Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1888-04-11
WESTMINSTER ABBEY,
The Share of Amer ca in One of the Worlds
Most Famous Structures.


the epoch wnich elapsed between the
age of Edward the Confessor and the
disastrous days of Charles l. and Arch
bishop Laud. An English writer who
lives in America has said that Sin sign
ing away his own empire George LII.
did not sign away the empire of En-
glish liberty, of English law, of En-
glish literature of English blood, of
English religion, or of the English
tongue Americans enjoy. no less
than we, the benefit of the Great Char
ter, the Petition of Right. the Habeas
Corpus act. They need not 90 back
for their history to Indian annals or
Icelandic sagas. Theirs are the pal
aces of the Plantagenets, the cathe-
drals which enshrine our old religion,
the illustrious hall in which the long
line of our great Judges reared by their
decisions the fabric of our law. the
gray colleges in which our intellect and
science found their earliest home, the
graves where orr heroes, and sages,
and poets sleep. Indeed, / have I'M
derstated their share IN the abbey. 1t
reaches down not only to the days of
the Pilgrim Fathers. but to the war of
independence. Chatham. and Burke,
and Barre. as well as Patrick Henry,
advocated the American cause, which
engaged the sympathy of the great
mass of Englishmen, if not that of
Greenville ana North.
OF the war of independence there
are but three memorials, all full of
pathos.
In the north cloister. in nameless
grave. lies General Sir John Burgoyne,
who died on August 4. 1898, at the age
seventy, sixteen years after he had sur
rendered and resigned his sword to
General Gates at Saratoga in 1777. 1t
is strange that there should be no mon
ument not even an inscription, to mark
the spot where lie the remains of man
whose defeat sent such thrill through
the heart of England and America as
has never been equaled in modern
tirnes.
Passing BY for one moment the tomb
of Andre, to which we shall return,
notice on the wall of the choir, south
aisle, the little unpretending tablet TO
William Wragg. He was lawyer of
South Carolina, who, when the Ameri-
can colonies revolted from Great
Britain, ''infexibly maint aimed his
loyalty to the person and government
of his sovereign" and was therefore
compelled to leave his distressed family
and ample fortune, and to fly from the
States in the very year of Burgoyne's
surrender. His ship was lost on the
coast of Holland The bass-relief rep
resents the shipwrecll in which he per-
ished, and the escape of his SOD, who,
with the faithful aid of a black slave.
chung to floating package. and wa
cast alive upon the shore.
The most interesting memorial of the
war is undoubtedly the famous tomb of
Major John Andre. The circumstances
which brought about the death of that
brave, bright and unfortunate young
officer are narrated with such ample
detail in all American histories, and
the whole story of the treason of Bene-
dict Arnold and the arrest of Andre is
SO familiar, that | need not dwell upon
them. His one desire was that he
should not be regarded as a SPY, and
that he should be shot as soldier, not
hung as felon. But Provost Marshal
Cunningham had hung Captain Nathan
Hale and hence Andre pleaded in vain
in his letter to Washington that he had
agreed to meet "a person" (Arnold or
his AGENT 'who was to give him intel
ligence upon ground not within the
posts of either armv." against my
stipulation" he said, my intention.
and without my knowledge, | was con-
Quoted within one of your posts. y SURE
ly,' he said to Major Tallmadge. 'you
do not consider Hale's case and mine
alike" Eyes, replied the American
Major, "precisalv similar, and similar
will be your fate. How much he won the
sympathy and affection of his captors by
his frankness and courage; how Wash
ington thought him more unfortunate
than guilty" and with his own hands
closed the shutters of his room from
which the gibbet at Tappan was visible;
how until the last fatal moment he was
kept in merciful ignorance that he was
not tc die IL soldiers death; how bravely
he met his miserable fate; how he was
buried under the gallows, and peach
tree planted on the spot; how, forty
years later, at the request of the Duke
of York. his remains were disinterred
and sent to England; how it was found
that the peach tree had twined its roots
among his hair; how the funeral SER
vice was read over his remains on
November 2S 1921. in the abbey by
Dean Ireland and this monument
erected to his memory by George Ill
are facts known to all. The Americans
have treated his memory with generos-
ity. They wept at his death; they sent
home his remains with every circum-
stance of honor. Farr0r,
IN Harper'S Magazine.