Читать книгу The Two Spies: Nathan Hale and John André онлайн

21 страница из 42

Hale's captors stripped and searched him, and found the evidences of his being a spy in the papers concealed between the soles of his shoes. These formed as positive testimony as to his true character as did the papers found in André's boot, which convicted the adjutant-general of the British army of being a spy.

The Beekman Mansion.

Beekman's Greenhouse.

Captain Hale was taken in one of the boats of the Halifax to General Howe's headquarters, at the elegant mansion of James Beekman, at Mount Pleasant, as the high bank of the East River at Turtle Bay was called. The house was situated at (present) Fifty-first Street and First Avenue. It was then deserted by its stanch Whig owner. Around it were beautiful lawns and blooming gardens; and near it was a greenhouse filled with exotic shrubbery and plants.ssss1 In that greenhouse Hale was confined, under a strong guard, on Saturday night, the 21st of September. He had been taken before Howe, who, without trial, and upon the evidence found in his shoes, condemned him to be hanged early the next morning. Howe delivered him into the custody of William Cunningham, the notorious British provost-marshal, with orders to execute him before sunrise the next day.