy of your feelings, and perfectly knew what exalted Ideas, you had, of Rank, dignity and Power: whatever therefore may be the Expressions of our Letter, we could not possibly mean to address you in the Stile of Authority.
As to the Complaint about the Waggons, which was made by his Excellency the President to Congress in his Letter of the 25th of January, we finished our Enquiries on that Subject, made up our Report, and offered it to Congress, in less than ten Days after you gave us the Evidence. We made up this Report with all the Expedition, we possibly could, consistently with the Attention due to other publick Business. But before Congress could receive it, the Council of Pensylvania thought proper to make a fresh Exhibition of Charges against the General, in which was included the Complaint about the Waggons.(4) General Arnold immediately addressed Congress and prayed an Enquiry on those other Charges: we were therefore directed by Congress to take the same into Consideration, to make a general Enquiry and to report the Result of such Enquiry. There being now a general Reference of the whole Charges we conceived it improper to report partially, and therefore laid aside the Report on the Complaint about the Waggons with an Intent to include it in our general Report.
What Ideas you mean to hold out, by charging the Majority of our Committee & the Members individually with private Interviews and ex parte Examinations of General Arnold, it is difficult to say: we beg Leave however to deny your Charge in the most explicit Terms. Both of us cannot be right: as you make the Charge, the Onus probandi lies upon you. If you have any Evidence to prove, that your Charge is founded in Truth, considering how flatly we contradict it, you will certainly take the earliest Opportunity of vindicating the Honor & Reputation of Council by producing it.
You seem to have taken up an Idea, that we consider you as Parties & Complainants presenting before Congress the Charges contained in your printed Proceedings: we never considered you in that Light; we consider you merely as Accusers possessed of Evidence to prove a publick Offence. We know of no Parties or Complainants to Congress in the present Case but the Publick & General Arnold: for publick, not private, Justice, public, not private, Reparation, is the Object of all Prosecutions for Offences of a public Nature.
Our Conduct is by no Means opposed to what should be observed by Grand Inquests: for altho' we deny, that we took the Ex parte Examination in favour of the party accused, which with so much Decency you charge upon us, yet we say, it is the Right of the party accused to have an
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Examination of his Witnesses by the Grand Inquest before whom he is charged.
Having observed in our last, that fourteen Days had elapsed, since our application to you for Evidence, You are pleased to reply "as to the fourteen Days you mentioned this Delay surely cannot be attributed to us, when you recollect how great a Part of that Time has been employed in hearing General Arnold & his Aids with other Evidence without Notice to this State as Parties & Complainants." We perfectly recollect the Reverse of what you alledge, and in express Terms declare, that no Part of that Time was employed in Hearing General Arnold & his Aids or in taking other Evidence. General Arnold was never heard on the Charges contained in your printed Proceedings, and referred to us on the 15th of February, till the 5th instant, which was the Day after our Letter, to which you have made your Reply, and of Consequence not within the fourteen Days you mention. The Committee tired out with fruitless Applications to you for Evidence and repeatedly prest by General Arnold for a Hearing, with all the Anxiety & Sensibility of a Soldier, injured in his Honor & Reputation, we resolved on the 3d instant to close our Enquiries on the 5th: both you & the General were notified of it, and you were told, that we did not doubt but your Regard for public Justice would induce you to furnish us by that Time with the Evidence you were possessed of.
We wish for your own Sakes you had spared your solemn Protestation: it is no Prooff of Dignity of Conduct. Vehement Delcarations and violent Protestations are sometimes the Result of Passions roused in the telling of Truths-or the Apprehension of it. We shall certainly make no Report derogatory to the Rights and Interests of Pensylvania: such a Report would only disgrace ourselves. As to the Honor of Council we shall report the Truth: and therefore, if you yourselves have done Nothing derogatory to the Honor of Council, you have nothing to fear from our Report.(5)
I have the Honor to be, Gentlemen, Your most Obedient, humble Servant, Wm. Paca, Chairman.
RC (NHi: Joseph Reed Papers).
1 The council's March 5 letter is not in PCC, but a draft of it is in the Joseph Reed Papers, NHi.
2 JCC) 13:184.
3 Not found.
4 See Paca to Joseph Reed, March 3, 1779, note.
5 Although Paca's committee submitted a report on its dealings with Pennsylvania on March 17, congressional action on that report was still pending when a request was received from the state for a conference with a congressional committee to discuss the crisis that had been reached in its relations with Congress. See JCC, 13:324-26, 337, 374-79. For the delegate's reception of that request and the subsequent resolution of the impasse that had developed, see Henry Laurens' Notes of Debate, March 26, 1779.
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