The first measure of Peter Stuyvesant, on hearing of this slanderous

charge, would have been worthy of a man who had studied for years in the

chivalrous library of Don Quixote. Drawing his sword and laying it

across the table, to put him in proper tune, he took pen in hand and

indited a proud and lofty letter to the council of the league,

reproaching them with giving ear to the slanders of heathen savages

against a Christian, a soldier, and a cavalier; declaring, that, whoever

charged him with the plot in question, lied in his throat; to prove

which he offered to meet the president of the council or any of his

compeers, or their champion, Captain Alicxsander Partridg, that mighty

man of Rhodes, in single combat,—wherein he trusted to vindicate his

honor by the prowess of his arm.

This missive was intrusted to his trumpeter and squire, Antony Van

Corlear, that man of emergencies, with orders to travel night and day,

sparing neither whip nor spur, seeing that he carried the vindication of

his patron’s fame in his saddle-bags.

The loyal Antony accomplished his mission with great speed and

considerable loss of leather. He delivered his missive with becoming

ceremony, accompanying it with a flourish of defiance on his trumpet to

the whole council, ending with a significant and nasal twang full in the

face of Captain Partridg, who nearly jumped out of his skin in an

ecstasy of astonishment.

[Illustration:

“TWANGING HIS TRUMPET LIKE A VERY DEVIL.”

]

The grand council was composed of men too cool and practical to be put

readily into a heat, or to indulge in knight-errantry; and above all to

run a tilt with such a fiery hero as Peter the Headstrong. They knew the

advantage, however, to have always a snug, justifiable cause of war in

reserve with a neighbor, who had territories worth invading; so they

devised a reply to Peter Stuyvesant, calculated to keep up the “raw”

which they had established.

On receiving this answer, Antony Van Corlear remounted the Flanders mare

which he always rode, and trotted merrily back to the Manhattoes,

solacing himself by the way according to his wont; twanging his trumpet

like a very devil, so that the sweet valleys and banks of the

Connecticut resounded with the warlike melody; bringing all the folks to

the windows as he passed through Hartford and Pyquag, and Middletown,

and all the other border towns, ogling and winking at the women, and

making aërial wind-mills from the end of his nose at their husbands, and

stopping occasionally in the villages to eat pumpkin-pies, dance at

country frolics, and bundle with the Yankee lasses—whom he rejoiced

exceedingly with his soul-stirring instrument.

[Illustration: A vintage pen-and-ink drawing of an eccentric-looking

person with round glasses and a very tall, pointed hat, peeking over the

top of an open book.]

=Chapter VI.=

HOW PETER STUYVESANT DEMANDED A COURT OF HONOR—AND WHAT THE COURT OF

HONOR AWARDED TO HIM.

The reply of the grand council to Peter Stuyvesant was couched in the

coolest and most diplomatic language. They assured him that “his

confident denials of the barbarous plot alleged against him would weigh

little against the testimony of divers sober and respectable Indians”;

that “his guilt was proved to their perfect satisfaction,” so that they

must still require and seek due _satisfaction and security_; ending

with—“so we rest, sir—Yours in ways of righteousness.”

I forbear to say how the lion-hearted Peter roared and ramped at finding

himself more and more entangled in the meshes thus artfully drawn around

him by the knowing Yankees. Impatient, however, of suffering so gross an

aspersion to rest upon his honest name, he sent a second messenger to

the council, reiterating his denial of the treachery imputed to him, and

offering to submit his conduct to the scrutiny of a court of honor. His

offer was readily accepted; and now he looked forward with confidence to

an august tribunal to be assembled at the Manhattoes, formed of

high-minded cavaliers, peradventure governors and commanders of the

confederate plantations, when the matter might be investigated by his

peers, in a manner befitting his rank and dignity.

While he was awaiting the arrival of such high functionaries, behold,

one sunshiny afternoon there rode into the great gate of the Manhattoes

two lean, hungry-looking Yankees, mounted on Narragansett pacers, with

saddle-bags under their bottoms, and green satchels under their arms,

who looked marvellously like two pettifogging attorneys beating the hoof

from one county court to another in quest of lawsuits; and, in sooth,

though they may have passed under different names at the time, I have

reason to suspect they were the identical varlets who had negotiated the

worthy Dutch commissioners out of the Connecticut River.

[Illustration:

“THE KNOWING COMMISSIONERS WINKED TO EACH OTHER.”

]

It was a rule with these indefatigable missionaries never to let the

grass grow under their feet. Scarce had they, therefore, alighted at the

inn and deposited their saddle-bags, than they made their way to the

residence of the governor. They found him, according to custom, smoking

his afternoon pipe on the “stoop,” or bench at the porch of his house,

and announced themselves, at once, as commissioners sent by the grand

council of the east to investigate the truth of certain charges advanced

against him.

The good Peter took his pipe from his mouth, and gazed at them for a

moment in mute astonishment. By way of expediting business, they were

proceeding on the spot to put some preliminary questions,—asking him,

peradventure, whether he pleaded guilty or not guilty, considering him

something in the light of a culprit at the bar,—when they were brought

to a pause by seeing him lay down his pipe and begin to fumble with his

walking-staff. For a moment those present would not have given half a

crown for both the crowns of the commissioners; but Peter Stuyvesant

repressed his mighty wrath and stayed his hand; he scanned the varlets

from head to foot, satchels and all, with a look of ineffable scorn;

then strode into the house, slammed the door after him, and commanded

that they should never again be admitted to his presence.

The knowing commissioners winked to each other, and made a certificate

on the spot that the governor had refused to answer their

interrogatories or to submit to their examination. They then proceeded

to rummage about the city for two or three days, in quest of what they

called evidence, perplexing Indians and old women with their

cross-questioning until they had stuffed their satchels and saddle-bags

with all kinds of apocryphal tales, rumors, and calumnies; with these

they mounted their Narragansett pacers and travelled back to the grand

council; neither did the proud-hearted Peter trouble himself to hinder

their researches nor impede their departure; he was too mindful of their

sacred character as envoys; but I warrant me, had they played the same

tricks with William the Testy, he would have had them tucked up by the

waistband and treated to an aërial gambol on his patent gallows.

[Illustration: A vintage pen-and-ink drawing of a grumpy-looking man

with a goatee, wearing a tattered coat and a wide-brimmed hat with a

feather, holding a large wooden club with both hands.]

=Chapter VII.=

HOW “DRUM ECCLESIASTIC” WAS BEATEN THROUGHOUT CONNECTICUT FOR A CRUSADE

AGAINST THE NEW NETHERLANDS, AND HOW PETER STUYVESANT TOOK MEASURES TO

FORTIFY HIS CAPITAL.

The grand council of the east held a solemn meeting on the return of

their envoys. As no advocate appeared in behalf of Peter Stuyvesant,

everything went against him. His haughty refusal to submit to the

questioning of the commissioners was construed into a consciousness of

guilt. The contents of the satchels and saddle-bags were poured forth

before the council and appeared a mountain of evidence. A pale, bilious

orator took the floor, and declaimed for hours and in belligerent terms.

He was one of those furious zealots who blow the bellows of faction

until the whole furnace of politics is red-hot with sparks and cinders.

What was it to him if he should set the house on fire, so that he might

boil his pot by the blaze. He was from the borders of Connecticut; his

constituents lived by marauding their Dutch neighbors, and were the

greatest poachers in Christendom, excepting the Scotch border nobles.

His eloquence had its effect, and it was determined to set on foot an

expedition against the Nieuw Nederlandts.

It was necessary, however, to prepare the public mind for this measure.

Accordingly the arguments of the orator were echoed from the pulpit for

several succeeding Sundays, and a crusade was preached up against Peter

Stuyvesant and his devoted city.

This is the first we hear of the “drum ecclesiastic” beating up for

recruits in worldly warfare in our country. It has since been called

into frequent use. A cunning politician often lurks under the clerical

robe; things spiritual and things temporal are strangely jumbled

together, like drugs on an apothecary’s shelf; and instead of a peaceful

sermon, the simple seeker after righteousness has often a political

pamphlet thrust down his throat, labelled with a pious text from

Scripture.

And now nothing was talked of but an expedition against the Manhattoes.

It pleased the populace, who had a vehement prejudice against the Dutch,

considering them a vastly inferior race, who had sought the new world

for the lucre of gain, not the liberty of conscience; who were mere

heretics and infidels, inasmuch as they refused to believe in witches

and sea-serpents, and had faith in the virtues of horse-shoes nailed to

the door; ate pork without molasses; held pumpkins in contempt, and were

in perpetual breach of the eleventh commandment of all true Yankees,

“Thou shalt have codfish dinners on Saturdays.”

No sooner did Peter Stuyvesant get wind of the storm that was brewing in

the east than he set to work to prepare for it. He was not one of those

economical rulers, who postpone the expense of fortifying until the

enemy is at the door. There is nothing, he would say, that keeps off

enemies and crows more than the smell of gun-powder. He proceeded,

therefore, with all diligence, to put the province and its metropolis in

a posture of defence.

Among the remnants which remained from the days of William the Testy

were the militia laws,—by which the inhabitants were obliged to turn out

twice a year, with such military equipments as it pleased God,—and were

put under the command of tailors and man-milliners, who, though on

ordinary occasions they might have been the meekest, most pippinhearted

little men in the world, were very devils at parade, when they had

cocked hats on their heads and swords by their sides. Under the

instructions of these periodical warriors, the peaceful burghers of the

Manhattoes were schooled in iron war, and became so hardy in the process

of time, that they could march through sun and rain, from one end of the

town to the other, without flinching,—and so intrepid and adroit, that

they could face to the right, wheel to the left, and fire without

winking or blinking.

Peter Stuyvesant, like all old soldiers who have seen service and smelt

gun-powder, had no great respect for militia troops; however, he

determined to give them a trial, and accordingly called for a general

muster, inspection, and review. But, oh Mars and Bellona! what a

turning-out was here! Here came old Roelant Cuckaburt, with a short

blunderbuss on his shoulder, and a long horseman’s sword trailing by his

side; and Barent Dirkson, with something that looked like a copper

kettle turned upside down on his head, and a couple of old horse-pistols

in his belt; and Dirk Volkertson, with a long duck fowling-piece without

any ramrod; and a host more, armed higgledy-piggledy,—with swords,

hatchets, snickersnees, crowbars, broomsticks, and what not; the

officers distinguished from the rest by having their slouched hats

cocked up with pins, and surmounted with cock-tail feathers.

The sturdy Peter eyed this nondescript host with some such rueful aspect

as a man would eye the devil, and determined to give his feather-bed

soldiers a seasoning. He accordingly put them through their manual

exercise over and over again; trudged them backwards and forwards about

the streets of New Amsterdam until their short legs ached and their fat

sides sweated again; and finally encamped them in the evening on the

summit of a hill without the city, to give them a taste of camp-life,

intending the next day to renew the toils and perils of the field. But

so it came to pass that in the night there fell a great and heavy rain,

and melted away the army, so that in the morning, when Gaffer Phœbus

shed his first beams upon the camp, scarce a warrior remained except

Peter Stuyvesant and his trumpeter Van Corlear.

[Illustration:

THE MILITIA.

]

This awful desolation of a whole army would have appalled a commander of

less nerve; but it served to confirm Peter’s want of confidence in the

militia system, which he thenceforward used to call, in joke,—for he

sometimes indulged in a joke,—William the Testy’s broken reed. He now

took into his service a goodly number of burly, broad-shouldered,

broad-bottomed Dutchmen; whom he paid in good silver and gold, and of

whom he boasted, that, whether they could stand fire or not, they were

at least water-proof. He fortified the city, too, with pickets and

palisadoes, extending across the island from river to river, and, above

all, cast up mud batteries, or redoubts, on the point of the island

where it divided the beautiful bosom of the bay.

These latter redoubts, in process of time, came to be pleasantly overrun

by a carpet of grass and clover, and overshadowed by wide-spreading elms

and sycamores, among the branches of which the birds would build their

nests and rejoice the ear with their melodious notes. Under these trees,

too, the old burghers would smoke their afternoon pipe, contemplating

the golden sun as he sank in the west, an emblem of the tranquil end

toward which they were declining. Here, too, would the young men and

maidens of the town take their evening stroll, watching the silver

moonbeams as they trembled along the calm bosom of the bay, or lit up

the sail of some gliding bark, and peradventure interchanging the soft

vows of honest affection,—for to evening strolls in this favored spot

were traced most of the marriages in New Amsterdam.

[Illustration:

THE FORTIFICATIONS.

]

Such was the origin of that renowned promenade, THE BATTERY, which,

though ostensibly devoted to the stern purposes of war, has ever been

consecrated to the sweet delights of peace. The scene of many a gambol

in happy childhood,—of many a tender assignation in riper years, of many

a soothing walk in declining age,—the healthful resort of the feeble

invalid,—the Sunday refreshment of the dusty tradesman,—in fine, the

ornament and delight of New York, and the pride of the lovely island of

Manna-hata.

=Chapter VIII.=

HOW THE YANKEE CRUSADE AGAINST THE NEW NETHERLANDS WAS BAFFLED BY THE

SUDDEN OUTBREAK OF WITCHCRAFT AMONG THE PEOPLE OF THE EAST.

Having thus provided for the temporary security of New Amsterdam, and

guarded it against any sudden surprise, the gallant Peter took a hearty

pinch of snuff, and snapping his fingers, set the great council of

Amphictyons and their champion, the redoubtable Alicxsander Partridg, at

defiance. In the meantime the moss-troopers of Connecticut, the warriors

of New Haven and Hartford, and Pyquag, otherwise called Weathersfield,

famous for its onions and its witches, and of all the other

border-towns, were in a prodigious turmoil, furbishing up their rusty

weapons, shouting aloud for war, and anticipating easy conquests, and

glorious rummaging of the fat little Dutch villages.

In the midst of these warlike preparations, however, they received the

chilling news that the colony of Massachusetts refused to back them in

this righteous war. It seems that the gallant conduct of Peter

Stuyvesant, the generous warmth of his vindication, and the chivalrous

spirit of his defiance, though lost upon the grand council of the

league, had carried conviction to the general court of Massachusetts,

which nobly refused to believe him guilty of the villanous plot laid at

his door.[8]

The defection of so important a colony paralyzed the councils of the

league, some such dissension arose among its members as prevailed of

yore in the camp of the brawling warriors of Greece, and in the end the

crusade against the Manhattoes was abandoned.

It is said that the moss-troopers of Connecticut were sorely

disappointed; but well for them that their belligerent cravings were not

gratified: for by my faith, whatever might have been the ultimate result

of a conflict with all the powers of the east, in the interim the

stomachful heroes of Pyquag would have been choked with their own

onions, and all the border-towns of Connecticut would have had such a

scouring from the lion-hearted Peter and his robustious myrmidons, that

I warrant me they would not have had the stomach to squat on the land or

invade the hen-roost of a Nederlander for a century to come.

But it was not merely the refusal of Massachusetts to join in their

unholy crusade that confounded the councils of the league; for about

this time broke out in the New England provinces the awful plague of

witchcraft, which spread like pestilence through the land. Such a

howling abomination could not be suffered to remain long unnoticed; it

soon excited the fiery indignation of those guardians of the

commonwealth who whilom had evinced such active benevolence in the

conversion of Quakers and Anabaptists. The grand council of the league

publicly set their faces against the crime, and bloody laws were enacted

against all “solem conversing or compacting with the divil by way of

conjuracion or the like.”[9] Strict search, too, was made after witches,

who were easily detected by devil’s pinches,—by being able to weep but

three tears, and those out of the left eye,—and by having a most

suspicious predilection for black cats and broomsticks! What is

particularly worthy of admiration is, that this terrible art, which has

baffled the studies and researches of philosophers, astrologers,

theurgists, and other sages, was chiefly confined to the most ignorant,

decrepit, and ugly old women in the community, with scarce more brains

than the broomsticks they rode upon.

[Illustration:

“HAVING A MOST SUSPICIOUS PREDILECTION FOR BLACK CATS AND

BROOMSTICKS!”

]

When once an alarm is sounded, the public, who dearly love to be in a

panic, are always ready to keep it up. Raise but the cry of yellow

fever, and immediately every headache, indigestion, and overflowing of

the bile is pronounced the terrible epidemic; cry out mad dog, and every

unlucky cur in the street is in jeopardy: so in the present instance,

whoever was troubled with colic or lumbago was sure to be bewitched,—and

woe to any unlucky old woman living in the neighborhood!

It is incredible the number of offences that were detected, “for every

one of which,” says the reverend Cotton Mather, in that excellent work,

the _History of New England_, “we have such a sufficient evidence, that

no reasonable man in this whole country ever did question them; _and it

will be unreasonable to do it in any other_.”[10]

Indeed, that authentic and judicious historian John Josselyn, Gent.,

furnishes us with unquestionable facts on this subject. “There are

none,” observes he, “that beg in this country, but there be witches too

many,—bottle-bellied witches, and others, that produce many strange

apparitions, if you will believe report, of a shallop at sea manned with

women,—and of a ship and great red horse standing by the mainmast; the

ship being in a small cove to the eastward, vanished of a sudden,” etc.

The number of delinquents, however, and their magical devices, were not

more remarkable than their diabolical obstinacy. Though exhorted in the

most solemn, persuasive, and affectionate manner to confess themselves

guilty, and be burnt for the good of religion and the entertainment of

the public, yet did they most pertinaciously persist in asserting their

innocence. Such incredible obstinacy was in itself deserving of

immediate punishment, and was sufficient proof, if proof were necessary,

that they were in league with the devil, who is perverseness itself. But

their judges were just and merciful, and were determined to punish none

that were not convicted on the best of testimony; not that they needed

any evidence to satisfy their own minds,—for, like true and experienced

judges, their minds were perfectly made up, and they were thoroughly

satisfied of the guilt of the prisoners before they proceeded to try

them,—but still something was necessary to convince the community at

large,—to quiet those prying quidnuncs who should come after them,—in

short, the world must be satisfied. Oh, the world—the world!—all the

world knows the world of trouble the world is eternally occasioning! The

worthy judges therefore, were driven to the necessity of sifting,

detecting, and making evident as noonday, matters which were at the

commencement all clearly understood and firmly decided upon in their own

pericraniums,—so that it may truly be said, that the witches were burnt

to gratify the populace of the day, but were tried for the satisfaction

of the whole world that should come after them!

[Illustration:

“THE WORTHY JUDGES.”

]

Finding, therefore, that neither exhortation, sound reason, nor friendly

entreaty had any avail on these hardened offenders, they resorted to the

more urgent arguments of torture; and having thus absolutely wrung the

truth from their stubborn lips, they condemned them to undergo the

roasting due unto the heinous crimes they had confessed. Some even

carried their perverseness so far as to expire under the torture,

protesting their innocence to the last; but these were looked upon as

thoroughly and absolutely possessed by the devil; and the pious

by-standers only lamented that they had not lived a little longer, to

have perished in the flames.

In the city of Ephesus, we are told that the plague was expelled by

stoning a ragged old beggar to death, whom Apollonius pointed out as

being the evil spirit that caused it, and who actually showed himself to

be a demon, by changing into a shagged dog. In like manner, and by

measures equally sagacious, a salutary check was given to this growing

evil. The witches were all burnt, banished, or panic-struck, and in a

little while there was not an ugly old woman to be found throughout New

England,—which is doubtless one reason why all the young women there are

so handsome. Those honest folk who had suffered from their incantations

gradually recovered, excepting such as had been afflicted with twitches

and aches, which, however, assumed the less alarming aspects of

rheumatisms, sciatics, and lumbagos; and the good people of New England,

abandoning the study of the occult sciences, turned their attention to

the more profitable hocus-pocus of trade, and soon became expert in the

legerdemain art of turning a penny. Still, however, a tinge of the old

leaven is discernible, even unto this day, in their characters: witches

occasionally start up among them in different disguises, as physicians,

civilians, and divines. The people at large show a keenness, a

cleverness, and a profundity of wisdom, that savors strongly of

witchcraft; and it has been remarked, that, whenever any stones fall

from the moon, the greater part of them is sure to tumble into New

England!

[Illustration: A vintage pen-and-ink drawing of a woman kneeling on the

ground holding a small bowl, with a young child standing close beside

her.]

=Chapter IX.=

WHICH RECORDS THE RISE AND RENOWN OF A MILITARY COMMANDER, SHOWING THAT

A MAN, LIKE A BLADDER, MAY BE PUFFED UP TO GREATNESS BY MERE WIND;

TOGETHER WITH THE CATASTROPHE OF A VETERAN AND HIS QUEUE.

When treating of these tempestuous times, the unknown writer of the

Stuyvesant manuscript breaks out into an apostrophe in praise of the

good St. Nicholas, to whose protecting care he ascribes the dissensions

which broke out in the council of the league, and the direful witchcraft

which filled all Yankee-land as with Egyptian darkness.

A portentous gloom, says he, hung lowering over the fair valleys of the

east: the pleasant banks of the Connecticut no longer echoed to the

sounds of the rustic gayety; grisly phantoms glided about each wild

brook and silent glen; fearful apparitions were seen in the air; strange

voices were heard in solitary places; and the border-towns were so

occupied in detecting and punishing losel witches, that, for a time, all

talk of war was suspended, and New Amsterdam and its inhabitants seemed

to be totally forgotten.

I must not conceal the fact that at one time there was some danger of

this plague of witchcraft extending into the New Netherlands; and

certain witches, mounted on broomsticks, are said to have been seen

whisking in the air over some of the Dutch villages near the borders;

but the worthy Nederlanders took the precaution to nail horse-shoes to

their doors, which it is well known are effectual barriers against all

diabolical vermin of the kind. Many of those horse-shoes may be seen at

this very day on ancient mansions and barns, remaining from the days of

the patriarchs: nay, the custom is still kept up among some of our

legitimate Dutch yeomanry, who inherit from their forefathers a desire

to keep witches and Yankees out of the country.

[Illustration:

JAN JANSEN ALPENDAM.

]

And now the great Peter, having no immediate hostility to apprehend from

the east, turned his face, with characteristic vigilance, to his

southern frontiers. The attentive reader will recollect that certain

freebooting Swedes had become very troublesome in this quarter in the

latter part of the reign of William the Testy, setting at naught the

proclamations of that veritable potentate, and putting his admiral, the

intrepid Jan Jansen Alpendam, to a perfect nonplus. To check the

incursions of these Swedes, Peter Stuyvesant now ordered a force to that

frontier, giving the command of it to General Jacobus Van Poffenburgh,

an officer who had risen to great importance during the reign of

Wilhelmus Kieft. He had, if histories speak true, been second in command

to the doughty Van Curlet, when he and his warriors were inhumanly

kicked out of Fort Goed Hoop by the Yankees. In that memorable affair

Van Poffenburgh is said to have received more kicks in a certain

honorable part than any of his comrades, in consequence of which, on the

resignation of Van Curlet, he had been promoted to his place, being

considered a hero who had seen service, and suffered in his country’s

cause.

It is tropically observed by honest old Socrates, that heaven infuses

into some men at their birth a portion of intellectual gold, into others

of intellectual silver, while others are intellectually furnished with

iron and brass. Of the last class was General Van Poffenburgh; and it

would seem as if dame Nature, who will sometimes be partial, had given

him brass enough for a dozen ordinary braziers. All this he had

contrived to pass off upon William the Testy for genuine gold; and the

little governor would sit for hours and listen to his gun-powder stories

of exploits, which left those of Tirante the White, Don Belianis of

Greece, or St. George and the Dragon quite in the background. Having

been promoted by William Kieft to the command of his whole disposable

forces, he gave importance to his station by the grandiloquence of his

bulletins, always styling himself Commander-in-chief of the Armies of

the New Netherlands, though in sober truth, these armies were nothing

more than a handful of hen-stealing, bottle-bruising ragamuffins.

In person he was not very tall, but exceedingly round; neither did his

bulk proceed from his being fat, but windy, being blown up by a

prodigious conviction of his own importance, until he resembled one of

those bags of wind given by Æolus, in an incredible fit of generosity,

to that vagabond warrior Ulysses. His windy endowments had long excited

the admiration of Antony Van Corlear, who is said to have hinted more

than once to William the Testy, that in making Van Poffenburgh a general

he had spoiled an admirable trumpeter.

As it is the practice in ancient story to give the reader a description

of the arms and equipments of every noted warrior, I will bestow a word

upon the dress of this redoubtable commander. It comported with his

character, being so crossed and slashed, and embroidered with lace and

tinsel, that he seemed to have as much brass without as nature had

stored away within. He was swathed, too, in a crimson sash, of the size

and texture of a fishing-net,—doubtless to keep his swelling heart from

bursting through his ribs. His face glowed with furnace-heat from

between a huge pair of well-powdered whiskers; and his valorous soul

seemed ready to bounce out of a pair of large, glassy, blinking eyes,

projecting like those of a lobster.

I swear to thee, worthy reader, if history and tradition belie not this

warrior, I would give all the money in my pocket to have seen him

accoutred _cap-à-pie_,—booted to the middle, sashed to the chin, crowned

with an overshadowing cocked hat, and girded with a leathern belt ten

inches broad, from which trailed a falchion, of a length that I dare not

mention. Thus equipped, he strutted about, as bitter-looking a man of

war as the far-famed More, of More-hall, when he sallied forth to slay

the dragon of Wantley. For what says the ballad?

“Had you but seen him in this dress,

How fierce he looked and how big,

You would have thought him for to be

Some Egyptian porcupig.

“He frighted all—cats, dogs, and all,

Each cow, each horse, and each hog;

For fear they did flee, for they took him to be

Some strange outlandish hedge-hog.”[11]

[Illustration:

“HE FRIGHTED ALL—CATS, DOGS, AND ALL.”

]

I must confess this general, with all his outward valor and ventosity,

was not exactly an officer to Peter Stuyvesant’s taste, but he stood

foremost in the army list of William the Testy: and it is probable the

good Peter, who was conscientious in his dealings with all men, and had

his military notions of precedence, thought it but fair to give a chance

of proving his right to his dignities.

To this copper captain, therefore, was confided the command of the

troops destined to protect the southern frontier; and scarce had he

departed for his station than bulletins began to arrive from him,

describing his undaunted march through savage deserts, over

insurmountable mountains, across impassable rivers, and through

impenetrable forests, conquering vast tracts of uninhabited country, and

encountering more perils than did Xenophon in his far-famed retreat with

his ten thousand Grecians.

Peter Stuyvesant read all these grandiloquent despatches with a dubious

screwing of the mouth and shaking of the head; but Antony Van Corlear

repeated these contents in the streets and market-places with an

appropriate flourish upon his trumpet, and the windy victories of the

general resounded through the streets of New Amsterdam.

On arriving at the southern frontier, Van Poffenburgh proceeded to erect

a fortress, or stronghold, on the South or Delaware River. At first he

bethought him to call it Fort Stuyvesant, in honor of the governor,—a

lowly kind of homage prevalent in our country among speculators,

military commanders, and office-seekers of all kinds, by which our maps

come to be studded with the names of political patrons and temporary

great men; in the present instance, Van Poffenburgh carried his homage

to the most lowly degree, giving his fortress the name of Fort Casimir,

in honor, it is said, of a favorite pair of brimstone trunk-breeches of

his Excellency.

As this fort will be found to give rise to important events, it may be

worth while to notice that it was afterwards called Nieuw Amstel, and

was the germ of the present flourishing town of New Castle, or, more

properly speaking, No Castle, there being nothing of the kind on the

premises.

His fortress being finished, it would have done any man’s heart good to

behold the swelling dignity with which the general would stride in and

out a dozen times a day, surveying it in front and in rear, on this side

and on that; how he would strut backwards and forwards, in full

regimentals, on the top of the ramparts,—like a vainglorious

cock-pigeon, swelling and vaporing on the top of a dove-cot.

There is a kind of valorous spleen which, like wind, is apt to grow

unruly in the stomachs of newly made soldiers, compelling them to

box-lobby brawls and broken-headed quarrels, unless there can be found

some more harmless way to give it vent. It is recorded in the delectable

romance of Pierce Forest, that a young knight, being dubbed by King

Alexander, did incontinently gallop into an adjacent forest and belabor

the trees with such might and main, that he not merely eased off the

sudden effervescence of his valor, but convinced the whole court that he

was the most potent and courageous cavalier on the face of the earth. In

like manner the commander of Fort Casimir, when he found his martial

spirit waxing too hot within him, would sally forth into the fields and

lay about him most lustily with his sabre,—decapitating cabbages by

platoons, hewing down lofty sunflowers, which he termed gigantic Swedes,

and if, perchance, he espied a colony of big-bellied pumpkins quietly

basking in the sun,—“Ah! caitiff Yankees,” would he roar, “have I caught

ye at last?”—So saying, with one sweep of his sword he would cleave the

unhappy vegetables from their chins to their waistbands; by which

warlike havoc his choler being in some sort allayed, he would return

into the fortress with the full conviction that he was a very miracle of

military prowess.

[Illustration:

VAN POFFENBURGH’S VALOR.

]

He was a disciplinarian, too, of the first order. Woe to any unlucky

soldier who did not hold up his head and turn out his toes when on

parade, or who did not salute the general in proper style as he passed.

Having one day, in his Bible researches, encountered the history of

Absalom and his melancholy end, the general bethought him, that, in a

country abounding with forests, his soldiers were in constant risk of a

like catastrophe; he therefore, in an evil hour, issued orders for

cropping the hair of both officers and men throughout the garrison.

Now, so it happened, that among his officers was a sturdy veteran named

Keldermeester, who had cherished, through a long life, a mop of hair not

a little resembling the shag of a Newfoundland dog, terminating in a

queue like the handle of a frying-pan, and queued so tightly to his head

that his eyes and mouth generally stood ajar, and his eyebrows were

drawn up to the top of his forehead. It may naturally be supposed that

the possessor of so goodly an appendage would resist with abhorrence an

order condemning it to the shears. On hearing the general orders, he

discharged a tempest of veteran, soldier-like oaths, and dunder and

blixums,—swore he would break any man’s head who attempted to meddle

with his tail,—queued it stiffer than ever, and whisked it about the

garrison as fiercely as the tail of a crocodile.

[Illustration:

KELDERMEESTER.

]

The eel-skin queue of old Keldermeester became instantly an affair of

the utmost importance. The Commander-in-chief was too enlightened an

officer not to perceive that the discipline of the garrison, the

subordination and good order of the armies of the Nieuw Nederlandts, the

consequent safety of the whole province, and ultimately the dignity and

prosperity of their High Mightinesses the Lords States-General,

imperiously demanded the docking of that stubborn queue. He decreed,

therefore, that old Keldermeester should be publicly shorn of his

glories in presence of the whole garrison; the old man as resolutely

stood on the defensive; whereupon he was arrested, and tried by

court-martial for mutiny, desertion, and all the other list of offences

noticed in the articles of war, ending with a “videlicet, in wearing an

eel-skin queue, three feet long, contrary to orders.” Then came on

arraignments, and trials, and pleadings; and the whole garrison was in a

ferment about this unfortunate queue. As it is well known that the

commander of a frontier post has the power of acting pretty much after

his own will, there is little doubt but that the veteran would have been

hanged or shot at least, had he not luckily fallen ill of a fever,

through mere chagrin and mortification,—and deserted from all earthly

command, with his beloved locks unviolated. His obstinacy remained

unshaken to the very last moment, when he directed that he should be

carried to his grave with his eel-skin queue sticking out of a hole in

his coffin.

This magnanimous affair obtained the general great credit as a

disciplinarian; but it is hinted that he was ever afterwards subject to

bad dreams and fearful visitations in the night, when the grizzly

spectrum of old Keldermeester would stand sentinel by his bedside, erect

as a pump, his enormous queue strutting out like the handle.

=Book VI.=

CONTAINING THE SECOND PART OF THE REIGN OF PETER THE HEADSTRONG, AND HIS

GALLANT ACHIEVEMENTS ON THE DELAWARE.

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

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

=Chapter I.=

IN WHICH IS EXHIBITED A WARLIKE PORTRAIT OF THE GREAT PETER—OF THE WINDY

CONTEST OF GENERAL VAN POFFENBURGH AND GENERAL PRINTZ, AND OF THE

MOSQUITO WAR ON THE DELAWARE.

Hitherto, most venerable and courteous reader, have I shown thee the

administration of the valorous Stuyvesant, under the mild moonshine of

peace, or rather the grim tranquillity of awful expectation; but now the

war-drum rumbles from afar, the brazen trumpet brays its thrilling note,

and the rude crash of hostile arms speaks fearful prophecies of coming

troubles. The gallant warrior starts from soft repose, from golden

visions and voluptuous ease, where in the dulcet, “piping time of peace”

he sought sweet solace after all his toils. No more in beauty’s siren

lap reclined, he weaves fair garlands for his lady’s brows; no more

entwines with flowers his shining sword, nor through the livelong lazy

summer’s day chants forth his love-sick soul in madrigals. To manhood

roused, he spurns the amorous flute; doffs from his brawny back the robe

of peace, and clothes his pampered limbs in panoply of steel. O’er his

dark brow, where late the myrtle waved, where wanton roses breathed

enervate love, he rears the beaming casque and nodding plume; grasps the

bright shield, and shakes the ponderous lance; or mounts with eager

pride his fiery steed, and burns for deeds of glorious chivalry!

But soft, worthy reader! I would not have you imagine that any _preux

chevalier_, thus hideously begirt with iron, existed in the city of New

Amsterdam. This is but a lofty and gigantic mode, in which we heroic

writers always talk of war, thereby to give it a noble and imposing

aspect,—equipping our warriors with bucklers, helms, and lances, and

such like outlandish and obsolete weapons, the like of which perchance

they had never seen or heard of,—in the same manner that a cunning

statuary arrays a modern general or an admiral in the accoutrements of a

Cæsar or an Alexander. The simple truth, then, of all this oratorical

nourish is this, that the valiant Peter Stuyvesant all of a sudden found

it necessary to scour his rusty blade, which too long had rusted in its

scabbard, and prepare himself to undergo those hardy toils of war in

which his mighty soul so much delighted.

[Illustration:

PETRUS STUYVESANT.

]

Methinks I at this moment behold him in my imagination, or rather, I

behold his goodly portrait, which still hangs up in the family mansion

of the Stuyvesants, arrayed in all the terrors of a true Dutch general.

His regimental coat of German blue, gorgeously decorated with a goodly

show of large brass buttons, reaching from his waistband to his chin;

the voluminous skirts turned up at the corners and separating gallantly

behind, so as to display the seat of a sumptuous pair of

brimstone-colored trunk breeches; a graceful style still prevalent among

the warriors of our day, and which is in conformity to the custom of

ancient heroes, who scorned to defend themselves in rear. His face

rendered exceeding terrible and warlike by a pair of black mustachios;

his hair strutting out on each side in stiffly pomatumed ear-locks, and

descending in a rat-tail queue below his waist; a shining stock of black

leather supporting his chin, and a little but fierce cocked hat, stuck

with a gallant and fiery air over his left eye. Such was the chivalric

port of Peter the Headstrong; and when he made a sudden halt, planted

himself firmly on his solid supporter, with his wooden leg, inlaid with

silver, a little in advance, in order to strengthen his position, his

right hand grasping a gold-headed cane, his left resting upon the pommel

of his sword, his head dressing spiritedly to the right, with a most

appalling and hard-favored frown upon his brow,—he presented altogether

one of the most commanding, bitter-looking, and soldier-like figures

that ever strutted upon canvas.—Proceed we now to inquire the cause of

this warlike preparation.

In the preceding chapter we have spoken of the founding of Fort

Casimir, and of the merciless warfare waged by its commander upon

cabbages, sunflowers, and pumpkins, for want of better occasion to

flesh his sword. Now it came to pass, that, higher up the Delaware, at

his stronghold of Tinnekonk, resided one Jan Printz, who styled

himself Governor of New Sweden. If history belie not this redoubtable

Swede, he was a rival worthy of the windy and inflated commander of

Fort Casimir, for master David Pieterzen de Vrie, in his excellent

book of voyages, describes him as “weighing upwards of four hundred

pounds,” a huge feeder and bowser in proportion, taking three

potations pottle-deep at every meal. He had a garrison after his own

heart at Tinnekonk,—guzzling, deep-drinking swashbucklers, who made

the wild woods ring with their carousals.

No sooner did this robustious commander hear of the erection of Fort

Casimir, than he sent a message to Van Poffenburgh, warning him off the

land, as being within the bounds of his jurisdiction.

To this General Van Poffenburgh replied that the land belonged to their

High Mightinesses, having been regularly purchased of the natives, as

discoverers from the Manhattoes, as witness the breeches of their

land-measurer Ten Broeck.

To this the governor rejoined that the land had previously been sold by

the Indians to the Swedes, and consequently was under the petticoat

government of her Swedish majesty, Christina; and woe be to any mortal

that wore breeches who should dare to meddle even with the hem of her

sacred garment.

I forbear to dilate upon the war of words which was kept up for some

time by these windy commanders; Van Poffenburgh, however, had served

under William the Testy, and was a veteran in this kind of warfare.

Governor Printz, finding he was not to be dislodged by these long shots,

now determined upon coming to closer quarters. Accordingly, he descended

the river in great force and fume, and erected a rival fortress just one

Swedish mile below Fort Casimir, to which he gave the name of

Helsenburg.

[Illustration:

JAN PRINTZ.

]

And now commenced a tremendous rivalry between these two doughty

commanders, striving to out-strut and out-swell each other like a couple

of belligerent turkey-cocks. There was a contest who should run up the

tallest flagstaff and display the broadest flag; all day long there was

a furious rolling of drums and twanging of trumpets in either fortress,

and whichever had the wind in its favor would keep up a continual firing

of cannon, to taunt its antagonist with the smell of gun-powder.

On all these points of windy warfare the antagonists were well matched;

but so it happened, that, the Swedish fortress being lower down the

river, all the Dutch vessels bound to Fort Casimir with supplies had to

pass it. Governor Printz at once took advantage of this circumstance,

and compelled them to lower their flags as they passed under the guns of

his battery.

[Illustration:

THE MOSQUITO PLAGUE.

]

This was a deadly wound to the Dutch pride of General Van Poffenburgh,

and sorely would he swell when from the ramparts of Fort Casimir he

beheld the flag of their High Mightinesses struck to the rival fortress.

To heighten his vexation, Governor Printz, who, as has been shown, was a

huge trencherman, took the liberty of having the first rummage of every

Dutch merchant-ship, and securing to himself and his guzzling garrison

all the little round Dutch cheeses, all the Dutch herrings, the

gingerbread, the sweetmeats, the curious stone jugs of gin, and all the

other Dutch luxuries, on their way for the solace of Fort Casimir. It is

possible he may have paid to the Dutch skippers the full value of their

commodities; but what consolation was this to Jacobus Van Poffenburgh

and his garrison, who thus found their favorite supplies cut off, and

diverted into the larders of the hostile camp? For some time this war of

the cupboard was carried on to the great festivity and jollification of

the Swedes, while the warriors of Fort Casimir found their hearts, or

rather their stomachs, daily failing them. At length the summer heats

and summer showers set in, and now, lo and behold, a great miracle was

wrought for the relief of the Nederlandts, not a little resembling one

of the plagues of Egypt; for it came to pass that a great cloud of

mosquitoes arose out of the marshy borders of the river and settled upon

the fortress of Helsenburg, being, doubtless, attracted by the scent of

the fresh blood of these Swedish gormandizers. Nay, it is said that the

body of Jan Printz alone, which was as big and as full of blood as that

of a prize-ox, was sufficient to attract the mosquitoes from every part

of the country. For some time the garrison endeavored to hold out, but

it was all in vain; the mosquitoes penetrated into every chink and

crevice, and gave them no rest day nor night; and as to Governor Jan

Printz, he moved about as in a cloud, with mosquito music in his ears,

and mosquito stings to the very end of his nose. Finally the garrison

was fairly driven out of the fortress, and obliged to retreat to

Tinnekonk; nay, it is said that the mosquitoes followed Jan Printz even

thither, and absolutely drove him out of the country; certain it is, he

embarked for Sweden shortly afterwards, and Jan Claudius Risingh was

sent to govern New Sweden in his stead.

Such was the famous mosquito war on the Delaware, of which General Van

Poffenburgh would fain have been the hero; but the devout people of the

Nieuw Nederlandts always ascribed the discomfiture of the Swedes to the

miraculous intervention of St. Nicholas. As to the fortress of

Helsenburg, it fell to ruin; but the story of its strange destruction

was perpetuated by the Swedish name of Myggenborg, that is to say,

Mosquito Castle.[12]

[Illustration: A vintage pen-and-ink drawing of a hairy, wild-looking

man with a mohawk sitting on the ground, holding his arms and looking

toward a musket in the grass.]

=Chapter II.=

OF JAN RISINGH, HIS GIANTLY PERSON AND CRAFTY DEEDS; AND OF THE

CATASTROPHE AT FORT CASIMIR.

Jan Claudius Risingh, who succeeded to the command of New Sweden, looms

largely in ancient records as a gigantic Swede, who, had he not been

rather knock-kneed and splay-footed, might have served for the model of

a Samson or a Hercules. He was no less rapacious than mighty, and,

withal, as crafty as he was rapacious; so that there is very little

doubt, that, had he lived some four or five centuries since, he would

have figured as one of those wicked giants who took a cruel pleasure in

pocketing beautiful princesses and distressed damsels, when gadding

about the world, and locking them up in enchanted castles, without a

toilet, a change of linen, or any other convenience. In consequence of

which enormities they fell under the high displeasure of chivalry, and

all true, loyal, and gallant knights were instructed to attack and slay

outright any miscreant they might happen to find above six feet high;

which is doubtless one reason why the race of large men is nearly

extinct, and the generations of latter ages are so exceedingly small.

Governor Risingh, notwithstanding his giantly condition, was, as I have

hinted, a man of craft. He was not a man to ruffle the vanity of General

Van Poffenburgh, or to rub his self-conceit against the grain. On the

contrary, as he sailed up the Delaware, he paused before Fort Casimir,

displayed his flag, and fired a royal salute before dropping anchor. The

salute would doubtless have been returned, had not the guns been

dismounted; as it was, a veteran sentinel, who had been napping at his

post, and had suffered his match to go out, returned the compliment by

discharging his musket with the spark of a pipe borrowed from a comrade.

Governor Risingh accepted this as a courteous reply, and treated the

fortress to a second salute, well knowing its commander was apt to be

marvellously delighted with these little ceremonials, considering them

so many acts of homage paid to his greatness. He then prepared to land

with a military retinue of thirty men, a prodigious pageant in the

wilderness.

[Illustration:

“THE MAIN GUARD WAS TURNED OUT.”

]

And now took place a terrible rummage and racket in Fort Casimir, to

receive such a visitor in proper style, and to make an imposing

appearance. The main guard was turned out as soon as possible, equipped

to the best advantage in the few suits of regimentals, which had to do

duty by turns with the whole garrison. One tall, lank fellow appeared in

a little man’s coat, with the buttons between his shoulders; the skirts

scarce covering his bottom; his hands hanging like spades out of the

sleeves and the coat linked in front by worsted loops made out of a pair

of red garters. Another had a cocked hat stuck on the back of his head,

and decorated with a bunch of cock’s tails; a third had a pair of rusty

gaiters hanging about his heels; while a fourth, a little duck-legged

fellow, was equipped in a pair of the general’s cast-off breeches, which

he held up with one hand while he grasped his firelock with the other.

The rest were accoutred in similar style, except three ragamuffins

without shirts, and with but a pair and a half of breeches between them;

wherefore they were sent to the black hole, to keep them out of sight,

that they might not disgrace the fortress.

His men being thus gallantly arrayed,—those who lacked muskets

shouldering spades and pickaxes, and every man being ordered to tuck in

his shirt-tail and pull up his brogues,—General Van Poffenburgh first

took a sturdy draught of foaming ale, which, like the magnanimous More

of More-hall,[13] was his invariable practice on all great occasions;

this done, he put himself at their head, and issued forth from his

castle, like a mighty giant, just refreshed with wine. But when the two

heroes met, they began a scene of warlike parade that beggars all

description. The shrewd Risingh, who had grown gray much before his time

in consequence of his craftiness, saw at one glance the ruling passion

of the great Van Poffenburgh, and humored him in all his valorous

fantasies.

Their detachments were accordingly drawn up in front of each other; they

carried arms and they presented arms; they gave the standing salute and

the passing salute; they rolled their drums, they nourished their fifes,

and they waved their colors; they faced to the left, and they faced to

the right, and they faced to the rightabout; they wheeled forward, and

they wheeled backward, and they wheeled into _echellon_; they marched

and they countermarched, by grand divisions, by single divisions, and by

subdivisions; by platoons, by sections, and by files; in quick time, in

slow time, and in no time at all; for, having gone through all the

evolutions of two great armies, including the eighteen manœuvres of

Dundas; having exhausted all they could recollect or imagine of military

tactics, including sundry strange and irregular evolutions, the like of

which were never seen before nor since, except among certain of our

newly raised militia,—the two commanders and their respective troops

came at length to a dead halt, completely exhausted by the toils of war.

Never did two valiant trainband captains, or two buskined theatric

heroes, in the renowned tragedies of Pizarro, Tom Thumb, or any other

heroical and fighting tragedy, marshal their gallows-looking,

duck-legged, heavy-heeled myrmidons with more glory and self-admiration.

[Illustration:

“WITH GREAT CEREMONY, INTO THE FORT.”

]

These military compliments being finished, General Van Poffenburgh

escorted his illustrious visitor, with great ceremony, into the Fort;

attended him throughout the fortifications; showed him the horn-works,

crown-works, half-moons, and various other outworks, or rather the

places where they ought to be erected, and where they might be erected

if he pleased; plainly demonstrating that it was a place of “great

capability,” and though at present but a little redoubt, yet that it was

evidently a formidable fortress, in embryo. This survey over, he next

had the whole garrison put under arms, exercised, and reviewed; and

concluded by ordering the three bridewell birds to be hauled out of the

black hole, brought up to the halberds, and soundly flogged, for the

amusement of his visitor, and to convince him that he was a great

disciplinarian.

The cunning Risingh, while he pretended to be struck dumb outright with

the puissance of the great Van Poffenburgh, took silent note of the

incompetency of his garrison,—of which he gave a wink to his trusty

followers, who tipped each other the wink, and laughed most

obstreperously—in their sleeves.

The inspection, review, and flogging being concluded, the party

adjourned to the table; for among his other great qualities, the general

was remarkably addicted to huge carousals, and in one afternoon’s

campaign would leave more dead men on the field than he ever did in the

whole course of his military career. Many bulletins of these bloodless

victories do still remain on record; and the whole province was once

thrown into amaze by the return of one of his campaigns, wherein it was

stated, that, though, like Captain Bobadil, he had only twenty men to

back him, yet in the short space of six months he had conquered and

utterly annihilated sixty oxen, ninety hogs, one hundred sheep, ten

thousand cabbages, one thousand bushels of potatoes, one hundred and

fifty kilderkins of small beer, two thousand seven hundred and

thirty-five pipes, seventy-eight pounds of sugar-plums, and forty bars

of iron, besides sundry small meats, game, poultry, and garden-stuff:—an

achievement unparalleled since the days of Pantagruel and his

all-devouring army, and which showed that it was only necessary to let

Van Poffenburgh and his garrison loose in an enemy’s country, and in a

little while they would breed a famine, and starve all the inhabitants.

No sooner, therefore, had the general received intimation of the visit

of Governor Risingh, than he ordered a great dinner to be prepared, and

privately sent out a detachment of the most experienced veterans, to rob

all the hen-roosts in the neighborhood, and lay the pigsties under

contribution,—a service which they discharged with such zeal and

promptitude, that the garrison-table groaned under the weight of their

spoils.

[Illustration:

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

]

I wish, with all my heart, my readers could see the valiant Van

Poffenburgh, as he presided at the head of the banquet; it was a sight

worth beholding:—there he sat, in his greatest glory, surrounded by his

soldiers, like that famous wine-bibber, Alexander, whose thirsty virtues

he did most ably imitate,—telling astonishing stories of his

hair-breadth adventures and heroic exploits; at which, though all his

auditors knew them to be incontinent lies and outrageous gasconadoes,

yet did they cast up their eyes in admiration, and utter many

interjections of astonishment. Nor could the general pronounce anything

that bore the remotest resemblance to a joke, but the stout Risingh

would strike his brawny fist upon the table till every glass rattled

again, throw himself back in the chair, utter gigantic peals of

laughter, and swear most horribly it was the best joke he ever heard in

his life. Thus all was rout and revelry and hideous carousal within Fort

Casimir; and so lustily did Van Poffenburgh ply the bottle, that in less

than four short hours he made himself and his whole garrison, who all

sedulously emulated in the deeds of their chieftain, dead drunk, with

singing songs, quaffing bumpers, and drinking patriotic toasts, none of

which but was as long as a Welsh pedigree or a plea in chancery.

No sooner did things come to this pass, than Risingh and his Swedes, who

had cunningly kept themselves sober, rose on their entertainers, tied

them neck and heels, and took formal possession of the fort, and all its

dependencies, in the name of Queen Christina of Sweden, administering at

the same time an oath of allegiance to all the Dutch soldiers who could

be made sober enough to swallow it. Risingh then put the fortification

in order, appointed his discreet and vigilant friend Suen Schüte,

otherwise called Skytte, a tall, wind-dried, water-drinking Swede, to

the command, and departed, bearing with him this truly amiable garrison

and its puissant commander, who, when brought to himself by a sound

drubbing, bore no little resemblance to a “deboshed fish,” or bloated

sea-monster, caught upon dry land.

The transportation of the garrison was done to prevent the transmission

of intelligence to New Amsterdam; for much as the cunning Risingh

exulted in his stratagem, yet did he dread the vengeance of the sturdy

Peter Stuyvesant, whose name spread as much terror in the neighborhood

as did whilom that of the unconquerable Scanderbeg among his scurvy

enemies the Turks.

=Chapter III.=

SHOWING HOW PROFOUND SECRETS ARE OFTEN BROUGHT TO LIGHT; WITH THE

PROCEEDINGS OF PETER THE HEADSTRONG WHEN HE HEARD OF THE MISFORTUNES OF

GENERAL VAN POFFENBURGH.

Whoever first described common fame, or rumor, as belonging to the sager

sex, was a very owl for shrewdness. She has in truth certain feminine

qualities to an astonishing degree, particularly that benevolent anxiety

to take care of the affairs of others, which keeps her continually

hunting after secrets, and gadding about proclaiming them. Whatever is

done openly and in the face of the world, she takes but transient notice

of; but whenever a transaction is done in a corner, and attempted to be

shrouded in mystery, then her goddess-ship is at her wit’s end to find

it out, and takes a most mischievous and lady-like pleasure in

publishing it to the world.

It is this truly feminine propensity which induces her continually

to be prying into the cabinets of princes, listening at the

key-holes of senate-chambers, and peering through chinks and

crannies, when our worthy Congress are sitting with closed doors;

deliberating between a dozen excellent modes of ruining the nation.

It is this which makes her so baneful to all wary statesmen and

intriguing commanders,—such a stumbling-block to private

negotiations and secret expeditions,—betraying them by means and

instruments which never would have been thought of by any but a

female head.

Thus it was in the case of the affair of Fort Casimir. No doubt the

cunning Risingh imagined, that, by securing the garrison, he should for

a long time prevent the history of its fate from reaching the ears of

the gallant Stuyvesant; but his exploit was blown to the world when he

least expected, and by one of the last beings he would ever have

suspected of enlisting as trumpeter to the wide-mouthed deity.

[Illustration:

DIRK SCHUILER.

]

This was one Dirk Schuiler (or Skulker), a kind of hanger-on to the

garrison, who seemed to belong to nobody, and in a manner to be

self-outlawed. He was one of those vagabond cosmopolites who shark about

the world as if they had no right or business in it, and who infest the

skirts of society like poachers and interlopers. Every garrison and

country village has one or more scape-goats of this kind, whose life is

a kind of enigma, whose existence is without motive, who comes from the

Lord knows where, who lives the Lord knows how, and who seems created

for no other earthly purpose but to keep up the ancient and honorable

order of idleness. This vagrant philosopher was supposed to have some

Indian blood in his veins, which was manifested by a certain Indian

complexion and cast of countenance, but more especially by his

propensities and habits. He was a tall, lank fellow, swift of foot, and

long-winded. He was generally equipped in a half Indian dress, with

belt, leggings, and moccasins. His hair hung in straight gallows-locks

about his ears, and added not a little to his sharking demeanor. It is

an old remark, that persons of Indian mixture are half civilized, half

savage, and half devil,—a third half being provided for their particular

convenience. It is for similar reasons and probably with equal truth,

that the backwoodsmen of Kentucky are styled half man, half horse, and

half alligator, by the settlers on the Mississippi, and held accordingly

in great respect and abhorrence.

The above character may have presented itself to the garrison as

applicable to Dirk Schuiler, whom they familiarly dubbed Gallows Dirk.

Certain it is, he acknowledged allegiance to no one,—was an utter enemy

to work, holding it in no manner of estimation,—but lounging about the

fort, depending upon chance for a subsistence, getting drunk whenever he

could get liquor, and stealing whatever he could lay his hands on. Every

day or two he was sure to get a sound rib-roasting for some of his

misdemeanors, which, however, as it broke no bones, he made very light

of, and scrupled not to repeat the offence whenever another opportunity

presented. Sometimes, in consequence of some flagrant villany, he would

abscond from the garrison, and be absent for a month at a time, skulking

about the woods and swamps, with a long fowling-piece on his shoulder,

lying in ambush for game,—or squatting himself down on the edge of a

pond, catching fish for hours together, and bearing no little

resemblance to that notable bird of the crane family, ycleped the

Mudpoke. When he thought his crimes had been forgotten or forgiven, he

would sneak back to the fort with a bundle of skins, or a load of

poultry, which, perchance, he had stolen, and would exchange them for

liquor, with which having well soaked his carcass, he would lie in the

sun and enjoy all the luxurious indolence of that swinish philosopher

Diogenes. He was the terror of all the farmyards in the country into

which he made fearful inroads; and sometimes he would make his sudden

appearance in the garrison at daybreak, with the whole neighborhood at

his heels,—like the scoundrel thief of a fox, detected in his maraudings

and hunted to his hole. Such was this Dirk Schuiler; and from the total

indifference he showed to the world and its concerns, and from his truly

Indian stoicism and taciturnity, no one would ever have dreamt that he

would have been the publisher of the treachery of Risingh.

When the carousal was going on, which proved so fatal to the brave

Poffenburgh and his watchful garrison, Dirk skulked about from room to

room, being a kind of privileged vagrant, or useless hound, whom nobody

noticed. But though a fellow of few words, yet, like your taciturn

people, his eyes and ears were always open, and in the course of his

prowlings he overheard the whole plot of the Swedes. Dirk immediately

settled in his own mind how he should turn the matter to his own

advantage. He played the perfect jack-of-both-sides, that is to say, he

made a prize of everything that came in his reach, robbed both parties,

stuck the copper-bound cocked hat of the puissant Van Poffenburgh on his

head, whipped a huge pair of Risingh’s jackboots under his arm, and took

to his heels just before the catastrophe and confusion at the garrison.

[Illustration:

“AND PADDLED OVER TO NEW AMSTERDAM.”

]

Finding himself completely dislodged from his haunt in this quarter, he

directed his flight towards his native place, New Amsterdam, whence he

had formerly been obliged to abscond precipitately, in consequence of

misfortune in business,—that is to say, having been detected in the act

of sheep-stealing. After wandering many days in the woods, toiling

through swamps, fording brooks, swimming various rivers, and

encountering a world of hardships that would have killed any other being

but an Indian, a backwoodsman, or the devil, he at length arrived, half

famished, and lank as a starved weasel, at Communipaw, where he stole a

canoe, and paddled over to New Amsterdam. Immediately on landing, he

repaired to Governor Stuyvesant, and, in more words than he had ever

spoken before in the whole course of his life, gave an account of the

disastrous affair.

On receiving these direful tidings, the valiant Peter started from his

seat, dashed the pipe he was smoking against the back of the chimney,

thrust a prodigious quid of tobacco into his left cheek, pulled up his

galligaskins, and strode up and down the room, humming, as was customary

with him when in a passion, a hideous northwest ditty. But, as I have

before shown, he was not a man to vent his spleen in idle vaporing. His

first measure, after the paroxysm of wrath had subsided, was to stump up

stairs to a huge wooden chest, which served as his armory, from whence

he drew forth that identical suit of regimentals described in the

preceding chapter. In these portentous habiliments he arrayed himself

like Achilles in the armor of Vulcan, maintaining all the while an

appalling silence, knitting his brows, and drawing his breath through

his clenched teeth. Being hastily equipped, he strode down into the

parlor and jerked down his trusty sword from over the fireplace, where

it was usually suspended; but before he girded it on his thigh, he drew

it from its scabbard, and as his eye coursed along the rusty blade, a

grim smile stole over his iron visage; it was the first smile that had

visited his countenance for five long weeks; but every one who beheld it

prophesied that there would soon be warm work in the province!

Thus armed at all points, with grisly war depicted in each feature, his

very cocked hat assuming an air of uncommon defiance, he instantly put

himself upon the alert, and despatched Antony Van Corlear hither and

thither, this way and that way, through all the muddy streets and

crooked lanes of the city, summoning by sound of trumpet his trusty

peers to assemble in instant council. This done, by way of expediting

matters, according to the custom of people in a hurry, he kept in

continual bustle, shifting from chair to chair, popping his head out of

every window, and stumping up and down stairs with his wooden leg in

such brisk and incessant motion, that, as we are informed by an

authentic historian of the times, the continual clatter bore no small

resemblance to the music of a cooper hooping a flour-barrel.

[Illustration:

“AND STUMPING UP AND DOWN STAIRS.”

]

A summons so peremptory, and from a man of the governor’s mettle, was

not to be trifled with: the sages forthwith repaired to the

council-chamber, seated themselves with the utmost tranquillity, and

lighting their long pipes, gazed with unruffled composure on his

Excellency and his regimentals,—being, as all councillors should be, not

easily flustered, nor taken by surprise. The governor, looking around

for a moment with a lofty and soldier-like air, and, resting one hand on

the pommel of his sword, and flinging the other forth in a free and

spirited manner, addressed them in a short but soul-stirring harangue.

I am extremely sorry that I have not the advantages of Livy, Thucydides,

Plutarch, and others of my predecessors, who were furnished, as I am

told, with the speeches of all their heroes, taken down in shorthand by

the most accurate stenographers of the time,—whereby they were enabled

wonderfully to enrich their histories, and delight their readers with

sublime strains of eloquence. Not having such important auxiliaries, I

cannot possibly pronounce what was the tenor of Governor Stuyvesant’s

speech. I am bold, however, to say, from the tenor of his character,

that he did not wrap his rugged subject in silks and ermines and other

sickly trickeries of phrase, but spoke forth like a man of nerve and

vigor, who scorned to shrink in words from those dangers which he stood

ready to encounter in very deed. This much is certain, that he concluded

by announcing his determination to lead on his troops in person, and

rout these costard-monger Swedes from their usurped quarters at Fort

Casimir. To this hardy resolution, such of his council as were awake

gave their usual signal of concurrence; and as to the rest, who had

fallen asleep about the middle of the harangue (their “usual custom in

the afternoon”), they made not the least objection.

And now was seen in the fair city of New Amsterdam a prodigious bustle

and preparation for iron war. Recruiting parties marched hither and

thither, calling lustily upon all the scrubs, the runagates, and

tatterdemalions of the Manhattoes and its vicinity, who had any ambition

of sixpence a day, and immortal fame into the bargain, to enlist in the

cause of glory:—for I would have you note that your warlike heroes who

trudge in the rear of conquerors are generally of that illustrious class

of gentlemen who are equal candidates for the army or the bridewell, the

halberds or the whipping-post,—for whom dame Fortune has cast an even

die, whether they shall make their exit by the sword or the halter, and

whose deaths shall, at all events, be a lofty example to their

countrymen.

But, notwithstanding all this martial rout and invitation, the ranks of

honor were but scantily supplied, so averse were the peaceful burghers

of New Amsterdam from enlisting in foreign broils, of stirring beyond

that home which rounded all their earthly ideas. Upon beholding this,

the great Peter, whose noble heart was all on fire with war and sweet

revenge, determined to wait no longer for the tardy assistance of these

oily citizens, but to muster up his merry men of the Hudson, who,

brought up among woods, and wilds, and savage beasts, like our yeomen of

Kentucky, delighted in nothing so much as desperate adventures and

perilous expeditions through the wilderness. Thus resolving, he ordered

his trusty squire Antony Van Corlear to have his state galley prepared

and duly victualled; which being performed, he attended public service

at the great church of St. Nicholas, like a true and pious governor; and

then leaving peremptory orders with his council to have the chivalry of

the Manhattoes marshalled out and appointed against his return, departed

upon his recruiting voyage up the waters of the Hudson.

[Illustration: A vintage pen-and-ink drawing of a short, grumpy man in

17th-century attire standing with his arms crossed and a scowling

expression.]

=Chapter IV.=

CONTAINING PETER STUYVESANT’S VOYAGE UP THE HUDSON, AND THE WONDERS AND

DELIGHTS OF THAT RENOWNED RIVER.

Now did the soft breezes of the south steal sweetly over the face of

nature, tempering the panting heat of summer into genial and prolific

warmth; when that miracle of hardihood and chivalric virtue, the

dauntless Peter Stuyvesant, spread his canvas to the wind, and departed

from the fair island of Manna-hata. The galley in which he embarked was

sumptuously adorned with pendants and streamers of gorgeous dyes, which

fluttered gayly in the wind, or drooped their ends into the bosom of the

stream. The bow and poop of this majestic vessel were gallantly bedight,

after the rarest Dutch fashion, with figures of little pursy Cupids with

periwigs on their heads, and bearing in their hands garlands of flowers,

the like of which are not to be found in any book of botany, being the

matchless flowers which flourished in the golden age, and exist no

longer, unless it be in the imaginations of ingenious carvers of wood

and discolorers of canvas.

Thus rarely decorated, in style befitting the puissant potentate of the

Manhattoes, did the galley of Peter Stuyvesant launch forth upon the

bosom of the lordly Hudson, which, as it rolled its broad waves to the

ocean, seemed to pause for a while and swell with pride, as if conscious

of the illustrious burden it sustained.

But trust me, gentlefolk, far other was the scene presented to the

contemplation of the crew from that which may be witnessed at this

degenerate day. Wildness and savage majesty reigned on the borders of

this mighty river; the hand of cultivation had not as yet laid low the

dark forest, and tamed the features of the landscape; nor had the

frequent sail of commerce broken in upon the profound and awful solitude

of ages. Here and there might be seen a rude wigwam perched among the

cliffs of the mountains, with its curling column of smoke mounting in

the transparent atmosphere,—but so loftily situated that the whoopings

of the savage children, gambolling on the margin of the dizzy heights,

fell almost as faintly on the ear as do the notes of the lark when lost

in the azure vault of heaven. Now and then, from the beetling brow of

some precipice, the wild deer would look timidly down upon the splendid

pageant as it passed below, and then, tossing his antlers in the air,

would bound away into the thickest of the forest.

Through such scenes did the stately vessel of Peter Stuyvesant pass. Now

did they skirt the bases of the rocky heights of Jersey, which spring up

like everlasting walls, reaching from the waves unto the heavens, and

were fashioned, if tradition may be believed, in times long past, by the

mighty spirit Manetho, to protect his favorite abodes from the

unhallowed eyes of mortals. Now did they career it gayly across the vast

expanse of Tappan Bay, whose wide-extended shores present a variety of

delectable scenery,—here the bold promontory, crowned with embowering

trees, advancing into the bay,—there the long woodland slope, sweeping

up from the shore in rich luxuriance, and terminating in the upland

precipice,—while at a distance a long waving line of rocky heights threw

their gigantic shades across the water. Now would they pass where some

modest little interval, opening among these stupendous scenes, yet

retreating as it were for protection into the embraces of the

neighboring mountains, displayed a rural paradise, fraught with sweet

and pastoral beauties,—the velvet-tufted lawn, the bushy copse, the

tinkling rivulet, stealing through the fresh and vivid verdure, on whose

banks was situated some little Indian village, or, peradventure, the

rude cabin of some solitary hunter.

[Illustration:

“SOME LITTLE INDIAN VILLAGE.”

]

The different periods of the revolving day seemed each, with cunning

magic, to diffuse a different charm over the scene. Now would the jovial

sun break gloriously from the east, blazing from the summits of the

hills, and sparkling the landscape with a thousand dewy gems; while

along the borders of the river were seen the heavy masses of mist,

which, like midnight caitiffs disturbed at his approach, made a sluggish

retreat, rolling in sullen reluctance up the mountains. At such times

all was brightness, and life, and gayety,—the atmosphere was of an

indescribable pureness and transparency,—the birds broke forth in wanton

madrigals, and the freshening breezes wafted the vessel merrily on her

course. But when the sun sunk amid a flood of glory in the west,

mantling the heavens and the earth with a thousand gorgeous dyes, then

all was calm, and silent, and magnificent. The late swelling sail hung

lifelessly against the mast;—the seamen, with folded arms, leaned

against the shrouds, lost in that involuntary musing which the sober

grandeur of nature commands in the rudest of her children. The vast

bosom of the Hudson was like an unruffled mirror, reflecting the golden

splendor of the heavens, excepting that now and then a bark canoe would

steal across its surface, filled with painted savages, whose gay

feathers glared brightly as perchance a lingering ray of the setting sun

gleamed upon them from the western mountains.

But when the hour of twilight spread its majestic mists around, then did

the face of nature assume a thousand fugitive charms, which to the

worthy heart that seeks enjoyment in the glorious works of its Maker are

inexpressibly captivating. The mellow dubious light that prevailed just

served to tinge with illusive colors the softened features of the

scenery. The deceived but delighted eye sought vainly to discern in the

broad masses of shade the separating line between the land and water, or

to distinguish the fading objects that seemed sinking into chaos. Now

did the busy fancy supply the feebleness of vision, producing with

industrious craft a fairy creation of her own. Under her plastic wand

the barren rocks frowned upon the watery waste in the semblance of lofty

towers and high embattled castles,—trees assumed the direful forms of

mighty giants, and the inaccessible summits of the mountains seemed

peopled with a thousand shadowy beings.

Now broke forth from the shores the notes of an innumerable variety of

insects, which filled the air with a strange but not inharmonious

concert, while ever and anon was heard the melancholy plaint of the

whippoorwill, who, perched on some lone tree, wearied the ear of night

with his incessant moanings. The mind, soothed into a hallowed

melancholy, listened with pensive stillness to catch and distinguish

each sound that vaguely echoed from the shore,—now and then startled

perchance by the whoop of some straggling savage, or by the dreary howl

of a wolf, stealing forth upon his nightly prowlings.

[Illustration:

THE OMNIPOTENT MANETHO.

]

Thus happily did they pursue their course, until they entered upon those

awful defiles denominated THE HIGHLANDS; where it would seem that the

gigantic Titans had erst waged their impious war with heaven, piling up

cliffs on cliffs, and hurling vast masses of rock in wild confusion. But

in sooth very different is the history of these cloud-capt mountains.

These in ancient days, before the Hudson poured its waters from the

lakes, formed one vast prison, within whose rocky bosom the omnipotent

Manetho confined the rebellious spirits who repined at his control.

Here, bound in adamantine chains, or jammed in rifted pines, or crushed

by ponderous rocks, they groaned for many an age. At length the

conquering Hudson, in its career towards the ocean, burst open their

prison-house, rolling its tide triumphantly through the stupendous

ruins.

Still, however, do many of them lurk about their old abodes; and these

it is, according to venerable legends, that cause the echoes which

resound throughout these awful solitudes,—which are nothing but their

angry clamors when any noise disturbs the profoundness of their repose.

For when the elements are agitated by tempest, when the winds are up and

the thunder rolls, then horrible is the yelling and howling of these

troubled spirits, making the mountains to rebellow with their hideous

uproar; for at such times it is said that they think the great Manetho

is returning once more to plunge them in gloomy caverns, and renew their

intolerable captivity.

But all these fair and glorious scenes were lost upon the gallant

Stuyvesant; naught occupied his mind but thoughts of iron war, and proud

anticipations of hardy deeds of arms. Neither did his honest crew

trouble their heads with any romantic speculations of the kind. The

pilot at the helm quietly smoked his pipe, thinking of nothing either

past, present, or to come;—those of his comrades who were not

industriously smoking under the hatches were listening with open mouths

to Antony Van Corlear, who, seated on the windlass, was relating to them

the marvellous history of those myriads of fire-flies that sparkled like

gems and spangles upon the dusky robe of night. These, according to

tradition, were originally a race of pestilent sempiternous beldames,

who peopled these parts long before the memory of man, being of that

abominated race emphatically called _brimstones_, and who, for their

innumerable sins against the children of men, and to furnish an awful

warning to the beauteous sex, were doomed to infest the earth in the

shape of these threatening and terrible little bugs, enduring the

internal torments of that fire which they formerly carried in their

hearts and breathed forth in their words, but now are sentenced to bear

about forever—in their tails!

And now I am going to tell a fact, which I doubt much my readers will

hesitate to believe; but if they do, they are welcome not to believe a

word in this whole history, for nothing which it contains is more true.

It must be known that the nose of Antony the trumpeter was of a very

lusty size, strutting boldly from his countenance like a mountain of

Golconda; being sumptuously bedecked with rubies and other precious

stones,—the true regalia of a king of good fellows, which jolly Bacchus

grants to all who bouse it heartily at the flagon. Now thus it happened,

that bright and early in the morning, the good Antony, having washed his

burly visage, was leaning over the quarter-railing of the galley,

contemplating it in the glassy wave below. Just at this moment the

illustrious sun, breaking in all its splendor from behind a high bluff

of the highlands, did dart one of his most potent beams full upon the

refulgent nose of the sounder of brass—the reflection of which shot

straightway down, hissing-hot, into the water, and killed a mighty

sturgeon that was sporting beside the vessel! This huge monster, being

with infinite labor hoisted on board, furnished a luxurious repast to

all the crew, being accounted of excellent flavor, excepting about the

wound, where it smacked a little of brimstone; and this, on my veracity,

was the first time that ever sturgeon was eaten in these parts by

Christian people.[14]

When this astonishing miracle came to be made known to Peter Stuyvesant,

and he tasted of the unknown fish, he, as may well be supposed,

marvelled exceedingly; and as a monument thereof, he gave the name of

_Antony’s Nose_ to a stout promontory in the neighborhood; and it has

continued to be called Antony’s Nose ever since that time.

[Illustration:

THE KILLING OF THE STURGEON.

]

But hold: whither am I wandering? By the mass, if I attempt to accompany

the good Peter Stuyvesant on this voyage, I shall never make an end; for

never was there a voyage so fraught with marvellous incidents, nor a

river so abounding with transcendent beauties, worthy of being severally

recorded. Even now I have it on the point of my pen to relate how his

crew were most horribly frightened, on going on shore above the

highlands, by a gang of merry roistering devils, frisking and curveting

on a flat rock, which projected into the river, and which is called the

_Duyvel’s Dans-Kamer_ to this very day. But no! Diedrich Knickerbocker,

it becomes thee not to idle thus in thy historic warfaring.

Recollect that, while dwelling with the fond garrulity of age over these

fairy scenes, endeared to thee by the recollections of thy youth, and

the charms of a thousand legendary tales, which beguiled the simple ear

of thy childhood,—recollect that thou art trifling with those fleeting

moments which should be devoted to loftier themes. Is not

Time—relentless Time!—shaking, with palsied hand, his almost exhausted

hour-glass before thee? Hasten then to pursue thy weary task, lest the

last sands be run ere thou hast finished thy history of the Manhattoes.

Let us, then, commit the dauntless Peter, his brave galley, and his

loyal crew, to the protection of the blessed St. Nicholas; who, I have

no doubt, will prosper him in his voyage, while we await his return at

the great city of New Amsterdam.

=Chapter V.=

DESCRIBING THE POWERFUL ARMY THAT ASSEMBLED AT THE CITY OF NEW

AMSTERDAM—TOGETHER WITH THE INTERVIEW BETWEEN PETER THE HEADSTRONG AND

GENERAL VAN POFFENBURGH, AND PETER’S SENTIMENTS TOUCHING UNFORTUNATE

GREAT MEN.

While thus the enterprising Peter was coasting, with flowing sail, up

the shores of the lordly Hudson, and arousing all the phlegmatic little

Dutch settlements upon its borders, a great and puissant concourse of

warriors was assembling at the city of New Amsterdam. And here that

invaluable fragment of antiquity, the Stuyvesant manuscript, is more

than commonly particular; by which means I am enabled to record the

illustrious host that encamped itself in the public square in front of

the fort, at present denominated the Bowling Green.

In the centre, then, was pitched the tent of the men of battle of the

Manhattoes, who, being the inmates of the metropolis, composed the

life-guards of the governor. These were commanded by the valiant Stoffel

Brinkerhoff, who whilom had acquired such immortal fame at Oyster Bay;

they displayed as a standard a beaver _rampant_ on a field of orange,

being the arms of the province, and denoting the persevering industry

and the amphibious origin of the Nederlanders.[15]

On their right hand might be seen the vassals of that renowned Mynheer,

Michael Paw,[16] who lorded it over the fair regions of ancient Pavonia,

and the lands away south even unto the Navesink mountains,[17] and was

moreover patroon of Gibbet Island. His standard was borne by his trusty

squire, Cornelius Van Vorst; consisting of a huge oyster _recumbent_

upon a sea-green field; being the armorial bearings of his favorite

metropolis, Communipaw. He brought to the camp a stout force of

warriors, heavily armed, being each clad in ten pair of linsey-woolsey

breeches, and overshadowed by broad-brimmed beavers, with short pipes

twisted in their hat-bands. These were the men who vegetated in the mud

along the shores of Pavonia, being of the race of genuine copperheads,

and were fabled to have sprung from oysters.

At a little distance was encamped the tribe of warriors who came from

the neighborhood of Hell-gate. These were commanded by the Suy Dams, and

the Van Dams,—incontinent hard swearers, as their names betoken. They

were terrible-looking fellows, clad in broad-skirted gaberdines, of that

curious-colored cloth called thunder and lightning,—and bore as a

standard three devil’s darning-needles, _volant_, in a flame-colored

field.

[Illustration:

“THESE WERE OF A SOUR ASPECT.”

]

Hard by was the tent of the men of battle from the marshy borders of the

Waale-Boght[18] and the country thereabouts. These were of a sour

aspect, by reason that they lived on crabs, which abound in these parts.

They were the first institutors of that honorable order of knighthood

called _Fly-market shirks_, and, if tradition speak true, did likewise

introduce the far-famed step in dancing called “double trouble.” They

were commanded by the fearless Jacobus Varra Vanger,—and had, moreover,

a jolly band of Breuckelen[19] ferry-men, who performed a brave concerto

on conch shells.

[Illustration:

“AS THEY DEFILED THROUGH THE PRINCIPAL GATE THAT STOOD AT THE HEAD OF

WALL STREET.”

]

But I refrain from pursuing this minute description, which goes on to

describe the warriors of Bloemen-dael, and Weehawk, and Hoboken, and

sundry other places, well known in history and song; for now do the

notes of martial music alarm the people of New Amsterdam, sounding afar

from beyond the walls of the city. But this alarm was in a little while

relieved, for lo! from the midst of a vast cloud of dust, they

recognized the brimstone-colored breeches and splendid silver leg, of

Peter Stuyvesant, glaring in the sunbeams; and beheld him approaching at

the head of a formidable army, which he had mustered along the banks of

the Hudson. And here the excellent but anonymous writer of the

Stuyvesant manuscript breaks out into a brave and glorious description

of the forces, as they defiled through the principal gate of the city,

that stood by the head of Wall Street.

First of all came the Van Bummels, who inhabit the pleasant borders of

the Bronx: these were short fat men, wearing exceeding large

trunk-breeches, and were renowned for feats of the trencher. They were

the first inventors of suppawn, or mush and milk.—Close in their rear

marched the Van Vlotens, of Kaatskill, horrible quaffers of new cider,

and arrant braggarts in their liquor.—After them came the Van Pelts of

Groodt Esopus, dexterous horsemen, mounted upon goodly switch-tailed

steeds of the Esopus breed. These were mighty hunters of minks and

musk-rats, whence came the word _Peltry_.—Then the Van Nests of

Kinderhoeck, valiant robbers of birds’-nests, as their name denotes. To

these, if reports may be believed, we are indebted for the invention of

slap-jacks, or buckwheat-cakes.—Then the Van Higginbottoms, of Wapping’s

creek. These came armed with ferules and birchen rods, being a race of

schoolmasters, who first discovered the marvellous sympathy between the

seat of honor and the seat of intellect,—and that the shortest way to

get knowledge into the head was to hammer it into the bottom.—Then the

Van Grolls of Antony’s Nose, who carried their liquor in fair round

little pottles, by reason they could not bouse it out of their canteens,

having such rare long noses.—Then the Gardeniers of Hudson and

thereabouts, distinguished by many triumphant feats, such as robbing

watermelon-patches, smoking rabbits out of their holes, and the like,

and by being great lovers of roasted pigs’ tails. These were the

ancestors of the renowned congressman of that name.—Then the Van Hœsens,

of Sing-Sing, great choristers and players upon the jews-harp. These

marched two and two, singing the great song of St. Nicholas.—Then the

Couenhovens, of Sleepy Hollow. These gave birth to a jolly race of

publicans, who first discovered the magic artifice of conjuring a quart

of wine into a pint bottle.—Then the Van Kortlandts, who lived on the

wild banks of the Croton, and were great killers of wild ducks, being

much spoken of for their skill in shooting with the long bow.—Then the

Van Bunschotens, of Nyack and Kakiat, who were the first that did ever

kick with the left foot. They were gallant bushwhackers and hunters of

raccoons by moonlight.—Then the Van Winkles of Haerlem, potent suckers

of eggs, and noted for running of horses, and running up of scores at

taverns. They were the first that ever winked with both eyes at

once.—Lastly came the KNICKERBOCKERS, of the great town of Schaghtikoke,

where the folk lay stones upon the houses in windy weather, lest they

should be blown away. These derive their name, as some say, from

_Knicker_, to shake, and _Beker_, a goblet, indicating thereby that they

were sturdy toss-pots of yore; but, in truth, it was derived from

_Knicker_, to nod, and _Boeken_, books: plainly meaning that they were

great nodders or dozers over books. From them did descend the writer of

this history.

Such was the legion of sturdy bush-beaters that poured in at the grand

gate of New Amsterdam; the Stuyvesant manuscript indeed speaks of many

more, whose names I omit to mention, seeing that it behooves me to

hasten to matters of greater moment. Nothing could surpass the joy and

martial pride of the lion-hearted Peter as he reviewed this mighty host

of warriors, and he determined no longer to defer the gratification of

his much-wished-for revenge upon the scoundrel Swedes at Fort Casimir.

But before I hasten to record those unmatchable events which will be

found in the sequel of this faithful history, let me pause to notice the

fate of Jacobus Van Poffenburgh, the discomfited commander-in-chief of

the armies of the New Netherlands. Such is the inherent uncharitableness

of human nature, that scarcely did the news become public of his

deplorable discomfiture at Fort Casimir, than a thousand scurvy rumors

were set afloat in New Amsterdam, wherein it was insinuated that he had

in reality a treacherous understanding with the Swedish commander; that

he had long been in the practice of privately communicating with the

Swedes; together with divers hints about “secret-service money.” To all

of which deadly charges I do not give a jot more credit than I think

they deserve.

Certain it is, that the general vindicated his character by the most

vehement oaths and protestations, and put every man out of the ranks of

honor who dared to doubt his integrity. Moreover, on returning to New

Amsterdam, he paraded up and down the streets with a crew of hard

swearers at his heels,—sturdy bottle-companions, whom he gorged and

fattened, and who were ready to bolster him through all the courts of

justice,—heroes of his own kidney, fierce-whiskered, broad-shouldered,

colbrand-looking swaggerers,—not one of whom but looked as though he

could eat up an ox, and pick his teeth with the horns. These

lifeguard-men quarrelled all his quarrels, were ready to fight all his

battles, and scowled at every man that turned up his nose at the

general, as though they would devour him alive. Their conversation was

interspersed with oaths like minute guns, and every bombastic

rodomontade was rounded off by a thundering execration, like a patriotic

toast honored with a discharge of artillery.

[Illustration:

“A CREW OF HARD SWEARERS.”

]

All these valorous vaporings had a considerable effect in convincing

certain profound sages, who began to think the general a hero of

unmatchable loftiness and magnanimity of soul, particularly as he was

continually protesting _on the honor of a soldier_,—a marvellously

high-sounding asseveration. Nay, one of the members of the council went

so far as to propose they should immortalize him by an imperishable

statue of plaster-of-Paris.

But the vigilant Peter the Headstrong was not thus to be deceived.

Sending privately for the commander-in-chief of all the armies, and

having heard all his story, garnished with the customary pious oaths,

protestations, and ejaculations,—“Harkee, comrade,” cried he, “though by

your own account you are the most brave, upright, and honorable man in

the whole province, yet do you lie under the misfortune of being

damnably traduced, and immeasurably despised. Now, though it is

certainly hard to punish a man for his misfortunes, and though it is

very possible you are totally innocent of the crimes laid to your

charge, yet as heaven, doubtless for some wise purpose, sees fit at

present to withhold all proofs of your innocence, far be it from me to

counteract its sovereign will. Besides, I cannot consent to venture my

armies with a commander whom they despise, nor to trust the welfare of

my people to a champion whom they distrust. Retire, therefore, my

friend, from the irksome toils and cares of public life, with this

comforting reflection, that, if guilty, you are but enjoying your just

reward, and if innocent, you are not the first great and good man who

has most wrongfully been slandered and maltreated in this wicked

world,—doubtless to be better treated in a better world, where there

shall be neither error, calumny, nor persecution. In the meantime let me

never see your face again, for I have a horrible antipathy to the

countenances of unfortunate great men like yourself.”