Still, Captain Hull could not give up. He has left on record his last attempt to persuade the young man whose love of country had become a religion: “I urged him for the love of country, for the love of kindred, to abandon an enterprise which would only end in the sacrifice of the dearest interests of both. He paused—then, affectionately taking my hand, he said, ‘I will reflect, and do nothing but what duty demands.’ He was absent from the army and I feared he had gone to the British lines to execute his fatal purpose.”
Naturally very little is known of the spy in the few weeks that followed. Sergeant Hempstead has told of going with him to the point chosen for crossing on a waiting sloop to Long Island, many miles from the British camp. Hempstead says Hale was then “dressed in a brown suit of citizen’s clothes, with a round, broad-brimmed hat.” When the captain and the sergeant wrung each other’s hands in farewell, Nathan Hale gave into Hempstead’s care his private papers and letters and his shoe-buckles. The letters were to Hale’s aged father and to the girl whom he expected to marry.
At the end of several weeks Nathan Hale had succeeded in carrying out General Washington’s instructions, even to making a number of sketches. So far as he knew, he had not been suspected. This, he thought, was rather surprising, for there were Tories everywhere.
It was late in September, “in the dark of the moon,” when Hale slipped away from the British on Long Island and strolled down to the water’s edge where he was to meet the sloop and sail back to his own army. He waited some time for the ship, but it did not come. After some delay a sailboat came in sight and made up to the shore. He was greatly relieved, for it did not occur to him that there was anything wrong. As the boat drew near he hailed it with a happy shout. When it was too late, Hale saw that some of the men in the boat were in British uniform. In a moment more, he was their prisoner. He had been betrayed—it was never known by whom. He had a Tory cousin who was blamed at first, but his innocence was proven in time.
He was taken to General Howe’s headquarters. The telltale sketches and data were found in his shoes. He did not attempt to deny that he was a spy. It was not necessary to try him after he confessed. He was turned over to the provost marshal to be hanged next day.