One thing alone troubled Major André's peace of mind. He dreaded the ignominy of the gibbet, and wished to die as a soldier. "Sir," wrote he to Washington, "sustained against the fear of death by the feeling that no unworthy action has sullied a life consecrated to honor, I am confident that in this supreme hour your Excellency will not refuse a prayer the granting of which can sweeten my last moments. In sympathy for a soldier, your Excellency will consent, I am sure, to adapt the form of my punishment to the feelings of a man of honor. Permit me to hope, that if my character has inspired you with some esteem, and if I am in your eyes the victim of policy and not of vengeance, I shall prove the empire of those feelings over your heart by learning that I am not to die on a gibbet." With a harshness unexampled in his life, and of which he seemed always to preserve the silent and painful remembrance, Washington remained deaf to the noble appeal of his prisoner. He did not even do Major André the honor of answering him. "Am I then to die thus?" said the unfortunate man when he perceived the gibbet. Then immediately recovering himself, "I pray you to bear witness that I die as a man of honor," said he to the American officer charged with seeing to his punishment. Washington himself paid homage to him. "André has suffered his penalty with that strength of mind which might be expected from a man of that merit and from so brave an officer," wrote he. "As for Arnold, he lacks pluck. The world will be surprised if it do not yet see him hanged on a gibbet." {303} A monument was erected in Westminster Abbey to the memory of Major André, "the victim of his devotion to his king and country." His remains repose there since the year 1821. The vengeance and anger of the Americans vainly pursued General Arnold, who was henceforth occupied in the war at the head of the English troops, with all the passion of a restless hatred. Spite and wounded vanity, linked with the shameful necessities of an irregular life, had drawn him into treason. He lived twenty years after, enriched and despised by the enemies of his country. "What would you have done to me if you had succeeded in taking me?" he asked one day of an American prisoner. "We would have separated from your body that one of your limbs which had been wounded in the service of the country," answered the militia-man calmly, "and we would have hanged the rest on a gibbet."