University of Virginia Library

5. CHAP. V.

But notwithstanding that the grand council, as
I have already shewn, were amazingly discreet in
their proceedings respecting the New Netherlands,
and conducted the whole with almost as much
silence and mystery, as does the sage British cabinet
one of its ill star'd secret expeditions—yet did the
ever watchful Peter receive as full and accurate information
of every movement, as does the court of
France of all the notable enterprises I have mentioned.—He
accordingly set himself to work, to
render the machinations of his bitter adversaries
abortive.

I know that many will censure the precipitation
of this stout hearted old governor, in that he hurried
into the expenses of fortification, without ascertaining
whether they were necessary, by prudently
waiting until the enemy was at the door.
But they should recollect Peter Stuyvesant had not
the benefit of an insight into the modern arcana of
politics, and was strangely bigotted to certain obsolete

maxims of the old school; among which he
firmly believed, that, to render a country respected
abroad, it was necessary to make it formidable at
home—and that a nation should place its reliance
for peace and security, more upon its own strength,
than on the justice or good will of its neighbours.—
He proceeded therefore, with all diligence, to put
the province and metropolis in a strong posture
of defence.

Among the few remnants of ingenious inventions
which remained from the days of William the
Testy, were those impregnable bulwarks of public
safety, militia laws; by which the inhabitants were
obliged to turn out twice a year, with such military
equipments—as it pleased God; and were put under
the command of very valiant taylors, and man
milliners, who though on ordinary occasions, the
meekest, pippen-hearted little men in the world,
were very devils at parades and court-martials,
when they had cocked hats on their heads, and
swords by their sides. Under the instructions of
these periodical warriors, the gallant train bands
made marvellous proficiency in the mystery of gunpowder.
They were taught to face to the right, to
wheel to the left, to snap off empty firelocks without
winking, to turn a corner without any great uproar
or irregularity, and to march through sun and
rain from one end of the town to the other without
flinching—until in the end they became so valourous

that they fired off blank cartridges, without so
much as turning away their heads—could hear the
largest field piece discharged, without stopping
their ears or falling into much confusion—and would
even go through all the fatigues and perils of a summer
day's parade, without having their ranks much
thinned by desertion!

True it is, the genius of this truly pacific people
was so little given to war, that during the intervals
which occurred between field days, they generally
contrived to forget all the military tuition they
had received; so that when they re-appeared on parade,
they scarcely knew the butt end of the musket
from the muzzle, and invariably mistook the right
shoulder for the left—a mistake which however
was soon obviated by shrewdly chalking their left
arms. But whatever might be their blunders and
aukwardness, the sagacious Kieft, declared them to
be of but little importance—since, as he judiciously
observed, one campaign would be of more instruction
to them than a hundred parades; for though
two-thirds of them might be food for powder, yet
such of the other third as did not run away, would
become most experienced veterans.

The great Stuyvesant had no particular veneration
for the ingenious experiments and institutions
of his shrewd predecessor, and among other things,
held the militia system in very considerable contempt,
which he was often heard to call in joke—for

he was sometimes fond of a joke—governor Kieft's
broken reed. As, however, the present emergency
was pressing, he was obliged to avail himself of such
means of defence as were next at hand, and accordingly
appointed a general inspection and parade of
the train bands. But oh! Mars and Bellona, and
all ye other powers of war, both great and small,
what a turning out was here!—Here came men
without officers, and officers without men—long
fowling pieces, and short blunderbusses—muskets
of all sorts and sizes, some without bayonets, others
without locks, others without stocks, and many
without lock, stock, or barrel.—Cartridge-boxes,
shot belts, powder-horns, swords, hatchets, snicker-snees,
crow-bars, and broomsticks, all mingled
higgledy, piggledy—like one of our continental armies
at the breaking out of the revolution.

The sturdy Peter eyed this ragged regiment
with some such rueful aspect, as a man would eye
the devil; but knowing, like a wise man, that all
he had to do was to make the best out of a bad bargain,
he determined to give his heroes a seasoning.
Having therefore drilled them through the manual
exercise over and over again, he ordered the
fifes to strike up a quick march, and trudged his
sturdy boots backwards and forwards, about the
streets of New Amsterdam, and the fields adjacent,
till I warrant me, their short legs ached, and
their fat sides sweated again. But this was not

all; the martial spirit of the old governor caught
fire from the sprightly music of the fife, and he resolved
to try the mettle of his troops, and give
them a taste of the hardships of iron war. To
this end he encamped them as the shades of evening
fell, upon a hill formerly called Bunker's hill, at
some distance from the town, with a full intention
of initiating them into the dicipline of camps, and
of renewing the next day, the toils and perils of
the field. But so it came to pass, that in the night
there fell a great and heavy rain, which descended
in torrents upon the camp, and the mighty army
of swing tails strangely melted away before it; so
that when Gaffer Phœbus came to shed his morning
beams upon the place, saving Peter Stuyvesant
and his trumpeter Van Corlear, scarce one was to
be found of all the multitude, that had taken roost
there the night before.

This awful dissolution of his army would have
appalled a commander of less nerve than Peter
Stuyvesant; but he considered it as a matter of
but small importance, though he thenceforward
regarded the militia system with ten times greater
contempt than ever, and took care to provide himself
with a good garrison of chosen men, whom
he kept in pay, of whom he boasted that they at
least possessed the quality, indispensible in soldiers,
of being water proof.

The next care of the vigilant Stuyvesant, was

to strengthen and fortify New Amsterdam. For
this purpose he reared a substantial barrier that
reached across the island from river to river, being
the distance of a full half a mile!—a most stupendous
work, and scarcely to be rivalled in the opinion
of the old inhabitants, by the great wall of China,
or the Roman wall erected in Great Britain against
the incursions of the Scots, or the wall of brass
that Dr. Faustus proposed to build round Germany,
by the aid of the devil.

The materials of which this wall was constructed
are differently described, but from a majority of
opinions I am inclined to believe that it was a
picket fence of especial good pine posts, intended
to protect the city, not merely from the sudden invasions
of foreign enemies, but likewise from the
incursions of the neighbouring Indians.

Some traditions it is true, have ascribed the
building of this wall to a later period, but they are
wholly incorrect; for a memorandum in the Stuyvesant
manuscript, dated towards the middle of the
governor's reign, mentions this wall particularly, as
a very strong and curious piece of workmanship,
and the admiration of all the savages in the neighbourhood.
And it mentions moreover the alarming
circumstance of a drove of stray cows, breaking
through the grand wall of a dark night; by which
the whole community of New Amsterdam was
thrown into as great panic, as were the people of

Rome, by the sudden irruptions of the Gauls, or
the valiant citizens of Philadelphia, during the
time of our revolution: by a fleet of empty kegs
floating down the Delaware.[4]

But the vigilance of the governor was more
especially manifested by an additional fortification
which he erected as an out work to fort Amsterdam,
to protect the sea bord, or water edge. I
have ascertained by the most painful and minute
investigation, that it was neither fortified according
to the method of Evrard de Bar-le-duc, that
earliest inventor of complete system; the dutch
plan of Marollois; the French method invented by
by Antoine de Ville; the Flemish of Stevin de
Bruges; the Polish of Adam de Treitach, or the
Italian of Sardi.

He did not pursue either of the three systems
of Pagan; the three of Vauban; the three of Scheiter;
the three of Coehorn, that illustrious dutchman,
who adapted all his plans to the defence of

low and marshy countries—or the hundred and
sixty methods, laid down by Francisco Marchi of
Bologna.

The fortification did not consist of a Polygon,
inscribed in a circle, according to Alain Manesson
Maillet; nor with four long batteries, agreeably to
the expensive system of Blondel; nor with the
fortification a rebours of Dona Rosetti, nor the
Caponiere Couverte, of the ingenious St. Julien;
nor with angular polygons and numerous casemates,
as recommended by Antoine d'Herbert; who
served under the duke of Wirtemberg, grandfather
to the second wife, and first queen of Jerome
Bonaparte—otherwise called Jerry Sneak.

It was neither furnished with bastions, fashioned
after the original invention of Zisca, the
Bohemian; nor those used by Achmet Bassa, at
Otranto in 1480; nor those recommended by San
Micheli of Verona; neither those of triangular
form, treated of by Specle, the high dutch engineer
of Strasbourg, or the famous wooden bastions,
since erected in this renowned city, the destruction
of which, is recorded in a former chapter. In
fact governor Stuyvesant, like the celebrated Montalembert,
held bastions in absolute contempt; yet
did he not like him substitute a tenaille angulaire
des polygons à ailerons.

He did not make use of Myrtella towers, as
are now erecting at Quebec; neither did he erect

flagstaffs and windmills as was done by his illustrious
predecessor of Saardam; nor did he employ
circular castellated towers, or batteries with two
tier of heavy artillery, and a third of columbiads on
the top; as are now erecting for the defence of this
defenceless city.

My readers will perhaps be surprized, that out
of so many systems, governor Stuyvesant should
find none to suit him; this may be tolerably accounted
for, by the simple fact, that many of them
were unfortunately invented long since his time;
and as to the rest, he was as ignorant of them, as
the child that never was and never will be born.
In truth, it is more than probable, that had they all
been spread before him, with as many more into
the bargain; that same peculiarity of mind, that
acquired him the name of Hard-kopping Piet,
would have induced him to follow his own plans,
in preference to them all. In a word, he pursued
no system either past, present or to come; he
equally disdained to imitate his predecessors, of
whom he had never heard—his contemporaries,
whom he did not know; or his unborn successors,
whom, to say the truth, he never once thought of
in his whole life. His great and capacious mind
was convinced, that the simplest method is often
the most efficient and certainly the most expeditious,
he therefore fortified the water edge with a formidable
mud breast work, solidly faced, after the

manner of the dutch ovens common in those days,
with clam shells.

These frowning bulwarks in process of time,
came to be pleasantly overrun by a verdant carpet
of grass and clover, and their high embankments
overshadowed by wide spreading sycamores, among
whose foilage the little birds sported about, making
the air to resound with their joyous notes. The
old burghers would repair of an afternoon to smoke
their pipes under the shade of their branches, contemplating
the golden sun as he gradually sunk
into the west an emblem of that tranquil end toward
which themselves were hastening—while the young
men and the damsels of the town would take many
a moonlight stroll among these favourite haunts,
watching the silver beams of chaste Cynthia, tremble
along the calm bosom of the bay, or light up
the white sail of some gliding bark, and interchanging
the honest vows of constant affection.
Such was the origin of that renowned walk, the
Battery, which though ostensibly devoted to the
purposes of war, has ever been consecrated to the
sweet delights of peace. The favourite walk of
declining age—the healthful resort of the feeble
invalid—the sunday refreshment of the dusty tradesman—the
scene of many a boyish gambol—the
rendezvous of many a tender assignation—the
comfort of the citizen—the ornament of New York,
and the pride of the lovely island of Mannahata.