. He was seized and
examined. Hidden in the soles of his shoes were his memoranda, in
the Latin language. They compromised him at once. He was carried on
board the frigate, and sent to New York the same day, well guarded.

It was at an unfortunate moment, if anyone expected tenderness from
General Howe. Hale landed while the city was in the tenor of the
great conflagration of September 21st. In that fire nearly a quarter
of the town was burned down. The English supposed, rightly or not,
that the fire had been begun by the Americans. The bells had been
taken from the churches by order of the Provincial Congress. The
fire-engines were out of order, and for a time it seemed impossible
to check the flames. Two hundred persons were sent to jail upon the
supposition that they were incendiaries. It is in the midst of such
confusion that Hale is taken to General Howe's head-quarters, and
there he meets his doom.

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 disgraced the British army. It is a
satisfaction to know that Cunningham was hanged for his deserts in
England, not many years after.[3]

[Footnote 3: 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.]

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
Beckman Mansion, 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 entered. 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 Bib