The first contest of England with America sprang from tyranny; she was the aggressor, the offending party: and it seems to have been a moral consequence, that a war, thus unrighteous, should have been characterized by a violation of every humane and honorable purpose. The extent to which British cruelty was carried in the memorable contest of the Revolution, is scarcely appreciated by us. Nothing equals the vindictive, bloodthirsty fury which characterized it in some quarters of the Union. It was almost a war of extermination in the South. There, lads were often shot down, that they might not live to be full-grown rebels, and mothers murdered, that they might bring forth no more enemies to the king. Among the people in villages, and in the open country, existed the greatest suffering, and often was manifested the loftiest patriotism and the grandest fortitude. With such ferocity were they pursued by the British soldiery, that their only retreat became the army. At no moment were they safe. Neither in their beds, nor by their firesides, nor on the highways. Daily and nightly murders frightened the time with their atrocities. Reckless marauders traversed the country in all directions, sparing neither sex, age, nor infancy. Nightly, the red flame glared on the horizon, and houseless children hung over the desecrated, butchered forms of their parents.
But of all atrocities, those committed in the prisons and prison-ships of New York were most execrable; there is nothing in history to excel the barbarities there inflicted. It is stated that nearly twelve thousand American prisoners "suffered death by their inhuman, cruel and barbarous usage on board the filthy and malignant prison-ship, called the Jersey, lying in New York."
The scenes enacted within the prisons almost exceed belief. There were several prisons in the city; but the most terrible of them all was the Provost (now the Hall of Records), which was under the charge of Cunningham, that wretch, the like of whom the world has not many times produced. He had a love for inflicting torture; it was his passion, his besotted appetite; he seemed to live upon the agony of human beings; their groans were his music, their sufferings his pastime. He took an eager delight in murder. He stopped the rations of the prisoners and sold them, to add to the luxuries of his own table, while his victims were starving to death. They were crowded into rooms where there was not space to lie down, with no blankets to protect them from the cold, to which the unglazed windows exposed them, while they were suffering from fevers, thirst, and hunger. In the summer, epidemics raged among them, while they were denied medicine or attendance, and compelled to breathe the damp and putrid air. But, hear what Cunningham himself says of his acts, in his dying speech and confession, when brought to the gallows, in London, for a forgery of which he was convicted:
"I shudder to think of the murders I have been accessory to, both with and without orders from the Government, especially in New York, during which time, there was more than two thousand prisoners starved in the different prisons, by stopping their rations, which I sold. There were also two hundred and seventy-five American prisoners and obnoxious persons executed, out of all which number, there was only about a dozen public executions, which consisted chiefly of British and Hessian deserters. The mode for private executions, was this: a guard was despatched from the Provost, about half-past twelve, at night, to the barrack, and the neighborhood of the upper barracks, to order the people to close their window-shutters and put out their lights, forbidding them, at the same time, to look out, on pain of death; after which, the unfortunate victims were conducted, gagged, just behind the upper barracks, and hung without ceremony, and there buried by the Black Pioneer of the Provost."
These murders were common, nightly pastime of this monster.
The saddest of the tragedies in which Cunningham bore his ignominious part, was the execution of that glorious young martyr, whose name shall glow brighter and brighter on the record of his country's heroes, as the ages roll away.
The impartial reader will question the justice of history, which has done so much for the memory of André, and left that of Hale in comparative oblivion. And yet we can discover but little difference in their cases. Both were possessors of genius and taste, both were endowed with excellent qualities and attainments, and both were impelled by a desire to serve the cause they respectively espoused, and both suffered a similar death, but under vastly different circumstances. And yet a magnificently sculptured monument in Westminster Abbey, perpetuates the name of the English officer, while none know where sleep the ashes of Hale, and neither stone nor epitaph tells us of the services rendered by him; while the first is honored in every quarter where the English language is spoken, the name of the latter is unknown to many of his countrymen. "There is something more than natural in this, if philosophy could find it out."[[3]]
[3]. About ten years since, the ladies of Windham and Tolland Counties, Conn., caused a handsome monument to be erected to the memory of the young martyr.
Nathan Hale was not twenty years of age, when the first gun of the revolution broke upon the ears of the colonists. The patriotic cause at once aroused his enthusiastic love for liberty and justice, and without pausing for a moment to consider the prudence of such a step, his ardent nature prompted him at once, to throw himself into the ranks of his country's defenders. Distinguished as a scholar, and respected, by all who knew him, for his brilliant talents, he was at once tendered a Captain's commission in the light infantry. He served in the regiment commanded by Colonel Knowlton, and was with the army in its retreat after the disastrous battle of Long Island.
After the army had retreated from New York, and while it was posted on the Hights of Harlem, the Commander-in-Chief earnestly desired to be made acquainted with the force and contemplated movements of the enemy, and for this purpose, applied to Colonel Knowlton to select some individual capable of performing the hazardous and delicate service. Knowlton applied to Hale, who, on becoming acquainted with the wishes of Washington, immediately volunteered his services. He stated that his object in joining the army, was not merely for fame, but to serve the country; that as yet, no opportunity had offered for him to render any signal aid to her cause, and when a duty so imperative and so important as this was demanded of him, he was ready to sacrifice not only life, but all hope of glory, and to suffer the ignomy which its failure would cast upon his name. His friends endeavored to dissuade him from the undertaking, but lofty considerations of duty impelled him to the step.