University of Virginia Library

How Peter Stuyvesant relieved the Sovereign People from
the Burthen of taking Care of the Nation—with sundry
Particulars of his Conduct in Time of Peace.

The history of the reign of Peter Stuyvesant furnishes a
melancholy picture of the incessant cares and vexations inseparable
from government; and may serve as a solemn
warning to all who are ambitious of attaining the seat of
power. Though crowned with victory, enriched by conquest,
and returning in triumph to his metropolis, his exultation
was checked by beholding the sad abuses that had taken
place during the short interval of his absence.

The populace, unfortunately for their own comfort, had

taken a deep draught of the intoxicating cup of power, during
the reign of William the Testy; and though, upon
the accession of Peter Stuyvesant, they felt, with a certain
instinctive perception, which mobs as well as cattle possess,
that the reins of government had passed into stronger
hands; yet they could not help fretting, and chafing, and
champing on the bit, in restive silence.

It seems by some strange and inscrutable fatality, to be
the destiny of most countries (and more especially of your
enlightened republics,) always to be governed by the most
incompetent man in the nation; so that you will scarcely
find an individual throughout the whole community, but
who will detect to you innumerable errors in administration,
and convince you in the end, that had he been at the
head of affairs, matters would have gone on a thousand
times more prosperously. Strange! that that government,
which seems to be so generally understood, should invariably
be so erroneously administered—strange, that the
talent of legislation, so prodigally bestowed, should be denied
to the only man in the nation to whose station it is
requisite.

Thus it was in the present instance, not a man of all the
herd of pseudo-politicians in New-Amsterdam, but was an
oracle on topics of state, and could have directed public affairs
incomparably better than Peter Stuyvesant. But so
severe was the old governor in his disposition that he would
never suffer one of the multitude of able counsellors by
whom he was surrounded, to intrude his advice, and save
the country from destruction,

Scarcely, therefore, had he departed on his expedition
against the Swedes, than the old factions of William Kieft's
reign began to thrust their heads above water, and to gather
together in political meetings, to discuss “the state of the
nation.” At these assemblages the busy burgomasters
and their officious schepens made a very considerable figure.
These worthy dignitaries were no longer the fat, well-fed,
tranquil magistrates, that presided in the peaceful days of
Wouter Van Twiller. On the contrary, being elected by
the people, they formed in a manner a sturdy bulwark between
the mob and the administration. They were great
candidates for popularity, and strenuous advocates for the
rights of the rabble; resembling in disinterested zeal the
wide-mouthed tribunes of ancient Rome, or those virtuous
patriots of modern days, emphatically denominated “the
friends of the people.”

Under the tuition of these profound politicians it is
astonishing how suddenly enlightened the swinish multitude
became, in matters above their comprehensions.
Coblers, tinkers, and tailors, all at once felt themselves
inspired, like those religious idiots, in the glorious times
of monkish illumination; and, without any previous study
or experience, became instantly capable of directing all
the movements of government. Nor must I neglect to
mention a number of superannuated, wrong-headed old
burghers, who had come over when boys, in the crew of
the Goede Vrouw, and were held up as infallible oracles by
the enlightened mob. To suppose that a man who had
helped to discover a country did not know how it ought
to be governed was preposterous in the extreme. It would
have been deemed as much a heresy as, at the present
day, to question the political talents and universal infallibility
of our old “heroes of '76”—and to doubt that he
who had fought for a government, however stupid he
might naturally be, was not competent to fill any station
under it.

But as Peter Stuyvesant had a singular inclination to govern
his province without the assistance of his subjects, he
felt highly incensed on his return to find the factious appearance
they had assumed during his absence. His first measure,
therefore, was to restore perfect order, by prostrating
the dignity of the sovereign people.

He accordingly watched his opportunity, and one evening
when the enlightened mob was gathered together, listening
to a patriotic speech from an inspired cobler the
intrepid Peter, like his great namesake of all the Russias,
all at once appeared among them, with a countenance sufficient
to petrify a millstone. The whole meeting was
thrown into consternation—the orator seemed to have received
a paralytic stroke in the very middle of a sublime
sentence, and stood aghast with open mouth and trembling
knees, whilst the words horror! tyranny! liberty! rights!
taxes! death! destruction! and a deluge of other patriotic
phrases came roaring from his throat, before he had
power to close his lips. The shrewd Peter took no notice
of the skulking throng around him but advancing to the
brawling bully ruffian, and drawing out a huge silver watch,
which might have served in times of yore as a town-clock,
and which is still retained by his descendants as a family
curiosity, requested the orator to mend it and set it going.
The orator humbly confessed it was utterly out of his

power as he was unacquainted with the nature of its construction.
“Nay, but,” said Peter, “try your ingenuity,
man; you see all the springs and wheels, and how easily
the clumsiest hand may stop it, and pull it to pieces; and
why should it not be equally easy to regulate as to stop
it?” The orator declared that his trade was wholly different,
he was a poor cobler, and had never meddled
with a watch in his life. That there were men skilled in
the art, whose business it was to attend to those matters;
but for his part he should only mar the workmanship,
and put the whole in confusion—“Why, harkee, master
of mine,” cried Peter, turning suddenly upon him, with a
countenance that almost petrified the patcher of shoes into
a perfect lapstone—“dost thou pretend to meddle with
the movements of government—to regulate and correct,
and patch, and cobble, a complicated machine, the principles
of which are above thy comprehension, and its simplest
operation too subtle for thy understanding, when thou
canst not correct a trifling error in a common piece of mechanism,
the whole mystery of which is open to thy inspection?—Hence
with thee to the leather and stone,
which are emblems of thy head; cobble thy shoes, and
confine thyself to the vocation for which heaven has fitted
thee—But,” elevating his voice until it made the welkin
ring, “if ever I catch thee, or any of thy tribe, meddling
again with the affairs of government—by St. Nicholas, but
I'll have every mother's bastard of ye flea'd alive, and your
hides stretched for drum-heads, that ye may thenceforth
make a noise to some purpose!”

This threat, and the tremendous voice in which it was
uttered, caused the whole multitude to quake with fear.
The hair of the orator rose on his head like his own swine's
bristles, and not a knight of the thimble present but his
heart died within him and he felt as though he could have
verily escaped through the eye of a needle.

But though this measure produced the desired effect in
reducing the community to order, yet it tended to injure
the popularity of the great Peter among the enlightened
vulgar. Many accused him of entertaining highly aristocratic
sentiments and of leaning too much in favour of
the patricians. Indeed there appeared to be some grounds
for such an accusation, as he always carried himself with
a very lofty soldier-like port, and was somewhat particular
in his dress; dressing himself when not in uniform, in
simple but rich apparel; and was especially noted for

having his sound leg (which was a very comely one)
always arrayed in a red stocking and high heeled shoe.
Though a man of great simplicity of manners, yet there
was something about him that repelled rude familiarity,
while it encouraged frank, and even social intercourse.

He likewise observed some appearance of court ceremony
and etiquette. He received the common class
of visiters on the stoop,[1] before his door, according to
the custom of our Dutch ancestors. But when visiters
were formally received in his parlour, it was expected
they would appear in clean linen; by no means to be
bare footed, and always to take their hats off. On public
occasions he appeared with great pomp of equipage (for,
in truth, his station required a little show and dignity,) and
always rode to church in a yellow waggon with flaming
red wheels.

These symptons of state and ceremony occasioned considerable
discontent among the vulgar. They had been
accustomed to find easy access to their former governors,
and in particular had lived on terms of extreme familiarity
with William the Testy. They therefore were very impatient
of these dignified precautions, which discouraged
intrusion. But Peter Stuyvesant had his own way of
thinking in these matters, and was a staunch upholder of
the dignity of office.

He always maintained that government to be the least
popular, which is most open to popular access and control;
and that the very brawlers against court ceremony,
and the reserve of men in power, would soon despise
rulers among whom they found even themselves to be of
consequence. Such at least, had been the case with the
administration of William the Testy; who, bent on making
himself popular, had listened to every man's advice, suffered
every person to have admittance to his person at all
hours; and, in a word, treated every one as his thorough
equal. By this means every scrub politician and public
busybody was enabled to measure wits with him, and
to find out the true dimensions, not only of his person,
but his mind.—And what great man can stand such
scrutiny?

It is the mystery that envelopes great men, that gives

them half their greatness. We are always inclined to
think highly of those who hold themselves aloof from our
examination. There is likewise a kind of superstitious
reverence for office, which leads us to exaggerate the
merits and abilities of men of power, and to suppose that
they must be constituted different from other men. And,
indeed, faith is as necessary in politics as in religion. It
certainly is of the first importance, that a country should
be governed by wise men; but then it is almost equally
important, that the people should believe them to be wise;
for this belief alone can produce willing subordination.

To keep up, therefore, this desirable confidence in
rulers, the people should be allowed to see as little of
them as possible. He who gains access to cabinets soon
finds out by what foolishness the world is governed. He
discovers that there is a quackery in legislation, as well as
in every thing else; that many a measure, which is supposed
by the million to be the result of great wisdom and
deep deliberation, is the effect of mere chance, or perhaps
of hair-brained experiment.—That rulers have their whims
and errors as well as other men, and after all are not so
wonderfully superior to their fellow-creatures as he at first
imagined; since he finds that even his own opinions have
had some weight with them. Thus awe subsides into confidence,
confidence inspires familiarity, and familiarity
produces contempt. Peter Stuyvesant, on the contrary,
by conducting himself with dignity and loftiness, was
looked up to with great reverence. As he never gave his
reasons for any thing he did, the public always gave him
credit for very profound ones. Every movement, however
intrinsically unimportant, was a matter of speculation; and
his very red stocking excited some respect, as being different
from the stocking of other men.

To these times we may refer the rise of family pride
and aristocratic distinctions;[2] and indeed I cannot but
look back with reverence to the early planting of those
mighty Dutch families, which have taken such vigorous

root, and branched out so luxuriantly in our state. The
blood which has flowed down uncontaminated through a
succession of steady, virtuous generations, since the times
of the patriarchs of Communipaw, must certainly be pure
and worthy. And if so, then are the Van Rensellaers, the
Van Zandts, the Van Hornes, the Rutgers, the Bensons,
the Brinkerhoffs, the Skermerhorns, and all the true descendants
of the ancient Pavonians, the only legitimate nobility
and real lords of the soil.

I have been led to mention thus particularly the well
authenticated claims of our genuine Dutch families, because
I have noticed with great sorrow and vexation, that
they have been somewhat elbowed aside in latter days, by
foreign intruders. It is really astonishing to behold how
many great families have sprung up of late years, who
pride themselves excessively on the score of ancestry. Thus
he who can look up to his father without humiliation assumes
not a little importance—he who can safely talk of
his grandfather is still more vainglorious—but he who can
look back to his great grandfather without blushing is absolutely
intolerable in his pretensions to family.—Bless us!
what a piece of work is here, between these mushrooms of
an hour and these mushrooms of a day!

But from what I have recounted in the former part of
this chapter, I would not have my reader imagine that the
great Peter was a tyrannical governor, ruling his subjects
with a rod of iron—on the contrary, where the dignity of
authority was not implicated, he abounded with generosity
and courteous condescension. In fact he really
believed, though I fear my more enlightened republican
readers will consider it a proof of his ignorance and illiberality,
that in preventing the cup of social life from
being dashed with the intoxicating ingredient of politics,
he promoted the tranquillity and happiness of the people
—and by detaching their minds from subjects which they
could not understand, and which only tended to inflame
their passions, he enabled them to attend more faithfully
and industriously to their proper callings; becoming more
useful citizens and more attentive to their families and fortunes.

So far from having any unreasonable austerity, he delighted
to see the poor and the labouring man rejoice, and
for this purpose was a great promoter of holydays and
public amusements. Under his reign was first introduced
the custom of cracking eggs at Pass or Easter. New-Years

Day was also observed with extravagant festivity—
and ushered in by the ringing of bells and firing of guns.
Every house was a temple to the jolly god. Oceans of
cherry-brandy, true hollands, and mulled cider, were set
afloat on the occasion: and not a poor man in town but
made it a point to get drunk, out of a principle of pure
economy—taking in liquor enough to serve him half a year
afterward.

It would have done one's heart good also to have seen
the valiant Peter, seated among the old burghers and their
wives of a Saturday afternoon, under the great trees that
spread their shade over the Battery, watching the young
men and women as they danced on the green. Here he
would smoke his pipe, crack his joke, and forget the rugged
toils of war in the sweet oblivious festivities of peace.
He would occasionally give a nod of approbation to those
of the young men who shuffled and kicked most vigorously,
and now and then gave a hearty smack, in all honesty
of soul, to the buxom lass that held out longest, and tired
down all her competitors, which she considered as infallible
proofs of her being the best dancer. Once it is true the
harmony of the meeting was rather interrupted. A young
vrouw, of great figure in the gay world, and who, having
lately come from Holland, of course led the fashions in
the city, made her appearance in not more than half a
dozen petticoats, and these too of most alarming shortness.—A
universal whisper ran through the assembly;
the old ladies all felt shocked in the extreme, the young
ladies blushed and felt excessively for the “poor thing,” and
even the governor himself was observed to be a little troubled
in mind. To complete the astonishment of the good
folks, she undertook, in the course of a jig, to describe some
astonishing figures in algebra, which she had learned
from a dancing master in Rotterdam.—Whether she was
too animated in flourishing her feet, or whether some vagabond
Zephyr took the liberty of intruding his services,
certain it is, that in the course of a grand evolution which
would not have disgraced a modern ball room, she made a
most unexpected display—whereat the whole assembly
was thrown into great admiration, several grave country
members were not a little moved, and the good Peter himself,
who was a man of unparalleled modesty, felt himself
grievously scandalized.

The shortness of the female dresses, which had continued
in fashion ever since the days of William Kieft, had

long offended his eye; and though extremely averse to
meddling with the petticoats of the ladies, yet he immediately
recommended that every one should be furnished
with a flounce to the bottom. He likewise ordered that
the ladies, and indeed the gentlemen, should use no other
step in dancing than shuffle and turn, and double trouble;
and forbade, under pain of his high displeasure, any young
lady thenceforth to attempt what was termed “exhibiting
the graces.”

These were the only restrictions he ever imposed upon
the sex; and these were considered by them as tyrannical
oppressions, and resisted with that becoming spirit always
manifested by the gentle sex whenever their privileges are
invaded,—In fact, Peter Stuyvesant plainly perceived, that
if he attempted to push the matter any farther, there was
danger of their leaving off petticoats altogether; so, like a
wise man experienced in the ways of women, he held his
peace, and suffered them ever after to wear their petticoats
and cut their capers as high as they pleased.