[Footnote 8: The pen of every writer who has noticed the career of William Cunningham, the notorious provost-marshal of the British army in New York and Philadelphia, has portrayed him as a most detestable character. To the credit of the commander with whom he served, be it said that it is satisfactorily proven that he was employed directly by the British ministry, and was independent of the authority of Howe and Clinton. He was a large, burly, red-haired, red-faced Irishman, sixty years of age, addicted to strong drink to excess, and with most forbidding features. His cruelties and crimes committed while in charge of prisoners of war in New York were notorious and monstrous. Upon the scaffold in England, after the war, he confessed that he had caused the death of fully two thousand prisoners under his charge by starvation and otherwise. He put poison into their food at times, and sold their rations for his own benefit, allowing the prisoners to starve!] [Footnote 9: A ballad was written and published, soon after Hale's death, which was very popular at the time. It was evidently written by one who was not well informed as to the true history of the matter. Of his arrest the ballad says: "Cooling shades of the night were coming apace, The tattoo had beat, the tattoo had beat, The noble one sprang from his dark lurking-place, To make his retreat, to make his retreat. "He warily trod on the dry, rustling leaves As he passed through the wood, as he passed through the wood, And silently gained his rude launch on the shore, As she played with the flood, as she played with the flood. "The guards of the camp on that dark, dreary night Had a murderous will, a murderous will; They took him and bore him afar from the shore, To a hut on the hill, to a hut on the hill."] [Footnote 10: "Life of Captain Nathan Hale, the Martyr Spy of the American Revolution." By I.W. Stuart, Hartford, 1856.] [Footnote 11: A statue in plaster, modeled from a description of Hale's features and person, has been made by E.S. Wood, sculptor. It represents an athletic young man, with his coat and vest removed, his neck and upper portion of his chest bared by the turning down of the collar of his ruffled shirt, and holding in his right hand, which is resting upon his hip, the rope with which he is about to be suspended from the tree. The face of the martyr is an excellent ideal of the character of the young hero.] JOHN ANDRÉ. [Illustration: John André] JOHN ANDRÉ. CHAPTER I. It is not known whether the place of JOHN ANDRÉ'S nativity was in London or elsewhere in England. His father was a Switzer, born in Geneva. He was a merchant in London, where he married a pretty French maiden named Girardot, a native of that city, who in the year 1751 became the mother of the famous British spy.