entered a famous tavern "The Cedars" and asked for a night's lodging. At his entrance, a number of persons were in the lounge, and one of them, a man whose face he seemed to recollect, suddenly rose and left the place. Hale spent the night at the hostelry and at dawn left for the waterside in quest of the boat which he had ordered to be ready. Agreeably surprised to find his supposed boatman so punctual, he gaily saluted an approaching skiff which was carrying several men. Hastening to the beach in expectation of meeting his friends, he discovered to his dismay that the boat was manned by British marines. Flight was impossible; he was seized, taken aboard and conveyed to the British guard-ship _Halifax_. His capture, it is said, had been brought about by the stranger whom he had recognised the previous night at "The Cedars," a distant cousin of disreputable habits, who had betrayed him to the British. Proper warrant is, however, lacking for this part of the story. Inevitably his captors found full proofs of the purport of his adventure and he was conveyed to the headquarters of General Howe who, on the evidence of the concealed papers, summarily condemned him to death by hanging. In the presence of Howe Hale frankly admitted his rank and mission. "I was present," wrote a British officer who was an eye-witness of the closing scenes, "and observed that the frankness, the manly bearing and the evidently disinterested patriotism of the handsome young prisoner sensibly touched a tender chord of General Howe's nature; but the stern rule of war concerning such offences would not allow him to exercise even pity." As might be expected from such a man, Hale met his doom with the iron firmness of one who is convinced of the righteousness of his purpose. His last requests to Cunningham, the provost-marshal who supervised the execution, were refused, and even his poor, hurriedly written letters to his mother, his sisters and his youthful betrothed, Alice Adams, were ruthlessly destroyed before his face. There was, indeed, a real nobility about the whole person and demeanour of Hale which, as is commonly enough the case, called forth the brutality and coarseness of the completely opposite nature of Cunningham, who jeeringly requested the doomed youth to make his dying speech. And Hale replied, in words which still ring in the spirit of the Independence Fathers: "I only regret that I have but one life to give to my country." VI MACK AND THE MOLLY MAGUIRES