It is, we think, not an undue inference that the letters and private papers he left in Hempstead's care were all to be sent to his family. These doubtless included personal letters to them, for no man such as we know Nathan Hale to have been would have faced a journey from which he might never return without some words of explanation, and possible farewell, to those he loved at home. There is one fact that all who believe in the sanctity of personal confidences and possible farewells will be glad to remember,--that not one private word from Nathan Hale to Alice Adams Ripley, or from her to him, has ever been exploited to satisfy the curiosity of those who have no right to share it. Hempstead left Captain Hale, who, now fully committed to his hazardous quest, set forth on the armed sloop _Schuyler_ with Captain Pond--one of the captains in the 19th Regiment--in command, across the Sound to Long Island. When he landed Captain Hale said farewell to the last American friend he was to be with, so far as we have any record. Assuming that he reached this point on or near the 15th of September, one or two other facts suggest themselves. It is known that the Declaration of Independence had been carried to the American camp as early as possible after its announcement in July, had been read to the troops assembled for that purpose, and had been received with unbounded enthusiasm. It is probable that both Colonel Knowlton, later in command of the Rangers, and Captain Hale, one of its officers, were present at that reading and joined in the huzzas. Singularly enough, neither one of these two men was a citizen of the United States for three months. Two months later Colonel Knowlton fell in the battle of Harlem Heights, on September 16th, six days before Nathan Hale's execution. Knowlton's last words are said to have been, "I do not care for my life, if we do but win the day." From the moment of his leaving New York, the mind of such a man as Nathan Hale must have had solemn foreshadowings of the possible result, of the tremendous risk he was facing. Men do not grow old by the passing of years so much as by the endurance of great experiences, and in the few brief days that were left to Nathan Hale we know really nothing of his whereabouts, of what risks he ran, of how often he barely escaped recognition as a spy, where he slept, of any possible friends whom he may have encountered, or of any moment when his very life seemed to hang on the accidental glance of an enemy's eye. Finally dawned the 21st of September. Hale had fully accomplished his mission.