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 work of this description, at the time it was written, that