Just to muddle a bit more:

But are the last words attributed to Hale the ones that he actually said? Once again, not everyone agrees, but it is generally accepted that Hale, familiar with the English writer Joseph Addison, was paraphrasing a line from his play ``Cato.''

A 1777 newspaper article reported Hale as saying that ``if he had ten thousand lives, he would lay them all down, if called to it, in defence of his injured, bleeding country.'' Four years later another newspaper story quoted Hale's last words as: ``. . . my only regret is, that I have not more lives than one to offer in its service.'' Hull's 1848 memoirs give us the pithier version we know today: ``I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.''