bewitched people, his estate, which he wished his
wife and family to inherit, would be forfeited, and
that he would be pressed to death instead of being
hanged.

Being hanged is a comparatively brief experience,
while the other way is prolonged and agonizing.
But, for the sake of his family, brave old Giles
Cory calmly faced this terrible, lingering death.
He must have won from some, if not from all, the
feeling that a stout-hearted and generous man had
proved his love for his own as no mere words could
have done.

John Hale appears to have been a worthy ancestor
of the youth Nathan Hale, who, a hundred
years later, so freely made a sacrifice of his life.

John Hale's son, Samuel, was Nathan's grandfather;
he made his home in Portsmouth, New
Hampshire. One of Samuel Hale's sons, bearing
his own name, Samuel, was a Harvard man.
Another son, Richard, Nathan's father, born February
28, 1717, looking about to find the best
farming lands for the support of a future family,
moved to Connecticut, and became a farmer in
South Coventry, thirty miles east of Hartford.
Distinguished from the beginning for his success
in whatever he undertook in business affairs, and
also as a man of singularly upright character,

[[3]]

p002 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p003w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p004

v?