University of Virginia Library

8. CHAP. VIII.

Pause, oh most considerate reader! and contemplate
for a moment the sublime and melancholy
scene, which the present crisis of our history
presents! An illustrious and venerable little
town—the metropolis of an immense extent of
flourishing but unenlightened, because uninhabited
country—Garrisoned by a doughty host of
orators, chairmen, committee-men, Burgomasters,
Schepens and old women—governed by a determined
and strong headed warrior, and fortified
by mud batteries, pallisadoes and resolutions.—
blockaded by sea, beleaguered by land, and threatened
with direful desolation from without; while
its very vitals are torn, and griped, and becholiced
with internal faction and commotion!
Never did the historic pen record a page of more
complicated distress, unless it be the strife that
distracted the Israelites during the siege of Jerusalem—where
discordant parties were cutting each
others throats, at the moment when the victorious
legions of Titus had toppled down their bulwarks,
and were carrying fire and sword, into the very
sanctum sanctorum of the temple.

Governor Stuyvesant having triumphantly, as
has been recorded, put his grand council to the
rout, and thus delivered himself from a multitude of
impertinent advisers, dispatched a categorical reply
to the commanders of the invading squadron;
wherein he asserted the right and title of their
High Mightinesses the lords States general to the
province of New Netherlands, and trusting in the
righteousness of his cause, set the whole British
nation at defiance! My anxiety to extricate my
readers, and myself, from these disastrous scenes,
prevents me from giving the whole of this most
courteous and gallant letter which concluded in
these manly and affectionate terms.

Thus having resolutely thrown his gauntlet,
the brave Hard-koppig Piet stuck a huge pair of
horse pistols in his belt, girded an immense powder

horn on his side—thrust his sound leg into a Hessian
boot, and clapping his fierce little war hat on
top of his head—paraded up and down in front of
his house, determined to defend his beloved city
to the last.

While all these woeful struggles and dissensions
were prevailing in the unhappy little city of New
Amsterdam, and while its worthy but ill starred
governor was framing the above quoted letter, the
English commanders did not remain idle. They
had agents secretly employed to foment the fears
and clamours of the populace, and moreover circulated
far and wide through the adjacent country a
proclamation, repeating the terms they had already
held out in their summons to surrender, and beguiling
the simple Nederlanders with the most
crafty and conciliating professions. They promised
every man who voluntarily submitted to the
authority of his British majesty, that he should retain
peaceable possession of his house, his vrouw
and his cabbage garden. That he should be suffered
to smoke his pipe, speak dutch, wear as
many breeches as he pleased, and import bricks,
tiles and stone jugs from Holland, instead of
manufacturing them on the spot—That he should
on no account be compelled to learn the English
language, or keep accounts in any other way than
by casting them up upon his fingers, and chalking
them down upon the crown of his hat; as is still

observed among the dutch yeomanry at the present
day. That every man should be allowed quietly
to inherit his father's hat, coat, shoe-buckles, pipe,
and every other personal appendage, and that no
man should be obliged to conform to any improvements,
inventions, or any other modern innovations,
but on the contrary should be permitted to
build his house, follow his trade, manage his farm,
rear his hogs, and educate his children, precisely
as his ancestors did before him since time immemorial—Finally,
that he should have all the benefits
of free trade, and should not be required to acknowledge
any other saint in the calendar than
saint Nicholas, who should thenceforward, as before,
be considered the tutelar saint of the city.

These terms, as may be supposed, appeared
very satisfactory to the people; who had a great
disposition to enjoy their property unmolested, and
a most singular aversion to engage in a contest,
where they could gain little more than honour and
broken heads—the first of which they held in philosophic
indifference, the latter in utter detestation.
By these insidious means, therefore, did the English
succeed in alienating the confidence and affections
of the populace from their gallant old governor,
whom they considered as obstinately bent upon
running them into hideous misadventures, and did
not hesitate to speak their minds freely, and abuse
him most heartily—behind his back.

Like as a mighty grampus, who though assailed
and buffeted by roaring waves and brawling surges,
still keeps on an undeviating course; and though overwhelmed
by boisterous billows, still emerges from
the troubled deep, spouting and blowing with tenfold
violence—so did the inflexible Peter pursue, unwavering,
his determined career, and rise contemptuous,
above the clamours of the rabble.

But when the British warriors found by the
tenor of his reply that he set their power at defiance,
they forthwith dispatched recruiting officers to Jamaica,
and Jericho, and Nineveh, and Quag, and
Patchog, and all those redoubtable towns which had
been subdued of yore by the immortal Stoffel Brinkerhoff,
stirring up the valiant progeny of Preserved
Fish, and Determined Cock, and those other illustrious
squatters, to assail the city of New Amsterdam
by land. In the mean while the hostile ships
made awful preparation to commence a vehement
assault by water.

The streets of New Amsterdam now presented
a scene of wild dismay and consternation. In vain
did the gallant Stuyvesant order the citizens to arm
and assemble in the public square or market place.
The whole party of Platter breeches in the course of
a single night had changed into arrant old women—a
metamorphosis only to be paralleled by the prodigies
recorded by Livy as having happened at Rome at
the approach of Hannibal, when statues sweated in

pure affright, goats were converted into sheep, and
cocks turning into hens ran cackling about the
streets.

The harrassed Peter, thus menaced from without
and tormented from within—baited by the burgomasters
and hooted at by the rabble, chafed and
growled and raged like a furious bear tied to a stake
and worried by a legion of scoundrel curs. Finding
however that all further attempt to defend the city
was in vain, and hearing that an irruption of borderers
and moss troopers was ready to deluge him
from the east, he was at length compelled, in spite
of his mighty heart, which swelled in his throat
until it had nearly choked him, to consent to a treaty
of surrender.

Words cannot express the transports of the
people, on receiving this agreeable intelligence;
had they obtained a conquest over their enemies,
they could not have indulged greater delight—The
streets resounded with their congratulations—they
extolled their governor as the father and deliverer
of his country—they crowded to his house to testify
their gratitude, and were ten times more noisy in
their plaudits, than when he returned, with victory
perched upon his beaver, from the glorious capture
of Fort Christina—But the indignant Peter shut up
his doors and windows and took refuge in the innermost
recesses of his mansion, that he might not
hear the ignoble rejoicings of the rabble.

In consequence of this consent of the governor,
a parley was demanded of the besieging forces to
treat of the terms of surrender. Accordingly a
deputation of six commissioners was appointed on
both sides, and on the 27th August, 1664, a capitulation
highly favourable to the province, and
honourable to Peter Stuyvesant, was agreed to by
the enemy, who had conceived a high opinion of
the valour of the men of the Manhattoes, and the
magnanimity and unbounded discretion of their
governor.

One thing alone remained, which was, that the
articles of surrender should be ratified, and signed
by the chivalric Peter—When the commissioners
respectfully waited upon him for this purpose, they
were received by the hardy old warrior, with the
most grim and bitter courtesy. His warlike accoutrements
were laid aside—an old India night gown
was wrapped around his rugged limbs, a red woollen
night cap overshadowed his frowning brow, and an
iron grey beard, of three days growth, heightened
the grizly terrors of his visage. Thrice did he
seize a little worn out stump of a pen, and essay
to sign the loathesome paper—thrice did he clinch
his teeth, and make a most horrible countenance,
as though a pestiferous dose of rhubarb, senna, and
ipecacuanha, had been offered to his lips, at length
dashing it from him, he seized his brass hilted
sword, and jerking it from the scabbard, swore by

St. Nicholas, he'd sooner die than yield to any
power under heaven.

In vain was every attempt to shake this sturdy
resolution—menaces, remonstrances, revilings were
exhausted to no purpose—for two whole days was
the house of the valiant Peter besieged by the
clamourous rabble, and for two whole days did he
betake himself to his arms, and persist in a magnanimous
refusal to ratify the capitulation—thus, like
a second Horatius Cocles, bearing the whole brunt
of war, and defending this modern Rome, with the
prowess of his single arm!

At length the populace finding that boisterous
measures, did but incense more determined opposition,
bethought themselves of a humble expedient,
by which haply, the governor's lofty ire might be
soothed, and his resolution undermined. And now
a solemn and mournful procession, headed by the
Burgomasters, and Schepens, and followed by the
enlightened vulgar, moves slowly to the governor's
dwelling—bearing the unfortunate capitulation.
Here they found the stout old hero, drawn up like
a giant into his castle—the doors strongly barricadoed,
and himself in full regimentals, with his
cocked hat on his head, firmly posted with a blunderbuss
at the garret window.

There was something in this formidable position
that struck even the ignoble vulgar, with awe and
admiration. The brawling multitude could not but

reflect with self abasement, upon their own degenerate
conduct, when they beheld their hardy but deserted
old governor, thus faithful to his post, like a
forlorn hope, and fully prepared to defend his ungrateful
city to the last. These compunctions however,
were soon overwhelmed, by the recurring
tide of public apprehension. The populace arranged
themselves before the house, taking off their
hats, with most respectful humility—One of the
Burgomasters, of that popular class of orators, who,
as old Sallust observes, are “talkative rather than
eloquent” stepped forth and addressed the governor
in a speech of three hours length; detailing in
the most pathetic terms the calamitous situation of
the province, and urging him in a constant repetition
of the same arguments and words, to sign the
capitulation.

The mighty Peter eyed him from his little garret
window in grim silence—now and then his eye
would glance over the surrounding rabble, and an
indignant grin, like that of an angry mastiff, would
mark his iron visage—But though he was a man of
most undaunted mettle—though he had a heart as
big as an ox, and a head that would have set adamant
to scorn—yet after all he was a mere mortal:
—wearied out by these repeated oppositions and
this eternal haranguing, and perceiving that unless
he complied, the inhabitants would follow ther inclinations,
or rather their fears, without waiting for

his consent, he testily ordered them to hand him
up the paper. It was accordingly hoisted to him
on the end of a pole, and having scrawled his name
at the bottom of it, he excommunicated them all for
a set of cowardly, mutinous, degenerate platterbreeches—threw
the capitulation at their heads,
slammed down the window, and was heard stumping
down stairs with the most vehement indignation.
The rabble incontinently took to their heels; even
the Burgomasters were not slow in evacuating the
premises, fearing lest the sturdy Peter might issue
from his den, and greet them with some unwelcome
testimonial of his displeasure.