University of Virginia Library

9. CHAP. IX.

Among the numerous events, which are each
in their turn the most direful and melancholy of
all possible occurrences, in your interesting and
authentic history; there is none that occasions
such heart rending grief to your historian of sensibility,
as the decline and fall of your renowned and
mighty empires! Like your well disciplined funeral
orator, whose feelings are properly tutored to ebb
and flow, to blaze in enthusiastic eulogy, or gush
in overwhelming sorrow—who has reduced his
impetuous grief to a kind of manual—has prepared
to slap his breast at a comma, strike his forehead
at a semicolon; start with horror at a dash—and
burst into an ungovernable paroxysm of despair at
a note of admiration! Like unto him your woe begone
historian ascends the rostrum; bends in
dumb pathos over the ruins of departed greatness;
casts an upbraiding eye to heaven, a glance of indignant
misery on the surrounding world; settles
his features into an expression of unutterable agony,
and having by this eloquent preparation, invoked
the whole animate and inanimate creation to unite

with him in sorrow, draws slowly his white handkerchief
from his pocket, and as he applies it to his
face, seems to sob to his readers, in the words of a
most tear shedding dutch author, “You who have
noses, prepare to blow them now!”—or rather, to
quote more literally “let every man blow his own
nose!”

Where is the reader who can contemplate
without emotion, the disastrous events by which
the great dynasties of the world have been extinguished?
When wandering, with mental eye
amid the awful and gigantic ruins of kingdoms,
states and empires—marking the tremendous convulsions
that shook their foundations and wrought
their lamentable downfall—the bosom of the melancholy
enquirer swells with sympathy, commensurate
to the sublimity of the surrounding horrors—
each petty feeling—each private misery, is overpowered
and forgotten; like a helpless mortal
struggling under the night mare; so the unhappy
reader pants and groans, and labours, under one
stupendous grief—one vast immoveable idea—one
immense, one mountainous—one overwhelming
mass of woe!

Behold the great Assyrian Empire, founded by
Nimrod, that mighty hunter,; extending its domains
over the fairest portion of the globe—encreasing
in splendour through a long lapse of fifteen
centuries, and terminating ingloriously in the reign of

the effeminate Sardinapalus, consumed in the conflagration
of his capital by the Median Arbaces.

Behold its successor, the Median Empire, augmented
by the warlike power of Persia, under the
sceptre of the immortal Cyrus, and the Egyptian
conquests of the desert-braving Cambyses—accumulating
strength and glory during seven centuries
—but shook to its centre, and finally overthrown,
in the memorable battles of the Granicus, the Issus,
and the plains of Arbela, by the all conquering arm
of Alexander.

Behold next the Grecian Empire; brilliant, but
brief, as the warlike meteor with which it rose and
descended—existing but seven years, in a blaze of
glory—and perishing, with its hero, in a scene of
ignominious debauchery.

Behold next the Roman Eagle, fledged in her
Ausonean aerie, but wheeling her victorious flight
over the fertile plains of Asia—the burning desarts
of Africa, and at length spreading wide her triumphant
wings, the mistress of the world! But mark
her fate—view the imperial Rome, the emporium
of taste and science—the paragon of cities—the
metropolis of the universe—ravaged, sacked and
overturned by successive hordes of fierce barbarians—and
the unwieldly empire, like a huge but
over ripe pumpkin, splitting into the western empire
of the renowned Charlemagne, and the eastern
or Greek Empire of Leo the Great—which latter,

after enduring through six long centuries, is dismembered
by the unhallowed hands of the Saracens.

Behold the Saracenic empire, swayed by the
puissant Gengis Khan, lording it over these conquered
domains, and, under the reign of Tamerlane
subduing the whole Eastern region. Then
cast an eye towards the Persian mountains. Mark
how the fiery shepherd Othman, with his fierce
compeers, descend like a whirlwind on the Nicomedian
plains. Lo! the late fearless Saracen succumbs—he
flies! he falls! His dynasty is destroyed,
and the Ottoman crescent is reared triumphant on
its ruins!

Behold—but why should we behold any more?
Why should we rake among the ashes of extinguished
greatness?—Kingdoms, Principalities, and
Powers, have each had their rise, their progress,
and their fall—each in its turn has swayed a mighty
sceptre—each has returned to its primeval nothingness.
And thus did it fare with the empire of
their High Mightinesses, at the illustrious metropolis
of the Manhattoes, under the peaceful reign
of Walter the Doubter—the fractious reign of
William the Testy, and the chivalric reign of Peter
Stuyvesant—alias, Pieter de Groodt—alias, Hard-koppig-Piet—which
meaneth Peter the Headstrong!

The patron of refinement, hospitality, and the
elegant arts, it shone resplendent, like a jewel in a
dunghill, deriving additional lustre from the barbarism

of the savage tribes, and European hordes,
by which it was surrounded. But alas! neither
virtue, nor talents, eloquence, nor economy, can
avert the inavertable stroke of fate. The Dutch
Dynasty, pressed, and assailed on every side, approached
to its destined end. It had been puffed,
and blown up from small beginnings, to a most corpulent
rotundity—it had resisted the constant incroachments
of its neighbouring foes, with phlegmatic
magnanimity—but the sudden shock of
invasion was too much for its strength.

Thus have I seen a crew of truant urchins,
beating and belabouring a distended bladder, which
maintained its size, uninjured by their assaults—
At length an unlucky brat, more knowing than the
rest, collecting all his might, bounces down with his
bottom upon the inflated globe—The contact of
contending spheres is aweful and destructive—the
bloated membrane yields—it bursts, it explodes
with a noise strange and equivocal, wonderfully resembling
thunder—and is no more.

And now nought remains but sadly and reluctantly
to deliver up this excellent little city into the
hands of its invaders. Willingly would I, like
the impetuous Peter, draw my trusty weapon and
defend it through another volume; but truth, unalterable
truth forbids the rash attempt, and what
is more imperious still, a phantom, hideous, huge
and black, forever haunts my mind, the direful

spectrum of my landlord's bill—which like a carrion
crow hovers around my slow expiring history,
impatient of its death, to gorge upon its carcass.

Suffice it then in brevity to say, that within
three hours after the surrender, a legion of British
beef fed warriors poured into New Amsterdam,
taking possession of the fort and batteries. And
now might be heard the busy sound of hammers
made by the old Dutch burghers, who industriously
nailed up their doors and windows to protect
their vrouws from these fierce barbarians;
whom they contemplated in silent sullenness from
the attic story, as they paraded through the streets.

Thus did Col. Richard Nichols, the commander
of the British force enter into quiet possession
of the conquered realm as locum tenant for the
duke of York. The victory was attended with no
other outrage than that of changing the name of
the province and its metropolis, which thenceforth
were denominated New York, and so have continued
to be called unto the present day. The inhabitants
according to treaty were allowed to maintain
quiet possession of their property, but so inveterately
did they retain their abhorrence to the
British nation, that in a private meeting of the
leading citizens, it was unanimously determined
never to ask any of their conquerors to dinner.

Such was the fate of the renowned province
of New Netherlands, and it formed but one link

in a subtle chain of events, originating at the capture
of Fort Casimer, which has produced the present
convulsions of the globe!—Let not this assertion
excite a smile of incredulity, for extravagant
as it may seem, there is nothing admits of more
conclusive proof—Attend then gentle reader to
this plain deduction, which if thou are a king, an
emperor, or other powerful potentate, I advise thee
to treasure up in thy heart—though little expectation
have I that my work will fall into such hands,
for well I know the care of crafty ministers, to
keep all grave and edifying books of the kind out of
the way of unhappy monarchs—lest peradventure
they should read them and learn wisdom.

By the treacherous surprisal of Fort Casimer,
then, did the crafty Swedes enjoy a transient triumph;
but drew upon their heads the vengeance
of Peter Stuyvesant, who wrested all New Sweden
from their hands—By the conquest of New Sweden
Peter Stuyvesant aroused the claims of Lord Baltimore,
who appealed to the cabinet of Great Britain,
who subdued the whole province of New Netherlands—By
this great atchievement the whole
extent of North America from Nova Scotia to
the Floridas, was rendered one entire dependency
upon the British crown—but mark the consequence
—The hitherto scattered colonies being thus consolidated,
and having no rival colonies to check
or keep them in awe, waxed great and powerful,

and finally becoming too strong for the mother
country, were enabled to shake off its bonds, and by
a glorious revolution became an independent empire—But
the chain of effects stopped not here;
the successful revolution in America produced the
sanguinary revolution in France, which produced
the puissant Buonaparte who produced the French
Despotism, which has thrown the whole world in
confusion!—Thus have these great powers been
successively punished for their ill-starred conquests
—and thus, as I asserted, have all the present convulsions,
revolutions and disasters that overwhelm
mankind, originated in the capture of little Fort
Casimer, as recorded in this eventful history.

Let then the potentates of Europe, beware how
they meddle with our beloved country. If the
surprisal of a comparatively insignificant fort has
overturned the economy of empires, what (reasoning
from analogy) would be the effect of conquering
a vast republic?—It would set all the stars and
planets by the ears—the moon would go to loggerheads
with the sun—the whole system of nature
would be hurled into chaos—unless it was providentially
rescued by the Millenium!