University of Virginia Library

4. CHAP. IV.

If my pains-taking reader, whose perception,
it is a hundred to one, is as obtuse as a beetle's, is
not somewhat perplexed, in the course of the ratiocination
of my last chapter; he will doubtless, at
one glance perceive, that the great Peter, in concluding
a treaty with his eastern neighbours, was guilty
of a most notable error and heterodoxy in politics.
To this unlucky agreement may justly be ascribed
a world of little infringements, altercations,
negociations and bickerings, which afterwards took
place between the irreproachable Stuyvesant, and
the evil disposed council of amphyctions; in all
which, with the impartial justice of an historian, I
pronounce the latter to have been invariably in the
wrong. All these did not a little disturb the constitutional
serenity of the good and substantial
burghers of Mannahata—otherwise called Manhattoes,
but more vulgarly known by the name of Manhattan.
But in sooth they were so very scurvy
and pitiful in their nature and effects, that a grave
historian like me, who grudges the time spent in
any thing less than recording the fall of empires,

and the revolution of worlds, would think them unworthy
to be recorded in his sacred page.

The reader is therefore to take it for granted,
though I scorn to waste in the detail, that time,
which my furrowed brow and trembling hand, inform
me is invaluable, that all the while the great
Peter was occupied in those tremendous and bloody
contests, that I shall shortly rehearse, there was a
continued series of little, dirty, snivelling, pettifogging
skirmishes, scourings, broils and maraudings
made on the eastern frontiers, by the notorious
moss troopers of Connecticut. But like that mirror
of chivalry, the sage and valourous Don Quixote,
I leave these petty contests for some future
Sancho Panza of an historian, while I reserve my
prowess and my pen for achievements of higher
dignity.

Now did the great Peter conclude, that his labours
had come to a close in the east, and that he
had nothing to do but apply himself to the internal
prosperity of his beloved Manhattoes. Though a
man of great modesty, he could not help boasting
that he had at length shut the temple of Janus, and
that, were all rulers like a certain person who should
be nameless, it would never be opened again. But
the exultation of the worthy governor was put to a
speedy check, for scarce was the treaty concluded,
and hardly was the ink dried on the paper, before
the crafty and discourteous council of the league

sought a new pretence for reilluming the flames of
discord.

In the year 1651, with a flagitious hardihood
that makes my gorge to rise while I write, they accused
the immaculate Peter—the soul of honour
and heart of steel—that by divers gifts and promises
he had been secretly endeavouring to instigate
the Narrohigansett (or Narraganset) Mohaque and
Pequot Indians, to surprize and massacre the English
settlements. For, as the council maliciously
observed, “the Indians round about for divers hundred
miles cercute, seeme to have drunke deep of
an intoxicating cupp, att or from the Monhatoes
against the English, whoe have sought there good,
both in bodily and sperituall respects.” To support
their most unrighteous accusation, they examined
divers Indians, who all swore to the fact as sturdily
as if they had been so many christian troopers.
And to be more sure of their veracity, the knowing
council previously made every mother's son of them
devoutly drunk, remembering the old proverb—In
vino veritas.

Though descended from a family which suffered
much injury from the losel Yankees of those
times; my great grandfather having had a yoke of
oxen and his best pacer stolen, and having received
a pair of black eyes and a bloody nose, in one of
these border wars; and my grandfather, when a
very little boy tending the pigs, having been kidnapped

and severely flogged by a long sided Connecticut
schoolmaster—Yet I should have passed
over all these wrongs with forgiveness and oblivion
—I could even have suffered them to have broken
Evert Ducking's head, to have kicked the doughty
Jacobus Van Curlet and his ragged regiment out
of doors, carried every hog into captivity, and depopulated
every hen roost, on the face of the earth
with perfect impunity—But this wanton, wicked
and unparalleled attack, upon one of the most
gallant and irreproachable heroes of modern times,
is too much even for me to digest, and has overset,
with a single puff, the patience of the historian and
the forbearance of the Dutchman.

Oh reader it was false!—I swear to thee it
was false!—if thou hast any respect for my word—
if the undeviating and unimpeached character for
veracity, which I have hitherto borne throughout
this work, has its due weight with thee, thou wilt
not give thy faith to this tale of slander; for I
pledge my honour and my immortal fame to thee,
that the gallant Peter Stuyvesant, was not only
innocent of this foul conspiracy, but would have
suffered his right arm, or even his wooden leg to
consume with slow and everlasting flames, rather
than attempt to destroy his enemies in any other
way, than open generous warfare—Beshrew those
caitiff scouts, that conspired to sully his honest
name by such an imputation!

Peter Stuyvesant, though he perhaps had never
heard of a Knight Errant; yet had he as true a
heart of chivalry as ever beat at the round table of
King Arthur. There was a spirit of native gallantry,
a noble and generous hardihood diffused
through his rugged manners, which altogether gave
unquestionable tokens of an heroic mind. He was,
in truth, a hero of chivalry struck off by the hand
of nature at a single heat, and though she had taken
no further care to polish and refine her workmanship,
he stood forth a miracle of her skill.

But not to be figurative, (a fault in historic
writing which I particularly) eschew the great Peter
possessed in an eminent degree, the seven renowned
and noble virtues of knighthood; which, as he
had never consulted authors, in the disciplining and
cultivating of his mind, I verily believe must have
been stowed away in a corner of his heart by dame
nature herself—where they flourished, among his
hardy qualities, like so many sweet wild flowers,
shooting forth and thriving with redundant luxuriance
among stubborn rocks. Such was the mind
of Peter the Headstrong, and if my admiration for
it, has on this occasion, transported my style beyond
the sober gravity which becomes the laborious
scribe of historic events, I can plead as an apology,
that though a little, grey headed Dutchman, arrived
almost at the bottom of the down-hill of life, I
still retain some portion of that celestial fire, which

sparkles in the eye of youth, when contemplating
the virtues and atchievements of ancient worthies.
Blessed, thrice and nine times blessed, be the good
St. Nicholas—that I have escaped the influence of
that chilling apathy, which too often freezes the
sympathies of age; which like a churlish spirit,
sits at the portals of the heart, repulsing every
genial sentiment, and paralyzing every spontaneous
glow of enthusiasm.

No sooner then, did this scoundrel imputation
on his honour reach the ear of Peter Stuyvesant,
than he proceeded in a manner which would have
redounded to his credit, even if he had studied for
years, in the library of Don Quixote himself. He
immediately dispatched his valiant trumpeter and
squire, Antony Van Corlear, with orders to ride
night and day, as herald, to the Amphyctionic
council, reproaching them in terms of noble indignation,
for giving ear to the slanders of heathen infidels,
against the character of a Christian, a gentleman
and a soldier—and declaring, that as to the
treacherous and bloody plot alledged against him,
whoever affirmed it to be true, he lied in his teeth!
—to prove which he defied the president of the
council and all of his compeers, or if they pleased,
their puissant champion, captain Alicxsander Partridg
that mighty man of Rhodes, to meet him in
single combat, where he would trust the vindication
of his innocence to the prowess of his arm.

This challenge being delivered with due ceremony,
Antony Van Corlear sounded a trumpet of
defiance before the whole council, ending with a
most horrific and nasal twang, full in the face of
captain Partridg, who almost jumped out of his
skin in an extacy of astonishment, at the noise. This
done he mounted a tall Flanders mare, which he
always rode, and trotted merrily towards the Manhattoes—passing
through Hartford, and Pyquag
and Middletown and all the other border towns—
twanging his trumpet like a very devil, so that the
sweet vallies and banks of the Connecticut resounded
with the warlike melody—and stopping occasionally
to eat pumpkin pies, dance at country frolicks,
and bundle with the beauteous lasses of those
parts—whom he rejoiced exceedingly with his soul
stirring instrument.

But the grand council being composed of considerate
men, had no idea of running a tilting with
such a fiery hero as the hardy Peter—on the contrary
they sent him an answer, couched in the
meekest, the most mild and provoking terms, in
which they assured him that his guilt was proved
to their perfect satisfaction, by the testimony of
divers sage and respectable Indians, and concluding
with this truly amiable paragraph.—“For
youer confidant denialls of the Barbarous plott
charged, will waigh little in ballance against such

evidence, soe that we must still require and seeke
due satisfaction and cecuritie, soe we rest,

Sir,
Youres in wayes of Righteousness, &c.”

I am conscious that the above transaction has
been differently recorded by certain historians of the
east, and elsewhere; who seem to have inherited
the bitter enmity of their ancestors to the brave
Peter—and much good may their inheritance do
them. These moss troopers in literature, whom I
regard with sovereign scorn, as mere vampers up of
vulgar prejudices and fabulous legends, declare, that
Peter Stuyvesant requested to have the charges
against him, enquired into, by commissioners to be
appointed for the purpose; and yet that when such
commissioners were appointed, he refused to submit
to their examination. Now this is partly true
—he did indeed, most gallantly offer, when that he
found a deaf ear was turned to his challenge, to submit
his conduct to the rigorous inspection of a court
of honour—but then he expected to find it an august
tribunal, composed of courteous gentlemen, the governors
and nobility, of the confederate plantations,
and of the province of New Netherlands; where he
might be tried by his peers, in a manner worthy of
his rank and dignity—whereas, let me perish, if
they did not send on to the Manhattoes two lean
sided hungry pettifoggers, mounted on Narraganset

pacers, with saddle bags under their bottoms, and
green satchels under their arms, as if they were
about to beat the hoof from one county court to
another—in search of a law suit.

The chivalric Peter, as well he might, took no
notice of these cunning varlets; who with professional
industry fell to prying and sifting about, in quest of
ex parte evidence; bothering and perplexing divers
simple Indians and old women, with their cross
questioning, until they contradicted and forswore
themselves most horribly—as is every day done in
our courts of justice. Thus having dispatched
their errand to their full satisfation, they returned
to the grand council with their satchels and saddlebags
stuffed full of the most scurvy rumours, apocryphal
stories and outrageous heresies, that ever
were heard—for all which the great Peter did not
care a tobacco stopper; but I warrant me had they
attempted to play off the same trick upon William
the Testy, he would have treated them both to an
ærial gambol on his patent gallows.

The grand council of the east, held a very solemn
meeting on the return of their envoys, and after they
had pondered a long time on the situation of affairs,
were upon the point of adjourning without being able
to agree upon any thing. At this critical moment one
of those little, meddlesome, indefatigable spirits, who
endeavour to establish a character for patriotism by
blowing the bellows of party, until the whole furnace

of politics is red-hot with sparks and cinders
—and who have just cunning enough to know, that
there is no time so favourable for getting on the people's
backs, as when they are in a state of turmoil,
and attending to every body's business but their
own—This aspiring imp of faction, who was called
a great politician, because he had secured a seat in
council by calumniating all his opponents—He I
say, conceived this a fit opportunity to strike a blow
that should secure his popularity among his constituents,
who lived on the borders of Nieuw Nederlandt,
and were the greatest poachers in Christendom,
excepting the Scotch border nobles. Like a
second Peter the hermit, therefore, he stood forth
and preached up a crusade against Peter Stuyvesant,
and his devoted city.

He made a speech which lasted three days, according
to the ancient custom in these parts, in which
he represented the dutch as a race of impious heretics,
who neither believed in witchcraft, nor the
sovereign virtues of horse shoes—who, left their
country for the lucre of gain, not like themselves
for the enjoyment of liberty of conscience—who, in
short, were a race of mere cannibals and anthropophagi,
inasmuch as they never eat cod-fish on saturdays,
devoured swine's flesh without molasses, and
held pumpkins in utter contempt.

This speech had the desired effect, for the council,
being awakened by their serjeant at arms, rubbed

their eyes, and declared that it was just and
politic to declare instant war against these unchristian
anti-pumpkinites. But it was necessary that
the people at large should first be prepared for this
measure, and for this purpose the arguments of the
little orator were earnestly preached from the pulpit
for several sundays subsequent, and earnestly
recommended to the consideration of every good
Christian, who professed, as well as practised the
doctrine of meekness, charity, and the forgiveness
of injuries. This is the first time we hear of the
“Drum Ecclesiastic” beating up for political recruits
in our country; and it proved of such signal
efficacy, that it has since been called into frequent
service throughout our union. A cunning politician
is often found skulking under the clerical robe, with
an outside all religion, and an inside all political
rancour. Things spiritual and things temporal are
strangely jumbled together, like poisons and antidotes
on an apothecary's shelf, and instead of a devout
sermon, the simple church-going folk, have
often a political pamphlet, thrust down their throats,
labeled with a pious text from Scripture.