Mr. Buchanan observes, that an aged widow, who kept the toll-gate, on hearing the object stated, was so much gratified, that she suffered all carriages to pass free. “It marks strongly,” he continues, “the sentiments of the American people at large, as to a transaction, which a great part of the British public have forgotten.” This passage is susceptible of a twofold construction. It may mean, that this aged widow and the American people at large were unanimous, in lamenting the fate of Major André—that they most truly believed him to have been brave and unfortunate. It may also mean, that they considered the fate of André to have been unwarranted. Posterity has adjusted this matter very differently. Nearly sixty-eight years have passed. All excitement has long been buried, in a deeper grave than André’s. A silent admission has gone forth, far and wide, of the perfect justice of André’s execution. A board of general officers was appointed, to prepare a statement of his case. Greene, Steuben, and Lafayette were of that board. They were perfectly unanimous in their opinion. Prodigious efforts were made on his behalf. He himself addressed several letters to Washington, and one, the day before his death, in which he says: “Sympathy towards a soldier will surely induce your excellency and a military tribunal to adapt the mode of my death to the feelings of a man of honor.” The board of officers, as Gordon states, were induced to gratify this wish, with the exception of Greene. He contended, that the laws of war required, that a spy should be hung; the adoption of any less rigorous mode of punishment would excite the belief, that palliatory circumstances existed in the case of André, and that the decision might thereby be brought into question. His arguments were sound, and they prevailed.
Major André received every attention, which his condition permitted. He wrote to Sir Henry Clinton, Sept. 29, 1780, three days before his execution—“I receive the greatest attention from his excellency, General Washington, and from every person, under whose charge I happen to be placed.” Captain Hale, like Major André, was young, brave, amiable, and accomplished. He entered upon the same perilous service, that conducted André to his melancholy fate. Hale was hanged, as a spy, at Long Island. Thank God, the brutal treatment he received was not retaliated upon André. “The provost martial,” says Mr. Sparks, “was a refugee, to whose charge he was consigned, and treated him, in the most unfeeling manner, refusing the attendance of a clergyman, and the use of a bible; and destroying the letters he had written, to his mother and friends.”
The execution of Major André was in perfect conformity with the laws of war. Had Sir Henry Clinton considered his fate unwarranted, under any just construction of those laws, he would undoubtedly have expressed that opinion, in the general orders, to the British army, announcing Major André’s death. These orders, bearing date Oct. 8, 1780, refer only to his unfortunate fate. They contain not the slightest allusion to any supposed injustice, or unaccustomed severity, in the execution, or the manner of it.
The fate of André might have been averted, in two ways—by a steady resistance of Arnold’s senseless importunity, to bring him within the American lines—and by a frank and immediate presentation of Arnold’s pass, when stopped by Paulding, Williams, and Van Wart. His loss of self-possession, at that critical moment, is remarkable, for, as Americans, they would, in all human probability, have suffered him to pass, without further examination; and, had they been of the opposite party, they would certainly have conducted him to some British post—the very haven where he would be.
No. XX.
How shall we deal with the dead? We have considered the usages of many nations, in different ages of the world. Some of these usages appear sufficiently revolting; especially such as relate to secondary burial, or the transfer of the dead, from their primary resting-places, to vast, miscellaneous receptacles. The desire is almost universal, that, when summoned to lie down in the grave, the dead may never be disturbed, by the hand of man—that our remains may return quietly to dust—unobserved by mortal eye. There is no part of this humiliating process, that is not painful and revolting to the beholder. Of this the ancients had the same impression. Cremation and embalming set corruption and the worm at defiance. Other motives, I am aware, have been assigned for the former. The execution of popular vengeance upon the poor remains of those, whose memory has become odious, during a revolution, is not uncommon. A ludicrous example of this occurred, when Santa Anna became unpopular, and the furious mob seized his leg, which had been amputated, embalmed, and deposited among the public treasures, and cooled their savage anger, by kicking the miserable member all over the city of Montezuma.
In the time of Sylla, cremation was not so common as interment; but Sylla, remembering the indignity he had offered to the body of Marius, enjoined, that his own body should be burnt. There was, doubtless, another motive for this practice among the ancients. The custom prevailed extensively, at one time, of burying the dead, in the cellars of houses. I have already referred to the Theban law, which required the construction of a suitable receptacle for the dead, in every house. Interment certainly preceded cremation. Cicero De Legibus, lib. 2, asserts, that interment prevailed among the Athenians, in the time of Cecrops, their first king. In the earlier days of Rome, both were employed. Numa was buried in conformity with a special clause in his will. Remus, as Ovid, Fast. iv. 356, asserts, was burnt. The accumulation of dead bodies in cellars, or subcellars, must have become intolerable. This practice undoubtedly gave rise to the whole system of household gods, Lares, Lemures, Larvæ, and Manes. Such an accumulation of ancestors, it may well be supposed, left precious little room for the amphoræ of Chian, Lesbian, and Falernian.
Young aspirants sometimes inwardly opine, that their living ancestors take up too much room. Such was very naturally the opinion of the ancients, in relation to the dead. Like François Pontraci, they began to feel the necessity of condensation; and cremation came to be more commonly adopted. The bones of a human being, reduced to ashes, require but little room; and not much more, though the decomposition by fire be not quite perfect. Let me say to those, who think I prefer cremation, as a substitute for interment, that I do not. It has found little favor for many centuries. It seems to have been employed, in the case of Shelley, the poet. However desirable, when the remains of the dead were to be deposited in the dwelling-houses of the living, cremation and urn burial are quite unnecessary, wherever there is no want of ground for cemeteries, in proper locations. The funereal urns of the ancients were of different sizes and forms, and of materials, more or less costly, according to the ability and taste of the surviving friends. Ammianus Marcellinus relates, that Gumbrates, king of Chionia, near Persia, burnt the body of his son, and placed the ashes in a silver urn.
Mr. Wedgewood had the celebrated Portland vase in his possession, for a year, and made casts of it. This was the vase, which had been in possession of the Barberini family, for nearly two centuries, and for which the Duke of Portland gave Mr. Hamilton one thousand guineas. In the minds of very many, the idea of considerable size has been associated with this vase. Yet, in fact, it is about ten inches high, and six broad. The Wedgewood casts may be seen, in many of our glass and china shops. This vase was discovered, about the middle of the sixteenth century, two and a half miles from Rome, on the Frescati road, in a marble sarcophagus, within a sepulchral chamber. This, doubtless, was a funereal urn. The urns, dug up, in Old Walsingham, in 1658, were quite similar, in form, to the Portland vase, excepting that they were without ears. Some fifty were found in a sandy soil, about three feet deep, a short distance from an old Roman garrison, and only five miles from Brancaster, the ancient Branodunum. Four of these vases are figured, in Browne’s Hydriotaphia; some of them contained about two pounds of bones; several were of the capacity of a gallon, and some of half that size. It may seem surprising, that a human body can be reduced to such a compass. “How the bulk of a man should sink into so few pounds of bones and ashes may seem strange unto any, who consider not its constitution, and how slender a mass will remain upon an open and urging fire, of the carnal composition. Even bones themselves, reduced into ashes, do abate a notable proportion.” Such are the words of good old Sir Thomas.