As he was returning, he was recognized as belonging to the rebel army, and was arrested, and conveyed to the Beekman house, on the corner of Fifty-first Street and First Avenue, where General Howe had his headquarters. He was at once tried, convicted as a spy, and sentenced to be hung on the following day at daybreak. It was a mercy to him that his execution was fixed so speedily, as in the mean time he was placed in the keeping of that heartless scoundrel, Cunningham, whose after deeds as provost marshal of New York have rendered his name forever infamous. Hale was kept in confinement during the night by the marshal, who refused to give him a light and writing materials to enable him to send a last message of love to his aged parents and friends. A kindly disposed lieutenant afterwards furnished him with pen and paper. Cunningham, however, in the morning manifested the natural atrocity of his disposition by rudely tearing into pieces before his eyes the letters which he had written, and at the same time declaring "that the rebels should never know that they had a man in their army who could die with so much firmness." On the morning of September 22, 1776, Cunningham ordered the execution to proceed, and at the same time required Hale to make a dying confession. In the nobility of his liberty-loving nature, Hale said: "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." These brave words were his last. He was suspended on an apple-tree, and his remains were committed to the grave without any ceremony. He did not perish; his name will live as that of one of the heroes of the Revolution. In the American army he was universally beloved, and his untimely end filled the hearts of his friends with deep-seated hatred to their foes, and a renewed determination to be avenged. In this connection the following may not be uninteresting. It is an extract from a letter from New York, dated September 1, 1776:[48]