ief. The appeal was received with dead silence. It is said that
Knowlton personally addressed a non-commissioned officer, a
Frenchman, who was an old soldier. He did so only to receive the
natural reply, "I am willing to be shot, but not to be hung."
Knowlton felt that he must report his failure to Washington. But
Nathan Hale, his youngest captain, broke the silence. "I will
undertake it," he said. He had come late to the meeting. He was pale
from recent sickness. But he saw an opportunity to serve, and he did
the duty which came next his hand.

William Hull, afterward the major-general who commanded at Detroit,
had been Hale's college classmate. He remonstrated with his friend
on the danger of the task, and the ignominy which would attend its
failure. "He said to him that it was not in the line of his duty,
and that he was of too frank and open a temper to act successfully
the part of a spy, or to face its dangers, which would probably lead
to a disgraceful death." Hale replied, "I wish to be useful, and
every kind of service necessary to the public good becomes honorable
by being necessary. If the exigencies of my country demand a
peculiar service, its claims to perform that service are imperious."
These are the last words of his which can be cited until those which
he spoke at the moment of his death. He promised Hull to take his
arguments into consideration, but Hull never heard from him again.

In the second week of September he left the camp for Stamford with
Stephen Hempstead, a sergeant in Webb's regiment, from whom we have
the last direct account of his journey. With Hempstead and Asher
Wright, who was his servant in camp, he left his uniform and some
other articles of property. He crossed to Long Island in citizen's
dress, and, as Hempstead thought, took with him his college diploma,
meaning to assume the aspect of a Connecticut schoolmaster visiting
New York in the hope to establish himself. He landed near
Huntington, or Oyster Bay, and directed the boatman to return at a
time fixed by him, the 20th of September. He made his way into New
York, and there, for a week or more apparently, prosecuted his
inquiries. He returned on the day fixed, and awaited his boat. It
appeared, as he thought; and he made a signal from the shore. Alas!
he had mistaken the boat. She was from an English frigate, which lay
screened by a point of woods, and had come in for water. Hale
attempted to retrace his steps, but was too late