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Warily watching the British in Boston, “Washington frequently had Billy Lee remove his mahogany and brass spyglass from its handsome leather case so he could engage in surveillance of his adversary,” biographer Ron Chernow records.

In one memorable 1803 cartoon, for example, British king George III literally holds the French leader in his palm, looking at him through a spyglass.

"It looked like a black canvas with a chain with a spyglass hanging on the end of it," Lennon remembered during an RKO Radio interview on the last afternoon of his life.

Among the props are the amber spyglass, from which one of Pullman's novels takes its name, and visual effects which made his otherworldly creatures move and talk.

Along about three bells Nat came on deck with his spyglass and went to the larboard rail.