Nathan Hale, descended from the Hales of Kent, England, was born at Coventry, Connecticut, on June 6, 1755, graduated from Yale College on September 8, 1773, enlisted as a lieutenant in the 7th Connecticut Regiment on July 6, 1775, was appointed captain in the Continental Army on September 1, 1775, volunteered as a spy in September 1776, was captured by the British on this shore in September 1776, and was executed at New York on September 22, 1776. He declared that he undertook the service because he owed his country the accomplishment of an object so important and so much desired by the commander of her armies, that he was not influenced by the expectation of promotion or pecuniary reward, that he wished to be useful, and that every kind of service necessary for the public good becomes honorable by being necessary. He also said that if the exigencies of his country demanded a peculiar service, its claims to the performance of that service were imperious, and that he only regretted that he had but one life to give for his country.
