The most urgent intercessions were immediately made to obtain his release, but in vain ; the stern justice of Putnam was not to be overcome by any feelings of pity. The British general wrote a letter to the American commander, demanding his prisoner, and threatening him with vengeance if a compliance with his demand was not immediately acceded to ; but he received for answer that the prisoner was " taken as a spy, tried as a spy, convicted as a spy, and that he should be hung as a spy." Here the matter rested until the morning previous to

HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER.

his execution -when the wife of Palmer presented herself before the commanding office r in his tent. She had come there with her child in her arms, to throw herself with humble submission at the foot of the man who by word, she thought, could relieve her aching heart of its load of misery. In the artless aud winning eloquence of a bursting heart, she represented to him the awful situation in which she would be placed should the fearful sentence that had been passed upon her husband be carried into effect. She implored him, by every tie of affection that bound two young hearts together-- for the sake of the infant she pressed to her bosom, who, if left fatherless, would wander through the world disgraced and au orphan -- by his own feelings as a father and a husband, to have mercy on him who was all to her the world could bestow. Her tears, her deep distress and hei- passionate exclamations fell deep into the heart of the war-worn soldier ; but they did not alter his stern resolve. With a dignity of purpose and a countenance that told how intense were the feelings then glowing within him, he told her he must die.