Nathan Hale Part 11

"Innumerable instances of occurrences which took place in the Army I could relate, but who would care for them: Perhaps it may be thought by some that I have already been at the expense of Prolixity. n.o.body in these days feels as I do, left here alone, & they cannot if they would, but to me it is a melancholy pleasure to go back to those Scenes of fear & anguish & after the laps of 50 years (1826 was in my 78th year) to rumenate upon them which I think I can do with as bright a recollection as though they were present--One more reflection I will make--why is it that the delicious Capt. Hale should be left & lost in an unknown grave & forgotten!--

"The foregoing Statements were made from Memory & recollection & from doc.u.ments & Memorandoms which I kept.--ELISHA BOSTWICK."

(8) _Edward Everett Hale_

Of the subsequent records of the Hale family no trace remains that is not honorable. Nathan's brother Enoch was settled at Westhampton, Ma.s.sachusetts, in 1777, where he remained a useful and beloved pastor for sixty years. Enoch's eldest son, Nathan, graduated at Williams College in 1804. He was editor-in-chief of the _Boston Daily Advertiser_ for more than forty years. Nathan's son, Nathan, a Havard graduate, became a.s.sociate editor of the _Boston Advertiser_.

Lucretia Peabody Hale, a well-known writer in her day, whose delightful and amusing "Peterkin Papers" are still read and remembered, was a granddaughter of the Rev. Enoch Hale.

Edward Everett Hale, a man beloved by every one who knew him, was the son of "a great journalist," Nathan, grandson of Enoch, and therefore grandnephew of Captain Nathan Hale. He, too, had a son Nathan who died in his early manhood. Edward Everett Hale was one of the most commanding and admired of men, with rare endowments as clergyman, author, editor, and patriot.

Those interested in the study of his granduncle, Nathan, owe to him the preservation of many records of the Hale family, and an arrangement of the genealogy of the Hale family, made while he was a Unitarian minister in Worcester, Ma.s.sachusetts, and kindly lent to the Hon. I. W. Stuart, one of Hale's early biographers.

It will be long before some of Edward Everett Hale's vital words are forgotten; longer still before his marvelous story, "The Man Without a Country," shall cease to thrill its readers.

The impa.s.sioned sentences in which he cites its unhappy hero as speaking to a boy--a mids.h.i.+pman--while under heavy stress, read, "For your country, boy, and for your flag, never dream a dream but of serving her as she bids you, though the service carry you through a thousand h.e.l.ls.

No matter what happens to you, no matter who flatters you or who abuses you, never look at another flag, never let a night pa.s.s but you pray G.o.d to bless that flag. Remember, boy, that behind all these men you have to do with, behind officers, and government, and people even, there is the Country Herself, your Country, and that you belong to Her as you belong to your own mother."

No one justly comprehending the bed rock of Edward Everett Hale's boundless patriotism can doubt that if the same call of duty had come to him that came in bygone days to his relative, young Nathan Hale, he would have done exactly as Nathan Hale did. That call did not come, but to the end of his days Edward Everett Hale lived for his country as n.o.bly as Nathan Hale died for it.

CHAPTER X

ANCESTORS AND DESCENDANTS OF NATHAN HALE'S PARENTS

Robert Hale arrived in Ma.s.sachusetts in 1632. He was one of those sent from the first church in Boston to form the first church in Charlestown in 1632, and was a deacon of this church. He was a blacksmith by trade.

He also had a gift for practical mathematics, being regularly employed by the General Court of Ma.s.sachusetts as a surveyor of new plantations.

His son John, of whom mention has been made in connection with the witchcraft delusion, was a graduate of Harvard in 1657. Samuel, the fourth son of John, was the father of Richard, father of Nathan Hale.

Elizabeth Strong, wife of Deacon Richard Hale and mother of Nathan, came from a family more notable than that of her husband. Her grandfather, Joseph Strong, represented Coventry in the General a.s.sembly of Connecticut for sixty-five sessions and presided over town-meeting in his ninetieth year.

Mrs. Hale had four immediate relatives who were graduates of Yale college. Three of the sons of Deacon Richard Hale and Elizabeth Strong Hale graduated from Yale,--Enoch, the fourth son, Nathan, the sixth child, and David, the eighth son. Three of the sons were officers in the Revolutionary army, and the husband of a daughter was a surgeon there.

John was a major; Joseph, who died as the result of the privations endured there, was a lieutenant; and Nathan was a captain. Elizabeth, daughter of Joseph, married Rev. Abiel Abbot, for many years minister in Coventry. Three of their sons were college graduates--two of Yale and one of Dartmouth. Rebekah, another daughter of Joseph, married Ezra Abbot of Wilton, N.H. Three sons were graduates of Bowdoin. One son, the Rev. Abiel Abbot, was settled in East Wilton.

Two daughters also married clergymen. Another daughter of Joseph, Mary, married the Rev. Levi Nelson. For a man who died at the age of thirty-four, Lieutenant Joseph Hale appears to have been well represented by his descendants.

Surgeon Rose of the Revolutionary army, and Elizabeth Hale, daughter of Deacon Richard Hale, were the grandparents of the distinguished lawyer and statesman, Was.h.i.+ngton Hunt, and of Lieutenant Edward Hunt, U.S.A., first husband of the celebrated author, Helen Hunt.

Enoch Hale, Deacon Richard Hale's fourth son, graduated in the same cla.s.s with his brother Nathan, became a minister, and spent a long life in his first and only pastorate. One of his sons, Enoch, was educated at Yale and Harvard and became a noted physician. A son, Nathan, was a graduate of Williams College, and editor of the _Boston Advertiser_ for more than forty years. His son Nathan, a Harvard man, became coeditor with him. One of Enoch's granddaughters married a minister named Montague.

David, another son of Deacon Richard Hale, graduated at Yale, and was settled in the ministry at Lisbon, Connecticut. Joanna, the second daughter of Richard Hale, married Dr. Nathan Howard.

One of Enoch Hale's grandsons was president of the Continental Bank in New York City. The most noted of Enoch Hale's descendants was the Rev.

Edward Everett Hale, clergyman, editor, and author, and a graduate of Harvard. The writer, Lucretia Peabody Hale, was one of Enoch Hale's grandchildren. David Hale, a grandson of Richard Hale, was long in control of the _Journal of Commerce_ in New York City and noted for his charities. Alexander and Charles, grandsons of Enoch, were graduates of Harvard.

As this list of college graduates and professional men is not extended beyond the year 1850, a little past the limit of a century after the marriage of Richard Hale and Elizabeth Strong, one is inclined to wonder whether any other farmer's family within that, or any other, period in American history, can show a more remarkable record.

One is impressed, too, most profoundly, by the realization that, although Elizabeth Strong Hale died so early, as lives are now measured,--she was only forty,--to few women in any land who have reached the appointed limit of human life have been given the remarkable power of leaving to so many descendants such warmth of feeling and such n.o.bility of nature as pa.s.sed through that century of her descendants.

CHAPTER XI

a.s.sERTED BETRAYAL OF NATHAN HALE

For some time after the death of Nathan Hale a report was circulated, and apparently substantiated, that he had been betrayed into the hands of the British by a Tory cousin. Ultimately this report was printed in a Newburyport (Ma.s.sachusetts) newspaper of the day, and read by Mr. Samuel Hale of Portsmouth, New Hamps.h.i.+re. This Mr. Hale was a prominent teacher and a strong friend of the American cause, and uncle both to Nathan Hale and to Samuel Hale, the cousin who was said to have betrayed Nathan.

Mr. Samuel Hale never for a moment believed the report, and set himself at once to disprove it. This appears to have been done in the most effectual way by the combined efforts of Mr. Samuel Hale and Deacon Hale, who furnished proof that the supposed betrayer of Nathan Hale had never visited in Deacon Hale's family, and, not being in his uncle's house when Nathan visited there, had never so much as seen Nathan Hale.

There were, of course, at the time, strong animosities existing between those who supported the British cause among the Americans, and the Americans who were opposing England. As at all such times, some members of each party were not only unjust but cruel to the other party; and in some respects this nephew of the teacher, Samuel Hale, and a.s.serted betrayer of Nathan, paid very heavily for his loyalty to the English cause. We will let him tell his own story, only adding that when hostilities broke out he was a young and successful barrister practicing in Portsmouth, was married, and had one child.

Unswerving in his loyalty to the English cause, he was soon obliged to leave New Hamps.h.i.+re, and eventually to go into English territory. He wrote to his uncle Samuel, in whose family he had been reared, and later to his wife; neither letter is dated, but it is probable that when the latter was written he was in Nova Scotia. His letter to his uncle runs in part as follows:

"My affections as well as my allegiance are due to another nation. I love the British government with filial fondness. I have never been actuated by any political rancor towards the Americans. My conduct has always been fair, explicit, and open, and I may add, _some of your people have found it humane_ at a time when affairs on our side wore the most flattering appearances. My veneration is as high, my friends.h.i.+p as warm, and my attachment as great as ever it was for many characters among you, though I have differed much from them in politics. In the justness of the reasoning which led to the principles that have guided me through life, I can suppose myself mistaken. The same thing may have been the case with my opponents. Our powers are so limited, our means of information so inadequate to the end, that common decency requires we should forgive each other when we have every reason to think that each has acted honestly.

"Sure I am, this is the case with me and I hope it is the same with some of you. My conduct during this unhappy contest has been invariably uniform. I can in no sense be called a traitor to your state. I never owed it any allegiance, because I left it before it had a.s.sumed the form or even the name of an independent state, and when I neither saw or felt any oppression. I must have been mad as well as wicked to have acted any other part than I did upon the principles I held. If I have been mistaken I am sorry for the error, and if it be error I still continue in it."

This letter is certainly a good ill.u.s.tration of the truth that, in all great contests, perfectly honorable and consistent men are forced to take opposite sides, even at the cost of suffering heavy injustice. The letter to his wife is here given in full.

MY DEAR GIRL,--

This you will get by Mr. Hart's flag of Truce, who is coming to Boston for his family. I know the disposition of the Leaders at Boston so well, that I doubt not of his success. I would have come for you and the boy, but I thought you would leave your father with reluctance, nor am I sure that I could have obtained leave for you to come away, if you were disposed. I fear the resentment of the people against me may have injured you, but I hope not. I am sorry such a prejudice has arisen.

Depend upon it, there never was the least truth in that infamous newspaper publication charging me with ingrat.i.tude, etc. I am happy that they have had [to have] recourse to falsehood to vilify my character. Attachment to the old Const.i.tution of my country is my only crime with them--for which I have still the disposition of the primitive martyr.

I hope and believe you want no pecuniary a.s.sistance. If you should you may apply to some of my friends or your relations. You may then use my name with confidence that they shall be amply satisfied. I believe I shall have the power, I am sure I shall have the will, to recompense them again.

I somewhat expect to see you in a few months--perhaps not before I have seen England. In the meanwhile, my dear Girl, take care of your own and the Boy's health. He may live to be serviceable to his country in some distant period. Respect, Love, Duty, etc., await all my inquiring and real friends.

I am, etc.

S. HALE.

TO MRS HALE

These letters sufficiently attest the character of the man, and we can hope that in later days he was enabled to return to his family, and to prove that political differences of opinion had not changed the integrity of his life.

Knowing nothing of his later days, we may rejoice that the base a.s.sertion that this own cousin had betrayed Nathan Hale was wholly without foundation; and that in him, also, the Hale trait of loyalty to honest opinions enabled him to make sacrifices as great in their way as those made by many of his kindred.

CHAPTER XII