William Cunningham, Provost Marshal of the
English forces in America, murderer and inhuman
jailer, would have laughed to scorn the idea that
any being, human or divine, could preserve Nathan
Hale's last words for the inspiration of coming
generations, yet a kindly British officer, Captain
John Montressor, carried them to Hale's friends.

Cunningham has left a record of brutality unsurpassed
in American history. He is himself said
to have boasted that he had caused the death of
two thousand American soldiers. We know that
any reference to the prison ships in New York
Harbor sets Cunningham before us as a cowardly
murderer, starving men to death by depriving
them of rations which the English supplied for
them, and which he sold, pocketing the proceeds.
He stands alone on a pedestal of infamy.

The letters that Hale had written and left, as he
hoped, to be delivered to his friends, Cunningham
ruthlessly destroyed, giving as his reason that
"the rebels should not know that they had a man
in their army who could die with so much firmness."
Though Hale's letters were destroyed, the
English officer, John Montressor, aide to General
Howe--a gentleman in whose presence we may
safely assume that Cunningham, cowardly as all
brutal men are, had not dared to maltreat Nathan

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