to the conqueror, than the loss of it was to the conquered; and caused greater uneasiness and trouble, than all the territory of the New Netherlands besides. Thus providence wisely orders, that one evil shall balance another. The conqueror who wrests the property of his neighbour, who wrongs a nation and desolates a country, though he may acquire increase of empire, and immortal fame, yet insures his own inevitable punishment. He takes to himself a cause of endless anxiety-he incorporates with his late sound domain, a loose part-a rotten, disaffected member; which is an exhaustless source of internal treason and disunion, and external altercation and hostility.Happy is that nation, which, compact, united, loyal in all its parts, and concentrated in its strength, seeks no idle acquisition of unprofitable and ungovernable territorywhich, content to be prosperous and happy, has no ambition to be great. It is like a man well organized in' all his system, sound in health, and full of vigour; unincumbered by useless trappings, and fixed in an unshaken attitude, But the nation, insatiable of territory, whose domains are scattered, feebly united, and weakly organized, is like a senseless miser sprawling among golden stores, open to every attack, and unable to defend the riches he vainly endeavours to overshadow.

At the time of receiving the alarming dispatches from South river, the great Peter was busily employed in quelling certain Indian troubles that had broken out about Esopus, and was moreover meditating how to relieve his eastern borders on the Connecticut. He, however, sent word to Mynheer Beckman to be of good heart, to maintain incessant vigilance, and to let him know, if matters wore a more threatening appearance; in which case he would incontinently repair with his warriors of the Hudson, to spoil the merriment of these Merry-landers; for he coveted exceedingly to have a bout, hand to hand, with some half a score of these giants-having never encountered a

giant in his whole life, unless we may so call the stout Risingh, and he was but a little one.

Nothing further, however, occurred to molest the tran quillity of Mynheer Beckman and his colony. Fendal and his myrmidons remained at home, carousing it soundly upon hoe-cakes, bacon, and mint-julep, and running horses, and fighting cocks, for which they were greatly renowned, At hearing of this, Peter Stuyvesant was very well pleased; for, notwithstanding his inclination to measure weapons with these monstrous men of the Susquehannah, yet he had already as much employment nearer home, as he could turn his hands to. Little did he think, worthy soul, that this southern calm was but the deceitful prelude to a most terrible and fatal storm, then brewing, which was soon to burst forth and overwhelm the unsuspecting city of New Amsterdam!

Now so it was, that while this excellent governor was giving his little senate laws, and not only giving them, but enforcing them too-while he was incessantly travelling the rounds of his beloved province-posting from place to place to redress grievances, and while busy at one corner of his dominions, all the rest getting into an uproar, At this very time, I say, a dark and direful plot was hatching against him, in that nursery of monstrous projects, the British cabinet, The news of his achievements on the Delaware, according to a sage old historian of New-Amsterdam, had occasioned not a little talk and marvel in the courts of Europe. And the same profound writer assures us that the cabinet of England began to entertain great jealousy and uneasiness at the increasing power of the Manhattoes, and the valour of its sturdy yeomanry.

Agents, the historian observes, were sent by the Amphyctionic council of the east, to entreat the assistance of the British cabinet in subjugating this mighty province. Lord Sterling also asserted his right to Long-Island; and, at the same time, Lord Baltimore, whose agent, as has

before been mentioned, had so alarmed Mynheer Beckman, laid his claim before the cabinet, to the lands of South river, which he complained were unjustly and forcibly detained from him, by these daring usurpers of the Nieuw Nederlandts.

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Thus did the unlucky empire of the Manhattoes stand in imminent danger of experiencing the fate of Poland, and being torn limb from limb to be shared among its savage neighbours. But while these rapacious powers were whetting their fangs, and waiting for the signal to fall tooth and nail upon this delicious little fat Dutch empire; the lordly lion, who sat as umpire, all at once laid his mighty paw upon the spoil, and settled the claims of all parties, by granting none of them. For we are told, that his majesty, Charles the Second, not to be perplexed by adjusting these several pretensions, made a present of a large tract of North America, including the province of New Netherlands, to his brother, the Duke of York- a donation truly royal, since none but great monarchs have a right to give away what does not belong to them.

That this munificent gift might not be merely nominal, his majesty, on the 12th of March, 1664, ordered that an armament should be forthwith prepared, to invade the city of New-Amsterdam by land and water, and put his brother in complete possession of the premises.

Thus critically are situated the affairs of the New Netherlanders. The honest burghers, so far from thinking of the jeopardy in which their interests are placed, are soberly smoking their pipes, and thinking of nothing at all the privy counsellors of the province are at this moment snoring in full quorum, like the drones of five hundred bagpipes; while the active Peter, who takes all the labour of thinking and acting upon himself, is busily devising some method of bringing the grand council of Amphyctions to terms. In the meanwhile an angry cloud is darkly scowling on the horizon-soon shall it rattle about

the ears of these dozing Nederlanders, and put the mettle of their stout-hearted governor completely to the trial.

But come what may, I here pledge my veracity that in all warlike conflicts and subtle perplexities, he shall still acquit himself with the gallant bearing and spotless honour of a noble-minded obstinate old cavalier. Forward, then, to the charge !-shine out propitious stars on the renowned city of the Manhattoes; and may the blessings of St. Nicholas go with thee-honest Peter Stuyvesant !

CHAPTER III.

Of Peter Stuyvesant's expedition into the East Country; showing that though an old bird, he did not understand trap.

GREAT nations resemble great men in this particular, that their greatness is seldom known until they get in trouble; adversity, therefore, has been wisely denominated the ordeal of true greatness, which, like gold, can never receive its real estimation, until it has passed through the furnace. In proportion therefore as a nation, a community, or an individual (possessing the inherent quality of greatness) is involved in perils and misfortunes, in proportion does it rise in grandeur-and even when sinking under calamity, makes, like a house on fire, a more glorious display, than ever it did, in the fairest period of its prosperity.

The vast empire of China, though teeming with population, and imbibing and concentrating the wealth of nations, has vegetated through a succession of drowsy ages; and were it not for its internal revolution, and the subversion of its ancient government by the Tartars, might have presented nothing but an uninteresting detail of dull, monotonous prosperity. Pompeii and Herculan

eum might have passed into oblivion, with a herd of their contemporaries, had they not been fortunately overwhelmed by a volcano. The renowned city of Troy has acquired celebrity only from its ten years' distress, and final conflagration; Paris rises in importance by the plots and massacres, which have ended in the exaltation of the illustrious Napoleon; and even the mighty London itself has skulked through the records of time, celebrated for nothing of moment, excepting the plague, the great fire, and Guy Faux's gunpowder plot! Thus cities and empires seem to creep along, enlarging in silent obscurity under the pen of the historian, until at length they burst forth in some tremendous calamity, and snatch, as it were, immortality from the explosion!

The above principle being admitted, my reader will plainly perceive that the city of New-Amsterdam and its dependent province are on the high road to greatness. Dangers and hostilities threaten from every side, and it is really a matter of astonishment to me, how so small a state has been able in so short a time to entangle itself in șo many difficulties. Ever since the province was first taken by the nose, at the Fort of Good Hope, in the tranquil days of Wouter Van Twiller, has it been gradually increasing in historic importance; and never could it have had a more appropriate chieftain to conduct it to the pinnacle of grandeur than Peter Stuyvesant.

In the fiery heart of this iron-headed old warrior sat enthroned all those five kinds of courage described by Aristotle; and had the philosopher mentioned five hundred more to the back of them, I verily believe, he would have been found master of them all. The only misfortune was, that he was deficient in the better part of valour called discretion, a cold-blooded virtue which could not exist in the tropical climate of his mighty soul. Hence it was, he was continually hurrying into those unheard-of enterprises that