Note 1011 — Chapter V · (continued 3)

There remained for a long time no doubt as to the unalloyed patriotism of the three men who captured André. Washington praised their resistance to bribes, and Congress gave them a medal (figured in Loubat's Medallic Hist. U. S., and in Lossing's Field-Book, ii. 205). Some of those who came in close contact with André after his capture, and heard his account of the arrest, were convinced that André felt that if he could have made any considerable sum certain to them they would have let him go. This belief, on their part, of these keepers of André did not come to public notice till, in 1817, John Paulding, one of the captors, and the leader of them, petitioned Congress for an additional pension. This gave occasion to Benj. Tallmadge, who had been André's chief-keeper, and who was then in Congress, to oppose the bill on the grounds of André's statements. The Journals of the House of Representatives show the debate, which is reprinted in Dawson's Papers, 127. A letter of Gen. Joshua King, also in André's confidence at the time, confirms Tallmadge's view, and there is also a similar statement by Bowman, one of André's guards (Sparks's Arnold; Notes and Queries, ix.; Niles's Register; Hist. Mag., i. 204, 293; iii. 229; Dawson's Papers, 45; Jones's N. Y. during the Rev., i. 733; Boston Sunday Herald, Sept. 14, 1879).