being nothing more than a pompous account of all the governments of ancient Greece, and the wars of Rome and Carthage, together with the rife and fall of fundry outlandish empires, about which the affembly knew no more than their great grand children who were yet unborn. Thus having, after the manner of your learned orators, convinced the audience that he was a man of many words and great erudition, he at length came to the lefs important part of his fpeech, the fituation of the province-and here he foon worked himself into a fearful rage against the Yankees, whom he compared to the Gauls who defolated Rome, and the Goths and Vandals who overran the fairest plains of Europe-nor did he forget to mention, in terms of adequate opprobrium, the infolence with which they had encroached upon the territories of New-Netherlands, and the unparalleled audacity with which they had commenced the town of New-Plymouth, and planted the onion patches of Weathersfield under the very walls of Fort Goed Hoop.

Having thus artfully wrought up his tale of terror to a climax, he affumed a self satisfied look, and declared, with a nod of knowing import, that he had taken measures to put a final stop to these encroachments-that he had been obliged to have recourse to a dreadful engine of warfare, lately invented, awful in its effects, but authorized by direful neceffity. In

a word, he was refolved to conquer the Yankees-by proclamation!

For this purpose he had prepared a tremendous inftrument of the kind, ordering, commanding, and enjoining the intruders aforefaid, forthwith to remove, depart and withdraw from the districts, regions, and territories aforefaid, under pain of suffering all the penalties, forfeitures, and punishments in fuch cafe made and provided, &c. This proclamation, he asfured them, would at once exterminate the enemy from the face of the country, and he pledged his valour as a governor, that within two months after it was published, not one stone should remain on another in any of the towns which they had built.

The council remained for fome time filent after he had finished; whether ftruck dumb with admiration at the brilliancy of his project, or put to fleep by the length of his harangue, the hiftory of the times doth not mention. Suffice it to fay, they at length gave a univerfal grunt of acquiefcence-the proclamation was immediately difpatched with due ceremony, having the great feal of the province, which was about the fize of a buckwheat pancake, attached to it by a broad red ribband. Governor Kieft having thus vented his indignation, felt greatly relieved-adjourned the council sine die-put on his cocked hat and corduroy fmall clothes, and mounting a tall raw boned charger, trotted out to his country feat, which was fituated in a sweet, fequeftered fwamp, now called

Dutch ftreet, but more commonly known by the name

of Dog's Mifery.

Here, like the good Numa, he repofed from the toils of legiflation, taking leffons in government, not from the Nymph Egeria, but from the honoured wife of his bofom; who was one of that peculiar kind of females, fent upon earth a little after the flood, as a punishment for the fins of mankind, and commonly known by the appellation of knowing women. In fact, my duty as an hiftorian obliges me to make known a circumftance which was a great secret at the time, and confequently was not a subject of scandal at more than half the tea tables in New-Amfterdam, but which, like many other great fecrets, has leaked out in the lapfe of years-and this was, that the great Wilhelmus the Tefty, though one of the most potent little men that ever breathed, yet submitted at home to a fpecies of government, neither laid down in Ariftotle, nor Plato; in fhort, it partook of the nature of a pure, unmixed tyranny, and is familiarly denominated petticoat government.—An absolute sway, which, though exceedingly common in thefe modern days, was very rare among the ancients, if we may judge from the rout made about the domestic economy of honest Socrates; which is the only ancient cafe on record.

The great Kieft, however, warded off all the fneers and farcafms of his particular friends, who are ever ready to joke with a man on fore points of the kind,

by alleging that it was a government of his own election, to which he submitted through choice; adding at the fame time a profound maxim which he had found in an ancient author, that " he who would afpire to govern, should first learn to obey.”

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CHAP. II.

In which are recorded the sage Projects of a Ruler of universal Genius. The art of Fighting by Proclamation, and how that the valiant Jacobus Van Curlet came to be foully dishonoured at Fort Goed Hoop.

NEVER was a more comprehensive, a more expeditious, or, what is ftill better, a more economical measure devised, than this of defeating the Yankees by proclamation-an expedient, likewife, fo humane, fo gentle and pacific; there were ten chances to one in favour of its fucceeding, but then there was one 'chance to ten that it would not fucceed-as the illnatured fates would have it, that single chance carried the day! The proclamation was perfect in all its parts, well conftructed, well written, well fealed, and well publifhed-all that was wanting to infure its effect, was that the Yankees fhould stand in awe of it; but, provoking to relate, they treated it with the most abfolute contempt, applied it to an unfeemly purpose, and thus did the firft warlike proclamation come to a fhameful end-a fate which I am credibly informed, has befallen but too many of its fucceffors.

It was a long time before Wilhelmus Kieft could be perfuaded by the united efforts of all his counsel