ivide it impartially among his unfortunate countrymen. The confessor,
an Italian who spoke German, kept it, and never gave relief from it to
any of them, most of whom were suffering, not only from privation of
wholesome air, to which, among other privations, they never had been
accustomed, but also from scantiness of nourishment and clothing. Even
in Mantua, where, as in the rest of Italy, sympathy is both weak and
silent, the lowest of the people were indignant at the sight of so
brave a defender of his country led into the public square to expiate
a crime unheard of for many centuries in their nation. When they saw
him walk forth, with unaltered countenance and firm step before them;
when, stopping on the ground which was about to receive his blood,
they heard him with unfaltering voice commend his soul and his country
to the Creator; and, as if still under his own roof (a custom with him
after the evening prayer), implore a blessing for his boys and his
little daughter, and for the mother who had reared them up carefully
and tenderly thus far through the perils of childhood; finally, when
in a lower tone, but earnestly and emphatically, he besought pardon
from the Fount of Mercy for her brother, his betrayer, many smote
their breasts aloud; many, thinking that sorrow was shameful, lowered
their heads and wept; many, knowing that it was dangerous, yet wept
too. The people remained upon the spot an unusual time, and the
French, fearing some commotion, pretended to have received an order
from Bonaparte for the mitigation of the sentence, and publicly
announced it.

Among his many falsehoods, any one of which would have excluded him
forever from the society of men of honor, this is perhaps the basest;
as indeed of all his atrocities the death of Hofer, which he had
ordered long before, and appointed the time and circumstances, is that
which the brave and virtuous will reprobate the most severely. He was
urged by no necessity, he was prompted by no policy; his impatience of
courage in an enemy, his hatred of patriotism and integrity in all, of
which he had no idea himself, and saw no image in those about him,
outstript his blind passion for fame, and left him nothing but power
and celebrity.

The name of Andreas Hofer will be honored by posterity far above any
of the present age, and together with the most glorious of the last,
Washington and Kosciusko. For it rests on the same foundation, and
indeed on a higher basis.