Peter Stuyvesant was the last, and, like the renowned Wouter Van
Twiller, the best of our ancient Dutch governors. Wouter having
surpassed all who preceded him, and Peter, or Piet, as he was sociably
called by the old Dutch burghers, who were ever prone to familiarize
names, having never been equaled by any successor. He was, in fact,
the very man fitted by nature to retrieve the desperate fortunes of
her beloved province, had not the Fates, those most potent and
unrelenting of all ancient spinsters, destined them to inextricable
confusion.
[Footnote 49: From Book V, Chapter I, of "Knickerbocker's History of
New York."]
To say merely that he was a hero would be doing him great
injustice--he was in truth a combination of heroes--for he was of a
sturdy, raw-boned make like Ajax Telamon, with a pair of round
shoulders that Hercules would have given his hide for (meaning his
lion's hide) when he undertook to ease old Atlas of his load. He was,
moreover, as Plutarch describes Coriolanus, not only terrible for the
force of his arm, but likewise of his voice, which sounded as tho it
came out of a barrel; and, like the self-same warrior, he possest a
sovereign contempt for the sovereign people, and an iron aspect, which
was enough of itself to make the very bowels of his adversaries quake
with terror and dismay. All this martial excellency of appearance was
inexpressibly heightened by an accidental advantage, with which I am
surprized that neither Homer nor Virgil have graced any of their
heroes. This was nothing less than a wooden leg,[50] which was the
only prize he had gained in bravely fighting the battles of his
country, but of which he was so proud that he was often heard to
declare he valued it more than all his other limbs put together;
indeed, so highly did he esteem it that he had it gallantly enchased
and relieved with silver devices, which caused it to be related in
divers histories and legends that he wore a silver leg.
[Footnote 50: Stuyvesant lost his leg in the West Indies, where he was
serving in a Dutch command. In 1634 he became director of the colony
of Curacao. In 1636 he was made director-general of the Dutch colony
in North America. He retained this office, in which he was notably
efficient, until the surrender of New Amsterdam to the English in
1664. Stuyvesant spent the remainder of his life in New York on a farm
called the Bowery, where he died in 1672. He was buried in grounds
where now stands St. Mark's Church.]
Like that choleric warrior Achilles, he was somewhat subject to
extempore bursts of passion, which were rather unpleasant to his
favorites and attendants, whose perceptions he was apt to quicken,
after the manner of his illustrious imitator, Peter the Great, by
anointing their shoulders with his walking-staff.
Tho I can not find that he had read Plato, or Aristotle, or Hobbes, or
Bacon, or Algernon Sydney, or Tom Paine, yet did he sometimes manifest
a shrewdness and sagacity in his measures that one would hardly expect
from a man who did not know Greek, and had never studied the ancients.
True it is, and I confess it with sorrow, that he had an unreasonable
aversion to experiments, and was fond of governing his province after
the simplest manner; but then he contrived to keep it in better order
than did the erudite Kieft,[51] tho he had all the philosophers,
ancient and modern, to assist and perplex him. I must likewise own
that he made but very few laws; but then again he took care that those
few were rigidly and impartially enforced: and I do not know but
justice on the whole was as well administered as if there had been
volumes of sage acts and statutes yearly made, and daily neglected and
forgotten.
[Footnote 51: William Kieft, the predecessor of Stuyvesant in the
government of New Amsterdam, was a tyrannical, blundering
administrator, whose rule was marked by disastrous wars with the
Indians and dissension among his own people which nearly ruined the
province. He was recalled by the home government, and while on his way
to Holland was lost in the wreck, on the English coast, of the ship in
which he had sailed.]
He was, in fact, the very reverse of his predecessors, being neither
tranquil and inert, like Walter the Doubter, nor restless and
fidgeting, like William the Testy; but a man, or rather a governor of
such uncommon activity and decision of mind that he never sought nor
accepted the advice of others; depending bravely upon his single head,
as would a hero of yore upon his single arm, to carry him through all
difficulties and dangers. To tell the simple truth, he wanted nothing
more to complete him as a statesman than to think always right; for no
one can say but that he always acted as he thought. He was never a man
to flinch when he found himself in a scrape; but to dash forward
through thick and thin, trusting, by hook or by crook, to make all
things straight in the end. In a word, he possest, in an eminent
degree, that great quality in a statesman, called perseverance by the
polite, but nicknamed obstinacy by the vulgar. A wonderful salve for
official blunders; since he who perseveres in error without flinching
gets the credit of boldness and consistency, while he who wavers in
seeking to do what is right gets stigmatized as a trimmer. This much
is certain; and it is a maxim well worthy the attention of all
legislators, great and small, who stand shaking in the wind,
irresolute which way to steer, that a ruler who follows his own will
pleases himself; while he who seeks to satisfy the wishes and whims of
others runs great risk of pleasing nobody. There is nothing, too, like
putting down one's foot resolutely, when in doubt, and letting things
take their course. The clock that stands still points right twice in
the four-and-twenty hours: while others may keep going continually and
be continually going wrong.
Nor did this magnanimous quality escape the discernment of the good
people of Nieuw Nederlandts; on the contrary, so much were they struck
with the independent will and vigorous resolution displayed on all
occasions by their new governor, that they universally called him
Hard-Koppig Piet; or Peter the Headstrong--a great compliment to the
strength of his understanding.
If, from all that I have said, thou dost not gather, worthy reader,
that Peter Stuyvesant was a tough, sturdy, valiant, weather-beaten,
mettlesome, obstinate, leather-sided, lion-hearted, generous-spirited
old governor, either I have written to but little purpose, or thou art
very dull at drawing conclusions.