The weekly messenger. [volume] (St. Martinsville [i.e. St. Martinville] La.) 1886-1948, 1888-04-28
WESTMINSTER.
Americas Interest in England's
Ancient Abbey.
Memorials to Persons Identified
With Our History.

America has its share in the historical
associations which cling to Westminster
Abbey. 1t reaches down, says Harper's
Magazine, not only to the days of the
Pilgrim Fathers, but to the War of
Independence. Chatham and Burke and
Barre, as we'll as Patrick Henry, advo-
Gated the American cause, which en-
gagged the sympathy of the great mass
of Englishmen, if not that of Greenville
and North.
OF the War of indie pendence there
are but three memorials, all full of
pathos.
In the north cloister, in a nameless
grave, lies General Sir John Burgoyne,
who died on August 4, 1893, at the age
of 20, 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 monu-
ment, not even an inscription, to mark
the spot where lies the remains of man
whose defeat sent such thrill through
the heard of England and America as
has never been equaled in modern times.
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 Brit
ain, '.inflexibly maintained 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 Hol-
land. The bas relief represents the
shipwreck in which he persisted, and
the escape of his son, who, with the
faithful aid of black slave, chung to a
floating package and was 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, as narrated with such ample de-
tail in all American histories, and the
whole story of the treason of Benedict
Arnold and the arrest of Andre are so
familiar that / need not dwell upon
them. His one desire was that he
should not be regarded as spy and that
he should be shot as soldier, not hung
as felon. But Provost Marshal Cum
ningham had hung Captain Nathan
Hale and hence Andre pleaded in vain
In his letter to Washington that he had
to meet ''person" arnold or his
AGENT who was to give him intelligence
upon ground not within the posts of
either army. against my stipulation"
he said, "my intention, and without my
knowledge, was conducted within one
of your posts" Surely" he said to
Major Talmadge, 'you do not consider
Hale's case and mine alikel" YES"
replied the American major, precisely
similar and similar will be your fate"
How much he won the sympathy and
affection of his captors by his frankness
and courage; how Washington thought
him ''morc 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 moment he was kept in merci-
full ignorance that he was not to die
soldiers death; how bravely he met his
miserable fate; how he was buried
under the gallows, and a 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 service
was read over his remains on November
%, 1921, in the Abbey by Dean Ire
land, and this monument erected to his
memory by George IIL-are facts
known to all. The Americans have
treated his memory with generosity.
They wept at his death; they sent home
his remains with every circumstance of
honor.