It was the ignominy alone of this punishment which perturbed his spirit.

"Sir," he wrote to Washington, "sustained against fear of death by the reflection that no unworthy action has sullied a life devoted to honor, I feel confident that in this my extremity, your Excellency will not be deaf to a prayer the granting of which will soothe my last moments.

Out of sympathy for a soldier, your Excellency will, I am sure, consent to adapt the form of my punishment to the feelings of a man of honor.

Permit me to hope that, if my character have inspired you with any respect, if I am in your eyes sacrificed to policy and not to vengeance, I shall have proof that those sentiments prevail in your heart by learning that I am not to die on the gallows." With a harshness of which there is no other example in his life, and of which he appeared to always preserve a painful recollection, Washington remained deaf to his prisoner's noble appeal: Major Andre underwent the fate of a spy.

"You are a witness that I die like a man of honor," he said to an American officer whose duty it was to see the orders carried out.