Arnold’s own record makes this clear. Let us then take up his career at a certain point and see how the Franks strand and the money strand weave themselves through it like colored threads.
Extraordinary efforts have been made in recent years to extenuate Arnold’s treason by the recital of his daring services. These services need not be minimized. Indeed, it was his great achievement of the winter march to Montreal and Quebec in 1775–6 that seems to begin the chapter of his troubles. To rehearse this feat of courage and endurance would be to tell a tale that has thrilled the American schoolboy.
It was at Montreal that Benedict Arnold came into contact with the young Jew, David Solesbury Franks, the Canadian agent of the Franks army-purveying syndicate. And the next thing known about young Franks is that he returns to the American Colonies in the train of Benedict Arnold as an officer of the American Army.
How this change was effected is not explained in any of the records. There is a moment of darkness, as it were, in which the “quick change” was made, which transformed the young Montreal Jew from an army-contractor for the British into an officer of Benedict Arnold’s staff.
But as it is impossible for every fact to be suppressed, there are here and there indications of what might have been, what indeed most probably was, the basis of the attraction and relation between the two. It was very probably—almost certainly—the opportunities for graft which could be capitalized by a combination of General Arnold’s authority and young Franks’ ability in the handling of goods.
From the day they met in Montreal until the hour when General Arnold fled, a traitor, from the fort on the Hudson, young David Solesbury Franks was his companion.
In one of the numerous court-martials which tried General Arnold for questionable dealings in matters pertaining to army supplies, Franks,