neyman had gone over as a spy, the fact would soon have been
communicated to the British.

Honeyman went over to the enemy, and started business as a butcher for
the army, and, after having gone a good deal about the country looking
for cattle, he came to New Brunswick with the British army. Nobody had
suspected that he was not a perfectly honest Tory, and he had been
paying great attention to the condition of the British army, and to
finding out everything which might be of use if reported to Washington.
Among other things, he discovered that the British forces then occupying
Trenton were not under a strict state of discipline. It was winter; the
weather was cold; apparently there was not much for them to do; and
discipline was in a rather lax state. Honeyman well understood the
habits of the Redcoats, and he knew that during the holidays the
soldiers would live in even a more free and easy manner than they were
living then.

Not only did he make himself well acquainted with the condition of the
army, but he carefully studied the town of Trenton and its neighborhood,
and, going about in every direction after cows and oxen, he learned the
roads so well that he could make a very good map of them. Everything
that could be of service to the American cause was jotted down in
Honeyman's retentive memory; and when he had found out everything that
he could find out, he thought it was fully time that he should acquaint
Washington with the state of affairs in the enemy's lines.

He knew that there were American pickets on the Jersey side, some
distance away; and he started out in this direction as a greasy butcher,
with a rope in one hand and a long whip in the other, looking for all
the world like John Honeyman the Tory cattleman, who, if he knew what
was good for him, would better keep out of sight of the soldiers of the
American army. He walked a long distance down the river, and, though he
may have seen cattle, he paid no attention to them. His present object
was not to capture anything and take it away, but to be captured and
taken away. After a time he saw at a distance what he had been looking
for. Behind some bushes, but still quite plain to the eye of this
practiced soldier, were two cavalrymen dismounted, and Honeyman knew
that they were Americans. He continued to walk towards them until he
came close to the spot where the two soldiers were standing.

The moment their eyes fell upon him, they recognized him, and sho