The Spy

Description

By James Fenimore Cooper

Harvey Birch is a pedlar in the neutral ground of Westchester County during the American Revolution, suspected by the well-born Patriots around him of spying for the British.

Even Washington, who knows better, misjudges the man, and when he offers payment for information vital to the cause, Birch refuses the money and says plainly that he never acted for it. Cooper wrote the novel after hearing the accusations of venality levelled at the men who captured Major André.

First published 1821