University of Virginia Library

1. CHAP. I.

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.”