Who said, 'I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country'?

Nathan Hale is credited with saying, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”

Hale was a 21-year-old Connecticut schoolteacher and Yale graduate who volunteered to spy for the American side in September 1776. He entered British-held New York disguised as a schoolteacher, but was captured while trying to return to American lines.

The British treated spies as illegal combatants, and Hale was hanged on September 22, 1776. The quotation became famous because it expressed his willingness to die for the revolutionary cause. It is often presented as his final statement, although no official transcript of his last speech survives.

The wording comes from later recollections, especially an account attributed to British captain John Montresor, who reportedly heard Hale speak before his execution. That uncertainty affects the documentation of the quotation, not the quiz answer: Nathan Hale is its universally accepted historical attribution.