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

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"And here the likeness ends. No consoling word, no pitying or respectful look, cheered the dark hours of his doom. He was met with insult at every turn. The sacred consolations of the minister of God were denied him; the Bible was taken from him; with an excess of barbarity hard to be paralleled in civilized war, his dying letters of farewell to his mother and sisters were destroyed in his presence; and, uncheered by sympathy, mocked by brutal power, and attended only by that sense of duty, incorruptible, undefiled, which had ruled his life—finding a fit farewell in the serene and sublime regret that he had 'but one life to lose for his country'—he went forth to meet the great darkness of an ignominious death.

"The loving hearts of his early companions have erected a neat monument to his memory in his native town; but, beyond that little circle, where stands his name recorded? While the majesty of England, in the person of her sovereign, sent an embassy across the sea to solicit the remains of André at the hands of his foes, that they might be enshrined in that sepulchre where she garners the relics of her mighty and renowned sons—