[2] Darby's Return:/A Comic Sketch,/As Performed at the New-York Theatre,/ November 24, 1789,/For the Benefit of Mr. Wignell. Written by William Dunlap./ New-York:/Printed by Hodge, Allen and Campbell./And Sold at their respective Bookstores,/and by Berry and Rogers./M, DCC, LXXXIX./
[3] André;/A Tragedy, in Five Acts:/As Performed by the Old American Company,/ New-York, March 30, 1798./To which are added,/Authentic Documents/respecting/ Major André;/Consisting of/Letters to Miss Seward,/The/Cow Chace,/Proceedings of the Court Martial, &c./Copy Right Secured./New-York:/Printed by T. & J. Swords, No. 99 Pearl-street./1798./
[4] One of Dunlap's best-known tragedies was "Leicester," published by David Longworth in 1807.
[5] Freneau began a play, "The Spy" (Pattee, "Poems of Philip Freneau"), in which André was a character.
Fac-Simile Title-Page of the First Edition
PREFACE
More than nine years ago the Author made choice of the death of Major André as the Subject of a Tragedy, and part of what is now offered to the public was written at that time. Many circumstances discouraged him from finishing his Play, and among them must be reckoned a prevailing opinion that recent events are unfit subjects for tragedy. These discouragements have at length all given way to his desire of bringing a story on the Stage so eminently fitted, in his opinion, to excite interest in the breasts of an American audience.
In exhibiting a stage representation of a real transaction, the particulars of which are fresh in the minds of many of the audience, an author has this peculiar difficulty to struggle with, that those who know the events expect to see them all recorded; and any deviation from what they remember to be fact, appears to them as a fault in the poet; they are disappointed, their expectations are not fulfilled, and the writer is more or less condemned, not considering the difference between the poet and the historian, or not knowing that what is intended to be exhibited is a free poetical picture, not an exact historical portrait.