The Spy by James Fenimore Cooper. Short summary

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A novel about the courageous American Garvey Burch, who pretended to be an ordinary merchant, but was actually a spy for the Continental forces and delivered important information about the British army.

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The novel is set during the war for the independence of the American colonies from English rule. In «neutral territory» lives a family of wealthy landowners, the Whartons, who sympathize with the British. The son of the head of the family, English Captain Wharton, disguised as a civilian, sneaks home to visit his father and sisters.

Wharton’s youngest daughter, Frances, is in love with Major Dunwoody of the Continental Army. Suddenly the Americans show up at the house and arrest the younger Wharton as a spy.

In fact, the spy is Garvey Burch, a humble and inconspicuous merchant who collects important information for the American army about the British. Burch meets with Washington himself on several occasions and even refuses the reward offered to him.

In the finale, Major Dunwoody marries Frances. Burch dies thirty years later in the next war with the British, and the Major’s son and Frances learn the truth about Burch’s spying activities from a note found with him.