The Spy | Page 4

Speedy and private orders to the jailer alone
saved him from an ignominious death. He was permitted to escape; and
this seeming and indeed actual peril was of great aid in supporting his
assumed character among the English. By the Americans, in his little
sphere, he was denounced as a bold and inveterate Tory. In this manner
he continued to serve his country in secret during the early years of the
struggle, hourly environed by danger, and the constant subject of
unmerited opprobrium.
In the year ---, Mr. ---- was named to a high and honorable employment
at a European court. Before vacating his seat in Congress, he reported
to that body an outline of the circumstances related, necessarily
suppressing the name of his agent, and demanding an appropriation in
behalf of a man who had been of so much use, at so great risk. A
suitable sum was voted; and its delivery was confided to the chairman
of the secret committee.
Mr. ---- took the necessary means to summon his agent to a personal
interview. They met in a wood at midnight. Here Mr. ----
complimented his companion on his fidelity and adroitness; explained
the necessity of their communications being closed; and finally
tendered the money. The other drew back, and declined receiving it.
"The country has need of all its means," he said; "as for myself, I can
work, or gain a livelihood in various ways." Persuasion was useless, for
patriotism was uppermost in the heart of this remarkable individual;

and Mr. ---- departed, bearing with him the gold he had brought, and a
deep respect for the man who had so long hazarded his life, unrequited,
for the cause they served in common.
The writer is under an impression that, at a later day, the agent of Mr.
---- consented to receive a remuneration for what he had done; but it
was not until his country was entirely in a condition to bestow it.
It is scarcely necessary to add, that an anecdote like this, simply but
forcibly told by one of its principal actors, made a deep impression on
all who heard it. Many years later, circumstances, which it is
unnecessary to relate, and of an entirely adventitious nature, induced
the writer to publish a novel, which proved to be, what he little foresaw
at the time, the first of a tolerably long series. The same adventitious
causes which gave birth to the book determined its scene and its
general character. The former was laid in a foreign country; and the
latter embraced a crude effort to describe foreign manners. When this
tale was published, it became matter of reproach among the author's
friends, that he, an American in heart as in birth, should give to the
world a work which aided perhaps, in some slight degree, to feed the
imaginations of the young and unpracticed among his own countrymen,
by pictures drawn from a state of society so different from that to which
he belonged. The writer, while he knew how much of what he had done
was purely accidental, felt the reproach to be one that, in a measure,
was just. As the only atonement in his power, he determined to inflict a
second book, whose subject should admit of no cavil, not only on the
world, but on himself. He chose patriotism for his theme; and to those
who read this introduction and the book itself, it is scarcely necessary
to add, that he took the hero of the anecdote just related as the best
illustration of his subject.
Since the original publication of The Spy, there have appeared several
accounts of different persons who are supposed to have been in the
author's mind while writing the book. As Mr. ---- did not mention the
name of his agent, the writer never knew any more of his identity with
this or that individual, than has been here explained. Both Washington
and Sir Henry Clinton had an unusual number of secret emissaries; in a

war that partook so much of a domestic character, and in which the
contending parties were people of the same blood and language, it
could scarcely be otherwise.
The style of the book has been revised by the author in this edition. In
this respect, he has endeavored to make it more worthy of the favor
with which it has been received; though he is compelled to admit there
are faults so interwoven with the structure of the tale that, as in the case
of a decayed edifice, it would cost perhaps less to reconstruct than to
repair. Five-and-twenty years have been as ages with most things
connected with America. Among other advantages, that of her literature
has not been the least. So little was expected from the publication of an
original