James Fenimore Cooper Angler

reading," he writes, "of one of Cooper's novels called 'The Spy,' he aspired to the sort of ambition which distinguished the hero of that work, and was desirous of playing in France the part which Cooper has assigned to Harvey Birch during the American war of independence.... Harvey Birch--for he adopted this name in all his reports--never belied his professions of fidelity. He rendered services which would have merited a