University of Virginia Library

3. CHAP. III.

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[3] 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.[4] 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 Moss-troopers
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,[5] 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!