USA > New Jersey > Monmouth County > Early Dutch Settlers of Monmouth County, New Jersey > Part 20
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A roorbach was circulated through England that Admiral VanTromp, as they called him, after defeating the English fleet in the late war, had hoist- ed a broom at his masthead and cruised up and down the English coast, to show that he had swept the English ships from the seas.
This canard was well calculated to arouse the patriotism and wrath of the English masses, and make them sup- port any alliance, even with the Turks. to punish such insolence. There was no one in England to contradict this lie, so it run its full course, and arous- ed the English people to bitter anger and fury against the Dutch. Admiral Tromp was a brave, bluff sailor, with- out the bravado of the French or the cant and hypocrisy of the English. He was no more likely to perpetrate such a puerile, fantastic and idiotic act, than General Grant was to stick a peacock leather in his hat, and strut around with it, after the surrender at Appo- mattox. Nevertheless, every charge against the Dutch was believed without any question. No one ever asked how it was possible to see a little broom, fastened high up among the ropes and sails of a ship's mast, two or three miles off at sea from the English coast. Like the story of the Dutch drinking intoxicating liquors before going into action, it was a lie cut out of the whole
:'Vol. I, O'Call. Doc. Hist. of N. Y., p. 661.
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cloth. At that time and for many gen- erations after, it was the custom of the English navy to serve out grog to their sailors before going into action. It was supposed to give them courage, yet in this, as in many other things, they charged all their vices on the Dutch, while they arrogated all the vir- tues to themselves.
It would have been far more in ac- cordance with the truth, to have label- led it Cockney or British courage, in- stead of Dutch. Not only were such roorbachs industriously circulated, but plays were written and acted in the theatres of England, showing the Dutch up in the most odious light.
Even the famous John Dryden devot- ed his talents to composing such a play. which was acted to crowded houses, and excited the fury and hatred of the lower classes, so that private citizens of Holland were mobbed in the streets of London. This play was written and acted long before the open alliance be- tween France and England was con- summated, yet there are several pas- sages in it which point to it, and show that Dryden was either conversant with the plans of the king, or else wrote the play under particular in- structions. Straws, it is said, show which way the wind blows, and this play coming from a man like John Dryden, shows that it was one of the methods used to educate public opinion, and shut the mouths of the Protestant or peace party. This play, called Am- boyna, met with great success. The theatres were crowded to overflowing by the people, and it seemed to move them as much as the play of Uncle Tom's Cabin influenced the people of the North, prior to the election of Abraham Lincoln. A strong appeal to the feelings will often move the masses more strongly than the best argument addressed to their reason. The copy of "Amboyna" which I have, was printed in London, England, during the latter part of the 17th century. It begins with a personal address to the "Right Hon- orable Lord Clifford of Chudleigh," who appears to have been high treasurer of England and one of Dryden's patrons. As a specimen of fulsome flattery, and snobbish sycophancy it is unequalled.
.
Dryden says that this play was "con- trived and written" in a month, and ends up his adulations with these words :-
"I pretend not by it (the play) to make any manner of return for your favors ; and that I only give you a new occasion for exercising your goodness to me, in pardoning the failings
and imperfections of, My Lord, Your Lord- ship's most humble, most obliged, and most obedient servant.
JOHN DRYDEN."
Then comes what he calls a prologue to Amboyna in verse as follows :-
"As needy Gallants in the Scriv'ners' hands, Court the rich knave that gripes their mort- gag'd lands.
The first fat buck of all the Season's sent, And keeper takes no fee in compliment :
The Dotage of some Englishmen is such.
To fawn on those who ruin them-the Dutch. They shall have all, rather than make a war With those, who of the same religion are.
The Streights, the Guiney Trade, the Herrings too,
Nay to keep Friendship, they shall pickle you. Some are resolved not to find out the cheat, But cuckold-like, loves him who does the feat : What injuries so'ever upon us fall,
Yet still, the same religion answers all : Religion wheedled you to Civil War.
Drew English blood, and Dutchmen's now would spare :
Be gull'd no longer, for you'll find it true, They have no more Religion, faith-than you : Interest's the God they worship in their State, And you, I take it, have not much of that. Well, monarchies may own Religious name, But States are Athiests in their very frame, They share a sin, and such proportions fall That like a stink, 'tis nothing to 'em all. How they love England, you shall see this day : No map shows Holland truer than our Play : View then their falsehoods, rapine, cruelty ;
And think what once they were. they still would be ;
But hope not either language, plot, or art, 'Twas writ in haste but with an English heart : And let's, hope, wit in Dutchman would be As much improper as would honesty.
The play is entitled "Amboyna, or the Cruelties of the Dutch to the English Merchants." The scene opens at Am- boyna, with a dialogue between the Dutch Governor and his fiscal, in which they congratulate each other, in dam- aging the English East India company to an immense amount, and then set- tling for a trifling sum. The fiscal then proposes to carry out a "Plot" against the English, which he has contrived. The substance of it is, to cut all their throats and seize their wealth.
The history of England during this century is full of charges and counter charges, of plots and conspiracies. As it was a favorite accusation among themselves it became very easy to make it against foreign people.
An English captain named Towerson, in the employ of the English East India company, and an English merchant are next brought on the stage. The English merchant and the Dutch fiscal engage in the following dialogue. The English merchant thus speaks of the Holland- ors:
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English Merchant-"Not being gentlemen, you have stolen the arms of the best families in Europe, and wanting a name, you make bold with the first of Divine attributes, and call'd yourselves the 'High and Mighty :' though, let me tell you, that besides the blas- phemy, the title is ridiculous, for. 'High' is no more proper for the Netherlands, than 'Might' is, for seven little rascally Provinces, no big- ger in all than a Shire in England. But for my main theme, your ingratitude to England. We have set you up and you undermind our Power and Circumvent our trade."
Dutch Fiscal-"Yes, and good reason, if our interest requires it ; besides you give one of the names of the 'Almighty' to your high men in England, by calling them Lords, and so make the vulgar people worship them, as Deities or Human Gods."
English Merchant-"That leads me to your religion, which is made up of interest ; at home ye tolerate all worships in them who can pay for it, and abroad you were latterly so civil to the Emperor of Pegu (Pern) as to offer sac- rifices to his idols."
Dutch Fiscal-"Yes, this is all true, and you English were such precise fools as to refuse it."
English Merchant-"For frugality, we con- fess we cannot compare with you. Our English merchants live like noblemen, while you gen- tlemen, if you have any, live like Boors. You are the mill horses of Mankind ; a pickled her- ring is all your riches. You have good title to cheat all Europe, for you cozen your own backs and bellies."
Dutch Fiscal-"Yes, this is all true."
English Merchant-"Your liberties are a greater cheat than any of the rest. You are ten times more taxed than any people in Christendom. You flatter our Kings and ruin their subjects."
Dutch Fiscal-"You English are so honest, that we Dutch can easily fool you in name of our Protestant religion."
English Merchant-"I prophesy the day will come, when some English king will see through your hypocricies and frauds and protect the honest and true-hearted English, against the rascalities of the Dutch, and resume the fisher- ies of the seas, and the riches of the East Indies."
Some light scenes and dialogues are next introduced to relieve the gravity of the play. Then an English woman. pale, weak, and in tattered garments, appears on the stage. She tells a hor- rible story, how she and her husband had been on an English ship, and by treachery certain Hollanders had mur- dered the English crew and plundered the ship. That she and her husband had escaped in a small boat, and after terrible suffering her husband died, but she was rescued by a noble English captain. Then follow scenes in which great outrages are perpetrated by a son of the Dutch Governor, and the English Captain, Towerson, fights with and kills him in a fair duel. The
Dutch Governor and his fiscal then ar- ranged a treacherous plot against the English. They falsely accuse them of trying to capture the Dutch fort, and put them to horrible tortures to elicit a confession. Scene opens and shows the English tortured in the most fiend- ish manner by fire and water, while the Dutchmen joke and laugh at their suf- ferings. The Governor remarks, as they burn the English merchant, that he will light his pipe just where the "wyck" is fed with English fat; that "the tobacco tastes divinely after being so fired."
After torture, the English captain is put to death, and the play closes with a scene in which the Dutch are feasting and making merry over a division of the wealth of the murdered English. Then follows an "Epilogue" as Dryden calls it, as follows:
To one well-born, th' affront is worse and more. When he's abus'd and baffled by a Boor : With an ill-grace the Dutch their mischiefs do. They've both ill nature and ill manners too. Well may they boast themselves an ancient nation,
For they were bred 'ere manners were in fashion :
And their new Commonwealth has set 'em free Only from honor and civility.
Venetians do not more uncouthly ride Than did their Lubber State mankind bestride. Their sway became 'em with as ill a mien, As their own paunches swell above their chin : Yet is their empire no true growth but humor. And only two kings touch can cure the tumour.tt
As Cato did his Afric fruits display : So we before your eyes their Indies lay, All loyal English will like him conclude Let Cæsar live and Carthage be subdued.
This is a clear and plain effort to educate public opinion in England, so that an alliance with France against Holland would be popular among the English masses. This play is well con- trived to stir up their anger and pride, and was intended for that very purpose. It fell in with the policy and purposes of Charles II, and we can see why Dryden was a favorite of the court and patronized by the high officials.
This play was written and acted in the theatres of London several years before the alliance between England and France against Holland was con- summated by an aggressive movement against the Republic.
11The two Kings refer to an alliance be- tween England and France.
EFFORTS OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND TO CRUSH HOLLAND REPUBLIC.
Louis XIV of France was one of the most astute and able of the kings of Europe. His zeal and devotion to the Roman Hierarchy is proved by the ban- ishment of half a million of his protes- tant subjects from France. These ref- ugees were known as French Hugue- nots. As Macaulay, Dickens, and other truthful historians of England have shown, Charles II was a mere puppet of this champion of Rome. Behind both stood the priests, dictating and urging a union which would restore, as they thought, the church to its old authority and power in the world. Their object was to crush the Protestant Republic of Holland. They were not only here- tics but republicans, setting a bad ex- ample to Christendom. Their great prosperity and wealth also excited jeal- ousy and alarm. This Republic so near the territory of France and England was a continual menace to the exis- tence of monarchies. If people without a king could prosper so, what necessity was there for royalty and an aristo- cratic or Brahmin caste, to uphold it. Kingcraft and priesteraft were there- fore in hearty agreement to wreck this upstart Republic. These "seven ras- cally little provinces," as Dryden put it, "not as big as an English shire." The two great monarchies of France and England could easily wipe Holland off the map of Europe, everybody thought. The two Catholic Bishops of the German Provinces of Munster and Cologne also joined this alliance with England and France to destroy Holland. This fact alone would show that behind this alliance of nations stood the Roman Hierarchy. Our American historian, Bancroft, thus describes this great and most eventful contest :-
"Charles II had begun hostilities as a pirate, and Louis XIV did not disguise his purpose of conquest.
"With armies amounting to 200,000 men, to which Holland could oppose no more than 20,000, the French monarch invaded the Republic. Within a month Holland was exposed to the same des- perate dangers she had encountered a century before, while the English fleet, hovering off the coast, endeavored to land English troops into the heart of the wealthiest of the provinces. Ruin
was imminent and had come but for the public virtues.
"The annals of the human race record but few instances where moral force has so successfully defied every dis- parity of force, and repelled such des- perate odds by invincible heroism.
"At sea, where greatly superior num- bers were on the side of the allied fleets of France and England, the un- tiring courage of the Dutch would not consent to be defeated. On land the dikes were broken up and the country drowned. The son of Grotius, con- cealing his anger, at ignominious pro- posals of the French, protracted the negotiations till the rising waters could form a wide and impassable moat around the cities. At Groningen, men, women and children worked on the for- tifications. Fear was not permitted to the women. William of Orange (after- wards King of England), was advised by Arlington, one of the great Virgin- ian proprietors, to seek advancement and gain for himself, by yielding to England; 'My country,' calmly replied the young man, 'trusts in me. I will not sacrifice it to my interests, but if needs be, die with it in the last ditch.' "
The landing of the British troops in Holland could only be prevented by three naval engagements. The veteran DeRuyter and the younger VanTromp, a son of the old Admiral, had been bit- ter enemies. The latter had been dis- graced on the charge of the former. June 7. 1673, at the battle of Soulsbay, where the Dutch with 52 ships of the line engaged an enemy with 80, De- Ruyter was successful in his first man- oeuvers, while the extraordinary ardor of VanTromp, plunged him headlong into danger and he could not recover. The frank and true hearted DeRuyter, checked himself in his career of vic- tory, and turned to the relief of his rival. "Oh, there comes grandfather to the rescue!" shouted VanTromp in ecs- tasy. "I will never desert him, as long as I breathe." The issue of the battle was uncertain. June 14, seven days later, a second battle was fought, and the advantage was with the Dutch. About three weeks after the Dutch cap- tured New York, August 2, 1673, the last and most terrible conflict took
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place near Helder. The enthusiasm of the Dutch mariners dared almost infin- ite deeas of valor.
The noise of the artillery boomed along the low coast of Holland. The churches on the shore and the dikes were thronged with people, praying to the God of Battles to give victory to the right cause and their country. The contest raged and exhausted, and was again renewed with unexampled fury. Victory was with DeRuyter and Van- Tromp. The British fleet retreated and was pursued. This defeat caused the English Parliament to refuse Charles JI further supplies. This led to peace with England, although war went on with France. At one time affairs seem- ed so hopeless, with the great French army in the heart of the country, and the mighty allied fleet on the coast it was resolved with inflexible Dutch res- olution, to defend the country to the last, and, if all failed, to take to their ships, and sail to some other part of the world, and there found a new coun- try and so preserve the liberties of which Europe was unworthy.
About a month after the defeat of the allied fleets, or between the 7th and 13th of September, 1673, Capt. Knyff and Lieut. Snell with a company of Dutch mariners from one of Admiral Evertsen's ships which lay in the North River before New York, came over in a sloop to Monmouth county, landed at Waycake creek, and marched up to Middletown village and administered the oath of allegiance to the States General of Holland to the citizens there and then went to Shrewsbury and did the same. The people with exception of a dozen or so who were absent, took the oath of allegiance. So our people of Monmouth were a part of the little Netherland Republic and entitled to some share of the glory which belonged to their mother country at this time. If this alliance had succeeded in crush- ing Holland, there would have been no Stadtholder with his Dutch army to land at Torbay, and deliver the Protes- tants of England from the tyranny of James II. The great revolution of 1688 would never have occurred. James ]], backed by the subtle brain and strong arm of Louis XIV would perhaps have crushed protestantism in England, as completely as Louis XIV had done in France by revoking the Edict of Nantes.
For after the failure of Monmouth's rebellion, the spirit of the English peo- ple seemed crushed. The savage and brutal punishments inflicted by Jeffrey and Kirke hardly called forth a whim- per of protest, so abject was the terror
and fear they inspired with the gibbet, hot pitch and dismembered corpses hung up at nearly every cross road in England.
This victory of the Dutch made the deliverance of the English by William of Orange possible. The hand of Prov- idence was never more signally dis- played in the history of states and na- tions than in the defeat of these power - ful nations by "seven little rascally provinces, all told no bigger than an English shire," to use Dryden's expres- sion. It was a year big with future events in the history of Christendom and the world, as subsequent results show.
The sacrifices, services, and patriot- ism of William of Orange * in this war wth England, France and the two Ger- man provinces, together with those of his great grandfather, Willam the Silent in the Spanish war, have made their names venerated in Holland, as Washington's is in America.
The descendants of the Dutch in the United States claim all three as their worthy trio of heroes, and worthy of each other to stand in eternal union and glory. For all three, one as much as the other, they feel a veneration and gratitude which words cannot express. The following song, so popular in Hol- land, gives but a feeble echo of what is in the hearts of all who prize justice, independence and liberty for "the Fris- ians shall be free as long as the winds of heaven blow!"
We leven in Nederland vrij en blij,t hoezee! Wars zijn we van elke dwingelandij, hoezee! Vervloekt zij eeuwig het vreemde juk, Op vrijheid, rrijheid zijn we tuk, VIVAT ORANJE, HOEZEE!
Oranje maakte ons vrij en groot, hoezee! Oranje was altijd een vriend in den nood, hoezee ! Oranjeklant lijn we dus op en top! Oranje boven, Oranje voorop ! VIVAT ORANJE, HOEZEE!
Oranje blijv, Nederlands toeverlaat, hoezee ! Alleen met Oranje ons Nederland staat hoezee ! Lang leve Oranje! met Rood Wit en Blaauw ! Oranje, we zweren U houw en trouw ! VIVAT ORANJE, HOEZEE!
+ Vrij en Blij means Free and Happy.
"Bishop Burnet thus describes William of Orange :
"I had occasion to know him well, having observed him very carefully in a course of 16 years.
"He believed in the truths of the Christian religion very firmly, and expressed a horror of atheism and blasphemy.
"He was constant in his private prayers and in reading the Scriptures.
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"His indifference to the form of church gov- ernment and his being zealous for toleration, together with his cold behavior towards the clergy, gave them generally an ill opinion of him. He loved the Dutch, and was much beloved among them; but the ill returns he met from the English nation, their jealousies of him, and their perverseness towards him, had sonred his mind, and had in a great meas- ure alienated him from them, which he did not take care enough to conceal, though he saw the ill effect this had upon his business. "Watching over the court of France, and bestirring himself against their practices was the prevailing passion of his whole life. I considered him a person raised up by God to resist the power of France and the progress of tyranny and persecution.
"The series of five Princes of Orange that was now ended in him was the noblest succes- sion of heroes we find in any history. And the 30 years from 1672 to his death in which he acted so great a part, carry in them so many amazing steps of a glorious and dis- tingnishing Providence that in the words of
David he may be called 'The man of God's right hand whom he made strong for himself.' He received, however, in his life time little else than calumnies, abuse and ingratitude from the nation he served so well. He once remarked to Lord Halifax, when speaking of the treatment he had received from the two great parties of England, that all the difference he knew between them was 'the Tories would ent throat in the morning and the Whigs in the afternoon.' Subsequent generations and posterity in England have acknowledged his great services and abilities, but in a grudging spirit and without any heartiness, as though jealous of the contrast between their native born monarchs and this Dutchman from over the sea. Macaulay, who is of Scotch ancestry, has done him justice but even he thus des- cribes him: 'His manners, (when King of England) were altogether Dutch. Even his countrymen thought him blunt. To foreigners he often seemed churlish. In his intercourse with the world he appeared ignorant or negli- gent of those arts which double the value of a favor and take away the sting of a refusal.' "
THE BARKALOW FAMILY.
After the New Netherlands were seized in 1664 by the English Govern- ment the public records were kept in the English language. Many of the scriveners who wrote legal papers like wills, deeds, etc., were ignorant of the Dutch language, so they spelled and wrote Holland names, like the Indians, from sound. They also made many sur- names from the Dutch custom of call- ing a person by his christian name fol- lowed by his father's christian name, with z, s, se, or sen, affixed. Thus if Derrick Barkalow had a son named Pieter, he would be called Peter Der- ricks, or Derricksen. If the latter had a son Jan, he would be known as Jan Pietersen, cr Pieterz. If he called his son Hendrick; he would be designated as Hendrick Jans, or Jansen. The Eng- lish conveyancers would often write these names according to above custom in deeds and other legal documents, which went on permanent record. In two or three generations such names would become fixed and unchangable, according to the English custom, to identify persons and families and keep land titles straight. This is the reason why several family surnames have orig- inated from one Dutch progenitor. It often makes it very difficult and in some cases impossible, to trace family connections, especially if they frequent- ly changed their residence and neg- lected to keep a family record or have
their children baptized. For this reason it is now difficult to trace the Barkalow family. This name, too, in changing from the Dutch to the English lan- guage, has been spelled in many differ- ent ways, as VanBerculo, VanBurkalow, Borckelloo, Berkelue, etc.
The original emigrant from Holland was William Janse Barkelo. He came to America at an early date, and settled permanently at Flatbush, Long Island, where he raised a family of several girls and boys. Among the list of per- sons taking the oath of allegiance to the English government in 1687, and published on page 661, vol. 1, O'Callag- han's Documentary History of New York, we find the name of William Williamsen Borcklo, who is put down as born in America, and a resident at that date of Flatlands. Also, Jan Wil- liamsen Borcklo, also a native and then resding at Gravesend, L. I. Elizabeth Barkalow, who married Jacob Thysen Laen (Lane), and whose name is found among the original members of the
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