BOOK VII.

CONTAINING THE THIRD PART OF THE REIGN OF

PETER THE HEADSTRONG—HIS TROUBLES WITH

THE BRITISH NATION, AND THE DECLINE AND

FALL OF THE DUTCH DYNASTY.

CHAP. I.—How Peter Stuyvesant relieved the Sovereign People from

the burden of taking care of the nation; with sundy particulars

of his conduct in time of peace, and of the rise of a great

Dutch aristocracy 259

CHAP. II.—How Peter Stuyvesant labored to civilize the

community—how he was a great promoter of holidays—how he

instituted kissing on New-Year’s Day—how he distributed fiddles

throughout the New Netherlands—how he ventured to reform the

ladies’ petticoats, and how he caught a Tartar 270

CHAP. III.—How troubles thicken on the province—how it is

threatened by the Helderbergers, the Merrylanders, and the

Giants of the Susquehanna 278

CHAP. IV.—How Peter Stuyvesant adventured into the East Country,

and how he fared there 284

CHAP. V.—How the Yankees secretly sought aid of the British

Cabinet in their hostile schemes against the Manhattoes 296

CHAP. VI.—Of Peter Stuyvesant’s expedition into the East Country,

showing that, though an old bird, he did not understand trap 300

CHAP. VII.—How the people of New Amsterdam were thrown into a

great panic, by the news of the threatened invasion; and the

manner in which they fortified themselves 308

CHAP. VIII.—How the Grand Council of the New Netherlands were

miraculously gifted with long tongues in the moment of

emergency—showing the value of words in warfare 315

CHAP. IX.—In which the troubles of New Amsterdam appear to

thicken—showing the bravery in time of peril, of a people who

defend themselves by resolutions 323

CHAP. X.—Containing a doleful disaster of Antony the Trumpeter—and

how Peter Stuyvesant, like a second Cromwell, suddenly dissolved

a Rump Parliament 338

CHAP. XI.—How Peter Stuyvesant defended the city of New Amsterdam

for several days by dint of the strength of his head. 347

CHAP. XII.—Containing the dignified retirement, and mortal

surrender of Peter the Headstrong 360

CHAP. XIII.—The Author’s reflections upon what has been said 372

Illustrations

PAGE

“AS THEY DEFILED THROUGH THE PRINCIPAL GATE THAT STOOD

AT THE HEAD OF WALL STREET” _Frontispiece_

“BLACKSMITHS SUFFERED THEIR FIRES TO GO OUT” 3

THE EDICT OF WILLIAM THE TESTY 9

A LONG PIPE 11

A POT-HOUSE POLITICIAN 13

THE MERRYLANDERS WERE FOND OF BOXING 19

“I LOWER IT TO NONE” 25

“A WHOLE ROW OF HELDERBERGERS REARED THEIR ROUND BURLY

HEADS” 29

THE WISE MEN AND SOOTHSAYERS 32

“THEY SOLD THEM GUNS THAT EXPLODED AT THE FIRST FIRING” 39

DUTCH FAMILY PIPE 43

“DRINKING, FIDDLING AND DANCING” 49

“SO AS TO DELIGHT THE GOVERNOR WHILE AT HIS REPASTS” 61

“A NANTUCKET WHALER WITH A SPY GLASS TWICE AS LONG” 71

“THE OLD WOMEN REJOICED THAT THERE WAS TO BE NO WAR” 73

“THE ANGRY BULL BUTTS WITH HIS HORNS” 78

TWO AMBASSADORS 81

“SNIVELLING SCOURINGS, BROILS, AND MARAUDINGS, KEPT UP

ON THE EASTERN FRONTIERS” 85

MY GREAT-GRANDFATHER WAS INJURED 89

“TWANGING HIS TRUMPET LIKE A VERY DEVIL” 93

“THE KNOWING COMMISSIONERS WINKED TO EACH OTHER” 97

THE MILITIA 105

THE FORTIFICATIONS 107

“HAVING A MOST SUSPICIOUS PREDILECTION FOR BLACK CATS

AND BROOMSTICKS” 111

THE WORTHY JUDGES 114

JAN JANSEN ALPENDAM 119

“HE FRIGHTED ALL, CATS, DOGS, AND ALL” 123

VAN POFFENBURGH’S VALOR 127

KELDERMEESTER 129

PETRUS STUYVESANT 135

JAN PRINTZ 139

THE MOSQUITO PLAGUE 141

“THE MAIN GUARD WAS TURNED OUT” 146

“WITH GREAT CEREMONY, INTO THE FORT” 149

“TO ROB ALL THE HEN-ROOSTS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD” 152

DIRK SCHUILER 157

“AND PADDLED OVER TO NEW AMSTERDAM” 161

“AND STUMPING UP AND DOWN STAIRS” 164

“SOME LITTLE INDIAN VILLAGE” 171

THE OMNIPOTENT MANETHO 174

THE KILLING OF THE STURGEON 179

“THESE WERE OF A SOUR ASPECT” 184

“AS THEY DEFILED THROUGH THE PRINCIPAL GATE THAT STOOD

AT THE HEAD OF WALL STREET” 185

“A CREW OF HARD SWEARERS” 191

“CRAMMED THE POCKETS OF HER HERO WITH GINGERBREAD AND

DOUGHNUTS” 198

“HAVING SHOT THE DEVIL WITH A SILVER BULLET, ONE DARK

STORMY NIGHT” 201

“BARRICADED THE DOORS AND WINDOWS EVERY EVENING AT

SUNDOWN” 204

“MARCHED OUT WITH THE HONORS OF WAR” 207

ANIMATING HARANGUES 212

“BEFORE A BIT OF BROKEN LOOKING-GLASS, SHAVING HIMSELF” 217

MARS AS A DRUNKEN CORPORAL 223

THE CHARGE 227

THE DESPERATE STRUGGLE 230

“ON BLUNDERED AND THUNDERED THE HEAVY-STERNED FUGITIVES” 233

“THIS HEAVEN-DIRECTED BLOW DECIDED THE BATTLE” 238

“SPITTING HALF A DOZEN LITTLE FELLOWS ON HIS SWORD” 243

THE SHADES OF DEPARTED AND LONG-FORGOTTEN HEROES 246

“MYNHEER WILLIAM BEEKMAN” 250

“THE OLD WOMEN FLOCKED AROUND ANTONY” 252

“‘NAY, BUT,’ SAID PETER, ‘TRY YOUR INGENUITY, MAN’” 262

“SEATED ON THE ‘STOEP’ BEFORE HIS DOOR” 265

“PLATTER-BREECHES” 269

NEW YEAR’S DAY AT THE GOVERNOR’S 273

THE DANCE 275

A SUSQUESAHANOCK 281

A BUXOM LASS 289

THE JOURNEY 291

“THEY BESTRODE THEIR CANES AND GALLOPED OFF IN HORRIBLE

CONFUSION” 293

LORD STERLING 298

“HE WAS TREATED TO A SIGHT OF PLYMOUTH ROCK” 304

“NOR WOULD HE GO OUT OF A NIGHT WITHOUT A LANTERN” 311

THE LONG TALK AT THE COUNCIL-FIRE 317

“THE SUDDEN ENTRANCE OF A MESSENGER” 321

THE ARRIVAL OF PETER 325

“WAS TO MOUNT THE ROOF, WHENCE HE CONTEMPLATED WITH

RUEFUL ASPECT THE HOSTILE SQUADRON” 328

“METAMORPHOSING PUMPS INTO FORMIDABLE SOLDIERS” 331

A PUBLIC MEETING IN FRONT OF THE STADTHOUSE 335

THE DEATH OF ANTONY VAN CORLEAR 341

“APOLLO PEEPING OUT NOW AND THEN FOR AN INSTANT” 344

DETERMINED COCK 352

“A LEGION OF BRITISH BEEF-FED WARRIORS POURED INTO NEW

AMSTERDAM” 357

“CONDUCTED EVERY STRAY HOG OR COW IN TRIUMPH TO THE

POUND” 362

“ON APRIL FOOL’S ERRANDS FOR PIGEON’S MILK” 365

“‘WELL, DEN!—HARDKOPPIG PETER BEN GONE AT LAST!’” 369

[Illustration: Black and white sketch of a man in a nightcap drinking

from a large mug.]

[Illustration: A pen-and-ink drawing of several small sailboats with

passengers on a calm sea, with a large fish tail splashing in the

foreground.]

=Book IV.= (_Continued._)

CONTAINING THE CHRONICLES OF THE REIGN OF WILLIAM THE TESTY.

[Illustration: Black and white sketch of a man with a wooden peg leg

seen from behind, walking with a cane and his hands clasped at his

back.]

A HISTORY OF NEW YORK

=Chapter VII.=

GROWING DISCONTENTS OF NEW AMSTERDAM UNDER THE GOVERNMENT OF WILLIAM THE

TESTY.

It has been remarked by the observant writer of the Stuyvesant

manuscript, that under the administration of William Kieft the

disposition of the inhabitants of New Amsterdam experienced an essential

change, so that they became very meddlesome and factious. The

unfortunate propensity of the little governor to experiment and

innovation, and the frequent exacerbations of his temper, kept his

council in a continual worry; and the council being to the people at

large what yeast or leaven is to a batch, they threw the whole community

in a ferment; and the people at large being to the city what the mind is

to the body, the unhappy commotions they underwent operated most

disastrously upon New Amsterdam,—insomuch that, in certain of their

paroxysms of consternation and perplexity, they begat several of the

most crooked, distorted, and abominable streets, lanes, and alleys with

which this metropolis is disfigured.

The fact was, that about this time the community, like Balaam’s ass,

began to grow more enlightened than its rider, and to show a disposition

for what is called “self-government.” This restive propensity was first

evinced in certain popular meetings, in which the burghers of New

Amsterdam met to talk and smoke over the complicated affairs of the

province, gradually obfuscating themselves with politics and

tobacco-smoke. Hither resorted those idlers and squires of low degree

who hang loose on society and are blown about by every wind of doctrine.

Cobblers abandoned their stalls to give lessons on political economy;

blacksmiths suffered their fires to go out while they stirred up the

fires of faction; and even tailors, though said to be the ninth part of

humanity, neglected their own measures to criticize the measures of

government.

Strange! that the science of government, which seems to be so generally

understood, should invariably be denied to the only one called upon to

exercise it. Not one of the politicians in question, but, take his word

for it, could have administered affairs ten times better than William

the Testy.

[Illustration:

“BLACKSMITHS SUFFERED THEIR FIRES TO GO OUT.”

]

Under the instructions of these political oracles the good people of New

Amsterdam soon became exceedingly enlightened, and, as a matter of

course, exceedingly discontented. They gradually found out the fearful

error in which they had indulged, of thinking themselves the happiest

people in creation, and were convinced that, all circumstances to the

contrary notwithstanding, they were a very unhappy, deluded, and

consequently ruined people!

We are naturally prone to discontent, and avaricious after imaginary

causes of lamentation. Like lubberly monks we belabor our own shoulders,

and take a vast satisfaction in the music of our own groans. Nor is this

said by way of paradox; daily experience shows the truth of these

observations. It is almost impossible to elevate the spirits of a man

groaning under ideal calamities; but nothing is easier than to render

him wretched, though on the pinnacle of felicity; as it would be an

Herculean task to hoist a man to the top of a steeple, though the merest

child could topple him off thence.

I must not omit to mention that these popular meetings were generally

held at some noted tavern, these public edifices possessing what in

modern times are thought the true fountains of political inspiration.

The ancient Greeks deliberated upon a matter when drunk, and

reconsidered it when sober. Mob-politicians in modern times dislike to

have two minds upon a subject, so they both deliberate and act when

drunk; by this means a world of delay is spared; and as it is

universally allowed that a man when drunk sees double, it follows

conclusively that he sees twice as well as his sober neighbors.

[Illustration: Black and white line drawing of a cow standing in a

field, facing away toward a windmill on a distant hill.]

=Chapter VIII.=

OF THE EDICT OF WILLIAM THE TESTY AGAINST TOBACCO—OF THE PIPE-PLOT, AND

THE RISE OF FEUDS AND PARTIES.

Wilhelmus Kieft, as has already been observed, was a great legislator on

a small scale, and had a microscopic eye in public affairs. He had been

greatly annoyed by the factious meeting of the good people of New

Amsterdam, but, observing that on these occasions the pipe was ever in

their mouth, he began to think that the pipe was at the bottom of the

affair, and that there was some mysterious affinity between politics and

tobacco-smoke. Determined to strike at the root of the evil, he began

forthwith to rail at tobacco, as a noxious, nauseous weed, filthy in all

its uses; and as to smoking, he denounced it as a heavy tax upon the

public pocket,—a vast consumer of time, a great encourager of idleness,

and a deadly bane to the prosperity and morals of the people. Finally he

issued an edict, prohibiting the smoking of tobacco throughout the New

Netherlands. Ill-fated Kieft! Had he lived in the present age and

attempted to check the unbounded license of the press, he could not have

struck more sorely upon the sensibilities of the million. The pipe, in

fact, was the greatest organ of reflection and deliberation of the New

Netherlander. It was his constant companion and solace: was he gay, he

smoked; was he sad, he smoked; his pipe was never out of his mouth; it

was part of his physiognomy; without it his best friends would not know

him. Take away his pipe? You might as well take away his nose!

The immediate effect of the edict of William the Testy was a popular

commotion. A vast multitude, armed with pipes and tobaccoboxes, and an

immense supply of ammunition, sat themselves down before the governor’s

house, and fell to smoking with tremendous violence. The testy William

issued forth like a wrathful spider, demanding the reason of this

lawless fumigation. The sturdy rioters replied by lolling back in their

seats, and puffing away with redoubled fury, raising such a murky cloud

that the governor was fain to take refuge in the interior of his castle.

A long negotiation ensued through the medium of Antony the Trumpeter.

The governor was at first wrathful and unyielding, but was gradually

smoked into terms. He concluded by permitting the smoking of tobacco,

but he abolished the fair long pipes used in the days of Wouter Van

Twiller, denoting ease, tranquillity, and sobriety of deportment; these

he condemned as incompatible with the despatch of business, in place

whereof he substituted little captious short pipes, two inches in

length, which, he observed, could be stuck in one corner of the mouth,

or twisted in the hatband, and would never be in the way. Thus ended

this alarming insurrection, which was long known by the name of The

Pipe-Plot, and which, it has been somewhat quaintly observed, did end,

like most plots and seditions, in mere smoke.

But mark, oh, reader! the deplorable evils which did afterwards result.

The smoke of these villanous little pipes, continually ascending in a

cloud about the nose, penetrated into and befogged the cerebellum, dried

up all the kindly moisture of the brain, and rendered the people who

used them as vaporous and testy as the governor himself. Nay, what is

worse, from being goodly, burly, sleek-conditioned men, they became,

like our Dutch yeomanry who smoke short pipes, a lantern-jawed,

smoke-dried, leathern-hided race.

[Illustration:

THE EDICT OF WILLIAM THE TESTY.

]

Nor was this all. From this fatal schism in tobacco-pipes we may date

the rise of parties in the Nieuw Nederlandts. The rich and

self-important burghers who had made their fortunes, and could afford to

be lazy, adhered to the ancient fashion, and formed a kind of

aristocracy known as the _Long Pipes_; while the lower order, adopting

the reform of William Kieft as more convenient in their handicraft

employments, were branded with the plebeian name of _Short Pipes_.

A third party sprang up, headed by the descendants of Robert Chewit, the

companion of the great Hudson. These discarded pipes altogether and took

to chewing tobacco; hence they were called _Quids_,—an appellation since

given to those political mongrels which sometimes spring up between two

great parties, as a mule is produced between a horse and an ass.

And here I would note the great benefit of party distinctions in saving

the people at large the trouble of thinking. Hesiod divides mankind into

three classes—those who think for themselves, those who think as others

think, and those who do not think at all. The second class comprises the

great mass of society; for most people require a set creed and a

file-leader. Hence the origin of party: which means a large body of

people, some few of whom think, and all the rest talk. The former take

the lead and discipline the latter; prescribing what they must say, what

they must approve, what they must hoot at, whom they must support, but,

above all, whom they must hate; for no one can be a right good partisan,

who is not a thorough-going hater.

[Illustration:

A LONG PIPE.

]

The enlightened inhabitants of the Manhattoes, therefore, being divided

into parties, were enabled to hate each other with great accuracy. And

now the great business of politics went bravely on, the long pipes and

short pipes assembling in separate beer-houses, and smoking at each

other with implacable vehemence, to the great support of the State and

profit of the tavern-keepers. Some, indeed, went so far as to bespatter

their adversaries with those odoriferous little words which smell so

strong in the Dutch language, believing, like true politicians, that

they served their party, and glorified themselves in proportion as they

bewrayed their neighbors. But, however they might differ among

themselves, all parties agreed in abusing the governor, seeing that he

was not a governor of their choice, but appointed by others to rule over

them.

Unhappy William Kieft! exclaims the sage writer of the Stuyvesant

manuscript, doomed to contend with enemies too knowing to be entrapped,

and to reign over a people too wise to be governed. All his foreign

expeditious were baffled and set at naught by the all-pervading Yankees;

all his home measures were canvassed and condemned by “numerous and

respectable meetings” of pot-house politicians.

In the multitude of counsellors, we are told, there is safety; but the

multitude of counsellors was a continual source of perplexity to William

Kieft. With a temperament as hot as an old radish, and a mind subject to

perpetual whirlwinds and tornadoes, he never failed to get into a

passion with every one who undertook to advise him. I have observed,

however, that your passionate little men, like small boats with large

sails, are easily upset or blown out of their course; so was it with

William the Testy, who was prone to be carried away by the last piece of

advice blown into his ear. The consequence was, that, though a projector

of the first class, yet by continually changing his projects he gave

none a fair trial; and by endeavoring to do everything, he in sober

truth did nothing.

[Illustration:

A POT-HOUSE POLITICIAN.

]

In the meantime, the sovereign people got into the saddle, showed

themselves, as usual, unmerciful riders; spurring on the little governor

with harangues and petitions, and thwarting him with memorials and

reproaches, in much the same way as holiday apprentices manage an

unlucky devil of a hack-horse,—so that Wilhelmus Kieft was kept at a

worry or a gallop throughout the whole of his administration.

[Illustration: A vintage pen-and-ink drawing showing the back of a

wooden cart loaded with sacks; a woman holding a child sits on top,

while a man in a hat stands to the right.]

=Chapter IX.=

OF THE FOLLY OF BEING HAPPY IN TIME OF PROSPERITY—OF TROUBLES TO THE

SOUTH BROUGHT ON BY ANNEXATION—OF THE SECRET EXPEDITION OF JAN JANSEN

ALPENDAM, AND HIS MAGNIFICENT REWARD.

If we could but get a peep at the tally of dame Fortune, where like a

vigilant landlady she chalks up the debtor and creditor accounts of

thoughtless mortals, we should find that every good is checked off by an

evil, and that, however we may apparently revel scot-free for a season,

the time will come when we must ruefully pay off the reckoning. Fortune

in fact is a pestilent shrew, and withal an inexorable creditor; and

though for a time she may be all smiles and courtesies and indulge us in

long credits, yet sooner or later she brings up her arrears with a

vengeance, and washes out her scores with our tears. “Since,” says good

old Boëtius, “no man can retain her at his pleasure; what are her favors

but sure prognostications of approaching trouble and calamity?”

This is the fundamental maxim of that sage school of philosophers, the

croakers, who esteem it true wisdom to doubt and despond when other men

rejoice, well knowing that happiness is at best but transient,—that, the

higher one is elevated on the seesaw balance of fortune, the lower must

be his subsequent depression,—that he who is on the uppermost round of a

ladder has most to suffer from a fall, while he who is at the bottom

runs very little risk of breaking his neck by tumbling to the top.

Philosophical readers of this stamp must have doubtless indulged in

dismal forebodings all through the tranquil reign of Walter the Doubter,

and considered it what Dutch seamen call a weather-breeder. They will

not be surprised, therefore, that the foul weather which gathered during

his days should now be rattling from all quarters on the head of William

the Testy.

The origin of some of these troubles may be traced quite back to the

discoveries and annexations of Hans Reinier Oothout, the explorer, and

Wynant Ten Breeches, the land-measurer, made in the twilight days of

Oloffe the Dreamer; by which the territories of the Nieuw Nederlandts

were carried far to the south, to Delaware river and parts beyond. The

consequence was, many disputes and brawls with the Indians, which now

and then reached the drowsy ears of Walter the Doubter and his council,

like the muttering of distant thunder from behind the mountains,

without, however, disturbing their repose. It was not till the time of

William the Testy that the thunderbolt reached the Manhattoes. While the

little governor was diligently protecting his eastern boundaries from

the Yankees, word was brought him of the irruption of a vagrant colony

of Swedes in the south, who had landed on the banks of the Delaware and

displayed the banner of that redoubtable virago Queen Christina, and

taken possession of the country in her name. These had been guided in

their expedition by one Peter Minuits, or Minnewits, a renegade

Dutchman, formerly in the service of their High Mightinesses, but who

now declared himself governor of all the surrounding country, to which

was given the name of the province of NEW SWEDEN.

It is an old saying that “a little pot is soon hot,” which was the case

with William the Testy. Being a little man, he was soon in a passion,

and once in a passion, he soon boiled over. Summoning his council on the

receipt of this news, he belabored the Swedes in the longest speech that

had been heard in the colony since the wordy warfare of Ten Breeches and

Tough Breeches. Having thus taken off the fire-edge of his valor, he

resorted to his favorite measure of proclamation, and despatched a

document of the kind, ordering the renegade Minnewits and his gang of

Swedish vagabonds to leave the country immediately, under pain of the

vengeance of their High Mightinesses the Lords States-General, and of

the potentates of the Manhattoes.

This strong measure was not a whit more effectual than its predecessors,

which had been thundered against the Yankees; and William Kieft was

preparing to follow it up with something still more formidable, when he

received intelligence of other invaders on his southern frontier, who

had taken possession of the banks of the Schuylkill, and built a fort

there. They were represented as a gigantic, gun-powder race of men,

exceedingly expert at boxing, biting, gouging, and other branches of the

rough-and-tumble mode of warfare, which they had learned from their

prototypes and cousins-german, the Virginians, to whom they have ever

borne considerable resemblance. Like them, too, they were great

roisters, much given to revel on hoe-cake and bacon, mint-julep and

apple-toddy; whence their newly formed colony had already acquired the

name of Merryland, which, with a slight modification, it retains to the

present day.

[Illustration:

THE MERRYLANDERS WERE FOND OF BOXING.

]

In fact, the Merrylanders and their cousins, the Virginians, were

represented to William Kieft as offsets from the same original stock as

his bitter enemies the Yanokie, or Yankee tribes of the east, having

both come over to this country for the liberty of conscience, or, in

other words, to live as they pleased: the Yankees taking to praying and

money-making, and converting quakers; and the Southerners to

horse-racing and cock-fighting, and breeding negroes.

Against these new invaders Wilhelmus Kieft immediately despatched a

naval armament of two sloops and thirty men, under Jan Jansen Alpendam,

who was armed to the very teeth with one of the little governor’s most

powerful speeches, written in vigorous Low Dutch.

Admiral Alpendam arrived without accident in the Schuylkill, and came

upon the enemy just as they were engaged in a great “barbecue,” a kind

of festivity or carouse much practised in Merryland. Opening upon them

with the speech of William the Testy, he denounced them as a pack of

lazy, canting, julep-tippling, cock-fighting, horse-racing,

slave-trading, tavern-hunting, Sabbath-breaking, mulatto-breeding

upstarts, and concluded by ordering them to evacuate the country

immediately: to which they laconically replied in plain English, “they’d

see him d——d first!”

Now, this was a reply on which neither Jan Jansen Alpendam nor Wilhelmus

Kieft had made any calculation. Finding himself, therefore, totally

unprepared to answer so terrible a rebuff with suitable hostility, the

admiral concluded his wisest course would be to return home and report

progress. He accordingly steered his course back to New Amsterdam, where

he arrived safe, having accomplished this hazardous enterprise at small

expense of treasure and no loss of life. His saving policy gained him

the universal appellation of the Saviour of his Country; and his

services were suitably rewarded by a shingle monument, erected by

subscription on the top of Flattenbarrack Hill, where it immortalized

his name for three whole years, when it fell to pieces and was burnt for

firewood.

[Illustration: Black and white ink sketch of a portly, boastful soldier

with a large mustache and helmet, leaning on a long sword with one hand

on his hip.]

=Chapter X.=

TROUBLOUS TIMES ON THE HUDSON—HOW KILLIAN VAN RENSELLAER ERECTED A

FEUDAL CASTLE, AND HOW HE INTRODUCED CLUB-LAW INTO THE PROVINCE.

About this time the testy little governor of the New Netherlands appears

to have had his hands full, and with one annoyance and the other to have

been kept continually on the bounce. He was on the very point of

following up the expedition of Jan Jansen Alpendam by some belligerent

measures against the marauders of Merryland, when his attention was

suddenly called away by belligerent troubles springing up in another

quarter, the seeds of which had been sown in the tranquil days of Walter

the Doubter.

The reader will recollect the deep doubt into which that most pacific of

governors was thrown on Killian Van Rensellaer’s taking possession of

Bearn Island by _wapen recht_. While the governor doubted and did

nothing, the lordly Killian went on to complete his sturdy little

castellum of Rensellaerstein, and to garrison it with a number of his

tenants from the Helderberg, a mountain region famous for the hardest

heads and hardest fists in the province. Nicholas Koorn, a faithful

squire of the patroon, accustomed to strut at his heels, wear his

cast-off clothes, and imitate his lofty bearing, was established in this

post as wacht-meester. His duty it was to keep an eye on the river, and

oblige every vessel that passed, unless on the service of their High

Mightinesses, to strike its flag, lower its peak, and pay toll to the

lord of Rensellaerstein.

This assumption of sovereign authority within the territories of the

Lords States-General, however it might have been tolerated by Walter the

Doubter, had been sharply contested by William the Testy on coming into

office; and many written remonstrances had been addressed by him to

Killian Van Rensellaer, to which the latter never deigned a reply. Thus,

by degrees, a sore place, or, in Hibernian parlance, a _raw_, had been

established in the irritable soul of the little governor, insomuch that

he winced at the very name of Rensellaerstein.

Now it came to pass, that, on a fine sunny day, the Company’s yacht, the

_Half-Moon_, having been on one of its stated visits to Fort Aurania,

was quietly tiding it down the Hudson. The commander, Govert Lockerman,

a veteran Dutch skipper of few words but great bottom, was seated on the

high poop, quietly smoking his pipe under the shadow of the proud flag

of Orange, when, on arriving abreast of Bearn Island, he was saluted by

a stentorian voice from the shore, “Lower thy flag, and be d——d to

thee!”

Govert Lockerman, without taking his pipe out of his mouth, turned up

his eye from under his broad-brimmed hat to see who hailed him thus

discourteously. There, on the ramparts of the fort, stood Nicholas

Koorn, armed to the teeth, flourishing a brass-hilted sword, while a

steeple-crowned hat and cock’s tail-feather, formerly worn by Killian

Van Rensellaer himself, gave an inexpressible loftiness to his demeanor.

Govert Lockerman eyed the warrior from top to toe, but was not to be

dismayed. Taking the pipe slowly out of his mouth, “To whom should I

lower my flag?” demanded he. “To the high and mighty Killian Van

Rensellaer, the lord of Rensellaerstein!” was the reply.

[Illustration:

“I LOWER IT TO NONE.”

]

“I lower it to none but the Prince of Orange and my masters the Lords

States-General.” So saying, he resumed his pipe and smoked with an air

of dogged determination.

Bang! went a gun from the fortress; the ball cut both sail and rigging.

Govert Lockerman said nothing, but smoked the more doggedly.

Bang! went another gun; the shot whistled close astern.

“Fire, and be d——d,” cried Govert Lockerman, cramming a new charge of

tobacco into his pipe, and smoking with still increasing vehemence.

Bang! went a third gun. The shot passed over his head, tearing a hole in

the “princely flag of Orange.”

This was the hardest trial of all for the pride and patience of Govert

Lockerman. He maintained a stubborn, though swelling silence; but his

smothered rage might be perceived by the short vehement puffs of smoke

emitted from his pipe, by which he might be tracked for miles, as he

slowly floated out of shot and out of sight of Bearn Island. In fact he

never gave vent to his passion until he got fairly among the highlands

of the Hudson; when he let fly whole volleys of Dutch oaths, which are

said to linger to this very day among the echoes of the Dunderberg, and

to give particular effect to the thunder-storms in that neighborhood.

It was the sudden apparition of Govert Lockerman at Dog’s Misery,

bearing in his hand the tattered flag of Orange, that arrested the

attention of William the Testy, just as he was devising a new expedition

against the marauders of Merryland. I will not pretend to describe the

passion of the little man when he heard of the outrage of

Rensellaerstein. Suffice it to say, in the first transports of his fury,

he turned Dog’s Misery topsy-turvy; kicked every cur out of doors, and

threw the cats out of the window; after which, his spleen being in some

measure relieved, he went into a council of war with Govert Lockerman,

the skipper, assisted by Antony Van Corlear, the Trumpeter.

[Illustration: A vintage pen-and-ink sketch of three kittens pouncing

and playing; two kittens are huddled together on the left, while one

leaps forward on the right with its tail straight up.]

=Chapter XI.=

ON THE DIPLOMATIC MISSION OF ANTONY THE TRUMPETER TO THE FORTRESS OF

RENSELLAERSTEIN—AND HOW HE WAS PUZZLED BY A CABALISTIC REPLY.

The eyes of all New Amsterdam were now turned to see what would be the

end of this direful feud between William the Testy and the patroon of

Rensellaerwick; and some, observing the consultations of the governor

with the skipper and the trumpeter, predicted warlike measures by sea

and land. The wrath of William Kieft, however, though quick to rise, was

quick to evaporate. He was a perfect brush-heap in a blaze, snapping and

crackling for a time, and then ending in smoke. Like many other valiant

potentates, his first thoughts were all for war, his sober second

thoughts for diplomacy.

[Illustration:

“A WHOLE ROW OF HELDERBERGERS REARED THEIR ROUND BURLY HEADS.”

]

Accordingly, Govert Lockerman was once more despatched up the river in

the Company’s yacht, the _Goed Hoop_ bearing Antony the Trumpeter as

ambassador, to treat with the belligerent powers of Rensellaerstein. In

the fulness of time the yacht arrived before Bearn Island, and Antony

the Trumpeter, mounting the poop, sounded a parley to the fortress. In a

little while the steeple-crowned hat of Nicholas Koorn, the

wacht-meester, rose above the battlements, followed by his iron visage,

and ultimately his whole person, armed, as before, to the very teeth;

while, one by one, a whole row of Helderbergers reared their round burly

heads above the wall, and beside each pumpkin-head peered the end of a

rusty musket. Nothing daunted by this formidable array, Antony Van

Corlear drew forth and read with audible voice a missive from William

the Testy, protesting against the usurpation of Bearn Island, and

ordering the garrison to quit the premises, bag and baggage, on pain of

the vengeance of the potentate of the Manhattoes.

In reply, the wacht-meester applied the thumb of his right hand to the

end of his nose, and the thumb of his left hand to the little finger of

the right, and spreading each hand like a fan, made an aërial flourish

with his fingers. Antony Van Corlear was sorely perplexed to understand

this sign, which seemed to him something mysterious and masonic. Not

liking to betray his ignorance, he again read with a loud voice the

missive of William the Testy, and again Nicholas Koorn applied the thumb

of his right hand to the end of his nose, and the thumb of his left hand

to the little finger of the right, and repeated this kind of nasal

weather-cock. Antony Van Corlear now persuaded himself that this was

some shorthand sign or symbol, current in diplomacy, which, though

unintelligible to a new diplomat, like himself, would speak volumes to

the experienced intellect of William the Testy; considering his embassy

therefore at an end, he sounded his trumpet with great complacency, and

set sail on his return down the river, every now and then practising

this mysterious sign of the wacht-meester, to keep it accurately in

mind.

Arrived at New Amsterdam he made a faithful report of his embassy to the

governor, accompanied by a manual exhibition of the response of Nicholas

Koorn. The governor was equally perplexed with his embassy. He was

deeply versed in the mysteries of free-masonry; but they threw no light

on the matter. He knew every variety of wind-mill and weather-cock, but

was not a whit the wiser as to the aërial sign in question. He had even

dabbled in Egyptian hieroglyphics and the mystic symbols of the

obelisks, but none furnished a key to the reply of Nicholas Koorn. He

called a meeting of his council. Antony Van Corlear stood forth in the

midst, and putting the thumb of his right hand to his nose, and the

thumb of his left hand to the finger of the right, he gave a faithful

fac-simile of the portentous sign. Having a nose of unusual dimensions,

it was as if the reply had been put in capitals; but all in vain: the

worthy burgomasters were equally perplexed with the governor. Each one

put his thumb to the end of his nose, spread his fingers like a fan,

imitated the motion of Antony Van Corlear, and then smoked in dubious

silence. Several times was Antony obliged to stand forth like a fugleman

and repeat the sign, and each time a circle of nasal weather-cocks might

be seen in the council-chamber.

[Illustration:

THE WISE MEN AND SOOTHSAYERS.

]

Perplexed in the extreme, William the Testy sent for all the

soothsayers, and fortunetellers and wise men of the Manhattoes, but none

could interpret the mysterious reply of Nicholas Koorn. The council

broke up in sore perplexity. The matter got abroad, and Antony Van

Corlear was stopped at every corner to repeat the signal to a knot of

anxious newsmongers, each of whom departed with his thumb to his nose

and his fingers in the air, to carry the story home to his family. For

several days all business was neglected in New Amsterdam; nothing was

talked of but the diplomatic mission of Antony the Trumpeter,—nothing

was to be seen but knots of politicians with their thumbs to their

noses. In the meantime the fierce feud between William the Testy and

Killian Van Rensellaer, which at first had menaced deadly warfare,

gradually cooled off, like many other war-questions, in the prolonged

delays of diplomacy.

Still to this early affair of Rensellaerstein may be traced the remote

origin of those windy wars in modern days which rage in the bowels of

the Helderberg, and have wellnigh shaken the great patroonship of the

Van Rensellaers to its foundation; for we are told that the bully boys

of the Helderberg, who served under Nicholas Koorn the wacht-meester,

carried back to their mountains the hieroglyphic sign which had so

sorely puzzled Antony Van Corlear and the sages of the Manhattoes; so

that to the present day the thumb to the nose and the fingers in the air

is apt to be the reply of the Helderbergers whenever called upon for any

long arrears of rent.

=Chapter XII.=

CONTAINING THE RISE OF THE GREAT AMPHICTYONIC COUNCIL OF THE PILGRIMS,

WITH THE DECLINE AND FINAL EXTINCTION OF WILLIAM THE TESTY.

It was asserted by the wise men of ancient times, who had a nearer

opportunity of ascertaining the fact, that at the gate of Jupiter’s

palace lay two huge tuns, one filled with blessings, the other with

misfortunes; and it would verily seem as if the latter had been

completely overturned and left to deluge the unlucky province of Nieuw

Nederlandts: for about this time, while harassed and annoyed from the

south and the north, incessant forays were made by the border-chivalry

of Connecticut upon the pigsties and hen-roosts of the Nederlanders.

Every day or two some broad-bottomed express-rider, covered with mud and

mire, would come floundering into the gate of New Amsterdam, freighted

with some new tale of aggression from the frontier; whereupon Antony Van

Corlear, seizing his trumpet, the only substitute for a newspaper in

those primitive days, would sound the tidings from the ramparts with

such doleful notes and disastrous cadence as to throw half the old women

in the city into hysterics; all which tended greatly to increase his

popularity; there being nothing for which the public are more grateful

than being frequently treated to a panic,—a secret well known to the

modern editors.

But, oh ye powers! into what a paroxysm of passion did each new outrage

of the Yankees throw the choleric little governor! Letter after letter,

protest after protest, bad Latin, worse English, and hideous Low Dutch,

were incessantly fulminated upon them, and the four-and-twenty letters

of the alphabet, which formed his standing army, were worn out by

constant campaigning. All, however, was ineffectual; even the recent

victory at Oyster Bay, which had shed such a gleam of sunshine between

the clouds of his fair-weather reign, was soon followed by a more

fearful gathering up of those clouds, and indignations of more

portentous tempest; for the Yankee tribe on the banks of the

Connecticut, finding on this memorable occasion their incompetency to

cope, in fair fight, with the sturdy chivalry of the Manhattoes, had

called to their aid all the ten tribes of their brethren who inhabit the

east country, which from them has derived the name of Yankee-land. This

call was promptly responded to. The consequence was a great confederacy

of the tribes of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Plymouth, and New

Haven, under the title of the “United Colonies of New England”; the

pretended object of which was mutual defence against the savages, but

the real object the subjugation of the Nieuw Nederlands.

For, to let the reader into one of the great secrets of history, the

Nieuw Nederlandts had long been regarded by the whole Yankee race as the

modern land of promise, and themselves as the chosen and peculiar people

destined, one day or other, by hook or by crook, to get possession of

it. In truth, they are a wonderful and all-prevalent people, of that

class who only require an inch to gain an ell, or a halter to gain a

horse. From the time they first gained a foothold on Plymouth Rock, they

began to migrate, progressing and progressing from place to place, and

from land to land, making a little here and a little there, and

controverting the old proverb, that a rolling stone gathers no moss.

Hence they have facetiously received the nickname of THE PILGRIMS: that

is to say, a people who are always seeking a better country than their

own.

The tidings of this great Yankee league struck William Kieft with

dismay, and for once in his life he forgot to bounce on receiving a

disagreeable piece of intelligence. In fact, on turning over in his mind

all that he had read at the Hague about leagues and combinations, he

found that this was a counterpart of the Amphictyonic league, by which

the states of Greece attained such power and supremacy; and the very

idea made his heart quake for the safety of his empire at the

Manhattoes.

The affairs of the confederacy were managed by an annual council of

delegates held at Boston, which Kieft denominated the Delphos of this

truly classic league. The very first meeting gave evidence of hostility

to the Nieuw Nederlanders, who were charged, in their dealings with the

Indians, with carrying on a traffic in “guns, powther, and shott,—a

trade damnable and injurious to the colonists.” It is true the

Connecticut traders were fain to dabble a little in this damnable

traffic; but then they always dealt in what were termed Yankee guns,

ingeniously calculated to burst in the pagan hands which used them.

The rise of this potent confederacy was a death-blow to the glory of

William the Testy, for from that day forward he never held up his head,

but appeared quite crestfallen. It is true, as the grand council

augmented in power, and the league, rolling onward, gathered about the

red hills of New Haven, threatening to overwhelm the Nieuw Nederlandts,

he continued occasionally to fulminate proclamations and protests, as a

shrewd sea-captain fires his guns into a water-spout; but alas! they had

no more effect than so many blank cartridges.

Thus end the authenticated chronicles of the reign of William the Testy;

for henceforth, in the troubles, perplexities, and confusion of the

times, he seems to have been totally overlooked, and to have slipped

forever through the fingers of scrupulous history. It is a matter of

deep concern that such obscurity should hang over his latter days; for

he was in truth a mighty and great-little man, and worthy of being

utterly renowned, seeing that he was the first potentate that introduced

into this land the art of fighting by proclamation, and defending a

country by trumpeters and wind-mills.

[Illustration:

THEY SOLD THEM GUNS THAT EXPLODED AT THE FIRST FIRING.

]

It is true, that certain of the early provincial poets, of whom there

were great numbers in the Nieuw Nederlandts, taking advantage of his

mysterious exit, have fabled, that, like Romulus, he was translated to

the skies, and forms a very fiery little star, somewhere on the left

claw of the Crab; while others, equally fanciful, declare that he had

experienced a fate similar to that of the good king Arthur, who, we are

assured by ancient bards, was carried away to the delicious abodes of

fairyland, where he still exists in pristine worth and vigor, and will

one day or another return to restore the gallantry, the honor, and the

immaculate probity, which prevailed in the glorious days of the Round

Table.[1]

All these, however, are but pleasing fantasies, the cobweb visions of

those dreaming varlets, the poets, to which I would not have my

judicious readers attach any credibility. Neither am I disposed to

credit an ancient and rather apocryphal historian, who asserts that the

ingenious Wilhelmus was annihilated by the blowing down of one of his

wind-mills; nor a writer of later times, who affirms that he fell a

victim to an experiment in natural history, having the misfortune to

break his neck from a garret-window of the stadthouse in attempting to

catch swallows by sprinkling salt upon their tails. Still less do I put

my faith in the tradition that he perished at sea in conveying home to

Holland a treasure of golden ore, discovered somewhere among the haunted

region of the Catskill mountains.[2]

The most probable account declares, that, what with the constant

troubles on his frontiers, the incessant schemings and projects going on

in his own pericranium, the memorials, petitions, remonstrances, and

sage pieces of advice of respectable meetings of the sovereign people,

and the refractory disposition of his councillors, who were sure to

differ from him on every point, and uniformly to be in the wrong, his

mind was kept in a furnace-heat, until he became as completely burnt out

as a Dutch family-pipe which has passed through three generations of

hard smokers. In this manner did he undergo a kind of animal combustion,

consuming away like a farthing rushlight: so that when grim death

finally snuffed him out, there was scarce left enough of him to bury!

[Illustration:

DUTCH FAMILY PIPE.

]

[Illustration: A vintage pen-and-ink drawing of a stern, portly man in

17th-century attire, wearing a tall hat, a fur-collared coat, and a

belted tunic.]

=Book V.=

CONTAINING THE FIRST PART OF THE REIGN OF PETER STUYVESANT, AND HIS

TROUBLES WITH THE AMPHICTYONIC COUNCIL.

[Illustration: A vintage pen-and-ink drawing of a jolly, bald man

sitting in a chair with a large napkin tucked into his collar, holding a

spoon over a steaming bowl of soup.]

=Chapter I.=

IN WHICH THE DEATH OF A GREAT MAN IS SHOWN TO BE NO VERY INCONSOLABLE

MATTER OF SORROW—AND HOW PETER STUYVESANT ACQUIRED A GREAT NAME FROM THE

UNCOMMON STRENGTH OF HIS HEAD.

To a profound philosopher like myself, who am apt to see clear through a

subject, where the penetration of ordinary people extends but halfway,

there is no fact more simple and manifest than that the death of a great

man is a matter of very little importance. Much as we may think of

ourselves, and much as we may excite the empty plaudits of the million,

it is certain that the greatest among us do actually fill but an

exceedingly small space in the world; and it is equally certain, that

even that small space is quickly supplied when we leave it vacant. “Of

what consequence is it,” said Pliny, “that individuals appear, or make

their exit? the world is a theatre whose scenes and actors are

continually changing.” Never did philosopher speak more correctly; and I

only wonder that so wise a remark could have existed so many ages, and

mankind not have laid it more to heart. Sage follows on in the footsteps

of sage; one hero just steps out of his triumphal car, to make way for

the hero who comes after him; and of the proudest monarch it is merely

said, that “he slept with his fathers, and his successor reigned in his

stead.”

The world, to tell the private truth, cares but little for their loss,

and if left to itself would soon forget to grieve; and though a nation

has often been figuratively drowned in tears on the death of a great

man, yet it is ten to one if an individual tear has been shed on the

occasion, excepting from the forlorn pen of some hungry author. It is

the historian, the biographer, and the poet, who have the whole burden

of grief to sustain,—who—kind souls!—like undertakers in England, act

the part of chief mourners,—who inflate a nation with sighs it never

heaved, and deluged it with tears it never dreamt of shedding. Thus,

while the patriotic author is weeping and howling, in prose, in blank

verse, and in rhyme, and collecting the drops of public sorrow into his

volume, as into a lachrymal vase, it is more than probable his

fellow-citizens are eating and drinking, fiddling, and dancing, as

utterly ignorant of the bitter lamentations made in their name as are

those men of straw, John Doe and Richard Roe, of the plaintiffs for whom

they are generously pleased to become sureties.

[Illustration:

“DRINKING, FIDDLING, AND DANCING.”

]

The most glorious hero that ever desolated nations might have mouldered

into oblivion among the rubbish of his own monument, did not some

historian take him into favor, and benevolently transmit his name to

posterity; and much as the valiant William Kieft worried, and bustled,

and turmoiled, while he had the destinies of a whole colony in his hand,

I question seriously whether he will not be obliged to this authentic

history for all his future celebrity.

His exit occasioned no convulsion in the city of New Amsterdam nor its

vicinity: the earth trembled not, neither did any stars shoot from their

spheres; the heavens were not shrouded in black, as poets would fain

persuade us they have been, on the death of a hero; the rocks

(hard-hearted varlets!) melted not into tears, nor did the trees hang

their heads in silent sorrow: and as to the sun, he lay abed the next

night just as long, and showed as jolly a face when he rose as he ever

did on the same day of the month in any year, either before or since.

The good people of New Amsterdam, one and all, declared that he had been

a very busy, active, bustling little governor; that he was “the father

of his country”; that he was “the noblest work of God”; that “he was a

man, take him for all in all, they ne’er should look upon his like

again”; together with sundry other civil and affectionate speeches

regularly said on the death of all great men: after which they smoked

their pipes, thought no more about him, and Peter Stuyvesant succeeded

to his station.

Peter Stuyvesant was the last, and, like the renowned Wouter Van

Twiller, the best of our ancient Dutch governors. Wouter having

surpassed all who preceded him, and Peter, or Piet, as he was sociably

called by the old Dutch burghers, who were ever prone to familiarize

names, having never been equalled by any successor. He was in fact the

very man fitted by nature to retrieve the desperate fortunes of her

beloved province, had not the Fates, those most potent and unrelenting

of all ancient spinsters, destined them to inextricable confusion.

To say merely that he was a hero, would be doing him great injustice: he

was in truth a combination of heroes; for he was of a sturdy, raw-boned

make, like Ajax Telamon, with a pair of round shoulders that Hercules

would have given his hide for (meaning his lion’s hide) when he

undertook to ease old Atlas of his load. He was, moreover, as Plutarch

describes Coriolanus, not only terrible for the force of his arm, but

likewise of his voice, which sounded as though it came out of a barrel;

and, like the self-same warrior, he possessed a sovereign contempt for

the sovereign people, and an iron aspect, which was enough of itself to

make the very bowels of his adversaries quake with terror and dismay.

All this martial excellency of appearance was inexpressibly heightened

by an accidental advantage, with which I am surprised that neither Homer

nor Virgil have graced any of their heroes. This was nothing less than a

wooden leg, which was the only prize he had gained in bravely fighting

the battles of his country, but of which he was so proud, that he was

often heard to declare he valued it more than all his other limbs put

together; indeed so highly did he esteem it, that he had it gallantly

enchased and relieved with silver devices, which caused it to be related

in divers histories and legends that he wore a silver leg.[4]

Like that choleric warrior Achilles, he was somewhat subject to

extempore bursts of passion, which were rather unpleasant to his

favorites and attendants, whose perceptions he was apt to quicken, after

the manner of his illustrious imitator, Peter the Great, by anointing

their shoulders with his walking-staff.

Though I cannot find that he had read Plato, or Aristotle, or Hobbes, or

Bacon, or Algernon Sydney, or Tom Paine, yet did he sometimes manifest a

shrewdness and sagacity in his measures, that one would hardly expect

from a man who did not know Greek, and had never studied the ancients.

True it is, and I confess it with sorrow, that he had an unreasonable

aversion to experiments, and was fond of governing his province after

the simplest manner; but then he contrived to keep it in better order

than did the erudite Kieft, though he had all the philosophers, ancient

and modern, to assist and perplex him. I must likewise own that he made

but very few laws; but then, again, he took care that those few were

rigidly and impartially enforced; and I do not know but justice, on the

whole, was as well administered as if there had been volumes of sage

acts and statutes yearly made, and daily neglected and forgotten.

He was, in fact, the very reverse of his predecessors, being neither

tranquil and inert, like Walter the Doubter, nor restless and fidgeting,

like William the Testy,—but a man, or rather a governor, of such

uncommon activity and decision of mind, that he never sought nor

accepted the advice of others,—depending bravely upon his single head,

as would a hero of yore upon his single arm, to carry him through all

difficulties and dangers. To tell the simple truth, he wanted nothing

more to complete him as a statesman than to think always right; for no

one can say but that he always acted as he thought. He was never a man

to flinch when he found himself in a scrape, but to dash forward through

thick and thin, trusting, by hook or by crook, to make all things

straight in the end. In a word, he possessed, in an eminent degree, that

great quality in a statesman, called perseverance by the polite, but

nicknamed obstinacy by the vulgar,—a wonderful salve for official

blunders, since he who perseveres in error without flinching gets the

credit of boldness and consistency, while he who wavers in seeking to do

what is right gets stigmatized as a trimmer. This much is certain; and

it is a maxim well worthy the attention of all legislators, great and

small, who stand shaking in the wind, irresolute which way to steer,

that a ruler who follows his own will pleases himself, while he who

seeks to satisfy the wishes and whims of others runs great risk of

pleasing nobody. There is nothing, too, like putting down one’s foot

resolutely when in doubt, and letting things take their course. The

clock that stands still points right twice in the four-and-twenty hours,

while others may keep going continually and be continually going wrong.

Nor did this magnanimous quality escape the discernment of the good

people of Nieuw Nederlandts; on the contrary, so much were they struck

with the independent will and vigorous resolution displayed on all

occasions by their new governor, that they universally called him

Hard-Kopping Piet, or Peter the Headstrong,—a great compliment to the

strength of his understanding.

[Illustration: A vintage pen-and-ink drawing of a wall-mounted cuckoo

clock with Roman numerals, decorative scrollwork, and three long hanging

weights.]

If, from all that I have said, thou dost not gather, worthy reader, that

Peter Stuyvesant was a tough, sturdy, valiant, weather-beaten,

mettlesome, obstinate, leathern-sided, lion-hearted, generous-spirited

old governor, either I have written to but little purpose, or thou art

very dull at drawing conclusions.

The most excellent governor commenced his administration on the 29th of

May, 1647,—a remarkably stormy day, distinguished in all the almanacs of

the time which have come down to us by the name of _Windy Friday_. As he

was very jealous of his personal and official dignity, he was

inaugurated into office with great ceremony,—the goodly oaken chair of

the renowned Wouter Van Twiller being carefully preserved for such

occasions, in like manner as the chair and stone were reverentially

preserved at Schone, in Scotland, for the coronation of the Caledonian

monarchs.

I must not omit to mention that the tempestuous state of the elements,

together with its being that unlucky day of the week termed

“hanging-day,” did not fail to excite much grave speculation and divers

very reasonable apprehensions among the more ancient and enlightened

inhabitants; and several of the sager sex, who were reputed to be not a

little skilled in the mystery of astrology and fortune-telling, did

declare outright that they were omens of a disastrous administration;—an

event that came to be lamentably verified, and which proves beyond

dispute the wisdom of attending to those preternatural intimations

furnished by dreams and visions, the flying of birds, falling of stones,

and cackling of geese, on which the sages and rulers of ancient times

placed such reliance; or to those shooting of stars, eclipses of the

moon, howlings of dogs, and flarings of candles, carefully noted and

interpreted by the oracular sibyls of our day,—who, in my humble

opinion, are the legitimate inheritors and preservers of the ancient

science of divination. This much is certain, that Governor Stuyvesant

succeeded to the chair of state at a turbulent period; when foes

thronged and threatened from without; when anarchy and stiff-necked

opposition reigned rampant within; when the authority of their High

Mightinesses the Lords States-General, though supported by economy and

defended by speeches, protests, and proclamations, yet tottered to its

very centre; and when the great city of New Amsterdam, though fortified

by flagstaffs, trumpeters, and wind-mills, seemed, like some fair lady

of easy virtue, to lie open to attack, and ready to yield to the first

invader.

[Illustration: A vintage pen-and-ink drawing of a traditional tower

windmill with four large sails, standing on a small grassy mound.]

=Chapter II.=

SHOWING HOW PETER THE HEADSTRONG BESTIRRED HIMSELF AMONG THE RATS AND

COBWEBS ON ENTERING INTO OFFICE—HIS INTERVIEW WITH ANTONY THE TRUMPETER,

AND HIS PERILOUS MEDDLING WITH THE CURRENCY.

The very first movements of the great Peter, on taking the reins of

government, displayed his magnanimity, though they occasioned not a

little marvel and uneasiness among the people of the Manhattoes. Finding

himself constantly interrupted by the opposition, and annoyed by the

advice of his privy council, the members of which had acquired the

unreasonable habit of thinking and speaking for themselves during the

preceding reign, he determined at once to put a stop to such grievous

abominations. Scarcely, therefore, had he entered upon his authority,

than he turned out of office all the meddlesome spirits of the factious

cabinet of William the Testy; in place of whom he chose unto himself

counsellors from those fat, somniferous, respectable burghers who had

flourished and slumbered under the easy reign of Walter the Doubter. All

these he caused to be furnished with abundance of fair long pipes, and

to be regaled with frequent corporation dinners, admonishing them to

smoke, and eat, and sleep for the good of the nation, while he took the

burden of government upon his own shoulders—an arrangement to which they

all gave hearty acquiescence.

Nor did he stop here, but made a hideous rout among the inventions and

expedients of his learned predecessor,—rooting up his patent gallows,

where caitiff vagabonds were suspended by the waistband,—demolishing his

flagstaffs and wind-mills, which, like mighty giants, guarded the

ramparts of New Amsterdam,—pitching to the duyvel whole batteries of

quaker guns,—and, in a word, turning topsy-turvy the whole philosophic,

economic, and wind-mill system of the immortal sage of Saardam.

The honest folk of New Amsterdam began to quake now for the fate of

their matchless champion, Antony the Trumpeter, who had acquired

prodigious favor in the eyes of the women, by means of his whiskers and

his trumpet. Him did Peter the Headstrong cause to be brought into his

presence, and eying him a moment from head to foot, with a countenance

that would have appalled anything else than a sounder of

brass,—“Pr’ythee, who and what art thou?” said he. “Sire,” replied the

other, in no wise dismayed, “for my name, it is Antony Van Corlear; for

my parentage, I am the son of my mother; for my profession, I am

champion and garrison of this great city of New Amsterdam.” “I doubt me

much,” said Peter Stuyvesant, “that thou art some scurvy costard-monger

knave. How didst thou acquire this paramount honor and dignity?” “Marry,

sir,” replied the other, “like many a great man before me, simply _by

sounding my own trumpet_.” “Ay, is it so?” quoth the governor; “why,

then let us have a relish of thy art.” Whereupon the good Antony put his

instrument to his lips, and sounded a charge with such a tremendous

outset, such a delectable quaver, and such a triumphant cadence, that it

was enough to make one’s heart leap out of one’s mouth only to be within

a mile of it. Like as a war-worn charger, grazing in peaceful plains,

starts at a strain of martial music, pricks up his ears, and snorts, and

paws, and kindles at the noise, so did the heroic Peter joy to hear the

clangor of the trumpet; for of him might truly be said, what was

recorded of the renowned St. George of England, “there was nothing in

all the world that more rejoiced his heart than to hear the pleasant

sound of war, and see the soldiers brandish forth their steeled

weapons.” Casting his eye more kindly, therefore, upon the sturdy Van

Corlear, and finding him to be a jovial varlet, shrewd in his discourse,

yet of great discretion and immeasurable wind, he straightway conceived

a vast kindness for him, and discharged him from the troublesome duty of

garrisoning, defending, and alarming the city, ever after retained him

about his person, as his chief favorite, confidential envoy, and trusty

squire. Instead of disturbing the city with disastrous notes, he was

instructed to play so as to delight the governor while at his repasts,

as did the minstrels of yore in the days of glorious chivalry,—and on

all public occasions to rejoice the ears of the people with warlike

melody,—thereby keeping alive a noble and martial spirit.

[Illustration:

“SO AS TO DELIGHT THE GOVERNOR WHILE AT HIS REPASTS.”

]

But the measure of the valiant Peter which produced the greatest

agitation in the community, was his laying his hand upon the currency.

He had old-fashioned notions in favor of gold and silver, which he

considered the true standards of wealth and mediums of commerce; and one

of his first edicts was, that all duties to government should be paid in

those precious metals, and that seawant, or wampum, should no longer be

a legal tender.

Here was a blow at public prosperity! All those who speculated on the

rise and fall of this fluctuating currency, found their calling at an

end; those, too, who had hoarded Indian money by barrels-full, found

their capital shrunk in amount; but, above all, the Yankee traders, who

were accustomed to flood the market with newly coined oyster-shells, and

to abstract Dutch merchandise in exchange, were loud-mouthed in decrying

this “tampering with the currency.” It was clipping the wings of

commerce; it was checking the development of public prosperity; trade

would be at an end; goods would moulder on the shelves; grain would rot

in the granaries; grass would grow in the market-place. In a word, no

one who has not heard the outcries and howlings of a modern Tarshish, at

any check upon “paper-money,” can have any idea of the clamor against

Peter the Headstrong, for checking the circulation of oyster-shells.

In fact, trade did shrink into narrower channels; but then the stream

was deep as it was broad; the honest Dutchmen sold less goods; but then

they got the worth of them, either in silver and gold, or in codfish,

tin ware, apple-brandy, Weathersfield onions, wooden bowls, and other

articles of Yankee barter. The ingenious people of the east, however,

indemnified themselves another way for having to abandon the coinage of

oyster-shells; for about this time we are told that wooden nutmegs made

their first appearance in New Amsterdam, to the great annoyance of the

Dutch housewives.

NOTE.

_From a manuscript record of the province; Lib. N. Y. His.

Society._—We have been unable to render your inhabitants wiser and

prevent their being further imposed upon than to declare absolutely

and peremptorily that henceforward seawant shall be bullion,—not

longer admissible in trade, without any value, as it is indeed. So

that every one may be upon his guard to no longer barter away his

wares and merchandises for these bubbles,—at least not to accept them

at a higher rate, or in a larger quantity, than as they may want them

in their trade with the savages.

In this way your English [Yankee] neighbors shall no longer be enabled

to draw the best wares and merchandises from our country for

nothing,—the beavers and furs not excepted. This has indeed long since

been insufferable, although it ought chiefly to be imputed to the

imprudent penuriousness of our own merchants and inhabitants, who, it

is to be hoped, shall through the abolition of this seawant become

wiser and more prudent.

_27th January, 1662._

Seawant falls into disrepute; duties to be paid in silver coin.

[Illustration: A vintage pen-and-ink drawing of a rugged man in a

buckled hat carrying a musket over his shoulder, with pouches hanging

from his neck and one hand outstretched.]

=Chapter III.=

HOW THE YANKEE LEAGUE WAXED MORE AND MORE POTENT; AND HOW IT OUTWITTED

THE GOOD PETER IN TREATY-MAKING.

Now it came to pass, that, while Peter Stuyvesant was busy regulating

the internal affairs of his domain, the great Yankee league, which had

caused such tribulation to William the Testy, continued to increase in

extent and power. The grand Amphictyonic council of the league was held

at Boston, where it spun a web, which threatened to link within it all

the mighty principalities and powers of the east. The object proposed by

this formidable combination was, mutual protection and defence against

their savage neighbors; but all the world knows the real aim was to form

a grand crusade against the Nieuw Nederlandts, and to get possession of

the city of the Manhattoes,—as devout an object of enterprise and

ambition to the Yankees as was ever the capture of Jerusalem to ancient

crusaders.

In the very year following the inauguration of Governor Stuyvesant, a

grand deputation departed from the city of Providence (famous for its

dusty streets and beauteous women) in behalf of the plantation of Rhode

Island, praying to be admitted into the league.

The following minute of this deputation appears in the ancient records

of the council.[5]

“Mr. Will. Cottington and Captain Partridg of Rhoode Island presented

this insewing request to the commissioners in wrighting—

“Our request and motion is in behalfe of Rhoode Iland, that wee the

Ilanders of Rhoode-Iland may be rescauied into combination with all the

united colonyes of New England in a firme and perpetual league of

friendship and amity of ofence and defence, mutuall advice and succor

upon all just occasions for our mutuall safety and wellfaire, etc.

“WILL COTTINGTON,

“ALICXSANDER PARTRIDG.”

There was certainly something in the very physiognomy of this document

that might well inspire apprehension. The name of Alexander, however

misspelt, has been warlike in every age; and though its fierceness is in

some measure softened by being coupled with the gentle cognomen of

Partridge, still, like the color of scarlet, it bears an exceeding great

resemblance to the sound of a trumpet. From the style of the letter,

moreover, and the soldier-like ignorance of orthography displayed by the

noble Captain Alicxsander Partridg in spelling his own name, we may

picture to ourselves this mighty man of Rhodes, strong in arms, potent

in the field, and as great a scholar as though he had been educated

among that learned people of Thrace, who, Aristotle assures us, could

not count beyond the number four.

The result of this great Yankee league was augmented audacity on the

part of the moss-troopers of Connecticut,—pushing their encroachments

farther and farther into the territories of their High Mightinesses, so

that even the inhabitants of New Amsterdam began to draw short breath

and to find themselves exceedingly cramped for elbow-room.

Peter Stuyvesant was not a man to submit quietly to such intrusions; his

first impulse was to march at once to the frontier and kick these

squatting Yankees out of the country; but, bethinking himself in time

that he was now a governor and legislator, the policy of the statesman

for once cooled the fire of the old soldier, and he determined to try

his hand at negotiation. A correspondence accordingly ensued between him

and the grand council of the league; and it was agreed that

commissioners from either side should meet at Hartford, to settle

boundaries, adjust grievances, and establish a “perpetual and happy

peace.”

The commissioners on the part of the Manhattoes were chosen, according

to immemorial usage of that venerable metropolis, from among the “wisest

and weightiest” men of the community, that is to say, men with the

oldest heads and heaviest pockets. Among these sages the veteran

navigator, Hans Reinier Oothout, who had made such extensive discoveries

during the time of Oloffe the Dreamer, was looked up to as an oracle in

all matters of the kind; and he was ready to produce the very spy-glass

with which he first spied the mouth of the Connecticut River from his

mast-head; and all the world knows the discovery of the mouth of a river

gives prior right to all the lands drained by its waters.

It was with feelings of pride and exultation that the good people of the

Manhattoes saw two of the richest and most ponderous burghers departing

on the embassy,—men whose word on ’change was oracular, and in whose

presence no poor man ventured to appear without taking off his hat: when

it was seen, too, that the veteran Reinier Oothout accompanied them with

his spy-glass under his arm, all the old men and old women predicted

that men of such weight, with such evidence, would leave the Yankees no

alternative but to pack up their tin kettles and wooden wares, put wife

and children in a cart, and abandon all the lands of their High

Mightinesses, on which they had squatted.

In truth, the commissioners sent to Hartford by the league seemed in no

wise calculated to compete with men of such capacity. They were two lean

Yankee lawyers, litigious-looking varlets, and evidently men of no

substance, since they had no rotundity in the belt, and there was no

jingling of money in their pockets; it is true, they had longer heads

than the Dutchmen; but if the heads of the latter were flat at top, they

were broad at bottom, and what was wanting in height of forehead was

made up by a double chin.

[Illustration:

“A NANTUCKET WHALER, WITH A SPY-GLASS TWICE AS LONG!”

]

The negotiation turned as usual upon the good old corner-stone of

original discovery,—according to the principle that he who first sees a

new country has an unquestionable right to it. This being admitted, the

veteran Oothout, at a concerted signal, stepped forth in the assembly

with the identical tarpauling spy-glass in his hand, with which he had

discovered the mouth of the Connecticut, while the worthy Dutch

commissioners lolled back in their chairs, secretly chuckling at the

idea of having for once got the weather-gage of the Yankees; but what

was their dismay when the latter produced a Nantucket whaler with a

spy-glass twice as long, with which he discovered the whole coast, quite

down to the Manhattoes, and so crooked, that he had spied with it up the

whole course of the Connecticut River. This principle pushed home,

therefore, the Yankees had a right to the whole country bordering on the

Sound; nay, the city of New Amsterdam was a mere Dutch squatting-place

on their territories.

I forbear to dwell upon the confusion of the worthy Dutch commissioners

at finding their main pillar of proof thus knocked from under them;

neither will I pretend to describe the consternation of the wise men at

the Manhattoes when they learned how their commissioners had been

out-trumped by the Yankees, and how the latter pretended to claim to the

very gates of New Amsterdam.

Long was the negotiation protracted, and long was the public mind kept

in a state of anxiety. There are two modes of settling boundary

questions when the claims of the opposite are irreconcilable. One is by

an appeal to arms, in which case the weakest party is apt to lose its

right, and get a broken head into the bargain; the other mode is by

compromise, or mutual concession,—that is to say, one party cedes half

of its claims, and the other party half of its rights; he who grasps

most gets most, and the whole is pronounced an equitable division,

“perfectly honorable to both parties.”

[Illustration:

“THE OLD WOMEN REJOICED THAT THERE WAS TO BE NO WAR.”

]

The latter mode was adopted in the present instance. The Yankees gave up

claims to vast tracts of the Nieuw Nederlandts which they had never

seen, and all right to the land of Manna-hata and the city of New

Amsterdam, to which they had no right at all; while the Dutch, in

return, agreed that the Yankees should retain possession of the frontier

places where they had squatted, and of both sides of the Connecticut

River.

When the news of this treaty arrived at New Amsterdam, the whole city

was in an uproar of exultation. The old women rejoiced that there was to

be no war, the old men that their cabbage-gardens were safe from

invasion; while the political sages pronounced the treaty a great

triumph over the Yankees, considering how much they had claimed, and how

little they had been “fobbed off with.”

And now my worthy reader is, doubtless, like the great and good Peter,

congratulating himself with the idea that his feelings will no longer be

harassed by afflicting details of stolen horses, broken heads, impounded

hogs, and all the other catalogue of heart-rending cruelties that

disgraced these border wars. But if he should indulge in such

expectations, it is a proof that he is but little versed in the

paradoxical ways of cabinets; to convince him of which, I solicit his

serious attention to my next chapter, wherein I will show that Peter

Stuyvesant has already committed a great error in politics, and, by

effecting a peace, has materially hazarded the tranquillity of the

province.

=Chapter IV.=

CONTAINING DIVERS SPECULATIONS ON WAR AND NEGOTIATIONS—SHOWING THAT A

TREATY OF PEACE IS A GREAT NATIONAL EVIL.

It was the opinion of that poetical philosopher, Lucretius, that war was

the original state of man, whom he described as being primitively a

savage beast of prey, engaged in a constant state of hostility with his

own species, and that this ferocious spirit was tamed and ameliorated by

society. The same opinion has been advocated by Hobbes,[6] nor have

there been wanting many other philosophers to admit and defend.

For my part, though prodigiously fond of these valuable speculations, so

complimentary to human nature, yet, in this instance, I am inclined to

take the proposition by halves, believing with Horace,[7] that, though

war may have been originally the favorite amusement and industrious

employment of our progenitors, yet, like many other excellent habits, so

far from being ameliorated, it has been cultivated and confirmed by

refinement and civilization, and increases in exact proportion as we

approach towards that state of perfection which is the _ne plus ultra_

of modern philosophy.

The first conflict between man and man was the mere exertion of physical

force, unaided by auxiliary weapons; his arm was his buckler, his fist

was his mace, and a broken head the catastrophe of his encounters. The

battle of unassisted strength was succeeded by the more rugged one of

stones and clubs, and war assumed a sanguinary aspect. As man advanced

in refinement, as his faculties expanded, and as his sensibilities

became more exquisite, he grew rapidly more ingenious and experienced in

the art of murdering his fellow-beings. He invented a thousand devices

to defend and to assault: the helmet, the cuirass, and the buckler, the

sword, the dart, and the javelin, prepared him to elude the wound as

well as to launch the blow. Still urging on, in the career of

philanthropic invention, he enlarges and heightens his powers of defence

and injury:—The Aries, the Scorpio, the Balista, and the Catapulta, give

a horror and sublimity to war, and magnify its glory, by increasing its

desolation. Still insatiable, though armed with machinery that seemed to

reach the limits of destructive invention, and to yield a power of

injury commensurate even with the desires of revenge,—still deeper

researches must be made in the diabolical arcana. With furious zeal he

dives into the bowels of the earth; he toils midst poisonous minerals

and deadly salts,—the sublime discovery of gun-powder blazes upon the

world—and finally the dreadful art of fighting by proclamation seems to

endow the demon of war with ubiquity and omnipotence!

This, indeed, is grand!—this, indeed, marks the powers of mind, and

bespeaks that divine endowment of reason, which distinguishes us from

the animals, our inferiors. The unenlightened brutes content themselves

with the native force which Providence has assigned them. The angry bull

butts with his horns, as did his progenitors before him; the lion, the

leopard, and the tiger seek only with their talons and their fangs to

gratify their sanguinary fury; and even the subtle serpent darts the

same venom, and uses the same wiles, as did his sire before the flood.

Man alone, blessed with the inventive mind, goes on from discovery to

discovery,—enlarges and multiplies his powers of destruction, arrogates

the tremendous weapons of Deity itself, and tasks creation to assist him

in murdering his brother-worm!

[Illustration:

“THE ANGRY BULL BUTTS WITH HIS HORNS.”

]

In proportion as the art of war has increased in improvement has the art

of preserving peace advanced in equal ratio; and as we have discovered,

in this age of wonders and inventions, that proclamation is the most

formidable engine in war, so have we discovered the no less ingenious

mode of maintaining peace by perpetual negotiations.

A treaty, or, to speak more correctly, a negotiation, therefore,

according to the acceptation of experienced statesmen, learned in these

matters, is no longer an attempt to accommodate differences, to

ascertain rights, and to establish an equitable exchange of kind

offices, but a contest of skill between two powers, which shall

overreach and take in the other. It is a cunning endeavor to obtain by

peaceful manœuvre, and the chicanery of cabinets, those advantages which

a nation would otherwise have wrested by force of arms,—in the same

manner as a conscientious highwayman reforms and becomes a quiet and

praiseworthy citizen, contenting himself with cheating his neighbor out

of that property he would formerly have seized with open violence.

In fact, the only time when two nations can be said to be in a state of

perfect amity is, when a negotiation is open, and a treaty pending.

Then, when there are no stipulations entered into, no bonds to restrain

the will, no specific limits to awaken the captious jealousy of right

implanted in our nature, when each party has some advantage to hope and

expect from the other, then it is that the two nations are wonderfully

gracious and friendly,—their ministers professing the highest mutual

regard, exchanging _billet-doux_, making fine speeches, and indulging in

all those little diplomatic flirtations, coquetries, and fondlings, that

do so marvellously tickle the good-humor of the respective nations. Thus

it may paradoxically be said, that there is never so good an

understanding between two nations as when there is a little

misunderstanding,—and that so long as they are on no terms at all, they

are on the best terms in the world!

[Illustration:

TWO AMBASSADORS.

]

I do not by any means pretend to claim the merit of having made the

above discovery. It has, in fact, long been secretly acted upon by

certain enlightened cabinets, and is, together with divers other notable

theories, privately copied out of the commonplace book of an illustrious

gentleman, who has been member of congress, and enjoyed the unlimited

confidence of heads of departments. To this principle may be ascribed

the wonderful ingenuity shown of late years in protracting and

interrupting negotiations. Hence the cunning measure of appointing as

ambassador some political pettifogger skilled in delays, sophisms, and

misapprehensions, and dexterous in the art of baffling argument,—or some

blundering statesman, whose errors and misconstructions may be a plea

for refusing to ratify his engagements. And hence, too, that most

notable expedient, so popular with our government, of sending out a

brace of ambassadors,—between whom, having each an individual will to

consult, character to establish, and interest to promote, you may as

well look for unanimity and concord as between two lovers with one

mistress, two dogs with one bone, or two naked rogues with one pair of

breeches. This disagreement, therefore, is continually breeding delays

and impediments, in consequence of which the negotiation goes on

swimmingly—inasmuch as there is no prospect of its ever coming to a

close. Nothing is lost by these delays and obstacles but time; and in a

negotiation, according to the theory I have exposed, all time lost is in

reality so much time gained:—with what delightful paradoxes does modern

political economy abound!

Now all that I have here advanced is so notoriously true, that I almost

blush to take up the time of my readers with treating of matters which

must many a time have stared them in the face. But the proposition to

which I would most earnestly call their attention is this, that, though

a negotiation be the most harmonizing of all national transactions, yet

a treaty of peace is a great political evil, and one of the most

fruitful sources of war.

I have rarely seen an instance of any special contract between

individuals that did not produce jealousies, bickerings, and often

downright ruptures between them; nor did I ever know of a treaty between

two nations that did not occasion continual misunderstandings. How many

worthy country neighbors have I known, who, after living in peace and

good-fellowship for years, have been thrown into a state of distrust,

cavilling, and animosity, by some ill-starred agreement about fences,

runs of water, and stray cattle! And how many well-meaning nations, who

would otherwise have remained in the most amicable disposition towards

each other, have been brought to swords’ points about the infringement

or misconstruction of some treaty, which in an evil hour they had

concluded, by way of making their amity more sure!

Treaties at best are but complied with so long as interest requires

their fulfilment; consequently, they are virtually binding on the weaker

party only, or, in plain truth, they are not binding at all. No nation

will wantonly go to war with another if it has nothing to gain thereby,

and therefore needs no treaty to restrain it from violence; and if it

have anything to gain, I much question, from what I have witnessed of

the righteous conduct of nations, whether any treaty could be made so

strong that it could not thrust the sword through—nay, I would hold ten

to one, the treaty itself would be the very source to which resort would

be had to find a pretext for hostilities.

Thus, therefore, I conclude,—that, though it is the best of all policies

for a nation to keep up a constant negotiation with its neighbors, yet

it is the summit of folly for it ever to be beguiled into a treaty; for

then comes on nonfulfilment and infraction, then remonstrance, then

altercation, then retaliation, then recrimination, and finally open war.

In a word, negotiation is like courtship, a time of sweet words, gallant

speeches, soft looks, and endearing caresses,—but the marriage ceremony

is the signal for hostilities.

[Illustration:

“SNIVELLING SCOURINGS, BROILS, AND MARAUDINGS, KEPT UP ON THE EASTERN

FRONTIERS.”

]

If my painstaking reader be not somewhat perplexed by the ratiocination

of the foregoing passage, he will perceive, at a glance, that the Great

Peter, in concluding a treaty with his eastern neighbors, was guilty of

lamentable error in policy. In fact, to this unlucky agreement may be

traced a world of bickerings and heart-burnings, between the parties,

about fancied or pretended infringements of treaty-stipulations; in all

which the Yankees were prone to indemnify themselves by a “dig into the

sides” of the New Netherlands. But, in sooth, these border feuds, albeit

they gave great annoyance to the good burghers of Manna-hata, were so

pitiful in their nature, that a grave historian like myself, who grudges

the time spent in anything less than the revolutions of states and fall

of empires, would deem them unworthy of being inscribed on his page. The

reader is, therefore, to take it for granted, though I scorn to waste,

in the detail, that time which my furrowed brow and trembling hand

inform me is invaluable, that all the while the Great Peter was occupied

in those tremendous and bloody contests which I shall shortly rehearse;

there was a continued series of little, dirty, snivelling scourings,

broils, and maraudings kept up on the eastern frontiers by the

moss-troopers of Connecticut. But, like that mirror of chivalry, the

sage and valorous Don Quixote, I leave these petty contests for some

future Sancho Panza of an historian, while I reserve my prowess and my

pen for achievements of higher dignity; for at this moment I hear a

direful and portentous note issuing from the bosom of the great council

of the league, and resounding throughout the regions of the east,

menacing the fame and fortunes of Peter Stuyvesant. I call, therefore,

upon the reader to leave behind him all the paltry brawls of the

Connecticut borders, and to press forward with me to the relief of our

favorite hero, who, I foresee, will be woefully beset by the implacable

Yankees in the next chapter.

=Chapter V.=

HOW PETER STUYVESANT WAS GRIEVOUSLY BELIED BY THE GREAT COUNCIL OF THE

LEAGUE; AND HOW HE SENT ANTONY THE TRUMPETER TO TAKE TO THE COUNCIL A

PIECE OF HIS MIND.

That the reader may be aware of the peril at this moment menacing Peter

Stuyvesant and his capital, I must remind him of the old charge advanced

in the council of the league in the time of William the Testy, that the

Nederlanders were carrying on a trade “damnable and injurious to the

colonists,” in furnishing the savages with “guns, powther, and shott.”

This, as I then suggested, was a crafty device of the Yankee confederacy

to have a snug cause of war _in petto_, in case any favorable

opportunity should present of attempting the conquest of the New

Nederlands: the great object of Yankee ambition.

Accordingly we now find, when every other ground of complaint had

apparently been removed by treaty, this nefarious charge revived with

tenfold virulence, and hurled like a thunderbolt at the very head of

Peter Stuyvesant; happily his head, like that of the great bull of the

Wabash, was proof against such missiles.

To be explicit, we are told that, in the year 1651, the great

confederacy of the east accused the immaculate Peter, the soul of honor

and heart of steel, of secretly endeavoring, by gifts and promises, to

instigate the Narroheganset, Mohaque, and Pequot Indians, to surprise

and massacre the Yankee settlements. “For,” as the grand council

observed, “the Indians round about for divers hundred miles cercute

seeme to have drunk deepe of an intoxicating cupp, att or from the

Manhattoes against the English, whoe have sought their good, both in

bodily and spirituall respects.”

This charge they pretended to support by the evidence of divers Indians,

who were probably moved by that spirit of truth which is said to reside

in the bottle, and who swore to the fact as sturdily as though they had

been so many Christian troopers.

[Illustration:

MY GREAT-GRANDFATHER WAS INJURED.

]

Though descended from a family which suffered much injury from the losel

Yankees of those times, my great-grandfather having had a yoke of oxen

and his best pacer stolen, and having received a pair of black eyes and

a bloody nose in one of these border wars, and my grandfather, when a

very little boy tending pigs, having been kidnapped and severely flogged

by a long-sided Connecticut schoolmaster,—yet I should have passed over

all these wrongs with forgiveness and oblivion,—I could even have

suffered them to have broken Everet Ducking’s head,—to have kicked the

doughty Jacobus Van Curlet and his ragged regiment out of doors,—to have

carried every hog into captivity, and depopulated every hen-roost on the

face of the earth with perfect impunity,—but this wanton attack upon one

of the most gallant and irreproachable heroes of modern times is too

much even for me to digest, and has overset, with a single puff, the

patience of the historian, and the forbearance of the Dutchman.

Oh, reader, it was false! I swear to thee, it was false!—if thou hast

any respect to my word,—if the undeviating character for veracity, which

I have endeavored to maintain throughout this work, has its due weight

upon thee, thou wilt not give thy faith to this tale of slander; for I

pledge my honor and my immortal fame to thee, that the gallant Peter

Stuyvesant was not only innocent of this foul conspiracy, but would have

suffered his right arm or even his wooden leg to consume with slow and

everlasting flames, rather than attempt to destroy his enemies in any

other way than open, generous warfare;—beshrew those caitiff scouts,

that conspired to sully his honest name by such an imputation!

Peter Stuyvesant, though haply he may never have heard of a

knight-errant, had as true a heart of chivalry as ever beat at the round

table of King Arthur. In the honest bosom of this heroic Dutchman dwelt

the seven noble virtues of knighthood, flourishing among his hardy

qualities like wild flowers among rocks. He was, in truth, a hero of

chivalry struck off by nature at a single heat, and though little care

may have been taken to refine her workmanship, he stood forth a miracle

of her skill. In all his dealings he was headstrong perhaps, but open

and aboveboard; if there was anything in the whole world he most loathed

and despised, it was cunning and secret wile; “straight forward” was his

motto, and he would at any time rather run his hard head against a stone

wall than attempt to get round it.

Such was Peter Stuyvesant; and if my admiration of him has on this

occasion transported my style beyond the sober gravity which becomes the

philosophic recorder of historic events, I must plead as an apology,

that, though a little gray-headed Dutchman, arrived almost at the

down-hill of life, I still retain a lingering spark of that fire which

kindles in the eye of youth when contemplating the virtues of ancient

worthies. Blessed, thrice and nine times blessed be the good St.

Nicholas, if I have indeed escaped that apathy which chills the

sympathies of age and paralyzes every glow of enthusiasm.