The buccaneers a romance of our own country, in its ancient day : illustrated with divers marvellous histories, and antique and facetious episodes : gathered from the most authentic chronicles & affirmed records extant from the settlement of the Niew Nederlandts until the times of the famous Richard Kid |
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| 4. | SECTION III. |
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 | The buccaneers |  |
SECTION III.
Abus. Some envious devil has ruined us yet more;
The fort's revolted to the Emperor;
The gates are opened, the portcullis drawn;
And deluges of armies, from the town
Come pouring in:—
Dryden's Aurengzebe.
With a step doubtful, and as though distrusting the purpose
for which it was used, a mind undetermined and a
heart that beat heavily with a painful foreboding of anticipated
misfortune, Milbourne accompanied by his associate,
De Lanoy, and followed closely by the daring freebooter,
who had enlisted himself in his service, proceeded
on the errand, rather for reconnoitre than for the sake of
forming a treaty for amicable adjustment, which, in the
state of the Leisler faction, was so adviseable. Slowly
they descended to the outlet of the fort, which was now
indeed the last hold of their party's power, whose vaunted
strength in danger had seemed to crumble to dust like an
exposed corse from the touch, when disinterred after long
resting in the solitude of the grave—indeed their glory
had been brief; it was now fast expiring, like the quick
and brilliant flash of a dying light. As they went along,
the two leaders for awhile spoke not a word in converse
with each other; for now the excitement which had stirred
the spirit in the council unsupported by the presence
of others, and the momentary cause which had enkindled
the fierce temper of the one and called forth all the calmness
of deliberation in the other, had passed away like
the smoke of a funeral pyre when they quitted the chamber
wherein their comrades had assembled; and disturbed
with like feelings of distress at the disasters which evidently
thickened around them, they instinctively for a
while, both hesitating to break silence, avoided discourse,
The night wind blew thrilling, sharp, and cold,
and the crusted snow and crisped ice, worn by the passage
of the past day, crackled beneath their tread, and
yet the vast heaven, strown as it were with hosts of living
drops of silver, looked calm and beautiful, while the
moon, glittering with radiant lustre, walked the broad
sky and smiled on the earth, whose whitened bosom,
glowing in the light, gleamed like innumerable spangles
on the robes of beauty; all around was visible, and the
long line of parapets cast their deep shadows like frowns
upon the snow clad ground; the path of Milbourne and
his associates was uninterrupted, except when hailed by
the eager and troublesome questions and inquiry of the
sleepless and despairing partizan who now and then met
them, and who strove to catch from their brief replies the
least spark of hope; yet as he pursued his way, the quick
eye of Milbourne marked the solitary and deserted state
of the garrison: shorn of half the former numbers that
had composed it, and with those left all was disorder and
confusion; where centinels should have been, their post
was deserted, and the men were gathered in groups distant
from their duty, and there were dark whispers with
some, while the countenances of many in the moonlight
looked pallid and aghast as palsied with terror, and the
brows of others wore gloomy discontent, the murmurs of
which often broke forth unrestrained like the muttering
growls of some angered beast of prey, as hungered and
disappointed of food he retraces his track to his darksome
den—the heavens, it is true, wore the sweet look
of peace; yet the mind of man as it is ever in this weary
life of ours, was wrathful and tempestuous and swelling
with bleak storms; indeed, as Milbourne gazed about him
and beheld the truth of what had been announced to his
disheartened comrades in the Council, the too palpable
desertion of Leisler's former strongest, and as supposed,
most faithful retainers, and the apparent neglect of every
appearance of preparation to oppose the stern approach
of Sloughter, which ought to have been now momently
expected, and his hostile guise met with suitable reception,
the sight, and the thought struck heavy to his heart that
neither the forlorn state nor danger to which they were
now reduced had been magnified, and yet even more than
all, there cut deep unto the core that all had been
brought on by those who had been most trusted, who had
been most counted friends; ingratitude had thinned the
ranks that should have circled round and made a wall
through which no power of man could break; yet so it was,
even like the flower that adorns the bush in summer-tide
and sucks its strength for life; at the first touch of winter,
it yellows and drops away, leaving that stalk which had delighted
in its beauty naked and defenceless, to be swept
away by the wind; and yet nature parts these, the flower
and its supporter, while here no cause existed for desertion
except the baseness of men's hearts; and the haughty
and fiery soul of Milbourne as he thus reflected felt that
could he but have an hour's revenge upon the traitors
who had thus quitted and sold the cause of their patron
for their selfish interest, he would quaff without repining
the bitterest poison of his fate, even to its last dregs—
though when the drawbridge rose behind him, and the
chains of the portcullis rattled as they dropt down the
weight they had lifted up, while he and his associates
passed under, and when he stood beyond the moat and saw
nothing above the bastions but the high steep roofs of the
kerck, the gevangen huis and the governor's residence, a
fear arose within him that he had done rash to depart on an
errand to the foe, leaving dissatisfaction and almost terror
with those who still remained, and exposing his own safety
at the mercy of a man to whose faith he was a stranger, and
who as of course was infuriated by the show of resistance
that had been returned to his summons to yield; and how
such was likely to receive him and his companions,
questioning his authority, even at the moment they came
to treat with him, he was ignorant; albeit, he was not
at ease concerning the manner they might be treated by
one haughty and confident in success, and doubtless irritated
by as yet an almost unbending opposition, even were
this man one, contrary to the usual nature of mankind, of
hope like a plank that the drowning mariner strives
to catch at, even though floating far beyond his grasp—in
spite of all depicted by the stern reality that, had stared him
in the face, would grow on his mind and cling to his heart
loth to quit him, that had he not left the walls of the fort,
his activity might, in the despairing souls around him,
have sown his own unquenchable fire, and the drooping
spirit of the remaining partisans might have still been
raised; and so strong at times did this deceiving feeling
come upon him, that he was nearly tempted to retrace
his steps, nor sue for one atom of kindness from the new
governor, nor descend to the meanness of searching for
his plans against them until the ordnance of the fort gave
out its last breath of death, and the ramparts could no
longer be made good for want of a man to defend them.
“God's wo on Egypt light heavily upon the white hearted
and unmanly knaves,” quoth he involuntarily, as the
darkest side of the picture of a sudden obtruded its gloomy
yet true and faithful images upon his mind, and for a time
suppressed all trust and dependance on more pleasing
forms: “There is nought in them, not a child's courage;
the sick man's ague hath chilled them, frozen them powerless.
'Sblood! I had as soon make good a breach with
a herd of deer as trust them; aye it were better, for a hart
at bay oft gives fatal wounds to the hunter, while these war
accoutred girls tremble too much to raise a hand gun—
and yet with half the number of those we muster behind yon
gallant breastwork, think you not De Lanoy, were they but
men resolved to stand to the worst, though their blood
ran for it, this servile journey of ours had not been spared?
God! it frets me sorely; ere I could crouch to take
this Sloughter's hand and cry in his train, methinks my
flesh should kiss his dagger.”
“Sooth Captain Milbourne” replied his comate, “my
thought and resolution is akin to yours, for I feel it were
a degradation to give way one atom, to this commissioned
tool of Bayard, and Van Kortlandt; I go to him with
as little wish for favor at such hated hands, as even you,
and had there been bold hearts and determined steels behind
a step upon such embassy as this, but when my voice enforced
this counsel, you must be aware of my motives,—policy
dictated the course we now pursue, for indeed it was
plain, had this not been indulged our fear stricken adherents,
there had been nathless all reason an open rebellion,
and we who might oppose ere this had changed place with
Bayard and Nichols, in their condemned dungeons; but
as it is, we must bring them back so sore a tale as would
rouse them were they dead, and the shroud upon their
limbs,—the harness of battle is not yet laid aside, the cuirass
is on their breasts, and if I judge right of the nature
of men, they can be deluded to the frenzy of despair;
when there is no hope of safety for life or limb left them,
cowards become brave men; and mark me we can, an I mistake
not, provoke this Sloughter to send with us a message
that though they be palsied to statues, shall make the
blood run flames within their veins; but take my advice
Milbourne, be not too hasty with this man, dive into him
first, read his heart if we can, he may not be so weak as
we have heard, to yield to Van Kortlandt's guidance, as he
were a senseless boat rowed by the oar; albeit as matters
are, let us use caution, and I build on this errand of ours,
as one from which much good to Leisler and our friends may
come, and if fortune in this time of need, stands at our
side, if not by force, at least by stratagem, we may ensnare
this court parasite, in toils that he will find it
hard to break.
“Nay, De Lanoy, believe me you are in error,” returned
the other, “no guile with all the diplomatic art of which you
are master will avail; the villain Edsell is with him,
and will watch our words as a lynx would his prey, ere this
the accursed greybeard, (I regret he tasted not my steel)
hath his ear; and think you not where the snake couches,
he drops no poison? Therefore I disagree with your advice—let
our course I say be bold; even if with our swords
we hew a retreat, it will serve us better, as you have well
devised, to inflame the dogs we leave in the shelter of
the fort,—it will awaken in them that fear for themselves,
until which is aroused few men are stirred on; an we meet a
scurvy greeting I repeat, it will try to the last their mettle,
shall survive to see us die, and learn that a brave man's
death, is a coward's shame. But hold, I am too loud? here
are some who I should be unwilling to have heard our
converse.”
At the end of the causeway, which from the western gate
led down the hill, whose top the fort crowned, was a long
clear space, or rather plain of ground, smooth and level, and
though now one desolate sheet of snow, sullied in whiteness
by numerous crossed and trampled pathways to and from
the fort and streets that opened on it, yet it was often the
scene of hilarity and pleasure in summer days, for here
the burghers held an annual cattle fair, and sometimes a
market; and the choicest products of Staaten Eylandt
and Mattouwacs on this place tempted the appetite, taste,
and purchase of the epicure—whose eagerness had at
least one good effect, that of rewarding the industrious
yeoman. However, this piece of almost vacant ground
had more probably been left so that the fire of the fort
in a land attack might not interfere with the houses of the
city, rather than for the purpose of any agricultural display;
nevertheless, there had been so little danger from
this quarter, that most of the cannon on this side of the
fort had been removed, and about the centre of the marktvelt,
(for such was the name given to the open ground,)
a small building, or more properly a shed of rough-hewn
boards, had been raised mostly for the accommodation of
the burgomasters and other prominent dignitaries, who
came to see that order was kept among the quarrelsome
slaves, who were wont here to tend their masters' market
truck, and who, while all went on right, quietly and comfortably
in the public service, smoked and dozed away
their time without fear of disturbance or interruption;
for the presence of great men alone is sufficient to awe
the vulgar in silence. The steps of Milbourne and
De Lanoy, during the brief interchange of words above
detailed, had wended so rapidly towards the burgomasters'
place of respect and retirement, which stood immediately
in their path, that Eumet had been left several
paces in their rear, either from his having been accustomed
(for it is to be remarked in the manner of the mariner,
that his walk on shore appears as though he trod in an
element which was not congenial to his nature:) or from
a conscious feeling that the two leaders might have communications
to make with each other on the subject of
their present pursuit, which they might not care to be
heard by a third person; and so, with a delicacy unusual
to one of his barefaced and insolent spirit, (but which
arose from his careless and reckless soul; for he thought
not who led the way, so there were blows to be met with
and plunder to be fought for:) the pirate's footsteps lagged
behind his companions some considerable distance,
yet within a moment's call and sight.
“Santa Trinidada, thou hast rode the peak truly,” said
the marauder, in somewhat of a repentant humour to
himself, as he thought on the little likelihood of profit in
his new employ; “carra, thy soul has run away with thy
reason—thou hast taken up with poor wage—curse me,
but banyan days will increase an I make such cruises
where there seems more likelihood of blows than marvedis—despacio!
I had forgot the proverb, `Habla poco y
piensa bien;' but hang care, I am in for it, and blast me if
I take to the long boat, thof the ship's sinking.”
At this period he was suddenly aroused from his reverie
by beholding Milbourne and De Lanoy abruptly pause
in their progress; and he lost not a minute, ere he was at
their side: for as the former spoke the exclamation of
caution, which has been narrated, they had unconsciously
drawn within a pace or two of the shed above described,
from under the concealment of which started several
figures, whose long shadows as they rose in the moonlight,
discovered them in time for Milbourne and his companion
to start at their approach, and to keep off with their
swords, for an instant's parley, the barrels of the levelled
arquebuses of the city patrouille, for such they were who
now barred the further procedure of the legates of the
Leislerian faction. The group consisted of about twenty
persons, whose singularity, not to say somewhat ludicrous,
disagreement of dress and accoutrements, in some measure,
bespoke them honest and placable burghers, somewhat
fervour of patriotism, for awhile had laid down their
peaceable callings and in the alarm of the times, had metamorphosed
themselves into the stern followers of war.
As might be expected from their haste of preparation,
which was commensurate with their zeal, they sat but
small store on equality of size or figure and similarity of
attire in their enrolment; and there seemed also little
preference in the manner of their death-weapons, the
choice being evidently that of the readiest; for one wore
a massive and heavy breastplate of iron, and bore in his
hand a rusty partisan, which doubtless he inherited as the
armour of his ancestors, who, from the age and looks of
the warlike appurtenance, were in all probability servitors
of the `priviledged Wes-India companie,' under the
rule of Christianse and Eelkees:—another had girded to
his side a ponderous broadsword, and although proud in
bearing so tried and deadly a steel, yet being short from
the trunk to the heel, (which is vulgarly called duck legged,)
this son of Mars evidently had more trouble in
the disagreeable rencontres, which, on account of his briefness
of figure and the sword's length, ensued every now
and then between the weapon and his ankles, than possibly
his enemies might have received from its sharpness and his
dexterity of using it: however, as supporters to these important
personages, one or two there were of the patrouille,
lusty and strongly limbed, the flower of the youth of the
Nieuw Nederlandts, proud of going to war, decorated with
the favours of Dutch love—mighty bunches of ribbons at
the knee, and defended by immense buttons on their jerkins,
whose solidity and circumference were almost shields in miniature;
and they were well supplied with fire arms, the
contents of which they were reckless how eager they
were discharged as the death warrants of a foe.
“Stand for your lives, and tell who and what ye are,”
exclaimed several of the patrouille at one voice.
“Speak—are you for the rebel Leisler, or the king?”
echoed others, their words bursting from their lips in a
shout at nearly the same breath, each one appearing the
most desirous to be attended to and heard, so that their
speech was almost a confused and tumultuous jargon.
“Hold back thy officious arm,” cried De Lanoy, drawing
down the savage Eumet's upraised hand, which threatened
to fall heavy on the head of one of the stout burghers
of the patrouille and cool the ardour of his gallantry
for ever, and at the same time withholding the buccaneer
from rushing on the other opposers of their progress, and
dealing the destruction his vengeful eyes threatened;
for no sooner had he beheld the pointed weapons that had
stopped the way, ere, like the trained bloodhound when
in sight of the chace, he thirsted for the death, and was
ready for the onset. “And you, fellow-burghers of
Nieuw Oranje,” continued De Lanoy, “seek not our
lives so hastily with adverse hands, for we have trespassed
on your guard not with the deadly guise of foemen,
but, albeit, an there bide among ye not those who by rash
and selfish bearing contemn our offerings—we come with
the budding branches of the olive; yea, we have now
sought ye as men desirous of settling all difference, and of
giving peace to the aching wounds of this distracted province.
For this purpose, Captain Milbourne and myself,
(your ancient townsman, Peiter De Lanoy,) with this our
faithful follower, request safe conduct from you, my
masters, to the presence of him who is said to hold the
king's commission as our new appointed ruler;—I mean
the person men term Colonel Henry Sloughter.”
“Gad's mercy, and is it you, Meinheer Peiter De Lanoy?
blood o' me! which I deem a fierce and becoming
oath, and savours a warrior's lip,” quoth in reply a voice
at once slender and squeaking, and which was produced
by the delicate organ of the throat of a lean, thin, shrivelled
little personage, whose pallid visage looked sallow
and healthless in the moonlight; which alike shone on
attire at once conceitedly and daintily disposed upon the
wearer:—so that with gorgeous profuseness of garment
and consequential demeanour, he laboured with the air of
one who supposed himself of the utmost importance in
the patrouille, and thereon verily swelled with martial
dignity, “right gladsome am I, as an I were ordered to
trim a dozen body coats with fine Flanders for a ready
and of such an honest nature it prove; for stitch my
carcass, had your object been hostile—stop my trust!
but your doublet (and by this light it is of cloth, I were
loth to spoil,) would have been cut in as many squares,
bits, and ends, as a Merry Andrew's pantaloons, or as
there are running seams in a gallant's jerkin. Gads service!
I repeat it, right gleesome am I that you so soon
announced yourself, Meinheer De Lanoy, for had it been
another man, thof o' your quarters, seeing how much I
respect thee, having oftentimes to my profit and delight,
had both the making and fitting of thy wearing apparel—
blood o' me! but he had tasted death at our hands in as
short space as ever thread pierced a bodkin's eyelet.”
“Troth, truly says the snyder,” said a ragged looking
fellow, with a dirty leathern apron and a red flannel skull
cap, the centre of which was crowned with a large tassel
of worsted, “may I never soak the soal of a pantoufle
again, but there are some among us, Mienheer, that
would have waxed you throughly; snooks! I think it
would have been shorts ere your upper leather had been
sadly tanned.”
“Py myn vaders baard mien vreint De Lanoy, he dells
as drue as dat I dell, py Got!” added he of the mighty
breast plate, putting on a fierce and courageous manner,
“had dou been oder mensch as dat dou prove, I had daken
mien hallebaard, and mit mien hallebaard I did leavsh
dou no mores eyesh in dien kopt as dere vas den dou vas
poorn, py Got!”
“Yes, may I never blow bellows again,” echoed another,
whose party coloured visage bore ample correspondence
with his black and dusted linen, for he was without jerkin,
and had his sleeves rolled up above his elbow, exposing
to view his hairy, broad, muscular and sinewy
arms; while in one hand he held a massy iron bar, which
he wielded as a player would the quarter staff, while the
round flat cap, that scarcely hid his coarse, shaggy, and
russet coloured locks, peculiar to the artizan of the time,
bespoke his following, “by the flames of my furnace,
hadst thou met us as an enemy, Peiter De Lanoy, sturdy
hot iron. The Bayard cause for ever—haro and battle!
Body o' me, give old Stevens but a fair stroke, those fair
visages of yours, Mienheers, had been little better than a
rotten cinder such as I cast way in the Smidt Vly, before
Asseer Leevy's tan vats.”
“Good sirs, we doubt ye not, or that as things are, ye
carry stout hearts to war for the factions ye have espoused,”
said De Lanoy with wily caution, at the same
time as he proceeded, assuming a soothing and insinuating
tone of voice, which at once calmed the angry and party-heated
feelings of those he spoke with, weaning their
minds from antipathy and ill will, till they were carried
away in sympathy of the words of him who addressed
them; “yet trust me, masters; in good faith I speak it, ye
are too eager for the blood of old comrades and friends;
and for why?—to urge a stranger's interest, to push the
triumph of a man, who but yesterday ye scarce knew
breathed life: sooth, it is, methinks, somewhat unnatural
that thus soon ye should forget the sweet intercourse of
neighbourship. Yet green in its passage, does not
memory show we have been a handful in this desolate
land, a few christian men amid a desert and surrounded by
hosts of savages, from whose bloody trails yet unavenged,
the voices of the butchered call on us to give over unnatural
feuds, and turn upon the common foe—the murthering
red man and his base ally, the cursed dogs of
Canada, whose crimes the smouldering ruins of Schenectadie
must for ages keep fresh. Yes, my friends, forget
not that our fathers drove back from the very spot whereon
our dwellings stand, the raging panther and the howling
wolf. And heretofore in unison, we have tilled this wilderness;
yea, time out of mind have there been kindly
interchanges of friendship between us, that bespoke good
will; nay, there are even here many who by me have been
called by name from childhood, upwards; remember you
not our boyish sports together? and for what reason meet
we thus with ireful eyes and hands ready to deal blows of
death upon each other? Let not the early day be renewed,
when blood smoked from earth, and sought at the
gates of heaven vengeance on a fratricide—let not the
brow of the first murtherer fostered. Bethink ye, burghers;
is it not most horrible, thus Cain-like, to be arrayed
in arms—a brother thirsting for the draught which is to be
drained from the veins,—yea, from the heart of a brother!”
The honest burghers seemed evidently touched with
this appeal.
“There is somewhat in De Lanoy's words,” murmured
one in a whisper to him who stood at his side, “it is hard
to forget bygones; ay, many are the wildsome pranks
we, that is De Lanoy there and myself, have had in hand,
as Flattenburgh hill and the commons, from the swamp to
the holy ground, can bear strait witness.”
“In warhied dat is all dyne, mien vrients,” said the
warrior in the cuirass, taking up the subject as it reached
his ear; “I have had zum little vun mit him in my days
mienzelf; und a menschadagt and a frauwadagt[16]
—py Got,
in der Nieuw Nederlandts dere was nien jongmen dat
dare dans mit him and I in a zhuffle zhuffle, dough dere
hipsey saw bleased der vrauws besser—ho, ho, de jongmen
now are niet zich as dat dey were den, py got.”
“Ay, in my day,” returned one, “De Lanoy has been
with us to pluck the goose; by gad he is a merry blade,
though a rare hand at nine pins.”
“Yes,” joined in another, “when we were boys it was
jovial pastime. It appears but as yesterday when we had
the cherevallie, wherein I blew the ram's horn before old
Ruckel Depeyster's door, when he married Helligunt,
the young widow of Mangle Minthorne of the Bouwerie
Laneng, De Lanoy was one who helped to plant the maypoles
that we hung with ragged stockings under the bridegroom's
window.”
“Troth, those were pleasant days, those were pleasant
days,” murmured many of the burghers, as their eyes
glistened with the pleasures of the recollection.
“And what claim to tear asunder the ties that hath
from the lips of Milbourne, with tone at once fiery
and impetuous; gathering a vehement and frantic force as
he spoke, he appeared borne away with a spirit furious
and bitter, o'ermastering discretion by the violence of
his feelings:—“by heaven's wrath! deeply it galls me
to see men like ye act as ye have borne yourselves, with
maugre faith to man and God. I tell ye, most dastardly
have ye done;—would honest men pursue your course,
and desert in need, old and tried friends to cling to the
cloak of favour? And can you give reason for such conduct?—Ye
would say this Sloughter is Protestant;
and on that forsooth, ye build—a sandy foundation
surely is it. But, let me ask, are not we of that
church? To establish the most glorious revolution,
has not my father-in-law, Jacob Leisler,—who has been
a burgher of Nieuw Yorke from infancy,—yea, while
like drones ye have wallowed in idleness and fattened
on the ease he made in his toils for you,—has he not, I repeat
it,—labored supported by us his faithful adherents,
who in the winter of adversity forgot not summer friends;—
has he not I repeat it, sacrificed his wealth, spent his time,
and shed his very blood for the good cause. And what is
the reward, to find ye, as ye are, lying sycophants, coward
traitors, who having sucked the marrow of his liberal
hand, fly him when you find the source from whence he
fed you dried, and turn hissing like horned adders upon your
benefactor But what gain hath your treachery,—have the
miseries you suffered under Andross passed away, so that
no scar of the wounds he inflicted remains, yea do you no
longer remember the vile tyrant who oppressed you, have
you no thought of the chains and the prison house, have you
no memory who o'erthrew the despot, who trampled on his
power and his mandates as though one was as dust, and
the other an idiots words, who stood rocklike against the intrigues
of Jesuits, and the machinations of the base emissaries
of the Catholics, and the deposed James Stuart. Who
I seek in defiance of the slavish tools of that bigoted monarch,
cast Nicholas Renslear in prison, and who quailed not
in a dungeon to the tyranny of the arbitrary sycophant? Who
worms to crawl innoxious about the spurner's foot; and
where in those dark days, those hours of sorrow and distress,
where were those you now exalt as leaders?—where
was the office holding Bayard, whose name you shout
with hoarse throats, where was the rich Van Kortlandt,
and the proud Graham, where but at the sleeve of the
tyrant Andross, fit instruments for a character so odious—
but go to—go to—I waste breath on reptiles, who crawl
in the paths which will yield them the most prey. I see
in your sullen visages ye are wedded to the route ye have
chosen, and are emulous of the vile name ye have achieved:—ye
have fled your liberator, ye have quitted the side of
Jacob Leisler, to attach yourselves to this Sloughter; and
yet what warrant have ye that he is a better man than
the craven Sir Edmund Andross.”
Although apparently there had been a slight, yet favorable
impression made on the burghers, who composed the
patrouille, by De Lanoy's artfully bringing back to their
minds, the days of ancient league, and intimacy, so that the
hearts of some began to be changed with renovated kindness,
and the stern grasp with which they held their weapons,
unconsciously relaxed as they bethought themselves
of youthful pranks and boyish hopes, and dangers, in which
all mutually suffered or delighted, yet at the imperious invectives,
and ill timed and injudicious reflections, on their
own conduct, as well as of those under whose banners they
were now enlisted, and whose purposes they were the avowed
partizans, by at once reviving in all its pristine ferocity,
the political hatred and struggles for ascendancy, and all the
individual and petty virulence of the times, banished instantaneously
all that the finer feelings had been likely to cherish;
and although Milbourne for a short period, was lost as it
were in the torrent of words, which ran like the rush of waters
over the rocks of a stream, from his lips, and whose
flow he found it impossible to control, for it seemed as if the
flood gates of his heart had burst asunder, and a gathered
store of gall sprung from heaped up wrongs, had poured
out overwhelming every barrier which caution should
have held guard upon, yet as his concluding words plainly
and unadvised rashness of his advancing at such a
time, and place, and before such an audience, the sentiments
and remarks he had used, presented itself forcibly
to his thoughts; for while warmed and fired by the fruitful
matter that filled his imagination, the story of the
injurious returns received for the labors of himself and
friends, for the public weal, he could hear, see, nor think
of aught about him, and was absent from all but the cause
that had awakened his feelings; but no sooner had he found
a moments breathing space to gaze about, his bosom
filled with an expectant hope, even amid the bitter indignation
that swelled it, that he had shamed the opposers
of the Leisler party into repentance, and submissions, ere
he became fully aware of his imprudence, by the stern and
unopposing silence, by which his words were received,
and the dark and chilling aspect of the burghers. And in
the moment of fretful anger, that sprung from such disappointment,
he added the last sentence, which partaking
the feeling of the moment, fell from his lips like the last
drop of poison, drained from the venomous tooth, of the
expiring rattlesnake. There was a dead and speechless
interval, when the son-in-law of Leisler paused, and the
latest tone of his voice was borne away in the night breeze.
There motionless for awhile stood the patrouille, like dusky
and fixed statues; but this lasted not long, it was but
an instant space such as when the tiger draws in his breath,
and strengthens his limbs for a bound, upon the body of
the hunter's elephant. At first there arose a deep murmur,
like the groan of some mighty oak, ere the tempest
is raised, or like the distant roar of artillery, heard from
afar on the ocean, it was the vengeful interchange of an
angered crowd, urging and encouraging those who composed
it, to deeds of violence.
“And was such the aim of your peaceful embassy,” exclaimed
one in a tone of fierce and bitter irony, “came ye
then to raise sedition among us?”
“Accursed slanderer?” cried the artizan, in a voice
hoarse with rage, “did you but seek our lines to throw firebrands
of revolt amid our ranks, and to light up the coals
of rebellion, in a band of loyal subjects.”
“Foul tongued defamer,” quoth another angrily,
“bring you to us naught but insult, for what dare you use
words of shame, to those within the reach of whose poniards
ye stand.”
“For the sake of heaven friends hear me, indeed
ye have mistaken that which my comrade hath spoke,”
said De Lanoy, in vain striving to retrieve the ground,
that had been so wantonly lost by Milbourne's impetuosity;
but needless were his endeavours at interposition; the
attempt appeared merely to have an effect of increasing
the tumult of the incensed burghers against Milbourne,
and likewise to awake its fury towards himself, for such is
the blinded nature of the passions of humanity, that a
weak and failing interference, is more likely to cater fresh
food for excitement, than to allay its force, as some feeble
barrier built against the current of some rushing
mountain stream, serves but awhile, to stop the falling
of the waters, whose violence congregated, and whose
mass raised with unmeasured height, at length o'ertops
the puny obstacle, that had withheld the running tide, and
in its might bears it in scattered fragments, in its roaring
race, until every particle is lost in the dashings of the multitudinous
waves.
“And for this did De Lanoy use his smooth tongue?”
said one eyeing the person he spoke of, with a look of
rage, “we'll listen no more to his cunning lies, we should
have remembered that this is not the first time, he has
beguiled us to ruin.”
“He hath spoken of our ancient days, next he will persuade
us of Leisler's kindness and humanity,” echoed
another with scowling brow, “but for that, let him go look
at my houseless and despoiled family, my lands barren and
untilled, confiscated as he would term them, not however
by an Andross, but by the accursed and arbitrary edict of
Jacob Leisler.”
“Who prates of that man's services to the colony,” thundered
a stern tone, “I grant him active in driving the cattle
from the homesteads of honest yeomen—ah! in his
wrath he has laid desolate my hearth and home, because
forsooth, I chose to adhere to the fortunes of such as
were born my superiors, and jested at the rule of one
sprung from the kennel.”
“Ay, talk ye knaves of justice and ingratitude,” spoke
loudly others, “go to your dungeons and see if their bare
and dank walls, confine not men, such as from your births,
ye had been honored to clear the doorway for their steps,
hold not your chains Nicholas Bayard, and the worthy
descendant of Governor Nichols.”
“Haro, cry down with James Stuart, the Jesuits, and the
whore of Babylon,” shouted many, “their sway was a
hundred times better than these dirt bred rulers, these
offspring of lowest earth, Milbourne and Leisler.”
The resentment of the irritated burghers, appeared as
it were quickened by the reproaches that had burst in
outcries from their angry lips, and could their menacing
looks and ireful brows, have been seen as in the daylight,
they would have spoken a language, at once fearful and
warning to the rash offender, who had thus heedless of
consequence, touched the avalanche that tottered, but for
a breath to fall in overwhelming ruin,—yea as it were franticly
thrust his naked and uncovered hand in the den of
the cockatrice; yet there was sufficient for alarm, in the
manner in which the patrouille had slowly closed upon
Milbourne and his companions, and by which movement
the burghers almost encompased their enemies, and approached
so near, that their adverse weapons wanted but
a slight impetus, to strike at their opposing bodies; and
again there was that in the startling sound of their advance,
the hollow noise of their heavy footsteps, and the
clattering of their arms, that gave to their opponents a
sudden, although a certain insight, of the danger which
surrounded them on every side, and made the more apparent
the weakness of their array, and the defence which
it was possible to offer to such a body of men, infuriated
and superior in force and numbers. The mind of Milbourne
however, was not in a frame to bear the contumelious
attacks that had alike been made on his own character, and
that of his faction; blinded by a mad zeal for power, and an
unchecked pride of spirit, that had grafted on a nature
genial from birth, grown from a late unbounded sway, it
would have been worse than death, for him to bend his
haughty soul, and seek peace or give way in the least, to
him; indeed he was not one to beseech, or tamper with
the vexed and resentful, for rather than sooth the tempest
to a calm, he joyed in braving its might; and however for
an instant the chilling aspect of the situation of himself,
and the friends who accompanied him, may have presented
itself to his thought, and checked his ardour and boldness,
it was but as a brief fall of water, on some raging
flame, that dampens and beats down the bickering light,
with its momentary weight, but which in the end only
causes an increase of the streaming blaze; yea even the
very knowledge of the hazard in which he stood, seemed
an addition to the food of his passionate resistance: “Dastard
losels, dare ye parley thus to me,” cried he in a tone
whose energy was strengthened by the ire that pervaded
him, so that although his lips trembled and grew white, yet
his blood ran as it were a liquid of molten lead in his veins,
and fire flashed from his eye hate and defiance on his adversaries,
“dare ye dishonest mongrels breathe your venomous
lies and wag your noxious tongues in my presence and hearing,
may God's curse on Egypt light upon ye all, consuming
and scathing your false hearts to ashes. What, do you press
upon my guard?—back curs; dogs, back I say,—or, by
the power that made me, ye will raise a destroyer among
ye that ye little wot of withal:—ay, I will rip with this
good steel your foul breasts apart, and wash out with the
best blood ye have, your latest life's blood, the accursed
calumnies ye harbour and have presumed to prate against
those who have been unjust to themselves, that ye are
now free to utter the scandal.”
“Poco-a-poco, and is it come to that, santissama Espirito!
messmate, give us a fair sweep with my toledo,
ere you bear down,” exclaimed Eumet, eagerly flourishing
his hanger, after having been a silent, though not an
inattentive observer of what had passed; “carja, we've
a flota against us, but here's the hand that'll stem the
tide—we'll try these landsmen's mettle; thof I've
known 'em to speak bold enow; yet no nos concoenios,
as we say on the main—the lubbers turn as white as the
mainsheet, at the sight of the galerdeta of a true marinero—so,
hard ahelm, hearties, and lay 'em aboard.”
For an instant the sturdy burghers were overawed, and
gave back in their advance, daunted by the bared and
glittering steels that flashed before them and confronted
their approach upon their opposers; but it was but for a
single step they retreated, for reanimated by a sense of their
strength and the fewness of their foes, they quickly regained
their vantage, threatening with ferocious haste to
overwhelm their antagonists.
“What, are we braved by such as these!” roared the
artizan in a hoarse and brattling tone, and furiously
shaking aloft the bar which his hand held with a powerful
grasp, as if it had been a billet of the lightest wood;—
“nay, neighbours, shame not yourselves by a retreating
step, but drive the hounds, as though they were but ashes
to scatter by the wind.”
“On them, burghers,—on them,” cried one; “beat
them down to dust;—we are ten to one, and will teach
the rogues better counsel than they have yet born.”
“Nay, masters, let me but have a moment to explain;
—ye are all acting madly, and will rue these angry steps;”
said De Lanoy, striving to no purpose, for an opportunity
to prevent the direful consequence that evidently was
about to ensue and follow the fearful breach of amity that
had so unwisely been made.
“List him no word, but onwards—tear them in atoms!”
thundered, or rather yelled, a dozen voices, drowning in
the fierce outcry, the efforts of pacification: “on to the
death, and spare no life!” was shouted by others in tones
that made the very air ring with the sound, as if it was
shaken by the sharp report of a cannon.
And in all probability it would have taken but a short
time, judging from the frightful resolution by which the
patrouille were actuated, and the terrific thirst for retribution
for the scornful language they had received, that
pervaded their bosoms, to have executed their purpose
of destruction, for adjoined to the other infinite advantages
possessed by the burghers over the slender weapons
of their adversaries, was that a moment's unfortunate
indecision, or rather wonder at the frenzy of their
opponents on the part of Milbourne and his fellows, who,
as it were, startled at the screams of insatiable revenge,
thrust, in wantonness or by accident, the match in some
loaded magazine, would be astounded at the terrible explosion,
surpassing in its loudness all he had ever pictured,)
had afforded the burghers of the patrouille a
chance unscathed to crowd so near upon them that there
was no room for a sweep of the swords, which, in a manner
became useless, borne down by the weight of pikes,
clubs, and the other rude though powerful arms of the citizens;
indeed so tight was the struggle, that Eumet abandoning
his trusty steel, sought in haste to level his arquebuss
with deadly aim, but he had scarce loosened it from the
supporting bandalier ere a dozen hostile hands had grasped
it firmly, and strove to wrench it from his hold, which,
in spite of his furious endeavours at defence was soon effected,
and he himself beaten down almost senseless amid
the trampling feet of the combatants, while in vain also
were the desperate strivings of Milbourne and De Lanoy
to contend in the unequal conflict, for although many of
the sturdy burghers were unused and awkward in the
wielding of their offensive weapons, and their strokes
readily parried, making their part of the fight attended
with more ludicrous noise and clatter than serious risk or
danger, yet there were those whose strength of arm was
death bearing, and the splintered rapiers of their opponents
appeared a speedy omen of the enforcement of the
threats of utter annihilation, that was hoarsely shrieked
above the tumult of the contest.
“Death to the hated miscreants!” was echoed in fierce
cry from mouth to mouth, as the assured issue of the combat
became momently the more evident.
“Aye, tear them in pieces!” cried the artizan, maddened
by success, “hear no call for life, but leave the
dogs not an atom of flesh, that shall not be a gout of
gore.”
This last horrid encouragement was received by a tremendous
shout of assent, that spoke as with a voice of
despair to the hearts of the failing partizans of the Leislerian
faction, whose fate now looked inevitable, and to
whom it appeared as if there was no means of preservation
the fatal result so surely to be anticipated, was about accomplishment,
at the very moment as it were, the suspended
blow of destruction was about to fall,—for at the
time of the artizan's denunciation, Milbourne and his companions
were completely at the mercy of their foemen,
and above their unguarded and now defenceless heads,
waved halberd, musquetoon, pike, and club, ready to descend
and scatter blood, brain, and life to dust,—at that
last stress, other voices than those engaged in fight, rang
with cries of forbearance on the breeze, and the uplifted
weapons simultaneously were withdrawn harmless from
their direful threatening, as by the hand of enchantment.
“Hold! hold this disturbance!” exclaimed the strangers,
“here comes the burgerwagt.”
“The burgomasters! the burgomasters! back, Mienheers,
back!” said those of the patrouille, one to the
other: “yet keep an eye on the captives—back! masters,
back!”
As the patrouille divided and gave way, through the
opening left thereby, between the adverse parties, the
new comers advanced: they were a considerable body of
armed citizens headed by two magistrates, who having
been alarmed by the noise of battle and tumult had quickly
departed the city for the scene of contest on the Marktvlet,
and although their steps had been lighted by flambeaux
of blazing pine splinters, making their path as day,
yet such had been the eagerness and engrossed minds of
those engaged in the fray, that these had not been perceived,
although a considerable distance had to be crossed
from the beaver gracht, the street from whence the
burgomasters and their followers entered on the plain to
attain the spot where the combat was carried on; where
having arrived, the two important dignitaries who took
the lead, strode forward with solemn, slow, and becoming
gait and bearing, and gazed in wonderment on the ireful
adversaries. They were both short, squabby looking men
of unwieldy shape, the one apparently in size but little
superior to the other, and both resembling cushions well
stuffed; they wore huge three cornered cocked hats,
place of cockades, as insignias of their faithful adherence
to the prince of Orange, William the Third, King of England,
and their approbation of the protestant revolution;
the one was close wrapped in a monstrous night gown of
staring red flannel, well tucked round his throat to keep
out the cold, while the other, more hardy in the city's
service, no way concealed his under dress by outward
cloak or wrapper, but shown in his lead coloured jerkin,
with mettle buttons, his yellow breeches, and paste shoe-buckles,
all of which were sufficiently visible in the torch
light. These personages bore in their hands, the more
as emblematical of their station than as assistance to
their steps, a tall mahogany stick, the top of which was
crowned by a carved acorn blazing in Dutch mettle; this
was called a burgomaster's wand, and even unto this day
hath the custom come for the chosen rulers of the city to
bear on momentous occasions a like emblem of their
consequence.
“Pugh! pugh! what is the—pugh! pugh! I have lost
my—pugh!—breath!” spoke the last described character,
with thick and hasty utterance, puffing and blowing with
the fatigue he had just endured in bringing, or rather rolling,
his mighty carcass to the place of disturbance;
“What in the fiend's name's the matter? pugh! what a
race I have had!—pugh! pugh!—who the devil has had
the audacity—pugh!—to kick up such a dust; pugh!—
breaking the peace of his highness' loyal subjects, and—
pugh!—that of the puissant burgomasters of the honest
city of Nieuw Yorke? Here is some one, brother Gelyn—pugh!—that
is desirous of the stocks, the wooden
horse, or the—pugh!—cucking stool.”
“Ja, Mienheer Filkins,” replied the other dignitary
pompously, “dis is most lyk dis is zo; ja, Mienheer
Filkins.”
“Sirs, a most grievous and violent breach of faith, hath,
by these men of yours, been committed against us,” said
Milbourne hastily, stepping forward and addressing the
potent burgomasters, “we came from Jacob Leisler to
have an interview and treat for terms whereby peace
the sacred character we bear, and which even
De Frontenac's salvages would have respected, as you
behold, they have met us with the sword's point, and, but
for your timely presence, even now we had been foully
butchered by their villanous hands.”
“How now? pugh! how now?” exclaimed burgomaster
Filkins, “what's this? pugh! what's this I hear?”
“The false-tongued hound lies—basely lies!” cried
the artizan: “body o' me! under pretence of friendly
errand they came; I grant his say so; but they forgot
that pretext, when, with poisonous lip they strove to
wind us from our duties—but they found true steel, not
to be bent;—and it was to retaliate the slurs he cast on us
in disappointment that we would have slain him, and his
dogs who follow at his heels. May I never screw an
anvil more if I could not now beat to death the treacherous
knaves.”
“Thou worm!” said Milbourne, shaking in defiance
his shattered steel; “thou talkest brave; but had I to
meet thee on equal ground, palsy wither my arm but I
would make thee change thy boastful vaunt.”
“How! speak ye that—speak ye that?” returned the
artizan, raising his bar as about to strike down his opponent;
“by the breath o' me, thou shalt rue thy words,
master.”
“Huti-tuti! Mienheers, do you forget who's present?
pugh! here's a todo, a hubbub, to be sure—pugh!” quoth
Alderman Filkins, interposing his authority between the
disputants: “a fine riot here, brother Verplank.”
“Mienheer Filkins, ja,” said burgomaster Verplank,
“dis is besser sbordt dan to zee der haanekamp in
vrouw Schakerly's haanemat, at der Old Slib. I'll bet
you, Mienheer, dree dotkin on smidt Stevens; don't let's
sboil der sbort, Mienheer Filkins.”
“It wont do, it wont do, brother Verplank; it would be
a blot on the laws of the Council of this city—pugh!” answered
burgomaster Filkins, “ye had better make it up,
Mienheers, ye had better make it up.”
“What, shall they go unharmed and free?” exclaimed
several of the patrouille, indignantly.
“Shall we not trample down these friends of Leisler?”
muttered others.
“Huti-tuti, masters! who is the judge of the best, you
or I?—pugh!” quoth the burgomaster, drawing himself
up; “would you take the law in your own hands?—
pugh!—for what was I elected burgomaster?—pugh!—
to be dictated to?—pugh!—I tell you ye had better make
it up—pugh!—for if you don't, as sure as my name's Filkins,
I'll have you all whipped in the rasp huis yard, for
lasæ majestatis; which means, not obeying my commands—
pugh!”—
The patrouille remained doggedly silent, which was,
however, favourably construed into acquiescence on their
part by the lordly and puissant burgomaster, who now,
in his turn, most courteously extended an offer of safe
escort to the rescued Milbourne and his companions to
the presence of Colonel Sloughter, which, of course was
eagerly accepted by them. And after numerous admonitions
from the burgomasters to the patrouille to restrain
their impetuosity at aggression, though at the same time
to keep watchful guard, the partizans of Leisler departed
in company of the magistrates towards the city,
leaving the patrouille at their stations, gazing on their retiring
forms with unsatiated hatred and vowing revenge.
“There let them go!” said the artizan, glancing on
their fading forms a look as spiteful as that with which
the fretted and caged hyena scares the spectator from his
sight, fearing that the iron bars of his prison may be too
weak to hold the enraged beast: “There let them go, in
the fiend's name,” said he, “their good fortune hath it
been that now they were not stiff and cold before us—
yet body o' me, the time shall yet be when this arm of
mine shall yield the dogs death.”
“Nay, Smidt Stevens, an Sloughter act the man;”
said one—“more fitting hands for them will do the office
you seek; the rope and the hangman's kiss be their portion.”
“Death, to the hated miscreants!” murmured in stern
accord the whole patrouille.
In the meanwhile, safe from the anger of their ruthless
enemies, the objects of these menaces proceeded with
their doughty conductors across that part of the marktvliet
that separated them from the city, and passing the
narrow entrance of the marktvelt-steegje,[17]
they pursued
their way towards the great dyke which ran in the centre
of the town. As they moved along, the torches that were
borne in the train flashed with strong red blaze upon the
dark and night shadowed houses of the burghers of Nieuw
Amsterdam, lightening for an instant with fitful ray, the
gay painted brick and heavy rock stone of which they
were built; and often the green glass of some hastily
opened casement, gave back, alike with the glazed tiles
of the steep roofs, from whence the snow had slid away,
and whose smooth surface shone like mirrors of polished
steel, the trembling reflection of the passing flambeaux;
although, when they first entered the dark lane, whose
rough path of half frozen mud and snow they were obliged
to thride, to gain the thicker settled part of the city, all
seemed dark, still, and solitary, unbroken by voice or
step of passenger, and the long line of buildings, whose
gable ends fronting the way, frowned on them as they
went beneath, without sign of living thing inhabiting them,
and looking like rows of funeral mounds, so stirless and
desolate they were; yet as they hastened onwards, the
scene changed: the tumult of afar off crowds was heard,
the trampling of many feet and cries of people rushing to
and fro; soon was seen lights, and groups of men hurrying
confusedly along or collecting in throngs as if in discourse;
and then came blasts of martial music on the air,
the sound of trumpets and of kettle drums; the windows
of many dwellings were thrown open, and by the blaze
of their night lamps, the masters looked forth on the busy
gathering of their neighbours—every body appeared anxious
and stirring.
“By mine office,—pugh!—this hath been a restless
and fatiguing night—pugh!—for the city authorities,”
Gelyn,—pugh!—I think they had better make matters
up—pugh!”
“Ja, Mienheer Filkins,” replied the other dignitary,
“dere is no vun in dis—ja, I wants beace, for I have bet
mine dwo year golt to run against Mienheer de Witt's merrie
vor dwo bushel of seawant. Mienheer Filkins, I bet you
your dotkins on mine golt; dere ish not his lyk dis zide
of Bestavers Killetje: he will drot out Peiter de Witt's
merrie. If you can zettle dings mit der stadtwogd, Mienheer
Delanoy, you will zee mien golt on der gorse, and I
will bet mit dee.”
“Sincerely, burgomaster,” answered De Lanoy, “do
I desire that such may happen, and that friendship
once again may be the bond between us, and that in our
native sports and exercise we may alike meet in amity;
and if such luck fall, Mienheer Verplank, I will not retreat
from your challenge, and stand ready to wager.”
The burgomasters and their companions having now
crossed one of the light wooden bridges that was thrown
across the canal that led up the heeren gracht, began to
wend their way down the hoog street;[18]
here the throng
increased, and it seemed as if the inhabitants of the whole
place had poured towards this one quarter, a motley group
of every sort and calling; striplings and grown men.
Here was the mean clad mechanic, and there the rich
attired shopman, all girt, however, with such arms as they
could procure, and mustering by the light of many torches
as it were a time of deadliest need and danger. The
character of Milbourne and his two associates was soon
made known to these, and their reception from the rabble
was such as to show the resentful hate which was felt
towards them: groans, hisses, and cries assailed them
from every side: “down with Leisler, down with Milbourne
and De Lanoy, their reign is over—a new time
hath come!” was fiercely shouted around them; some
had even the hardihood to confront them in their path,
insult; others threw balls of ice at them as they walked
by, and huzzaed and threw up their caps for Sloughter
and his new Council. The light foam stood on the lips
of Milbourne, and his visage was convulsed with passion,
as he returned the angry glances of his enemies with a
look of spite and rage equal to their own, and had it not
been for the judicious conduct of the magistrates, his fury
would soon have broken bounds, and he would have burst
in some act of open violence on those who had so grievously
assaulted him: but the burgomasters, finding their
authority exerted in vain, to quell the attacks of the crowd,
turned quickly and precipitately into a by-way, and in a
short time with rapid pace left the aggressors behind them,
the rabble forbearing to follow their retreating steps.
The path they had now taken was called by the Dutch
sleyk steeg.[19] or mire lane, and led in the rear of the stadt
huis, and passing by that building, opened on Coenties
slip, whereon the stadthuis fronted; ere entering on the
slip, however, they paused a moment to take breath from
their hasty flight, and gave a quick glance on the scene
before them, while the puissant burgomasters sought to
renovate their wearied frames and recover their lost
wind, ere they ushered themselves in the presence of his
excellency, Colonel Henry Sloughter, Governor of their
Majesties' loyal province of New-Yorke.
The whole slip, from the wooden step of the stadthuis
to the tall masted skippers that lay moored at water's
edge, under the breastwork of the rondell, seemed a
moving mass of men, of burghers and schutters indiscriminately
mixed, and all apparently busied in warlike preparation;
all was alive with torch and flambeaux—here
was heard the clattering of the artizan's hammer, as the
drake or pedero was mounted on its carriage and levelled
at the direction of the walls of the fort, whose white
bulwarks on the distant hill looked like drifts of snow,—
and again were repeated from others words of marshalling
and array; yet the proceedings of the persons who composed
such as mostly engaged the attention of those who looked
on the stirring scene; for although the eye found for
awhile amusement in the labours and movements of the
busied and industrious burghers, and drew a faithful conclusion
from their actions of the motives that inspired
their conduct; (for here was one zealous and single souled
with the spirit of party, and there was another at his
side, toiling alike in forwarding the purpose of his fellow,
though actuated by a very different feeling, selfish to provide
for his own safety and interest, nevertheless, apparently
emulous of hazard in the cause he had espoused,
as if for its own sake;) yet last, the observer rested solely
on that chief point of attraction, from which all the objects
that engaged the attention of the commoner had
seemed to emanate, or at any rate took direction, the station
of such, who, from their manner and bearing, claimed
authority of those who thronged within the presence, the
spot where the Governor himself stood, attended by such
who had already felt the sunshine of his favour, and were
installed in power near his person. In very different
guise and appearance from what the narration left him,
was Henry Sloughter. Recruited by a lapse of several
hours, food, rest, sleep, and many comforts had his wornout
frame enjoyed; renovated by these somewhat of its
ancient freshness had been restored to his cheek, and the
brightness of the eagle glance to his hazle eye, late dim
and faded as by the palsied touch of age; the faintness and
sickness of his weary travel were gone, and he strode firm
and proud in manly strength, yet there was a paleness and
haggard cast upon his countenance, but whether the hue
was such as sprung from a life of wassail and debauchery,
and was no stranger to his visage, (for such a life he was
said to have passed from his earliest youth upwards,) or
was the effect of the sufferings he had so late endured, a
dying mark such as the plague leaves on the brow of the
rescued victim of its rage, was hard to determine; albeit
his voice was deeply toned, commanding and martial, and
his fine though sallow features darkened, by locks whose
sable die vied with the black-bird's wing, and hung over
weeping willow, gave him the bold frank look of a warrior;
and such indeed he was, but unfortunately for the
province whose destinies he for awhile was appointed to
direct, and whose sole government he possessed, his looks
were his greatest virtue; his appointment to the office,
whose duties he was about entering on, was an unhappy
one, considering the turbulent and disorderly state committed
to his will.
To direct the helm of power at the time of this history,
there was wanting a man peculiarly talented, of conciliating
disposition, yet active and determined in his resolutions;
one who at this critical conjuncture, was able by his
influence, as well to reconcile a divided people, as to
defend them against the wiles of a cunning adversary;
the implacable foe of the English, DeFrontenac. Though by
nature Colonel Sloughter was a man of energetic and
thinking mind, capable of much; yet from an habitual indolence,
a wayward and idle spirit, this quality was of
but little worth to him, and except in times of the utmost
need its possessor seldom brought it in play, and even
then too often, the better capacities lay dormant,
deadened by the effects of riot and dissipation: there were
indeed certain periods when as if stung by a scorpion, recollection
darting through him, conscience was alive, and
he felt that he misused the blessing he possessed, and that
he had been created for better things than he had accomplished,
yet this reflection was but of brief duration, like
wells of sparkling water in the barren desert, few and
wide wastes between; so that the space of his administration
was weak, short, and troublous, as might from his
character have been expected, for he wasted that time
which should have been passed in the public service, in
the pursuit of libidinous pleasures, the thirst for which
had been instilled as it were, into his very being, by
the fashion of the dissipated and luxurious court of
Charles the Second, to whom in his boyhood he had been a
page, and he became a ready instrument in the hands
of the ambitious and designing, who in his new advancement
had attached themselves to his interest
dark outlines given by the historian of his character,
for in speaking of him, it is said, “that either in the
hurry of the king's affairs, or the powerful interest
of a favourite, a man was sent over, utterly destitute of
every qualification for government, licentious in his
morals, avaricious and poor.” However, at the present
introduction of this personage, he appeared alive to the
stirring spirit of the time; there was neither the inertness
or imbecility of indolence about him, and he strove to implant
on the minds of those who surrounded him, an
impression of his activity, favourable to his first essay
in his new government. But unfortunately, the latent fire
within him was awakened, rather by the opposition that
had been offered to his explicit demand of submission, and
the acknowledgement of the high authority and commission
with which he was invested, than by a stern sense of
the fulfilment of his duty; and, indeed, the misguided
obstinacy of Leisler and his partisans had a strong influence
on a temper by nature quick and revengeful—
arousing the worst passions, confirming the dislike which
the Anti-Leislerian factionists, (who had gained his ear,)
had with wily insidiousness instilled into his ready reception,
into a bitter hatred; so that he now superintended,
and urged forward the preparations of hostility against
the infatuated Hollander and his partisans, with the emulation
of one devoted to the interest of the inveterate
foes of the Nieuw Nederlander, more than with the calm
decision and deliberate procedure behoving him, who,
from the lofty place he held, and considering the circumstances
of the period, should rather have sought, by even
absolute sacrifices, in some instances, (but which would
have been merely temporary,) to have soothed the wounded
feelings, and healed the breaches that the disorders of the
revolution had made in the bosom of the oppositionists; or
at any rate, have forborne all violent exigency, should the
chance have presented itself, than to have pursued matters
to the utmost measure of the sword. But even had there
been an opportunity for such better principle,—there were
those at his hand who would not have allowed it sway; their
frame of mind in which he was:—nor were such efforts
thrown away. Within the circle of his step was to be
seen the haughty form of Van Kortlandt, returned, as it
were by magic, from his exile, called by the sudden and
scarce to be expected change of affairs that was taking
place, and by his presence, showing how long digested
was the powerful movement that had been made against
his enemy, and how deep, yet how covered, were the
pitfalls that had been dug in the path of the blinded Leisler.
And there too, anxiously prying into every whispered
secret, and peering through the crowd of his fellows,
rose the thin, harsh features of Graham, while his
wily eye darted, like the piercing orbs of a snake, on all
about him: and close to his side stood the heavy and
brawny form, and stolid and unmoved visage of Richard
Ingoldsby, while the long white locks of the fugitive
Edsell waved in the thronging crowd of fawners, who
sought the attention of their new master. Such was the
unfavourable and unpropitious aspect that Milbourne and
De Lanoy were about to brave in the parlance they had
sought;—advancing, as it were, to an encounter with a
host of ruthless and unforgiving foes, rendered more
inveterate by the opening prospect of success that lay
before them, and keenly alive to the recent injuries
they had received.
Favoured by the obscurity of Coentjes Alley, (in which
they stood,) to whose gloomy and narrow-mouthed entrance
unpierced by the lights in front, two huge buttonwood
trees, (one of which rested its branches on the eaves of
the roof of the stadthuis itself, and afforded in summer
an umbrageous retreat to hundreds of swallows and martins
who built their nests undisturbed in its sacred
branches, and round whose body near the ground, were
fastened benches for the accommodation of the burghers
who felt inclined to sit thereon and smoke their pipes, and
listen to the news that might be stirring of a summer eve;
for the place was a resort for politicians and all such idle and
windy characters;) added additional darkness: and not
being distant many yards from where Sloughter and the
railing that girted the stoeb of the stadthuis, they were
forced to make a considerable circuit to attain the governor's
presence,) yet from the alley, Milbourne and his
companions were so near him, that they had an uninterrupted
sight, and even could hear all that was going on,
at once distinguishing the forms and attitudes and voices
of the speakers. Sufficient time also was granted their
curiosity, from the tardiness of the worthy burgomasters
under whose protection they were thrown. For these
dignitaries, foreseeing no small exertion would be necessary
for them to make their way, even when backed by
their magisterial influence, through the numbers that
intervened ere they could get to the presence they desired
and wished to conduct their convoy, and being also
not a little wearied by the labour already undergone,
appeared by no means desirous of being in a hurry to
adventure their comely persons in the perils of the jostling
throng, but wisely took a brief space to make up their
minds and prepare their bodies for the hazard, and watched
an auspicious moment to commence their progress.
In the meanwhile, the bosoms of the adherents of
Leisler beat indignant as their eyes scanned with ireful
glances the heart-galling scene that was passing within
their view; for what dagger, though driven to the heart,
can give more pain;—what poisonous liquid in the
chymist's calendar can deeper seeth the soul, as it were
with burning flame, than to hearken to faithless lips pouring
out their ingrateful tales;—yea, listen to the words of the
hypocrite—the fly, that lived in the warmth of our chamber
unharmed, and fostered by our succour—in congratulation
of the triumph of a mortal enemy over our
miseries;—to mark the flowings of the self-same fable,—
the specious falsehood that beguiled our confidence,
used for the purpose of gaining place in the favour of
another, and those vows that we believed savoured of a
sole devotion, readily transformed in attachment to our
deadliest enemies; and worse than this,—subservient to
the new alliance, the very favours received from our
cheated friendship become the theme of mockery and
on whom they had been heedlessly bestowed, to
gratify the malignancy of the new object of their dissimulation;—and
such was now the case; for Sloughter, at
the moment, was receiving the joyous greetings of a herd
of courtiers, who moved as well by the appearance of
success that favoured the speedy issue of the conflict, with
the stubborn deniers of his authority that the time presented,
as by sanguine hopes of advancement, by early
declaration of amicable sentiments on his entrance on the
first step of his office;—and among these might be noticed
not a few, who, on the former part of the evening,
hovered in the sphere of Leisler's influence, and appeared
at his call the most strenuous of his servants and advocates.
The reader most probably has some slight remembrance
of Mienheer Jacobus Kip's pointed though brief
remarks, in the conclusion of the first section of this book
of the narrative, for the personage among these latter worthies,
who was most conspicuous in thrusting himself in
the eye of the Governor was the same character, the outlines
of whose virtues, the shrewd schepen remarked on
in a manner which was not only forcible but true;—for
foremost in the troop came Dirk Van Rikketie, than
whom no man was more indebted to Leisler for promotion
and fortune, and than whom from unsteadiness
of faith, none was more undeserving, and who disregarding
every honourable tie, no sooner could form an
accurate judgment of the flowing of the tides than he
sought the very first chance proffered to lend his assistance
to the destruction of his patron; nay, not content
with utter desertion, with the eager avidity of a long injured
and determined foe, Dirk sought to pull down to
dust the idol by whose pedestal he had hung in worship,
and strove as though his life depended on it to overwhelm
in ruin the man who, worthless as he was, had
placed him high in office; for Leisler, on the dereliction
of Bayard, had bestowed on Dirk the two important public
places of the colony, the one known as Geheim Schryver,
or Recorder of Secrets, the other as Receiver General of
the Revenues; and these stations Dirk had now for some
excellent eye to his own interest; and being withal much
used to the duties of the offices, he had no desire to resign
them, and this, together with what appeared to be the
popular voice, for that, no matter how adverse to justice,
was solely Dirk's guiding star, were most probably the motives
for the present conduct which he pursued; for he is
to be acquitted of all inveteracy of heart, for he was one
who would not harm a worm if he thought he could gain
nothing by his inhumanity.
The looks of this creature bespoke but little of his
origin, as well as the contamination of the world of intrigue
in which he had for many years been engaged, had
altered his feelings. His father was a good substantial
yeoman, who industriously tilled his fruitful acres at Newtown,
(a little Yankee settlement on the Mattouwac,) and
had designed his son to the same following, when he (the
old man) was gathered to his fathers; for the child bespoke
not in infant years aught beyond common faculties; nevertheless
Dirk was an adventurous spirit, and not to be tied
down to such honest livelihood, for he soon found it took
small knowledge or tact to become a knave, and his first
lessons of experience were reaped from pilfering water melon
patches and orchards, in which essays he always had the
address to escape detection, or turn by artful falsehood punishment
on the heads of his innocent playmates. Emboldened
by his young operations, he soon hit on the line of his
abilities, and was articled to some pettifogging Connecticut
attorney, (a species of animals that were fast collecting
in the new colonies of America, like the maggot, who
soon calls his armies where'er there is fresh carrion to
feed on.) From his master, Dirk learnt more lessons of
sheer villany than even his own ingenious brain had heretofore
believed existing, but what he was taught was not
wasted, but rather improved by his fertile mind, and perfected
to an adept he entered on his practice in New-Yorke;
there it was not long ere by dint of his accommodating
temper, which of course fitted itself to all occasions,
he brought himself into notoriety, and from one degree
to another he was lifted to the favour he enjoyed.
though studiously habited, with eye dull, unmeaning
and vacant by nature, but which was lighted up by a
wild and habitual quickness and condescension of countenance,
which was alike extended to Mienheer de Heer,
the burgomaster, or to Corneljse the fisherman, which
nominal applied to a well known dirty losel, but who
was uncommonly meddlesome in the politics of the period,
and thereby often from his free expression of sentiments,
was elevated to the exercise of the whipping post or the
dignity of the stocks; yea, the same smile that with affable
kindness lit up Dirk's visage beamed on the prosecutor
and the culprit whom he sentenced in the course of
his office, which gave him a place on the bench in der
hoofdt scout hof, (a sort of court held by the mayor and
burgomasters, in the rasp huis hall, for the purpose of
trying and awarding summary punishments to drunken
Indians, thieving negroes, and other petty delinquents, and
in some measure answering to the court formerly called
Mayor's Court, by which name the records of the time in
some instances term the one in question, although the
authority of the court of burgomasters appears in certain
cases to have extended to denouncing on criminals the sentence
of death, or having their tongues perforated with red
hot iron.) Yet there was no convict so low, or whose crime
was so atrocious, but Dirk addressed with the words,
“mien zeer vreint,” and was ready to shake hands with
him under the rope and wish him well through his punishment;
nevertheless, be it confessed, Dirk was sometimes
very severe and inflexible, but in such cases, the hue and
cry of the populace directed his manner, and from such judicious
bearing there is no reason to suppose that Dirk did
not deserve the appellations which were universally ceded
as his due, of a smart, cunning fellow, and `an independent
and upright judge;' indeed Dirk was the adoration of all
the city of Nieuw Amsterdam, for he was ready to help any
one in difficulty with his advice, and to give any body a
good character, so as it was not contrary to public feeling
or his own peculiar advantage; in truth he was one
whose equanimity was a source of admiration: he was
unruffled;—but not like the glass was he to be looked into;
he was, nevertheless, patient under insult, and if he
thought it of moment, would kiss the foot that spurned
him, and beat down by his courtesy all enmity, for the
veriest contempt was received by him as one would receive
a favour, came it from the hand of one in power; he was
albeit, a true doglicker, a thorough broken spaniel;—although
it behoves to mention here, that the chronicle
notes there was one brief and momentous period of his
life that Dirk's actions did not adhere so strictly to the
tenets whereon the latter portion of his existence appears
to have been directed, and as if forgetful of his accustomed
sound policy, in no matter whatever to endanger his
person,—whether it was he thought if he escaped the hazard
the better for his interest, or that he was unawares
drawn in an ebullition of temper, an experiment, from
whose manifest folly he derived much after experience,
in shunning the same rock; he was unadvisedly betrayed
into ire, so far as to run in risk his precious limbs: the
spirit of party at the period alluded to, as usual in the
province, rose uncommonly high, so that a chivalric rage
seized on those who attached themselves to any of the
disputing sides; each man called out his antagonist, and
either with the hand gun, lance, or stave, laid him at his
feet, or lost his own life in the fierce encounter. It so
happened in those irascible days, that Dirk fell foul of
a rough, long shanked, raw boned, giant of a fellow, who
was bullying and ripping out oaths against all that were
of a different mind with himself; in the matter, Dirk,
though fain to retreat, was so entangled that he found
there was no getting clear without a mortal combat;—so
with a sad heart, Dirk met his opponent, who having
been a leader of the train bands at Paulus Hook, (in
which latter delightful spot, he was a resident, his employment
being, with three long limbed, strapping brothers,
all fighting bullies like himself, that of a cowfeeder
and grazier on the salt marshes of Pavonia, while his
visits to New-Yorke were for the profitable purpose of
disposing of cheap milk to the households of the prudent
a tremendous andrea ferrara, the unexpected sight of
which, so terrified the valorous Dirk, that his legs, for
fear, verily slipt from under him, so that he fell backwards
towards the earth, which received him unkindly,
for the rearward extremity of his body in his descent
struck with such force the butt end of an old musquetoon,
which had first dropt from his hand, that he bore the
mark of the tender contact ever after, and halted to his
grave; and whether it was from this cause, his limping,
or from the instability of his principles, and the little dependance
to be placed on his honour or his faith, that the
surname of Van Rikketie was given him is uncertain,
however, taking all things into consideration, it could not
have more truly been applied. With the unsteadiness of
gait that hath been mentioned, though with a face smirking
with smiles, pleasant and winning, Dirk advancing
made his way past those who intervened between him
and the Governor, overaweing with his superior effrontery
less barefaced flatterers, and abashing, for very
shame at his extraordinary priority of talent, the host of
his fellow sycophants, who were assembled for similar
purposes, and who were unable to compete with him in
his career of dissimulation, but shrunk in his rear as
humble followers and admirers; though Dirk took the
precedence of every one, yet most courteous was his progress,
bowing and grinning to every eye he caught; this
fashion Dirk had learnt from some popular character or
other, finding it took vastly with the greater portion of
the multitude, who, it is well known, are most gratified when
they have it in their power to boast that they are on an intimate
footing with men in office, that they talked of such
an affair with such a one, the koopman of the stores, who
said so and so, or that they had just received a profound obeisance
from such a one, the Roymeester, who, of course, is
an extremely fine fellow:—nevertheless, Dirk's imitation
of affability was but second hand, praise worthy as it was,
yet as all second hand imitations, it was open to censure,
for there were those who inviduously revenged their
spleen on Dirk's advancement to fortune by terming him
Neglecting nothing, however minute, in respect to the
personage to whose notice he was about recommending
himself, Dirk took care, notwithstanding the chill night
air, to uncover his bald head, and thrust his doffed cap
beneath one arm, while the other supported a crowded
bundle of papers, and one or two well bound (in neat calf
covers and with brass clasps) treatises on the laws of the
world, and the honest province of New-Yorke; nor was
Dirk unwise in such display, for he discovered thereby
at once his anxiety, even in the midst of his multitudinous
duties of station, to be among the very first to salute and
tender his adherence to his excellency, and it likewise
showed with what increasing diligence he applied himself
to the demands of the public, that he could not stir
abroad a moment without bearing with him the fruits of his
application. In truth, Dirk had just been deeply pondering,
weighing, and considering on all points a critical case
that he was to decide, and which he had just concluded
on, and was so elated with what he deemed his own
cleverness, or rather, as he supposed, his having as is
vulgarly said `hit the right nail on the head,' in his making
up his mind, that he could not in his heart separate
himself from the paper whereon he had drawn out his
opinion; indeed he has some little intention, if chance favored
to sound the Governor on the point, and learn whether
what he had determined on was acceptable; if not, he
would have time to reverse and accommodate his sentiments,
to an accordance with those he found most popular.
The thing was this, it happened from Dirk's being
receiver general of the revenues, that all matters of mulct
and penalties, were to be cognizable before him; and thereby
there came under his especial purview, an examination
wherein one Simon Jantz, a thick headed market boor, entered
his complaint against a person in office, named Myndert
Van Schayck, the son of old Levinus Van Schayck, the
public vendu meeter; of the said Van Schayck's having infamously
tricked him, the said Simon Jantz, and also, of his
having made a purchase with false measures, or rather not
according to the standard, kept for the example of all fair
wise at the pack-huysen, or stores of the colony; now the
latter was an offence, and answerable to fine, while the former
came out to be, that Myndert having an old negro who
died from very age, and seeking to get rid of the expense
of his burial, hit on an expedient therefor, by going to
the market in Dock-Street, where Jantz had a large quantity
of eggs for sale, and made a barter to the purpose, that
for as many eggs as he, Van Schayck, could support by
placing his hands close to hips, and stretching out his
fingers, which were by no means small, the eggs as Jantz
understood it, being heaped thereon against his body, between
his hands as mentioned and his chin, that he Van
Schayck, would sell him the said Jantz, a capital negro fellow,
if not without fault, at least without one fault that was
common to any black alive. It happened that the bargain
was artfully brought on, by Van Schayck's leading Jantz to
inveigh against the slaves he possessed, who were an obstreperous,
noisy, riotous, drunken set, who wasted every
thing, and who were out night and day, which gave the
other an opportunity to mention he had one he would part
with cheap, who was a sober steady dog, by no means
riotous, wasted nothing, and would never give an insolent
word, say or do what you would, and what was better,
never showed any inclination to stir from any place he
was set. Misled by these recommendations, and believing
that Van Schayck could not hold many eggs in the position
agreed on, at the motive for which proposition Jantz
did seriously marvel, the arrangement was gladly made
by the witless churl; who to his surprise at the fulfilment
of the bargain, beheld the wily Van Schayck, seize on two
monstrous baskets, which contained all his eggs, and making
a place therein to take a firm clinch, by dividing the rushes
at the bottom, Van Shayck being a stout fellow was able
to raise the baskets to his body, and planting a broad flat
chin, like a horse shoe, on the upper rim of both baskets,
which by this manœuvre were brought close together and
steadied, he walked out of the market, leaving the barterer
thunderstruck at the contrivance, surrounded by gaping
boors, and grinning burghers, and the laughing-stock of
Schayck, had gathered to see the sport; but this was not
the worst, for no sooner had Myndert deposited his burden
at his house, which was adjacent to the scene of action,
than taking the dead negro, and setting him upright
in one of the baskets he had obtained, and which of course
not having been mentioned in the exchange, he considered
ought to be returned, he had him conveyed to the
anxious and expecting Jantz, who would not receive him,
but being furious at the deception practised, carried the
matter before a burgomaster, who wisely deeming `a bargain,
a bargain, all the world over' decided against Simon,
who thereon was forced to take and bury the negro. But
Jantz being a true obstinate determined character, made
up his mind not to sit under his injuries quietly, but to get
redress if such was to be obtained, and therefore in conjunction
with one De Witt, an ingenious descendant of the
great pensionary who followed the law, and who was always
at Jantz's elbow, spiriting him on, he entered an information
against the vendu meeters son, for buying the
eggs without being measured according to the edicts of
mienheers the burgomasters council on that subject;
thinking by taking this new ground, that he would effectually
revenge his own wrongs as he was advised, by
means of a public punishment and prosecution,—for Jantz
felt like many of his modern prototypes, that it was much
more safe, convenient and certain, under the cloak of an
anxiety for the enforcement of the criminal law, as a good
citizen, to proceed against Van Schayck, wherein the public
had the benefit of his own impartial testimony, than to
risk the uncertainty of a civil inquest, wherein both sides
were equally admitted to a hearing. Not in the least adverting
to the subject expressed, whether Van Schayck or
Jantz was right or in error, it is impossible to think without
detestation of the abuses that are practised in the manner
just mentioned, whereby honest men are at the
mercy of every craven rogue; for what safety is there
for innocence—how little are some men bound where
their feelings are wrought on, where their interest is at
stake, by the sanctity of truth, by that which in the present
much more true justice is there even in the bloody custom
of the savage, who with the simaugan and tomahawk
as next of kin, pursues the slayer of his tribe with unceasing
foot to death; the heart of the Indian in such
matters, is not more thirsty for revenge than the white man,
nor is it often that the last is deterred by that which might
sooth the noble and untrained passions of the first; although
civilization boasts of taking the knife from bad men's
hands—of allaying the fire of hate by the wholesome regulations
of social existence, and the difficulties of attaining
sudden or unmeasured retribution for petty and insignificant
offences, and of tempering punishment to crime;
yet what doth all amount to, when in reality it but sanctions
the arts of the designing knave—but affords him the
means of defending himself by legal influence from all attack
to perfect the blackest schemes;—he alone being heard, his
adversary kept silent by the unjust barriers of form; the
one unable to assert his defence and probably provocation,
while the other sets in motion a hundred engines of
destruction to assist his fell purposes.
As the matter of the eggs was plainly proved, that they
were unmeasured in the basket, Jantz merely meting out a
quantity as he sold them, Dirk Van Rikketie felt himself, as
has been set forth, in a profound quandary; now his doubts
it behoves to mention, arose not so much as to any obscurity
in the edicts, but rather as to what manner according to
the expressed words of the law, he could reasonably decide
in favor of the vendu meester's son; for this same
Myndert was an influential character, being son-in-law to
a great man, a burgomaster or some how or the other
very powerful by connexions, so that from the instant
he knew who was concerned as defendant, he, Dirk, was
inclined in his favor, although before he attained such
knowledge, he swore to Jantz, that he would ruin the
losel; however, the decision he prepared amounted
nearly to this; that howbeit it might be penal to sell without
measuring, yet the edict did not state it so to buy;
therefore this case was not within the meaning of the
law, which Dirk learnedly proved from numerous Dutch
on all occasions, and for every view he chose to adopt
of the subject under discussion before him; but it is most
grievous to state that this wonderful faculty—this admirable
research possessed by the worthy Dirk, had begotten
him the sneers of the invidious, who although it was
perfectly well known that Dirk never used any references
but genuine ones, yet his ill-wishers (and the very
best men have them) went so far as to say, that not one
out of twenty of the decisions which he repeated as confirmatory
to those made by him, were to be found in the
authors whose names he tacked to them; but to the
question decided—for among other convincing arguments
to the purport, Dirk remarked, that the whole procedure
on the part of Myndert, the negro sale, and delivery,
with the manner of getting the eggs “was nothing but a
petty fraud, and held out by the custom of merchants;” and
the information was therefore dismissed as falsely laid. The
sagacity of this judgment cannot be sufficiently applauded,
suffice it, that it has met the admiration and even
adoption of later times.
From all that has been related of Dirk Van Rikketie,
it is not to be wondered at, that Sloughter received a man
of his importance, effrontery and astonishing acquirements
with at once a degree of pleasure and distinguished
attention, and after a very brief conversation, was fully
convinced that Dirk was a person proper to receive
emoluments and office for his faithful attachment during
all his life to the strongest side; for there was no dark
spot in his character which Dirk was not ready to palliate
and excuse, in a manner that did him singular honor in
the eyes of his excellency; and as the chronicle records,
Dirk with a fulness of fortune unequalled, not only
under Sloughter, but Ingoldsby, Bellamont and many
succeeding rulers, kept his place, exercising at all times
that judicious courtesy, which went so far to raise him conspicuous
above those of more common abilities, and which
in the expressive language of the Apostle, “made him
all things to all men;” yet who would believe the saying
of the ascetic Mienheer Jacobus Kip, is remembered even
dan him were hanged.”
The interval devoted as is above stated by the burgomasters,
to whom it is now full time to return, to recruit
at once body and resolution, having passed, the worthies
with those accompanying, set out to encounter the bustling,
jostling and unceremonious elbowing of the motley
crowd that thronged before them; and it was not without
much pushing and thrusting, motions very grievous
and disagreeable to the portly magistrates, who drew breath
hard from fatigue, and with great entreaty, the exercise of
authoritative demand, and the frequent use of the burgomasters
wand athwart the bare breech or rough head
of some surly ragamuffin, who took vantage of the general
confusion to show out in all the pride of native stubbornness,
and scarce sooner would stir for a heer than a
fellow-boor, way was at last made, the rather that the
populace recognised the Leislerian partizans, and were
desirous to learn what was to follow, than even for the
dignified appearance of Mienheers Filkins and Gelyn
Verplancke their conductors; for to the latter they were
usually forced to obey and succumb, and therefore
with natural doggedness, delighted in every opposition
however slight to power, in the same spirit that the rabble
in these days drive in the centinels who are stationed
to keep the crowd back from pressing on a line of soldiery
on parade; while another impression was made by
the sight of Milbourne and his associates, that excited at
once attention, surprise and curiosity; and instinctively
with eyes rivetted on them, they gave back as they would
were the adverse factionist culprits passing onwards to
trial or to execution.
On arriving within a few paces of Sloughter, Mienheer
Gelyne Verplancke, addressed him, and announced the
apparent object of those he escorted. “Heres ish may
id bleaze your axgellenge,” said the doughty burgomaster
in a pompous style, such as is used by a herald proclaiming
the entrance of a knight in the lists, “dis mans Mienheer
Jacobus Milbourne, and dis mans Mienheer Pieter
De Lanoy, and dis mans Mienheer, what der tuyvils hish
beace—and do gongradulade your axgellenge on your
zafe goming do dis gundry mit your gommission, Got zafe
your axgellenge and Mienheer der king.”
“What seek ye sirs of me,” said Sloughter, sternly
casting (while his brows gathered above them) his quick
eyes on the adherents of the man, against whom ill will
was already sown in his heart, as they approached him
as if by his look he would have pierced them through,
“what seek ye sirs I say of me,” he repeated—
“We have come Colonel Sloughter,” replied De Lanoy
for his companions in a tone of voice mild yet firm, `to
bear from your own lips, how far the unfortunate differences
that hath subsisted in this unhappy country can be settled—
to learn your feelings towards ourselves and friends—
whom we have been taught to believe, you suppose the
aggressors against their majesties' will; in such supposition
Sir, I must be permitted to tell you, you have been misled,
grossly misled—for although twice to your demands
have the fort's gates been closed—though twice this night
we have refused you entrance therein or submission, can
you if you are a reflective man condemn; you are a
stranger—your whole procedure since your first landing
in the province hath been a questionable one, and
even now we are unconvinced by what authority you
have proceeded, to take the name and right of governor
of this land;—and for this too have we sought you Sir,
that you may as in reason and in truth you are strictly
bound, give us satisfaction on this head, and exhibit to us
the sanction that you boast of his majesty king William,
of whom we as well as yourself, profess to be loyal and
liege subjects; and this we request you to do forthwith,
as if such be the case that your commission is genuine, it
would indeed be wrong for us to oppose your will, but if
otherwise as in duty he is bound, Jacob Leisler will spend
the last blood drop in his heart, ere he yields one stone
up to your possession.”
Sloughter hesitated a moment ere he answered, apparently
as if he debated whether he should speak or not,
or at once break the conference: significant looks, as the
bystanders, and the withered features of Edsell, as he
listened and gazed on the ominous expression of Sloughter's
visage, lightened with a half suppressed smile of
triumph.
“Ye have come late to question sirs,” quoth Sloughter
cold and sneeringly, “and judging from your modest
demands, ye are conquerors and we the craven bondsmen,
made by your doughty lance and bow.”
“It may be that we are not the first to greet you Col.
Sloughter,” abrupt and warm broke in the voice of Milbourne,
his quick feelings stung by the Governor's manner,
“but lack that service.—As good protestants, are we to cry
cap in hand to every vagabond, who sets up the staff and
claims sovereignty. Who vouches for every man, that
may take mind to impose on public credulity?—No, Sir,
Jacob Leisler called to the high office he exercises, by
the voice of this colony, sees not fit to lay down the investure,
without knowing well to whom he resigns his
powers,—shall he take any man's say so?—rather I think
it would have become one bearing an undisputed title to
govern this land, to have sought the Lieutenant Governor,
and exhibited to him his document and seal, than to
have skulked in the hiding places of the disaffected, and
the fastnesses of lurking rebels, sucking in the malignant
fables of such who envious and revengeful, sought to
heat his breast to equal hatred with their own, and it would
seem he was not loth, but like the wolf lapping blood,
eagerly feasted on the banquet of scandal.—I am a bold
plain-spoken man, Col. Sloughter, and wither my tongue
when I speak not what I feel; your present reception of us,
your conduct confirms, nay your own breast may answer,
to the truth of what I have said; and were it the last word I
shall ever breathe, I would repeat you have not dealt openly
with us.”
As he listened to this rash speech, the eyes of
Sloughter glared like balls of fire upon the headstrong
speaker, and he bit his nether lip in anger, till the blood
and froth that hung upon it mingled, but yet keeping
down his ire for awhile, he heard him through, nor offered
and read the signal for their motions, in the index of
their master's countenance, awaited with anxious expectation
in readiness to execute the stern mandates, which it
was likely he would give, and denounced the fate of the
son-in-law of Leisler, and his followers in their hearts.
“Then I read ye aright Sirs,” said the Governor with
an assumed calmness of utterance, “ye have come hither
to rate me, as ye would some arrant school boy for disobedience;
forsooth I sought not this Leisler, and in humble
guise waited his leisure to receive and acknowledge
me, or rather till he chose to use me as his passive instrument,
to forward his vilo ambition? 'Tis well Sirs,
'tis mighty well—and possibly I should have had the
benefit of your sober guidance and experience, and I wot
not what else honors I might have attained. Good Sirs, I do
confess me, that in my joining with these men around, I
have done most wrong, acted most criminal, albeit you having
so high a claim on my first attention, natheless it is not
late to repent, or make you reparation therefor.—It
shall be done, and you shall have leisure to examine my
commission: But dogs” continued he, changing the ironical
tone in which he had spoken to one loud and fierce,
“it shall be in the dank dungeon; fools, that ye are—what
think ye of me, that ye beard me thus, that ye brave me
as it were in the very pitch of my power? wot ye not it
is dangerous to tamper with the javelin's sharp point, that
it is death to press the poison bag of the serpent;—out on
ye, for besotted blinded knaves, whose madness hath endangered
your necks—ho! there master Mayor, where
are your lackies,” added he turning to Van Kortlandt,
“let them take these fellows and clap them in close custody,
the crime is high treason, that is charged against
them, and an your hounds look not to their watch Master
Mayor, peril my head, but they will be like to ride a
worse horse than the wooden one.”
Van Kortlandt joyous and eager as he received the
Governor's intimation, beckoned the guard who attended
him by virtue of his office of mayor of the city; for in
his old dignity he had been speedily re-installed, the friend
of Leisler, who had for awhile fulfilled the duties of the
advanced at the sign.
“Beware sir, ere you enter on the risk you have commanded,
pause Colonel Sloughter, ere you commit a crime
black and infamous,” hastily ejaculated De Lanoy, “a
crime that will damn your memory for ever, a crime against
all faith, adverse to honour and the laws of nations; you
have forgotten sir, the character we have came hither in,
the envoy, no matter what his offence, is sacred from all
hurt; the vilest barbarian that ever lived, respected such
as sought him in that garb. There is no excuse for wanton
aggression on that sacred and holy bond of virtue, that
hath bound nations at war; the sword's point sinks to the
earth before the white flag; dismiss us therefore unharmed,
since you will not hear our offers or treat with us; as a
man, as a soldier, it is your duty to give us safe conduct to
our friends.”
There was a moment's silence after De Lanoy ceased,
ere answer was returned, and when the pause was broken,
other lips than Sloughter's gave reply.
“Ye waste words on idle air,” quoth Edsell as if glad of
the chance to vent his malevolence, “the Governor will
not condescend to speak further with traitors, yet to relieve
you on the head of faith, I answer, that the customs
which are extended between belligerent powers, are of
non-effect, when applied to committers of treason,—you
are not here recognised as aught but rebels in arms against
the commissioned servant of their majesties; the lawless
keepers, probably the murtherers also, of two distinguished
and worthy burghers of this province, Colonel Nicholas
Bayard and Walter Nichols, and so ye are attainted; so
preach ye not sirs, of law or virtue, but bethink ye of
atonement, for the high misdemeanours laid at your charge.
Burghers,” addded he to the guards “forward, it is the
Governor's pleasure that these knaves be disarmed, and
bound neck and heels.”
From the lips of several hundred bystanders, rose a
terrific shout of triumph, long hollow and dreadful, that
echoed in the midnight, like the burst of a tornado, as in
an instant De Lanoy, who stood more unguarded than his
of defence, that he had in vain strove to use with effect;
but though he was borne down in strength and arms, yet
he was not so in spirit, for his soul was roused to
its utmost by Sloughter's conduct, and like the chained
mastiff raving with anger, and thirsting for revenge,
he could have bit in twain the rude bonds wherewith he
was hastily girt;—the conquest however of his companions
was not so easily accomplished, for being alert and aware
of the danger that approached, the buccaneer shook off
with a sudden jerk, the hand of the soldier that was first
placed on his garb, and seizing the momentary opportunity
so afforded, by a spring he freed himself from the presssing
throng, that encompassed him, and made his way to the
stoel of the stad-huis, where planting himself firmly against
the wall, he fronted his foes with stern visage and levelled
handgun, which from his elevation on the step, had a
fair sweep for effect.
At the same time, nearly simultaneous with the action of
his bold follower, Milbourne taking advantage of the fluctuation
of the crowd caused by Eumet's unexpected
movement, tore from the man who advanced nearest upon
him, the heavy partisan with which the soldier was
armed, and hurling its weight before his step, forced
from the path those who immediately pressed upon him,
and dashing with sudden force through the opening thus
made, he cleared the space that was between, and seeking
the same object, stood in an instant at the rover's side.
“Santo Espirito! ye hungry Dutch sharks,” roared
Eumet with a voice shrill and dissonant; “an ye press
me so stoutly, your gunwales shall such blood, carja!
thof I go by the board—voto a madre de dios, more than
one pilot o' ye shall heave the same lead 'fore I touch bottom:”—and
as he spoke, he pointed the arquebuse among
the throng of his enemies. It is a true remark, that there
are but few things of more effect for the brief moment,
even on a wild, enraged and confident assemblage, than a
determined bearing on the part of the weak and attacked,
showing the desperate formed resolution of selling life at
its dearest rate; such as the swelling breast of Milbourne
had made; added to this was the reckless and fearless
ferocity of his companion, who, accustomed to bear down
odds by boldness, and to woo death in every shape, scarce
reflected on what must be the positive end of such unequal
battle.
The courage and spirit of the pirate of the time is too
well known to descant on. Careless of numbers or
dangers that it would seem madness to brave, these men
fought in their daring adventures with a fury and success
truly wonderful, and with a fierce hardihood and strength
that overcame every thing before them—entering in spite
of their defences, rifling and sacking with sword and
flame fortified towns and guarded places, defying in their
search for booty, as it were, all mortal power—braving
storm and ball, climbing from their low and sinking barks
the main chains, and sweeping from all opposers the
decks of the tallest ships, careless, like devils incarnate,
of fire or steel,—were their daily habits. In such actions
and frequent conflicts had Eumet been inured to every
stress; therefore, although to both their desolate situation
and hopelessness of escape were apparent, yet with
grim frowns they gazed upon their foes, and neither as
they looked did a cheek blanch, or a limb tremble; but,
with the front of entoiled lions, they stood undaunted
and unmoved.
Those who have pursued with unrelenting and unabated
heat the rapid and timorous flight of the chase, when
they meet the furious animal at his last struggle, give
back in wonder at the creature's mad desperation, and
hesitate ere they brave his death thrall; even so was it
now with the throng; the threatening attitudes and ready
weapons of Milbourne and Eumet had their brief effect;
for amid the wildest and unrestrained rabble there are
few so rash as it were, to be the first to commence violence
and throw away their lives, for the gratification of their
companions. Though, indeed, after the first blood is spilt
there are none who will withhold their hands from the
slaughter, yet there are seldom those who delight in
yielding themselves as the first victims: still, the smallest
unbridle to the utmost the sanguinary tempers of the
burghers; yet they felt the slight advantage of the station
ofthe others, and even the clamour and cries for death, with
which all hearing for awhile had been drowned, sunk so
low for a moment as the buccaneer glanced his quick,
sharp eye around to search him out an object for his
ball, that his wild cry and hoarse shout of defiance rang
high above the uproar of his adversaries.
“Ha! that voice is not young in my hearing, nor do I
see that face for the first time;” cried Sloughter, animatedly,
his peculiar attention drawn to the marauder
by the loud, fierce utterance of his braggart threats, and
the hesitation of the crowd; and recognising the ruffian
mate of Kid and one of his late persecutors—“murthering
dog! is it thee,—pirate, robber,—yield thy forfeit
body to the law.”
“Base, treacherous hound!” answered Milbourne to
Sloughter's cry, shaking aloft the halbert with which he
was armed;—“we spit at thee, and spurn thy orders as
we would thy neck beneath our feet; for cursed be this
hand of mine—palsied, I say be it, ere I crouch to word
of thine: thou mayst triumph, cur, but it shall be when
Jacob Milbourne can neither hear nor see thy smile of
conquest.”
The rumour of what was passing in front of the stadt-huis
seemed to have spread abroad with astonishing velocity,
and from great distances every one that could bear
themselves, uncrippled by age or disease, had hurried along
in bands to that quarter. The populace had now collected
in a promiscuous crowd on the slip, amounting to several
hundreds, and were incessantly increasing by new arrivals,
each one seeking the spot, desirous of bearing a part in
the scene about enacting, or urged by curiosity as well as
interest, strove to thrust themselves forward in the throng.
The mob momently grew closer wedged, those behind
pressing to get in advance, scarce suffering the persons in
front to bear back a step from the ground whereon they
stood; as the numbers enlarged, the more deep and vehement
were the muttered menaces that passed from their
that were now strengthened by the brave
uspect of the factionists; and with fierce looks like the
mastiff that has been driven back in his first attempt on the
baited bull, they gazed on their devoted foemen.
The narrow windows of the Dutch houses, the roofs
of buildings, and the masts of the yatchen became
places for spectators, and were filled with people,
who with clamorous outcries and savage gesticulations,
urged those below and within hearing of their words
to the commission of outrage, which they, from their
situations, to participate in were unable. The intimidation
caused by the gallant front borne by Milbourne and
Eumet was but momentary, and to such fearful height had
the feeling of the burghers arisen, that during the brief
yet fierce passage of invective between the parties above
detailed, their speech could scarce be heard above the
terrific imprecations that filled the air; and at the very
moment the bold voice of Milbourne was exerted to its
stretch in proud defiance, he had but closed the utterance
of his determination to die ere he would submit,
when there was hurled from some powerful yet unknown
hand from among the crowd, a missile, weighty and sharp
as the head of some javelin; its aim was certain and it
had been sent with care; with tremendous force, that gave
back a sound, hollow and fearful, it struck the unprotected
bosom of the unfortunate partizan of Leisler; as he
felt the blow, he sprang upwards in the air a foot or more,
while the halbert that he held dropt from his loosened
grasp, and he flung his arms out with a motion like the
swimmer; at the same moment, there gushed in a stream,
blood, thick and dark, from both mouth and nostril, while
with a last long faint and smothered shriek of bitter agony,
he tottered and sank upon his face; as he lay upon the
ground, there ran through his limbs a slight shivering like
one that is touched with sudden chillness of blood, and
then the fierce Milbourne lay motionless. No sight had
beheld from whose hand death had been given; yet it was
marked that the direction from whence the missile came
was that whereat Edsell stood, and it is said that his aged
joy, but that it flitted in an instant, leaving no trace upon
his visage; and although his hand trembled with age and
there was apparently too little vigor in his old arm to
give so fatal a blow, in after times when men's minds
were changed, and the hot zeal that now heated them
with blind rage, was cooled and passed away, he was not
seen, even till the day of his death,—but dark whispers
and hints were dropped among such as looked on him;
few held communion with him; he lived a solitary life,
and died, it is reported, though stricken as he was in years,
by his own hands. Panic and consternation at the deed
for an instant overwhelmed the crowd; surprise at the
length to which their own audacity had carried matters
was succeeded by a doubting and sullen silence; but this
was not to last;—Eumet saw his associate fall, and expecting
the next moment to share his fate, hastily discharged
his arquebuse with deadly effect amidst those nearest him;
the ball buried itself in the breast of a burgher, who rolled
with a piercing groan, weltering in his heart's blood,
at the feet of his companions; those who stood by uttered
a cry of sorrow, and as they beheld the blood that had
spirted upon their garments, the relenting feeling that had
possessed their hearts at Milbourne's fall was extinguished
and a yell of rage and vengeance burst from every lip,
in one wild outcry, terrible as that with which the tigress
mourns its young;—the former fury of the multitude redoubled;
a hundred pikes and clubs were extended to satiate
the thirst of their hearts; shrieks, groans and hisses
of execration filled the air; with merciless power the weapons
of the pirate were rent from his hands, and he himself
felled upon the ground beside the senseless form of Milbourne;
not one but a hundred hands had stricken him
down—the passions of the infuriated crowd now knew no
bounds—the voice of the governor was unheard amid
the uproar; in vain were endeavours to quell the riot;
the destitute and defenceless state of the objects of their
hate availed not to satisfy them; no single voice of expostulation
could rise amidst the storm; at one moment a
hundred hands had grasped the bodies of the fallen adherents
attain the hold from those who had seized on the inanimate
victims; with tumultuous screams, with horrid exultation
the disfigured trunks were dragged along the earth,
and pulled to and fro, and dashed, with wanton brutality,
on every side; handsful of mud and dirt were cast upon
them; on the bruised limbs heartless blows were showered,
and fierce feet trampled them down; soon was every
shred of garb that covered the mangled flesh torn in rags,
and the breathless corses looked not of humanity, but rather
shapeless and disgusting masses of filth and gore, for
which numerous madmen were contending; it was not
long ere the trembling limbs were torn apart and hurled
in the air while yet palpitating with life, and as though
they were priceless, the livid and discoloured remains
were caught up by the struggling populace as they fell
among them, who followed every new act of savage cruelty
with hoarse shouts of applause and gratification; like
the wild dogs who battle over the bodies of the slain for
a mouthful, they snatched from hand to hand bits of
flesh that they stripped from the bones, reeking with
gouts of blood, and he that could obtain a strip of skin,
peeled from the scalp with the hair yet clinging to it, or
a piece of flesh, however small, to hang upon the end of
his pike, gloried as in a deed of praise. In a very short
time almost every particle of the dead had suffered such
division, and was borne aloft upon the weapons of the
throng as trophies of triumph, while alone here and there,
scattered upon the earth were deep thick pools of blood,
or beside some stone, unregarded, yet clung a shred of
brain that had stuck there when the corse had been dragged
away. Suddenly, as when a wind changes on the
sea, and takes the current in a different course from that
in which late it had flowed, a new idea took possession
of the minds of the brutal populace; a cry was heard
among them that gathered strength as it went, and with
gestures of menace, and fearful clamours they pointed towards
the fort, and in an instant to that direction the
whole crowd turned and poured forward, like a host of
mountainous waves rolling up the beach, bearing in front
of Milbourne and Eumet: the gory visages presented a
horrible and ghastly spectacle, as the quick lights of the
flambeaux flashed upon them; no eye could recognise the
pallid and convulsed features: the skull of one was clove
asunder, and the scalp hung loose and lacerated; the
eyes of the other had been rent from their sockets as
though plucked out by the beak of a raven, and the
lower jaw was torn from its seat; with such terrific
ensigns did they march)—onward they went, waving
the bleeding trunks on high with malicious triumph.—All
was tumult and commotion in their way, and their tread
sounded louder than the lashing of the angry surfagainst an
iron-bound coast. Many with fearful yells joined in the
train of the frantic mob, while others terror struck, fled
their path; and there were women and wailing children,
with pale looks and dishevelled hair, that with wandering
eyes and beating hearts, gazed forth upon the rout, as
the horrid uproar assailed their ears, startling the sweet
visitation of sleep from their night couches, and filling
their astonished bosoms with consternation and with
awe. The fate of their embassy however, reached
Leisler and his confederates, together with a warning of
the approach of the enraged populace, before they gained
the gates of the fort: as the murmurs of their coming
indistinct and doubtful like the gathering of an army, were
heard, terror and horror blanched the boldest cheek,
and for awhile, struck powerless every listener of the
tragedy;—each held his breath, like the stag, driven in
some dell that is girt round with woods and hath no outlet
but the entrance, and indecisive and despairing, they gazed
one ach other; then as of one accord, there rose from every
lip a wild outcry of sorrow and of mourning; some stood
like frozen statues unmoved, to await the death they
could not fly;—others beat their breast in agony, and
strewed their hair with dust, in womanish affright.
Soon brief and fearful was the debate they held;—the
alarm of the coming host was already given—the imminent
danger was at the press—the outcries of relentless
foes were borne upon the night, and with their
the throng had thundered on the oaken gates for admittance,
Leisler and his companions had sought such safety
as flight could yield; and when the doors crashed beneath
their blows and fell inwards in splintered atoms,
the blood-thirsty mob found as they took possession,
(though they sought with savage eagerness in every suspected
hiding place for food to prey upon,) no living man
whereon to glut their deadly appetite for death and slaughter.
And yet though safe from the butchering hands of the
lawless burghers—though he heard far behind him their
cries sink in distance, yet his footsteps were tracked, and
the life of Jacob Leisler was spared but for wo and
mourning, for the next dawn rose on him a deserted and
solitary captive, in the prison-house of his fierce and
unsparing enemies.
These were the Dutch appellations given to certain days of peculiar
liberties and sports; on that first named, the young men were
empowered to kiss their sweethearts, without reprehension; and on
the last, the ladies were allowed to retaliate on the offenders, who
were prohibited resistance.
| The buccaneers | |