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Show Andre Plead for Soldiers' Death NEW ORLEANS. A New Orleans collector has bought for $400 a scrap of paper containing the proud words Maj. John Andre penned to George Washington asking death by a firing squad. The yellowed, 161-year-old letter which was never answered has been in the hands of a New Orleans family for generations. It was sold by Leo Brownson, a broker, who would reveal the name of neither seller nor buyer. In it Andre, imprisoned for plotting plot-ting with Benedict Arnold, pleaded with General Washington in polite, nicely turned phrases to spare him death "on a jibbet." Andre wrote the request on the eve of his execution execu-tion at Tappan, N. Y. Washington's denial of it caused subsequent charges of harshness on the American commander's part that have been the subject of much , historical argument. His manner of death, however, was only the last blow in a life of disappointments for John Andre. Perhaps the greatest came when the strict parents of Honora Sneyd forbade for-bade him her harfd. Joins Royal Army. He then joined the royal army in Canada. Honora married another in 1773, but Andre's account of his capture with the surrender of St. John's in 1775 notes that he was "stripped of everything except the picture of Honora, which I concealed in my mouth. Preserving this I yet think myself fortunate." Exchanged for an American prisoner pris-oner in three years, Andre returned to service and won rapid promotions. promo-tions. His ill-fated rendezvous with Benedict Arnold occurred when, as an adjutant general of the British forces, he landed at West Point flying fly-ing a flag of truce. Pretending to arrange for disposition disposi-tion of a Loyalist's confiscated property, prop-erty, he 'obtained vital defense maps from the traitorous American officer. The plot might have been successful success-ful had not American fire forced his sloop o'war, the Vulture, to move down the river. Andre changed into civilian clothes and hurried toward the English Eng-lish lines, but three colonial militiamen militia-men captured him near Tarrytown. j They found the telltale papers in his boots. The event later was commemorated commemorat-ed by an American statue to the three who seized the British officer, and by a British tablet in Westminster West-minster Abbey eulogizing Andre. The historic letter to "His Excellency Excellen-cy General Washington" will be sent to the Library of Congress in Washington Wash-ington to be photographed and then returned to New Orleans. It follows: fol-lows: (Dated October 1, 1780.) d "Sir: "Buoyed above the terror of death by the consciousness of a life devoted devot-ed to honorable pursuits and stained with no action that can give me remorse, re-morse, I trust the request I make to Your Excellency at this serious period and which is to soften my last moments will not be rejected. "Sympathy toward a soldier will surely induce Your Excellency and a military tribunal to adapt the mode of my death to the feelings of a man of honor. "Let me hope, sir, that if aught in my character impresses you with esteem toward me, if aught in my misfortune marks me as the victim of policy or resentment, I shall experience ex-perience the operation of these feelings feel-ings in your breast by being informed in-formed that I am not to die on a Jibbet. |