University of Virginia Library

2. CHAP. II.

We are now approaching towards what may be
termed the very pith and marrow of our work,
and if I am not mistaken in my forebodings, we
shall have a world of business to dispatch, in the
ensuing chapters. Thus far have I come on prosperously,
and even beyond my expectations; for to
let the reader into a secret (and truly we have become
so extremely intimate, that I believe I shall
tell him all my secrets before we part) when I first
set out upon this marvellous, but faithful little history,
I felt horribly perplexed to think how I should
ever get through with it—and though I put a bold
face on the matter, and vapoured exceedingly, yet
was it naught but the blustering of a braggadocio
at the commencement of a quarrel, which he feels
sure he shall have to sneak out of in the end.

When I reflected, that this illustrious province,
though of prodigious importance in the eyes of its
inhabitants and its historian, had in sober sadness,
but little wealth or other spoils to reward the trouble

of assailing it, and that it had little to expect
from running wantonly into war, save a sound
drubbing—When I pondered all these things in my
mind, I began utterly to despair, that I should find
either battles, or bloodshed, or any other of those
calamities, which give importance to a nation, to
enliven my history withal.—I regarded this most
amiable of provinces, in the light of an unhappy
maiden, to whom Heaven had not granted sufficient
charms, to excite the diabolical attempts of wicked
man; who had no cruel father to persecute and oppress
her, no abominable ravisher to run away with
her, and who had not strength nor courage enough, of
her own accord, to act the heroine, and go in “quest
of adventures”—in short, who was doomed to vegetate,
in a tranquil, unmolested, hopeless, howling
state of virginity, and finally to die in peace, without
bequeathing a single misery, or outrage, to
those warehouses of sentimental woe, the circulating
libraries.

But thanks to my better stars, they have decreed
otherwise. It is with some communities, as it is
with certain meddlesome individuals, they have a
wonderful facility at getting into scrapes, and I
have always remarked, that those are most liable to
get in, who have the least talent at getting out again.
This is doubtless occasioned by the excessive valour
of those little states; for I have likewise noticed,
that this rampant and ungovernable virtue, is always

most unruly where most confined; which accounts
for its raging and vapouring so amazingly in little
states, little men, and ugly little women more especially.
Thus this little province of Nieuw Nederlandts
has already drawn upon itself a host of
enemies; has had as many hard knocks, as would
gratify the ambition of the most warlike nation;
and is in sober sadness, a very forlorn, distressed,
and woe begone little province!—all which was
no doubt kindly ordered by providence, to give
interest and sublimity, to this most pathetic of
histories.

But I forbear to enter into a detail of the pitiful
maraudings and harrassments, that for a long while
after the victory on the Delaware, continued to
insult the dignity and disturb the repose of the
Nederlanders. Never shall the pen which has
been gloriously wielded in the tremendous battle
of Fort Christina, be drawn in scurvy border broils
and frontier skirmishings—nor the historian who
put to flight stout Risingh and his host, and conquered
all New Sweden, be doomed to battle it in
defence of a pig stye or a hen roost, and wage
ignoble strife with squatters and moss troopers!
Forbid it all ye muses, that a Knickerbocker should
ever so far forget what is due to his family and
himself!

Suffice it then in brevity to say, that the implacable
hostility of the people of the east, which had

so miraculously been prevented from breaking out,
as my readers must remember, by the sudden prevalence
of witchcraft, and the dissensions in the
council of Amphyctions, now again displayed itself
in a thousand grievous and bitter scourings upon
the borders.

Scarcely a month passed but what the little
dutch settlements on the frontiers were alarmed by
the sudden appearance of an invading army from
Connecticut. This would advance resolutely through
the country, like a puissant caravan of the deserts,
the women and children mounted in carts loaded
with pots and kettles, as though they meant to boil
the honest dutchmen alive, and devour them like
so many lobsters. At the tail of these carts would
stalk a crew of long limbed, lank sided varlets, with
axes on their shoulders and packs on their backs,
resolutely bent upon improving the country in despite
of its proprietors. These settling themselves
down, would in a little while completely dislodge
the unfortunate Nederlanders; elbowing them out
of those rich little bottoms and fertile valleys, in
which your dutch yeomanry are so famous for
nestling themselves—For it is notorious that wherever
these shrewd men of the east get a footing, the
honest dutchmen do gradually disappear, retiring
slowly like the Indians before the whites; being
totally discomfited by the talking, chaffering, swapping,
bargaining disposition of their new neighbours.

All these audacious infringements on the territories
of their high mightinesses were accompanied,
as has before been hinted, by a world of rascally
brawls, ribroastings and bundlings, which would
doubtlessly have incensed the valiant Peter to wreak
immediate chastisement, had he not at the very
same time been perplexed by distressing accounts,
from Mynheer Beckman, who commanded the
territories at South river.

The rebellious Swedes who had so graciously
been suffered to remain about the Delaware, already
began to shew signs of mutiny and disaffection.
But what was worse, a peremptory claim was laid
to the whole territory, as the rightful property of
lord Baltimore, by Fendal, a chieftain who ruled
over the colony of Maryland, or Merry-land as it
was anciently called, because that the inhabitants
not having the fear of the Lord before their eyes,
were notoriously prone to get fuddled and make
merry with mint julep and apple toddy. Nay, so
hostile was this bully Fendal, that he threatened,
unless his claim was instantly complied with, to
march incontinently at the head of a potent force
of the roaring boys of Merryland, together with a
great and mighty train of giants who infested the
banks of the Susquehanna[19] —and to lay waste and
depopulate the whole country of South river.

By this it is manifest that this boasted colony,
like all great acquisitions of territory, soon became
a greater evil to the conqueror, than the loss of it
was to the conquered, and caused greater uneasiness
and trouble, than all the territory of the New
Netherlands besides. Thus providence wisely orders,
that one evil shall balance another. The conqueror
who wrests the property of his neighbour,
who wrongs a nation and desolates a country,
though he may acquire increase of empire, and immortal
fame, yet ensures his own inevitable punishment.
He takes to himself a cause of endless anxiety—he
incorporates with his late sound domain,
a loose part—a rotten disaffected member; which
is an exhaustless source of internal treason and disunion,
and external altercation and hostility—Happy
is that nation, which compact, united, loyal in
all its parts, and concentrated in its strength, seeks
no idle acquisition of unprofitable and ungovernable

territory—which, content to be prosperous and
happy, has no ambition to be great. It is like a
man well organized in all his system, sound in
health, and full of vigour; unincumbered by useless
trappings, and fixed in an unshaken attitude.
But the nation, insatiable of territory, whose domains
are scattered, feebly united, and weakly organized,
is like a senseless miser sprawling among
golden stores, open to every attack, and unable to
defend the riches he vainly endeavours to overshadow.

At the time of receiving the alarming dispatches
from South river, the great Peter was busily employed
in quelling certain Indian troubles that had
broken out about Esopus, and was moreover meditating
how to relieve his eastern borders, on the
Connecticut. He however sent word so Mynheer
Beckman to be of good heart, to maintain incessant
vigilance, and to let him know if matters wore a
more threatening appearance; in which case he
would incontinently repair with his warriors of the
Hudson, to spoil the merriment of these Merry
landers; for he coveted exceedingly to have a bout,
hand to hand, with some half a score of these giants
—having never encountered a giant in his whole
life, unless we may so call the stout Risingh, and
he was but a little one.

Nothing however appeared further to molest
the tranquillity of Mynheer Beckman and his

colony. Fendal and his Myrmidons remained at
home, carousing it soundly upon hoe cakes, bacon,
and mint julep, and running horses, and fighting
cocks, for which they were greatly renowned. At
hearing of this Peter Stuyvesant was highly rejoiced,
for notwithstanding his inclination to measure
weapons with these monstrous men of the
Susquehanna, yet he had already as much employment
nearer home, as he could turn his hands to.
Little did he think, worthy soul, that this southern
calm, was but the deceitful prelude to a most terrible
and fatal storm, then brewing, which was soon
to burst forth and overwhelm the unsuspecting
city of New Amsterdam!

Now so it was, that while this excellent governor
was, like a second Cato, giving his little senate
laws, and not only giving them, but enforcing them
too—while he was incessantly travelling the rounds
of his beloved province—posting from place to
place to redress grievances, and while busy at one
corner of his dominions all the rest getting into an
uproar—At this very time, I say, a dark and direful
plot was hatching against him, in that nursery
of monstrous projects, the British Cabinet. The
news of his atchievements on the Delaware, according
to a sage old historian of New Amsterdam,
had occasioned not a little talk and marvel in the
courts of Europe. And the same profound writer
assures us that the cabinet of England began to

entertain great jealousy and uneasiness at the
encreasing power of the Manhattoes, and the valour
of its sturdy yeomanry.

Agents we are told, were at work from the
Amphyctionic council of the East, earnestly urging
the cabinet to assist them in subjugating this
fierce and terrible little province, and that sagacious
cabinet, which ever likes to be dabbling in dirty
water, had already began to lend an ear to their
importunities. Just at this time Lord Baltimore,
whose bullying agent, as has before been mentioned,
had so alarmed Mynheer Beckman, laid his
claim before the cabinet to the lands of South river,
which he complained were unjustly and forcibly
detained from him, by these daring usurpers of the
New Nederlandts.

At this it is said his majesty Charles II, who
though Defender of the Faith, was an arrant,
lounging, rake-helly roystering wag of a Prince,
settled the whole matter by a dash of the pen, by
which he made a present of a large tract of North
America, including the province of New Netherlands,
to his brother the duke of York—a donation
truly loyal, since none but great monarchs have a
right to give away, what does not belong to them.

That this munificent gift might not be merely
nominal, his majesty on the 12th of March 1664,
ordered that a gallant armament should be forthwith
prepared, to invade the city of New Amsterdam

by land and water, and put his brother in
complete possession of the premises.

Thus critically are situated the affairs of the
New Netherlanders. The honest burghers, so far
from thinking of the jeopardy in which their interests
are placed, are soberly smoking their pipes
and thinking of nothing at all—the privy councillors
of the province, are at this moment snoring in full
quorum, like the drones of five hundred bagpipes,
while the active Peter, who takes all the labour of
thinking and acting upon himself, is busily devising
some method of bringing the grand council of
Amphyctions to terms. In the mean while an
angry cloud is darkly scowling on the horizon—
soon shall it rattle about the ears of these dozing
Nederlanders and put the mettle of their stout
hearted governor completely to the trial.

But come what may, I here pledge my veracity,
that in all warlike conflicts and subtle perplexities,
he shall still acquit himself with the gallant bearing
and spotless honour of a noble minded obstinate
old cavalier—Forward then to the charge!—shine
out propitious stars on the renowned city of the
Manhattoes; and may the blessing of St. Nicholas
go with thee—honest Peter Stuyvesant!