SPUYTEN DUYVIL (spi'tn di-v11) CREEK, a tidal channel connecting the Hudson River with the Harlem and forming the north ern boundary of Manhattan Island, New York. Its name is derived from the Dutch aSpyt den duiveP (in spite of the devil), and is sup posed to have been derived from the following circumstance: When the English fleet appeared in New Amsterdam (New York) Harbor, the governor's trumpeter was sent to warn the farmers up the Hudson and summon them to the defense of the city; on reaching this creek he found no ferryman willing to take him across on account of the high wind, and swore to cross the stream uspyt den duivelp ; but- was drowned in the attempt to swim across. The creek is crossed by a railway drawbridge near the Hudson.
SPY, in military usage, a secret emissary sent into the enemy s territory or encampment to inspect their works, ascertain their strength or movements and report thereon to the proper officer. As the service is most dangerous, for it is the custom when a spy is caught to put him to an ignominious death, a general has no right to compel any person, whether a subject of his own or the enemy's country, to tinder take it. The proper business of a spy is to ob tain intelligence and he must not be employed to take the lives of any of the enemy. An officer or soldier found within the enemy's lines should not be treated as a spy if he is clothed in his own uniform, but is dealt with either as a deserter or prisoner of war ; but if wearing his enemy's uniform or civil dress he is liable to be hanged. The American Civil War offered many instances of great daring on the part of spies, Union and Confederate, and in numerous cases their exploits resulted in tragic deaths. While spies are undoubtedly induced to perform their perilous work, in numerous cases, by hope of reward, yet there have also been many examples among them of pure and devoted patriotism. In the Russo-Japanese war several Japanese officers of rank and family position, who sought, in the disguise of coolies, to blow up a railway bridge in Manchuria, were promptly hanged as spies, and the spy record of the World War would fill many volumes.
SPY, The. 'The Spy; a Tale of the Neutral Ground,' Fenimore Cooper's second novel, pub lished in 1821, was the earliest American novel to win wide and permanent fame and may be said to have begun the type of romance which dominated native fiction for 30 years. The
share of historical fact in the story, indeed, is not large, but the action takes place so near to great events that the characters are all invested with something of the dusky light of heroes, while Washington moves among them like an unsuspected god. The book is full of swelling rhetoric and the ardent national piety of Cooper's generation. Fortunately Cooper saw the advantage of making his British out to be enemies worth fighting, if only in the interest of the plot, which ranges back and forth over the neutral ground between the two armies with great haste and sweep. To rapid movement Cooper adds the merit of a very real setting. He knew Westchester County, where he was then living, and its sparse legends as Scott knew the border. The topography of 'The Spy' is drawn with a firm hand. With his characters, Cooper is not uniformly successful. Accepting for women the romantic ideals of the day, he cast his heroines in the conventional mold of helplessness and decorum. The less sheltered Betty Flanagan, no heroine at all in the elegant sense, is amusing and truthful. Of his men, too, the gentlemen are little more than mere heroes, whatever the plain fellows may be. But Harvey Birch, peddler and patriot, his character remotely founded upon that of a real spy who had helped John Jay during the Revo lution, is essentially memorable and arresting. Gaunt, weather-beaten, canny, mysterious, he prowls about on his subtle errands, pursued by friend and foe, sustained only by the confidence of Washington, serving a half supernatural spirit of patriotism which drives him to his destiny, at once wrecking and honoring him. This romantic fate also condemns him to be sad and lonely, a dedicated soul. No character in American historical fiction has been able to obscure this first great figure. H. L. Barnum's 'The Spy Unmasked; or Memoirs of Enoch Crosby, alias Harvey Birch' (1828; 5th ed., 1864) claimed to identify the original.