‘250 years ago, the British hanged a 21-year-old American schoolteacher as a spy, and in trying to make him disappear quietly, they accidentally made him immortal. His name was Nathan Hale.

He was caught spying, the first American to die for spying for his country. He asked for a pastor and was denied. He asked for a Bible and was denied.

His last message destroyed

Hale was allowed to write a couple of letters, one to his mother, one to a fellow officer. He wrote them, and then the British provost marshal took the letters and destroyed them in front of him.

The reason given was chilling in its pettiness: so that the rebels should not know they had a man in their ranks who could die with such firmness. They did not just want to kill him. They wanted to erase him.

To the Gallows

They marched him to the gallows, and there, this young schoolteacher stood calmly and spoke about duty and country with a steadiness that unnerved the men sent to kill him.

The famous words attributed to him were that he only regretted having but one life to lose for his country He met his death without flinching, and he made even his executioners remember him.

Died Bravely

They burned the letters so no one would know how bravely Hale died, but the story got out anyway.

The story was carried by the enemies who watched it, and a young man the British tried to erase became one of the most enduring symbols of the Revolution, honoured two and a half centuries later, on this exact day.

They denied him a Bible and a chaplain and burned his last words, and still, they could not make him small.’

We need patriots like Hale today who love God and country and are not afraid to die for liberty.

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