cil of Pennsylvania. It became Arnold's duty to
carry out this order, which not only wrought seri-
ous disturbance to business, but made the city a
hornet's nest of bickerings and complaints. The
qualities needed for dealing successfully with such
an affair as this were very different from the qual-
ities which had distinguished Arnold in the field.
The utmost delicacy of tact was required, and
Arnold was blunt, and self-willed, and deficient in
tact. He was accordingly soon at loggerheads
with the state government, and lost, besides, much
of the personal popularity with which he started.
Stories were whispered about to his discredit. It
was charged against Arnold that the extravagance
of his style of living was an offence against repub-
lican simplicity, and a scandal in view of the dis-
tressed condition of the country; that in order to
obtain the means of meeting his heavy expenses
he resorted to peculation and extortion; and that
he showed too much favour to the Tories. These
charges were doubtless not without some foun-
dation. This era of paper money and failing
credit was an era of ostentatious expenditure, not
altogether unlike that which, in later days, pre-
ceded the financial break-down of 1873. People
in the towns lived extravagantly, and in no other
town was this more conspicuous than in Philadel-
phia; while perhaps no one in Philadelphia kept a
finer stable of horses or gave more costly dinners
than General Arnold. He ran in debt, and en-
gaged in commercial speculations to remedy the
evil; and, in view of the light afterward thrown
upon his character, it is not unlikely that he may

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