A History of New York, from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, Volume 1 . . . By Diedrich Knickerbocker [pseud]
Author: Washington Irving
Date: 2000-08-01T05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Literature/Poetry
Description: masculine, Prose; fiction
Publisher: Electronic Text Center. University of Virginia Library.
Rights: Copyright 2000, by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia

A HISTORY OF NEW YORK, FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD TO THE END OF THE DUTCH DYNASTY. CONTAINING Among many Surprising and Curious Matters, the Unutterable Ponderings of Walter the Doubter, the Disastrous Projects of William the Testy, and the Chivalric Achievments of Peter the Headstrong, the three Dutch Governors of New Amsterdam; being the only Authentic History of the Times that ever hath been, or ever will be Published. BY DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER.

De waarheid die in duiffer lag,

Die komt met klaarheid aan den dag.

IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. PUBLISHED BY INSKEEP & BRADFORD, NEW YORK; BRADFORD & INSKEEP, PHILADELPHIA; WM. M’IL-HENNEY, BOSTON; COALE & THOMAS, BALTIMORE; AND MORFORD, WILLINGTON, & CO. CHARLESTON 1809. Copy-right secured according to Law.

TO THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY

This Work is respectfully Dedicated, as a humble and unworthy Testimony of the profound veneration and exalted esteem of the Society’s

Sincere Well wisher and Devoted Servant DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER.

ACCOUNT OF THE AUTHOR.

It was sometime, if I recollect right, in the early part of the Fall of 1808, that a stranger applied for lodgings at the Independent Columbian Hotel in Mulberry Street, of which I am landlord. He was a small brisk looking old gentleman, dressed in a rusty black coat, a pair of olive velvet breeches, and a small cocked hat. He had a few grey hairs plaited and clubbed behind, and his beard seemed to be of some four and twenty hours growth. The only piece of finery which he bore about him, was a bright pair of square silver shoe buckles, and all his baggage was contained in a pair of saddle bags which he carried under his arm. His whole appearance was something out of the common run, and my wife, who is a very shrewd body, at once set him down for some eminent country school-master.

As the Independent Columbian Hotel is a very small house, I was a little puzzled at first where to put him; but my wife, who seemed taken with his looks, would needs put him in her best chamber, which is genteely set off with the profiles of the whole family, done in black, by those two great painters Jarvis and Wood; and commands a very pleasant view of the new grounds on the Collect, together with the rear of the Poor house and Bridewell and the full front of the Hospital, so that it is the cheerfullest room in the whole house.

During the whole time that he stayed with us, we found him a very worthy good sort of an old gentleman, though a little queer in his ways. He would keep in his room for days together, and if any of the children cried or made a noise about his door, he would bounce out in a great passion, with his hands full of papers, and say something about “deranging his ideas,” which made my wife believe sometimes that he was not altogether compos. Indeed there was more than one reason to make her think so, for his room was always covered with scraps of paper and old mouldy books, laying about at sixes and sevens, which he would never let any body touch; for he said he had laid them all away in their proper places, so that he might know where to find them; though for that matter, he was half his time worrying about the house in seach of some book or writing which he had carefully put out of the way. I shall never forget what a pother he once made, because my wife cleaned out his room when his back was turned, and put every thing to rights; for he swore he should never be able to get his papers in order again in a twelvemonth-- Upon this my wife ventured to ask him what he did with so many books and papers, and he told her that he was “seeking for immortality,” which made her think more than ever, that the poor old gentleman’s head was a little cracked.

He was a very inquisitive body, and when not in his room was continually poking about town, hearing all the news and prying into every thing that was going on; this was particularly the case about election time, when he did nothing but bustle about from poll to poll, attending all ward meetings and committee rooms; though I could never find that he took part with either side of the question. On the contrary he would come home and rail at both parties with great wrath--and plainly proved one day, to the satisfaction of my wife and three old ladies who were drinking tea with her, one of whom was as deaf as a post, that the two parties were like two rogues, each tugging at a skirt of the nation, and that in the end they would tear the very coat off of its back and expose its nakedness. Indeed he was an oracle among the neighbours, who would collect around him to hear him talk of an afternoon, as he smoaked his pipe on the bench before the door; and I really believe he would have brought over the whole neighbourhood to his own side of the question, if they could ever have found out what it was.

He was very much given to argue, or as he called it philosophize, about the most trifling matter, and to do him justice, I never knew any body that was a match for him, except it was a grave looking gentleman who called now and then to see him, and often posed him in an argument. But this is nothing surprising, as I have since found out this stranger is the city librarian, and of course must be a man of great learning; and I have my doubts, if he had not some hand in the following history.

As our lodger had heen a long time with us, and we had never received any pay, my wife began to be somewhat uneasy, and curious to find out who, and what he was. She accordingly made bold to put the question to his friend, the librarian, who replied in his dry way, that he was one of the Literati; which she supposed to mean some new party in politics. I scorn to push a lodger for his pay, so I let day after day pass on without dunning the old gentleman for a farthing; but my wife, who always takes these matters on herself, and is as I said a shrewd kind of a woman, at last got out of patience, and hinted, that she thought it high time “some people should have a sight of some people’s money.” To which the old gentleman replied, in a mighty touchy manner, that she need not make herself uneasy, for that he had a treasure there (pointing to his saddle-bags) worth her whole house put together. This was the only answer we could ever get from him; and as my wife, by some of those odd ways in which women find out every thing, learnt that he was of very great connexions, being related to the Knickerbockers of Scaghtikoke, and cousin-german to the Congress-man of that name, she did not like to treat him uncivilly. What is more, she even offered, merely by way of making things easy, to let him live scot-free, if he would teach the children their letters; and to try her best and get the neighbours to send their children also; but the old gentleman took it in such dudgeon, and seemed so affronted at being taken for a school-master, that she never dared speak on the subject again.

About two month’s ago, he went out of a morning, with a bundle in his hand--and has never been heard of since. All kinds of inquiries were made after him, but in vain. I wrote to his relations at Scaghtikoke, but they sent for answer, that he had not been there since the year before last, when he had a great dispute with the Congress-man about politics, and left the place in a huff, and they had neither heard nor seen any thing of him from that time to this. I must own I felt very much worried about the poor old gentleman, for I thought something bad must have happened to him, that he should be missing so long, and never return to pay his bill. I therefore advertised him in the newspapers, and though my melancholy advertisement was published by several humane printers, yet I have never been able to learn any thing satisfactory about him.

My wife now said it was high time to take care of ourselves, and see if he had left any thing behind in his room, that would pay us for his board and lodging. We found nothing however, but some old books and musty writings, and his pair of saddle bags, which being opened in presence of the librarian, contained only a few articles of worn out clothes, and a large bundle of blotted paper. On looking over this, the librarian told us, he had no doubt it was the treasure which the old gentleman had spoken about; as it proved to be a most excellent and faithful HISTORY OF NEW YORK, which he advised us by all means to publish: assuring us that it would be so eagerly bought up by a discerning public, that he had no doubt it would be enough to pay our arrears ten times over. Upon this we got a very learned school-master, who teaches our children, to prepare it for the press, which he accordingly has done, and has moreover, added to it a number of notes of his own; and an engraving of the city, as it was, at the time Mr. Knickerbocker writes about.

This, therefore, is a true statement of my reasons for having this work printed, without waiting for the consent of the author: and I here declare, that if he ever returns (though I much fear some unhappy accident has befallen him) I stand ready to account with him, like a true and honest man. Which is all at present--

From the public’s humble servant, Seth Handaside. Independent Columbian Hotel, New York.

TO THE PUBLIC.

“TO rescue from oblivion the memory of for “mer incidents, and to render a just tribute of “renown to the many great and wonderful tran “sactions of our Dutch progenitors, Diedrich “Knickerbocker, native of the city of New York, “produces this historical essay.”[1] Like the great Father of History whose words I have just quoted, I treat of times long past, over which the twilight of uncertainty had already thrown its shadows, and the night of forgetfulness was about to descend forever. With great solicitude had I long beheld the early history of this venerable and ancient city, gradually slipping from our grasp, trembling on the lips of narrative old age, and day by day dropping piece meal into the tomb. In a little while, thought I, and those venerable dutch burghers, who serve as the tottering monuments of good old times, will be gathered to their fathers; their children engrossed by the empty pleasures or insignificant transactions of the present age, will neglect to treasure up the recollections of the past, and posterity shall search in vain, for memorials of the days of the Patriarchs. The origin of our city will be buried in eternal oblivion, and even the names and atchievements of Wouter Van Twiller, William Kieft, and Peter Stuyvesant, be enveloped in doubt and fiction, like those of Romulus and Rhemus, of Charlemagne, King Arthur, Rinaldo, and Godfrey of Bologne.

Determined therefore, to avert if possible this threatening misfortune, I industriously sat myself to work, to gather together all the fragments of our infant history which still existed, and like my revered prototype Herodotus, where no written records could be found, I have endeavoured to continue the chain of history by well authenticated traditions.

In this arduous undertaking, which has been the whole business of a long and solitary life, it is incredible the number of learned authors I have consulted; and all to but little purpose. Strange as it may seem, though such multitudes of excellent works have been written about this country, there are none extant which give any full and satisfactory account of the early history of New York, or of its three first Dutch governors. I have, however, gained much valuable and curious matter from an elaborate manuscript written in exceeding pure and classic low dutch, excepting a few errors in orthography, which was found in the archieves of the Stuyvesant family. Many legends, letters and other documents have I likewise gleaned, in my researches among the family chests and lumber garrets of our respectable dutch citizens, and I have gathered a host of well authenticated traditions from divers excellent old ladies of my acquaintance, who requested that their names might not be mentioned. Nor must I neglect to acknowledge, how greatly I have been assisted by that admirable and praiseworthy institution, the New York Historical Society, to which I here publicly return my sincere acknowledgements.

In the conduct of this inestimable work I have adopted no individual model, but on the contrary have simply contented myself with combining and concentrating the excellencies of the most approved ancient historians. Like Xenophon I have maintained the utmost impartiality, and the strictest adherence to truth throughout my history. I have enriched it after the manner of Sallust, with various characters of ancient worthies, drawn at full length, and faithfully coloured. I have seasoned it with profound political speculations like Thucydides, sweetened it with the graces of sentiment like Tacitus, and infused into the whole the dignity, the grandeur and magnificence of Livy.

I am aware that I shall incur the censure of numerous very learned and judicious critics, for indulging too frequently in the bold excursive manner of my favourite Herodotus. And to be candid, I have found it impossible always to resist the allurements of those pleasing episodes, which like flowery banks and fragrant bowers, beset the dusty road of the historian, and entice him to turn aside, and refresh himself from his wayfaring. But I trust it will be found, that I have always resumed my staff, and addressed myself to my weary journey with renovated spirits, so that both my readers and myself, have been benefited by the relaxation.

Indeed, though it has been my constant wish and uniform endeavour, to rival Polybius himself, in observing the requisite unity of History, yet the loose and unconnected manner in which many of the facts herein recorded have come to hand, rendered such an attempt extremely difficult. This difficulty was likewise increased, by one of the grand objects contemplated in my work, which was to trace the rise of sundry customs and institutions in this best of cities, and to compare them when in the germ of infancy, with what they are in the present old age of knowledge and improvement.

But the chief merit upon which I value myself, and found my hopes for future regard, is that faithful veracity with which I have compiled this invaluable little work; carefully winnowing away all the chaff of hypothesis, and discarding the tares of fable, which are too apt to spring up and choke the seeds of truth and wholesome knowledge--Had I been anxious to captivate the superficial throng, who skim like swallows over the surface of literature; or had I been anxious to commend my writings to the pampered palates of literary voluptuaries, I might have availed myself of the obscurity that hangs about the infant years of our city, to introduce a thousand pleasing fictions. But I have scrupulously discarded many a pithy tale and marvellous adventure, whereby the drowsy ear of summer indolence might be enthralled; jealously maintaining that fidelity, gravity and dignity, which should ever distinguish the historian. “For a writer of this class,” observes an elegant critic, “must sustain the character of a wise man, writing for the instruction of posterity; one who has studied to inform himself well, who has pondered his subject with care, and addresses himself to our judgment, rather than to our imagination.”

Thrice happy therefore, is this our renowned city, in having incidents worthy of swelling the theme of history; and doubly thrice happy is it in having such an historian as myself, to relate them. For after all, gentle reader, cities of themselves, and in fact empires of themselves, are nothing without an historian. It is the patient narrator who cheerfully records their prosperity as they rise--who blazons forth the splendour of their noontide meridian--who props their feeble memorials as they totter to decay--who gathers together their scattered fragments as they rot--and who piously at length collects their ashes into the mausoleum of his work, and rears a triumphal monument, to transmit their renown to all succeeding time.

“What,” (in the language of Diodorus Siculus) “What has become of Babylon, of Nineveh, of Palmyra, of Persepolis, of Byzantium, of Agrigentum, of Cyzicum and Mytilene?” They have disappeared from the face of the earth--they have perished for want of an historian! The philanthropist may weep over their desolation--the poet may wander amid their mouldering arches and broken columns, and indulge the visionary flights of his fancy--but alas! alas! the modern historian, whose faithful pen, like my own, is doomed irrevocably to confine itself to dull matter of fact, seeks in vain among their oblivious remains, for some memorial that may tell the instructive tale, of their glory and their ruin.

“Wars, conflagrations, deluges (says Aristotle) destroy nations, and with them all their monuments, their discoveries and their vanities--The torch of science has more than once been extinguished and rekindled--a few individuals who have escaped by accident, reunite the thread of generations.” Thus then the historian is the patron of mankind, the guardian priest, who keeps the perpetual lamp of ages unextinguished--Nor is he without his reward. Every thing in a manner is tributary to his renown--Like the great projector of inland lock navigation, who asserted that rivers, lakes and oceans were only formed to feed canals; so I affirm that cities, empires, plots, conspiracies, wars, havock and desolation, are ordained by providence only as food for the historian. They form but the pedestal on which he intrepidly mounts to the view of surrounding generations, and claims to himself, from ages as they rise, until the latest sigh of old time himself, the meed of immortality--The world --the world, is nothing without the historian!

The same sad misfortune which has happened to so many ancient cities, will happen again, and from the same sad cause, to nine-tenths of those cities which now flourish on the face of the globe. With most of them the time for recording their history is gone by; their origin, their very foundation, together with the early stages of their settlement, are forever buried in the rubbish of years; and the same would have been the case with this fair portion of the earth, the history of which I have here given, if I had not snatched it from obscurity, in the very nick of time, at the moment that those matters herein recorded, were about entering into the wide-spread, insatiable maw of oblivion--if I had not dragged them out, in a manner, by the very locks, just as the monster’s adamantine fangs, were closing upon them forever! And here have I, as before observed, carefully collected, collated and arranged them; scrip and scrap, “punt en punt, gat en gat,” and commenced in this little work, a history which may serve as a foundation, on which a host of worthies shall hereafter raise a noble superstructure, swelling in process of time, until Knickerbocker’s New York shall be equally voluminous, with Gibbon’s Rome, or Hume and Smollet’s England!

And now indulge me for a moment, while I lay down my pen, skip to some little eminence at the distance of two or three hundred years a head; and casting back a birds eye glance, over the waste of years that is to roll between; discover myself --little I--at this moment the progenitor, prototype and precursor of them all, posted at the head of this host of literary worthies, with my book under my arm, and New York on my back, pressing forward like a gallant commander, to honour and immortality.

Here then I cut my bark adrift, and launch it forth to float upon the waters. And oh! ye mighty Whales, ye Grampuses and Sharks of criticism, who delight in shipwrecking unfortunate adventurers upon the sea of letters, have mercy upon this my crazy vessel. Ye may toss it about in your sport; or spout your dirty water upon it in showers; but do not, for the sake of the unlucky mariner within--do not stave it with your tails and send it to the bottom. And you, oh ye great little fish! ye tadpoles, ye sprats, ye minnows, ye chubbs, ye grubs, ye barnacles, and all you small fry of literature, be cautious how you insult my new launched vessel, or swim within my view; lest in a moment of mingled sportiveness and scorn, I sweep you up in a scoop net, and roast half a hundred of you for my breakfast.

[1] Belce’s Herodotus.

BOOK I.

Being, like all introductions to American histories, very learned, sagacious, and nothing at all to the purpose; containing divers profound theories and philosophic speculations, which the idle reader may totally overlook, and begin at the next book.

CHAP. I.

In which the Author ventures a Description of the World, from the best Authorities.

THE world in which we dwell is a huge, opake, reflecting, inanimate mass, floating in the vast etherial ocean of infinite space. It has the form of an orange, being an oblate spheroid, curiously flattened at opposite parts, for the insertion of two imaginary poles, which are supposed to penetrate and unite at the centre; thus forming an axis on which the mighty orange turns with a regular diurnal revolution.

The transitions of light and darkness, whence proceed the alternations of day and night, are produced by this diurnal revolution, successively presenting the different parts of the earth to the rays of the sun. The latter is, according to the best, that is to say, the latest, accounts, a luminous or fiery body, of a prodigious magnitude, from which this world is driven by a centrifugal or repelling power, and to which it is drawn by a centripetal or attractive force; otherwise termed the attraction of gravitation; the combination, or rather the counteraction of these two opposing impulses producing a circular and annual revolution. Hence result the vicissitudes of the seasons, viz. spring, summer, autumn, and winter.

I am fully aware, that I expose myself to the cavillings of sundry dead philosophers, by adopting the above theory. Some will entrench themselves behind the ancient opinion, that the earth is an extended plain, supported by vast pillars; others, that it rests on the head of a snake, or the back of a huge tortoise; and others, that it is an immense flat pancake, and rests upon whatever it pleases God--formerly a pious Catholic opinion, and sanctioned by a formidable bull, dispatched from the vatican by a most holy and infallible pontiff. Others will attack my whole theory, by declaring with the Brahmins, that the heavens rest upon the earth, and that the sun and moon swim therein like fishes in the water, moving from east to west by day, and gliding back along the edge of the horizon to their original sta tions during the night time.[2] While others will maintain, with the Pauranicas of India, that is a vast plain, encircled by seven oceans of milk, nectar and other delicious liquids; that it is studded with seven mountains, and ornamented in the centre by a mountainous rock of burnished gold; and that a great dragon occasionally swallows up the moon, which accounts for the phenomena of lunar eclipses.

I am confident also, I shall meet with equal opposition to my account of the sun; certain ancient philosophers having affirmed that it is a vast wheel of brilliant fire,‡ others that it is merely a mirror or sphere of transparent chrystal;‖ and a third class, at the head of whom stands Anaxagoras, having maintained, that it is nothing but a huge ignited rock or stone, an opinion which the good people of Athens have kindly saved me the trouble of confuting, by turning the philosopher neck and heels out of their city.§ Another set of philosophers, who delight in variety, declare, that certain fiery particles exhale constantly from the earth, which concentrating in a single point of the firmament by day, con stitute the sun, but being scattered, and rambling about in the dark at night, collect in various points and form stars. These are regularly burnt out and extinguished, like the lamps in our streets, and require a fresh supply of exhalations for the next occasion.[3]

It is even recorded that at certain remote and obscure periods, in consequence of a great scarcity of fuel, (probably during a severe winter) the sun has been completely burnt out, and not rekindled for a whole month. A most melancholy occurrence, the very idea of which gave vast concern to Heraclitus, the celebrated weeping Philosopher, who was a great stickler for this doctrine. Beside these profound speculations, others may expect me to advocate the opinion of Herschel, that the sun is a most magnificent, habitable abode; the light it furnishes, arising from certain empyreal, luminous or phosphoric clouds, swimming in its transparent atmosphere. But to save dispute and altercation with my readers--who I already perceive, are a captious, discontented crew, and likely to give me a world of trouble--I now, once for all, wash my hands of all and every of these theories, declining entirely and unequivocally, any investigation of their merits. The subject of the present chapter is merely the Island, on which is built the goodly city of New York,--a very honest and substantial Island, which I do not expect to find in the sun, or moon; as I am no land speculator, but a plain matter of fact historian. I therefore renounce all lunatic, or solaric excursions, and confine myself to the limits of this terrene or earthly globe; somewhere on the surface of which I pledge my credit as a historian--(which heaven and my landlord know is all the credit I possess) to detect and demonstrate the existence of this illustrious island to the conviction of all reasonable people.

Proceeding on this discreet and considerate plan, I rest satisfied with having advanced the most approved and fashionable opinion on the form of this earth and its movements; and I freely submit it to the cavilling of any Philo, dead or alive, who may choose to dispute its correctness. I must here intreat my unlearned readers (in which class I humbly presume to include nine tenths of those who shall pore over these instructive pages) not to be discouraged when they encounter a passage above their comprehension; for as I shall admit nothing into my work that is not pertinent and absolutely essential to its well being, so likewise I shall advance no theory or hypothesis, that shall not be elucidated to the comprehension of the dullest intellect. I am not one of those churlish authors, who do so enwrap their works in the mystic fogs of scientific jargon, that a man must be as wise as themselves to understand their writings; on the contrary, my pages, though abounding with sound wisdom and profound erudition, shall be written with such pleasant and urbane perspicuity, that there shall not even be found a country justice, an outward alderman, or a member of congress, provided he can read with tolerable fluency, but shall both understand and profit by my labours. I shall therefore, proceed forthwith to illustrate by experiment, the complexity of motion just ascribed to this our rotatory planet.

Professor Von Poddingcoft (or Puddinghead as the name may be rendered into English) was long celebrated in the college of New York, for most profound gravity of deportment, and his talent at going to sleep in the midst of examinations; to the infinite relief of his hopeful students, who thereby worked their way through college with great ease and little study. In the course of one of his lectures, the learned professor, seizing a bucket of water swung it round his head at arms length; the impulse with which he threw the vessel from him, being a centrifugal force, the retention of his arm operating as a centripetal power, and the bucket, which was a substitute for the earth, describing a circular orbit round about the globular head and ruby visage of Professor Von Poddingcoft, which formed no bad representation of the sun. All of these particulars were duly explained to the class of gaping students around him. He apprised them moreover, that the same principle of gravitation, which retained the water in the bucket, restrains the ocean from flying from the earth in its rapid revolutions; and he further informed them that should the motion of the earth be suddenly checked, it would incontinently fall into the sun, through the centripetal force of gravitation; a most ruinous event to this planet, and one which would also obscure, though it most probably would not extinguish the solar luminary. An unlucky stripling, one of those vagrant geniuses, who seem sent into the world merely to annoy worthy men of the puddinghead order, desirous of ascertaining the correctness of the experiment, suddenly arrested the arm of the professor, just at the moment that the bucket was in its zenith, which immediately descended with astonishing precision, upon the philosophic head of the instructor of youth. A hollow sound, and a red-hot hiss attended the contact, but the theory was in the amplest manner illustrated, for the unfortunate bucket perished in the conflict, but the blazing countenance of Professor Von Poddingcoft, emerged from amidst the waters, glowing fiercer than ever with unutterable indignation--whereby the students were marvellously edified, and departed considerably wiser than before.

It is a mortifying circumstance, which greatly perplexes many a pains taking philosopher, that nature often refuses to second his most profound and elaborate efforts; so that often after having invented one of the most ingenious and natural theories imaginable, she will have the perverseness to act directly in the teeth of his system, and flatly contradict his most favourite positions. This is a manifest and unmerited grievance, since it throws the censure of the vulgar and unlearned entirely upon the philosopher; whereas the fault is not to be ascribed to his theory, which is unquestionably correct, but to the waywardness of dame nature, who with the proverbial fickleness of her sex, is continually indulging in coquetries and caprices, and seems really to take pleasure in violating all philosophic rules, and jilting the most learned and indefatigable of her adorers. Thus it happened with respect to the foregoing satisfactory explanation of the motion of our planet; it appears that the centrifugal force has long since ceased to operate, while its antagonist remains in undiminished potency: the world therefore, according to the theory as it originally stood, ought in strict propriety to tumble into the sun--Philosophers were convinced that it would do so, and awaited in anxious impatience, the fulfilment of their prognostications. But the untoward planet, pertinaciously continued her course, notwithstanding that she had reason, philosophy, and a whole university of learned professors opposed to her conduct. The philo’s were all at a non plus, and it is apprehended they would never have fairly recovered from the slight and affront which they conceived offered to them by the world, had not a good natured professor kindly officiated as mediator between the parties, and effected a reconciliation.

Finding the world would not accomodate itself to the theory, he wisely determined to accomodate the theory to the world: he therefore informed his brother philosophers, that the circular motion of the earth round the sun was no sooner engendered by the conflicting impulses above described, than it became a regular revolution, independent of the causes which gave it origin--in short, that madam earth having once taken it into her head to whirl round, like a young lady of spirit in a high dutch waltz, the duivel himself could not stop her. The whole board of professors of the university of Leyden joined in the opinion, being heartily glad of any explanation that would decently extricate them from their embarrassment--and immediately decreed the penalty of expulsion against all who should presume to question its correctness: the philosophers of all other nations gave an unqualified assent, and ever since that memorable era the world has been left to take her own course, and to revolve around the sun in such orbit as she thinks proper.

[2] Faria y Souza. Mick. Lus. Note B, 7.

Sir W. Jones, Diss. Antiq. Ind. Zod.

‡ Plut. de Plac. Philos. lib. ii, cap. 20.

‖ Achill. Tat. Isag. cap. 19. Ap. Petav. t. iii, p. 81. Stob. Eclog. Phys. lib. i, p. 56. Plut. de plac. p. p.

§ Diog. Laert. in Anaxag. I. ii, sec. 8. Plat. Apol. t i, p. 26. Plut. de Superst. t. ii, p. 269. Xenoph. Mem. l. iv, p. 815.

[3] Aristot. Meteor. l. ii, c. 2. Idem. Probl. sec. 15. Stob. Ecl. Phys. l. i, p. 55. Bruck. Hist. Phil. t. i, p. 1154, et alii.

Philos. Trans. 1795, p. 72.--idem. 1801, p. 265.--Nich. Philos. Journ. 1. p. 13.

CHAP. II.

Cosmogony or Creation of the World. With a multitude of excellent Theories, by which the Creation of a World is shewn to be no such difficult Matter as common Folks would imagine.

Having thus briefly introduced my reader to the world, and given him some idea of its form and situation, he will naturally be curious to know from whence it came, and how it was created. And indeed these are points absolutely essential to be cleared up, in as much as if this world had not been formed, it is more than probable, nay I may venture to assume it as a maxim or postulate at least, that this renowned island on which is situated the city of New York, would never have had an existence. The regular course of my history therefore, requires that I should proceed to notice the cosmogony or formation of this our globe.

And now I give my readers fair warning, that I am about to plunge for a chapter or two, into as complete a labyrinth as ever historian was perplexed withal; therefore I advise them to take fast hold of my skirts, and keep close at my heels, venturing neither to the right hand nor to the left, least they get bemired in a slough of unintelligible learning, or have their brains knocked out, by some of those hard Greek names which will be flying about in all directions. But should any of them be too indolent or chicken-hearted to accompany me in this perilous undertaking, they had better take a short cut round, and wait for me at the beginning of some smoother chapter.

Of the creation of the world, we have a thousand contradictory accounts; and though a very satisfactory one is furnished us by divine revelation, yet every philosopher feels himself in honour bound, to furnish us with a better. As an impartial historian, I consider it my duty to notice their several theories, by which mankind have been so exceedingly edified and instructed.

Thus it was the opinion of certain ancient sages, that the earth and the whole system of the universe, was the deity himself;[4] a doctrine most strenuously maintained by Zenophanes and the whole tribe of Eleatics, as also by Strato and the sect of peripatetic or vagabondizing philosophers. Pythagoras likewise inculcated the famous numerical system of the monad, dyad and triad, and by means of his sacred quaternary elucidated the formation of the world, the arcana of nature and the principles both of music and morals. Other sages adhered to the mathematical system of squares and triangles; the cube, the pyramid and the sphere; the tetrahedron, the octahedron, the icosahedron and the dodecahedron.[5] While others advocated the great elementary theory, which refers the construction of our globe and all that it contains, to the combinations of four material elements, air, earth, fire and water; with the assistance of a fifth, an immaterial and vivifying principle; by which I presume the worthy theorist meant to allude to that vivifying spirit contained in gin, brandy, and other potent liquors, and which has such miraculous effects, not only on the ordinary operations of nature, but likewise on the creative brains of certain philosophers.

Nor must I omit to mention the great atomic system taught by old Moschus before the siege of Troy; revived by Democritus of laughing memory; improved by Epicurus that king of good fellows, and modernised by the fanciful Descartes. But I decline enquiring, whether the atoms, of which the earth is said to be composed, are eternal or recent; whether they are animate or inanimate; whether, agreeably to the opinion of the Atheists, they were fortuitously aggregated, or as the Theists maintain, were arranged by a supreme intelligence. Whether in fact the earth is an insensate clod, or whe ther it is animated by a soul;[6] which opinion was strenuously maintained by a host of philosophers, at the head of whom stands the great Plato, that temperate sage, who threw the cold water of philosophy on the form of sexual intercourse, and inculcated the doctrine of Platonic affection, or the art of making love without making children.--An exquisitely refined intercourse, but much better adapted to the ideal inhabitants of his imaginary island of Atlantis, than to the sturdy race, composed of rebellious flesh and blood, who populate the little matter of fact island which we inhabit.

Besides these systems, we have moreover the poetical theogeny of old Hesiod, who generated the whole Universe in the regular mode of procreation, and the plausible opinion of others, that the earth was hatched from the great egg of night, which floated in chaos, and was cracked by the horns of the celestial bull. To illustrate this last doctrine, Bishop Burnet in his Theory of the Earth, has favoured us with an accurate drawing and description, both of the form and texture of this mundane egg; which is found to bear a miraculous resemblance to that of a goose! Such of my readers as take a proper interest in the origin of this our planet, will be pleased to learn, that the most profound sages of antiquity, among the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks and Latins, have alternately assisted at the hatching of this strange bird, and that their cacklings have been caught, and continued in different tones and inflections, from philosopher to philosopher, unto the present day.

But while briefly noticing long celebrated systems of ancient sages, let me not pass over with neglect, those of other philosophers; which though less universal and renowned, have equal claims to attention, and equal chance for correctness. Thus it is recorded by the Brahmins, in the pages of their inspired Shastah, that the angel Bistnoo transforming himself into a great boar, plunged into the watery abyss, and brought up the earth on his tusks. Then issued from him a mighty tortoise, and a mighty snake; and Bistnoo placed the snake erect upon the back of the tortoise, and he placed the earth upon the head of the snake.[7]

The negro philosophers of Congo affirm, that the world was made by the hands of angels, excepting their own country, which the Supreme Being constructed himself, that it might be supremely excellent. And he took great pains with the inhabitants, and made them very black, and beautiful: and when he had finished the first man, he was well pleased with him, and smoothed him over the face, and hence his nose and the nose of all his descendants became flat.

The Mohawk Philosophers tell us that a pregnant woman fell down from heaven, and that a tortoise took her upon its back, because every place was covered with water; and that the woman sitting upon the tortoise paddled with her hands in the water, and raked up the earth, whence it finally happened that the earth became higher than the water.[8]

Beside these and many other equally sage opinions, we have likewise the profound conjectures of Aboul-Hassan-Aly, son of Al Khan, son of Aly, son of Abderrahman, son of Abdallah, son of Masoud-el-Hadheli, who is commonly called Masoudi, and surnamed Cothbeddin, but who takes the humble title of Laheb-ar-rasoul, which means the companion of the ambassador of God. He has written an universal history entitled “Mouroudge-ed-dhahrab, or the golden meadows and the mines of precious stones.” In this valuable work he has related the history of the world, from the creation down to the moment of writing; which was, under the Khaliphat of Mothi Billah, in the month Dgioumadi-elaoual of the 336th year of the Hegira or flight of the Prophet. He informs us that the earth is a huge bird, Mecca and Medina constituting the head, Persia and India the right wing, the land of Gog the left wing, and Africa the tail. He informs us moreover, than an earth has existed before the present, (which he considers as a mere chicken of 7000 years) that it has undergone divers deluges, and that, according to the opinion of some well informed Brahmins of his acquaintance, it will be renovated every seventy thousandth hazarouam; each hazarouam consisting of 12,000 years.

But I forbear to quote a host more of these ancient and outlandish philosophers, whose deplorable ignorance, in despite of all their erudition, compelled them to write in languages which but few of my readers can understand; and I shall proceed briefly to notice a few more intelligible and fashionable theories of their modern successors.

And first I shall mention the great Buffon, who conjectures that this globe was originally a globe of liquid fire, scintillated from the body of the sun, by the percussion of a comet, as a spark is generated by the collision of flint and steel. That at first it was surrounded by gross vapours, which cooling and condensing in process of time, constituted, according to their densities, earth, water and air; which gradually arranged themselves, according to their respective gravities, round the burning or vitrified mass, that formed their centre, &c.

Hutton, on the contrary, supposes that the waters at first were universally paramount; and he terrifies himself with the idea that the earth must be eventually washed away, by the force of rain, rivers and mountain torrents, untill it is confounded with the ocean, or in other words, absolutely dissolves into itself.--Sublime idea! far surpassing that of the tender-hearted damsel of antiquity who wept herself into a fountain; or the good dame of Narbonne in France, who for a volubility of tongue unusual in her sex, was doomed to peel five hundred thousand and thirty-nine ropes of onions, and actually ran out at her eyes, before half the hideous task was accomplished.

Whiston, the same ingenious philosopher who rivalled Ditton in his researches after the longitude, (for which the mischief-loving Swift discharged on their heads a stanza as fragrant as an Edinburgh nosegay) has distinguished himself by a very admirable theory respecting the earth. He conjectures that it was originally a chaotic comet, which being selected for the abode of man, was removed from its excentric orbit, and whirled round the sun in its present regular motion; by which change of direction, order succeeded to confusion in the arrangement of its component parts. The philosopher adds, that the deluge was produced by an un courteous salute from the watery tail of another comet; doubtless through sheer envy of its improved condition; thus furnishing a melancholy proof that jealousy may prevail, even among the heavenly bodies, and discord interrupt that celestial harmony of the spheres, so melodiously sung by the poets.

But I pass over a variety of excellent theories, among which are those of Burnet, and Woodward, and Whitehurst; regretting extremely that my time will not suffer me to give them the notice they deserve--And shall conclude with that of the renowed Dr. Darwin, which I have reserved to the last for the sake of going off with a report. This learned Theban, who is as much distinguished for rhyme as reason, and for good natured credulity as serious research, and who has recommended himself wonderfully to the good graces of the ladies, by letting them into all the gallantries, amours, debaucheries, and other topics of scandal of the court of Flora; has fallen upon a theory worthy of his combustible imagination. According to his opinion, the huge mass of chaos took a sudden occasion to explode, like a barrel of gunpowder, and in that act exploded the sun--which in its flight by a similar explosion expelled the earth--which in like guise exploded the moon--and thus by a concatenation of explosions, the whole solar system was produced, and set most systematically in motion![9]

By the great variety of theories here alluded to, every one of which, if thoroughly examined, will be found surprisingly consistent in all its parts; my unlearned readers will perhaps be led to conclude, that the creation of a world is not so difficult a task as they at first imagined. I have shewn at least a score of ingenious methods in which a world could be constructed; and I have no doubt, that had any of the Philo’s above quoted, the use of a good manageable comet, and the philosophical ware-house chaos at his command, he would engage, by the aid of philosophy to manufacture a planet as good, or if you would take his word for it, better than this we inhabit.

And here I cannot help noticing the kindness of Providence, in creating comets for the great relief of bewildered philosophers. By their assistance more sudden evolutions and transitions are affected in the system of nature, than are wrought in a pantomimic exhibition, by the wonder-working sword of Harlequin. Should one of our modern sages, in his theoretical flights among the stars, ever find himself lost in the clouds, and in danger of tumbling into the abyss of nonsense and absurdity, he has but to seize a comet by the beard, mount astride of its tail, and away he gallops in triumph, like an enchanter on his hyppogriff, or a Connecticut witch on her broomstick, “to sweep the cobwebs out of the sky.”

It is an old and vulgar saying, about a “beggar on horse back,” which I would not for the world have applied to our most reverend philosophers; but I must confess, that some of them, when they are mounted on one of these fiery steeds, are as wild in their curvettings as was Phæton of yore, when he aspired to manage the chariot of Phœbus. One drives his comet at full speed against the sun, and knocks the world out of him with the mighty concussion; another more moderate, makes his comet a kind of beast of burden, carrying the sun a regular supply of food and faggots--a third, of more combustible disposition, threatens to throw his comet, like a bombshell into the world, and blow it up like a powder magazine; while a fourth, with no great delicacy to this respectable planet, and its inhabitants, insinuates that some day or other, his comet--my modest pen blushes while I write it--shall absolutely turn tail upon our world and deluge it with water!--Surely as I have already observed, comets were bountifully provided by Providence for the benefit of philosophers, to assist them in manufacturing theories.

When a man once doffs the straight waistcoat of common sense, and trusts merely to his imagination, it is astonishing how rapidly he gets forward. Plodding souls, like myself, who jog along on the two legs nature has given them, are sadly put to it to clamber over the rocks and hills, to toil through the mud and mire, and to remove the continual obstructions, that abound in the path of science. But your adventurous philosopher launches his theory like a balloon, and having inflated it with the smoke and vapours of his own heated imagination, mounts it in triumph, and soars away to his congenial regions in the moon. Every age has furnished its quota of these adventurers in the realms of fancy, who voyage among the clouds for a season and are stared at and admired, until some envious rival assails their air blown pageant, shatters its crazy texture, lets out the smoke, and tumbles the adventurer and his theory into the mud. Thus one race of philosophers demolish the works of their predecessors, and elevate more splendid fantasies in their stead, which in their turn are demolished and replaced by the air castles of a succeeding generation. Such are the grave eccentricities of genius, and the mighty soap bubbles, with which the grown up children of science amuse themselves--while the honest vulgar, stand gazing in stupid admiration, and dignify these fantastic vagaries with the name of wisdom!--surely old Socrates was right in his opinion that philosophers are but a soberer sort of madmen, busying themselves in things which are totally incomprehensible, or which, if they could be comprehended, would be found not worth the trouble of discovery.

And now, having adduced several of the most important theories that occur to my recollection, I leave my readers at full liberty to choose among them. They are all the serious speculations of learned men--all differ essentially from each other--and all have the same title to belief. For my part, (as I hate an embarrassment of choice) until the learned have come to an agreement among themselves, I shall content myself with the account handed us down by the good old Moses; in which I do but follow the example of our ingenious neighbours of Connecticut; who at their first settlement proclaimed, that the colony should be governed by the laws of God--until they had time to make better.

One thing however appears certain--from the unanimous authority of the before quoted philosophers, supported by the evidence of our own senses, (which, though very apt to deceive us, may be cautiously admitted as additional testimony) it appears I say, and I make the assertion deliberately, without fear of contradiction, that this globe really was created, and that it is composed of land and water. It further appears that it is curiously divided and parcelled out into continents and islands, among which I boldly declare the renowned Island of New York, will be found, by any one who seeks for it in its proper place.

Thus it will be perceived, that like an experienced historian I confine myself to such points as are absolutely essential to my subject--building up my work, after the manner of the able architect who erected our theatre; beginning with the foundation, then the body, then the roof, and at last perching our snug little island like the little cupola on the top. Having dropt upon this simile by chance I shall make a moment’s further use of it, to illustrate the correctness of my plan. Had not the foundation, the body, and the roof of the theatre first been built, the cupola could not have had existence as a cupola--it might have been a centry-box--or a watchman’s box--or it might have been placed in the rear of the Manager’s house and have formed-- a temple;--but it could never have been considered a cupola. As therefore the building of the theatre was necessary to the existence of the cupola, as a cupola--so the formation of the globe and its internal construction, were first necessary to the existence of this island, as an island--and thus the necessity and importance of this part of my history, which in a manner is no part of my history, is logically proved.

[4] Aristot. ap. Cic. lib. i, cap. 3.

Aristot. Metaph. lib. i, c. 5. Idem de cœlo l. 3. c. i. Rousseau mem. sur musique ancien. p. 39. Plutarch de plac. Philos. lib. i. cap. 3. et. alii.

[5] Tim. Locr. ap. Plato. t. 3. p. 90.

Aristot. Nat. Auscult. l. 2. cap. 6. Aristoph. Metaph. lib. i. cap. 3. Cic de. Nat. deor. lib. i. cap. 10. Justin. Mart. orat. ad gent. p. 20.

[6] Mosheim in Cudw. lib. i. cap. 4. Tim. de anim. mund. ap. Plat. lib. 3. Mem. de l’acad. des Belles Lettr. t. 32. p. 19. et alii.

Book i. ch. 5.

[7] Holwell. Gent. Philosophy.

[8] Johannes Megapolensis, jun. Account of Maquaas or Mohawk Indians. 1644.

MSS. Biblist. Roi. Fr.

[9] Darw. Bot. Garden. Part I, Cant. i, l. 105.

CHAP. III.

How that famous navigator, Admiral Noah, was shamefully nick-named; and how he committed an unpardonable oversight in not having four sons. With the great trouble of philosophers caused thereby, and the discovery of America.

Noah, who is the first sea-faring man we read of, begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japhet. Authors it is true, are not wanting, who affirm that the patriarch had a number of other children. Thus Berosus makes him father of the gigantic Titans, Methodius gives him a son called Jonithus, or Jonicus, (who was the first inventor of Johnny cakes,) and others have mentioned a son, named Thuiscon, from whom descended the Teutons or Teutonic, or in other words, the Dutch nation.

I regret exceedingly that the nature of my plan will not permit me to gratify the laudable curiosity of my readers, by investigating minutely the history of the great Noah. Indeed such an undertaking would be attended with more trouble than many people would imagine; for the good old patriarch seems to have been a great traveller in his day, and to have passed under a different name in every country that he visited. The Chaldeans for instance give us his story, merely altering his name into Xisuthrus--a trivial alteration, which to an historian skilled in etymologies, will appear wholly unimportant. It appears likewise, that he had exchanged his tarpawlin and quadrant among the Chaldeans, for the gorgeous insignia of royalty, and appears as a monarch in their annals. The Egyptians celebrate him under the name of Osiris; the Indians as Menu; the Greek and Roman writers confound him with Ogyges, and the Theban with Deucalion and Saturn. But the Chinese, who deservedly rank among the most extensive and authentic historians, inasmuch as they have known the world ever since some millions of years before it was created, declare that Noah was no other than Fohi, a worthy gentleman, descended from an ancient and respectable family of Hong merchants, that flourished in the middle ages of the empire. What gives this assertion some air of credibility is, that it is a fact, admitted by the most enlightened literati, that Noah travelled into China, at the time of the building of the Tower of Babel (probably to improve himself in the study of languages) and the learned Dr. Shackford gives us the additional information, that the ark rested upon a mountain on the frontiers of China.

From this mass of rational conjectures and sage hypotheses, many satisfactory deductions might be drawn; but I shall content myself with the unquestionable fact stated in the Bible, that Noah begat three sons--Shem, Ham, and Japhet.

It may be asked by some inquisitive readers, not much conversant with the art of history writing, what have Noah and his sons to do with the subject of this work? Now though, in strict justice, I am not bound to satisfy such querulous spirits, yet as I have determined to accommodate my book to every capacity, so that it shall not only delight the learned, but likewise instruct the simple, and edify the vulgar; I shall never hesitate for a moment to explain any matter that may appear obscure.

Noah we are told by sundry very credible historians, becoming sole surviving heir and proprietor of the earth, in fee simple, after the deluge, like a good father portioned out his estate among his children. To Shem he gave Asia, to Ham, Africa, and to Japhet, Europe. Now it is a thousand times to be lamented that he had but three sons, for had there been a fourth, he would doubtless have inherited America; which of course would have been dragged forth from its obscurity on the occasion; and thus many a hard working historian and philosopher, would have been spared a prodigious mass of weary conjecture, respecting the first discovery and population of this country. Noah, however, having provided for his three sons, looked in all probability, upon our country as mere wild unsettled land, and said nothing about it, and to this unpardonable taciturnity of the patriarch may we ascribe the misfortune, that America did not come into the world, as early as the other quarters of the globe.

It is true some writers have vindicated him from this misconduct towards posterity, and asserted that he really did discover America. Thus it was the opinion of Mark Lescarbot, a French writer possessed of that ponderosity of thought, and profoundness of reflection, so peculiar to his nation, that the immediate descendants of Noah peopled this quarter of the globe, and that the old patriarch himself, who still retained a passion for the sea-faring life, superintended the transmigration. The pious and enlightened father Charlevoix, a French Jesuit, remarkable for his veracity and an aversion to the marvellous, common to all great travellers, is conclusively of the same opinion; nay, he goes still further, and decides upon the manner in which the discovery was effected, which was by sea, and under the immediate direction of the great Noah. “I have already observed, exclaims the good father in a tone of becoming indignation, that it is an arbitrary supposition that the grand children of Noah were not able to penetrate into the new world, or that they never thought of it. In effect, I can see no reason that can justify such a notion. Who can seriously believe, that Noah and his immediate descendants knew less than we do, and that the builder and pilot of the greatest ship that ever was, a ship which was formed to traverse an unbounded ocean, and had so many shoals and quicksands to guard against, should be ignorant of, or should not have communicated to his descendants the art of sailing on the ocean?” Therefore they did sail on the ocean--therefore they sailed to America--therefore America was discovered by Noah!

Now all this exquisite chain of reasoning, which is so strikingly characteristic of the good father, being addressed to the faith, rather than the understanding, is flatly opposed by Hans De Laet, who declares it a real and most ridiculous paradox, to suppose that Noah ever entertained the thought of discovering America; and as Hans is a Dutch writer, I am inclined to believe he must have been much better acquainted with the worthy crew of the ark than his competitors, and of course possessed of more accurate sources of information. It is astonishing how intimate historians daily become with the patriarchs and other great men of antiquity. As intimacy improves with time, and as the learned are particularly inquisitive and familiar in their acquaintance with the ancients, I should not be surprised, if some future writers should gravely give us a picture of men and manners as they existed before the flood, far more copious and accurate than the Bible; and that, in the course of another century, the log book of old Noah should be as current among historians, as the voyages of Captain Cook, or the renowned history of Robinson Crusoe.

I shall not occupy my time by discussing the huge mass of additional suppositions, conjectures and probabilities respecting the first discovery of this country, with which unhappy historians overload themselves, in their endeavours to satisfy the doubts of an incredulous world. It is painful to see these laborious wights panting and toiling, and sweating under an enormous burthen, at the very outset of their works, which on being opened, turns out to be nothing but a mighty bundle of straw. As, however, by unwearied assiduity, they seem to have established the fact, to the satisfaction of all the world, that this country has been discovered, I shall avail myself of their useful labours to be extremely brief upon this point.

I shall not therefore stop to enquire, whether America was first discovered by a wandering vessel of that celebrated Phœnecian fleet, which, according to Herodotus, circumnavigated Africa; or by that Carthagenian expedition, which Pliny, the naturalist, informs us, discovered the Canary Islands; or whether it was settled by a temporary colony from Tyre, as hinted by Aristotle and Seneca. I shall neither enquire whether it was first discovered by the Chinese, as Vossius with great shrewdness advances, nor by the Norwegians in 1002, under Biorn; nor by Behem, the German navigator, as Mr. Otto has endeavoured to prove to the Sçavans of the learned city of Philadelphia.

Nor shall I investigate the more modern claims of the Welsh, founded on the voyage of Prince Madoc in the eleventh century, who having never returned, it has since been wisely concluded that he must have gone to America, and that for a plain reason--if he did not go there, where else could he have gone?--a question which most Socratically shuts out all further dispute.

Laying aside, therefore, all the conjectures above mentioned, with a multitude of others, equally satisfactory, I shall take for granted, the vulgar opinion that America was discovered on the 12th of October, 1492, by Christovallo Colon, a Genoese, who has been clumsily nick-named Columbus, but for what reason I cannot discern. Of the voyages and adventures of this Colon, I shall say nothing, seeing that they are already sufficiently known. Nor shall I undertake to prove that this country should have been called Colonia, after his name, that being notoriously self evident.

Having thus happily got my readers on this side of the Atlantic, I picture them to myself, all impatience to enter upon the enjoyment of the land of promise, and in full expectation that I will immediately deliver it into their possession. But if I do, may I ever forfeit the reputation of a regular bred historian. No--no--most curious and thrice learned readers, (for thrice learned ye are if ye have read all that goes before, and nine times learned shall ye be, if ye read all that comes after) we have yet a world of work before us. Think you the first discoverers of this fair quarter of the globe, had nothing to do but go on shore and find a country ready laid out and cultivated like a garden, wherein they might revel at their ease? No such thing--they had forests to cut down, underwood to grub up, marshes to drain, and savages to exterminate.

In like manner, I have sundry doubts to clear away, questions to resolve, and paradoxes to explain, before I permit you to range at random; but these difficulties, once overcome, we shall be enabled to jog on right merrily through the rest of our history. Thus my work shall, in a manner, echo the nature of the subject, in the same manner as the sound of poetry has been found by certain shrewd critics, to echo the sense--this being an improvement in history, which I claim the merit of having invented.

CHAP. IV.

Shewing the great toil and contention which Philosophers have had in peopling America.--And how the Aborigines came to be begotten by accident--to the great satisfaction and relief of the author.

Bless us!--what a hard life we historians have of it, who undertake to satisfy the doubts of the world!--Here have I been toiling and moiling through three pestiferous chapters, and my readers toiling and moiling at my heels; up early and to bed late, poring over worm-eaten, obsolete, good-for-nothing books, and cultivating the acquaintance of a thousand learned authors, both ancient and modern, who, to tell the honest truth, are the stupidest companions in the world--and after all, what have we got by it?--Truly the mighty valuable conclusion, that this country does actually exist, and has been discovered; a self-evident fact not worth a hap’worth of gingerbread. And what is worse, we seem just as far off from the city of New York now, as we were at first. Now for myself, I would not care the value of a brass button, being used to this dull and learned company; but I feel for my unhappy readers, who seem most woefully jaded and fatigued.

Still, however, we have formidable difficulties to encounter, since it yet remains, if possible, to shew how this country was originally peopled-- a point fruitful of incredible embarrassment, to us scrupulous historians, but absolutely indispensable to our works. For unless we prove that the Aborigines did absolutely come from some where, it will be immediately asserted in this age of scepticism, that they did not come at all; and if they did not come at all, then was this country never populated--a conclusion perfectly agreeable to the rules of logic, but wholly irreconcilable to every feeling of humanity, inasmuch as it must syllogistically prove fatal to the innumerable Aborigines of this populous region.

To avert so dire a sophism, and to rescue from logical annihilation so many millions of fellow creatures, how many wings of geese have been plundered! what oceans of ink have been benevolently drained! and how many capacious heads of learned historians have been addled and forever confounded! I pause with reverential awe, when I contemplate the ponderous tomes in different languages, with which they have endeavoured to solve this question, so important to the happiness of society, but so involved in clouds of impenetrable obscurity. Historian after historian has engaged in the endless circle of hypothetical argument, and after leading us a weary chace through octavos, quartos, and folios, has let us out at the end of his work, just as wise as we were at the beginning. It was doubtless some philosophical wild goose chace of the kind, that made the old poet Macrobius rail in such a passion at curiosity, which he anathematizes most heartily, as “an irksome agonizing care, a superstitious industry about unprofitable things, an itching humour to see what is not to be seen, and to be doing what signifies nothing when it is done.”

But come my lusty readers, let us address ourselves to our task and fall vigorously to work upon the remaining rubbish that lies in our way; but I warrant, had master Hercules, in addition to his seven labours, been given as an eighth to write a genuine American history, he would have been fain to abandon the undertaking, before he got over the threshold of his work.

Of the claims of the children of Noah to the original population of this country I shall say nothing, as they have already been touched upon in my last chapter. The claimants next in celebrity, are the decendants of Abraham. Thus Christoval Colon (vulgarly called Columbus) when he first discovered the gold mines of Hispaniola immediately concluded, with a shrewdness that would have done honour to a philosopher, that he had found the ancient Ophir, from whence Solomon procured the gold for embellishing the temple at Jerusalem; nay Colon even imagined that he saw the remains of furnaces of veritable Hebraic construction, employed in refining the precious ore.

So golden a conjecture, tinctured with such fascinating extravagance, was too tempting not to be immediately snapped at by the gudgeons of learning, and accordingly, there were a host of profound writers, ready to swear to its correctness, and to bring in their usual load of authorities, and wise surmises, wherewithal to prop it up. Vetablus and Robertus Stephens declared nothing could be more clear--Arius Montanus without the least hesitation asserts that Mexico was the true Ophir, and the Jews the early settlers of the country. While Possevin, Becan, and a host of other sagacious writers, lug in a supposed prophecy of the fourth book of Esdras, which being inserted in the mighty hypothesis, like the key stone of an arch, gives it, in their opinion, perpetual durability.

Scarce however, have they completed their goodly superstructure, than in trudges a phalanx of opposite authors, with Hans de Laet the great Dutchman at their head, and at one blow, tumbles the whole fabric about their ears. Hans in fact, contradicts outright all the Israelitish claims to the first settlement of this country, attributing all those equivocal symptoms, and traces of Christianity and Judaism, which have been said to be found in divers provinces of the new world, to the Devil, who has always affected to counterfeit the worship of the true Deity. “A remark,” says the knowing old Padre d’Acosta, “made by all good authors who have spoken of the religion of nations newly discovered, and founded besides on the authority of the fathers of the church.”

Some writers again, among whom it is with great regret I am compelled to mention Lopez de Gomara, and Juan de Leri, insinuate that the Canaanites, being driven from the land of promise by the Jews, were seized with such a panic, that they fled without looking behind them, until stopping to take breath they found themselves safe in America. As they brought neither their national language, manners nor features, with them, it is supposed they left them behind in the hurry of their flight--I cannot give my faith to this opinion.

I pass over the supposition of the learned Grotius, who being both an ambassador and a Dutchman to boot, is entitled to great respect; that North America, was peopled by a strolling company of Norwegians, and that Peru was founded by a colonyfrom China--Manco or Mungo Capac, the first Incas, being himself a Chinese. Nor shall I more than barely mention that father Kircher, ascribes the settlement of America to the Egyptians, Budbeck to the Scandinavians, Charron to the Gauls, Juffredus Petri to a skaiting party from Friesland, Milius to the Celtæ, Marinocus the Sicilian to the Romans, Le Compte to the Phoenicians, Postel to the Moors, Martyn d’Angleria to the Abyssinians, together with the sage surmise of De Laet, that England, Ireland and the Orcades may contend for that honour.

Nor will I bestow any more attention or credit to the idea that America is the fairy region of Zipangri, described by that dreaming traveller Marco Polo the Venetian; or that it comprizes the visionary island of Atlantis, described by Plato. Neither will I stop to investigate the heathenish assertion of Paracelsus, that each hemisphere of the globe was originally furnished with an Adam and Eve. Or the more flattering opinion of Dr. Romayne supported by many nameless authorities, that Adam was of the Indian race--or the startling conjecture of Buffon, Helvetius, and Darwin, so highly honourable to mankind, and peculiarly complimentary to the French nation, that the whole human species are accidentally descended from a remarkable family of monkies!

This last conjecture, I must own, came upon me very suddenly and very ungraciously. I have often beheld the clown in a pantomime, while gazing in stupid wonder at the extravagant gambols of a harlequin, all at once electrified by a sudden stroke of the wooden sword across his shoulders. Little did I think at such times, that it would ever fall to my lot to be treated with equal discourtesy, and that while I was quietly beholding these grave philosophers, emulating the excentric transformations of the parti-coloured hero of pantomime, they would on a sudden turn upon me and my readers, and with one flourish of their conjectural wand, metamorphose us into beasts! I determined from that moment not to burn my fingers with any more of their theories, but content myself with detailing the different methods by which they transported the descendants of these ancient and respectable monkeys, to this great field of theoretical warfare.

This was done either by migrations by land or transmigrations by water. Thus Padre Joseph D’ Acosta enumerates three passages by land, first by the north of Europe, secondly by the north of Asia and thirdly by regions southward of the straits of Magellan. The learned Grotius marches his Norwegians by a pleasant route across frozen rivers and arms of the sea, through Iceland, Greenland, Estotiland and Naremberga. And various writers, among whom are Angleria, De Hornn and Buffon, anxious for the acommodation of these travellers, have fastened the two continents together by a strong chain of deductions--by which means they could pass over dry shod. But should even this fail, Pinkerton, that industrious old gentleman, who compiles books and manufactures Geographies, and who erst flung away his wig and cane, frolicked like a naughty boy, and committed a thousand etourderies, among the petites filles of Paris[10]-- he I say, has constructed a natural bridge of ice, from continent to continent, at the distance of four or five miles from Behring’s straits--for which he is entitled to the grateful thanks of all the wandering aborigines who ever did, or ever will pass over it.

It is an evil much to be lamented, that none of the worthy writers above quoted, could ever commence his work, without immediately declaring hostilities against every writer who had treated of the same subject. In this particular, authors may be compared to a certain sagacious bird, which in building its nest, is sure to pull to pieces the nests of all the birds in its neighbourhood. This unhappy propensity tends grievously to impede the progress of sound knowledge. Theories are at best but brittle productions, and when once committed to the stream, they should take care that like the notable pots which were fellow voyagers, they do not crack each other. But this literary animosity is almost unconquerable. Even I, who am of all men the most candid and liberal, when I sat down to write this authentic history, did all at once conceive an absolute, bitter and unutterable contempt, a strange and unimaginable disbelief, a wondrous and most ineffable scoffing of the spirit, for the theories of the numerous literati, who have treated before me, of this country. I called them jolter heads, numsculls, dunderpates, dom cops, bottericks, domme jordans, and a thousand other equally indignant appellations. But when I came to consider the matter coolly and dispassionately, my opinion was altogether changed. When I beheld these sages gravely accounting for unaccountable things, and discoursing thus wisely about matters forever hidden from their eyes, like a blind man describing the glories of light, and the beauty and harmony of colours, I fell back in astonishment at the amazing extent of human ingenuity.

If--cried I to myself, these learned men can weave whole systems out of nothing, what would be their productions were they furnished with substantial materials--if they can argue and dispute thus ingeniously about subjects beyond their knowledge, what would be the profundity of their observations, did they but know what they were talking about! Should old Radamanthus, when he comes to decide upon their conduct while on earth, have the least idea of the usefulness of their labours, he will undoubtedly class them with those notorious wise men of Gotham, who milked a bull, twisted a rope of sand, and wove a velvet purse from a sow’s ear.

My chief surprise is, that among the many writers I have noticed, no one has attempted to prove that this country was peopled from the moon--or that the first inhabitants floated hither on islands of ice, as white bears cruize about the northern oceans-- or that they were conveyed here by balloons, as modern æreconauts pass from Dover to Calais--or by witchcraft, as Simon Magus posted among the stars--or after the manner of the renowned Scythian Abaris, who like the New England witches on full-blooded broomsticks, made most unheard of journeys on the back of a golden arrow, given him by the Hyperborean Apollo.

But there is still one mode left by which this country could have been peopled, which I have reserved for the last, because I consider it worth all the rest, it is--by accident! Speaking of the islands of Solomon, New Guinea, and New Holland, the profound father Charlevoix observes, “in fine, all these countries are peopled, and it is possible, some have been so by accident. Now if it could have happened in that manner, why might it not have been at the same time, and by the same means, with the other parts of the globe?” This ingenious mode of deducing certain conclusions from possible premises, is an improvement in syllogistic skill, and proves the good father superior even to Archimedes, for he can turn the world without any thing to rest his lever upon. It is only surpassed by the dexterity with which the sturdy old Jesuit, in another place, demolishes the gordian knot--“Nothing” says he, “is more easy. The inhabitants of both hemispheres are certainly the descendants of the same father. The common father of mankind, received an express order from Heaven, to people the world, and accordingly it has been peopled. To bring this about, it was necessary to overcome all difficulties in the way, and they have also been overcome!” Pious Logician! How does he put all the herd of laborious theorists to the blush, by explaining in fair words, what it has cost them volumes to prove they knew nothing about!

They have long been picking at the lock, and fretting at the latch, but the honest father at once unlocks the door by bursting it open, and when he has it once a-jar, he is at full liberty to pour in as many nations as he pleases. This proves to a demonstration that a little piety is better than a cartload of philosophy, and is a practical illustration of that scriptural promise--“By faith ye shall move mountains.”

From all the authorities here quoted, and a variety of others which I have consulted, but which are omitted through fear of fatiguing the unlearned reader--I can only draw the following conclusions, which luckily however, are sufficient for my purpose-- First, That this part of the world has actually been peopled (Q. E. D.) to support which, we have living proofs in the numerous tribes of Indians that inhabit it. Secondly, That it has been peopled in five hundred different ways, as proved by a cloud of authors, who from the positiveness of their assertions seem to have been eye witnesses to the fact-- Thirdly, That the people of this country had a variety of fathers, which as it may not be thought much to their credit by the common run of readers, the less we say on the subject the better. The question therefore, I trust, is forever at rest.

[10] Vide Ed. Review

CHAP. V.

In which the Author puts a mighty Question to the rout, by the assistance of the Man in the Moon-- which not only delivers thousands of people from great embarrassment, but likewise concludes this introductory book.

The writer of a history may, in some respects, be likened unto an adventurous knight, who having undertaken a perilous enterprize, by way of establishing his fame, feels bound in honour and chivalry, to turn back for no difficulty nor hardship, and never to shrink or quail whatever enemy he may encounter. Under this impression, I resolutely draw my pen and fall to, with might and main, at those doughty questions and subtle paradoxes, which, like fiery dragons and bloody giants, beset the entrance to my history, and would fain repulse me from the very threshold. And at this moment a gigantic question has started up, which I must take by the beard and utterly subdue, before I can advance another step in my historick undertaking--but I trust this will be the last adversary I shall have to contend with, and that in the next book, I shall be enabled to conduct my readers in triumph into the body of my work.

The question which has thus suddenly arisen, is, what right had the first discoverers of America to land, and take possession of a country, without asking the consent of its inhabitants, or yielding them an adequate compensation for their territory?

My readers shall now see with astonishment, how easily I will vanquish this gigantic doubt, which has so long been the terror of adventurous writers; which has withstood so many fierce assaults, and has given such great distress of mind to multitudes of kind-hearted folks. For, until this mighty question is totally put to rest, the worthy people of America can by no means enjoy the soil they inhabit, with clear right and title, and quiet, unsullied consciences.

The first source of right, by which property is acquired in a country, is DISCOVERY. For as all mankind have an equal right to any thing, which has never before been appropriated, so any nation, that discovers an uninhabited country, and takes possession thereof, is considered as enjoying full property, and absolute, unquestionable empire therein.[11]

This proposition being admitted, it follows clearly, that the Europeans who first visited America, were the real discoverers of the same; nothing being necessary to the establishment of this fact, but simply to prove that it was totally uninhabited by man. This would at first appear to be a point of some difficulty, for it is well known, that this quarter of the world abounded with certain animals, that walked erect on two feet, had something of the human countenance, uttered certain unintelligible sounds, very much like language, in short, had a marvellous resemblance to human beings. But the host of zealous and enlightened fathers, who accompanied the discoverers, for the purpose of promoting the kingdom of heaven, by establishing fat monasteries and bishopricks on earth, soon cleared up this point, greatly to the satisfaction of his holiness the pope, and of all Christian voyagers and discoverers.

They plainly proved, and as there were no Indian writers arose on the other side, the fact was considered as fully admitted and established, that the two legged race of animals before mentioned, were mere cannibals, detestable monsters, and many of them giants--a description of vagrants, that since the times of Gog, Magog and Goliath, have been considered as outlaws, and have received no quarter in either history, chivalry or song; indeed, even the philosopher Bacon, declared the Americans to be people proscribed by the laws of nature, inasmuch as they had a barbarous custom of sacrificing men, and feeding upon man’s flesh.

Nor are these all the proofs of their utter barbarism: among many other writers of discernment, the celebrated Ulloa tells us “their imbecility is so visible, that one can hardly form an idea of them different from what one has of the brutes. Nothing disturbs the tranquillity of their souls, equally insensible to disasters, and to prosperity. Though half naked, they are as contented as a monarch in his most splendid array. Fear makes no impression on them, and respect as little.”--All this is furthermore supported by the authority of M. Bouguer. “It is not easy,” says he, “to describe the degree of their indifference for wealth and all its advantages. One does not well know what motives to propose to them when one would persuade them to any service. It is vain to offer them money, they answer that they are not hungry.” And Vanegas confirms the whole, assuring us that “ambition, they have none, and are more desirous of being thought strong, than valiant. The objects of ambition with us, honour, fame, reputation, riches, posts and distinctions are unknown among them. So that this powerful spring of action, the cause of so much seeming good and real evil in the world has no power over them. In a word, these unhappy mortals may be compared to children, in whom the developement of reason is not completed.”

Now all these peculiarities, though in the unenlightened states of Greece, they would have entitled their possessors to immortal honour, as having reduced to practice those rigid and abstemious maxims, the mere talking about which, acquired certain old Greeks the reputation of sages and philosophers;--yet were they clearly proved in the present instance, to betoken a most abject and brutified nature, totally beneath the human character. But the benevolent fathers, who had undertaken to turn these unhappy savages into dumb beasts, by dint of argument, advanced still stronger proofs; for as certain divines of the sixteenth century, and among the rest Lullus affirm-- the Americans go naked, and have no beards!-- “They have nothing,” says Lullus, “of the reasonable animal, except the mask.”--And even that mask was allowed to avail them but little, for it was soon found that they were of a hideous copper complexion--and being of a copper complexion, it was all the same as if they were negroes--and negroes are black, “and black” said the pious fathers, devoutly crossing themselves, “is the colour of the Devil!” Therefore so far from being able to own property, they had no right even to personal freedom, for liberty is too radiant a deity, to inhabit such gloomy temples. All which circumstances plainly convinced the righteous followers of Cortes and Pizarro, that these miscreants had no title to the soil that they infested--that they were a perverse, illiterate, dumb, beardless, bare-bottomed black-seed--mere wild beasts of the forests, and like them should either be subdued or exterminated.

From the foregoing arguments therefore, and a host of others equally conclusive, which I forbear to enumerate, it was clearly evident, that this fair quarter of the globe when first visited by Europeans, was a howling wilderness, inhabited by nothing but wild beasts; and that the trans-atlantic visitors acquired an incontrovertable property therein, by the right of Discovery.

This right being fully established, we now come to the next, which is the right acquired by cultivation. “The cultivation of the soil” we are told “is an obligation imposed by nature on man “kind. The whole world is appointed for the “nourishment of its inhabitants; but it would be “incapable of doing it, was it uncultivated. Every “nation is then obliged by the law of nature to “cultivate the ground that has fallen to its share. “Those people like the ancient Germans and mo “dern Tartars, who having fertile countries, disdain “to cultivate the earth, and choose to live by rapine, “are wanting to themselves, and deserve to be ex “terminated as savage and pernicious beasts.”[12]

Now it is notorious, that the savages knew nothing of agriculture, when first discovered by the Europeans, but lived a most vagabond, disorderly, unrighteous life,--rambling from place to place, and prodigally rioting upon the spontaneous luxuries of nature, without tasking her generosity to yield them any thing more; whereas it has been most unquestionably shewn, that heaven intended the earth should be ploughed and sown, and manured, and laid out into cities and towns and farms, and country seats, and pleasure grounds, and public gardens, all which the Indians knew nothing about --therefore they did not improve the talents providence had bestowed on them--therefore they were careless stewards--therefore they had no right to the soil--therefore they deserved to be exterminated.

It is true the savages might plead that they drew all the benefits from the land which their simple wants required--they found plenty of game to hunt, which together with the roots and uncultivated fruits of the earth, furnished a sufficient variety for their frugal table;--and that as heaven merely designed the earth to form the abode, and satisfy the wants of man; so long as those purposes were answered, the will of heaven was accomplished.-- But this only proves how undeserving they were of the blessings around them--they were so much the more savages, for not having more wants; for knowledge is in some degree an increase of desires, and it is this superiority both in the number and magnitude of his desires, that distinguishes the man from the beast. Therefore the Indians, in not having more wants, were very unreasonable animals; and it was but just that they should make way for the Europeans, who had a thousand wants to their one, and therefore would turn the earth to more account, and by cultivating it, more truly fulfil the will of heaven. Besides--Grotius and Lauterbach, and Puffendorff and Titius and a host of wise men besides, who have considered the matter properly, have determined, that the property of a country cannot be acquired by hunting, cutting wood, or drawing water in it--nothing but precise demarcation of limits, and the intention of cultivation, can establish the possession. Now as the savages (probably from never having read the authors above quoted) had never complied with any of these necessary forms, it plainly follows that they had no right to the soil, but that it was completely at the disposal of the first comers, who had more knowledge and more wants than themselves--who would portion out the soil, with churlish boundaries; who would torture nature to pamper a thousand fantastic humours and capricious appetites; and who of course were far more rational animals than themselves. In entering upon a newly discovered, uncultivated country therefore, the new comers were but taking possession of what, according to the aforesaid doctrine, was their own property--therefore in opposing them, the savages were invading their just rights, infringing the immutable laws of nature and counteracting the will of heaven--therefore they were guilty of impiety, burglary and trespass on the case,--therefore they were hardened offenders against God and man--therefore they ought to be exterminated.

But a more irresistible right then either that I have mentioned, and one which will be the most readily admitted by my reader, provided he is blessed with bowels of charity and philanthropy, is the right acquired by civilization. All the world knows the lamentable state in which these poor savages were found. Not only deficient in the comforts of life, but what is still worse, most piteously and unfortunately blind to the miseries of their situation. But no sooner did the benevolent inhabitants of Europe behold their sad condition than they immediately went to work to ameliorate and improve it. They introduced among them the comforts of life, consisting of rum, gin and brandy--and it is astonishing to read how soon the poor savages learnt to estimate these blessings--they likewise made known to them a thousand remedies, by which the most inveterate diseases are alleviated and healed, and that they might comprehend the benefits and enjoy the comforts of these medicines, they previously introduced among them the diseases, which they were calculated to cure. By these and a variety of other methods was the condition of these poor savages, wonderfully improved; they acquired a thousand wants, of which they had before been ignorant, and as he has most sources of happiness, who has most wants to be gratified, they were doubtlessly rendered a much happier race of beings.

But the most important branch of civilization, and which has most strenuously been extolled, by the zealous and pious fathers of the Roman Church, is the introduction of the Christian faith. It was truly a sight that might well inspire horror, to behold these savages, stumbling among the dark mountains of paganism, and guilty of the most horrible ignorance of religion. It is true, they neither stole nor defrauded, they were sober, frugal, continent, and faithful to their word; but though they acted right habitually, it was all in vain, unless they acted so from precept. The new comers therefore used every method, to induce them to embrace and practice the true religion--except that of setting them the example.

But notwithstanding all these complicated labours for their good, such was the unparalleled obstinacy of these stubborn wretches, that they ungratefully refused, to acknowledge the strangers as their benefactors, and persisted in disbelieving the doctrines they endeavoured to inculcate; most insolently alledging, that from their conduct, the advocates of Christianity did not seem to believe in it themselves. Was not this too much forhum an patience? --would not one suppose, that the foreign emigrants from Europe, provoked at their incredulity and discouraged by their stiff-necked obstinacy, would forever have abandoned their shores, and consigned them to their original ignorance and misery?--But no--so zealous were they to effect the temporal comfort and eternal salvation of these pagan infidels, that they even proceeded from the milder means of persuasion, to the more painful and troublesome one of persecution--Let loose among them, whole troops of fiery monks and furious blood-hounds--purified them by fire and sword, by stake and faggot; in consequence of which indefatigable measures, the cause of Christian love and charity were so rapidly advanced, that in a very few years, not one fifth of the number of unbelievers existed in South America, that were found there at the time of its discovery.

Nor did the other methods of civilization remain uninforced. The Indians improved daily and wonderfully by their intercourse with the whites. They took to drinking rum, and making bargains. They learned to cheat, to lie, to swear, to gamble, to quarrel, to cut each others throats, in short, to excel in all the accomplishments that had originally marked the superiority of their Christian visitors. And such a surprising aptitude have they shewn for these acquirements, that there is very little doubt that in a century more, provided they survive so long, the irrisistible effects of civilization; they will equal in knowledge, refinement, knavery, and debauchery, the most enlightened, civilized and orthodox nations of Europe.

What stronger right need the European settlers advance to the country than this. Have not whole nations of uninformed savages been made acquainted with a thousand imperious wants and indispensible comforts of which they were before wholly ignorant--Have they not been literally hunted and smoked out of the dens and lurking places of ignorance and infidelity, and absolutely scourged into the right path. Have not the temporal things, the vain baubles and filthy lucre of this world, which were too apt to engage their worldly and selfish thoughts, been benevolently taken from them; and have they not in lieu thereof, been taught to set their affections on things above--And finally, to use the words of a reverend Spanish father, in a letter to his superior in Spain--“Can any one have the “presumption to say, that these savage Pagans, “have yielded any thing more than an inconsidera “ble recompense to their benefactors; in surren “dering to them a little pitiful tract of this dirty “sublunary planet, in exchange for a glorious inhe “ritance in the kingdom of Heaven!”

Here then are three complete and undeniable sources of right established, any one of which was more than ample to establish a property in the newly discovered regions of America. Now, so it has happened in certain parts of this delightful quarter of the globe, that the right of discovery has been so strenuously asserted--the influence of cultivation so industriously extended, and the progress of salvation and civilization so zealously prosecuted, that, what with their attendant wars, persecutions, oppressions, diseases, and other partial evils that often hang on the skirts of great benefits--the savage aborigines have, some how or another, been utterly annihilated--and this all at once brings me to a fourth right, which is worth all the others put together--For the original claimants to the soil bring all dead and buried, and no one remaining to inherit or dispute the soil, the Spaniards as the next immediate occupants entered upon the possession, as clearly as the hang-man succeeds to the clothes of the malefactor--and as they have Blackstone,[13] and all the learned expounders of the law on their side, they may set all actions of ejectment at defiance--and this last right may be entitled, the RIGHT BY EXTERMINATION, or in other words, the RIGHT BY GUNPOWDER.

But lest any scruples of conscience should remain on this head, and to settle the question of right forever, his holiness Pope Alexander VI, issued one of those mighty bulls, which bear down reason, argument and every thing before them; by which he generously granted the newly discovered quarter of the globe, to the Spaniards and Portuguese; who, thus having law and gospel on their side, and being inflamed with great spiritual zeal, shewed the Pagan savages neither favour nor affection, but prosecuted the work of discovery, colonization, civilization, and extermination, with ten times more fury than ever.

Thus were the European worthies who first discovered America, clearly entitled to the soil; and not only entitled to the soil, but likewise to the eternal thanks of these infidel savages, for having come so far, endured so many perils by sea and land, and taken such unwearied pains, for no other purpose under heaven but to improve their forlorn, uncivilized and heathenish condition--for having made them acquainted with the comforts of life, such as gin, rum, brandy, and the small-pox; for having introduced among them the light of religion, and finally--for having hurried them out of the world, to enjoy its reward!

But as argument is never so well understood by us selfish mortals, as when it comes home to ourselves, and as I am particularly anxious that this question should be put to rest forever, I will suppose a parallel case, by way of arousing the candid attention of my readers.

Let us suppose then, that the inhabitants of the moon, by astonishing advancement in science, and by a profound insight into that ineffable lunar philosophy, the mere flickerings of which, have of late years, dazzled the feeble optics, and addled the shallow brains of the good people of our globe-- let us suppose, I say, that the inhabitants of the moon, by these means, had arrived at such a command of their energies, such an enviable state of perfectability, as to controul the elements, and navigate the boundless regions of space. Let us suppose a roving crew of these soaring philosophers, in the course of an ærial voyage of discovery among the stars, should chance to alight upon this outlandish planet.

And here I beg my readers will not have the impertinence to smile, as is too frequently the fault of volatile readers, when perusing the grave speculations of philosophers. I am far from indulging in any sportive vein at present, nor is the supposition I have been making so wild as many may deem it. It has long been a very serious and anxious question with me, and many a time, and oft, in the course of my overwhelming cares and contrivances for the welfare and protection of this my native planet, have I lain awake whole nights, debating in my mind whether it was most probable we should first discover and civilize the moon, or the moon discover and civilize our globe. Neither would the prodigy of sailing in the air and cruising among the stars be a whit more astonishing and incomprehensible to us, than was the European mystery of navigating floating castles, through the world of waters, to the simple savages. We have already discovered the art of coasting along the ærial shores of our planet, by means of balloons, as the savages had, of venturing along their sea coasts in canoes; and the disparity between the former, and the ærial vehicles of the philosophers from the moon, might not be greater, than that, between the bark canoes of the savages, and the mighty ships of their discoverers. I might here pursue an endless chain of very curious, profound and unprofitable speculations; but as they would be unimportant to my subject, I abandon them to my reader, particularly if he is a philosopher, as matters well worthy his attentive consideration.

To return then to my supposition--let us suppose that the aerial visitants I have mentioned, possessed of vastly superior knowledge to ourselves; that is to say, possessed of superior knowledge in the art of extermination--riding on Hypogriffs, defended with impenetrable armour--armed with concentrated sun beams, and provided with vast engines, to hurl enormous moon stones: in short, let us suppose them, if our vanity will permit the supposition, as superior to us in knowledge, and consequently in power, as the Europeans were to the Indians, when they first discovered them. All this is very possible, it is only our self-sufficiency, that makes us think otherwise; and I warrant the poor savages, before they had any knowledge of the white men, armed in all the terrors of glittering steel and tremendous gun-powder, were as perfectly convinced that they themselves, were the wisest, the most virtuous, powerful and perfect of created beings, as are, at this present moment, the lordly inhabitants of old England, the volatile populace of France, or even the self-satisfied citizens of this most enlightened republick.

Let us suppose, moreover, that the aerial voyagers, finding this planet to be nothing but a howling wilderness, inhabited by us, poor savages and wild beasts, shall take formal possession of it, in the name of his most gracious and philosophic excellency, the man in the moon. Finding however, that their numbers are incompetent to hold it in complete subjection, on account of the ferocious barbarity of its inhabitants; they shall take our worthy President, the King of England, the Emperor of Hayti, the mighty little Bonaparte, and the great King of Bantam, and returning to their native planet, shall carry them to court, as were the Indian chiefs led about as spectacles in the courts of Europe.

Then making such obeisance as the etiquette of the court requires, they shall address the puissant man in the moon, in, as near as I can conjecture, the following terms:

“Most serene and mighty Potentate, whose dominions extend as far as eye can reach, who rideth on the Great Bear, useth the sun as a looking glass and maintaineth unrivalled controul over tides, madmen and sea-crabs. We thy liege subjects have just returned from a voyage of discovery, in the course of which we have landed and taken possession of that obscure little scurvy planet, which thou beholdest rolling at a distance. The five uncouth monsters, which we have brought into this august presence, were once very important chiefs among their fellow savages; for the inhabitants of the newly discovered globe are totally destitute of the common attributes of humanity, inasmuch as they carry their heads upon their shoulders, instead of under their arms--have two eyes instead of one--are utterly destitute of tails, and of a variety of unseemly complexions, particularly of a horrible whiteness--whereas all the inhabitants of the moon are pea green!

We have moreover found these miserable savages sunk into a state of the utmost ignorance and depravity, every man shamelessly living with his own wife, and rearing his own children, instead of indulging in that community of wives, enjoined by the law of nature, as expounded by the philosophers of the moon. In a word they have scarcely a gleam of true philosophy among them, but are in fact, utter heretics, ignoramuses and barbarians. Taking compassion therefore on the sad condition of these sublunary wretches, we have endeavoured, while we remained on their planet, to introduce among them the light of reason--and the comforts of the moon.--We have treated them to mouthfuls of moonshine and draughts of nitrous oxyde, which they swallowed with incredible voracity, particularly the females; and we have likewise endeavoured to instil into them the precepts of lunar Philosophy. We have insisted upon their renouncing the contemptable shackles of religion and common sense, and adoring the profound, omnipotent, and all perfect energy, and the extatic, immutable, immoveable perfection. But such was the unparalleled obstinacy of these wretched savages, that they persisted in cleaving to their wives and adhering to their religion, and absolutely set at naught the sublime doctrines of the moon--nay, among other abominable heresies they even went so far as blasphemously to declare, that this ineffable planet was made of nothing more nor less than green cheese!”

At these words, the great man in the moon (being a very profound philosopher) shall fall into a terrible passion, and possessing equal authority over things that do not belong to him, as did whilome his holiness the Pope, shall forthwith issue a formidable bull,--specifying, “That--whereas a certain crew of Lunatics have lately discovered and taken possession of that little dirty planet, called the carth--and that whereas it is inhabited by none but a race of two legged animals, that carry their heads on their shoulders instead of under their arms; cannot talk the lunatic language; have two eyes instead of one; are destitute of tails, and of a horrible whiteness, instead of pea green--therefore and for a variety of other excellent reasons--they are considered incapable of possessing any property in the planet they infest, and the right and title to it are confirmed to its original discoverers.--And furthermore, the colonists who are now about to depart to the aforesaid planet, are authorized and commanded to use every means to convert these infidel savages from the darkness of Christianity, and make them thorough and absolute lunatics.”

In consequence of this benevolent bull, our philosophic benefactors go to work with hearty zeal. They sieze upon our fertile territories scourge us from our rightful possessions, relieve us from our wives, and when we are unreasonable enough to complain, they will turn upon us and say--miserable barbarians! ungrateful wretches!--have we not come thousands of miles to improve your worthless planet--have we not fed you with moon shine-- have we not intoxicated you with nitrous oxyde-- does not our moon give you light every night and have you the baseness to murmur, when we claim a pitiful return for all these benefits? But finding that we not only persist in absolute contempt to their reasoning and disbelief in their philosophy, but even go so far as daringly to defend our property, their patience shall be exhausted, and they shall resort to their superior powers of argument--hunt us with hypogriffs, transfix us with concentrated sun-beams, demolish our cities with moonstones; until having by main force, converted us to the true faith, they shall graciously permit us to exist in the torrid deserts of Arabia, or the frozen regions of Lapland, there to enjoy the blessings of civilization and the charms of lunar philosophy-- in much the same manner as the reformed and enlightened savages of this country, are kindly suffered to inhabit the inhospitable forests of the north, or the impenetrable wildernesses of South America.

Thus have I clearly proved, and I hope strikingly illustrated, the right of the early colonists to the possession of this country--and thus is this gigantic question, completely knocked in the head-- so having manfully surmounted all obstacles, and subdued all opposition, what remains but that I should forthwith conduct my impatient and wayworn readers, into the renowned city, which we have so long been in a manner besieging.--But hold, before I proceed another step, I must pause to take breath and recover from the excessive fatigue I have undergone, in preparing to begin this most accurate of histories. And in this I do but imitate the example of the celebrated Hans Von Dunderbottom, who took a start of three miles for the purpose of jumping over a hill, but having been himself out of breath by the time he reached the foot, sat himself quietly down for a few moments to blow, and then walked over it at his leisure.

END OF BOOK I.

BOOK II.

Treating of the first settlement of the province of Nieuw Nederlants.

CHAP. I.

How Master Hendrick Hudson, voyaging in search of a north-west passage discovered the famous bay of New York, and likewise the great river Mohegan--and how he was magnificently rewarded by the munificence of their High Mightinesses.

In the ever memorable year of our Lord 1609, on the five and twentieth day of March (O. S.)--a fine Saturday morning, when jocund Phœbus, having his face newly washed, by gentle dews and spring time showers, looked from the glorious windows of the east, with a more than usually shining countenance--“that worthy and irrecoverable discoverer, Master Henry Hudson” set sail from Holland in a stout vessel,[14] called the Half Moon, being employed by the Dutch East India Company, to seek a north-west passage to China.

Of this celebrated voyage we have a narration still extant, written with true log-book brevity, by master Robert Juet of Lime house, mate of the vessel; who was appointed historian of the voyage, partly on account of his uncommon literary talents, but chiefly, as I am credibly informed, because he was a countryman and schoolfellow of the great Hudson, with whom he had often played truant and sailed chip boats, when he was a little boy. I am enabled however to supply the deficiencies of master Juet’s journal, by certain documents furnished me by very respectable Dutch families, as likewise by sundry family traditions, handed down from my great great Grandfather, who accompanied the expedition in the capacity of cabin boy.

From all that I can learn, few incidents worthy of remark happened in the voyage; and it mortifies me exceedingly that I have to admit so noted an expedition into my work, without making any more of it.--Oh! that I had the advantages of that most authentic writer of yore, Apollonius Rhodius, who in his account of the famous Argonautic expedition, has the whole mythology at his disposal, and elevates Jason and his compeers into heroes and demigods; though all the world knows them to have been a meer gang of sheep stealers, on a marauding expedition--or that I had the privileges of Dan Homer and Dan Virgil to enliven my narration, with giants and Lystrigonians, to entertain our honest mariners with an occasional concert of syrens and mermaids, and now and then with the rare shew of honest old Neptune and his fleet of frolicksome cruisers. But alas! the good old times have long gone by, when your waggish deities would descend upon the terraqueous globe, in their own proper persons, and play their pranks, upon its wondering inhabitants. Neptune has proclaimed an embargo in his dominions, and the sturdy tritons, like disbanded sailors, are out of employ, unless old Charon has charitably taken them into his service, to sound their conchs, and ply as his ferry-men. Certain it is, no mention has been made of them by any of our modern navigators, who are not behind their ancient predecessors in tampering with the marvellous--nor has any notice been taken of them, in that most minute and authentic chronicle of the seas, the New York Gazette edited by Solomon Lang. Even Castor and Pollux, those flaming meteors that blaze at the masthead of tempest tost vessels, are rarely beheld in these degenerate days--and it is but now and then, that our worthy sea captains fall in with that portentous phantom of the seas, that terror to all experienced mariners, that shadowy spectrum of the night--the flying Dutchman!

Suffice it then to say, the voyage was prosperous and tranquil--the crew being a patient people, much given to slumber and vacuity, and but little troubled with the disease of thinking--a malady of the mind, which is the sure breeder of discontent. Hudson had laid in abundance of gin and sour crout, and every man was allowed to sleep quietly at his post, unless the wind blew. True it is, some slight dissatisfaction was shewn on two or three occasions, at certain unreasonable conduct of Commodore Hudson. Thus for instance, he forbore to shorten sail when the wind was light, and the weather serene, which was considered among the most experienced dutch seamen, as certain weather breeders, or prognostics, that the weather would change for the worse. He acted, moreover, in direct contradiction to that ancient and sage rule of the dutch navigators, who always took in sail at night--put the helm a-port, and turned in--by which precaution they had a good night’s rest--were sure of knowing where they were the next morning, and stood but little chance of running down a continent in the dark. He likewise prohibited the seamen from wearing more than five jackets, and six pair of breeches, under pretence of rendering them more alert; and no man was permitted to go aloft, and hand in sails, with a pipe in his mouth, as is the invariable Dutch custom, at the present day--All these grievances, though they might ruffle for a moment, the constitutional tranquillity of the honest Dutch tars, made but transient impression; they eat hugely, drank profusely, and slept immeasurably, and being under the especial guidance of providence, the ship was safely conducted to the coast of America; where, after sundry unimportant touchings and standings off and on, she at length, on the fourth day of September entered that majestic bay, which at this day expands its ample bosom, before the city of New York, and which had never before been visited by any European.

True it is--and I am not ignorant of the fact, that in a certain aprocryphal book of voyages, compiled by one Hacluyt, is to be found a letter written to Francis the First, by one Giovanne, or John Verazzani, on which some writers are inclined to found a belief that this delightful bay had been visited nearly a century previous to the voyage of the enterprizing Hudson. Now this (albeit it has met with the countenance of certain very judicious and learned men) I hold in utter disbelief, and that for various good and substantial reasons-- First, Because on strict examination it will be found, that the description given by this Verazzani, applies about as well to the bay of New York, as it does to my night cap--Secondly, Because that this John Verazzani, for whom I already begin to feel a most bitter enmity, is a native of Florence; and every body knows the crafty wiles of these losel Florentines, by which they filched away the laurels, from the arms of the immortal Colon, (vulgarly called Columbus) and bestowed them on their officious townsman, Amerigo Vespucci--and I make no doubt they are equally ready to rob the illustrious Hudson, of the credit of discovering this beauteous island, adorned by the city of New York, and placing it beside their usurped discovery of South America. And thirdly, I award my decision in favour of the pretensions of Hendrick Hudson, inasmuch as his expedition sailed from Holland, being truly and absolutely a Dutch enterprize--and though all the proofs in the world were introduced on the other side, I would set them at naught as undeserving my attention. If these three reasons are not sufficient to satisfy every burgher of this ancient city--all I can say is, they are degenerate descendants from their venerable Dutch ancestors, and totally unworthy the trouble of convincing. Thus, therefore, the title of Hendrick Hudson, to his renowned discovery is fully vindicated.

It has been traditionary in our family, that when the great navigator was first blessed with a view of this enchanting island, he was observed, for the first and only time in his life, to exhibit strong symptoms of astonishment and admiration. He is said to have turned to master Juet, and uttered these remarkable words, while he pointed towards this paradise of the new world--“see! there!”-- and thereupon, as was always his way when he was uncommonly pleased, he did puff out such clouds of dense tobacco smoke, that in one minute the vessel was out of sight of land, and master Juet was fain to wait, until the winds dispersed this impenetrable fog.

It was indeed--as my great great grandfather used to say--though in truth I never heard him, for he died, as might be expected, before I was born.--“It was indeed a spot, on which the eye might have revelled forever, in ever new and never ending beauties.” The island of Manna-hata, spread wide before them, like some sweet vision of fancy, or some fair creation of industrious magic. Its hills of smiling green swelled gently one above another, crowned with lofty trees of luxuriant growth; some pointing their tapering foliage towards the clouds, which were gloriously transparent; and others, loaded with a verdant burthen of clambering vines, bowing their branches to the earth, that was covered with flowers. On the gentle declivities of the hills were scattered in gay profusion, the dog wood, the sumach, and the wild briar, whose scarlet berries and white blossoms glowed brightly among the deep green of the surrounding foliage; and here and there, a curling column of smoke rising from the little glens that opened along the shore, seemed to promise the weary voyagers, a welcome at the hands of their fellow creatures. As they stood gazing with entranced attention on the scene before them, a red man crowned with feathers, issued from one of these glens, and after contemplating in silent wonder, the gallant ship, as she sat like a stately swan swimming on a silver lake, sounded the war-whoop, and bounded into the woods, like a wild deer, to the utter astonishment of the phlegmatic Dutchmen, who had never heard such a noise, or witnessed such a caper in their whole lives.

Of the transactions of our adventurers with the savages, and how the latter smoked copper pipes, and eat dried currants; how they brought great store of tobacco and oysters; how they shot one of the ship’s crew, and how he was buried, I shall say nothing, being that I consider them unimportant to my history. After tarrying a few days in the bay, in order to smoke their pipes and refresh themselves after their sea-faring, our voyagers weighed anchor, and adventurously ascended a mighty river which emptied into the bay. This river it is said was known among the savages by the name of the Shatemuck; though we are assured in an excellent little history published in 1674, by John Josselyn, Gent. that it was called the Mohegan,[15] and master Richard Bloome, who wrote some time afterwards, asserts the same--so that I very much incline in favour of the opinion of these two honest gentlemen. Be this as it may, the river is at present denominated the Hudson; and up this stream the shrewd Hen drick had very little doubt he should discover the much looked for passage to China!

The journal goes on to make mention of divers interviews between the crew and the natives, in the voyage up the river, but as they would be impertinent to my history, I shall pass them over in silence, except the following dry joke, played off by the old commodore and his school-fellow Robert Juet; which does such vast credit to their experimental philosophy, that I cannot refrain from inserting it. “Our master and his mate determined to try some of the chiefe men of the countrey, whether they had any treacherie in them. So they tooke them downe into the cabin and gave them so much wine and acqua vitæ that they were all merrie; and one of them had his wife with him, which sate so modestly, as any of our countrey women would do in a strange place. In the end, one of them was drunke, which had been aboarde of our ship all the time that we had beene there, and that was strange to them, for they could not tell how to take it.”[16]

Having satisfied himself by this profound experiment, that the natives were an honest, social race of jolly roysters, who had no objection to a drinking bout, and were very merry in their cups, the old commodore chuckled hugely to himself, and thrusting a double quid of tobacco in his cheek, directed master Juet to have it carefully recorded, for the satisfaction of all the natural philosophers of the university of Leyden--which done, he proceeded on his voyage, with great self-complacency. After sailing, however, above an hundred miles up the river, he found the watery world around him, began to grow more shallow and confined, the current more rapid and perfectly fresh--phenomena not uncommon in the ascent of rivers, but which puzzled the honest dutchmen prodigiously. A consultation of our modern Argonauts was therefore called, and having deliberated full six hours, they were brought to a determination, by the ship’s running aground--whereupon they unanimously concluded, that there was but little chance of getting to China in this direction. A boat, however, was dispatched to explore higher up the river, which on its return, confirmed the opinion--upon this the ship was warped off and put about, with great difficulty, being like most of her sex, exceedingly hard to govern; and the adventurous Hudson, according to the account of my great great grandfather, returned down the river--with a prodigious flea in his ear!

Being satisfied that there was little likelihood of getting to China, unless like the blind man, he returned from whence he sat out and took a fresh start; he forthwith re-crossed the sea to Holland, where he was received with great welcome by the honourable East-India company, who were very much rejoiced to see him come back safe--with their ship; and at a large and respectable meeting of the first merchants and burgomasters of Amsterdam, it was unanimously determined, that as a munificent reward for the eminent services he had performed, and the important discovery he had made, the great river Mohegan should be called after his name!--and it continues to be called Hudson river unto this very day.

[14] Ogilvie calls it a frigate.

[15] This river is likewise laid down in Ogilvy’s map as Manhattan--Noordt--Montaigne and Mauritius river.

[16] Juet’s Journ. Purch. Pil.

CHAP. II.

Containing an account of a mighty Ark which floated, under the protection of St. Nicholas, from Holland to Gibbet Island--the descent of the strange Animals therefrom--a great victory, and a description of the ancient village of Communipaw.

The delectable accounts given by the great Hudson, and Master Juet, of the country they had discovered, excited not a little talk and speculation among the good people of Holland.--Letters patent were granted by government to an association of merchants, called the West-India company, for the exclusive trade on Hudson river, on which they erected a trading house called Fort Aurania, or Orange, at present the superb and hospitable city of Albany. But I forbear to dwell on the various commercial and colonizing enterprizes which took place; among which was that of Mynheer Adrian Block, who discovered and gave a name to Block Island, since famous for its cheese--and shall barely confine myself to that, which gave birth to this renowned city.

It was some three or four years after the return of the immortal Hendrick, that a crew of honest, well meaning, copper headed, low dutch colonists set sail from the city of Amsterdam, for the shores of America. It is an irreparable loss to history, and a great proof of the darkness of the age, and the lamentable neglect of the noble art of book-making, since so industriously cultivated by knowing sea-captains, and spruce super-cargoes, that an expedition so interesting and important in its results, should have been passed over in utter silence. To my great great grandfather am I again indebted, for the few facts, I am enabled to give concerning it--he having once more embarked for this country, with a full determination, as he said, of ending his days here--and of begetting a race of Knickerbockers, that should rise to be great men in the land.

The ship in which these illustrious adventurers set sail was called the Goede Vrouw, or Good Woman, in compliment to the wife of the President of the West India Company, who was allowed by every body (except her husband) to be a singularly sweet tempered lady, when not in liquor. It was in truth a gallant vessel, of the most approved dutch construction, and made by the ablest ship carpenters of Amsterdam, who it is well known, always model their ships after the fair forms of their country women. Accordingly it had one hundred feet in the keel, one hundred feet in the beam, and one hundred feet from the bottom of the stern post, to the tafforel. Like the beauteous model, who was declared the greatest belle in Amsterdam, it was full in the bows, with a pair of enormous cat-heads, a copper bottom, and withal, a most prodigious poop!

The architect, who was somewhat of a religious man, far from decorating the ship with pagan idols, such as Jupiter, Neptune, or Hercules (which heathenish abominations, I have no doubt, occasion the misfortunes and shipwrack of many a noble vessel) he I say, on the contrary, did laudably erect for a head, a goodly image of St. Nicholas, equipped with a low, broad brimmed hat, a huge pair of Flemish trunk hose, and a pipe that reached to the end of the bow-sprit. Thus gallantly furnished, the staunch ship floated sideways, like a majestic goose, out of the harbour of the great city of Amsterdam, and all the bells, that were not otherwise engaged, rung a triple bob-major on the joyful occasion.

My great great grandfather remarks, that the voyage was uncommonly prosperous, for being under the especial care of the ever-revered St. Nicholas, the Goede Vrouw seemed to be endowed with qualities, unknown to common vessels. Thus she made as much lee-way as head-way, could get along very nearly as fast with the wind a-head, as when it was a-poop--and was particularly great in a calm; in consequence of which singular advantages, she made out to accomplish her voyage in a very few months, and came to anchor at the mouth of the Hudson, a little to the east of Gibbet Island.[17]

Here lifting up their eyes, they beheld, on what is at present called the Jersey shore, a small Indian village, pleasantly embowered in a grove of spreading elms, and the natives all collected on the beach, gazing in stupid admiration at the Goede Vrouw. A boat was immediately dispatched to enter into a treaty with them, and approaching the shore, hailed them through a trumpet, in the most friendly terms; but so horribly confounded were these poor savages at the tremendous and uncouth sound of the low dutch language, that they one and all took to their heels, scampered over the Bergen hills, nor did they stop until they had buried themselves, head and ears, in the marshes, on the other side, where they all miserably perished to a man--and their bones being collected, and decently covered by the Tammany Society of that day, formed that singular mound, called Rattle-snake-hill, which rises out of the centre of the salt marshes, a little to the east of the Newark Causeway.

Animated by this unlooked-for victory our valiant heroes sprang ashore in triumph, took possession of the soil as conquerors in the name of their High Mightinesses the lords states general, and marching fearlessly forward, carried the village of Communipaw by storm--having nobody to withstand them, but some half a score of old squaws, and poppooses, whom they tortured to death with low dutch. On looking about them they were so transported with the excellencies of the place, that they had very little doubt, the blessed St. Nicholas, had guided them thither, as the very spot whereon to settle their colony. The softness of the soil was wonderfully adapted to the driving of piles; the swamps and marshes around them afforded ample opportunities for the constructing of dykes and dams; the shallowness of the shore was peculiarly favourable to the building of docks--in a word, this spot abounded with all the singular inconveniences, and aquatic obstacles, necessary for the foundation of a great dutch city. On making a faithful report therefore, to the crew of the Goede Vrouw, they one and all determined that this was the destined end of their voyage. Accordingly they descended from the Goede Vrouw, men women and children, in goodly groups, as did the animals of yore from the ark, and formed themselves into a thriving settlement, which they called by the Indian name Communipaw.

--As all the world is perfectly acquainted with Communipaw, it may seem somewhat superfluous to treat of it in the present work; but my readers will please to recollect, that notwithstanding it is my chief desire to improve the present age, yet I write likewise for posterity, and have to consult the understanding and curiosity of some half a score of centuries yet to come; by which time perhaps, were it not for this invaluable history, the great Communipaw, like Babylon, Carthage, Nineveh and other great cities, might be perfectly extinct-- sunk and forgotten in its own mud--its inhabitants turned into oysters,[18] and even its situation a fertile subject of learned controversy and hardheaded investigation among indefatigable historians. Let me then piously rescue from oblivion, the humble reliques of a place, which was the egg from whence was hatched the mighty city of New York!

Communipaw is at present but a small village, pleasantly situated among rural scenery, on that beauteous part of the Jersey shore which was known in ancient legends by the name of Pavonia, and commands a grand prospect of the superb bay of New York. It is within but half an hour’s sail of the latter place, provided you have a fair wind, and may be distinctly seen from the city. Nay, it is a well known fact, which I can testify from my own experience, that on a clear still summer evening, you may hear, from the battery of New York, the obstreperous peals of broad-mouthed laughter of the dutch negroes at Communipaw, who, like most other negroes, are famous for their risible powers. This is peculiarly the case on Sunday evenings; when, it is remarked by an ingenious and observant philosopher, who has made great discoveries in the neighbourhood of this city, that they always laugh loudest--which he attributes to the circumstance of their having their holliday clothes on.

These negroes, in fact, like the monks in the dark ages, engross all the knowledge of the place, and being infinitely more adventurous and more knowing than their masters, carry on all the foreign trade; making frequent voyages to town in canoes loaded with oysters, buttermilk and cabbages. They are great astrologers, predicting the different changes of weather almost as accurately as an almanack--they are moreover exquisite performers on three stringed fiddles: in whistling they almost boast the farfamed powers of Orpheus his lyre, for not a horse or an ox in the place, when at the plow or in the waggon, will budge a foot until he hears the well known whistle of his black driver and companion.--And from their amazing skill at casting up accounts upon their fingers, they are regarded with as much veneration as were the disciples of Pythagoras of yore, when initiated into the sacred quaternary of numbers.

As to the honest dutch burghers of Communipaw, like wise men, and sound philosophers, they never look beyond their pipes, nor trouble their heads about any affairs out of their immediate neighbourhood; so that they live in profound and enviable ignorance of all the troubles, anxieties and revolutions, of this distracted planet. I am even told that many among them do verily believe that Holland, of which they have heard so much from tradition, is situated somewhere on Long-Island-- that Spiking-devil and the Narrows are the two ends of the world--that the country is still under the dominion of their high mightinesses, and that the city of New York still goes by the name of Nieuw Amsterdam. They meet every saturday afternoon, at the only tavern in the place, which bears as a sign, a square headed likeness of the prince of Orange; where they smoke a silent pipe, by way of promoting social conviviality, and invariably drink a mug of cider to the success of admiral Von Tromp, who they imagine is still sweeping the British channel, with a broom at his mast head.

Communipaw, in short, is one of the numerous little villages in the vicinity of this most beautiful of cities, which are so many strong holds and fastnesses, whither the primitive manners of our dutch forefathers have retreated, and where they are cherished with devout and scrupulous strictness. The dress of the original settlers is handed down inviolate, from father to son--the identical broad brimmed hat, broad skirted coat and broad bottomed breeches, continue from generation to generation, and several gigantic knee buckles of massy silver, are still in wear, that made such gallant display in the days of the patriarchs of Communipaw. The language likewise, continues unadulterated by barbarous innovations; and so critically correct is the village school-master in his dialect, that his reading of a low dutch psalm, has much the same effect on the nerves, as the filing of a hand saw.

[17] So called, because one Joseph Andrews, a pirate and murderer, was hanged in chains on that Island, the 23d May, 1769. Editor.

[18] “Men by inaction degenerate into Oysters.” Kaimes.

CHAP. III.

In which is set forth the true art of making a bargain, together with a miraculous escape of a great Metropolis in a fog--and how certain adventurers departed from Communipaw on a perilous colonizing expedition.

Having, in the trifling digression with which I concluded my last chapter, discharged the filial duty, which the city of New York owes to Communipaw, as being the mother settlement; and having given a faithful picture of it as it stands at present, I return, with a soothing sentiment of self-approbation, to dwell upon its early history. The crew of the Goede Vrouw being soon reinforced by fresh importations from Holland, the settlement went jollily on, encreasing in magnitude and prosperity. The neighbouring Indians in a short time became accustomed to the uncouth sound of the dutch language, and an intercourse gradually took place between them and the new comers. The Indians were much given to long talks, and the Dutch to long silence--in this particular therefore, they accommodated each other completely. The chiefs would make long speeches about the big bull, the wabash and the great spirit, to which the others would listen very attentively, smoke their pipes and grunt yah myn-her--whereat the poor savages were wonderously delighted. They instructed the new settlers in the best art of curing and smoking tobacco, while the latter in return, made them drunk with true Hollands--and then learned them the art of making bargains.

A brisk trade for furs was soon opened: the dutch traders were scrupulously honest in their dealings, and purchased by weight, establishing it as an invariable table of avoirdupoise, that the hand of a dutchman weighed one pound, and his foot two pounds. It is true, the simple Indians were often puzzled at the great disproportion between bulk and weight, for let them place a bundle of furs, never so large, in one scale, and a dutchman put his hand or foot in the other, the bundle was sure to kick the beam--never was a package of furs known to weigh more than two pounds, in the market of Communipaw!

This is a singular fact--but I have it direct from my great great grandfather, who had risen to considerable importance in the colony, being promoted to the office of weigh master, on account of the uncommon heaviness of his foot.

The Dutch possessions in this part of the globe began now to assume a very thriving appearance, and were comprehended under the general title of Nieuw Nederlandts, on account, no doubt, of their great resemblance to the Dutch Netherlands--excepting that the former were rugged and mountainous, and the latter level and marshy. About this time the tranquility of the dutch colonists was doomed to suffer a temporary interruption. In 1614, captain Sir Samuel Argal, sailing under a commission from Dale, governor of Virginia, visited the dutch settlements on Hudson river, and demanded their submission to the English crown and Virginian dominion.--To this arrogant demand, as they were in no condition to resist it, they submitted for the time, like discreet and reasonable men.

It does not appear that the valiant Argal molested the settlement of Communipaw; on the contrary, I am told that when his vessel first hove in sight the worthy burghers were seized with such a panic, that they fell to smoking their pipes with astonishing vehemence; insomuch that they quickly raised a cloud, which combining with the surrounding woods and marshes, completely enveloped and concealed their beloved village; and overhung the fair regions of Pavonia--So that the terrible captain Argal passed on, totally unsuspicious that a sturdy little Dutch settlement lay snugly couched in the mud, under cover of all this pestilent vapour. In commemoration of this fortunate escape, the worthy inhabitants have continued to smoke, almost without intermission, unto this very day; which is said to be the cause of the remarkable fog that often hangs over Communipaw of a clear afternoon.

Upon the departure of the enemy, our magnanimous ancestors took full six months to recover their wind, having been exceedingly discomposed by the consternation and hurry of affairs. They then called a council of safety to smoke over the state of the province. After six months more of mature deliberation, during which nearly five hundred words were spoken, and almost as much tobacco was smoked, as would have served a certain modern general through a whole winter’s campaign of hard drinking, it was determined, to fit out an armament of canoes, and dispatch them on a voyage of discovery; to search if peradventure some more sure and formidable position might not be found, where the colony would be less subject to vexatious visitations.

This perilous enterprize was entrusted to the superintendance of Mynheers Oloffe Van Kortlandt, Abraham Hardenbroek, Jacobus Van Zandt and Weinant Ten Broek--four indubitably great men, but of whose history, though I have made diligent enquiry, I can learn but little, previous to their leaving Holland. Nor need this occasion much surprize; for adventurers, like prophets, though they make great noise abroad, have seldom much celebrity in their own countries; but this much is certain, that the overflowings and off-scourings of a country, are invariably composed of the richest parts of the soil. And here I cannot help remarking how convenient it would be to many of our great men and great families of doubtful origin, could they have the privilege of the heroes of yore, who, whenever their origin was involved in obscurity, modestly announced themselves descended from a god--and who never visited a foreign country, but what they told some cock and bull stories, about their being kings and princes at home. This venial trespass on the truth, though it has occasionally been played off by some pseudo marquis, baronet, and other illustrious foreigner, in our land of good natured credulity, has been completely discountenanced in this sceptical, matter of fact age--And I even question whether any tender virgin, who was accidentally and unaccountably enriched with a bantling, would save her character at parlour fire-sides and evening tea-parties, by ascribing the phenomenon to a swan, a shower of gold or a river god.

Thus being totally denied the benefit of mythology and classic fable, I should have been completely at a loss as to the early biography of my heroes, had not a gleam of light been thrown upon their origin from their names.

By this simple means have I been enabled to gather some particulars, concerning the adventurers in question. Van Kortlandt for instance, was one of those peripatetic philosophers, who tax providence for a livelihood, and like Diogenes, enjoy a free and unincumbered estate in sunshine. He was usually arrayed in garments suitable to his fortune, being curiously fringed and fangled by the hand of time; and was helmeted with an old fragment of a hat which had acquired the shape of a sugarloaf; and so far did he carry his contempt for the adventitious distinction of dress, that it is said, the remnant of a shirt, which covered his back, and dangled like a pocket handkerchief out of a hole in his breeches, was never washed, except by the bountiful showers of heaven. In this garb was he usually to be seen, sunning himself at noon day, with a herd of philosophers of the same sect, on the side of the great canal of Amsterdam. Like your nobility of Europe, he took his name of Kortlandt (or lack land) from his landed estate, which lay some where in Terra incognita.

Of the next of our worthies, might I have had the benefit of mythological assistance, the want of which I have just lamented--I should have made honourable mention, as boasting equally illustrious pedigree, with the proudest hero of antiquity. His name was Van Zandt, which freely translated, signifies from the dirt, meaning, beyond a doubt, that like Triptolemus, Themis--the Cyclops and the Titans, he sprung from dame Terra or the earth! This supposition is strongly corroborated by his size, for it is well known that all the progeny of mother earth were of a gigantic stature; and Van Zandt, we are told, was a tall raw-boned man, above six feet high--with an astonishingly hard head. Nor is this origin of the illustrious Van Zandt a whit more improbable or repugnant to belief, than what is related and universally admitted of certain of our greatest, or rather richest men; who we are told, with the utmost gravity, did originally spring from a dung-hill!

Of the third hero, but a faint description has reached to this time, which mentions, that he was a sturdy, obstinate, burley, bustling little man; and from being usually equipped with an old pair of buck-skins, was familiarly dubbed Harden broek, or Tough Breeches.

Ten Broek completed this junto of adventurers. It is a singular but ludicrous fact, which, were I not scrupulous in recording the whole truth, I should almost be tempted to pass over in silence, as incompatible with the gravity and dignity of my history, that this worthy gentleman should likewise have been nicknamed from the most whimsical part of his dress. In fact the small clothes seems to have been a very important garment in the eyes of our venerated ancestors, owing in all probability to its really being the largest article of raiment among them. The name of Ten Broek, or Tin Broek is indifferently translated into Ten Breeches and Tin Breeches--the high dutch commentators incline to the former opinion; and ascribe it to his being the first who introduced into the settlement the ancient dutch fashion of wearing ten pair of breeches. But the most elegant and ingenious writers on the subject, declare in favour of Tin, or rather Thin Breeches; from whence they infer, that he was a poor, but merry rogue, whose galligaskins were none of the soundest, and who was the identical author of that truly philosophical stanza:

“Then why should we quarrel for riches,

Or any such glittering toys;

A light heart and thin pair of breeches,

Will go thorough the world my brave boys!”

Such was the gallant junto that fearlessly set sail at the head of a mighty armament of canoes, to explore the yet unknown country about the mouth of the Hudson--and heaven seemed to shine propitious on their undertaking.

It was that delicious season of the year, when nature, breaking from the chilling thraldom of old winter, like a blooming damsel, from the tyranny of a sordid old hunks of a father, threw herself blushing with ten thousand charms, into the arms, of youthful spring. Every tufted copse and blooming grove resounded with the notes of hymeneal love; the very insects as they sipped the morning dew, that gemmed the tender grass of the meadows, lifted up their little voices to join the joyous epithalamium--the virgin bud timidly put forth its blushes, and the heart of man dissolved away in tenderness. Oh sweet Theocritus! had I thy oaten reed, wherewith thou erst didst charm the gay Sicilian plains; or oh gentle Bion! thy pastoral pipe, in which the happy swains of the Lesbian isle so much delighted; then would I attempt to sing, in soft Bucolic or negligent Idyllium, the rural beauties of the scene--But having nothing but this jaded goose quill, wherewith to wing my flight, I must fain content myself to lay aside these poetic disportings of the fancy and pursue my faithful narrative in humble prose--comforting myself with the reflection, that though it may not commend itself so sweetly to the imagination of my reader, yet will it insinuate itself with virgin modesty, to his better judgment, clothed as it is in the chaste and simple garb of truth.

In the joyous season of spring then, did these hardy adventurers depart on this eventful expedition, which only wanted another Virgil to rehearse it, to equal the oft sung story of the Eneid--Many adventures did they meet with and divers bitter mishaps did they sustain, in their wanderings from Communipaw to oyster Island--from oyster Island to gibbet island, from gibbet island to governors island, and from governors island through buttermilk channel, (a second streights of Pylorus) to the Lord knows where; until they came very nigh being ship wrecked and lost forever, in the tremen dous vortexes of Hell gate,[19] which for terrors, and frightful perils, might laugh old Scylla and Charybdis to utter scorn--In all which cruize they encountered as many Lystrigonians and Cyclops and Syrens and unhappy Didos, as did ever the pious Eneas, in his colonizing voyage.

At length, after wandering to and fro, they were attracted by the transcendant charms of a vast island, which lay like a gorgeous stomacher, dividing the beauteous bosom of the bay, and to which the numerous mighty islands among which they had been wandering, seemed as so many foils and appendages. Hither they bent their course, and old Neptune, as if anxious to assist in the choice of a spot, whereon was to be founded a city that should serve as his strong hold in this western world, sent half a dozen potent billows, that rolled the canoes of our voyagers, high and dry on the very point of the island, where at present stands the delectable city of New York.

The original name of this beautiful island is in some dispute, and has already undergone a vitiation, which is a proof of the melancholy instability of sublunary things, and of the industrious perversions of modern orthographers. The name which is most current among the vulgar (such as members of assembly and bank directors) is Manhattan-- which is said to have originated from a custom among the squaws, in the early settlement, of wearing men’s wool hats, as is still done among many tribes. “Hence,” we are told by an old governor, somewhat of a wag, who flourished almost a century since, and had paid a visit to the wits of Philadelphia--“Hence arose the appellation of Manhat-on, first given to the Indians, and afterwards to the island”--a stupid joke!--but well enough for a governor.

Among the more ancient authorities which deserve very serious consideration, is that contained in the valuable history of the American possessions, written by master Richard Blome in 1687, wherein it is called Manhadaes, or Manahanent; nor must I forget the excellent little book of that authentic historian, John Josselyn, Gent. who explicitly calls it Manadaes.

But an authority still more ancient, and still more deserving of credit, because it is sanctioned by the countenance of our venerated dutch ancestors, is that founded on certain letters still extant, which passed between the early governors, and their neighbour powers; wherein it is variously called the Monhattoes, Munhatos and Manhattoes--an unimportant variation, occasioned by the literati of those days having a great contempt for those spelling book and dictionary researches, which form the sole study and ambition of so many learned men and women of the present times. This name is said to be derived from the great Indian spirit Manetho, who was supposed to have made this island his favourite residence, on account of its uncommon delights. But the most venerable and indisputable authority extant, and one on which I place implicit confidence, because it confers a name at once melodious, poetical and significant, is that furnished by the before quoted journal of the voyage of the great Hudson, by Master Juet; who clearly and correctly calls it Manna-hata--that is to say, the island of Manna; or in other words-- “a land flowing with milk and honey!”

[19] This is a fearful combination of rocks and whirlpools, in the sound above New York, dangerous to ships unless under the care of a skillful pilot. Certain wise men who instruct these modern days have softened this characterestic name into Hurl gate, on what authority, I leave them to explain. The name as given by our author is supported by Ogilvie’s History of America published 1671, as also by a journal still extant, written in the 16th century, and to be found in Hazard’s state papers. The original name, as laid down in all the Dutch manuscripts and maps, was Helle gat, and an old MS. written in French, speaking of various alterations in names about this city observes “De Helle gat trou d’Enfer, ils ont fait Hell gate, Porte d’Enfer.”--Printer’s Devil.

CHAP. IV.

In which are contained divers very sound reasons why a man should not write in a hurry: together with the building of New Amsterdam, and the memorable dispute of Mynheers Ten Breeches and Tough Breeches thereupon.

My great grandfather, by the mother’s side, Hermanus Van Clattercop, when employed to build the large stone church at Rotterdam, which stands about three hundred yards to your left, after you turn off from the Boomkeys, and which is so conveniently constructed, that all the zealous Christians of Rotterdam prefer sleeping through a sermon there, to any other church in the city--My great grandfather, I say, when employed to build that famous church, did in the first place send to Delft for a box of long pipes; then having purchased a new spitting box and a hundred weight of the best Virginia, he sat himself down, and did nothing for the space of three months, but smoke most laboriously. Then did he spend full three months more in trudging on foot, and voyaging in Trekschuit, from Rotterdam to Amsterdam--to Delft-- to Haerlem--to Leyden--to the Hague, knocking his head and breaking his pipe, against every church in his road. Then did he advance gradually, nearer and nearer to Rotterdam, until he came in full sight of the identical spot, whereon the church was to be built. Then did he spend three months longer in walking round it and round it; contemplating it, first from one point of view, and then from another--now would he be paddled by it on the canal--now would he peep at it through a telescope, from the other side of the Meuse, and now would he take a bird’s eye glance at it, from the top of one of those gigantic wind mills, which protect the gates of the city. The good folks of the place were on the tiptoe of expectation and impatience-- notwithstanding all the turmoil of my great grand-father, not a symptom of the church was yet to be seen; they even began to fear it would never be brought into the world, but that its great projector would lie down, and die in labour, of the mighty plan he had conceived. At length, having occupied twelve good months in puffing and paddling, and talking and walking--having travelled over all Holland, and even taken a peep into France and Germany--having smoked five hundred and ninety-nine pipes, and three hundred weight of the best Virginia tobacco; my great grandfather gathered together all that knowing and industrious class of citizens, who prefer attending to any body’s business sooner than their own, and having pulled off his coat and five pair of breeches, he advanced sturdily up, and laid the corner stone of the church, in the presence of the whole multitude--just at the commencement of the thirteenth month.

In a similar manner and with the example of my worthy ancestor full before my eyes, have I proceeded in writing this most authentic history. The honest Rotterdammers no doubt thought my great grandfather was doing nothing at all to the purpose, while he was making such a world of prefatory bustle, about the building of his church-- and many of the ingenious inhabitants of this fair city, (whose intellects have been thrice stimulated and quickened, by transcendant nitrous oxyde, as were those of Chrysippus, with hellebore,) will unquestionably suppose that all the preliminary chapters, with the discovery, population and final settlement of America, were totally irrelevant and superfluous--and that the main business, the history of New York, is not a jot more advanced, than if I had never taken up my pen. Never were wise people more mistaken in their conjectures; in consequence of going to work slowly and deliberately, the church came out of my grandfather’s hands, one of the most sumptuous, goodly and glorious edifices in the known world--excepting, that, like our transcendant capital at Washington, it was began on such a grand scale, the good folks could not afford to finish more than the wing of it.

In the same manner do I prognosticate, if ever I am enabled to finish this history, (of which in simple truth, I often have my doubts,) that it will be handed down to posterity, the most complete, faithful, and critically constructed work that ever was read--the delight of the learned, the ornament of libraries, and a model for all future historians. There is nothing that gives such an expansion of mind, as the idea of writing for posterity--And had Ovid, Herodotus, Polybius or Tacitus, like Moses from the top of Mount Pisgah, taken a view of the boundless region over which their offspring were destined to wander--like the good old Israelite, they would have lain down and died contented.

I hear some of my captious readers questioning the correctness of my arrangement--but I have no patience with these continual interruptions--never was historian so pestered with doubts and queries, and such a herd of discontented quid-nunes! if they continue to worry me in this manner, I shall never get to the end of my work. I call Apollo and his whole seraglio of muses to witness, that I pursue the most approved and fashionable plan of modern historians; and if my readers are not pleased with my matter, and my manner, for God’s sake let them throw down my work, take up a pen and write a history to suit themselves--for my part I am weary of their incessant interruptions, and beg once for all, that I may have no more of them.

The island of Manna-hata, Manhattoes, or as it is vulgarly called Manhattan, having been discovered, as was related in the last chapter; and being unanimously pronounced by the discoverers, the fairest spot in the known world, whereon to build a city, that should surpass all the emporiums of Europe, they immediately returned to Communipaw with the pleasing intelligence. Upon this a considerable colony was forthwith fitted out, who after a prosperous voyage of half an hour, arrived at Manna hata, and having previously purchased the land of the Indians, (a measure almost unparalleled in the annals of discovery and colonization) they settled upon the south-west point of the island, and fortified themselves strongly, by throwing up a mud battery, which they named Fort Amsterdam. A number of huts soon sprung up in the neighbourhood, to protect which, they made an enclosure of strong pallisadoes. A creek running from the East river, through what at present is called Whitehall street, and a little inlet from Hudson river to the bowling green formed the original boundarles; as though nature had kindly designated the cradle, in which the embryo of this renowned city was to be nestled. The woods on both sides of the creek were carefully cleared away, as well as from the space of ground now occupied by the bowling green. --These precautions were taken to protect the fort from either the open attacks or insidious advances of its savage neighbours, who wandered in hordes about the forests and swamps that extended over those tracts of country, at present called broad way, Wall street, William street and Pearl street.

No sooner was the colony once planted, than like a luxuriant vine, it took root and throve amazingly; for it would seem, that this thrice favoured island is like a munificent dung hill, where every thing finds kindly nourishment, and soon shoots up and expands to greatness. The thriving state of the settlement, and the astonishing encrease of houses, gradually awakened the leaders from a profound lethargy, into which they had fallen, after having built their mud fort. They began to think it was high time some plan should be devised, on which the encreasing town should be built; so taking pipe in mouth, and meeting in close divan, they forthwith fell into a profound deliberation on the subject.

At the very outset of the business, an unexpected difference of opinion arose, and I mention it with regret, as being the first internal altercation on record among the new settlers. An ingenious plan was proposed by Mynheer Ten Broek to cut up and intersect the ground by means of canals; after the manner of the most admired cities in Holland; but to this Mynheer Hardenbroek was diametrically opposed; suggesting in place thereof, that they should run out docks and wharves, by means of piles driven into the bottom of the river, on which the town should be built--By this means said he triumphantly, shall we rescue a considerable space of territory from these immense rivers, and build a city that shall rival Amsterdam, Venice, or any amphibious city in Europe. To this proposition, Ten Broek (or Ten breeches) replied, with a look of as much scorn as he could possibly assume. He cast the utmost censure upon the plan of his antagonist, as being preposterous, and against the very order of things, as he would leave to every true hollander. “For what;” said he, “is a town without canals?--it is like a body without veins and arteries, and must perish for want of a free circulation of the vital fluid”--Tough breeches, on the contrary, retorted with a sarcasm upon his antagonist, who was somewhat of an arid, dry boned habit of body; he remarked that as to the circulation of the blood being necessary to existence, Mynheer Ten breeches was a living contradiction to his own assertion; for every body knew there had not a drop of blood circulated through his wind dried carcass for good ten years, and yet there was not a greater busy body in the whole colony. Personalities have seldom much effect in making converts in argument--nor have I ever seen a man convinced of error, by being convicted of deformity. At least such was not the case at present. Ten Breeches was very acrimonious in reply, and Tough Breeches, who was a sturdy little man, and never gave up the last word, rejoined with encreasing spirit--Ten Breeches had the advantage of the greatest volubility, but Tough Breeches had that invaluable coat of mail in argument called obstinacy--Ten Breeches had, therefore, the most mettle, but Tough Breeches the best bottom--so that though Ten Breeches made a dreadful clattering about his ears, and battered and belaboured him with hard words and sound arguments, yet Tough Breeches hung on most resolutely to the last. They parted therefore, as is usual in all arguments where both parties are in the right, without coming to any conclusion--but they hated each other most heartily forever after, and a similar breach with that between the houses of Capulet and Montague, had well nigh ensued between the families of Ten Breeches and Tough Breeches.

I would not fatigue my reader with these dull matters of fact, but that my duty as a faithful historian, requires that I should be particular--and in truth, as I am now treating of the critical period, when our city, like a young twig, first received the twists and turns, that have since contributed to give it the present picturesque irregularity for which it is celebrated, I cannot be too minute in detailing their first causes.

After the unhappy altercation I have just mentioned, I do not find that any thing further was said on the subject, worthy of being recorded. The council, consisting of the largest and oldest heads in the community, met regularly once a week, to ponder on this momentous subject.--But either they were deterred by the war of words they had witnessed, or they were naturally averse to the exercise of the tongue, and the consequent exercise of the brains--certain it is, the most profound silence was maintained--the question as usual lay on the table--the members quietly smoked their pipes, making but few laws, without ever enforcing any, and in the mean time the affairs of the settlement went on--as it pleased God.

As most of the council were but little skilled in the mystery of combining pot hooks and hangers, they determined most judiciously not to puzzle either themselves or posterity, with voluminous records. The secretary however, kept the minutes of each meeting with tolerable precision, in a large vellum folio, fastened with massy brass clasps, with a sight of which I have been politely favoured by my highly respected friends, the Goelets, who have this invaluable relique, at present in their possession. On perusal, however, I do not find much information--The journal of each meeting consists but of two lines, stating in dutch, that, “the council sat this day, and smoked twelve pipes, on the affairs of the colony.”--By which it appears that the first settlers did not regulate their time by hours, but pipes, in the same manner as they measure distances in Holland at this very time; an admirably exact measurement, as a pipe in the mouth of a genuine dutchman is never liable to those accidents and irregularities, that are continually putting our clocks out of order.

In this manner did the profound council of New Amsterdam smoke, and doze, and ponder, from week to week, month to month, and year to year, in what manner they should construct their infant settlement--mean while, the own took care of itself, and like a sturdy brat which is suffered to run about wild, unshackled by clouts and bandages, and other abominations by which your notable nurses and sage old women cripple and disfigure the children of men, encreased so rapidly in strength and magnitude, that before the honest burgomasters had determined upon a plan, it was too late to put it in execution--whereupon they wisely abandoned the subject altogether.

CHAP V.

In which the Author is very unreasonably afflicted about nothing.--Together with divers Ancedotes of the prosperity of New Amsterdam, and the wisdom of its Inhabitants.--And the sudden introduction of a Great Man.

Grievous, and very much to be commiserated, is the task of the feeling historian, who writes the history of his native land. If it falls to his lot to be the sad recorder of calamity or crime, the mournful page is watered with his tears--nor can he recal the most prosperous and blissful eras, without a melancholy sigh at the reflection, that they have passed away forever! I know not whether it be owing to an immoderate love for the simplicity of former times, or to a certain tenderness of heart, natural to a sentimental historian; but I candidly confess, I cannot look back on the halcyon days of the city, which I now describe, without a deep dejection of the spirits. With faultering hand I withdraw the curtain of oblivion, which veils the modest merits of our venerable dutch ancestors, and as their revered figures rise to my mental vision, humble myself before the mighty shades.

Such too are my feelings when I revisit the family mansion of the Knickerbockers and spend a lonely hour in the attic chamber, where hang the portraits of my forefathers, shrowded in dust like the forms they represent. With pious reverence do I gaze on the countenances of those renowned burghers, who have preceded me in the steady march of existence--whose sober and temperate blood now meanders through my veins, flowing slower and slower in its feeble conduits, until its lingering current shall soon be stopped forever!

These, say I to myself, are but frail memorials of the mighty men, who flourished in the days of the patriarchs; but who, alas, have long since mouldered in that tomb, towards which my steps are insensibly and irresistibly hastening! As I pace the darkened chamber and lose myself in melancholy musings, the shadowy images around me, almost seem to steal once more into existence-- their countenances appear for an instant to assume the animation of life--their eyes to pursue me in every movement! carried away by the delusion of fancy, I almost imagine myself surrounded by the shades of the departed, and holding sweet converse with the worthies of antiquity!--Luckless Diedrich! born in a degenerate age--abandoned to the buffettings of fortune--a stranger and a weary pilgrim in thy native land; blest with no weeping wife, nor family of helpless children--but doomed to wander neglected through those crowded streets, and elbowed by foreign upstarts from those fair abodes, where once thine ancestors held sovereign empire. Alas! alas! is then the dutch spirit forever extinct? The days of the patriarchs, have they fled forever? Return--return sweet days of simplicity and ease--dawn once more on the lovely island of Manna hata!--Bear with me my worthy readers, bear with the weakness of my nature--or rather let us sit down together, indulge the full flow of filial piety, and weep over the memories of our great great grand-fathers.

Having thus gratified those feelings irresistibly awakened by the happy scenes I am describing, I return with more composure to my history.

The town of New Amsterdam, being, as I before mentioned, left to its own course and the fostering care of providence, increased as rapidly in importance, as though it had been burthened with a dozen panniers full of those sage laws, which are usually heaped upon the backs of young cities--in order to make them grow. The only measure that remains on record of the worthy council, was to build a chapel within the fort, which they dedicated to the great and good St. Nicholas, who immediately took the infant town of New Amsterdam under his peculiar patronage, and has ever since been, and I devoutly hope will ever be, the tutelar saint of this excellent city. I am moreover told, that there is a little legendary book somewhere extant, written in low dutch, which says that the image of this renowned saint, which whilome graced the bowsprit of the Goede Vrouw, was placed in front of this chapel; and the legend further treats of divers miracles wrought by the mighty pipe which the saint held in his mouth; a whiff of which was a sovereign cure for an indigestion, and consequently of great importance in this colony of huge feeders. But as, notwithstanding the most diligent search, I cannot lay my hands upon this little book, I entertain considerable doubt on the subject.

This much is certain, that from the time of the building of this chapel, the town throve with tenfold prosperity, and soon became the metropolis of numerous settlements, and an extensive territory. The province extended on the north, to Fort Aurania or Orange, now known by the name of Albany, situated about 160 miles up the Mohegan or Hudson River. Indeed the province claimed quite to the river St. Lawrence; but this claim was not much insisted on at the time, as the country beyond Fort Aurania was a perfect wilderness, reported to be inhabited by cannibals, and termed Terra Incognita. Various accounts were given of the people of these unknown parts; by some they are described as being of the race of the Acephali, such as Herodotus describes, who have no heads, and carry their eyes in their bellies. Others affirm they were of that race whom father Charlevoix mentions, as hav ing but one leg; adding gravely, that they were exceedingly alert in running. But the most satisfactory account is that given by the reverend Hans Megapolensis, a missionary in these parts, who, in a letter still extant, declares them to be the Mohagues or Mohawks; a nation, according to his description, very loose in their morals, but withal most rare wags. “For,” says he, “if theye can get to bedd with another mans wife, theye thinke it a piece of wit.”[20] This excellent old gentleman gives moreover very important additional information, about this country of monsters; for he observes, “theye have plenty of tortoises here, and within land, from two and three to four feet long; some with two heads, very mischievous and addicted to biting.”

On the south the province reached to Fort Nassau, on the South River, since called the Delaware-- and on the east it extended to Varshe (or Fresh) River, since called Connecticut River. On this frontier was likewise erected a mighty fort and trading house, much about the spot where at present is situated the pleasant town of Hartford; this port was called Fort Goed Hoop, or Good Hope, and was intended as well for the purpose of trade as defence; but of this fort, its valiant garrison, and staunch commander, I shall treat more anon, as they are destined to make some noise in this eventful and authentic history.

Thus prosperously did the province of New Nederlandts encrease in magnitude; and the early history of its metropolis, presents a fair page, unsullied by crime or calamity. Herds of painted savages still lurked about the tangled woods and the rich bottoms of the fair island of Manna-hata--the hunter still pitched his rude bower of skins and branches, beside the wild brooks, that stole through the cool and shady valleys; while here and there were seen on some sunny knoll, a group of indian wigwams, whose smoke rose above the neighbouring trees and floated in the clear expanse of heaven. The uncivilized tenants of the forest remained peaceable neighbours of the town of New Amsterdam; and our worthy ancestors endeavoured to ameliorate their situation as much as possible, by benevolently giving them gin, rum and glass beads, in exchange for all the furs they brought; for it seems the kind hearted dutchmen had conceived a great friendship for their savage neighbours--on account of the facility with which they suffered themselves to be taken in. Not that they were deficient in understanding, for certain of their customs give tokens of great shrewdness, especially that mentioned by Ogilvie, who says, “for the least offence the bridegroom soundly beats the wife, and turns her out of doors and marries another, insomuch that some of them have every year a new wife.”

True it is, that good understanding between our worthy ancestors and their savage neighbours, was liable to occasional interruptions--and I recollect hearing my grandmother, who was a very wise old woman, well versed in the history of these parts, tell a long story of a winter evening, about a battle between the New Amsterdammers and the Indians, which was known, but why, I do not recollect, by the name of the Peach War, and which took place near a peach orchard, in a dark and gloomy glen, overshadowed by cedars, oaks and dreary hemlocks. The legend of this bloody encounter, was for a long time current among the nurses, old women, and other ancient chroniclers of the place; and the dismal seat of war, went, for some generations, by the name of Murderers’ Valley; but time and improvement have equally obliterated the tradition and the place of this battle, for what was once the bloodstained valley, is now in the centre of this populous city, and known by the name of Dey-street.[21]

For a long time the new settlement depended upon the mother country for most of its supplies. The vessels which sailed in search of a north west passage, always touched at New Amsterdam, where they unloaded fresh cargoes of adventurers, and unheard of quantities of gin, bricks, tiles, glass beads, gingerbread and other necessaries; in exchange for which they received supplies of pork and vegetables, and made very profitable bargains for furs and bear skins. Never did the simple islanders of the south seas, look with more impatience for the adventurous vessels, that brought them rich ladings of old hoops, spike nails and looking glasses, than did our honest colonists, for the vessels that brought them the comforts of the mother country. In this particular they resembled their worthy but simple descendants, who prefer depending upon Europe for necessaries, which they might produce or manufacture at less cost and trouble in their own country. Thus have I known a very shrewd family, who being removed to some distance from an inconvenient draw well, beside which they had long sojourned, always preferred to send to it for water, though a plentiful brook ran by the very door of their new habitation.

How long the growing colony might have looked to its parent Holland for supplies, like a chubby overgrown urchin, clinging to its mother’s breast, even after it is breeched, I will not pretend to say, for it does not become an historian to indulge in conjectures--I can only assert the fact, that the inhabitants, being obliged by repeated emergencies, and frequent disappointments of foreign supplies, to look about them and resort to contrivances, became nearly as wise as people generally are, who are taught wisdom by painful experience. They therefore learned to avail themselves of such expedients as presented--to make use of the bounties of nature, where they could get nothing better--and thus became prodigiously enlightened, under the scourge of inexorable necessity; gradually opening one eye at a time, like the Arabian impostor receiving the bastinado.

Still however they advanced from one point of knowledge to another with characteristic slowness and circumspection, admitting but few improvements and inventions, and those too, with a jealous reluctance that has ever distinguished our respectable dutch yeomanry; who adhere, with pious and praiseworthy obstinacy, to the customs, the fashions, the manufactures and even the very utensils, however inconvenient, of their revered forefathers. It was long after the period of which I am writing, before they discoved the surprising secret, that it was more economic and commodious, to roof their houses with shingles procured from the adjacent forests, than to import tiles for the purpose from Holland; and so slow were they in believing that the soil of a young country, could possibly make creditable bricks; that even at a late period of the last century, ship loads have been imported from Holland, by certain of its most orthodox descendants.

The accumulating wealth and consequence of New Amsterdam and its dependencies, at length awakened the serious solicitude of the mother country; who finding it a thriving and opulent colony, and that it promised to yield great profit and no trouble; all at once became wonderfully anxious about its safety, and began to load it with tokens of regard; in the same manner that people are sure to oppress rich relations with their affection and loving kindness, who could do much better without their assistance.

The usual marks of protection shewn by mother countries to wealthy colonies, were forthwith evinced--the first care always being to send rulers to the new settlement, with orders to squeeze as much revenue from it as it will yield. Accordingly in the year of our Lord 1629 mynheer Wouter Van Twiller was appointed governor of the province of Nieuw Nederlandts, under the controul of their High Mightinesses the lords states general of the United Netherlands, and the privileged West India company.

This renowned old gentleman arrived at New Amsterdam in the merry month of June, the sweetest month in all the year; when Dan Apollo seems to dance up the transparent firmament--when the robin, the black-bird, the thrush and a thousand other wanton songsters make the woods to resound with amorous ditties, and the luxurious little Boblincon revels among the clover blossoms of the meadows.--All which happy coincidence, persuaded the old ladies of New Amsterdam, who were skilled in the art of foretelling events, that this was to be a happy and prosperous administration.

But as it would be derogatory to the consequence of the first dutch governor of the great province of Nieuw Nederlandts, to be thus scurvily introduced at the end of a chapter, I will put an end to this second book of my history, that I may usher him in, with the more dignity in the beginning of my next.

END OF BOOK II.

BOOK III.

In which is recorded the golden reign of Wouter Van Twiller.

CHAP. I.

Setting forth the unparalleled virtues of the renowned Wouter Van Twiller, as likewise his unutterable wisdom in the law case of Wandle Schoonhoven and Barent Bleecker--and the great admiration of the public thereat.

The renowned Wouter (or Walter) Van Twiller, was descended from a long line of dutch burgomasters, who had successively dozed away their lives and grown fat upon the bench of magistracy in Rotterdam; and who had comported themselves with such singular wisdom and propriety, that they were never either heard or talked of-- which, next to being universally applauded, should be the object of ambition of all sage magistrates and rulers.

His surname of Twiller, is said to be a corruption of the original Twijfler, which in English means doubter; a name admirably descriptive of his deliberative habits. For though he was a man, shut up within himself like an oyster, and of such a profoundly reflective turn, that he scarcely ever spoke except in monosyllables, yet did he never make up his mind, on any doubtful point. This was clearly accountd for by his adherents, who affirmed that he always conceived every subject on so comprehensive a scale, that he had not room in his head, to turn it over and examine both sides of it, so that he always remained in doubt, merely in consequence of the astonishing magnitude of his ideas!

There are two opposite ways by which some men get into notice--one by talking a vast deal and thinking a little, and the other by holding their tongues and not thinking at all. By the first many a vapouring, superficial pretender acquires the reputation of a man of quick parts--by the other many a vacant dunderpate, like the owl, the stupidest of birds, comes to be complimented, by a discerning world, with all the attributes of wisdom. This, by the way, is a mere casual remark, which I would not for the universe have it thought, I apply to Governor Van Twiller. On the contrary he was a very wise dutchman, for he never said a foolish thing--and of such invincible gravity, that he was never known to laugh, or even to smile, through the course of a long and prosperous life. Certain however it is, there never was a matter proposed, however simple, and on which your common narrow minded mortals, would rashly determine at the first glance, but what the renowned Wouter, put on a mighty mysterious, vacant kind of look, shook his capacious head, and having smoked for five minutes with redoubled earnestness, sagely observed, that “he had his doubts about the matter”-- which in process of time gained him the character of a man slow of belief, and not easily imposed on.

The person of this illustrious old gentleman was as regularly formed and nobly proportioned, as though it had been moulded by the hands of some cunning dutch statuary, as a model of majesty and lordly grandeur. He was exactly five feet six inches in height, and six feet five inches in circumference. His head was a perfect sphere, far excelling in magnitude that of the great Pericles (who was thence waggishly called Schenocephalus, or onion head)--indeed, of such stupendous dimensions was it, that dame nature herself, with all her sex’s ingenuity, would have been puzzled to construct a neck, capable of supporting it; wherefore she wisely declined the attempt, and settled it firmly on the top of his back bone, just between the shoulders; where it remained, as snugly bedded, as a ship of war in the mud of the Potowmac. His body was of an oblong form, particularly capacious at bottom; which was wisely ordered by providence, seeing that he was a man of sedentary habits, and very averse to the idle labour of walking. His legs, though exceeding short, were sturdy in proportion to the weight they had to sustain; so that when erect, he had not a little the appearance of a robustious beer barrel, standing on skids. His face, that infallible index of the mind, presented a vast expanse perfectly unfurrowed or deformed by any of those lines and angles, which disfigure the human countenance with what is termed expression. Two small grey eyes twinkled feebly in the midst, like two stars of lesser magnitude, in a hazy firmament; and his full fed cheeks, which seemed to have taken toll of every thing that went into his mouth, were curiously mottled and streaked with dusky red, like a spitzenberg apple.

His habits were as regular as his person. He daily took his four stated meals, appropriating exactly an hour to each; he smoked and doubted eight hours, and he slept the remaining twelve of the four and twenty. Such was the renowned Wouter Van Twiller--a true philosopher, for his mind was either elevated above, or tranquilly settled below, the cares and perplexities of this world. He had lived in it for years, without feeling the least curiosity to know whether the sun revolved round it, or it round the sun; and he had even watched for at least half a century, the smoke curling from his pipe to the ceiling, without once troubling his head with any of those numerous theories, by which a philosopher would have perplexed his brain, in accounting for its rising above the surrounding atmosphere.

In his council he presided with great state and solemnity. He sat in a huge chair of solid oak hewn in the celebrated forest of the Hague, fabricated by an experienced Timmerman of Amsterdam, and curiously carved about the arms and feet, into exact imitations of gigantic eagle’s claws. Instead of a sceptre he swayed a long turkish pipe, wrought with jasmin and amber, which had been presented to a stadtholder of Holland, at the conclusion of a treaty with one of the petty Barbary powers.--In this stately chair would he sit, and this magnificent pipe would he smoke, shaking his right knee with a constant motion, and fixing his eye for hours together upon a little print of Amsterdam, which hung in a black frame, against the opposite wall of the council chamber. Nay, it has ever been said, that when any deliberation of extraordinary length and intricacy was on the carpet, the renowned Wouter would absolutely shut his eyes for full two hours at a time, that he might not be disturbed by external objects--and at such times the internal commotion of his mind, was evinced by certain regular guttural sounds, which his admirers declared were merely the noise of conflict, made by his contending doubts and opinions.

It is with infinite difficulty I have been enabled to collect these biographical anecdotes of the great man under consideration. The facts respecting him were so scattered and vague, and divers of them so questionable in point of authenticity, that I have had to give up the search after many, and decline the admission of still more, which would have tended to heighten the colouring of his portrait.

I have been the more anxious to delineate fully, the person and habits of the renowned Van Twiller, from the consideration that he was not only the first, but also the best governor that ever presided over this ancient and respectable province; and so tranquil and benevolent was his reign, that I do not find throughout the whole of it, a single instance of any offender being brought to punishment:--a most indubitable sign of a merciful governor, and a case unparalleled, excepting in the reign of the illustrious King Log, from whom, it is hinted, the renowned Van Twiller was a lineal descendant.

The very outset of the career of this excellent magistrate, like that of Solomon, or to speak more appropriately, like that of the illustrious governor of Barataria, was distinguished by an example of legal acumen, that gave flattering presage of a wise and equitable administration. The very morning after he had been solemnly installed in office, and at the moment that he was making his breakfast from a prodigious earthen dish, filled with milk and Indian pudding, he was suddenly interrupted by the appearance of one Wandle Schoonhoven, a very important old burgher of New Amsterdam, who complained bitterly of one Barent Bleecker, inasmuch as he fraudulently refused to come to a settlement of accounts, seeing that there was a heavy balance in favour of the said Wandle. Governor Van Twiller, as I have already observed, was a man of few words, he was likewise a mortal enemy to multiplying writings--or being disturbed at his breakfast. Having therefore listened attentively to the statement of Wandle Schoonhoven, giving an occasional grunt, as he shovelled a mighty spoonful of Indian pudding into his mouth--either as a sign that he relished the dish, or comprehended the story--he called unto him his constable, and pulling out of his breeches pocket a huge jack-knife, dispatched it after the defendant as a summons, accompanied by his tobacco box as a warrant.

This summary process was as effectual in those simple days, as was the seal ring of the great Haroun Alraschid, among the true believers--the two parties, being confronted before him, each produced a book of accounts, written in a language and character that would have puzzled any but a High Dutch commentator, or a learned decypherer of Egyptian obelisks, to understand. The sage Wouter took them one after the other, and having poised them in his hands, and attentively counted over the number of leaves, fell straightway into a very great doubt, and smoked for half an hour without saying a word; at length, laying his finger beside his nose, and shutting his eyes for a moment, with the air of a man who has just caught a subtle idea by the tail, he slowly took his pipe from his mouth, puffed forth a column of tobacco smoke, and with marvellous gravity and solemnity pronounced--that having carefully counted over the leaves and weighed the books, it was found, that one was just as thick and as heavy as the other--therefore it was the final opinion of the court that the accounts were equally balanced-- therefore Wandle should give Barent a receipt, and Barent should give Wandle a receipt--and the constable should pay the costs.

This decision being straightway made known, diffused general joy throughout New Amsterdam, for the people immediately perceived, that they had a very wise and equitable magistrate to rule over them. But its happiest effect was, that not another law suit took place throughout the whole of his administration--and the office of constable fell into such decay, that there was not one of those lossel scouts known in the province for many years. I am the more particular in dwelling on this transaction, not only because I deem it one of the most sage and righteous judgments on record, and well worthy the attention of modern magistrates, but because it was a miraculous event in the history of the renowned Wouter--being the only time he was ever known to come to a decision, in the whole course of his life.

CHAP. II.

Containing some account of the grand Council of New Amsterdam, as also divers especial good philosophical reasons why an Alderman should be fat--with other particulars touching the state of the Province.

In treating of the early governors of the province, I must caution my readers against confounding them, in point of dignity and power, with those worthy gentlemen, who are whimsically denominated governors, in this enlightened republic--a set of unhappy victims of popularity, who are in fact the most dependent, hen-pecked beings in community: doomed to bear the secret goadings and corrections of their own party, and the sneers and revilings of the whole world beside.--Set up, like geese, at christmas hollidays, to be pelted and shot at by every whipster and vagabond in the land. On the contrary, the dutch governors enjoyed that uncontrolled authority vested in all commanders of distant colonies or territories. They were in a manner, absolute despots in their little domains, lording it, if so disposed, over both law and gospel, and accountable to none but the mother country; which it is well known is astonishingly deaf to all complaints against its governors, provided they discharge the main duty of their station--squeezing out a good revenue. This hint will be of importance, to prevent my readers from being seized with doubt and incredulity, whenever, in the course of this authentic history, they encounter the uncommon circumstance, of a governor, acting with independence, and in opposition to the opinions of the multitude.

To assist the doubtful Wouter, in the arduous business of legislation, a board of magistrates was appointed, which presided immediately over the police. This potent body consisted of a schout or bailiff, with powers between those of the present mayor and sheriff--five burgermeesters, who were equivalent to aldermen, and five schepens, who officiated as scrubs, sub-devils, or bottle-holders to the burgermeesters, in the same manner as do assistant aldermen to their principals at the present day; it being their duty to fill the pipes of the lordly burgermeesters--see that they were accommodated with spitting boxes--hunt the markets for delicacies for corporation dinners, and to discharge such other little offices of kindness, as were occasionally required. It was moreover, tacitly understood, though not specifically enjoined, that they should consider themselves as butts for the blunt wits of the burgermeesters, and should laugh most heartily at all their jokes; but this last was a duty as rarely called in action in those days, as it is at present, and was shortly remitted, in consequence of the tragical death of a fat little Schepen--who actually died of suffocation in an unsuccessful effort to force a laugh, at one of Burgermeester Van Zandt’s best jokes.

In return for these humble services, they were permitted to say yes and no at the council board, and to have that enviable privilege, the run of the public kitchen--being graciously permitted to eat, and drink, and smoke, at all those snug junkettings and public gormandizings, for which the ancient magistrates were equally famous with their more modern successors. The post of Schepen therefore, like that of assistant alderman, was eagerly coveted by all your burghers of a certain description, who have a huge relish for good feeding, and a humble ambition to be great men, in a small way--who thirst after a little brief authority, that shall render them the terror of the alms house, and the bridewell--that shall enable them to lord it over obsequious poverty, vagrant vice, outcast prostitution, and hunger driven dishonesty--that shall place in their hands the lesser, but galling scourge of the law, and give to their beck a hound like pack of catchpoles and bum bailiffs--tenfold greater rogues than the culprits they hunt down!--My readers will excuse this sudden warmth, which I confess is unbecoming of a grave historian--but I have a mortal antipathy to catchpoles, bum bailiffs, and little great men.

The ancient magistrates of this city, corresponded with those of the present time, no less in form, magnitude and intellect, than in prerogative and privilege. The burgomasters, like our aldermen, were generally chosen by weight--and not only the weight of the body, but likewise the weight of the head. It is a maxim practically observed in all honest, plain thinking, regular cities, that an alderman should be fat--and the wisdom of this can be proved to a certainty. That the body is in some measure an image of the mind, or rather that the mind is moulded to the body, like melted lead to the clay in which it is cast, has been insisted on by many men of science, who have made human nature their peculiar study--For as a learned gentleman of our city observes “there is a constant relation between the moral character of all intelligent creatures, and their physical constitution--between their habits and the structure of their bodies.” Thus we see, that a lean, spare, diminutive body, is generally accompanied by a petulant, restless, meddling mind --either the mind wears down the body, by its continual motion; or else the body, not affording the mind sufficient house room, keeps it continually in a state of fretfulness, tossing and worrying about from the uneasiness of its situation. Whereas your round, sleek, fat, unwieldly periphery is ever attended by a mind, like itself, tranquil, torpid and at ease; and we may always observe, that your well fed, robustious burghers are in general very tenacious of their ease and comfort; being great enemies to noise, discord and disturbance--and surely none are more likely to study the public tranquillity than those who are so careful of their own--Who ever hears of fat men heading a riot, or herding together in turbulent mobs?--no--no--it is your lean, hungry men, who are continually worrying society, and setting the whole community by the ears.

The divine Plato, whose doctrines are not sufficiently attended to by philosophers of the present age, allows to every man three souls--one, immortal and rational, seated in the brain, that it may overlook and regulate the body--a second consisting of the surly and irascible passions, which like belligerent powers lie encamped around the heart--a third mortal and sensual, destitute of reason, gross and brutal in its propensities, and enchained in the belly, that it may not disturb the divine soul, by its ravenous howlings. Now, according to this excellent theory what can be more clear, than that your fat alderman, is most likely to have the most regular and well conditioned mind. His head is like a huge, spherical chamber, containing a prodigious mass of soft brains, whereon the rational soul lies softly and snugly couched, as on a feather bed; and the eyes, which are the windows of the bed chamber, are usually half closed that its slumberings may not be disturbed by external objects. A mind thus comfortably lodged, and protected from disturbance, is manifestly most likely to perform its functions with regularity and ease. By dint of good feeding, moreover, the mortal and malignant soul, which is confined in the belly, and which by its raging and roaring, puts the irritable soul in the neighbourhood of the heart in an intolerable passion, and thus renders men crusty and quarrelsome when hungry, is completely pacified, silenced and put to rest--whereupon a host of honest good fellow qualities and kind hearted affections, which had lain perdue, slily peeping out of the loop holes of the heart, finding this cerberus asleep, do pluck up their spirits, turn out one and all in their holliday suits, and gambol up and down the diaphragm--disposing their possessor to laughter, good humour and a thousand friendly offices towards his fellow mortals.

As a board of magistrates, formed on this model, think but very little, they are the less likely to differ and wrangle about favourite opinions--and as they generally transact business upon a hearty dinner, they are naturally disposed to be lenient and indulgent in the administration of their duties. Charlemagne was conscious of this, and therefore (a pitiful measure, for which I can never forgive him), ordered in his cartularies, that no judge should hold a court of justice, except in the morning, on an empty stomach.--A rule which, I warrant, bore hard upon all the poor culprits in his kingdom. The more enlightened and humane generation of the present day, have taken an opposite course, and have so managed that the aldermen are the best fed men in the community; feasting lustily on the fat things of the land, and gorging so heartily on oysters and turtles, that in process of time they acquire the activity of the one, and the form, the waddle, and the green fat of the other. The consequence is, as I have just said; these luxurious feastings do produce such a dulcet equanimity and repose of the soul, rational and irrational, that their transactions are proverbial for unvarying monotony--and the profound laws, which they enact in their dozing moments, amid the labours of digestion, are quietly suffered to remain as dead letters, and never enforced, when awake. In a word your fair roundbellied burgomaster, like a full fed mastiff, dozes quietly at the house-door, always at home, and always at hand to watch over its safety--but as to electing a lean, meddling candidate to the office, as has now and then been done, I would as leave put a greyhound, to watch the house, or a race horse to drag an ox waggon.

The Burgo-masters then, as I have already mentioned, were wisely chosen by weight, and the Schepens, or assistant aldermen, were appointed to attend upon them, and help them eat; but the latter, in the course of time, when they had been fed and fattened into sufficient bulk of body and drowsiness of brain, became very eligible candidates for the Burgomasters’ chairs, having fairly eaten themselves into office, as a mouse eats his way into a comfortable lodgement in a goodly, blue-nosed, skim’d milk, New England cheese.

Nothing could equal the profound deliberations that took place between the renowned Wouter, and these his worthy compeers, unless it be the sage divans of some of our modern corporations. They would sit for hours smoking and dozing over public affairs, without speaking a word to interrupt that perfect stillness, so necessary to deep reflection-- faithfully observing an excellent maxim, which the good old governor had caused to be written in letters of gold, on the walls of the council chamber

Stille Seugen eten at den draf op.

which, being rendered into English for the benefit of modern legislatures, means--

“The sow that’s still

Sucks all the swill.”

Under the sober way, therefore, of the renowned Van Twiller, and the sage superintendance of his burgomasters, the infant settlement waxed vigorous apace, gradually emerging from the swamps and forests, and exhibiting that mingled appearance of town and country, customary in new cities, and which at this day may be witnessed in the great city of Washington; that immense metropolis, which makes such a glorious appearance--upon paper.

Ranges of houses began to give the idea of streets and lanes, and wherever an interval occurred, it was over-run by a wilderness of sweet smelling thorn apple, vulgarly called stinkweed. Amid these fragrant bowers, the honest burghers, like so many patriarchs of yore, sat smoking their pipes of a sultry afternoon, inhaling the balmy odours wafted on every gale, and listening with silent gratulation to the clucking of their hens, the cackling of their geese, or the sonorous gruntings of their swine; that combination of farm-yard melody, which may truly be said to have a silver sound, inasmuch as it conveys a certain assurance of profitable marketing.

The modern spectator, who wanders through the crowded streets of this populous city, can scarce form an idea, of the different appearance which every object presented, in those primitive times. The busy hum of commerce, the noise of revelry, the rattling equipages of splendid luxury, were unknown in the peaceful settlement of New Amsterdam. The bleating sheep and frolicksome calves sported about the verdant ridge, where now their legitimate successors, the Broadway loungers, take their morning’s stroll; the cunning fox or ravenous wolf, skulked in the woods, where now are to be seen the dens of Gomez and his righteous fraternity of money brokers, and flocks of vociferous geese cackled about the field, where now the patriotic tavern of Martling echoes with the wranglings of the mob.[22] The whole island, at least such parts of it as were inhabited, bloomed like a second Eden; every dwelling had its own cabbage garden, and that esculent vegetable, while it gave promise of bounteous loads of sour crout, was also emblematic of the rapid growth and regular habits of the youthful colony.

Such are the soothing scenes presented by a fat government. The province of the New Netherlands, destitute of wealth, possessed a sweet tranquillity that wealth could never purchase. It seemed indeed as if old Saturn had again commenced his reign, and renewed the golden days of primeval simplicity. For the golden age, says Ovid, was totally destitute of gold, and for that very reason was called the golden age, that is, the happy and fortunate age--because the evils produced by the precious metals, such as avarice, covetuousness, theft, rapine, usury, banking, note-shaving, lottery-insuring, and the whole catalogue of crimes and grievances were then unknown. In the iron age there was abundance of gold, and on that very account it was called the iron age, because of the hardships, the labours, the dissentions, and the wars, occasioned by the thirst of gold.

The genial days of Wouter Van Twiller therefore, may truly be termed the golden age of our city. There were neither public commotions, nor private quarrels; neither parties, nor sects, nor schisms; neither prosecutions, nor trials, nor punishments; nor were there counsellors, attornies, catch-poles or hangmen. Every man attended to what little business he was lucky enough to have, or neglect it if he pleased, without asking the opinion of his neighbour.--In those days nobody meddled with concerns above his comprehension, nor thrust his nose into other people’s affairs; nor neglected to correct his own conduct, and reform his own character, in his zeal to pull to pieces the characters of others--but in a word, every respectable citizen eat when he was not hungry, drank when he was not thirsty, and went regularly to bed, when the sun set, and the fowls went to roost, whether he was sleepy or not; all which, being agreeable to the doctrines of Malthus, tended so remarkably to the population of the settlement, that I am told every dutiful wife throughout New Amsterdam, made a point of always enriching her husband with at least one child a year, and very often a brace--this superabundance of good things clearly constituting the true luxury of life, according to the favourite dutch maxim that “more than enough constitutes a feast.” Every thing therefore went on exactly as it should do, and in the usual words employed by historians to express the welfare of a country, “the profoundest tranquillity and repose reigned throughout the province.”

[22] “De Vries mentions a place where they over-haul their ships, which he calls Smits Vleye, there is still to this day a place in New York called by that name, where a market is built called the Fly market.”

--Old MS.

There are few native inhabitants, I trow, of this great city, who when boys were not engaged in the renowned feuds of Broadway and Smith fly--the subject of so many fly market romances and schoolboy rhymes. Editor.

CHAP. III.

How the town of New Amsterdam arose out of the mud, and came to be marvellously polished and polite--together with a picture of the manners of our great great Grandfathers.

Manifold are the tastes and dispositions of the enlightened literati, who turn over the pages of history. Some there be whose hearts are brim full of the yeast of courage, and whose bosoms do work, and swell, and foam with untried valour, like a barrel of new cider, or a train-band captain, fresh from under the hands of his taylor. This doughty class of readers can be satisfied with nothing but bloody battles, and horrible encounters; they must be continually storming forts, sacking cities, springing mines, marching up to the muzzles of cannons, charging bayonet through every page, and revelling in gun-powder and carnage. Others, who are of a less martial, but equally ardent imagination, and who, withal, are a little given to the marvellous, will dwell with wonderous satisfaction on descriptions of prodigies, unheard of events, hair-breadth escapes, hardy adventures, and all those astonishing narrations, that just amble along the boundary line of possibility.--A third class, who, not to speak slightingly of them, are of a lighter turn, and skin over the records of past times, as they do over the edifying pages of a novel, merely for relaxation and innocent amusement; do singularly delight in treasons, executions, sabine rapes, tarquin outrages, conflagrations, murders, and all the other catalogue of hideous crimes, that like Cayenne in cookery, do give a pungency and flavour, to the dull detail of history--while a fourth class, of more philosophic habits, do diligently pore over the musty chronicles of time, to investigate the operations of the human mind, and watch the gradual changes in men and manners, effected by the progress of knowledge, the vicissitudes of events, or the influence of situation.

If the three first classes find but little wherewithal to solace themselves, in the tranquil reign of Wouter Van Twiller, I entreat them to exert their patience for a while, and bear with the tedious picture of happiness, prosperity and peace, which my duty as a faithful historian obliges me to draw; and I promise them, that as soon as I can possibly light upon any thing horrible, uncommon or impossible, it shall go hard, but I will make it afford them entertainment. This being premised, I turn with great complacency to the fourth class of my readers, who are men, or, if possible, women, after my own heart; grave, philosophical and investigating; fond of analyzing characters, of taking a start from first causes, and so hunting a nation down, through all the mazes of innovation and improvement. Such will naturally be anxious to witness the first development of the newly hatched colony, and the primitive manners and customs, prevalent among its inhabitants, during the halcyon reign of Van Twiller or the doubter.

To describe minutely the gradual advances, from the rude log hut, to the stately dutch mansion, with a brick front, glass windows, and shingle roof--from the tangled thicket, to the luxuriant cabbage garden, and from the skulking Indian to the ponderous burgomaster, would probably be fatiguing to my reader, and certainly very inconvenient to myself; suffice it to say, trees were cut down, stumps grubbed up, bushes cleared away, until the new city rose gradually from amid swamps and stinkweeds, like a mighty fungus, springing from a mass of rotten wood.

The sage council, as has been mentioned in a preceding chapter, not being able to determine upon any plan for the building of their city--the cows, in a laudable fit of patriotism, took it under their particular charge, and as they went to and from pasture, established paths through the bushes, on each side of which the good folks built their houses; which is one cause of the rambling and picturesque turns and labyrinths, which distinguish certain streets of New York, at this very day.

Some, it must be noted, who were strenuous partizans of Mynheer Ten Breeches, (or Ten Brock) vexed that his plan of digging canals was not adopted, made a compromise with their inclinations, by establishing themselves on the margins of those creeks and inlets, which meandered through various parts of the ground laid out for improvement. To these may be particularly ascribed the first settlement of Broad street; which originally was built along a creek, that ran up, to what at present is called Wall street. The lower part soon became very busy and populous; and a ferry house[23] was in process of time established at the head of it; being at that day called “the head of inland navigation.”

The disciples of Mynheer Toughbreeches, on the other hand, no less enterprising, and more industrious than their rivals, stationed themselves along the shore of the river, and laboured with unexampled perseverance, in making little docks and dykes, from which originated that multitude of mud traps with which this city is fringed. To these docks would the old Burghers repair, just at those hours when the falling tide had left the beach uncovered, that they might snuff up the fragrant effluvia of mud and mire; which they observed had a true wholesome smell, and reminded them of the canals of Holland. To the indefatigable labours, and praiseworthy example of this latter class of projectors, are we indebted for the acres of artificial ground, on which several of our streets, in the vicinity of the rivers are built; and which, if we may credit the assertions of several learned physicians of this city, have been very efficacious in producing the yellow fever.

The houses of the higher class, were generally constructed of wood, excepting the gable end, which was of small black and yellow dutch bricks, and always faced on the street, as our ancestors, like their descendants, were very much given to outward shew, and were noted for putting the best leg foremost. The house was always furnished with abundance of large doors and small windows on every floor, the date of its erection was curiously designated by iron figures on the front, and on the top of the roof was perched a fierce little weather cock, to let the family into the important secret, which way the wind blew. These, like the weather cocks on the tops of our steeples, pointed so many different ways, that every man could have a wind to his mind; and you would have thought old Eolus had set all his bags of wind adrift, pell mell, to gambol about this windy metropolis--the most

Some, it must be noted, who were strenuous partizans of Mynheer Ten Breeches, (or Ten Brock) vexed that his plan of digging canals was not adopted, made a compromise with their inclinations, by establishing themselves on the margins of those creeks and inlets, which meandered through various parts of the ground laid out for improvement. To these may be particularly ascribed the first settlement of Broad street; which originally was built along a creek, that ran up, to what at present is called Wall street. The lower part soon became very busy and populous; and a ferry house[24] was in process of time established at the head of it; being at that day called “the head of inland navigation.”

The disciples of Mynheer Toughbreeches, on the other hand, no less enterprising, and more industrious than their rivals, stationed themselves along the shore of the river, and laboured with unexampled perseverance, in making little docks and dykes, from which originated that multitude of mud traps with which this city is fringed. To these docks would the old Burghers repair, just at those hours when the falling tide had left the beach have the tails of mermaids--but this I look upon to be a mere sport of fancy, or what is worse, a wilful misrepresentation.

The grand parlour was the sanctum sanctorum, where the passion for cleaning was indulged without controul. In this sacred apartment no one was permitted to enter, excepting the mistress and her confidential maid, who visited it once a week, for the purpose of giving it a thorough cleaning, and putting things to rights--always taking the precaution of leaving their shoes at the door, and entering devoutly, on their stocking feet. After scrubbing the floor, sprinkling it with fine white sand, which was curiously stroked into angles, and curves, and rhomboids, with a broom--after washing the windows, rubbing and polishing the furniture, and putting a new bunch of evergreens in the fire-place--the window shutters were again closed to keep out the flies, and the room carefully locked up until the revolution of time, brought round the weekly cleaning day.

As to the family, they always entered in at the gate, and most generally lived in the kitchen. To have seen a numerous household assembled around the fire, one would have imagined that he was transported back to those happy days of primeval simplicity, which float before our imaginations like golden visions. The fire-places were of a truly patriarchal magnitude, where the whole family, old and young, master and servant, black and white, nay even the very cat and dog, enjoyed a community of privilege, and had each a prescriptive right to a corner. Here the old burgher would set in perfect silence, puffing his pipe, looking in the fire with half shut eyes, and thinking of nothing for hours together; the goede vrouw on the opposite side would employ herself diligently in spinning her yarn, or knitting stockings. The young foks would crowd around th hearth, listening with breathless attention to some old crone of a negro, who was the oracle of the family,--and who, perched like a raven in a corner of the chimney, would croak forth for a long winter afternoon, a string of incredible stories about New England witches--grisly ghosts--horses without heads--and hairbreadth scapes and bloody encounters among the Indians.

In those happy days a well regulated family always rose with the dawn, dined at eleven, and went to bed at sun down. Dinner was invariably a private meal, and the fat old burghers shewed incontestible symptoms of disappropriation and uneasiness, at being surpised by a visit from a neighbour on such occasions. But though our worthy ancestors were thus singularly averse to giving dinners, yet they kept up the social bands of intimacy by occasional banquettings, called tea parties.

As this is the first introduction of those delectable orgieswhich have since become so fashionable in this city, I am conscious my fair readers will be very curious to receive information on the subject. Sorry am I, that there will be but little in my description calculated to excite their admiration. I can neither delight them with accounts of suffocating crowds, nor brilliant drawing rooms, nor towering feathers, nor sparkling diamonds, nor immeasurable trains. I can detail no choice anecdotes of scandal, for in those primitive times the simple folk were either too stupid, or too good natured to pull each other’s characters to pieces-- nor can I furnish any whimsical anecdotes of brag-- how one lady cheated, or another bounced into a passion; for as yet there was no junto of dulcet old dowagers, who met to win each other’s money, and lose their own tempers at a card table.

These fashionable parties were generally confined to the higher classes, or noblesse, that is to say, such as kept their own cows, and drove their own waggons. The company commonly assembled at three o’clock, and went away about six, unless it was in winter time, when the fashionable hours were a little earlier, that the ladies might get home before dark. I do not find that they ever treated their company to iced creams, jellies or syllabubs; or regaled them with musty almonds, mouldy raisins, or sour oranges, as is often done in the present age of refinement.--Our ancestors were fond of more sturdy, substantial fare. The tea table was crowned with a huge earthen dish, well stored with slices of fat pork, fried brown, cut up into mouthfuls, and swimming in doup or gravy. The company being seated around the genial board, and each furnished with a fork, evinced their dexterity in launching at the fattest pieces in this mighty dish--in much the same manner as sailors harpoon porpoises at sea, or our Indians spear salmon in the lakes. Sometimes the table was graced with immense apple pies, or saucers full of preserved peaches and pears; but it was always sure to boast an enormous dish of balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog’s fat, and called dough nuts, or oly koeks--a delicious kind of cake, at present, scarce known in this city, excepting in genuine dutch families; but which retains its pre-eminent station at the tea tables in Albany.

The tea was served out of a majestic delft teapot, ornamented with paintings of fat little dutch shepherds and shepherdesses, tending pigs--with boats sailing in the air, and houses built in the clouds, and sundry other ingenious dutch fantasies. The beaux distinguished themselves by their adroitness in replenishing this pot, from a huge copper tea kettle, which would have made the pigmy macaronies of these degenerate days, sweat, merely to look at it. To sweeten the beverage, a lump of sugar was laid beside each cup--and the company alternately nibbled and sipped with great decorum, until an improvement was introduced by a shrewd and economic old lady, which was to suspend a large lump directly over the tea table, by a string from the ceiling, so that it could be swung from mouth to mouth--an ingenious expedient, which is still kept up by some families in Albany; but which prevails without exception, in Communipaw, Bergen, Flat-Bush, and all our uncontaminated dutch villages.

At these primitive tea-parties the utmost propriety and dignity of deportment prevailed. No flirting nor coquetting--no gambling of old ladies nor hoyden chattering and romping of young ones-- No self satisfied struttings of wealthy gentlemen with their brains in their pockets--nor amusing conceits, and monkey divertisements of smart young gentlemen, with no brains at all. On the contrary, the young ladies seated themselves demurely in their rush-bottomed chairs, and knit their own woollen stockings; nor ever opened their lips, excepting to say yah Mynher, or yah, ya Vrouw, to any question that was asked them; behaving in all things, like decent, well educated damsels. As to the gentlemen, each of them tranquilly smoked his pipe, and seemed lost in contemplation of the blue and white tiles, with which the fire-places were decorated; wherein sundry passages of scripture, were piously pourtrayed--Tobit and his dog figured to great advantage; Haman swung conspicuously on his gibbet, and Jonah appeared most manfully bouncing out of the whale, like Harlequin through a barrel of fire.

The parties broke up without noise and without confusion--for, strange as it may seem, the ladies and gentlemen were content to take their own cloaks and shawls and hats; not dreaming, simple souls! of the ingenious system of exchange established in modern days; by which those who first leave a party are authorized to choose the best shawl or hat they can find--a custom which has doubtless arisen in consequence of our commercial habits. They were carried home by their own carriages, that is to say, by the vehicles nature had provided them, excepting such of the wealthy, as could afford to keep a waggon. The gentlemen gallantly attended their fair ones to their respective abodes, and took leave of them with a hearty smack at the door: which as it was an established piece of etiquette, done in perfect simplicity and honesty of heart, occasioned no scandal at that time, nor should it at the present--if our great grandfathers approved of the custom, it would argue a great want of reverence in their descendants to say a word against it.

[23] This house has been several times repaired, and at present is a small yellow brick house, No. 23, Broad Street, with the gable end to the street, surmounted with an iron rod, on which, until within three or four years, a little iron ferry boat officiated as weather cock.

[24] This house has been several times repaired, and at present is a small yellow brick house, No. 23, Broad Street, with the gable end to the street, surmounted with an iron rod, on which, until within three or four years, a little iron ferry boat officiated as weather cock.

CHAP IV.

Containing further particulars of the Golden Age, and what constituted a fine Lady and Gentleman in the days of Walter the Doubter.

In this dulcet period of my history, when the beauteous island of Mannahata presented a scene, the very counterpart of those glowing pictures drawn by old Hesiod of the golden reign of Saturn, there was a happy ignorance, an honest simplicity prevalent among its inhabitants, which were I even able to depict, would be but little understood by the degenerate age for which I am doomed to write. Even the female sex, those arch innovaters upon the tranquillity, the honesty, and grey-beard customs of society, seemed for a while to conduct themselves with incredible sobriety and comeliness, and indeed behaved almost as if they had not been sent into the world, to bother mankind, baffle philosophy, and confound the universe.

Their hair untortured by the abominations of art, was scrupulously pomatomed back from their foreheads with a candle, and covered with a little cap of quilted calico, which fitted exactly to their heads. Their petticoats of linsey woolsey, were striped with a variety of gorgeous dyes, rivalling the many coloured robes of Iris--though I must confess these gallant garments were rather short, scarce reaching below the knee; but then they made up in the number, which generally equalled that of the gentlemen’s small clothes; and what is still more praise-worthy, they were all of their own manufacture--of which circumstance, as may well be supposed, they were not a little vain.

These were the honest days, in which every woman staid at home, read the bible and wore pockets--aye, and that too of a goodly size, fashioned with patch-work into many curious devices, and ostentatiously worn on the outside. These in fact, were convenient receptacles, where all good house-wives carefully stored away such things as they wished to have at hand; by which means they often came to be incredibly crammed--and I remember there was a story current when I was a boy, that the lady of Wouter Van Twiller, having occasion to empty her right pocket in search of a wooden ladle, the contents filled three corn baskets, and the utensil was at length discovered lying among some rubbish in one corner--but we must not give too much faith to all these stories; the anecdotes of these remote periods being very subject to exaggeration.

Beside these notable pockets, they likewise wore scissars and pincushions suspended from their girdles by red ribbands, or among the more opulent and shewy classes, by brass and even silver chains-- indubitable tokens of thrifty housewives and industrious spinsters. I cannot say much in vindication of the shortness of the petticoats; it doubtless was introduced for the purpose of giving the stockings a chance to be seen, which were generally of blue worsted with magnificent red clocks--or perhaps to display a well turned ankle, and a neat, though serviceable foot; set off by a high-heel’d leathern shoe, with a large and splendid silver buckle. Thus we find, that the gentle sex in all ages, have shewn the same disposition to infringe a little upon the laws of decorum, in order to betray a lurking beauty, or gratify an innocent love of finery.

From the sketch here given it will be seen, that our good grandmothers differed considerably in their ideas of a fine figure, from their scantily dressed descendants of the present day. A fine lady, in those times, waddled under more clothes even on a fair summer’s day, than would have clad the whole bevy of a modern ball room. Nor were they the less admired by the gentlemen in consequence thereof. On the contrary, the greatness of a lover’s passion seemed to encrease in proportion to the magnitude of its object--and a voluminous damsel, arrayed in a dozen of petticoats, was declared by a low-dutch sonnetteer of the province, to be radiant as a sunflower, and luxuriant as a full blown cabbage. Certain it is, that in those days, the heart of a lover could not contain more than one lady at a time; whereas the heart of a modern gallant has often room enough to accommodate half a dozen--The reason of which I conclude to be, either that the hearts of the gentlemen have grown larger, or the persons of the ladies smaller--this however is a question for physiologists to determine.

But there was a secret charm in these petticoats, which no doubt entered into the consideration of the prudent gallant. The wardrobe of a lady was in those days her only fortune; and she who had a good stock of petticoats and stockings, was as absolutely an heiress, as is a Kamschatka damsel with a store of bear skins, or a Lapland belle with a plenty of rein deer. The ladies therefore, were very anxious to display these powerful attractions to the greatest advantage; and the best rooms in the house instead of being adorned with caricatures of dame nature, in water colours and needle work, were always hung round with abundance of home-spun garments; the manufacture and property of the females--a piece of laudable ostentation that still prevails among the heiresses of our dutch villages. Such were the beauteous belles of the ancient city of New Amsterdam, rivalling in primæval simplicity of manners, the renowned and courtly dames, so loftily sung by Dan Homer-- who tells us that the princess Nausicaa, washed the family linen, and the fair Penelope wove her own petticoats.

The gentlemen in fact, who figured in the circles of the gay world in these ancient times, corresponded in most particulars, with the beauteous damsels whose smiles they were ambitious to deserve. True it is, their merits would make but a very inconsiderable impression, upon the heart of a modern fair; they neither drove in their curricles nor sported their tandems, for as yet those gaudy vehicles were not even dreamt of--neither did they distinguish themselves by their brilliance at the table, and their consequent rencoutres with watchmen, for our forefathers were of too pacific a disposition to need those guardians of the night, every soul throughout the town being in full snore before nine o’clock. Neither did they establish their claims by gentility at the expense of their taylors--for as yet those offenders against the pockets of society, and the tranquillity of all aspiring young gentlemen, were unknown in New Amsterdam; every good house-wife made the clothes of her husband and family, and even the goede vrouw of Van Twiller himself, thought it no disparagement to cut out her husband’s linsey woolsey galligaskins.

Not but what there were some two or three youngsters who manifested the first dawnings of what is called fire and spirit. Who held all labour in contempt; skulked about docks and market places; loitered in the sun shine; squandered what little money they could procure at hustle cap and chuck farthing, swore, boxed, fought cocks, and raced their neighbours’ horses--in short who promised to be the wonder, the talk and abomination of the town, had not their stylish career been unfortunately cut short, by an affair of honour with a whipping post.

Far other, however, was the truly fashionable gentleman of those days--his dress, which served for both morning and evening, street and drawing room, was a linsey woolsey coat, made perhaps by the fair hands of the mistress of his affections, and gallantly bedecked with abundance of large brass buttons.--Half a score of breeches heightened the proportions of his figure--his shoes were decorated by enormous copper buckles--a low crowned broad brimmed hat overshadowed his burley visage, and his hair dangled down his back, in a prodigious queue of eel skin.

Thus equipped, he would manfully sally forth with pipe in mouth to besiege some fair damsel’s obdurate heart--not such a pipe, good reader, as that which Acis did sweetly tune in praise of his Galatea, but one of true delft manufacture and furnished with a charge of fragrant Cow-pen tobacco. With this would he resolutely set himself down before the fortress, and rarely failed in the process of time to smoke the fair enemy into a surrender, upon honourable terms.

Such was the happy reign of Wouter Van Twiller, celebrated in many a long forgotten song as the real golden age, the rest being nothing but counterfeit copper-washed coin. In that delightful period, a sweet and holy calm reigned over the whole province. The Burgomaster smoked his pipe in peace--the substantial solace of his domestic house, his well petticoated yffrouw, after her daily cares were done, sat soberly at her door, with arms crossed over her apron of snowy white, without being insulted by ribald street walkers or vagabond boys--those unlucky urchins, who do so infest our streets, displaying under the roses of youth, the thorns and briars of iniquity. Then it was that the lover with ten breeches and the damsel with petticoats of half a score indulged in all the innocent endearments of virtuous love, without fear and without reproach--for what had that virtue to fear, which was defended by a shield of good linsey woolseys, equal at least to the seven bull hides of the invincible Ajax.

Thrice happy, and never to be forgotten age! when every thing was better than it has ever been since, or ever will be again--when Buttermilk channel was quite dry at low water--when the shad in the Hudson were all salmon, and when the moon shone with a pure and resplendent whiteness, instead of that melancholy yellow light, which is the consequence of her sickening at the abominations she every night witnesses in this degenerate city!

CHAP. V.

In which the reader is beguiled into a delectable walk, which ends very differently from what it commenced.

In the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and four, on a fine afternoon, in the mellow month of October, I took my customary walk upon the battery, which is at once the pride and bulwark of this ancient and impregnable city of New York. I remember well the season, for it immediately preceded that remarkably cold winter, in which our sagacious corporation, in a spasm of economical philanthropy, pulled to pieces, at an expense of several hundred dollars, the wooden ramparts, which had cost them several thousand; and distributed the rotten fragments, which were worth considerably less than nothing, among the shivering poor of the city--never, since the fall of the walls of Jericho, or the heaven built battlements of Troy, had there been known such a demolition--nor did it go unpunished; five men, eleven old women and nineteen children, besides cats, dogs and negroes, were blinded, in vain attempts to smoke themselves warm, with this charitable substitute for firewood, and an epidemic complaint of sore eyes was moreover produced, which has since recurred every winter; particularly among those who undertake to burn rotten logs--who warm themselves with the charity of others--or who use patent chimnies.

On the year and month just designated, did I take my accustomed walk of meditation, on that same battery, which, though at present, no battery, furnishes the most delightful walk, and commands the noblest prospect, in the whole known world. The ground on which I trod was hallowed by recollections of the past, and as I slowly wandered through the long alleys of poplars, which, like so many birch brooms standing on end, diffused a melancholy and lugubrious shade, my imagination drew a contrast between the surrounding scenery, and what it was in the classic days of our forefathers. Where the government house by name, but the custom house by occupation, proudly reared its brick walls and wooden pillars; there whilome stood the low but substantial, red tiled mansion of the renowned Wouter Van Twiller. Around it the mighty bulwarks of fort Amsterdam frowned defiance to every absent foe; but, like many a whiskered warrior and gallant militia captain, confined their martial deeds to frowns alone--alas! those threatening bulwarks had long since been sapped by time, and like the walls of Carthage, presented no traces to the enquiring eye of the antiquarian. The mud breast works had long been levelled with the earth, and their scite converted into the green lawns and leafy alleys of the battery; where the gay apprentice sported his sunday coat, and the laborious mechanic, relieved from the dirt and drudgery of the week, poured his septennial tale of love into the half averted ear of the sentimental chambermaid. The capacious bay still presented the same expansive sheet of water, studded with islands, sprinkled with fishing boats, and bounded by shores of picturesque beauty. But the dark forests which once clothed these shores had been violated by the savage hand of cultivation, and their tangled mazes, and impracticable thickets, had degenerated into teeming orchards and waving fields of grain. Even Governors Island, once a smiling garden, appertaining to the sovereigns of the province, was now covered with fortifications, inclosing a tremendous block house--so that this once peaceful island resembled a fierce little warrior in a big cocked hat, breathing gunpowder and defiance to the world!

For some time did I indulge in this pensive train of thought; contrasting in sober sadness, the present day, with the hallowed years behind the mountains; lamenting the melancholy progress of improvement, and praising the zeal, with which our worthy burghers endeavour to preserve the wrecks of venerable customs, prejudices and errors, from the overwhelming tide of modern innovation-- when by degrees my ideas took a different turn, and I insensibly awakened to an enjoyment of the beauties around me.

It was one of those rich autumnal days which heaven particularly bestows upon the beauteous island of Mannahata and its vicinity--not a floating cloud obscured the azure firmament--the sun, rolling in glorious splendour through his etherial course, seemed to expand his honest dutch countenance into an unusual expression of benevolence, as he smiled his evening salutation upon a city, which he delights to visit with his most bounteous beams--the very winds seemed to hold in their breaths in mute attention, lest they should ruffle the tranquillity of the hour--and the waveless bosom of the bay presented a polished mirror, in which nature beheld herself and smiled!--The standard of our city, which, like a choice handkerchief, is reserved for days of gala, hung motionless on the flag staff, which forms the handle to a gigantic churn; and even the tremulous leaves of the poplar and the aspen, which, like the tongues of the immortal sex, are seldom still, now ceased to vibrate to the breath of heaven. Every thing seemed to acquiesce in the profound repose of nature.-- The formidable eighteen pounders slept in the embrazures of the wooden batteries, seemingly gathering fresh strength, to fight the battles of their country on the next fourth of July--the solitary drum on Governor’s island forgot to call the garrison to their shovels--the evening gun had not yet sounded its signal, for all the regular, well meaning poultry throughout the country, to go to roost; and the fleet of canoes, at anchor between Gibbet Island and Communipaw, slumbered on their rakes, and suffered the innocent oysters to lie for a while unmolested, in the soft mud of their native banks!-- My own feelings sympathized in the contagious tranquillity, and I should infallibly have dozed upon one of those fragments of benches, which our benevolent magistrates have provided for the benefit of convalescent loungers, had not the extraordinary inconvenience of the couch set all repose at defiance.

In the midst of this soothing slumber of the soul, my attention was attracted to a black speck, peering above the western horizon, just in the rear of Bergen steeple--gradually it augments and overhangs the would-be cities of Jersey, Harsimus and Hoboken, which, like three jockies, are starting cheek by jowl on the career of existence, and jostling each other at the commencement of the race. Now it skirts the long shore of ancient Pavonia, spreading its wide shadows from the high settlements at Weehawk quite to the lazaretto and quarentine, erected by the sagacity of our police, for the embarrassment of commerce--now it climbs the serene vault of heaven, cloud rolling over cloud, like successive billows, shrouding the orb of day, darkening the vast expanse, and bearing thunder and hail, and tempest in its bosom. The earth seems agitated at the confusion of the heavens--the late waveless mirror is lashed into furious waves, that roll their broken surges in hollow murmurs to the shore--the oyster boats that erst sported in the placid vicinity of Gibbet Island, now hurry affrighted to the shore--the late dignified, unbending poplar, writhes and twists, before the merciless blast--descending torrents of drenching rain and sounding hail deluge the battery walks, the gates are thronged by ’prentices, servant maids and little Frenchmen, with their pocket handkerchiefs over their hats, scampering from the storm--the late beauteous prospect presents one scene of anarchy and wild uproar, as though old chaos had resumed his reign, and was hurling back into one vast turmoil, the conflicting elements of nature. Fancy to yourself, oh reader! the awful combat sung by old Hesiod, of Jupiter, and the Titans--fancy to yourself the long rebellowing artillery of heaven, streaming at the heads of the gigantic sons of earth.--In short, fancy to yourself all that has ever been said or sung, of tempest, storm and hurricane--and you will save me the trouble of describing it.

Whether I fled from the fury of the storm, or remained boldly at my post, as our gallant train band captains, who march their soldiers through the rain without flinching, are points which I leave to the conjecture of the reader. It is possible he may be a little perplexed also, to know the reason why I introduced this most tremendous and unheard of tempest, to disturb the serenity of my work. On this latter point I will gratuitously instruct his ignorance. The panorama view of the battery was given, merely to gratify the reader with a correct description of that celebrated place, and the parts adjacent--secondly, the storm was played off, partly to give a little bustle and life to this tranquil part of my work, and to keep my drowsy readers from falling asleep--and partly to serve as a preparation, or rather an overture, to the tempestuous times, that are about to assail the pacific province of Nieuw Nederlandt--and that over-hang the slumbrous administration of the renowned Wouter Van Twiller. It is thus the experienced play-wright puts all the fiddles, the french horns, the kettle drums and trumpets of his orchestra in requisition, to usher in one of those horrible and brimstone uproars, called Melodrames--and it is thus he discharges his thunder, his lightening, his rosin and saltpetre, preparatory to the raising of a ghost, or the murdering of a hero--We will now proceed with our history.

Whatever Plato, Aristotle, Grotius, Puffendorf, Sydney, Thomas Jefferson or Tom Paine may say to the contrary, I insist that, as to nations, the old maxim that “honesty is the best policy,” is a sheer and ruinous mistake. It might have answered well enough in the honest times when it was made; but in these degenerate days, if a nation pretends to rely merely upon the justice of its dealings, it will fare something like an honest man among thieves, who unless he has something more than his honest to depend upon, stands but a poor chance of profiting by his company. Such at least was the case with the guileless government of the New Netherlands; which, like a worthy unsuspicious old burgher, quietly settled itself down into the city of New Amsterdam, as into a snug elbow chair--and fell into a comfortable nap--while in the mean time its cunning neighbours stepp’d in and picked its pockets. Thus may we acribe the commencement of all the woes of this great province, and its magnificent metropolis, to the tranquil security, or to speak more accurately, to the unfortunate honesty of its government. But as I dislike to begin an important part of my history, towards the end of a chapter; and as my readers like myself must doubtless be exceedingly fatigued with the long walk we have taken, and the tempest we have sustained--I hold it meet we shut up the book, smoke a pipe and having thus refreshed our spirits; take a fair start in the next chapter.

CHAP. VI.

Faithfully describing the ingenious people of Connecticut and thereabouts--Shewing moreover the true meaning of liberty of conscience, and a curious device among these sturdy barbarians, to keep up a harmony of intercourse and promote population.

That my readers may the more fully comprehend the extent of the calamity, at this very moment impending over the honest, unsuspecting province of Nieuw Nederlandts, and its dubious Governor, it is necessary that I should give some account of a horde of strange barbarians, bordering upon the eastern frontier.

Now so it came to pass, that many years previous to the time of which we are treating, the sage cabinet of England had adopted a certain national creed, a kind of public walk of faith, or rather a religious turnpike in which every loyal subject was directed to travel to Zion--taking care to pay the toll gatherers by the way.

Albeit a certain shrewd race of men, being very much given to indulge their own opinions, on all manner of subjects (a propensity, exceedingly obnoxious to your free governments of Europe) did most presumptuously dare to think for themselves in matters of religion, exercising what they considered a natural and unextinguishable right--the liberty of conscience.

As however they possessed that ingenious habit of mind which always thinks aloud; which in a manner rides cock-a-hoop on the tongue, and is forever galloping into other people’s ears, it naturally followed that their liberty of conscience likewise implied liberty of speech, which being freely indulged, soon put the country in a hubbub, and aroused the pious indignation of the vigilant fathers of the church.

The usual methods were adopted to reclaim them, that in those days were considered so efficacious in bringing back stray sheep to the fold; that is to say, they were coaxed, they were admonished, they were menaced, they were buffeted-- line upon line, precept upon precept, lash upon lash, here a little and there a great deal, were exhausted without mercy, but without success; until at length the worthy pastors of the church wearied out by their unparalleled stubbornness, were driven in the excess of their tender mercy, to adopt the scripture text, and literally “heaped live embers on their heads.”

Nothing however could subdue that invincible spirit of independence which has ever distinguished this singular race of people, so that rather than submit to such horrible tyranny, they one and all embarked for the wilderness of America, where they might enjoy unmolested, the inestimable luxury of talking. No sooner did they land on this loquacious soil, than as if they had caught the disease from the climate, they all lifted up their voices at once, and for the space of one whole year, did keep up such a joyful clamour, that we are told they frightened every bird and beast out of the neighbourhood, and so completely dumb-founded certain fish, which abound on their coast, that they have been called dumb-fish ever since.

From this simple circumstance, unimportant as it may seem, did first originate that renowned privilege so loudly boasted of throughout this country--which is so eloquently exercised in news-papers, pamphlets, ward meetings, pot-house committees and congressional deliberations--which establishes the right of talking without ideas and without information--of misrepresenting public affairs; of decrying public measures--of aspersing great characters, and destroying little ones; in short, that grand palladium of our country, the liberty of speech; or as it has been more vulgarly denominated--the gift of the gab.

The simple aborigenes of the land for a while contemplated these strange folk in utter astonishment, but discovering that they wielded harmless though noisy weapons, and were a lively, ingenious, good-humoured race of men, they became very friendly and sociable, and gave them the name of Yanokies, which in the Mais-Tchusaeg (or Massachusett) language signifies silent men--a waggish appellation, since shortened into the familiar epithet of Yankees, which they retain unto the present day.

True it is, and my fidelity as an historian will not allow me to pass it over in silence, that the zeal of these good people, to maintain their rights and privileges unimpaired, did for a while betray them into errors, which it is easier to pardon than defend. Having served a regular apprenticeship in the school of persecution, it behoved them to shew that they had become proficients in the art. They accordingly employed their leisure hours in banishing, scourging or hanging, divers heretical papists, quakers and anabaptists, for daring to abuse the liberty of conscience; which they now clearly proved to imply nothing more, than that every man should think as he pleased in matters of religion-- provided he thought right; for otherwise it would be giving a latitude to damnable heresies. Now as they (the majority) were perfectly convinced that they alone thought right, it consequently followed, that whoever thought different from them though wrong--and whoever thought wrong and obstinately persisted in not being convinced and converted, was a flagrant violater of the inestimable liberty of conscience, and a corrupt and infectious member of the body politic, and deserved to be lopped off and cast into the fire.

Now I’ll warrant, there are hosts of my readers, ready at once to lift up their hands and eyes, with that virtuous indignation with which we always contemplate the faults and errors of our neighbours, and to exclaim at these well meaning but mistaken people, for inflicting on others the injuries they had suffered themselves--for indulging the preposterous idea of convincing the mind by toasting the carcass, and establishing the doctrine of charity and forbearance, by intolerant persecution.--But soft you, my very captious sirs! what are we doing at this very day, and in this very enlightened nation, but acting upon the very same principle, in our political controversies. Have we not within but a few years released ourselves from the shackles of a government, which cruelly denied us the privilege of governing ourselves, and using in full latitude that invaluable member, the tongue? and are we not at this very moment striving our best to tyrannise over the opinions, tie up the tongues, or ruin the fortunes of one another? What are our great political societies, but mere political inquisitions--our pot-house committees, but little tribunals of denunciation--our news-papers but mere whipping posts and pillories, where unfortunate individuals are pelted with rotten eggs--and our council of appointment--but a grand auto de fé, where culprits are annually sacrificed for their political heresies?

Where then is the difference in principle between our measures and those you are so ready to condemn among the people I am treating of? There is none; the difference is merely circumstantial.-- Thus we denounce, instead of banishing--We libel instead of scourging--we turn out of office instead of hanging--and where they burnt an offender in propria personæ--we either tar and feather or burn him in effigy--this political persecution being, some how or other, the grand palladium of our liberties, and an incontrovertible proof that this is a free country!

But notwithstanding the fervent zeal with which this holy war was prosecuted against the whole race of unbelievers, we do not find that the population of this new colony was in any wise hindered thereby; on the contrary they multiplied to a degree, which would be incredible to any man unacquainted with the marvellous fecundity of this growing country.

This amazing increase, may indeed be partly ascribed to a singular custom prevalent among them, and which was probably borrowed from the ancient republic of Sparta; where we are told the young ladies, either from being great romps and hoydens, or else like many modern heroines, very fond of meddling with matters that did not appertain to their sex, used frequently to engage with the men, in wrestling, and other athletic exercises of the gymnasium. The custom to which I allude was vulgarly known by the name of bundling--a superstitious rite observed by the young people of both sexes, with which they usually terminated their festivities; and which was kept up with religious strictness, by the more bigoted and vulgar part of the community. This ceremony was likewise, in those primitive times considered as an indispensible preliminary to matrimony; their courtships commencing, where ours usually finish--by which means they acquired that intimate acquaintance with each others good qualities before marriage, that has been pronounced by philosophers the sure basis of a happy union. Thus early did this cunning and ingenious people, display a shrewdness at making a bargain which has ever since distinguished them--and a strict adherence to the good old vulgar maxim about “buying a pig in a poke.”

To this sagacious custom, therefore, do I chiefly attribute the unparalleled increase of the yanokie or yankee tribe; for it is a certain fact, well authenticated by court records and parish registers, that wherever the practice of bundling prevailed, there was an amazing number of sturdy brats annually born unto the state, without the license of the law, or the benefit of clergy; and it is truly astonishing that the learned Malthus, in his treatise on population, has entirely overlooked this singular fact. Neither did the irregularity of their birth operate in the least to their disparagement. On the contrary they grew up a long sided, raw boned, hardy race of whoreson whalers, wood cutters, fishermen and pedlars, and strapping corn-fed wenches; who by their united efforts tended marvellously towards populating those notable tracts of country, called Nantucket, Piscataway and Cape Cod.

CHAP. VII.

How these singular barbarians turned out to be notorious squatters. How they built air castles, and attempted to initiate the Nederlanders in the mystery of bundling.

In the last chapter, my honest little reader, I have given thee a faithful and unprejudiced account, of the origin of that singular race of people, inhabiting the country eastward of the Nieuw Nederlandts; but I have yet to mention certain peculiar habits which rendered them exceedingly obnoxious to our ever honoured dutch ancestors.

The most prominent of these was a certain rambling propensity, with which, like the sons of Ishmael, they seem to have been gifted by heaven, and which continually goads them on, to shift their residence from place to place, so that a Yankey farmer is in a constant state of migration; tarrying occasionally here and there; clearing lands for other people to enjoy, building houses for others to inhabit, and in a manner may be considered the wandering Arab of America.

His first thought, on coming to the years of manhood, is to settle himself in the world--which means nothing more nor less than to begin his rambles. To this end he takes unto himself for a wife, some dashing country heiress; that is to say, a buxom rosy cheeked wench, passing rich in red ribbands, glass beads and mock tortoise-shell combs, with a white gown and morocco shoes for Sunday, and deeply skilled in the mystery of making apple sweetmeats, long sauce and pumpkin pie.

Having thus provided himself, like a true pedlar with a heavy knapsack, wherewith to regale his shoulders through the journey of life, he literally sets out on the peregrination. His whole family, household furniture and farming utensils are hoisted into a covered cart; his own and his wife’s wardrobe packed up in a firkin--which done, he shoulders his axe, takes staff in hand, whistles “yankee doodle” and trudges off to the woods, as confident of the protection of providence, and relying as cheerfully upon his own resources, as did ever a patriarch of yore, when he journeyed into a strange country of the Gentiles. Having buried himself in the wilderness, he builds himself a log hut, clears away a cornfield and potatoe patch, and, providence smiling upon his labours, is soon surrounded by a snug farm and some half a score of flaxen headed urchins, who by their size, seem to have sprung all at once out of the earth, like a crop of toad-stools.

But it is not the nature of this most indefatigable of speculators, to rest contented with any state of sublunary enjoyment--improvement is his darling passion, and having thus improved his lands the next care is to provide a mansion worthy the residence of a land holder. A huge palace of pine boards immediately springs up in the midst of the wilderness, large enough for a parish church, and furnished with windows of all dimensions, but so rickety and flimsy withal, that every blast gives it a fit of the ague.

By the time the outside of this mighty air castle is completed, either the funds or the zeal of our adventurer are exhausted, so that he barely manages to half finish one room within, where the whole family burrow together--while the rest of the house is devoted to the curing of pumpkins, or storing of carrots and potatoes, and is decorated with fanciful festoons of wilted peaches and dried apples. The outside remaining unpainted, grows venerably black with time: the family wardrobe is laid under contribution for old hats, petticoats and breeches to stuff into the broken windows, while the four winds of heaven keep up a whistling and howling about this aerial palace, and play as many unruly gambols, as they did of yore, in the cave of old Eolus.

The humble log hut, which whilome nestled this improving family snugly within its narrow but comfortable walls, stands hard by in ignominious contrast, degraded into a cow house or pig stye; and the whole scene reminds one forcibly of a fable, which I am surprised has never been recorded, of an aspiring snail who quit his humble habitation which he filled with great respectability, to crawl into the empty shell of a lobster--where he would no doubt have resided with great style and splendour, the envy and hate of all the pains-taking snails of his neighbourhood, had he not accidentally perished with cold, in one corner of his stupendous mansion.

Being thus completely settled, and to use his own words, “to rights,” one would imagine that he would begin to enjoy the comforts of his situation, to read newspapers, talk politics, neglect his own business, and attend to the affairs of the nation, like a useful and patriotic citizen; but now it is that his wayward disposition begins again to operate. He soon grows tired of a spot, where there is no longer any room for improvement--sells his farm, air castle, petticoat windows and all, reloads his cart, shoulders his axe, puts himself at the head of his family, and wanders away in search of new lands--again to fell trees--again to clear cornfields--again to build a shingle palace, and again to sell off, and wander.

Such were the people of Connecticut, who bordered upon the eastern frontier of Nieuw Nederlandts, and my readers may easily imagine what obnoxious neighbors this light hearted but restless tribe must have been to our tranquil progenitors. If they cannot, I would ask them, if they have ever known one of our regular, well organized, antediluvian dutch families, whom it hath pleased heaven to afflict with the neighbourhood of a French boarding house. The honest old burgher cannot take his afternoon’s pipe, on the bench before his door, but he is persecuted with the scraping of fiddles, the chattering of women, and the squalling of children--he cannot sleep at night for the horrible melodies of some amateur, who chooses to serenade the moon, and display his terrible proficiency in execution, by playing demisemiquavers in alt on the clarionet, the hautboy, or some other soft toned instrument--nor can he leave the street door open, but his house is defiled by the unsavoury visits of a troop of pug dogs, who even sometimes carry their loathsome ravages into the sanctum sanctorum, the parlour!

If my readers have ever witnessed the sufferings of such a family, so situated, they may form some idea, how our worthy ancestors were distressed by their mercurial neighbours of Connecticut.

Gangs of these marauders we are told, penetrated into the New Netherland settlements and threw whole villages into consternation by their unparalleled volubility and their intolerable inquisitiveness--two evil habits hitherto unknown in those parts, or only known to be abhorred; for our ancestors were noted, as being men of truly spartan taciturnity, and who neither knew nor cared aught about any body’s concerns but their own. Many enormities were committed on the high ways, where several unoffending burghers were brought to a stand, and so tortured with questions and guesses, that it was a miracle they escaped with their five senses.

Great jealousy did they likewise stir up, by their intermeddling and successes among the divine sex; for being a race of brisk, likely, pleasant tongued varlets, they soon seduced the light affections of the simple damsels, from their honest but ponderous dutch gallants. Among other hideous customs they attempted to introduce among them that of bundling, which the dutch lasses of the Nederlandts, with that eager passion for novelty and foreign fashions, natural to their sex, seemed very well inclined to follow, but that their mothers, being more experienced in the world, and better acquainted with men and things strenuously discountenanced all such outlandish innovations.

But what chiefly operated to embroil our ancestors with these strange folk, was an unwarrantable liberty which they occasionally took, of entering in hordes into the territories of the New Netherlands, and settling themselves down, without leave or licence, to improve the land, in the manner I have before noticed. This unceremonious mode of taking possession of new land was technically termed squatting, and hence is derived the appellation of squatters; a name odious in the ears of all great landholders, and which is given to those enterprizing worthies, who seize upon land first, and take their chance to make good their title to it afterwards.

All these grievances, and many others which were constantly accumulating, tended to form that dark and portentous cloud, which as I observed in a former chapter, was slowly gathering over the tranquil province of New Netherlands. The pacific cabinet of Van Twiller, however, as will be perceived in the sequel, bore them all with a magnanimity that redounds to their immortal credit-- becoming by passive endurance inured to this increasing mass of wrongs; like the sage old woman of Ephesus, who by dint of carrying about a calf, from the time it was born, continued to carry it without difficulty, when it had grown to be an ox.

CHAP. VIII.

How the Fort Goed Hoop was fearfully beleaguered--how the renowned Wouter fell into a profound doubt, and how he finally evaporated.

By this time my readers must fully perceive, what an arduous task I have undertaken--collecting and collating with painful minuteness, the chronicles of past times, whose events almost defy the powers of research--raking in a little kind of Herculaneum of history, which had lain nearly for ages, buried under the rubbish of years, and almost totally forgotten--raking up the limbs and fragments of disjointed facts, and endeavouring to put them scrupulously together, so as to restore them to their original form and connection--now lugging forth the character of an almost forgotten hero, like a mutilated statue--now decyphering a half defaced inscription, and now lighting upon a mouldering manuscript, which after painful study, scarce repays the trouble of perusal.

In such case how much has the reader to depend upon the honour and probity of his author, lest like a cunning antiquarian, he either impose upon him some spurious fabrication of his own, for a precious relique from antiquity--or else dress up the dismembered fragment, with such false trappings, that it is scarcely possible to distinguish the truth from the fiction with which it is enveloped. This is a grievance which I have more than once had to lament, in the course of my wearisome researches among the works of my fellow historians; who have strangely disguised and distorted the facts respecting this country; and particularly respecting the great province of New Netherlands; as will be perceived by any who will take the trouble to compare their romantic effusions, tricked out in the meretricious gauds of fable, with this excellent little history--universally to be renowned for its severe simplicity and unerring truth.

I have had more vexations of the kind to encounter, in those parts of my history which treat of the transactions on the eastern border, than in any other, in consequence of the troops of historians who have infested these quarters, and have shewn the honest people of New Nederlandt no mercy in their works. Among the rest, Mr. Benjamin Trumbull arrogantly declares that “the Dutch were always mere intruders.”--Now to this I shall make no other reply, than to proceed in the steady narration of my history, which will contain not only proofs that the Dutch had clear title and possession in the fair valleys of the Connecticut, and that they were wrongfully dispossessed thereof--but likewise that they have been scandalously maltreated ever since, by the misrepresentations of the crafty historians of New England. And in this I shall be guided by a spirit of truth and impartiality, and a regard to my immortal fame--for I would not wittingly dishonour my work by a single falsehood, misrepresentation or prejudice, though it should gain our forefathers the whole country of New England.

It was at an early period of the province, and previous to the arrival of the renowned Wouter--that the cabinet of Nieuw Nederlandts purchased the lands about the Connecticut, and established, for their superintendance and protection, a fortified post on the banks of the river, which was called Fort Goed Hoop, and was situated hard by the present fair city of Hartford. The command of this important post, together with the rank, title, and appointments of commissary, were given in charge to the gallant Jacobus Van Curlet, or as some historians will have it Van Curlis--a most doughty soldier of that stomachful class of which we have such numbers on parade days--who are famous for eating all they kill. He was of a very soldierlike appearance, and would have been an exceeding tall man, had his legs been in proportion to his body; but the latter being long, and the former uncommonly short, it gave him the uncouth appearance of a tall man’s body, mounted upon a little man’s legs. He made up for this turnspit construction of body by throwing his legs to such an extent when he marched, that you would have sworn he had on the identical seven league boots of the farfamed Jack the giant killer; and so astonishingly high did he tread on any great military occasion, that his soldiers were oft times alarmed, lest the little man should trample himself under foot.

But notwithstanding the erection of this fort, and the appointment of this ugly little man of war as a commander, the intrepid Yankees, continued those daring interlopings which I have hinted at in my last chapter; and taking advantage of the character which the cabinet of Wouter Van Twiller soon acquired, for profound and phlegmatic tranquillity--did audaciously invade the territories of the Nieuw Nederlandts, and squat themselves down within the very jurisdiction of fort Goed Hoop.

On beholding this outrage, the long bodied Van Curlet proceeded as became a prompt and valiant officer. He immediately protested against these unwarrantable encroachments, in low dutch, by way of inspiring more terror, and forthwith dispatched a copy of the protest to the governor at New Amsterdam, together with a long and bitter account of the aggressions of the enemy. This done, he ordered his men, one and all to be of good cheer--shut the gate of the fort, smoked three pipes, went to bed and awaited the result with a resolute and intrepid tranquillity, that greatly ani mated his adherents, and no doubt struck sore dismay and affright into the hearts of the enemy.

Now it came to pass, that about this time, the renowned Wouter Van Twiller, full of years and honours, and council dinners, had reached that period of life and faculty which, according to the great Gulliver, entitle a man to admission into the ancient order of Struldbruggs. He employed his time in smoking his turkish pipe, amid an assemblage of sages, equally enlightened, and nearly as venerable as himself, and who for their silence, their gravity, their wisdom, and their cautious averseness to coming to any conclusion in business, are only to be equalled by certain profound corporations which I have known in my time. Upon reading the protest of the gallant Jacobus Van Curlet therefore, his excellency fell straightway into one of the deepest doubts that ever he was known to encounter; his capacious head gradually drooped on his chest,[25] he closed his eyes and inclined his ear to one side, as if listening with great attention to the discussion that was going on in his belly; which all who knew him, declared to be the huge court-house, or council chamber of his thoughts; forming to his head what the house of representatives does to the senate. An inarticulate sound, very much resembling a snore, occasionally escaped him--but the nature of this internal cogitation, was never known, as he never opened his lips on the subject to man, woman or child. In the mean time, the protest of Van Curlet laid quietly on the table, where it served to light the pipes of the venerable sages assembled in council; and in the great smoke which they raised, the gallant Jacobus, his protest, and his mighty Fort Goed Hoop, were soon as completely beclouded and forgotten, as is a question of emergency swallowed up in the speeches and resolutions of a modern session of congress.

There are certain emergencies when your profound legislators and sage deliberative councils, are mightily in the way of a nation; and when an ounce of hair-brained decision, is worth a pound of sage doubt, and cautious discussion. Such at least was the case at present; for while the renowned Wouter Van Twiller was daily battling with his doubts, and his resolution growing weaker and weaker in the contest, the enemy pushed further and further into his territories, and assumed a most formidable appearance in the neighbourhood of Fort Goed Hoop. Here they founded the mighty town of Pyquag, or as it has since been called Weathersfield, a place which, if we may credit the assertions of that worthy historian John Josselyn, Gent. “hath been infamous by reason of the witches therein.”--And so daring did these men of Pyquag become, that they extended those plantations of onions, for which their town is illustrious, under the very noses of the garrison of Fort Goed Hoop-- insomuch that the honest dutchmen could not look toward that quarter, without tears in their eyes.

This crying injustice was regarded with proper indignation by the gallant Jacobus Van Curlet. He absolutely trembled with the amazing violence of his choler and the exacerbations of his valour; which seemed to be the more turbulent in their workings, from the length of the body, in which they were agitated. He forthwith proceeded to strengthen his redoubts, heighten his breastworks, deepen his fosse, and fortify his position with a double row of abbatis; after which valiant precautions, he with unexampled intrepidity, dispatched a fresh courier with tremendous accounts of his perilous situation. Never did the modern hero, who immortalized himself at the second Sabine war, shew greater valour in the art of letter writing, or distinguish himself more gloriously upon paper, than the heroic Van Curlet.

The courier chosen to bear these alarming dispatches, was a fat, oily little man, as being least liable to be worn out, or to lose leather on the journey; and to insure his speed, he was mounted on the fleetest waggon horse in the garrison; remarkable for his length of limb, largeness of bone, and hardness of trot; and so tall, that the little messenger was obliged to climb on his back by means of his tail and crupper. Such extraordinary speed did he make, that he arrived at Fort Amsterdam in little less than a month, though the distance was full two hundred pipes, or about 120 miles.

The extraordinary appearance of this portentous stranger would have thrown the whole town of New Amsterdam into a quandary, had the good people troubled themselves about any thing more than their domestic affairs. With an appearance of great hurry and business, and smoking a short travelling pipe, he proceeded on a long swing trot through the muddy lanes of the metropolis, demolishing whole batches of dirt pies, which the little dutch children were making in the road; and for which kind of pastry the children of this city have ever been famous--On arriving at the governor’s house he climbed down from his steed in great trepidation; roused the grey headed door keeper, old Skaats who like his lineal decendant, and faithful representative, the venerable crier of our court, was nodding at his post--rattled at the door of the council chamber, and startled the members as they were dozing over a plan for establishing a public market.

At that very moment a gentle grunt, or rather a deep drawn snore was heard from the chair of the governor; a whiff of smoke was at the same instant observed to escape from his lips, and a slight cloud to ascend from the bowl of his pipe. The council of course supposed him engaged in deep sleep for the good of the community, and according to custom in all such cases established, every man bawled out silence, in order to maintain tranquillity; when of a sudden, the door flew open and the little courier straddled into the apartment, cased to the middle in a pair of Hessian boots, which he had got into for the sake of expedition. In his right hand he held forth the ominous dispatches, and with his left he grasped firmly the waist-band of his galligaskins; which had unfortunately given way, in the exertion of descending from his horse. He stumped resolutely up to the governor, and with more hurry than perspicuity delivered his message. But fortunately his ill tidings came too late, to ruffle the tranquillity of this most tranquil of rulers. His venerable excellency had just breathed and smoked his last--his lungs and his pipe having been exhausted together, and his peaceful soul, as Dan Homer would have said, having escaped in the last whiff that curled from his tobacco pipe.--In a word the renowned Wouter Van Twiller, alias Walter the Doubter, who had so often slumbered with his cotemporaries, now slept with his fathers, and Wilhelmus Kieft governed in his stead.

END OF BOOK III

BOOK IV.

Containing the Chronicles of the reign of William the Testy.

CHAP. I.

Exposing the craftiness and artful devices of those arch Free Booters, the Book Makers, and their trusty Squires, the Book Sellers. Containing furthermore, the universal acquirements of William the Testy, aud how a man may learn so much as to render himself good for nothing.

If ever I had my readers completely by the button, it is at this moment. Here is a redoubtable fortress reduced to the greatest extremity; a valiant commander in a state of the most imminent jeopardy--and a legion of implacable foes thronging upon every side. The sentimental reader is preparing to indulge his sympathies, and bewail the sufferings of the brave. The philosophic reader, to come with his first principles, and coolly take the dimensions and ascertain the proportions of great actions, like an antiquary, measuring a pyramid with a two-foot rule--while the mere reader, for amusement, promises to regale himself after the monotonous pages through which he has dozed, with murders, rapes, ravages, conflagrations, and all the other glorious incidents, that give eclat to victory, and grace the triumph of the conqueror.

Thus every reader must press forward--he cannot refrain, if he has the least spark of curiosity in his disposition, from turning over the ensuing page. Having therefore gotten him fairly in my clutches-- what hinders me from indulging in a little recreation, and varying the dull task of narrative by stultifying my readers with a drove of sober reflections about this, that and the other thing--by pushing forward a few of my own darling opinions; or talking a little about myself--all which the reader will have to peruse, or else give up the book altogether, and remain in utter ignorance of the mighty deeds, and great events, that are contained in the sequel.

To let my readers into a great literary secret, your experienced writers, who wish to instil peculiar tenets, either in religion, politics or morals, do often resort to this expedient--illustrating their favourite doctrines by pleasing fictions on established facts---and so mingling historic truth, and subtle speculation together, that the unwary million never perceive the medley; but, running with open mouth, after an interesting story, are often made to swallow the most heterodox opinions, ridiculous theories, and abominable heresies. This is particularly the case with the industrious advocates of the modern philosophy, and many an honest unsuspicious reader, who devours their works under an idea of acquiring solid knowledge, must not be surprised if, to use a pious quotation, he finds “his belly filled with the east wind.”

This same expedient is likewise a literary artifice, by which one sober truth, like a patient and laborious pack horse, is made to carry a couple of panniers of rascally little conjectures on its back. In this manner books are encreased, the pen is kept going and trade flourishes; for if every writer were obliged to tell merely what he knew, there would soon be an end of great books, and Tom Thumb’s folio would be considered as a gigantic production-- A man might then carry his library in his pocket, and the whole race of book makers, book printers, book binders and book sellers might starve together; but by being entitled to tell every thing he thinks, and every thing he does not think--to talk about every thing he knows, or does not know--to conjecture, to doubt, to argue with himself, to laugh with and laugh at his reader, (the latter of which we writers do nine times out of ten--in our sleeves) to indulge in hypotheses, to deal in dashes--and stars **** and a thousand other innocent indulgencies--all these I say, do marvelously concur to fill the pages of books, the pockets of booksellers, and the hungry stomachs of authors--do contribute to the amusement and edification of the reader, and redound to the glory, the encrease and the profit of the craft!

Having thus, therefore, given my readers the whole art and mystery of book making, they have nothing further to do, than to take pen in hand, set down and write a book for themselves--while in the mean time I will proceed with my history, without claiming any of the privileges above recited.

Wilhelmus Kieft who in 1634 ascended the Gubernatorial chair, (to borrow a favourite, though clumsy appellation of modern phraseologists) was in form, feature and character, the very reverse of Wouter Van Twiller, his renowned predecessor. He was of very respectable descent, his father being Inspector of Windmills in the ancient town of Saardam; and our hero we are told made very curious investigations into the nature and operations of these machines when a little boy, which is one reason why he afterwards came to be so ingenious a governor. His name according to the most ingenious etymologists was a corruption of Kyver, that is to say a wrangler or scolder, and expressed the hereditary disposition of his family; which for nearly two centuries, had kept the windy town of Saardam in hot water, and produced more tartars and brimstones than any ten families in the place-- and so truly did Wilhelmus Kieft inherit this family endowment, that he had scarcely been a year in the discharge of his government, before he was universally known by the appellation of William the Testy.

He was a brisk, waspish, little old gentleman, who had dried and wilted away, partly through the natural process of years, and partly from being parched and burnt up by his fiery soul; which blazed like a vehement rush light in his bosom, constantly inciting him to most valourous broils, altercations and misadventures. I have heard it observed by a profound and philosophical judge of human nature, that if a woman waxes fat as she grows old, the tenure of her life is very precarious, but if haply she wilts, she lives forever--such likewise was the case with William the Testy, who grew tougher in proportion as he dried. He was some such a little dutchman as we may now and then see, stumping briskly about the streets of our city, in a broad skirted coat, with buttons nearly as large as the shield of Ajax, which makes such a figure in Dan Homer, an old fashioned cocked hat stuck on the back of his head, and a cane as high as his chin. His visage was broad, but his features sharp, his nose turned up with a most petulant curl; his cheeks, like the region of Terra del Fuego, were scorched into a dusky red--doubtless in consequence of the neighbourhood of two fierce little grey eyes, through which his torrid soul beamed as fervently, as a tropical sun blazing through a pair of burning glasses. The corners of his mouth were curiously modeled into a kind of fret work, not a little resembling the wrinkled proboscis of an irritable pug dog--in a word he was one of the most positive, restless, ugly little men, that ever put himself in a passion about nothing.

Such were the personal endowments of William the Testy, but it was the sterling riches of his mind that raised him to dignity and power. In his youth he had passed with great credit through a celebrated academy at the Hague, noted for producing finished scholars, with a dispatch unequalled, except by certain of our American colleges, which seem to manufacture bachelors of arts, by some patent machine. Here he skirmished very smartly on the frontiers of several of the sciences, and made such a gallant inroad into the dead languages, as to bring off captive a host of Greek nouns and Latin verbs, together with divers pithy saws and apothegms, all which he constantly paraded in conversation and writing, with as much vain glory as would a triumphant general of yore display the spoils of the countries he had ravaged. He had moreover puzzled himself considerably with logic, in which he had advanced so far as to attain a very familiar acquaintance, by name at least, with the whole family of syllogisms and dilemmas; but what he chiefly valued himself on, was his knowledge of metaphysics, in which, having once upon a time ventured too deeply, he came well nigh being smothered in a slough of unintelligible learning--a fearful peril, from the effects of which he never perfectly recovered.--In plain words, like many other profound intermeddlers in this abstruse bewildering science, he so confused his brain, with abstract speculations which he could not comprehend, and artificial distinctions which he could not realize, that he could never think clearly on any subject however simple, through the whole course of his life afterwards. This I must confess was in some measure a misfortune, for he never engaged in argument, of which he was exceeding fond, but what between logical deductions and metaphysical jargon, he soon involved himself and his subject in a fog of contradictions and perplexities, and then would get into a mighty passion with his adversary, for not being convinced gratis.

It is in knowledge, as in swimming, he who ostentatiously sports and flounders on the surface, makes more noise and splashing, and attracts more attention, than the industrious pearl diver, who plunges in search of treasures to the bottom. The “universal acquirements” of William Kieft, were the subject of great marvel and admiration among his countrymen--he figured about at the Hague with as much vain glory, as does a profound Bonze at Pekin, who has mastered half the letters of the Chinese alphabet; and in a word was unanimously pronounced an universal genius!--I have known many universal geniuses in my time, though to speak my mind freely I never knew one, who, for the ordinary purposes of life, was worth his weight in straw--but for the purposes of government, a little sound judgment and plain common sense, is worth all the sparkling genius that ever wrote poetry, or invented theories.

Strange as it may sound therefore, the universal acquirements of the illustrious Wilhelmus, were very much in his way, and had he been a less learned little man, it is possible he would have been a much greater governor. He was exceedingly fond of trying philosophical and political experiments; and having stuffed his head full of scraps and remnants of ancient republics, and oligarchies, and aristocracies, and monarchies, and the laws of Solon and Lycurgus and Charondas, and the imaginary commonwealth of Plato, and the Pandects of Justinian, and a thousand other fragments of venerable antiquity, he was forever bent upon introducing some one or other of them into use; so that between one contradictory measure and another, he entangled the government of the little province of Nieuw Nederlandts in more knots during his administration, than half a dozen successors could have untied.

No sooner had this bustling little man been blown by a whiff of fortune into the seat of government, than he called together his council and delivered a very animated speech on the affairs of the province. As every body knows what a glorious opportunity a governor, a president, or even an emperor has, of drubbing his enemies in his speeches, messages and bulletins, where he has the talk all on his own side, they may be sure the high mettled William Kieft did not suffer so favourable an occasion to escape him, of evincing that gallantry of tongue, common to all able legislators. Before he commenced, it is recorded that he took out of his pocket a red cotton handkerchief, and gave a very sonorous blast of the nose, according to the usual custom of great orators. This in general I believe is intended as a signal trumpet, to call the attention of the auditors, but with William the testy it boasted a more classic cause, for he had read of the singular expedient of that famous demagogue Caius Gracchus, who when he harangued the Roman populace, modulated his tones by an oratorical flute or pitch-pipe--“which”, said the shrewd Wilhelmus, “I take to be nothing more nor less, than an elegant and figurative mode of saying --he previously blew his nose.”

This preparatory symphony being performed, he commenced by expressing a humble sense of his own want of talents---his utter unworthiness of the honour conferred upon him, and his humiliating incapacity to discharge the important duties of his new station---in short, he expressed so contemptible an opinion of himself, that many simple country members present, ignorant that these were mere words of course, always used on such occasions, were very uneasy, and even felt wrath that he should accept an office, for which he was consciously so inadequate.

He then proceeded in a manner highly classic, profoundly erudite, and nothing at all to the purpose, being nothing more than a pompous account of all the governments of ancient Greece, and the wars of Rome and Carthage, together with the rise and fall of sundry outlandish empires, about which the assembly knew no more than their great grand children who were yet unborn. Thus having, after the manner of your learned orators, convinced the audience that he was a man of many words and great erudition, he at length came to the less important part of his speech, the situation of the province--- and here he soon worked himself into a fearful rage against the Yankees, whom he compared to the Gauls who desolated Rome, and the Goths and Vandals who overran the fairest plains of Europe-- nor did he forget to mention, in terms of adequate opprobrium, the insolence with which they had encroached upon the territories of New Netherlands, and the unparalleled audacity with which they had commenced the town of New Plymouth, and planted the onion patches of Weathersfield under the very walls, or rather mud batteries of Fort Goed Hoop.

Having thus artfully wrought up his tale of terror to a climax, he assumed a self satisfied look, and declared, with a nod of knowing import, that he had taken measures to put a final stop to these encroachments--that he had been obliged to have recourse to a dreadful engine of warfare, lately invented, awful in its effects, but authorized by direful necessity. In a word, he was resolved to conquer the Yankees---by proclamation!

For this purpose he had prepared a tremendous instrument of the kind ordering, commanding and enjoining the intruders aforesaid, forthwith to remove, depart and withdraw from the districts, regions and territories aforesaid, under pain of suffering all the penalties, forfeitures, and punishments in such case made and provided, &c. This proclamation he assured them, would at once exterminate the enemy from the face of the country, and he pledged his valour as a governor, that within two months after it was published, not one stone should remain on another, in any of the towns which they had built.

The council remained for some time silent, after he had finished; whether struck dumb with admiration at the brilliancy of his project, or put to sleep by the length of his harangue, the history of the times doth not mention. Suffice it to say, they at length gave a universal grunt of acquiescence--the proclamation was immediately dispatched with due ceremony, having the great seal of the province, which was about the size of a buckwheat pancake, attached to it by a broad red ribband. Governor Kieft having thus vented his indignation, felt greatly relieved---adjourned the council sine die--put on his cocked hat and corduroy small clothes, and mounting a tall raw boned charger, trotted out to his country seat, which was situated in a sweet, sequestered swamp, now called Dutch street, but more commonly known by the name of Dog’s Misery.

Here, like the good Numa, he reposed from the toils of legislation, taking lessons in government, not from the Nymph Egeria, but from the honoured wife of his bosom; who was one of that peculiar kind of females, sent upon earth a little after the flood, as a punishment for the sins of mankind, and commonly known by the appellation of knowing women. In fact, my duty as an historian obliges me to make known a circumstance which was a great secret at the time, and consequently was not a subject of scandal at more than half the tea tables in New Amsterdam, but which like many other great secrets, has leaked out in the lapse of years--and this was, that the great Wilhelmus the Testy, though one of the most potent little men that ever breathed, yet submitted at at home to a species of government, neither laid down in Aristotle, nor Plato; in short, it partook of the nature of a pure, unmixed tyranny, and is familarly denominated petticoat government.--An absolute sway, which though exceedingly common in these modern days, was very rare among the ancients, if we may judge from the rout made about the domestic economy of honest Socrates; which is the only ancient case on record.

The great Kieft however, warded off all the sneers and sarcasms of his particular friends, who are ever ready to joke with a man on sore points of the kind, by alledging that it was a government of his own election, which he submitted to through choice; adding at the same time that it was a profound maxim which he had found in an ancient author--“he who would aspire to govern, should first learn to obey.”

CHAP. II.

In which are recorded the sage Projects of a Ruler of universal Genius.--The art of Fighting by Proclamation,--and how that the valiant Jacobus Van Curlet came to be foully dishonoured at Fort Goed Hoop.

Never was a more comprehensive, a more expeditious, or, what is still better, a more economical measure devised, than this of defeating the Yankees by proclamation--an expedient, likewise, so humane, so gentle and pacific; there were ten chances to one in favour of its succeeding,--but then there was one chance to ten that it would not succeed--as the ill-natured fates would have it, that single chance carried the day! The proclamation was perfect in all its parts, well constructed, well written, well sealed and well published--all that was wanting to insure its effect, was that the Yankees should stand in awe of it; but, provoking to relate, they treated it with the most absolute contempt, applied it to an unseemly purpose, which shall be nameless, and thus did the first war-like proclamation come to a shameful end--a fate which I am credibly informed, has befallen but too many of its successors.

It was a long time before Wilhelmus Kieft could be persuaded by the united efforts of all his counsellors, that his war measure had failed in producing any effect.--On the contrary, he flew in a passion whenever any one dared to question its efficacy; and swore, that though it was slow in operating, yet when once it began to work, it would soon purge the land from these rapacious intruders. Time however, that tester of all experiments both in philosophy and politics, at length convinced the great Kieft, that his proclamation was abortive; and that notwithstanding he had waited nearly four years, in a state of constant irritation, yet he was still further off than ever from the object of his wishes. His implacable adversaries in the east became more and more troublesome in their encroachments, and founded the thriving colony of Hartford close upon the skirts of Fort Goed Hoop. They moreover commenced the fair settlement of Newhaven (alias the Red Hills) within the domains of their high mightinesses--while the onion patches of Pyquag were a continual eye sore to the garrison of Van Curlet. Upon beholding therefore the inefficacy of his measure, the sage Kieft like many a worthy practitioner of physic, laid the blame, not to the medicine, but the quantity administered, and resolutely resolved to double the dose.

In the year 1638 therefore, that being the fourth year of his reign, he fulminated against them a second proclamation, of heavier metal than the former; written in thundering long sentences, not one word of which was under five syllables. This, in fact, was a kind of non-intercourse bill, forbidding and prohibiting all commerce and connexion, between any and every of the said Yankee intruders, and the said fortified post of Fort Goed Hoop, and ordering, commanding and advising, all his trusty, loyal and well-beloved subjects, to furnish them with no supplies of gin, gingerbread or sour crout; to buy none of their pacing horses, meazly pork, apple brandy, Yankee rum, cyder water, apple sweetmeats, Weathersfield onions or wooden bowls, but to starve and exterminate them from the face of the land.

Another pause of a twelve month ensued, during which the last proclamation received the same attention, and experienced the same fate as the first--at the end of which term, the gallant Jacobus Van Curlet dispatched his annual messenger, with his customary budget of complaints and entreaties. Whether the regular interval of a year, intervening between the arrival of Van Curlet’s couriers, was occasioned by the systematic regularity of his movements, or by the immense distance at which he was stationed from the seat of government is a matter of uncertainty. Some have ascribed it to the slowness of his messengers, who, as I have before noticed, were chosen from the shortest and fattest of his garrison, as least likely to be worn out on the road; and who, being pursy, short winded little men, generally travelled fifteen miles a day, and then laid by a whole week, to rest. All these, however, are matters of conjecture; and I rather think it may be ascribed to the immemorial maxim of this worthy country--and which has ever influenced all its public transactions--not to do things in a hurry.

The gallant Jacobus Van Curlet in his dispatches respectfully represented, that several years had now elapsed, since his first application to his late excellency, the renowned Wouter Van Twiller: during which interval, his garrison had been reduced nearly one-eighth, by the death of two of his most valiant, and corpulent soldiers, who had accidentally over eaten themselves on some fat salmon, caught in the Varsche rivier. He further stated that the enemy persisted in their inroads, taking no notice of the fort or its inhabitants; but squatting themselves down, and forming settlements all around it; so that, in a little while, he should find himself enclosed and blockaded by the enemy, and totally at their mercy.

But among the most atrocious of his grievances, I find the following still on record, which may serve to shew the bloody minded outrages of these savage intruders. “In the meane time, they of Hartford have not onely usurped and taken in the lands of Connecticott, although unrighteously and against the lawes of nations, but have hindered our nation in sowing theire owne purchased broken up lands, but have also sowed them with corne in the night, which the Netherlanders had broken up and intended to sowe: and have beaten the servants of the high and mighty the honored companie, which were labouring upon theire master’s lands, from theire lands, with sticks and plow staves in hostile manner laming, and amongst the rest, struck Ever Duckings[26] a hole in his head, with a stick, soe that the blood ran downe very strongly downe upon his body!”

But what is still more atrocious--

“Those of Hartford sold a hogg, that belonged to the honored companie, under pretence that it had eaten of theire grounde grass, when they had not any foot of inheritance. They proferred the hogg for 5s. if the commissioners would have given 5s. for damage; which the commissioners denied, because noe mans owne hogg (as men use to say) can trespasse upon his owne master’s grounde.”

The receipt of this melancholy intelligence incensed the whole community--there was something in it that spoke to the dull comprehension, and touched the obtuse feelings even of the puissant vulgar, who generally require a kick in the rear, to awaken their slumbering dignity. I have known my profound fellow citizens bear without murmur, a thousand essential infringements of their rights, merely because they were not immediately obvious to their senses--but the moment the unlucky Pearce was shot upon our coasts, the whole body politic was in a ferment--so the enlighted Nederlanders, though they had treated the encroachments of their eastern neighbours with but little regard, and left their quill valiant governor, to bear the whole brunt of war, with his single pen--yet now every individual felt his head broken in the broken head of Duckings--and the unhappy fate of their fellow citizen the hog; being impressed, carried and sold into captivity, awakened a grunt of sympathy from every bosom.

The governor and council, goaded by the clamours of the multitude, now set themselves earnestly to deliberate upon what was to be done. Proclamations had at length fallen into temporary disrepute; some were for sending the Yankees a tribute, as we make peace offerings to the petty Barbary powers, or as the Indians sacrifice to the devil. Others were for buying them out, but this was opposed, as it would be acknowledging their title to the land they had seized. A variety of measures were, as usual in such cases, proposed, discussed and abandoned, and the council had at last, to adopt the means, which being the most common and obvious, had been knowingly over-looked--for your amazing acute politicians, are forever looking through telescopes, which only enable them to see such objects as are far off, and unattainable; but which incapacitates them to see such things as are in their reach, and obvious to all simple folk, who are content to look with the naked eyes, heaven has given them. The profound council, as I have said, in their pursuit after Jack-o’-lanterns, accidentally stumbled on the very measure they were in need of; which was to raise a body of troops, and dispatch them to the relief and reinforcement of the garrison. This measure was carried into such prompt operation, that in less than twelve months, the whole expedition, consisting of a serjeant and twelve men, was ready to march; and was reviewed for that purpose, in the public square, now known by the name of the Bowling Green. Just at this juncture the whole community was thrown into consternation, by the sudden arrival of the gallant Jacobus Van Curlet; who came straggling into town at the head of his crew of tatterdemalions, and bringing the melancholy tidings of his own defeat, and the capture of the redoubtable post of Fort Goed Hope by the ferocious Yankees.

The fate of this important fortress, is an impressive warning to all military commanders. It was neither carried by strom, nor famine; no practicable breach was effected by cannon or mines; no magazines were blown up by red hot shot, nor were the barracks demolished, or the garrison destroyed, by the bursting of bombshells. In fact, the place was taken by a stratagem no less singular than effectual; and one that can never fail of success, whenever an opportunity occurs of putting it in practice. Happy am I to add, for the credit of our illustrious ancestors, that it was a stratagem, which though it impeached the vigilance, yet left the bravery of the intrepid Van Curlet and his garrison, perfectly free from reproach.

It appears that the crafty Yankees, having learned the regular habits of the garrison, watched a favourable opportunity and silently introduced themselves into the fort, about the middle of a sultry day; when its vigilant defenders having gorged themselves with a hearty dinner and smoaked out their pipes, were one and all snoring most obstreperously at their posts; little dreaming of so disasterous an occurrence. The enemy most inhumanly seized Jacobus Van Curlet, and his sturdy myrmidons by the nape of the neck, gallanted them to the gate of the fort, and dismissed them severally, with a kick on the crupper, as Charles the twelfth dismissed the heavy bottomed Russians, after the battle of Narva--only taking care to give two kicks to Van Curlet, as a signal mark of distinction.

A strong garrison was immediately established in the fort; consisting of twenty long sided, hard fisted Yankees; with Weathersfield onions stuck in their hats, by way of cockades and feathers-- long rusty fowling pieces for muskets--hasty pudding, dumb fish, pork and molasses for stores; and a huge pumpkin was hoisted on the end of a pole, as a standard--liberty caps not having as yet come into fashion.

[26] This name is no doubt misspelt. In some old Dutch MSS. of the time, we find the name of Evert Duyckingh, who is unquestionably the unfortunate hero above alluded to.

Haz. Col. Stat. Pass.

CHAP. III.

Containing the fearful wrath of William the Testy, and the great dolour of the New Amsterdammers, because of the affair of Fort Goed Hoop.-- And moreover how William the Testy fortified the city by a Trumpeter--a Flagstaff, and a Wind-mill.--Together with the exploits of Stoffel Brinkerhoff.

Language cannot express the prodigious fury, into which the testy Wilhelmus Kieft was thrown by this provoking intelligence. For three good hours the rage of the little man was too great for words, or rather the words were too great for him; and he was nearly choaked by some dozen huge, mis-shapen, nine cornered dutch oaths, that crowded all at once into his gullet. A few hearty thumps on the back, fortunately rescued him from suffocation--and shook out of him a bushel or two of enormous execrations, not one of which was smaller than “dunder and blixum!”--It was a matter of astonishment to all the bye standers, how so small a body, could have contained such an immense mass of words without bursting. Having blazed off the first broadside, he kept up a constant firing for three whole days--anathematizing the Yankees, man, woman, and child, body and soul, for a set of dieven, schobbejaken, deugenieten, twist-zoekeren, loozen-schalken blaes-kaeken, kakken-bedden, and a thousand other names of which, unfortunately for posterity, history does not make particular mention. Finally he swore that he would have nothing more to do with such a squatting, bundling, guessing, questioning, swapping, pumpkin-eating, molasses-daubing, shingle-splitting, cider-watering, horse-jockeying, notion-peddling crew--that they might stay at Fort Goed Hoop and rot, before he would dirty his hands by attempting to drive them away; in proof of which he ordered the new raised troops, to be marched forthwith into winter quarters, although it was not as yet quite mid summer. Governor Kieft faithfully kept his word, and his adversaries as faithfully kept their post; and thus the glorious river Connecticut, and all the gay vallies through which it rolls, together with the salmon, shad and other fish within its waters, fell into the hands of the victorious Yankees, by whom they are held at this very day--and much good may they do them.

Great despondency seized upon the city of New Amsterdam, in consequence of these melancholly events. The name of Yankee became as terrible among our good ancestors, as was that of Gaul among the ancient Romans; and all the sage old women of the province, who had not read Miss Hamilton on education, used it as a bug-bear, wherewith to frighten their unruly brats into obedience.

The eyes of all the province were now turned upon their governor, to know what he would do for the protection of the common weal in these days of darkness and peril. Great apprehensions prevailed among the reflecting part of the community, especially the old women, that these terrible fellows of Connecticut, not content with the conquest of Fort Goed Hoop would incontinently march on to New Amsterdam and take it by storm--and as these old ladies, through means of the governor’s spouse, who as has been already hinted, was “the better horse,” had obtained considerable influence in public affairs, keeping the province under a kind of petticoat government, it was determined that measures should be taken for the effective fortification of the city.

Now it happened that at this time there sojourned in New Amsterdam one Anthony Van Corlear[27] a jolly fat dutch trumpeter, of a pleasant burley visage--famous for his long wind and his huge whiskers, and who as the story goes, could twang so potently upon his instrument, as to produce an effect upon all within hearing, as though ten thousand bag-pipes were singing most lustly i’ the nose. Him did the illustrious Kieft pick out as the man of all the world, most fitted to be the champion of New Amsterdam, and to garrison its fort; making little doubt but that his instrument would be as effectual and offensive in war as was that of the Paladin Astolpho, or the more classic horn of Alecto. It would have done one’s heart good to have seen the governor snapping his fingers and fidgetting with delight, while his sturdy trumpeter strutted up and down the ramparts, fearlessly twanging his trumpet in the face of the whole world, like a thrice valorous editor daringly insulting all the principalities and powers--on the other side of the Atlantic.

Nor was he content with thus strongly garrisoning the fort, but he likewise added exceedingly to its strength by furnishing it with a formidable battery of quaker guns--rearing a stupendous flag-staff in the centre which overtopped the whole city--and moreover by building a great windmill on one of the bastions.[28] This last to be sure, was somewhat of a novelty in the art of fortification, but as I have already observed William Kieft was notorious for innovations and experiments, and traditions do affirm that he was much given to mechanical inventions--constructing patent smoke-jacks--carts that went before the horses, and especially erecting wind-mills, for which machines he had acquired a singular predilection in his native town of Saardam.

All these scientific vagaries of the little governor were cried up with ecstasy by his adherents as proofs of his universal genius--but there were not wanting ill natured grumblers who railed at him as employing his mind in frivolous pursuits, and devoting that time to smoke-jacks and windmills, which should have been occupied in the more important concerns of the province. Nay they even went so far as to hint once or twice, that his head was turned by his experiments, and that he really thought to manage his government, as he did his mills--by mere wind! --such is the illiberality and slander to which your enlightened rulers are ever subject.

Notwithstanding all the measures therefore of William the Testy to place the city in a posture of defence, the inhabitants continued in great alarm and despondency. But fortune, who seems always careful, in the very nick of time, to throw a bone for hope to gnaw upon, that the starveling elf may be kept alive; did about this time crown the arms of the province with success in another quarter, and thus cheered the drooping hearts of the forlorn Nederlanders; otherwise there is no knowing to what lengths they might have gone in the excess of their sorrowing--“for grief,” says the profound historian of the seven champions of Christendom, “is companion with despair, and despair a procurer of infamous death!”

Among the numerous inroads of the Mosstroopers of Connecticut, which for some time past had occasioned such great tribulation, I should particularly have mentioned a settlement made on the eastern part of Long Island, at a place which, from the peculiar excellence of its shell fish, was called Oyster Bay. This was attacking the province in a most sensible part, and occasioned a great agitation at New Amsterdam.

It is an incontrovertible fact, well known to your skilful physiologists, that the high road to the affections, is through the throat; and this may be accounted for on the same principles which I have already quoted, in my strictures on fat aldermen. Nor is this fact unknown to the world at large; and hence do we observe, that the surest way to gain the hearts of the million, is to feed them well-- and that a man is never so disposed to flatter, to please and serve another, as when he is feeding at his expense; which is one reason why your rich men, who give frequent dinners, have such abundance of sincere and faithful friends. It is on this principle that our knowing leaders of parties secure the affections of their partizans, by rewarding them bountifully with loaves and fishes; and entrap the suffrages of the greasy mob, by treating them with bull feasts and roasted oxen. I have known many a man, in this same city, acquire considerable importance in society, and usurp a large share of the good will of his enlightened fellow citizens, when the only thing that could be said in his eulogium was, that “he gave a good dinner, and kept excellent wine.”

Since then the heart and the stomach are so nearly allied, it follows conclusively that what affects the one, must sympathetically affect the other. Now it is an equally incontrovertible fact, that of all offerings to the stomach, there is none more grateful than the testaceous marine animal, called by naturalists the Ostea, but known commonly by the vulgar name of Oyster. And in such great reverence has it ever been held, by my gormandizing fellow citizens, that temples have been dedicated to it, time out of mind, in every street, lane and alley throughout this well fed city. It is not to be expected therefore, that the seizing of Oyster Bay, a place abounding with their favourite delicacy, would be tolerated by the inhabitants of New Amsterdam. An attack upon their honour they might have pardoned; even the massacre of a few citizens might have been passed over in silence; but an outrage that affected the larders of the great city of New Amsterdam, and threatened the stomachs of its corpulent Burgomasters, was too serious to pass unrevenged. The whole council were unanimous in opinion, that the intruders should be immediately driven by force of arms, from Oyster Bay, and its vicinity, and a detachment was accordingly dispatched for the purpose, under command of one Stoffel Brinkerhoff, or Brinkerhoofd (i. e. Stoffel, the head-breaker) so called because he was a man of mighty deeds, famous throughout the whole extent of Nieuw Nederlandts for his skill at quarterstaff, and for size would have been a match for Colbrand, that famous Danish champion, slain by little Guy of Warwick.

Stoffel Brinckerhoff was a man of few words, but prompt actions--one of your straight going officers, who march directly forward, and do their orders without making any parade about it. He used no extraordinary speed in his movements, but trudged steadily on, through Nineveh and Babylon, and Jericho and Patchog, and the mighty town of Quag, and various other renowned cities of yore, which have by some unaccountable witchcraft of the Yankees, been strangely transplanted to Long Island, until he arrived in the neighbourhood of Oyster Bay.

Here was he encountered by a tumultuous host of valiant warriors, headed by Preserved Fish, and Habbakuk Nutter, and Return Strong, and Zerubbabel Fisk, and Jonathan Doolittle and Determined Cock!--at the sound of whose names the courageous Stoffel verily believed that the whole parliament of Praise God Barebones had been let loose to discomfit him. Finding however that this formidable body was composed merely of the “select men” of the settlement, armed with no other weapons but their tongues, and that they had issued forth with no other intent, than to meet him on the field of argument--he succeeded in putting them to the rout with little difficulty, and completely broke up their settlement. Without waiting to write an account of his victory on the spot, and thus letting the enemy slip through his fingers while he was securing his own laurels, as a more experienced general would have done, the brave Stoffel thought of nothing but completing his enterprize, and utterly driving the Yankees from the island. This hardy enterprize he performed in much the same manner as he had been accustomed to drive his oxen; for as the Yankees fled before him, he pulled up his breeches and trudged steadily after them, and would infallibly have driven them into the sea, had they not begged for quarter, and agreed to pay tribute.

The news of this achievement was a seasonable restorative to the spirits of the citizens of New Amsterdam. To gratify them still more, the governor resolved to astonish them with one of those gorgeous spectacles, known in the days of classic antiquity, a full account of which had been flogged into his memory, when a school-boy at the Hague. A grand triumph therefore was decreed to Stoffel Brinckerhoff, who made his triumphant entrance into town riding on a Naraganset pacer; five pumpkins, which like Roman eagles had served the enemy for standards, were carried before him--ten cart loads of oysters, five hundred bushels of Weathersfield onions, a hundred quintals of codfish, two hogsheads of molasses and various other treasures, were exhibited as the spoils and tribute of the Yankees; while three notorious counterfeiters of Manhattan notes,[29] were led captive to grace the hero’s triumph. The procession was enlivened by martial music, from the trumpet of Antony Van Corlear the champion, accompanied by a select band of boys and negroes, performing on the national instruments of rattle bones and clam shells. The citizens devoured the spoils in sheer gladness of heart--every man did honour to the conqueror, by getting devoutly drunk on New England rum--and learned Wilhelmus Kieft calling to mind, in a momentary fit of enthusiasm and generosity, that it was customary among the ancients to honour their victorious generals with public statues, passed a gracious decree, by which every tavernkeeper was permitted to paint the head of the intrepid Stoffel on his sign!

[27] David Pietrez De Vries in his “Reyze naer Nieuw Nederlandt ønder het yaer 1640,” makes mention of one Corlear a trumpeter in fort Amsterdam, who gave name to Corlear’s Hook and who was doubtless this same champion, described by Mr. Knickerbocker.

[28] De Vries mentions that this windmill stood on the south-east bastion, and it is likewise to be seen, together with the flag-staff, in Justus Danker’s View of New Amsterdam, which I have taken the liberty of prefixing to Mr. Knickerbocker’s history.--Editor.

[29] This is one of those trivial anachronisms, that now and then occur in the course of this otherwise authentic history. How could Manhattan notes be counterfeited, when as yet Banks were unknown in this country--and our simple progenitors had not even dreamt of those inexhaustible mines of paper opulence. Print. Dev.

CHAP. IV.

Philosophical reflections on the folly of being happy in time of prosperity.--Sundry troubles on the southern Frontiers.--How William the Testy by his great learning had well nigh ruined the province through a Cabalistic word.--As also the secret expeditions of Jan Jansen Alpenden, and his astonishing reward.

If we could but get a peep at the tally of dame Fortune, where, like a notable landlady, she regularly chalks up the debtor and creditor accounts of mankind, we should find that, upon the whole, good and evil are pretty nearly balanced in this world; and that though we may for a long while revel in the very lap of prosperity, the time will at length come, when we must ruefully pay off the reckoning. Fortune, in fact, is a pestilent shrew, and withal a most inexorable creditor; for though she may indulge her favourites in long credits, and overwhelm them with her favours; yet sooner or later, she brings up her arrears, with the rigour of an experienced publican, and washes out her scores with their tears. “Since,” says good old Bœtius in his consolations of philosophy, “since no man can retain her at his pleasure, and since her flight is so deeply lamented, what are her favours but sure prognostications of approaching trouble and calamity.”

There is nothing that more moves my contempt at the stupidity and want of reflection in my fellow men, than to behold them rejoicing, and indulging in security and self confidence, in times of prosperity. To a wise man, who is blessed with the light of reason, those are the very moments of anxiety and apprehension; well knowing that according to the system of things, happiness is at best but transient--and that the higher a man is elevated by the capricious breath of fortune, the lower must be his proportionate depression. Whereas, he who is overwhelmed by calamity, has the less chance of encountering fresh disasters, as a man at the bottom of a hill, runs very little risk of breaking his neck by tumbling to the top.

This is the very essence of true wisdom, which consists in knowing when we ought to be miserable; and was discovered much about the same time with that invaluable secret, that “every thing is vanity and vexation of spirit;” in consequence of which maxim your wise men have ever been the unhappiest of the human race; esteeming it as an infalliable mark of genius to be distressed without reason--since any man may be miserable in time of misfortune, but it is the philosopher alone who can discover cause for grief in the very hour of prosperity.

According to the principle I have just advanced, we find that the colony of New Netherlands, which under the reign of the renowned Van Twiller, had flourished in such alarming and fatal serenity; is now paying for its former welfare, and discharging the enormous debt of comfort which it contracted. Foes harass it from different quarters; the city of New Amsterdam, while yet in its infancy is kept in constant alarm; and its valiant commander little William the Testy answers the vulgar, but expressive idea of “a man in a peck of troubles.”

While busily engaged repelling his bitter enemies the Yankees, on one side, we find him suddenly molested in another quarter, and by other assailants. A vagrant colony of Swedes, under the conduct of Peter Minnewits, and professing allegience to that redoubtable virago, Christina queen of Sweden; had settled themselves and erected a fort on south (or Delaware) river--within the boundaries, claimed by the Government of the New Netherlands. History is mute as to the particulars of their first landing, and their real pretensions to the soil, and this is the more to be lamented; as this same colony of Swedes will hereafter be found most materially to affect, not only the interests of the Nederlanders, but of the world at large!

In whatever manner therefore, this vagabond colony of Swedes first took possession of the country, it is certain that in 1638, they established a fort, and Minnewits, according to the off hand usage of his contemporaries, declared himself governor of all the adjacent country, under the name of the province of New Sweden. No sooner did this reach the ears of the choleric Wilhelmus, than, like a true spirited chieftan, he immediately broke into a violent rage, and calling together his council, belaboured the Swedes most lustily in the longest speech that had ever been heard in the colony, since the memorable dispute of Ten breeches and Tough breeches. Having thus given vent to the first ebullitions of his indignation, he had resort to his favourite measure of proclamation, and dispatched one, piping hot, in the first year of his reign, informing Peter Minnewits that the whole territory, bordering on the south river, had, time out of mind, been in possession of the Dutch colonists, having been “beset with forts, and sealed with their blood.”

The latter sanguinary sentence, would convey an idea of direful war and bloodshed; were we not relieved by the information that it merely related to a fray, in which some half a dozen Dutchmen had been killed by the Indians, in their benevolent attempts to establish a colony and promote civilization. By this it will be seen that William Kieft, though a very small man, delighted in big expressions, and was much given to a praise-worthy figure in rhetoric, generally cultivated by your little great men, called hyperbole. A figure which has been found of infinite service among many of his class, and which has helped to swell the grandeur of many a mighty self-important, but windy chief magistrate. Nor can I resist in this place, from observing how much my beloved country is indebted to this same figure of hyperbole, for supporting certain of her greatest characters--statesmen, orators, civilians and divines; who by dint of big words, inflated periods, and windy doctrines, are kept afloat on the surface of society, as ignorant swimmers are buoyed up by blown bladders.

The proclamation against Minnewits concluded by ordering the self-dubbed governor, and his gang of Swedish adventurers, immediately to leave the country under penalty of the high displeasure, and inevitable vengeance of the puissant government of the Nieuw Nederlandts. This “strong measure,” however, does not seem to have had a whit more effect than its predecessors, which had been thundered against the Yankees--the Swedes resolutely held on to the territory they had taken possession of--whereupon matters for the present remained in statu quo.

That Wilhelmus Kieft should put up with this insolent obstinacy in the Swedes, would appear incompatible with his valourous temperament; but we find that about this time the little man had his hands full; and what with one annoyance and another, was kept continually on the bounce.

There is a certain description of active legislators, who by shrewd management, contrive always to have a hundred irons on the anvil, every one of which must be immediately attended to; who consequently are ever full of temporary shifts and expedients, patching up the public welfare and cobbling the national affairs, so as to make nine holes where they mend one--stopping chinks and flaws with whatever comes first to hand, like the Yankees I have mentioned stuffing old clothes in broken windows. Of this class of statesmen was William the Testy--and had he only been blessed with powers equal to his zeal, or his zeal been disciplined by a little discretion, there is very little doubt but he would have made the greatest governor of his size on record--the renowned governor of the island of Barataria alone excepted.

The great defect of Wilhelmus Kieft’s policy was, that though no man could be more ready to stand forth in an hour of emergency, yet he was so intent upon guarding the national pocket, that he suffered the enemy to break its head--in other words, whatever precaution for public safety he adopted, he was so intent upon rendering it cheap, that he invariably rendered it ineffectual. All this was a remote consequence of his profound education at the Hague-- where having acquired a smattering of knowledge, he was ever after a great conner of indexes, continually dipping into books, without ever studying to the bottom of any subject; so that he had the scum of all kinds of authors fermenting in his pericranium. In some of these title page researches he unluckily stumbled over a grand political cabalistic word, which, with his customary facility he immediately incorporated into his great scheme of government, to the irretrievable injury and delusion of the honest province of Nieuw Nederlandts, and the eternal misleading, of all experimental rulers.

In vain have I pored over the Theurgia of the Chaldeans, the Cabala of the Jews, the Necromancy of the Arabians--The Magic of the Persians--the Hocus Pocus of the English, the Witch-craft of the Yankees, or the Pow-wowing of the Indians to discover where the little man first laid eyes on this terrible word. Neither the Sephir Jetzirah, that famous cabalistic volume, ascribed to the Patriarch Abraham; nor the pages of the Zohar, containing the mysteries of the cabala, recorded by the learned rabbi Simeon Jochaides, yield any light to my enquiries--Nor am I in the least benefited by my painful researches in the Shem-hamphorah of Benjamin, the wandering Jew, though it enabled Davidus Elm to make a ten days’ journey, in twenty four hours. Neither can I perceive the slightest affinity in the Tetragrammaton, or sacred name of four letters, the profoundest word of the Hebrew Cabala; a mystery, sublime, ineffable and incommunicable--and the letters of which Jod-He-Van-He, having been stolen by the Pagans, constituted their great Name Jao, or Jove. In short, in all my cabalistic, theurgic, necromantic, magical and astrological researches, from the Tetractys of Pythagoras, to the recondite works of Breslaw and mother Bunch, I have not discovered the least vestige of an origin of this word, nor have I discovered any word of sufficient potency to counteract it.

Not to keep my reader in any suspence, the word which had so wonderfully arrested the attention of William the Testy and which in German characters, had a particularly black and ominous aspect, on being fairly translated into the English is no other than economy--a talismanic term, which by constant use and frequent mention, has ceased to be formidable in our eyes, but which has as terrible potency as any in the arcana of necromancy.

When pronounced in a national assembly it has an immediate effect in closing the hearts, beclouding the intellects, drawing the purse strings and buttoning the breeches pockets of all philosophic legislators. Nor are its effects on the eye less wonderful. It produces a contraction of the retina, an obscurity of the christaline lens, a viscidity of the vitreous and an inspiration of the aqueous humours, an induration of the tunica sclerotica and a convexity of the cornea; insomuch that the organ of vision loses its strength and perspicuity, and the unfortunate patient becomes myopes or in plain English, pur-blind; perceiving only the amount of immediate expense without being able to look further, and regard it in connexion with the ultimate object to be effected.--“So that,” to quote the words of the eloquent Burke, “a briar at his nose is of greater magnitude than an oak at five hundred yards distance.” Such are its instantaneous operations, and the results are still more astonishing. By its magic influence seventy-fours, shrink into frigates--frigates into sloops, and sloops into gunboats. As the defenceless fleet of Eneas, at the command of the protecting Venus, changed into sea nymphs, and protected itself by diving; so the mighty navy of America, by the cabalistic word economy, dwindles into small craft, and shelters itself in a mill-pond!

This all potent word, which served as his touchstone in politics, at once explains the whole system of proclamations, protests, empty threats, windmills trumpeters, and paper war, carried on by Wilhelmus the Testy--and we may trace its operations in an armament which he fitted out in 1642 in a moment of great wrath; consisting of two sloops and thirty men, under the command of Mynheer Jan Jansen Alpendam, as admiral of the fleet, and commander in chief of the forces. This formidable expedition, which can only be paralleled by some of the daring cruizes of our infant navy, about the bay and up the sound; was intended to drive the Marylanders from the Schuylkill, of which they had recently taken possession--and which was claimed as part of the province of New Nederlants--for it appears that at this time our infant colony was in that enviable state, so much coveted by ambitious nations, that is to say, the government had a vast extent of territory; part of which it enjoyed, and the greater part of which it had continually to quarrel about.

Admiral Jan Jansen Alpendam was a man of great mettle and prowess; and no way dismayed at the character of the enemy; who were represented as a gigantic gunpowder race of men, who lived on hoe cakes and bacon, drank mint juleps and brandy toddy, and were exceedingly expert at boxing, biting, gouging, tar and feathering, and a variety of other athletic accomplishments, which they had borrowed from their cousins german and prototypes the Virginians, to whom they have ever borne considerable resemblance--notwithstanding all these alarming representations, the admiral entered the Schuylkill most undauntedly with his fleet, and arrived without disaster or opposition at the place of destination.

Here he attacked the enemy in a vigorous speech in low dutch, which the wary Kieft had previously put in his pocket; wherein he courteously commenced by calling them a pack of lazy, louting, dram drinking, cock fighting, horse racing, slave driving, tavern haunting, sabbath breaking, mulatto breeding upstarts--and concluded by ordering them to evacuate the country immediately--to which they most laconically replied in plain English (as was very natural for Swedes) “they’d see him d--d first.”

Now this was a reply for which neither Jan Jansen Alpendam, nor Wilhelmus Kieft had made any calculation--and finding himself totally unprepared to answer so terrible a rebuff with suitable hostility he concluded, like a most worthy admiral of a modern English expedition, that his wisest course was to return home and report progress. He accordingly sailed back to New Amsterdam, where he was received with great honours, and considered as a pattern for all commanders; having achieved a most hazardous enterprize, at a trifling expense of treasure, and without losing a single man to the state!--He was unanimously called the deliverer of his country; (an appellation liberally bestowed on all great men) his two sloops having done their duty, were laid up (or dry docked) in a cove now called the Albany Bason, where they quietly rotted in the mud; and to immortalize his name, they erected, by subscription, a magnificent shingle monument on the top of Flatten barrack[30] Hill, which lasted three whole years; when it fell to pieces, and was burnt for fire-wood.

[30] A corruption of Varleth’s bergh--or Varleth’s hill, so called from one Varleth, who lived upon that hill in the early days of the settlement. Editor.

CHAP. V.

How William the Testy enriched the Province by a multitude of good-for-nothing laws, and came to be the Patron of Lawyers and Bum-Bailiffs. How he undertook to rescue the public from a grevious evil, and had well nigh been smoked to death for his pains. How the people became exceedingly enlightened and unhappy, under his instructions--with divers other matters which will be found out upon perusal.

Among the many wrecks and fragments of exalted wisdom, which have floated down the stream of time, from venerable antiquity, and have been carefully picked up by those humble, but industrious wights, who ply along the shores of literature, we find the following sage ordinance of Charondas, the locrian legislator--Anxious to preserve the ancient laws of the state from the additions and improvements of profound “country members,” or officious candidates for popularity, he ordained, that whoever proposed a new law, should do it with a halter about his neck; so that in case his proposition was rejected, he was strung up--and there the matter ended.

This salutary institution had such an effect, that for more than two hundred years there was only one trifling alteration in the criminal code--and the whole race of lawyers starved to death for want of employment. The consequence of this was, that the Locrians being unprotected by an overwhelming load of excellent laws, and undefended by a standing army of pettifoggers and sheriff’s officers, lived very lovingly together, and were such a happy people, that we scarce hear any thing of them throughout the whole Grecian history--for it is well known that none but your unlucky, quarrelsome, rantipole nations make any noise in the world.

Well would it have been for William the Testy, had he happily, in the course of his “universal acquirements,” stumbled upon this precaution of the good Charondas. On the contrary, he conceived that the true policy of a legislator was to multiply laws, and thus secure the property, the persons and the morals of the people, by surrounding them in a manner with men traps and spring guns, and besetting even the sweet sequestered walks of private life, with quick-set hedges, so that a man could scarcely turn, without the risk of encountering some of these pestiferous protectors. Thus was he continually coining petty laws for every petty offence that occurred, until in time they became too numerous to be remembered, and remained like those of certain modern legislators, in a manner dead letters --revived occasionally for the purpose of individual oppression, or to entrap ignorant offenders.

Petty courts consequently began to appear, where the law was administered with nearly as much wisdom and impartiality as in those august tribunals the aldermen’s and justice shops of the present day. The plaintiff was generally favoured, as being a customer and bringing business to the shop; the offences of the rich were discreetly winked at--for fear of hurting the feelings of their friends;--but it could never be laid to the charge of the vigilant burgomasters, that they suffered vice to skulk unpunished, under the disgraceful rags of poverty.

About this time may we date the first introduction of capital punishments--a goodly gallows being erected on the water-side, about where Whitehall stairs are at present, a little to the east of the battery. Hard by also was erected another gibbet of a very strange, uncouth and unmatchable description, but on which the ingenious William Kieft valued himself not a little, being a punishment entirely of his own invention.[31]

It was for loftiness of altitude not a whit inferior to that of Haman, so renowned in bible history; but the marvel of the contrivance was, that the culprit instead of being suspended by the neck, according to venerable custom, was hoisted by the waistband, and was kept for an hour together, dangling and sprawling between heaven and earth-- to the infinite entertainment and doubtless great edification of the multitude of respectable citizens, who usually attend upon exhibitions of the kind.

It is incredible how the little governor chuckled at beholding caitiff vagrants and sturdy beggars thus swinging by the breech, and cutting antic gambols in the air. He had a thousand pleasantries, and mirthful conceits to utter upon the occasions He called them his dandle-lions--his wild fowl-- his high flyers--his spread eagles--his goshawks-- his scare-crows and finally his gallows birds, which ingenious appellation, though originally confined to worthies who had taken the air in this strange manner, has since grown to be a cant name given to all candidates for legal elevation. This punishment, moreover, if we may credit the assertions of certain grave etymologists, gave the first hint for a kind of harnessing, or strapping, by which our forefathers braced up their multifarious breeches, and which has of late years been revived and continue. to be worn at the present day. It still bears the name of the object to which it owes its origin; being generally termed a pair of gallows-es--though I am informed it is sometimes vulgarly denominated suspenders.

Such were the admirable improvements of William Kieft in criminal law--nor was his civil code less a matter of wonderment, and much does it grieve me that the limits of my work will not suffer me to expatiate on both, with the prolixity they deserve. Let it suffice then to say; that in a little while the blessings of innumerable laws became notoriously apparent. It was soon found necessary to have a certain class of men to expound and confound them--divers pettifoggers accordingly made their appearance, under whose protecting care the community was soon set together by the ears.

I would not here, for the whole world, be thought to insinuate any thing derogatory to the profession of the law, or to its dignified members. Well am I aware, that we have in this ancient city an innumerable host of worthy gentlemen, who have embraced that honourable order, not for the sordid love of filthy lucre, or the selfish cravings of renown, but through no other motives under heaven, but a fervent zeal for the correct administration of justice, and a generous and disinterested devotion to the interests of their fellow citizens!--Sooner would I throw this trusty pen into the flames, and cork up my ink bottle forever (which is the worst punishment a maggot brained author can inflict upon himself) than infringe even for a nail’s breadth upon the dignity of this truly benevolent class of citizens--on the contrary I allude solely to that crew of caitiff scouts who in these latter days of evil have become so numerous--who infest the skirts of the profession, as did the recreant Cornish knights the honourable order of chivalry --who, under its auspices, commit their depredations on society--who thrive by quibbles, quirks and chicanery, and like vermin swarm most, where there is most corruption.

Nothing so soon awakens the malevolent passions as the facility of gratification. The courts of law would never be so constantly crowded with petty, vexatious and disgraceful suits, were it not for the herds of pettifogging lawyers that infest them. These tamper with the passions of the lower and more ignorant classes; who, as if poverty was not a sufficient misery in itself, are always ready to heighten it, by the bitterness of litigation. They are in law what quacks are in medicine--exciting the malady for the purpose of profiting by the cure, and retarding the cure, for the purpose of augmenting the fees. Where one destroys the constitution, the other impoverishes the purse; and it may likewise be observed, that a patient, who has once been under the hands of a quack, is ever after dabbling in drugs, and poisoning himself with infallible remedies; and an ignorant man who has once meddled with the law under the auspices of one of these empyrics, is forever after embroiling himself with his neighbours, and impoverishing himself with successful law suits.--My readers will excuse this digression into which I have been unwarily betrayed; but I could not avoid giving a cool, unprejudiced account of an abomination too prevalent in this excellent city, and with the effects of which I am unluckily acquainted to my cost; having been nearly ruined by a law suit, which was unjustly decided against me--and my ruin having been completed, by another which was decided in my favour.

It is an irreparable loss to posterity, that of the innumerable laws enacted by William the Testy, which doubtless formed a code that might have vied with those of Solon, Lycurgus or Sancho Panza, but few have been handed down to the present day, among which the most important is one framed in an unlucky moment, to prohibit the universal practice of smoking. This he proved by mathematical demonstration, to be not merely a heavy tax upon the public pocket, but an incredible consumer of time, a hideous encourager of idleness, and of course a deadly bane to the morals of the people. Ill fated Kieft!--had he lived in this most enlightened and libel loving age, and attempted to subvert the inestimable liberty of the press, he could not have struck more closely, upon the sensibilities of the million.

The populace were in as violent a turmoil as the constitutional gravity of their deportment would permit--a mob of factious citizens had even the hardihood to assemble around the little governor’s house, where setting themselves resolutely down, like a besieging army before a fortress, they one and all fell to smoking with a determined perseverance, that plainly evinced it was their intention, to funk him into terms with villainous Cow-pen mundungus!--Already was the stately mansion of the governor enveloped in murky clouds, and the puissant little man, almost strangled in his hole, when bethinking himself, that there was no instance on record, of any great man of antiquity perishing in so ignoble a manner (the case of Pliny the elder being the only one that bore any resemblance)--he was fain to come to terms, and compromise with the mob, on condition that they should spare his life, by immediately extinguishing their tobacco pipes.

The result of the armistice was, that though he continued to permit the custom of smoking, yet did he abolish the fair long pipes which prevailed in the days of Wouter Van Twiller, denoting ease, tranquillity and sobriety of deportment, and in place thereof introduced little captious short pipes, two inches in length; which he observed could be stuck in one corner of the mouth, or twisted in the hat-band, and would not be in the way of business. But mark, oh reader! the deplorable consequences. The smoke of these villainous little pipes--continually ascending in a cloud about the nose, penetrated into and befogged the cerebellum, dried up all the kindly moisture of the brain, and rendered the people as vapourish and testy as their renowned little governor--nay, what is more, from a goodly burley race of folk, they became, like our honest dutch farmers, who smoke short pipes, a lanthorn-jawed, smoak-dried, leathern-hided race of men.

Indeed it has been remarked by the observant writer of the Stuyvesant manuscript, that under the administration of Wilhelmus Kieft the disposition of the inhabitants of New Amsterdam experienced an essential change, so that they became very meddlesome and factious. The constant exacerbations of temper into which the little governor was thrown, by the maraudings on his frontiers, and his unfortunate propensity to experiment and innovation, occasioned him to keep his council in a continual worry--and the council being to the people at large, what yeast or leaven is to a batch, they threw the whole community into a ferment-- and the people at large being to the city, what the mind is to the body, the unhappy commotions they underwent operated most disastrously, upon New Amsterdam--insomuch, that in certain of their paroxysms of consternation and perplexity, they begat several of the most crooked, distorted and abominable streets, lanes and alleys, with which this metropolis is disfigured.

But the worst of the matter was, that just about this time the mob, since called the sovereign people, like Balaam’s ass, began to grow more enlightened than its rider, and exhibited a strange desire of governing itself. This was another effect of the “universal acquirements” of William the Testy. In some of his pestilent researches among the rubbish of antiquity, he was struck with admiration at the institution of public tables among the Lacedemonians, where they discussed topics of a general and interesting nature--at the schools of the philosophers, where they engaged in profound disputes upon politics and morals--where grey beards were taught the rudiments of wisdom, and youths learned to become little men, before they were boys. “There is nothing” said the ingenious Kieft, shutting up the book, “there is nothing more essential to the well management of a country, than education among the people; the basis of a good government, should be laid in the public mind.” --now this was true enough, but it was ever the wayward fate of William the Testy, that when he thought right, he was sure to go to work wrong. In the present instance he could scarcely eat or sleep, until he had set on foot brawling debating societies, among the simple citizens of New Amsterdam. This was the one thing wanting to complete his confusion. The honest Dutch burghers, though in truth but little given to argument or wordy altercation, yet by dint of meeting often together, fuddling themselves with strong drink, beclouding their brains with tobacco smoke, and listening to the harangues of some half a dozen oracles, soon became exceedingly wise, and--as is always the case where the mob is politically enlightened--exceedingly discontented. They found out, with wonderful quickness of discernment, the fearful error in which they had indulged, in fancying themselves the happiest people in creation-- and were fortunately convinced, that, all circumstances to the contrary notwithstanding, they were a very unhappy, deluded, and consequently, ruined people!

In a short time the quidnuncs of New Amsterdam formed themselves into sage juntos of political croakers, who daily met together to groan over public affairs, and make themselves miserable; thronging to these unhappy assemblages with the same eagerness, that your zealots have in all ages abandoned the milder and more peaceful paths of religion to crowd to the howling convocations of fanaticism. We are naturally prone to discontent, and avaricious after imaginary causes of lamentation--like lubberly monks we belabour our own shoulders, and seem to take a vast satisfaction in the music of our own groans. Nor is this said for the sake of paradox; daily experience shews the truth of these sage observations. It is next to a farce to offer consolation, or to think of elevating the spirits of a man, groaning under ideal calamities; but nothing is more easy than to render him wretched, though on the pinnacle of felicity; as it is an Herculean task to hoist a man to the top of a steeple, though the merest child can topple him off thence.

In the sage assemblages I have noticed, the philosophic reader will at once perceive the faint germs of those sapient convocations called popular meetings, prevalent at our day--Hither resorted all those idlers and “squires of low degree,” who like rags, hang loose upon the back of society, and are ready to be blown away by every wind of doctrine. Coblers abandoned their stalls and hastened hither to give lessons on political economy-- blacksmiths left their handicraft and suffered their own fires to go out, while they blew the bellows and stirred up the fire of faction; and even taylors, though but the shreds and patches, the ninth parts of humanity, neglected their own measures, to attend to the measures of government--Nothing was wanting but half a dozen newspapers and patriotic editors, to have completed this public illumination and to have thrown the whole province in an uproar!

I should not forget to mention, that these popular meetings were always held at a noted tavern; for houses of that description, have always been found the most congenial nurseries of politicks; abounding with those genial streams which give strength and sustenance to faction--We are told that the ancient Germans, had an admirable mode of treating any question of importance; they first deliberated upon it when drunk, and afterwards reconsidered it, when sober. The shrewder mobs of America, who dislike having two minds upon a subject, both determine and act upon it drunk; by which means a world of cold and tedious speculation is dispensed with--and as it is universally allowed that when a man is drunk he sees double, it follows most conclusively that he sees twice as well as his sober neighbours.

[31] Both the gibbets as mentioned above by our author, may be seen in the sketch of Justus Danker, which we have prefixed to the work.--Editor.

CHAP VI.

Shewing the great importance of party distinctions, and the dolourous perplexities into which William the Testy was thrown, by reason of his having enlightened the multitude.

For some time however, the worthy politicians of New Amsterdam, who had thus conceived the sublime project of saving the nation, were very much perplexed by dissentions, and strange contrariety of opinions among themselves, so that they were often thrown into the most chaotic uproar and confusion, and all for the simple want of party classification. Now it is a fact well known to your experienced politicians, that it is equally necessary to have a distinct classification and nomenclature in politics, as in the physical sciences. By this means the several orders of patriots, with their breedings and cross breedings, their affinities and varieties may be properly distinguished and known. Thus have arisen in different quarters of the world the generic titles of Guelfs and Ghibbelins--Round heads and Cavaliers--Big endians and Little endians --Whig and Tory--Aristocrat and Democrat-- Republican and Jacobin--Federalist and Antifederalist, together with a certain mongrel party called Quid; which seems to have been engendered between the two last mentioned parties, as a mule is produced between an horse and an ass--and like a mule it seems incapable of procreation, fit only for humble drudgery, doomed to bear successively the burthen of father and mother, and to be cudgelled soundly for its pains.

The important benefit of these distinctions is obvious. How many very strenuous and hard working patriots are there, whose knowledge is bounded by the political vocabulary, and who, were they not thus arranged in parties would never know their own minds, or which way to think on a subject; so that by following their own common sense the community might often fall into that unanimity, which has been clearly proved, by many excellent writers, to be fatal to the welfare of a republick. Often have I seen a very well meaning hero of seventy six, most horribly puzzled to make up his opinion about certain men and measures, and running a great risk of thinking right; until all at once he resolved his doubts by resorting to the old touch stone of Whig and Tory; which titles, though they bear about as near an affinity to the present parties in being, as do the robustious statues of Gog and Magog, to the worthy London Aldermen, who devour turtle under their auspices at Guild-Hall; yet are they used on all occasions by the sovereign people, as a pair of spectacles, through which they are miraculously enabled to see beyond their own noses, and to distinguish a hawk from a hand saw, or an owl from a buzzard!

Well, was it recorded in holy writ, "the horse knoweth his rider, and the ass his master’s crib," for when the sovereign people are thus harnessed out, and properly yoked together, it is delectable to behold with what system and harmony they jog onward, trudging through the mud and mire, obeying the commands of their drivers, and dragging the scurvy dung carts of faction at their heels. How many a patriotic member of congress have I known, loyally disposed to adhere to his party through thick and think but who would often, from sheer ignorance, or the dictates of conscience and common sense, have stumbled into the ranks of his adversaries, and advocated the opposite side of the question, had not the parties been thus broadly designated by generic titles.

The wise people of New Amsterdam therefore, after for some time enduring the evils of confusion, at length, like honest dutchmen as they were, soberly settled down into two distinct parties, known by the name of Square head and Platter breech-- the former implying that the bearer was deficient in that rotundity of pericranium, which was considered as a token of true genius--the latter, that he was destitute of genuine courage, or good bottom, as it has since been technically termed--and I defy all the politicians of this great city to shew me where any two parties of the present day, have split upon more important and fundamental points.

These names, to tell the honest truth--and I scorn to tell any thing else--were not the mere progeny of whim or accident, as were those of Ten Breeches and Tough Breeches, in the days of yore, but took their origin in recondite and scientific deductions of certain Dutch philosophers. In a word, they were the dogmas or elementary principia of those ingenious systems since supported in the physiognomical tracts of Lavater, who gravely measures intellect by the length of a nose, or detects it lurking in the curve of a lip, or the arch of an eye-brow--The craniology of Dr. Gall, who has found out the encampments and strong holds of the virtues and vices, passions and habits among the protuberances of the skull, and proves that your whorson jobbernowl, is your true skull of genius--The Linea Fascialis of Dr. Petrus Camper, anatomical professor in the college of Amsterdam, which regulates every thing by the relative position of the upper and lower jaw; shewing the ancient opinion to be correct that the owl is the wisest of animals, and that a pancake face is an unfailing index of talents, and a true model of beauty--and finally, the breechology of professor Higgenbottom, which teaches the surprizing and intimate connection between the seat of honour, and the seat of intellect-- a doctrine supported by experiments of pedagogues in all ages, who have found that applications a parte poste, are marvellously efficacious in quickening the perceptions of their scholars, and that the most expeditious mode of instilling knowledge into their heads, is to hammer it into their bottoms!

Thus then, the enlightened part of the inhabitants of Nieuw Nederlandts, being comfortably arranged into parties, went to work with might and main to uphold the common wealth--assembling together in separate beer-houses, and smoking at each other with implacable animosity, to the great support of the state, and emolument of the tavern-keepers. Some indeed who were more zealous than the rest went further, and began to bespatter one another with numerous very hard names and scandalous little words, to be found in the dutch language; every partizan believing religiously that he was serving his country, when he besmutted the character, or damaged the pocket of a political adversary. But however they might differ between themselves, both parties agreed on one point, to cavil at and condemn every measure of government whether right or wrong; for as the governor was by his station independent of their power, and was not elected by their choice, and as he had not decided in favour of either faction, neither of them were interested in his success, or the prosperity of the country while under his administration.

“Unhappy William Kieft!” exclaims the sage writer of the Stuyvesant manuscript,--doomed to contend with enemies too knowing to be entrapped, and to reign over people, too wise to be governed! All his expeditions against his enemies were baffled and set at naught, and all his measures for the public safety, were cavilled at by the people. Did he propose levying an efficient body of troops for internal defence, the mob, that is to say, those vagabond members of the community who have nothing to lose, immediately took the alarm, vociferated that their interests were in danger--that a standing army was a legion of moths, preying on the pockets of society; a rod of iron in the hands of government; and that a government with a military force at its command, would inevitably swell into a despotism. Did he, as was but too commonly the case, defer preparation until the moment of emergency, and then hastily collect a handful of undisciplined vagrants, the measure was hooted at, as feeble and inadequate, as trifling with the public dignity and safety, and as lavishing the public funds on impotent enterprizes.--Did he resort to the economic measure of proclamation, he was laughed at by the Yankees, did he back it by non-intercourse, it was evaded and counteracted by his own subjects. Whichever way he turned himself he was beleaguered and distracted by petitions of “numerous and respectable meetings,” consisting of some half a dozen scurvy pot-house politicians--all of which he read, and what is worse, all of which he attended to. The consequence was, that by incessantly changing his measures, he gave none of them a fair trial; and by listening to the clamours of the mob and endeavouring to do every thing, he in sober truth did nothing.

I would not have it supposed however, that he took all these memorials and interferences good naturedly, for such an idea would do injustice to his valiant spirit; on the contrary he never received a piece of advice in the whole course of his life, without first getting into a passion with the giver. But I have ever observed that your passionate little men, like small boats with large sails, are the easiest upset or blown out of their course; and this is demonstrated by governor Kieft, who though in temperament as hot as an old radish, and with a mind, the territory of which was subjected to perpetual whirl-winds and tornadoes, yet never failed to be carried away by the last piece of advice that was blown into his ear. Lucky was it for him that his power was not dependant upon the greasy multitude, and that as yet the populace did not possess the important privilege of nominating their chief magistrate. They, however, like a true mob, did their best to help along public affairs; pestering their governor incessantly, by goading him on with harangues and petitions, and then thwarting his fiery spirit with reproaches and memorials, like a knot of sunday jockies, managing an unlucky devil of a hack horse--so that Wilhelmus Kieft, may be said to have been kept either on a worry or a hand gallop, throughout the whole of his administration.

CHAP. VII.

Containing divers fearful accounts of Border wars, and the flagrant outrages of the Moss troopers of Connecticut--With the rise of the great Amphyctionic Council of the east, and the decline of William the Testy.

Among the many perils and mishaps that surround your hardy historian, there is one that in spite of my unspeakable delicacy, and unbounded good will towards all my fellow creatures, I have no hopes of escaping. While raking with curious hand, but pious heart, among the rotten remains of former days, I may fare somewhat like that doughty fellow Sampson, who in meddling with the carcass of a dead Lion, drew a swarm of bees about his ears. Thus I am sensible that in detailing the many misdeeds of the Yanokie, or Yankee tribe, it is ten chances to one but I offend the morbid sensibilities of certain of their unreasonable descendants, who will doubtless fly out, and raise such a buzzing about this unlucky pate of mine, that I shall need the tough hide of an Achilles, or an Orlando Furioso, to protect me from their stings. Should such be the case I should deeply and sincerely lament-- not my misfortune in giving offence--but the wrong-headed perverseness of this most ill natured and uncharitable age, in taking offence at any thing I say. --My good, honest, testy sirs, how in heaven’s name, can I help it, if your great grandfathers behaved in a scurvy manner to my great grandfathers?--I’m very sorry for it, with all my heart, and wish a thousand times, that they had conducted themselves a thousand times better. But as I am recording the sacred events of history, I’d not bate one nail’s breadth of the honest truth, though I were sure the whole edition of my work, should be bought up and burnt by the common hangman of Connecticut.-- And let me tell you, masters of mine! this is one of the grand purposes for which we impartial historians were sent into the world--to redress wrongs and render justice on the heads of the guilty--So that though a nation may wrong their neighbours, with temporary impunity, yet some time or another an historian shall spring up, who shall give them a hearty rib-roasting in return. Thus your ancestors, I warrant them, little thought, when they were kicking and cuffing the worthy province of Nieuw Nederlandts, and setting its unlucky little governor at his wits ends, that such an historian as I should ever arise, and give them their own, with interest--Body-o’me! but the very talking about it makes my blood boil! and I have as great a mind as ever I had for my dinner, to cut a whole host of your ancestors to mince meat, in my very next page!--but out of the bountiful affection which I feel towards their descendants, I forbear--and I trust when you perceive how completely I have them all in my power, and how, with one flourish of my pen I could make every mother’s son of ye grandfatherless, you will not be able enough to applaud my candour and magnanimity.--To resume then, with my accustomed calmness and impartiality, the course of my history.

It was asserted by the wise men of ancient times, intimately acquainted with these matters, that at the gate of Jupiter’s palace lay two huge tuns, the one filled with blessings, the other with misfortunes--and it verily seems as if the latter had been set a tap, and left to deluge the unlucky province of Nieuw Nederlandts. Among other causes of irritation, the incessant irruptions and spoliations of his eastern neighbours upon his frontiers, were continually adding fuel to the naturally inflammable temperament of William the Testy. Numerous accounts of them may still be found among the records of former days; for the commanders on the frontiers were especially careful to evince their vigilance and soldierlike zeal, by striving who should send home the most frequent and voluminous budgets of complaints, as your faithful servant is continually running with complaints to the parlour, of all the petty squabbles and misdemeanours of the kitchen.

All these valiant tale-bearings were listened to with great wrath by the passionate little governor, and his subjects, who were to the full as eager to hear, and credulous to believe these frontier fables, as are my fellow citizens to swallow those amusing stories with which our papers are daily filled, about British aggressions at sea, French sequestrations on shore, and Spanish infringements in the promised land of Louisiana--all which proves what I have before asserted, that your enlightened people love to be miserable.

Far be it from me to insinuate however, that our worthy ancestors indulged in groundless alarms; on the contrary they were daily suffering a repetition of cruel wrongs, not one of which, but was a sufficient reason, according to the maxims of national dignity and honour, for throwing the whole universe into hostility and confusion.

From among a host of these bitter grievances still on record, I select a few of the most atrocious, and leave my readers to judge, if our progenitors were not justifiable in getting into a very valiant passion on the occasion.

“24 June 1641. Some of Hartford haue taken a hogg out of the vlact or common and shut it vp out of meer hate or other prejudice, causing it to starve for hunger in the stye!

26 July. The foremencioned English did againe driue the companies hoggs out of the vlact of Sico joke into Hartford; contending daily with reproaches, blows, beating the people with all disgrace that they could imagine.

May 20, 1642. The English of Hartford haue violently cut loose a horse of the honored companies, that stood bound vpon the common or vlact.

May 9, 1643. The companies horses pastured vpon the companies ground, were driven away by them of Connecticott or Hartford, and the heardsman was lustily beaten with hatchets and sticks.

16. Again they sold a young Hogg belonging to the Companie which piggs had pastured on the Companies land.”[32]

Oh ye powers! into what indignation did every one of these outrages throw the philosophic Kieft! Letter after letter; protest after protest; proclamation after proclamation; bad Latin, worse English, and hideous low dutch were exhausted in vain upon the inexorable Yankees; and the four-and-twenty letters of the alphabet, which except his champion, the sturdy trumpeter Van Corlear, composed the only standing army he had at his command, were never off duty, throughout the whole of his administration.--Nor did Antony the trumpeter, remain a whit behind his patron, the gallant William in his fiery zeal; but like a faithful champion and preserver of the public safety, on the arrival of every fresh article of news, he was sure to sound his trumpet from the ramparts with most disasterous notes, throwing the people into violent alarms and disturbing their rest at all times and seasons--which caused him to be held in very great regard, the public paying and pampering him, as we do brawling editors, for similar important services.

Appearances to the eastward began now to assume a more formidable aspect than ever--for I would have you note that bitherto the province had been chiefly molested by its immediate neighbours, the people of Connecticut, particularly of Hartford, which, if we may judge from ancient chronicles, was the strong hold of these sturdy moss troopers; from whence they sallied forth, on their daring incursions, carrying terror and devastation into the barns, the hen-roosts and pig-styes of our revered ancestors.

Albeit about the year 1643, the people of the east country, inhabiting the colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Plymouth and New Haven, gathered together into a mighty conclave, and after buzzing and turmoiling for many days, like a political hive of bees in swarming time, at length settled themselves into a formidable confederation, under the title of the United Colonies of New England. By this union they pledged themselves to stand by one another in all perils and assaults, and to co-operate in all measures offensive and defensive against the surrounding savages, among which were doubtlessly included our honoured ancestors of the Manhattoes; and to give more strength and system to this confederation, a general assembly or grand council was to be annually held, composed of representatives from each of the provinces.

On receiving accounts of this puissant combination, the fiery Wilhelmus was struck with vast consternation, and for the first time in his whole life, forgot to bounce, at hearing an unwelcome piece of intelligence--which a venerable historian of the times observes, was especially noticed among the sage politicians of New Amsterdam. The truth was, on turning over in his mind all that he had read at the Hague, about leagues and combinations, he found that this was an exact imitation of the famous Amphyctionic council, by which the states of Greece were enabled to attain to such power and supremacy, and the very idea made his heart to quake for the safety of his empire at the Manhattoes.

He strenuously insisted, that the whole object of this confederation, was to drive the Nederlanders out of their fair domains; and always flew into a great rage if any one presumed to doubt the probability of his conjecture. Nor, to speak my mind freely, do I think he was wholly unwarranted in such a suspicion; for at the very first annual meeting of the grand council, held at Boston (which governor Kieft denominated the Delphos of this truly classic league) strong representations were made against the Nederlanders, for as much as that in their dealings with the Indians they carried on a traffic in “guns, powther and shott-- a trade damnable and injurious to the colonists.” Not but what certain of the Connecticut traders did likewise dabble a little in this “damnable traffic” --but then they always sold the Indians such scurvy guns, that they burst at the first discharge-- and consequently hurt no one but these pagan savages.

The rise of this potent confederacy was a death blow to the glory of William the Testy, for from that day forward, it was remarked by many, he never held up his head, but appeared quite crest fallen. His subsequent reign therefore, affords but scanty food for the historic pen--we find the grand council continually augmenting in power, and threatening to overwhelm the mighty but defenceless province of Nieuw Nederlandts; while Wilhelmus Kieft kept constantly firing off his proclamations and protests, like a sturdy little sea captain, firing off so many carronades and swivels, in order to break and disperse a water spout--but alas! they had no more effect than if they had been so many blank cartridges.

The last document on record of this learned, philosophic, but unfortunate little man is a long letter to the council of the Amphyctions, wherein in the bitterness of his heart he rails at the people of New Haven, or red hills, for their uncourteous contempt of his protest levelled at them for squatting within the province of their high mightinesses. From this letter, which is a model of epistolary writing, abounding with pithy apophthegms and classic figures, my limits will barely allow me to extract the following recondite passage:-“Certainly when we heare the Inhabitants of New Hartford complayninge of us, we seem to heare Esop’s wolfe complayninge of the lamb, or the admonition of the younge man, who cryed out to his mother, chideing with her neighboures, ‘Oh Mother revile her, lest she first take up that practice against you.’ But being taught by precedent passages we received such an answer to our protest from the inhabitants of New Haven as we expected: the Eagle always despiseth the Beetle fly; yet notwithstanding we doe undauntedly continue on our purpose of pursuing our own right, by just arms and righteous means, and doe hope without scruple to execute the express commands of our superiours.” To shew that this last sentence was not a mere empty menace he concluded his letter, by intrepidly protesting against the whole council, as a horde of squatters and interlopers, inasmuch as they held their meeting at New Haven, or the Red Hills, which he claimed as being within the province of the New Netherlands.

Thus end the authenticated chronicles of the reign of William the Tety--for henceforth, in the trouble, the perplexities and the confusion of the times he seems to have been totally overlooked, and to ahve slipped forever through the fingers of scrupulous history. Indeed from some cause or another, which I cannot divine, there appears to have been a combination among historians to sink his very name into oblivion, in consequence of which they have one and all forborne even to speak of his exploits; and though I have disappointed the caitiffs in this their nefarious conspiracy, yet I much question whether some one or other of their adherents may not even yet have the hardihood to rise up, and question the authenticity of certain of the well established and incontrovertible facts, I have herein recorded--but let them do it at their peril; for may I perish, if ever I catch any slanderous incendiaries contradicting a word of this immaculate history, or robbing my heroes of any particle of that renown they have gloriously acquired, if I do not empty my whole ink-horn upon them--even though it should equal in magnitude that of the sage Gargantua; which according to the faithful chronicle of his miraculous atchievements, weighted seven thousand quintals.

It has been a matter of deep concern to me, that such darkness and obscurity should hang over the latter days of the illustrious Kieft--for he was a mighty and great little man worthy of being utterly renowned, seeing that he was the first potentate that introduced into this land, the art of fighting by proclamation; and defending a country by trumpeters, and windmills--an economic and humane mode of warfare, since revived with great applause, and which promises, if it can ever be carried into full effect, to save great trouble and treasure, and spare infinitely more bloodshed than either the discovery of gunpowder, or the invention of torpedoes.

It is true that certain of the early provincial poets, of whom there were great numbers in the Nieuw Nederlandts, taking advantage of the mysterious exit of William the Testy, have fabled, that like Romulus he was translated to the skies, and forms a very fiery little star, some where on the left claw of the crab; while others equally fanciful, declare that he had experienced a fate similar to that of the good king Arthur; who, we are assured by ancient bards, was carried away to the delicious abodes of fairy land, where he still exists, in pristine worth and vigour, and will one day or another return to rescue poor old England from the hands of paltry, flippant, pettifogging cabinets, and restore the gallantry, the honour and the immaculate probity, which prevailed in the glorious days of the Round Table.[33]

All these however are but pleasing fantasies, the cobweb visions of those dreaming varlets the poets, to which I would not have my judicious reader attach any credibility. Neither am I disposed to yield any credit to the assertion of an ancient and rather apocryphal historian, who alledges that the ingenious Wilhelmus was annihilated by the blowing down of one of his windmills--nor to that of a writer of later times, who affirms that he fell a victim to a philosophical experiment, which he had for many years been vainly striving to accomplish; having the misfortune to break his neck from the garret window of the Stadt house, in an ineffectual attempt to catch swallows, by sprinkling fresh salt upon their tails.

The most probable account, and to which I am inclined to give my implicit faith, is contained in a very obscure tradition, which declares, that what with the constant troubles on his frontiers, the incessant schemings, and projects going on in his own pericranium--the memorials, petitions, remonstrances and sage pieces of advice from divers respectable meetings of the sovereign people, together with the refractory disposition of his council, who were sure to differ from him on every point and uniformly to be in the wrong--all these I say, did eternally operate to keep his mind in a kind of furnace heat, until he at length became as completly burnt out, as a dutch family pipe which has passed through three generations of hard smokers. In this manner did the choleric but magnanimous William the Testy undergo a kind of animal combustion, consuming away like a farthing rush light--so that when grim death finally snuffed him out, there was scarce left enough of him to bury!

END OF BOOK IV.

Table of Contents

ACCOUNT OF THE AUTHOR.

TO THE PUBLIC.

BOOK I.

CHAP. I.

CHAP. II.

CHAP. III.

CHAP. IV.

CHAP. V.

BOOK II.

CHAP. I.

CHAP. II.

CHAP. III.

CHAP. IV.

CHAP V.

BOOK III.

CHAP. I.

CHAP. II.

CHAP. III.

CHAP IV.

CHAP. V.

CHAP. VI.

CHAP. VII.

CHAP. VIII.

BOOK IV.

CHAP. I.

CHAP. II.

CHAP. III.

CHAP. IV.

CHAP. V.

CHAP VI.

CHAP. VII.