in doing which, it is quite likely that, we follow the identical line of
travel and colonization--viz: from Old to New England, and from
Netherlands (the father-land) to New Netherlands--by which the custom of
bundling was really transplanted to these western shores. For, although
the grave and (sometimes) veracious historian of New York, Diedrich
Knickerbocker, hath endeavored to fasten upon the Connecticut settlers
the odium of having introduced the custom into New Netherland,[21] to
the great offense of all properly disposed people; yet we may reasonably
doubt whether the young mynheers and frauliens of New Amsterdam, in that
day, were any more innocent of this lover's pastime, than their
vivacious Connecticut neighbors. Indeed, can it be for one moment
supposed that the good Hollanders--a most unchanging and conservative
race--should have been so far false to the traditions of their fathers,
and the honor of the fatherland, as to leave behind them, when they
crossed the seas, the good old custom of _queesting_, with its
time-honored associations and delights? Or can it be imagined that those
astute lawgivers and political economists, the early governors and
burgomasters, were so blind to the necessities and interests of a new
and sparsely populated country, as to forbid bundling within their
borders? Indeed, it would be but a sorry compliment to the wisdom of
that sagacious and far-sighted body of merchants comprised in the High
and Mighty West India Company, to believe that they were unwilling to
introduce under their benign auspices, a custom so intimately connected
with their own national social habits, and so promising to the
prospective interests and enlargement of their _new plantations_, as
this. And, truly, Diedrich himself, doth, in another part of his book,
inadvertently betray the fact that bundling was by no means a purely
Yankee trick, for he speaks of the redoubtable Anthony Van
Corlaer--purest of Dutchmen--as "passing through Hartford, and Pyquag,
and Middletown, and all the other border towns, twanging his trumpet
like a very devil, so that the sweet valleys and banks of the
Connecticut resounded with the warlike melody, and stopping occasionally
to eat pumpkin pies, dance at country frolics, and _bundle_ with the
beauteous lasses of those parts, whom he rejoiced exceedingly with his
soul-stirring instrument." Which passage, while it proves that the
practice of bundling prevailed in Connecticut, proves equally well that
Anthony the trumpeter was by no means inexperienced in its delights, nor
unwilling to enjoy its comforts, whether under the name of _bundling_ or
_queesting_.
Indeed, we do most truly believe that the cunning Knickerbocker, in his
desire to vindicate, as he thought, the character of his race against
the accusation of immorality, hath by his denial not only committed a
grievous sin against "the truth of history," but hath greatly added
thereto, by attempting to foist off the opprobrium of the same on to the
shoulders of the Connecticut folks. But history will not remain forever
falsified, and the day has at length arrived when every historical tub
must "stand on its own bottom," and the world will henceforth know that
the New Netherlanders did not take bundling by inoculation from the
Yankees, but that they brought it with them to the New World, as an
ancestral heirloom.
This point being thus satisfactorily settled, to the honor of the
Dutchman, and the extreme satisfaction of all future historians, we next
proceed to investigate the bundling prevalent in