ettlement after settlement,
big and little, learned the facts as rapidly as couriers on horseback
could carry them, and the thirteen colonies arrayed themselves against
one of the most powerful monarchies of the world.

The story is too well known to need recalling here, save as it draws
Nathan Hale toward his doom. Within a few days after the fatal 19th of
April, four thousand Connecticut volunteers were on their way to Boston
to help Massachusetts in its earliest struggle with the English.
Ununiformed, undisciplined, straight from whatever had been their
ordinary vocation, with whatever they owned in the way of arms and
ammunition, they went hurrying toward Boston. Israel Putnam, renowned
veteran of the "Old French War," was plowing in his fields at Pomfret,
Connecticut, when he heard the stirring news. Leaving his plow in the
furrow, he hastened to his house, left a few orders for the management
of his farm and the comfort of his family, and marched at the head of a
body of volunteers toward the camp near Boston. We are told that, in
some households, families sat up all night, the fathers melting their
pewter plates into bullets for ammunition to be used by their sons, and
the mothers and sisters fashioning for them, with all possible speed,
the clothing they could not go without.

On the arrival of the news from Boston, the people in New London at once
held a meeting. Hon. Richard Law, District Judge of Connecticut and
Chief Justice of the Superior Court, was chairman. Hale was one of the
speakers.

At that meeting a company was selected from the already existing militia
and ordered to start for Boston the next morning. This company Nathan
Hale, with his keen sense of duty, could not then join. But, for a few
succeeding weeks, in addition to his regular work in school, he did all
in his power to keep alive the interest of the young men in the town
concerning their duties as Americans. With his enthusiastic nature, and
broad comprehension of what might soon confront the country, it is
probable that his seriousness and his activity were never greater than
during the few weeks intervening between his speech at the political
meeting and his departure from New London to enter the military service
of his country.

Of course his becoming a soldier would greatly interfere with the plans
that his father had made for him, and he at once wrote home on the
subject, stating that "a sense of duty urged him to sacrifice ever