Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 2.djvu/467

 

(See chapter xviii.) His family were of Huguenot descent, and latterly Geneva had been the cradle of rising generations, and it is said that our John André received his early education in Geneva. He began active life in a merchant’s house in London. He had been dissuaded from entering the army, but a tender disappointment revived his first resolution, and he was gazetted on 2nd April 1771 as second-lieutenant in the 26th Foot, a regiment which his younger brother, William Lewis (born in 1760) afterwards joined. John André rose to be captain in his regiment, and in 1780 he was Adjutant General, with the rank of Major, in the British army under Sir Henry Clinton. One of the American Generals, named Benedict Arnold, having resolved to return to allegiance to Great Britain, Major André was employed to conclude the negotiations with him. General Arnold got safely within the British lines, but André was detected and captured by the enemy on the 22nd of September. As he was in disguise, a Board of Officers decided that he was a spy, and that he must suffer death by hanging, and he was executed on the 2nd October. His family justly say of him that he was “a gallant soldier, the idol of his comrades, the admiration of his superiors.” A writer in “The Curious Book” (Edinburgh, 1826) recalls “the vivacity, worth, and warm sensibility of André’s heart, which sparkled with fervour from his expressive and prominent eyes.” The whole army went into mourning for him ; and the Americans were evidently grieved at having, according to martial law, to consign to execution a meritorious officer, “in the bloom of life, and peculiarly engaging in his person and manners.” The importance attached to his apprehension was manifested by the vote of Congress, that each of the three New York Militiamen who took him prisoner should receive a silver medal, to be presented by the Commander-in-Chief, also the thanks of Congress, and a pension of 200 dollars. Major André was buried where he died, and it was not till 1821 that the Americans permitted his remains to be removed to their final resting-place in Westminster Abbey, where a marble monument, designed by Robert Adam, and executed by P. M. Van Gelder, had been placed in 1781. The following was the epitaph:—

Major André’s actual age was thirty. As the monument does not appear in the Parliamentary return of monuments erected at the public expense, we may infer that it was paid for by King George III. out of the Privy Purse. His brother, a captain in his regiment, received a baronetcy as a memento. But Sir William Lewis André died in 1802, unmarried.

After the lapse of half a century, the following gratifying addition was made to the inscription in Westminster Abbey:—

Great Britain and America having thus shaken hands over his grave, I may refer to the case in the light thrown upon it by Alexander Hamilton, Aide-de-Camp to General Washington. Hamilton’s words were:— 