166 THE CITY'S PICTURESQUE IRREGULARITY. him with hard words and sound arguments, yet Tough Breeches hung on most resolutely to the last. They parted, therefore, as is usual in all arguments where both parties are in the right, without coming to any conclusion-but they hated each other most heartily for ever after, and a similar breach with that between the houses of Capulet and Montague did ensue between the families of Ten Breeches and Tough Breeches. I would not fatigue my reader with these dull matters of fact, but that my duty as a faithful historian requires that I should be particularand in truth, as I am now treating of the critical period, when our city, like a young twig, first received the twists and turns that have since contributed to give it the present picturesque irregularity for which it is celebrated, I cannot be too minute in detailing their first causes. After the unhappy altercation I have just mentioned, I do not find that any thing further was said on the subject worthy of being recorded. The council, consisting of the largest and oldest heads in the community, met regularly once a week, to ponder on this momentous subject. But either they were deterred by the war of EXTRACT FROM THE RECORDS. 167 words they had witnessed, or they were naturally averse to the exercise of the tongue, and the consequent exercise of the brains-certain it is, the most profound silence was maintained—the question as usual lay on the table-the members quietly smoked their pipes, making but few laws, without ever enforcing any, and in the mean time the affairs of the settlement went on-as it pleased God. As most of the council were but little skilled in the mystery of combining pot-hooks and hangers, they determined most judiciously not to puzzle either themselves or posterity with voluminous records. The secretary, however, kept the minutes of the council with tolerable precision, in a large vellum folio, fastened with massy brass clasps: the journal of each meeting consisted but of two lines, stating in Dutch, that "the council sat this day, and smoked twelve pipes, on the affairs of the colony." By which it appears that the first settlers did not regulate their time by hours, but pipes, in the same manner as they measure distances in Holland at this very time; an admirably exact measurement, as a pipe in the mouth of a true-born Dutchman is never liable to those accidents and irregu 168 GROWTH OF THE TOWN. larities that are continually putting our clocks out of order. In this manner did the profound council of NEW-AMSTERDAM smoke, and doze, and ponder, from week to week, month to month, and year to year, in what manner they should construct their infant settlement-mean while, the town took care of itself, and like a sturdy brat which is suffered to run about wild, unshackled by clouts and bandages, and other abominations by which your notable nurses and sage old women cripple and disfigure the children of men, increased so rapidly in strength and magnitude, that before the honest burgomasters had determined upon a plan, it was too late to put it in execution— whereupon they wisely abandoned the subject altogether. THE CITY WAXES GREAT. 169 CHAPTER VII. How the city of New-Amsterdam waxed great, under the protection of Oloffe the Dreamer. THERE is something exceedingly delusive in thus looking back, through the long vista of departed years, and catching a glimpse of the fairy realms of antiquity that lie beyond. Like some goodly landscape melting into distance, they receive a thousand charms from their very obscurity, and the fancy delights to fill up their outlines with graces and excellencies of its own creation. Thus beam on my imagination those happier days of our city, when as yet NewAmsterdam was a mere pastoral town, shrouded in groves of sycamore and willows, and surrounded by trackless forests and wide spreading waters, that seemed to shut out all the cares and vanities of a wicked world. In those days did this embryo city present the rare and noble spectacle of a community governed without laws; and thus being left to its own course, and the fostering care of Providence, in 170 DISADVANTAGES OF LAWS. creased as rapidly as though it had been burthened with a dozen panniers full of those sage laws that are usually heaped on the backs of young cities-in order to make them grow. And in this particular I greatly admire the wisdom and sound knowledge of human nature, displayed by the sage Oloffe the Dreamer, and his fellow legislators. For my part I have not so bad an opinion of mankind as many of my brother philosophers. I do not think poor human nature so sorry a piece of workmanship as they would make it out to be; and as far as I have observed, I am fully satisfied that man, if left to himself, would about as regularly go right as wrong. It is only this eternally sounding in his ears that it is his duty to go right, that makes him go the very reverse. The noble independence of his nature revolts at this intolerable tyranny of law, and the perpetual interference of officious morality, which is ever besetting his path with finger-posts and directions to "keep to the right, as the law directs;" and like a spirited urchin, he turns directly contrary, and gallops through mud and mire, over hedges and ditches, merely to show that he is a lad of spirit, and out of his leading-strings. And these opinions are amply substantiated by |