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Cunningham destroying Hale's Letters.

It was in the morning twilight of a beautiful September day that Hale was led out to execution. The gallows was the limb of an apple-tree in Colonel Rutgers's orchard.ssss1 Even at that early hour quite a large number of men and women had gathered to witness the sad scene. Cunningham watched every arrangement with evident satisfaction; and, when everything was ready for the last scene in the tragedy, he scoffingly demanded of his victim his "last dying speech and confession!"

The soul of the young martyr, patriot, and hero, who was standing upon the fatal ladderssss1 with his eyes turned heavenward, was then in secret communion with his Maker, and his mortal ears seemed closed to earthly sounds. He did not notice the insulting words of the human fiend. A moment afterward he looked benignly upon the evidently sympathetic spectators, and with a calm, clear voice pronounced the last words uttered by him:

"I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country!"