THE SPY; A TALE OF
THE NEUTRAL GROUND.
“Breathes there a man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land,—” BY
THE AUTHOR OF “PRECAUTION.”
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I. NEW-YORK:
WILEY & HALSTED, S, WALL-STREET.
Wm. Grattan, Printer.
1821.

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Southern District of New-York, ss., BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the seventh day of September in the fortysixth
year of the Independence of the United States of America, WILEY
& HALSTED, of the said District, have deposited in this Office, the title of a
Book, the right whereof they claim as proprietors in the words following,
to wit:
The Spy a, Tale of the Neutral Ground.
“Breathes there a man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land.—”
by the author of “Precaution.” In two volumes. In conformity to the Act of Congress of the United States, entitled, “An Act
“for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts,
“and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times
“therein mentioned;” And also, to an Act, entitled, “An Act, supplementary
“to an Act, entitled, an Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing
“the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of
“such copies, during the times therein mentioned, and extending the
“fits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching, historical and
“other prints.” JAMES DILL,
Clerk of the Southern District of New-York.

TO JAMES AITCHISON.

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Although we are natives of different
countries, I feel that I can safely offer to
your notice a work, which has been chiefly
written with a view to induce love to my
own. Attachment to the land of our benefits,
is a sentiment so intimately blended
with our best feelings, that should I have
discovered any weakness in the exhibition of
this national partiality, I feel confident, that
you, at least, will not judge me harshly;
for your liberality to this country is untainted
with any irreverence for the institutions
of your own. If I find reasons, in your
candor, to believe you will do justice to my
merited eulogiums, I can equally hope for
your lenity, where habit has blinded me to
defects.

We have spent many pleasant hours together,
and I hope, while perusing these

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pages, you may experience some portion of
that satisfaction, which has, I trust, hitherto
attended our association. With the best
wishes for your welfare,

PREFACE.

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There are several reasons why an American,
who writes a novel, should choose his
own country for the scene of his story—and
there are more against it. To begin with
the—pros—the ground is untrodden, and
will have all the charms of novelty; as yet
but one pen of any celebrity has been employed
among us in this kind of writing;
and as the author is dead, and beyond the
hopes and fears of literary rewards and punishments,
his countrymen are beginning to
discover his merit—but we forget, the latter
part of the sentence should have been
among the—contras. The very singularity
of the circumstance, gives the book some
small chance of being noticed abroad, and
our literature is much like our wine—vastly
benefited by travelling. Then, the patriotic
ardor of the country, will insure a sale to
the most humble attempts to give notoriety

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to any thing national, as we have the strongest
assurances our publisher's account of profit
and loss will speedily show. Heaven
forbid, that this don't prove to be like the
book itself—a fiction. And lastly, an Author
may be fairly supposed to be better able
to delineate character, and to describe scenes,
where he is familiar with both, than in countries
where he has been nothing more than
a traveller. Now for the contras—we will
begin by removing all the reasons in favour
of the step. As there has been but one
writer of this description hitherto, a new
candidate for literary honours of this kind,
would be compared with that one, and unfortunately
he is not the rival that every man
would select. Then, although the English
critics not only desire, but invite works that
will give an account of American manners,
we are sadly afraid they mean nothing but
Indian manners; we are apprehensive that
the same palate which can relish the cave
scene in Edgar Huntly, because it contains
an American, a savage, a wild cat, and a

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tomahawk, in a conjunction that never did,
nor ever will occur—will revolt at descriptions
here, that portray love as any thing
but a brutal passion—patriotism as more
than money-making—or men and women
without wool. We write this with all due
deference to our much esteemed acquaintance,
Mr. Cæsar Thompson, a character we
presume to be well known to the few who
read this introduction; for nobody looks at
a preface until they are at a loss to discover
from the book itself, what it is the author
means. Then touching the reason, which
is built on the hope of support from patriotic
pride, we are almost ashamed to say, that
the foreign opinion of our love of country, is
nearer the truth than we affected to believe in
the foregoing sentence. As for the last reason
in favour of an American scene, we are
fearful that others are as familiar with their
homes as we are ourselves, and that consequently
the very familiarity will breed contempt;
besides, if we make any mistakes
every body will know it. Now we conceive

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the moon to be the most elegible spot in
which to lay the scene of a fashionable modern
novel, for then there would be but very
few who could dispute the accuracy of the
delineations; and could we but have obtained
the names of some conspicuous places in
that planet, we think we should have ventured
on the experiment. It is true, that
when we suggested the thing to the original
of our friend Cæsar, he obstinately refused
to sit any longer if his picture was to be
transported to any such heathenish place.
We combatted the opinions of the black with
a good deal of pertinacity, until we discovered
the old fellow suspected the moon to be
somewhere near Guinea, and that his opinion
of the luminary was something like
European notions of our States—that it was
not a fit residence for a gentleman. But
there is still another class of critics, whose
smiles we most covet, and whose frowns we
most expect to encounter—we mean our own
fair. There are those who are hardy enough
to say that women love novelty; and a

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proper respect to our own reputation for discernment,
compels us to abstain from controverting
this opinion. The truth is, that
a woman is a bundle of sensibilities, and
these are qualities which exist chiefly in the
fancy. Certain moated castles, draw-bridges,
and kind a of classic nature, are much
required by these imaginative beings. The
artificial distinctions of life also have their
peculiar charms with the softer sex, and
there are many of them who think the
greatest recommendation a man can have to
their notice, is the ability to raise themselves
in the scale of genteel preferment; very
many are the French valets, Dutch barbers,
and English tailors, who have received their
patents of nobility from the credulity of the
American fair; and occasionally we see a
few of them, whirling in the vortex left by
the transit of one of these aristocratical meteors,
across the plane of our confederation.
In honest truth, we believe, that one novel
with a lord in it, is worth two without a
lord, even for the nobler sex—meaning us

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men. Charity forbids our insinuating that any
of our patriots respond to the longings of
the other sex, with an equal desire to bask
in the sunshine of royal favour; and least of
all, may we venture to insinuate, that the
longing generally exists in a ratio exactly
proportioned to the violence with which they
lavish their abuse on the institutions of their
forefathers.—There is ever a reaction in
human feelings, and it was only when he
found them unattainable, that Æsop makes
the fox call the grapes sour!

We would not be understood as throwing
the gauntlet to our fair countrywomen,
by whose opinions it is that we expect
to stand or fall; we only mean to say,
that if we have got no lords and castles in
the book, it is because there are none in
the country. We heard there was a noble
within fifty miles of us, and went that distance
to see him, intending to make our
hero look as much like him as possible;
when we brought home his description, the
little gipsey, who set for Fanny, declared

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she would'nt have him if he were a king.
Then we travelled a hundred miles to see a
renowned castle to the east, but, to our surprise,
found it had so many broken windows,
was such an out-door kind of a place, that
we should be wanting in Christian bowels
to place any family in it during the cold
months: in short, we were compelled to let
the yellow haired girl choose her own suitor,
and lodge the Whartons in a comfortable,
substaintial, and unpretending cottage. We
repeat we mean nothing disrespectful to the
fair—we love them next to ourselves—our
book—our money—and a few other articles.
We know them to be good-natured, good-hearted—
ay, and good-looking hussies
enough: and heartily wish, for the sake of
one of them, we were a lord, and had a castle
in the bargain.

We do not absolutely aver, that the whole
of our tale is true; but we honestly believe
that a good portion of it is; and we are
very certain, that every passion recorded in
the volumes before the reader, has and does

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exist; and let us tell them that is more than
they can find in every book they read. We
will go farther, and say that they have existed
within the county of West-Chester, in the
State of New-York, and United States of
America, from which fair portion of the
globe we send our compliments to all who
read our pages—and love to those who buy
them.