To explain some of Saltonstal's references to the feelings of some of the Connecticut troops, we quote from Captain Hale's diary of October 23:
"10 o'clock went to Cambridge with Field commission officers to General Putman to let him know the state of the Regiment and that it was through ill usage upon the Score of Provisions that they would not extend their term of service to the 1st of January 1776."
Other letters to Hale from New London friends, among them one from an officer absent on furlough, speak freely of the anxieties of those watching the progress of the reënlistments, and the home reception that would be given to any leaving the army.
Another letter from Saltonstall reads as follows:
New London Decr. 18th 1775
Dr. Sir....
I wholly agree with you in ye. agreables of a Camp Life, and should have try'd it in some Capacity or other before now, could my Father carry on his Business without me. I proposed going with Dudley, who is appointed to Commn. a Twenty-Gun Ship in the Continental Navy, but my Father is not willing, and I can't persuade myself to leave him in the eve of Life against his consent....
Yesterday week the Town was in the greatest confusion imaginable; Women wringing their Hands along Street, Children crying, Carts loaded 'till nothing more would stick on, posting out of Town, empty ones driving in, one Person running this way, another that, some dull, some vex'd, more pleased, some flinging up an Intrenchment, some at the Fort preparing ye Guns for Action, Drums beating, Fifes playing; in short as great a Hubbub as at the confusion of Tongues; all of this occasioned by the appearance of a Ship and two Sloops off the Harbour, Suppos'd to be part of Wallace's Fleet,—When they were found to be Friends, Vessels from New Port with Passengers ye consternation abated....
A postscript runs as follows:
The young girls, B. Coit, S. and P. Belden [Hale's pupils] have frequently desired their Compliments to Master, but I've never thought of mentioning it till now. You must write something in your next by way of P.S. that I may shew it them.
Favored by copies of these letters by Saltonstall, one must regret all the more that so few of Hale's own letters have been discovered, ten being the limit. Within a comparatively short period, however, some sixty more records—mostly letters written to Hale—have come to light, preserved, as it is now seen, by the same "orderly care" that marked his interest in all the correspondence of his friends.
In them are expressed, in letter after letter, the affectionate interest and warm admiration of the writers. It is now said that Hale kept these letters with him down to the date of his tragic mission. We can easily imagine the glow of satisfaction that must have filled his brotherly soul in the few spare moments he could devote to these letters.