216 WORKMEN AND HEROES No testimony could be stronger against him than the papers on his person. He was not there to prevaricate, and he told them his rank and name. There was no trial, and Howe at once ordered that he should be hanged the next morning. Worse than this, had he known it, he was to be hanged by William Cunningham, the Provost-Major, a man whose brutality, through the war dis- graced the British army. It is a satisfaction to know that Cunningham was hanged for his deserts in England, not many years after.* Hale was confined for the night of September 21st in the greenhouse of the garden of Howe's head-quarters. This place was known as the Beekman Man- sion, at Turtle Bay. This house was standing until within a few years. Early the next day he was led to his death. "On the morning of the execution," said Captain Montresor, an English officer, " my station being near the fatal spot, I requested the Provost-Marshal to permit the prisoner to sit in my marquee while he was making the necessary preparations. Captain Hale en- tered. He asked for writing materials, which I furnished him. He wrote two letters ; one to his mother and one to a brother officer. The Provost-Marshal destroyed the letters, and assigned as a reason that the rebels should not know that they had a man in their army who could die with so much firmness." Hale asked for a Bible, but his request was refused. He was marched out by a guard and hanged upon an apple-tree in Rutgers's orchard. The place was near the present intersection of East Broadway and Market Streets. Cunningham asked him to make his dying "speech and confession." "I only regret," he said, " that I have but one life to lose for my country." ( g c ^^) ^ /^^ THADDEUS KOSCIUSKO (1 746-181 7) |mong the remarkable men of modern times there is perhaps none whose fame is purer from reproach than that of Thaddeus Kosci- usko. His name is enshrined in the ruins of his unhappy country, which, with heroic bravery and devotion, he sought to defend against foreign oppression and foreign domination. Kosciusko was born at Warsaw about the year 1 746. He was educated at the School of Cadets, in that city, where he distinguished himself so much in scientific studies as well as in drawing, that he was selected as one of four students of that institution,
- Such is the current tradition and belief, that he was hanged at Newgate ; but Mr. George Bancroft found
no such name in the records of the prison.
