Sir Henry Clinton used the utmost efforts to save him, but the manly and frank behaviour of André, and the amiable character which he bore, pleaded for him more than all these, or than the letter which Arnold wrote to Washington on the same subject, threatening the severest retaliation if the life of André were taken. The public heart sympathised with him, but martial justice demanded his life, and his last prayer that he might be shot rather than hanged was denied. And it was right so far, that if it be justifiable to take human life, and this were a crime of which death was the penalty, the quality of the offender should make no difference; on the contrary, perhaps, even in proportion as his nature was pure and generous, so could there be the less excuse to him of a dull perception between a base and a noble action; and the intended treachery of Arnold was base in the extreme. The day after the sentence was passed, Oct. 2nd, it was carried into execution, and the dignity and composure of the criminal is said to have excited the utmost admiration, while it melted all hearts. The sympathy which André excited in the American army, says the British chronicler of this event, is perhaps unexampled under any circumstances. It was said that the whole board of general officers shed tears at the drawing-up and signing the report, and that even Washington wept upon hearing the circumstances of his death. All those about him treated him with the most marked attention, with the greatest kindness and the most scrupulous delicacy.