Late in the conference, when Knowlton had despaired of finding a man competent and willing to undertake the perilous mission, a young officer appeared, pale from the effects of recent severe sickness. Knowlton repeated the invitation, when, almost immediately, the voice of the young soldier was heard uttering the momentous words, "I will undertake it!" It was the voice of Captain Nathan Hale. Everybody was astonished. The whole company knew Hale. They loved and admired him. They tried to dissuade him from his decision, setting forth the risk of sacrificing all his good prospects in life and the fond hopes of his parents and friends. They painted in darkest colors the ignominy and death to which he might be exposed. His warmly attached friend, William Hull (afterward a general in the War of 1812), who was a member of his company and had been a classmate at college, employed all the force of friendship and the arts of persuasion to bend him from his purpose, but in vain. With warmth and decision Hale said: "Gentlemen, I think I owe to my country the accomplishment of an object so important and so much desired by the commander of her armies, and I know no mode of obtaining the information but by assuming a disguise and passing into the enemy's camp. I am fully sensible of the consequences of discovery and capture in such a situation. But for a year I have been attached to the army, and have not rendered any material service, while receiving a compensation for which I make no return. Yet I am not influenced by any expectation of promotion or pecuniary reward. I wish to be useful; _and every kind of service necessary for the public good becomes honorable by being necessary_. If the exigencies of my country demand a peculiar service, its claims to the performance of that service are imperious." These manly, wise, and patriotic words--this willingness to sacrifice himself, if necessary, for the good of his country--silenced his brother officers. Accompanied by Knowlton, he appeared before Washington the same afternoon, and received instructions concerning his mission. His commander also furnished him with a general order to the owners of all American vessels in Long Island Sound to convey him to any point on Long Island which he might designate.