176 A GOVERNOR APPOINTED. populous city, and known by the name of Dey street. The accumulating wealth and consequence of New-Amsterdam and its dependencies at length awakened the tender solicitude of the mother country; who finding it a thriving and opulent colony, and that it promised to yield great profit and no trouble, all at once became wonderfully anxious about its safety, and began to load it with tokens of regard, in the same manner that your knowing people are sure to overwhelm rich relations with their affection and loving kindness. The usual marks of protection shown by mother countries to wealthy colonies were forthwith manifested-the first care always being to send rulers to the new settlement, with orders to squeeze as much revenue from it as it will yield. Accordingly, in the year of our Lord 1629, Mynher WOUTER VAN TWILLER was appointed governor of the province of Nieuw-Nederlandts, under the commission and control of their high mightinesses the Lords States General of the United Netherlands, and the privileged West India Company. This renowned old gentleman arrived at NewAmsterdam in the merry month of June, the sweetest month in all the year; when dan Apollo seems to dance up the transparent firmamentwhen the robin, the thrush, and a thousand other wanton songsters make the woods to resound with amorous ditties, and the luxurious little boblincon revels among the clover blossoms of the meadows-all which happy coincidence persuaded the old dames of New-Amsterdam, who were skilled in the art of foretelling events, that this was to be a happy and prosperous administration. But as it would be derogatory to the consequence of the first Dutch governor of the great province of Nieuw-Nederlandts to be thus scurvily introduced at the end of a chapter, I will put an end to this second book of my history, that I may usher him in with more dignity in the beginning of my next. BOOK III. IN WHICH IS RECORDED THE GOLDEN REIGN OF WOUTER VAN TWILLER. CHAPTER I. Of the renowned Wouter Van Twiller, his unparalleled virtues-as likewise his unutterable wisdom in the law case of Wandle Schoonhoven and Barent Bleecker—and the great admiration of the public thereat. GRIEVOUS and very much to be commiserated is the task of the feeling historian, who writes the history of his native land. If it fall to his lot to be the sad recorder of calamity or crime, the mournful page is watered with his tears-nor can he recall the most prosperous and blissful era, without a melancholy sigh at the reflection that it has passed away for ever! I know not whether it be owing to an immoderate love for the simplicity of former times, or to that certain tenderness of heart incident to all sentimental histo MELANCHOLY REFLECTIONS. 179 rians; but I candidly confess that I cannot look back on the happier days of our city, which I now describe, without a sad dejection of the spirits. With a faltering hand do I withdraw the curtain of oblivion, that veils the modest merit of our venerable ancestors, and as their figures rise to my mental vision, humble myself before the mighty shades. Such are my feelings when I revisit the family mansion of the Knickerbockers, and spend a lonely hour in the chamber where hang the portraits of my forefathers, shrouded in dust, like the forms they represent. With pious reverence do I gaze on the countenances of those renowned burghers, who have preceded me in the steady march of existence-whose sober and temperate blood now meanders through my veins, flowing slower and slower in its feeble conduits, until its current shall soon be stopped for ever! These, say I to myself, are but frail memorials of the mighty men who flourished in the days of the patriarchs; but who, alas! have long since mouldered in that tomb, towards which my steps are insensibly and irresistibly hastening! As I pace the darkened chamber and lose myself in melancholy musings, the shadowy images around 180 GOVERNOR WOUTER VAN TWILLER. me almost seem to steal once more into existence -their countenances to assume the animation of life-their eyes to pursue me in every movement! carried away by the delusions of fancy, I almost imagine myself surrounded by the shades of the departed, and holding sweet converse with the worthies of antiquity! Ah, hapless Diedrich! born in a degenerate age, abandoned to the buffetings of fortune-a stranger and a weary pilgrim in thy native land-blest with no weeping wife, nor family of helpless children; but doomed to wander neglected through those crowded streets, and elbowed by foreign upstarts from those fair abodes, where once thine ancestors held sovereign empire! Let me not, however, lose the historian in the man, nor suffer the doting recollections of age to overcome me, while dwelling with fond garrulity on the virtuous days of the patriarchs-on those sweet days of simplicity and ease, which never more will dawn on the lovely island of Mannahata! The renowned Wouter (or Walter) Van Twiller was descended from a long line of Dutch burgomasters, who had successively dozed away their lives, and grown fat upon the bench of magistracy |