USA > New York > New York City > A history of New-York : from the beginning of the world to the end of the Dutch dynasty > Part 14
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would dirty his hands by attempting to drive them away ; in proof of which, he ordered the new-raised troops to be marched forthwith into winter quarters, although it was not as yet quite mid-summer. Gov- ernor Kieft faithfully kept his word, and his adversa- ries as faithfully kept their post; and thus the glori ous river Connecticut, and all the gay valleys through which it rolls, together with the salmon, shad, and other fish within its waters, fell into the hands of the victorious Yankees, by whom they are held at this very day.
Great despondency seized upon the city of New- Amsterdam, in consequence of these melancholy events. The name of Yankee became as terrible among our good ancestors as was that of Gaul among the ancient Romans; and all the sage old women of the province used it as a bugbear, wherc- with to frighten their unruly children into obedience.
The eyes of all the province were now turned upon their governor, to know what he would do for the protection of the common weal, in these days of darkness and peril. Great apprehensions prevailed among the reflecting part of the community, especially the old women, that these terrible warriors of Con- necticut, not content with the conquest of Fort Goed Hoop, would incontinently march on to New-Am- sterdam and take it by storm-and as these old ladies, through means of the governor's spouse, who, as has been already hinted, was "the better horse," had obtained considerable influence in public affairs, keeping the province under a kind of. petticoat gov-
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crament, it was determined that measures should be taken for the effective fortification of the city.
Now it happened, that at this time there sojourned in New-Amsterdam one Anthony Van Corlear,* a jolly fat Dutch trumpeter, of a pleasant burly visage, famous for his long wind and his huge whiskers, and who, as the story gocs, could twang so potently upon his instrument, as to produce an effect upon all with- in hearing, as though ten thousand bag-pipes were singing right lustily i' the nose. Him did the illus- trious Kieft pick out as the man of all the world most fitted to be the champion of New-Amsterdam, and to garrison its fort ; making little doubt but that his instrument would be as effectual and offensive in war as was that of the Paladin Astolpho, or the more classic horn of Alecto. It would have done one's heart good to have seen the governor snapping his fingers and fidgeting with delight, while his sturdy trumpeter strutted up and down the ramparts, fear- lessly twanging his trumpet in the face of the whole world, like a thrice-valorous editor daringly insulting all the principalities and powers-on the other side of the Atlantic.
Nor was he content with thus strongly garrisoning the fort, but he likewise added exceedingly to its strength, by furnishing it with a formidable battery
* David Pietrez De Vries, in his " Reyze naer Nieuw-Ned- erlant onder het year 1640," makes mention of one Corlear, a trumpeter in Fort Amsterdam, who gave name to Corlear's Hook, and who was doubtless this same champion described by Mr. Knickerbocker .-- EDITOR.
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of quaker guns-rearing a stupendous flag-staff in the centre, which overtopped the whole city-and, moreover, by building a great windmill on one of the bastions .* This last, to be sure, was somewhat of a novelty in the art of fortification, but, as I have already observed, William Kieft was notorious for innova- tions and experiments ; and traditions do affirm, that he was much given to mechanical inventions-con- structing patent smoke-jacks-carts that went before the horses, and especially erecting windmills, for which machines he had acquired a singular predilec- tion in his native town of Saardam.
All these scientific vagaries of the little governor were cried up with ecstasy by his adherents, as proofs of his universal genius-but there were not wanting ill-natured grumblers, who railed at him as employ- ing his mind in frivolous pursuits, and devoting that time to smoke-jacks and windmills which should have been occupied in the more important concerns of the province. Nay, they even went so far as to hint, once or twice, that his head was turned by his ex- periments, and that he really thought to manage his government as he did his mills-by mere wind !- such are the illiberality and slander to which en- lightened rulers are ever subject.
Notwithstanding all the measures, therefore, of William the Testy, to place the city in a posture of defence, the inhabitants continued in great alarm and
* De Vries mentions that this windmill stood on the south- east bastion ; and it is likewise to be seen, together with tk4 flag-staff, in Justus Danker's View of New-Amsterdam.
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despondency. But fortune, who seems always care - ful, in the very nick of time, to throw a bone for hope to gnaw upon, that the starveling elf may be kept alive, did about this time crown the arms of the province with success in another quarter, and thus cheered the drooping hearts of the forlorn Neder- landers ; otherwise, there is no knowing to what lengths they might have gone in the excess of their sorrowing-" for grief," says the profound historian of the seven champions of Christendom, "is com- panion with despair, and despair a procurer of in- famous death !"
Among the numerous inroads of the mosstroopers of Connecticut, which for some time past, had occa- sioned such great tribulation, I should particularly have mentioned a settlement made on the eastern part of Long Island, at a place which, from the pe- culiar excellence of its shell-fish, was called Oyster Bay. This was attacking the province in the most sensible part, and occasioned great agitation at New- Amsterdam.
It is an incontrovertible fact, well known to skilful physiologists, that the high road to the affections is through the throat; and this may be accounted for on the same principles which I have already quoted in my strictures on fat aldermen. Nor is the fact unknown to the world at large; and hence do we observe, that the surest way to gain the hearts of the million, is to feed them well-and that a man is never so disposed to flatter, to please and serve an- other, as when he is feeding at his expense; which
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is one reason why your rich men. who give frequent dinners, have such abundance of sincere and faithful friends. It is on this principle that our knowing leaders of parties secure the affections of their par- tisans, by rewarding them bountifully with loaves and fishes ; and entrap the suffrages of the greasy mob, by treating them with bull feasts and roasted oxen. I have known many a man, in this same city, acquire considerable importance in society, and usurp a large share of the good-will of his enlightened fellow-citizens, when the only thing that could be said in his eulogium was, that " he gave a good din- ner, and kept excellent wine."
Since, then, the heart and the stomach are so nearly allied, it follows conclusively that what affects the one, must sympathetically affect the other. Now, it is an equally incontrovertible fact, that of all offer- ings to the stomach, there is none more grateful than the testaceous marine animal, known commonly by the vulgar name of Oyster. And in such great rev- erence has it ever been held, by my gormandizing fellow-citizens, that temples have been dedicated to . it, time out of mind, in every street, lane, and alley. throughout this well-fed city. It is not to be ex- pected, therefore, that the seizing of Oyster Bay, a place abounding with their favourite delicacy, would be tolerated by the inhabitants of New-Amsterdam. An attack upon their honour they might have par- doned ; even the massacre of a few citizens might nave been passed over in silence; but an outrage that affected the larders of the great city of New-
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Amsterdam, and threatened the stomachs of its cor- pulent burgomasters, was too serious to pass unre- venged .- The whole council was unanimous in opin- ion, that the intruders should be immediately driven by force of arms from Oyster Bay and its vicinity and a detachment was accordingly despatched for the purpose, under the command of one Stoffel Brinkerhoff, or Brinkerhoofd, (i. e. Stoffel, the head- breaker,) so called because he was a man of mighty deeds, famous throughout the whole extent of Nieuw- Nederlandts for his skill at quarter-staff; and for size, he would have been a match for Colbrand, the Danish champion, slain by Guy of Warwick.
Stoffel Brinkerhoff was a man of few words, but prompt actions-one of your straight-going officers, who march directly forward, and do their orders without making any parade. He used no extraordi- nary speed in his movements, but trudged steadily on, through Nineveh and Babylon, and Jericho and Pat- chog, and the mighty town of Quag, and various other renowned cities of yore, which, by some unac- countable witchcraft of the Yankees, have been strangely transplanted to Long Island, until he arrived in the neighbourhood of Oyster Bay.
Here was he encountered by a tumultuous host of valiant warriors, headed by Preserved Fish, and Hab- bakuk Nutter, and Return Strong, and Zerubbabel Fisk, and Jonathan Doolittle, and Determined Cock! -- at the sound of whose names the courageous Stoffel verily believed that the whole parliament of Praise-God-Barebones had been let loose to discomfit
A HISTORY
him. Finding, however, that this formidable body- was composed merely of the "select men" of the settlement, armed with no other weapon but their tongues, and that they had issued forth with no other intent than to meet him on the field of argument- he succeeded in putting them to the rout with littl difficulty, and completely broke up their settlement. Without waiting to write an account of his victory on the spot, and thus letting the enemy slip through his fingers, while he was securing his own laurels, as a more experienced general would have done, the brave Stoffel thought of nothing but completing his enterprise, and utterly driving the Yankees from the island. This hardy enterprise he performed in much the same manner as he had been accustomed to drive his oxen; for as the Yankees fled before him, he pulled up his breeches and trudged steadily after them, and would infallibly have driven them into the sea, had they not begged for quarter, and agreed to pay tribute.
The news of this achievement was a seasonable restorative to the spirits of the citizens of New-Am- sterdam. To gratify them still more, the governor resolved to astonish them with one of those gorgeous spectacles, known in the days of classic antiquity, a full account of which had been flogged into his mem- ory, when a school-boy at the Hague. A grand tri- umph, therefore, was decreed to Stoffel Brinkerhoff, who made his triumphant entrance into town riding on a Naraganset pacer ; five pumpkins, which, like Roman eagles, had served the enemy for standards,
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were carried before him-fifty cart-loads of oysters, five hundred bushels of Weathersfield onions, a hundred quintals of codfish, two hogsheads of mo- lasses, and various other treasures, were exhibited as the spoils and tribute of the Yankees ; while three notorious counterfeitors of Manhattan notes* were led captive, to grace the hero's triumph. The pro- cession was enlivened by martial music from the trumpet of Anthony Van Corlear the champion, ac- companied by a select band of boys and negroes per- forming on the national instruments of rattle-bones and clam-shells. The citizens devoured the spoils in sheer gladness of heart-every man did honour to the conquerer, by getting devoutly drunk on New- England rum-and the learned Wilhelmus Kieft, calling to mind, in a momentary fit of enthusiasm and generosity, that it was customary among the ancients to honour their victorious generals with public statues, passed a gracious decree, by which every tavern-keeper was permitted to paint the head of the intrepid Stoffel on his sign !
* This is one of those trivial anachronisms, that now and then occur in the course of this otherwise authentic history. How could Manhattan notes be counterfeited, when as yet Banks were unknown in this country ?- and our simple pro- genitors had not even dreamt of those inexhaustible mines of paper opulence .- PRINT. DEV.
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CHAPTER IV.
Philosophical reflections on the folly of being happy in times of prosperity-Sundry troubles on the Southern Frontiers-How William the Testy had well nigh ruined the province through a cabalistic word-as also the secret expedition of Jan Jansen Alpendam, and his astonishing reward.
IF we could but get a peep at the tally of dame Fortune, where, like a notable landlady, she regularly chalks up the debtor and creditor accounts of man- kind, we should find that, upon the whole, good and evil are pretty near balanced in this world; and that though we may for a long while revel in the very lap of prosperity, the time will at length come when we must ruefully pay off the reckoning. Fortune, in fact, is a pestilent shrew, and withal a most inexo- rable creditor ; for though she may indulge her fa- vourites in long credits, and overwhelm them with her favours, yet sooner or later she brings up her arrears with the rigour of an experienced publican, and washes out her scores with their tears. " Since," says good old Boetius, " no man can retain her at his pleasure, and since her flight is so deeply lamented, what are her favours but sure prognostications of ap- proaching trouble and calamity ?"
There is nothing that more moves my contempt at the stupidity and want of reflection of my fellow-
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men, than to behold them rejoicing, and indulging in security and self-confidence, in times of prosperity. To a wise man, who is blessed with the light of reason, those are the very moments of anxiety and apprehension ; well knowing that according to the system of things, happiness is at best but transient- and that the higher he is elevated by the capricious breath of fortune, the lower must be his proportion- ate depression. Whereas, he who is overwhelmed by calamity, has the less chance of encountering fresh disasters, as a man at the bottom of a ladder runs very little risk of breaking his neck by tum- bling to the top.
This is the very essence of true wisdom, which consists in knowing when we ought to be miserable; and was discovered much about the same time with that invaluable secret, that " every thing is vanity and vexation of spirit ;" in consequence of which maxim, your wise men have ever been the unhappiest of the human race; esteeming it as an infallible mark of genius to be distressed without reason-since any man may be miserable in time of misfortune, but it is the philosopher alone who can discover cause for grief in the very hour of prosperity.
According to the principle I have just advanced, we find that the colony of New-Netherlands, which under the reign of the renowned Van Twiller, had flourished in such alarming and fatal serenity, is now paying for its former welfare, and discharging the enormous debt of comfort which it contracted. Foes harass it from different quarters ; the city of
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New-Amsterdam, while yet in its infancy, is kept in constant alarm; and its valiant commander, William the Testy, answers the vulgar, but expressive idea, of " a man in a peck of troubles."
While busily engaged repelling his bitter enemies the Yankees on one side, we find him suddenly mo- lested in another quarter, and by other assailants. A vagrant colony of Swedes, under the conduct of Peter Minnewits, and professing allegiance to that redoubtable virago, Christina, queen of Sweden, had settled themselves and erected a fort on South (or Delaware) River-within the boundaries claimed by the government of the New-Netherlands. History is mute as to the particulars of their first landing, and their real pretensions to the soil; and this is the more to be lamented, as this same colony of Swedes will hereafter be found most materially to affect not only the interests of the Nederlanders, but of the world at large !
In whatever manner, therefore, this vagabond colony of Swedes first took possession of the country, it is certain that in 1638 they established a fort, and Minnewits, according to the off-hand usage of his contemporaries, declared himself governor of all the adjacent country, under the name of the province of NEW-SWEDEN. No sooner did this reach the ears of the choleric Wilhelmus, than, like a true spirited chieftain, he immediately broke into a violent rage, and calling together his council, belaboured the Swedes most lustily in the longest speech that had ever been heard in the colony, since the memorable
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dispute of Ten Breeches and Tough Breeches. Hav- ing thus given vent to the first ebullitions of his indig- nation, he had resort to his favourite measure of pro- clamation, and despatched one, piping hot, in the first year of his reign, informing Peter Minnewits that the whole territory, bordering on the South river, had, time out of mind, been in possession of the Dutch colonists, having been " beset with forts, and sealed with their blood."
The latter sanguinary sentence would convey an idea of direful war and bloodshed, were we not re- lieved by the information that it merely related to a fray, in which some half-a-dozen Dutchmen had been killed by the Indians, in their benevolent attempts to establish a colony and promote civilization. By this it will be seen, that William Kieft, though a very small man, delighted in big expressions, and was much given to a praiseworthy figure of rhetoric, gen- erally cultivated by your little great men, called hy- perbole -- a figure which has been found of infinite service among many of his class, and which has helped to swell the grandeur of many a mighty, self- important, but windy chief magistrate. Nor can I refrain in this place from observing how much my beloved country is indebted to this same figure of hyperbole, for supporting certain of her greatest characters-statesmen, orators, civilians, and divines ; who, by dint of big words, inflated periods, and windy doctrines, are kept afloat on the surface of society, as ignorant swimmers are buoyed up by blown blad- ders.
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The proclamation against Minnewits concluded by ordering the self-dubbed governor, and his gang of Swedish adventurers, immediately to leave the country, under penalty of the high displeasure and inevitable vengeance of the puissant government of the Nieuw-Nederlandts. This " strong measure,' however, does not seem to have had a whit more effect than its predecessors which had been thunder- ed against the Yankees-the Swedes resolutely held on to the territory they had taken possession of ---- whereupon matters for the present remained in statu quo.
That Wilhelmus Kieft should put up with this in- solent obstinacy in the Swedes, would appear incom- patible with his valorous temperament ; but we find that about this time the little man had his hands full, and, what with one annoyance and another, was kept continually on the bounce.
There is a certain description of active legislators, who, by shrewd management, contrive always to have a hundred irons on the anvil, every one of which must be immediately attended to; who conse-" quently are ever full of temporary shifts and expe- dients, patching up the public welfare, and cobbling the national affairs, so as to make nine holes where they mend one-stopping chinks and flaws with whatever comes first to hand, like the Yankees I have mentioned, stuffing old clothes in broken win dows. Of this class of statesmen was William the Testy-and bad he only been blessed with powers equal to his zeal, or his zeal been disciplined by a
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little discretion, there is very little doubt that he would have made the greatest governor of his size on record-the renowned governor of the island of Barataria alone excepted.
The great defect of Wilhelmus Kieft's policy was, that though no man could be more ready to stand forth in an hour of emergency, yet he was so intent upon guarding the national pocket, that he suffered the enemy to break its head-in other words, what- ever precaution for public safety he adopted, he was so intent upon rendering it cheap, that he invariably rendered it ineffectual. All this was a remote con- sequence of his profound education at the Hague- where, having acquired a smattering of knowledge, he was ever after a great conner of indexes, contin- ually dipping into books, without ever studying to the bottom of any subject ; so that he had the scum of all kinds of authors fermenting in his pericranium. In some of these title-page researches, he unluckily stumbled over a grand political cabalistic word, which, with his customary facility, he immediately incorporated into his great scheme of government, to the irretrievable injury and delusion of the honest province of Nieuw-Nederlandts, and the eternal mis- leading of all experimental rulers.
In vain have I pored over the theurgia of the Chaldeans, the cabala of the Jews, the necromancy of the Arabians, the magic of the Persians, the hocus- pocus of the English, the witchcraft of the Yankees, or the powwowing of the Indians, to discover where the little man first laid eyes on this terrible word.
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Neither the Sephir Jetzirah, that famous cabalistic volume, ascribed to the patriarch Abraham ; nor the pages of Zohar, containing the mysteries of the cabala, recorded by the learned rabbi Simon Sochaides, yield any light to my inquiries-nor am I in the least bene- fited by my painful researches in the Shem-ham- phorah of Benjamin, the wandering Jew, though it enabled Davidus Elm to make a ten days' journey in twenty-four hours. Neither can I perceive the slightest affinity in the Tetragrammaton, or sacred name of four letters, the profoundest word of the He- brew cabala; a mystery sublime, ineffable, and incom- municable-and the letters of which, Jod-He-Vau-He, having been stolen by the pagans, constituted their great name Jao or Jove. In short, in all my caba- listic, theurgic, necromantic, magical, and astrological researches, from the Tetractys of Pythagoras to the recondite works of Breslaw and Mother Bunch, I have not discovered the least vestige of an origin of this word, nor have I discovered any word of suffi- cient potency to counteract it ..
Not to keep my reader in any suspense, the word which had so wonderfully arrested the attention of William the Testy, and which in German characters had a particularly black and ominous aspect, on being fairly translated into the English, is no other than ECONOMY-a talismanic term, which, by con- stant use and frequent mention, has ceased to be for midable in our eyes, but which has as terrible po- tency as any in the arcana of necromancy.
When pronounced in a national assembly, it has
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an immediate effect.in closing the hearts, beclouding the intellects, drawing the purse-strings, and button- ing the breeches-pockets of all philosophic legislators. Nor are its effects on the eyes less wonderful. It produces a contraction of the retina, an obscurity of the crystalline lens, a viscidity of the vitreous, and an inspissation of the aqueous humours, an induration of the tunica sclerotica, and a convexity of the cor- nea ; insomuch that the organ of vision loses its strength and perspicuity, and the unfortunate patient becomes myopes, or in plain English, purblind ; per- ceiving only the amount of immediate expense, with- out being able to look farther, and regard it in con- nexion with the ultimate object to be effected --- " So that," to quote the words of the eloquent Burke, " a briar at his nose is of greater magnitude than an oak at five hundred yards' distance." Such are its instantaneous operations, and the results are still more astonishing. By its magic influence, seventy- fours shrink into frigates-frigates into sloops, and sloops into gun-boats.
This all-potent word, which served as his touch- stone in politics, at once explains the whole system of proclamations, protests, empty threats, windmills, trumpeters, and paper war, carried on by Wilhelmus the Testy-and we may trace its operations in an armament which he fitted out in 1642 in a moment of great wrath, consisting of two sloops and thirty men, under the command of Mynher Jan Jansen Alpendam, as admiral of the fleet, and commander- in-chief of the forces. This formidable expedition,
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which can only be paralleled by some of the daring cruisers of our infant navy about the bay and up the sound, was intended to drive the Marylanders from the Schuylkill, of which they had recently taken pos- session-and which was claimed as part of the prov- ince of New-Nederlandts-for it appears that at this time our infant colony was in that enviable state, so much coveted by ambitious nations, that is to say, the government had a vast extent of territory, part of which it enjoyed, and the greater part of which it had continually to quarrel about.
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