Varick was charitable because he did not have the facts. Was Franks as outspoken as he was because he had all the facts? If so, where did he get them? From Arnold?
How much did Franks know? That question will probably never be answered. There is, however, this additional testimony of his on record:
“I told you that I thought Arnold had corresponded with Anderson or some such name before from Philadelphia, and had got intelligence of consequence from him.”
David Solesbury Franks was implicated in every major crime of Benedict Arnold and in the great treason he gave evidence of knowing every movement of the game, from its far beginning in Philadelphia.
Franks was exonerated by the court.
From his safe retreat on the British man-of-war, Benedict Arnold wrote a letter in which he exculpated Smith, Franks and Varick, writing that they were “totally ignorant of any transactions of mine, that they had reason to believe were injurious to the public.”
Smith was neither ignorant nor innocent. He had rowed out to the British ship and brought André ashore for his conference with Arnold. He had been a go-between on many shady missions. Yet Arnold in his letter exonerates Smith. That fact seriously affects his exoneration of Franks. If Arnold can lie about Smith’s innocence, why cannot he lie about Franks’ innocence? As to Varick, he is the only one of the three who can do without Arnold’s exoneration; to Varick it is an insult to have Benedict Arnold vouch for him. Franks, however, was always afterward inclined to lean upon Arnold’s letter. An impartial study of the testimony, upon the background of a knowledge of Franks’ history, leaves grave doubts as to the unimpeachability of his relations with Benedict Arnold. So much so, indeed, that in the study of Arnold’s treason it is a grave omission to pass over Franks’ name.