Excerpt from The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground
It was near the close of the year 1780, that a solitary traveller was seen pursuing his way through one of the numerous little valleys of West Chester. The easterly wind, with its chilling dampness, and increasing violence, gave unerring notice of the approach of a storm, which, as usual, might be expected to continue for several days: and the experienced eye of the traveller was turned, in vain, through the darkness of the evening, in quest of some convenient shelter, in which for the term of his confinement by the rain, that already began to mix with the atmosphere in a thick mist, he might obtain such accommodations as his age and purposes required. Nothing, however, offered, but the small and inconvenient tenements of the lower order of the inhabitants, with whom, in that immediate neighborhood, he did not think it either safe or politic to trust himself.
The country of West Chester, after the British had obtained possession of the island of New York, became common ground, in which both parties continued to act for the remainder of the war of the revolution. A large proportion of its inhabitants, either restrained by their attachments, or influenced by their fears, affected a neutrality they did not feel. The lower towns were, of course, more particularly under the dominion of the crown while the upper, finding a security from the vicinity of the continental troops, were bold in asserting their revolutionary opinions, and their right to govern themselves.
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