After this the condition of things became very serious, for the British had got possession of Brooklyn Heights, which commanded the city over East River, and they might cross at any time and attack it. Washington ordered companies of rangers, or scouts, to be formed to keep a sharp watch on the enemy's movements, and Captain Hale accepted an appointment in this body of picked men. It was commanded by Colonel Knowlton, who was also a Connecticut man and had been a ranger himself in the old French-and-Indian War. He was a brave officer, and when he lay dying in the battle of Harlem Heights he said, "I do not value my life if we do but get the day." Captain Hale must have been glad to serve under such a leader. Meanwhile, Washington had moved the greater part of his army outside New York to avoid being shut up in the city as the British had been in Boston, and was anxiously expecting an attack. But none came, and his suspense grew greater and greater as time passed and he got no information as to what would happen. "Everything depends on obtaining intelligence of the enemy's motions," he wrote to his officers, "I was never more uneasy than on account of my want of knowledge," and he begged them to send some one into the enemy's camp in disguise to find out what their plans were, and when and where they would attack. It was not easy to get any one to go, for it meant being a spy. Spies are necessary in all wars because the commanding general must have information about the enemy's movements. But soldiers hate a spy, who comes into their camp as a friend when he is really an enemy, and honorable men do not like to do this. It is usually done by men who care most of all for the money it brings. The service, too, is so dangerous that the general may not command it, he may only accept it when it is volunteered. If a spy is caught within the enemy's lines no mercy is shown him; his trial is swift and his death certain; in those days the penalty was hanging. This time a man of intelligence was needed and Colonel Knowlton explained the matter to some of his officers. One of them is said to have replied: "I am willing to be shot, but not to be hung." But there was another who looked at it differently, and this was Captain Nathan Hale. It seemed to him that if his country called it was his duty to go, at the sacrifice, if necessary, of both his honor and his life. And the more he thought of it the more sure he was that it is the motive with which a deed is done that makes it good or evil, and that a service which his country demanded could not be dishonorable.