There were few people present at his death. When he reached the foot of the tree where the sentence was to be executed, he was asked if he had anything to say, any confession to make. He told again who he was and why he came, and added quietly, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." Then the noose was adjusted, and the cruel end came quickly. These last words of Nathan Hale have been repeated again and again since that time. They have been cut in bronze and in marble, they have been taught in our schools. They are noble words, because they are simple and brave and unselfish. He could have had no idea that they would ever be heard beyond the little group of people about him when he died, but it so happened that General Howe had occasion to send a letter to Washington late that evening about an exchange of prisoners, and the bearer of the letter was Captain Montresor, the officer in whose tent Nathan Hale had spent the last hour of his life. Inside the American tines Montresor met Captain Hull, Hale's intimate friend, the man who had warned Hale so earnestly of the fate that might be his. To him Montresor told the tragic story of that morning and repeated the words that have since become famous. [Illustration: _Courtesy of Mr. George D. Seymour_ NATHAN HALE This statue stands in front of old Connecticut Hall, Yale University. Nathan Hale's room was in this building] Years afterward a monument was put up in Coventry to the memory of Captain Nathan Hale. There are several statues of him in different places; there is a fountain with his name upon it in Norwalk where he crossed the Sound, and another at Huntington, Long Island; there is an old fort named for him on the shore of New Haven Harbor; but the memorial which comes closest to our hearts is the little stone in the old Coventry graveyard, set there in memory of him by his own family. This is the inscription cut into it:-- "Durable stone preserve the monumental record. Nathan Hale, Esq., a Capt. in the army of the United States, who was born June 6th, 1755, and received the first honors of Yale College, Sept., 1773, resigned his life a sacrifice to his Country's liberty at New York, Sept. 22d, 1778. Etatis 22d." CAPTURE AND DEATH OF NATHAN HALE _By an unknown poet of 1776_ The breezes went steadily thro' the tall pines, A-saying "oh, hu-sh!" a-saying "oh, hu-sh!" As stilly stole by a bold legion of horse, For Hale in the bush; for Hale in the bush. "Keep still!" said the thrush as she nestled her young, In a nest by the road; in a nest by the road; "For the tyrants are near, and with them appear, What bodes us no good; what bodes us no good." The brave captain heard it, and thought of his home, In a cot by the brook; in a cot by the brook. With mother and sister and memories dear, He so gayly forsook; he so gayly forsook.