on the twenty-first, that he was not to return that evening, I suggested to you that I supposed he had gone to Smith’s, and that I considered Arnold’s treatment of me in keeping up his connection with Smith, in opposition to the warning I had given him, as very ungenteel, and that I was resolved to quit his family” (meaning his staff). “We did thereupon concert the plan of preventing their further intimacy by alarming Mrs. Arnold’s fears....
“You did at the same time inform me that you could not account for his connections with Smith—that you knew him to be an avaricious man and suspected he meant to open trade with some person in New York, under sanction of his command, and by means of flags and the unprincipled rascal Smith; and that you were induced to suspect it from the letter he wrote to Anderson in a commercial style as related to you by me. We thereupon pledged to each our word of honor that if our suspicions should prove to be founded in fact, we would instantly quit him.”
It is the honest Varick talking, Franks questioning him. It will be observed that it is Franks who tells Varick of Arnold’s absence and that he will not return that night. Franks knew, but Varick did not. It will be observed also, that it was Varick who protested and threatened to quit Arnold. It was indeed the second time he had threatened to quit, but the Jewish major seems never to have had a similar thought. But most important to observe is Varick’s statement in answer to Franks, and in Franks’ presence, that it was Franks who opened up with information regarding Arnold’s character—that Arnold was an avaricious man, that Franks suspected him of opening up trade with the enemy “under sanction of his command” (just as he had planned to misuse his authority at Philadelphia) and that Smith was to be the go-between. Then he mentions a letter to “Anderson in a commercial style”—this “Anderson” being none other than Major John André of the British Army.