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

...To these times may we refer the rise of family pride and aristocratic distinctions; and indeed I cannot but look back with reverence to the early planting of those mighty Dutch families, which have taken such vigorous root, and branched out so luxuriantly in our state. The blood which has flowed down uncontaminated through a succession of steady, virtuous generations, since the times of the patriarchs of Communipaw, must certainly be pure and worthy. And if so, then are the Van Rensellaers, the

* In a work published many years after the time here treated of, (in 1701 by C. W. A. M.) it is mentioned that Frederick Philipse was counted the richest Mynheer in New-York, and was said to have whole hogsheads of Indian money or wampum; and had a son and daughter, who, according to the Dutch custom, should divide it equally.

scribe some astonishing figures in algebra, which she had learned from a dancing master in Rotterdam. Whether she was too animated in flourishing her feet, or whether some vagabond Zephyr took the liberty of obtruding his services, certain it is, that in the course of a grand evolution, which would not have disgraced a modern ball-room, she made a most unexpected display whereat the whole assembly was thrown into great admiration, several grave country members were not a little moved, and the good Peter himself, who was a man of unparalleled modesty, felt himself grievously scandalized.

The shortness of the female dresses, which had continued in fashion ever since the days of William Kieft, had long offended his eye; and though extremely averse to meddling with the petticoats of the ladies, yet he immediately recommended, that every one should be furnished with a flounce to the bottom. He likewise ordered that the ladies, and indeed the gentlemen, should use no other step in dancing, than shuffle and turn, and double trouble; and forbade, under pain of his high displeasure, any young lady thenceforth to attempt what was termed, " exhibiting the graces."

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

bow! ! CHAPTER II. bes aut grip o

How Peter Stuyvesant was much molested by the Moss-troopers. of the East, and the Giants of Merryland; and hon a dark - and horrid conspiracy was carried on in the British Cabinet against the prosperity of the Manhattoes.

WE are now approaching towards the crisis of our work, and if I be not mistaken in my forebodings, we shall have a world of business to despatch in the ensuing chapters. Pesa ou do..

n It is with some communities as it is with certain meddlesome individuals, they have a wonderful facility at getting into scrapes; and I have always remarked, that those are most liable to get in who have the least talent at getting out again. This is, doubtless, owing to the excessive valour of those states; for I have likewise noticed, that this rampant and ungovernable quality is always most unruly where most confined, which accounts, for its vapouring so amazingly in little states, little men, and ugly little women more especially...

Thus, when one reflects that the province of the Manhattoes, though of prodigious importance in the eyes of its inhabitants and its historian, was really of no very great consequence in the eyes of the rest of the world; that it had but little wealth or other spoils to reward the trouble, of assailing it, and that it had nothing to expect from running wantonly into war, save an exceeding good beating; on pondering these things, I say, one would utterly de spair of finding in its history either battle or bloodshed, or any other of those calamities which give importance to a nation, and entertainment to the reader. But, on the contrary, we find, so valiant is this province, that it has already drawn upon itself a host of enemies; has had as

many buffetings as would gratify the ambition of the most warlike nation; and is, in sober sadness, a very forlorn, distressed, and wo-begone little province !--all which was, no doubt, kindly ordered by providence, to give interest and sublimity to this pathetic history.

But I forbear to enter into a detail of the pitiful maraudings and harassments that for a long while after the victory on the Delaware, continued to insult the dignity, and disturb the repose of the Nederlanders. Suffice it in brevity to say, that the implacable hostility of the people of the east, which had so miraculously been prevented from breaking out, as my readers must remember, by the sudden prevalence of witchcraft, and the dissensions in the council of Amphyctions, now again displayed itself in a thousand grievous and bitter scourings upon the borders.

.

Scarcely a month passed but what the Dutch settlements on the frontiers were alarmed by the sudden appearance of an invading army from Connecticut. This would advance resolutely through the country, like a puissant caravan of the deserts, the women and children mounted in carts loaded with pots and kettles, as though they meant to boil the honest Dutchmen alive, and devour them like so many lobsters. At the tail of these carts would stalk a crew of long-limbed, lank-sided varlets, with axes on their shoulders, and packs on their backs, resolutely bent upon improving the country in despite of its proprietors. These settling themselves down, would in a short time completely dislodge the unfortunate Nederlanders, elbowing them out of those rich bottoms and fertile valleys, in which our Dutch yeomanry are so famous for nestling themselves; for it is notorious, that wherever these shrewd men of the east get a footing, the honest Dutchmen do gradually disappear, retiring slowly, like the Indians before the Whites, being totally discomfited by the talking, chaffering, swapping, bargaining disposition of their new neighbours.

All these audacious infringements on the territories of

their high mightinesses were accompanied, as has before been hinted, by a world of rascally brawls, rib-roastings, and bundlings, which would doubtless have incensed the valiant Peter to wreak immediate chastisement, had he not at the very same time been perplexed by distressing accounts from Mynheer Beckman, who commanded the territories at South river.

The restless Swedes, who had so graciously been suffered to remain about the Delaware, already began to show signs of mutiny and disaffection. But what was worse, a peremptory claim was laid to the whole territory, as the rightful property of Lord Baltimore, by Fendal, a chieftain who lived over the colony of Maryland, or Merry-land, as it was anciently called, because the inhabitants, not having the fear of the Lord before their eyes, were notoriously prone to get fuddled and make merry with mint-julep and apple-toddy. Nay, so hostile was this bully Fendal, that he threatened, unless his claim were instantly complied with, to march incontinently at the head of a potent force of the roaring boys of Merry-land, together with a great and mighty train of giants, who infested the banks of the Susquehannah; and to lay waste and depopulate the whole country of South river.

By this it is manifest, that this boasted colony, like all great acquisitions of territory, soon became a greater evil

We find very curious and wonderful accounts of these strange people (who were doubtless the ancestors of the present Marylanders) made by Master Hariot, in his interesting history. "The Susquesahanocks," observes he, "are a giantly people, strange in proportion, behaviour, and attire; their voice sounding from them as if out a cave. Their tobacco-pipes were three quarters of a yard long, carved at the great end with a bird, beare, or other device, sufficient to beat out the braines of a horse, (and how many asses' braines are beaten out, or rather men's braines smoked out, and asses' brains haled in, by our lesser pipes at home). The calfe of one of their legges was measured three quarters of a yard about, the rest of his limbs proportionable."

Master Hariot's Journ. Purch. Pil.