influenced all its public transactions-not to do things | seized. A variety of measures were, as usual in in a hurry. such cases, produced, discussed, and abandoned. The gallant Jacobus Van Curlet, in his despatches, and the council had at last to adopt the means, respectfully represented that several years had now elapsed since his first application to his late excellency, Wouter Van Twiller; during which interval his garrison had been reduced nearly one-eighth, by the death of two of his most valiant and corpulent soldiers, who had accidentally over-eaten themselves on some fat salmon, caught in the Varsche river. He further stated, that the enemy persisted in their inroads, taking no notice of the fort or its inhabitants: but squatting themselves down, and forming settlements all around it; so that, in a little while, he should find himself inclosed and blockaded by the enemy, and totally at their mercy.

which being the most common and obvious, had been knowingly overlooked-for your amazing acute politicians are for ever looking through telescopes, which only enable them to see such objects as are far off, and unattainable, but which incapacitate them to see such things as are in their reach, and obvious to all simple folks, who are content to look with the naked eyes Heaven has given them. The profound council, as I have said, in the pursuit after Jack-o'-lanterns, accidentally stumbled on the very measure they were in need of: which was to raise a body of troops, and despatch them to the relief and reënforcement of the garrison. This measure was But among the most atrocious of his grievances, I carried into such pompt operation, that in less than find the following still on record, which may serve twelve months, the whole expedition, consisting of to show the bloody-minded outrages of these savage a sergeant and twelve men, was ready to march; intruders. "In the meantime, they of Hartford have and was reviewed for that purpose, in the public not onely usurped and taken in the lands of Connecti- square, now known by the name of the Bowlingcott, although unrighteously and against the lawes Green. Just at this juncture, the whole community of nations, but have hindered our nation in sowing was thrown into consternation, by the sudden arrival theire own purchased broken up lands, but have also of the gallant Jacobus Van Curlet, who came stragsowed them with corne in the night, which the Neth-gling into town at the head of his crew of tatterdeerlanders had broken up and intended to sowe: and malions, and bringing the melancholy tidings of his have beaten the servants of the high and mighty the own defeat, and the capture of the redoubtable post honored companie, which were labouring upon theire of Fort Goed Hoop by the ferocious Yankees. master's lands, from theire lands, with sticks and plow staves in hostile manner laming, and among the rest, struck Ever Duckings* a hole in his head, with a stick, so that the blood ran downe very strongly downe upon his body."

But what is still more atrocious"Those of Hartford sold a hogg, that belonged to the honored companie, under pretence that it had eaten of theire grounde grass, when they had not any foot of inheritance. They proffered the hogg for 5s. if the commissioners would have given 5s. for damage; which the commissioners denied, because noe man's own hogg (as men used to say) can trespass upon his owne master's grounde."+

The fate of this important fortress is an impressive warning to all military commanders. It was neither carried by storm nor famine; no practicable breach was effected by cannon or mines; no magazines were blown up by red-hot shot, nor were the barracks demolished, or the garrison destroyed, by the bursting of bombshells. In fact, the place was taken by a stratagem no less singular than effectual; and one that can never fail of success, whenever an opportunity occurs of putting it in practice. Happy am I to add, for the credit of our illustrious ancestors, that it was a stratagem, which though it impeached the vigilance, yet left the bravery of the intrepid Van Curlet and his garrison perfectly free from reproach.

The receipt of this melancholy intelligence incensed the whole community-there was something It appears that the crafty Yankees, having heard in it that spoke to the dull comprehension, and touch- of the regular habits of the garrison, watched a faed the obtuse feelings, even of the puissant vulgar, vourable opportunity, and silently introduced the who generally require a kick in the rear to awaken selves into the fort, about the middle of a sultry day; their slumbering dignity. I have known my pro- when its vigilant defenders, having gorged themselves found fellow-citizens bear, without murmur, a thou-with a hearty dinner, and smoked out their pipes, sand essential infringements of their rights, merely were one and all snoring most obstreperously at their because they were not immediately obvious to their posts, little dreaming of so disastrous an occurrence. senses-but the moment the unlucky Pearce was The enemy most inhumanly seized Jacobus Van shot upon our coasts, the whole body politic was in Curlet and his sturdy myrmidons by the nape of the a ferment-so the enlightened Nederlanders, though neck, gallanted them to the gate of the fort, and disthey had treated the encroachments of their eastern missed them severally, with a kick on the crupper, neighbours with but little regard, and left their quill-as Charles the Twelfth dismissed the heavy-bottomvaliant governor to bear the whole brunt of war ed Russians, after the battle of Narva--only taking with his single pen-yet now every individual felt care to give two kicks to Van Curlet, as a signal his head broken in the broken head of Duckings-mark of distinction.

and the unhappy fate of their fellow-citizen the hog A strong garrison was immediately established in being impressed, carried and sold into captivity, the fort, consisting of twenty long sided, hard-fisted awakened a grunt of sympathy from every bosom. Yankees, with Weathersfield onions stuck in their The governor and council, goaded by the clamours hats by way of cockades and feathers-long rusty of the multitude, now set themselves earnestly to fowling-pieces for muskets-hasty-pudding, dumbdeliberate upon what was to be done.-Proclama- fish, pork and molasses, for stores; and a huge tions had at length fallen into temporary disrepute : pumpkin was hoisted on the end of a pole, as a some were for sending the Yankees a tribute, as we standard-liberty caps not having yet come intc make peace-offering to the petty Barbary powers, or fashion.

as the Indians sacrifice to the devil; others were for buying them out, but this was opposed, as it would be acknowledging their title to the land they had

This name is no doubt misspelt. In some old Dutch MSS. of the time, we find the name of Evert Duyckingh, who is unquestionably the unfortunate hero above alluded to.

+ Haz. Col. State Papers.

CHAPTER III.

CONTAINING THE FEARFUL WRATH OF WILLIAM
THE TESTY, AND THE GREAT DOLOUR OF THE
NEW-AMSTERDAMMERS, BECAUSE OF THE AF-
FAIR OF FORT GOED HOOP-AND, MOREOVER,
HOW WILLIAM THE TESTY DID STRONGLY
FORTIFY THE CITY-TOGETHER WITH THE

EXPLOITS OF STOFFEL BRINKERHOFF.

were singing right lustily i' the nose. Him did the illustrious Kieft pick out as the man of all the world most fitted to be the champion of New-Amsterdam, and to garrison its fort; making little doubt but that his instrument would be as effectual and offensive in war as was that of the Paladin Astolpho, or the more classic horn of Alecto. It would have done One's heart good to have seen the governor snapping his fingers and fidgeting with delight, while his sturdy trumpeter strutted up and down the ramparts, fearlessly twanging his trumpet in the face of the whole world, like a thrice-valorous editor daringly insulting all the principalities and powers-on the other side of the Atlantic.

LANGUAGE cannot express the prodigious fury into which the testy Wilhelmus Kieft was thrown by this provoking intelligence. For three good hours the rage of the little man was too great for words, or rather the words were too great for him; and he Nor was he content with thus strongly garrisonwas nearly choked by some dozen huge, misshapen, ing the fort, but he likewise added exceedingly to its nine-cornered Dutch oaths, that crowded all at once strength, by furnishing it with a formidable battery into his gullet. Having blazed off the first broad- of quaker guns-rearing a stupendous flag-staff in side, he kept up a constant firing for three whole the centre, which overtopped the whole city-and, days-anathematizing the Yankees, man, woman, moreover, by building a great windmill on one of the and child, body and soul, for a set of dieven, schob- bastions.* This last, to be sure, was somewhat of a bejaken, deugenieten, twist-zoekeren, loozen-schalk- novelty in the art of fortification, but, as I have alen, blaes-kaken, kakken-bedden, and a thousand ready observed, William Kieft was notorious for inother names, of which, unfortunately for posterity, novations and experiments; and traditions do affirm, history does not make mention. Finally, he swore that he was much given to mechanical inventionsthat he would have nothing more to do with such a constructing patent smoke-jacks-carts that went squatting, bundling, guessing, questioning, swap- before the horses, and especially erecting windmills, ping, pumpkin-eating, molasses-daubing, shingle- for which machines he had acquired a singular presplitting, cider-watering, horse-jockeying, notion-dilection in his native town of Saardam. peddling crew-that they might stay at Fort Goed All these scientific vagaries of the little governor Hoop and rot, before he would dirty his hands by attempting to drive them away; in proof of which, he ordered the new-raised troops to be marched forthwith into winter quarters, although it was not as yet quite mid-summer. Governor Kieft faithfully kept his word, and his adversaries as faithfully kept their post; and thus the glorious river Connecticut, and all the gay valleys through which it rolls, together with the salmon, shad, and other fish within its waters, fell into the hands of the victorious Yankees, by whom they are held at this very day.

were cried up with ecstasy by his adherents, as proofs of his universal genius-but there were not wanting ill-natured grumblers, who railed at him as employing his mind in frivolous pursuits, and devoting that time to smoke-jacks and windmills which should have been occupied in the more important concerns of the province. Nay, they even went so far as to hint, once or twice, that his head was turned by his experiments, and that he really thought to manage his government as he did his mills-by mere wind!-such are the illiberality and slander to which enlightened rulers are ever subject.

Great despondency seized upon the city of NewAmsterdam, in consequence of these melancholy Notwithstanding all the measures, therefore, of events. The name of Yankee became as terrible William the Testy, to place the city in a posture of among our good ancestors as was that of Gaul defence, the inhabitants continued in great alarm among the ancient Romans; and all the sage old and despondency. But fortune, who seems always women of the province used it as a bugbear, where- careful, in the very nick of time, to throw a bone for with to frighten their unruly children into obedience. hope to gnaw upon, that the starveling elf may be The eyes of all the province were now turned upon kept alive, did about this time crown the arms of the their governor, to know what he would do for the province with success in another quarter, and thus protection of the common weal, in these days of cheered the drooping hearts of the forlorn Nederdarkness and peril. Great apprehensions prevailed landers; otherwise, there is no knowing to what among the reflecting part of the community, especial- lengths they might have gone in the excess of their ly the old women, that these terrible warriors of Con- sorrowing" for grief," says the profound historian necticut, not content with the conquest of Fort Goed of the seven champions of Christendom, "is comHoop, would incontinently march on to New-Amster-panion with despair, and despair a procurer of indam and take it by storm-and as these old ladies, famous death!" through means of the governor's spouse, who, as has been already hinted, was "the better horse," had obtained considerable influence in public affairs, keeping the province under a kind of petticoat government, it was determined that measures should be taken for the effective fortification of the city.

Now it happened, that at this time there sojourned in New-Amsterdam one Anthony Van Corlear,* a jolly fat Dutch trumpeter, of a pleasant burly visage, famous for his long wind and his huge whiskers, and who, as the story goes, could twang so potently upon his instrument, as to produce an effect upon all within hearing, as though ten thousand bag-pipes

Among the numerous inroads of the mosstroopers of Connecticut, which for some time past had occa sioned such great tribulation, I should particularly have mentioned a settlement made on the eastern part of Long Island, at a place which, from the peculiar excellence of its shell-fish, was called Oyster Bay. This was attacking the province in the most sensible part, and occasioned great agitation at NewAmsterdam.

It is an incontrovertible fact, well known to skilful physiologists, that the high road to the affections is through the throat; and this may be accounted for on the same principles which I have already quoted in my strictures on fat aldermen. Nor is the fact unknown to the world at large; and hence do we

* De Vries mentions that this windmill stood on the south-east bastion; and it is likewise to be seen, together with the lag-staff, in Justus Danker's View of New-Amsterdam.

on the spot, and thus letting the enemy slip through his fingers, while he was securing his own laurels, as a more experienced general would have done, the brave Stoffel thought of nothing but completing his enterprise, and utterly driving the Yankees from the island. This hardy enterprise he performed in much the same manner as he had been accustomed to drive his oxen; for as the Yankees fled before him, he pulled up his breeches and trudged steadily after them, and would infallibly have driven them into the sea, had they not begged for quarter, and agreed to pay tribute.

observe, that the surest way to gain the hearts of the million, is to feed them well-and that a man is never so disposed to flatter, to please and serve another, as when he is feeding at his expense; which is one reason why your rich men, who give frequent dinners, have such abundance of sincere and faithful friends. It is on this principle that our knowing leaders of parties secure the affections of their partisans, by rewarding them bountifully with loaves and fishes; and entrap the suffrages of the greasy mob, by treating them with bull feasts and roasted oxen. I have known many a man, in this same city, acquire considerable importance in society, and The news of this achievement was a seasonable usurp a large share of the good-will of his enlighten- restorative to the spirits of the citizens of New-Amed fellow-citizens, when the only thing that could be sterdam. To gratify them still more, the governor said in his eulogium was, that "he gave a good din-resolved to astonish them with one of those gorgeous ner, and kept excellent wine."

spectacles, known in the days of classic antiquity, a Since, then, the heart and the stomach are so full account of which had been flogged into his memnearly allied, it follows conclusively that what affects ory, when a school-boy at the Hague. A grand trithe one, must sympathetically affect the other. Now, umph, therefore, was decreed to Stoffel Brinkerhoff, it is an equally incontrovertible fact, that of all offer- who made his triumphant entrance into town riding ings to the stomach, there is none more grateful than on a Naraganset pacer; five pumpkins, which, like the testaceous marine animal, known commonly by Roman eagles, had served the enemy for standards, the vulgar name of Oyster. And in such great rev- were carried before him-fifty cart-loads of oysters, erence has it ever been held, by my gormandizing five hundred bushels of Weathersfield onions, a hunfellow-citizens, that temples have been dedicated to dred quintals of codfish, two hogsheads of molasses, it, time out of mind, in every street, lane, and alley and various other treasures, were exhibited as the throughout this well-fed city. It is not to be ex- spoils and tribute of the Yankees; while three nopected, therefore, that the seizing of Oyster Bay, a torious counterfeiters of Manhattan notes* were led place abounding with their favourite delicacy, would captive, to grace the hero's triumph. The procesbe tolerated by the inhabitants of New-Amsterdam. sion was enlivened by martial music from the trumpAn attack upon their honour they might have par-et of Anthony Van Corlear, the champion, accomdoned; even the massacre of a few citizens might panied by a select band of boys and negroes perhave been passed over in silence; but an outrage forming on the national instruments of rattle-bones that affected the larders of the great city of New- and clam-shells. The citizens devoured the spoils Amsterdam, and threatened the stomachs of its cor-in sheer gladness of heart-every man did honour to pulent burgomasters, was too serious to pass unre- the conqueror, by getting devoutly drunk on Newvenged. - The whole council was unanimous in England rum-and the learned Wilhelmus Kieft, opinion, that the intruders should me immediately calling to mind, in a momentary fit of enthusiasm driven by force of arms from Oyster Bay and its and generosity, that it was customary among the anvicinity, and a detachment was accordingly des- cients to honour their victorious generals with public patched for the purpose, under the command of one statues, passed a gracious decree, by which every Stoffel Brinkerhoff, or Brinkerhoofd, (i.e. Stoffel, the tavern-keeper was permitted to paint the head of the head-breaker,) so called because he was a man of intrepid Stoffel on his sign! mighty deeds, famous throughout the whole extent of Nieuw-Nederlandts for his skill at quarter-staff; and for size, he would have been a match for Colbrand, the Danish champion, slain by Guy of Warwick.

Stoffel Brinkerhoff was a man of few words, but prompt actions-one of your straight-going officers, who march directly forward, and do their orders without making any parade. He used no extraordinary speed in his movements, but trudged steadily on, through Nineveh and Babylon, and Jericho and Patchog, and the mighty town of Quag, and various other renowned cities of yore, which, by some unaccountable witchcraft of the Yankees, have been strangely transplanted to Long Island, until he arrived in the neighbourhood of Oyster Bay.

Here was he encountered by a tumultuous host of valiant warriors, headed by Preserved Fish, and Habbakuk Nutter, and Return Strong, and Zerubbabel Fisk, and Jonathan Doolittle, and Determined Cock! --at the sound of whose names the courageous Stoffel verily believed that the whole parliament of Praise-God-Barebones had been let loose to discomfit him. Finding, however, that this formidable body was composed merely of the "select men" of the settlement, armed with no other weapon but their tongues, and that they had issued forth with no other intent than to meet him on the field of argumenthe succeeded in putting them to the rout with little difficulty, and completely broke up their settlement. Without waiting to write an account of his victory

CHAPTER IV.

PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTIONS ON THE FOLLY OF
BEING HAPPY IN TIMES OF PROSPERITY-SUN-
DRY TROUBLES ON THE SOUTHERN FRONTIERS
-HOW WILLIAM THE TESTY HAD WELL NIGH
RUINED THE PROVINCE THROUGH A CABALIS-
TIC WORD-AS ALSO THE SECRET EXPEDITION
OF JAN JANSEN ALPENDAM, AND HIS ASTON-
ISHING REWARD.

If we could but get a peep at the tally of dame Fortune, where, like a notable landlady, she regularly chalks up the debtor and creditor accounts of mankind, we should find that, upon the whole, good and evil are pretty near balanced in this world; and that though we may for a long while revel in the very lap of prosperity, the time will at length come when we must ruefully pay off the reckoning. Fortune, in fact, is a pestilent shrew, and withal a most inexorable creditor; for though she may indulge her favourites in long credits, and overwhelm them with

This is one of those trivial anachronisms, that now and then occur in the course of this otherwise authentic history. How could Manhattan notes be counterfeited, wher. as yet Banks were unknown in this country?-and our simple progenitors had not even dreamt of those inexhaustible mines of paper opulence.-PRINT. Div.

WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING.

her favours, yet sooner or later she brings up her
arrears with the rigour of an experienced publican,
and washes out her scores with their tears. "
says good old Boetius, "no man can retain her at his
Since,"
pleasure, and since her flight is so deeply lamented,
what are her favours but sure prognostications of
approaching trouble and calamity?

first year of his reign, informing Peter Minnewits that the whole territory, bordering on the South the Dutch colonists, having been "beset with forts, river, had, time out of mind, been in possession of and sealed with their blood."

The latter sanguinary sentence would convey an There is nothing that more moves my contempt lieved by the information that it merely related to a idea of direful war and bloodshed, were we not reat the stupidity and want of reflection of my fellow- fray, in which some half-a-dozen Dutchmen had been men, than to behold them rejoicing, and indulging killed by the Indians, in their benevolent attempts to in security and self-confidence, in times of prosperity. establish a colony and promote civilization. By this To a wise man, who is blessed with the light of rea- it will be seen, that William Kieft, though a very son, those are the very moments of anxiety and ap- small man, delighted in big expressions, and was prehension; well knowing that according to the sys- much given to a praiseworthy figure of rhetoric, gentem of things, happiness is at best but transient-erally cultivated by your little great men, called hyand that the higher he is elevated by the capricious perbole-a figure which has been found of infinite breath of fortune, the lower must be his proportion- service among many of his class, and which has ate depression. Whereas, he who is overwhelmed helped to swell the grandeur of many a mighty, selfby calamity, has the less chance of encountering important, but windy chief magistrate. fresh disasters, as a man at the bottom of a ladder refrain in this place from observing how much my runs very little risk of breaking his neck by tumbling beloved country is indebted to this same figure of Nor can I to the top. This is the very essence of true wisdom, which characters-statesmen, orators, civilians, and divines; hyperbole, for supporting certain of her greatest consists in knowing when we ought to be miserable; who, by dint of big words, inflated periods, and windy and was discovered much about the same time with doctrines, are kept afloat on the surface of society, that invaluable secret, that "every thing is vanity as ignorant swimmers are buoyed up by blown bladand vexation of spirit;" in consequence of which | ders. maxim, your wise men have ever been the unhappiest of the human race; esteeming it as an infalli- by ordering the self-dubbed governor, and his gang The proclamation against Minnewits concluded ble mark of genius to be distressed without reason-of Swedish adventurers, immediately to leave the since any man may be miserable in time of misfor- country, under penalty of the high displeasure and tune, but it is the philosopher alone who can dis- inevitable vengeance of the puissant government of cover cause for grief in the very hour of prosperity. According to the principle I have just advanced, however, does not seem to have had a whit more the Nieuw-Nederlandts. we find that the colony of New-Netherlands, which, effect than its predecessors which had been thunderThis " strong measure," under the reign of the renowned Van Twiller, had ed against the Yankees-the Swedes resolutely held flourished in such alarming and fatal serenity, is on to the territory they had taken possession of now paying for its former welfare, and discharging whereupon matters for the present remained in the enormous debt of comfort which it contracted. statu quo. Foes harass it from different quarters; the city of New-Amsterdam, while yet in its infancy, is kept in constant alarm; and its valiant commander, William the Testy, answers the vulgar, but expressive idea, of "a man in a peck of troubles."

While busily engaged repelling his bitter enemies the Yankees on one side, we find him suddenly molested in another quarter, and by other assailants. A vagrant colony of Swedes, under the conduct of Peter Minnewits, and professing allegiance to that redoubtable virago, Christina, queen of Sweden, had settled themselves and erected a fort on South (or Delaware) River-within the boundaries claimed by the government of the New-Netherlands. History is mute as to the particulars of their first landing, and their real pretensions to the soil; and this is the more to be lamented, as this same colony of Swedes will hereafter be found most materially to affect not only the interests of the Nederlanders, but of the world at large!

In whatever manner, therefore, this vagabond colony of Swedes first took possession of the country, it is certain that in 1638 they established a fort, and Minnewits, according to the off-hand usage of his contemporaries, declared himself governor of all the adjacent country, under the name of the province of NEW SWEDEN. No sooner did this reach the ears of the choleric Wilhelmus, than, like a true-spirited chieftain, he immediately broke into a violent rage, and calling together his council, belaboured the Swedes most lustily in the longest speech that had ever been heard in the colony, since the memorable dispute of Ten Breeches and Tough Breeches. Having thus given vent to the first ebullitions of his indignation, he had resort to his favourite measure of proclamation. and despatched one, piping hot, in the

solent obstinacy in the Swedes, would appear incom-
That Wilhelmus Kieft should put up with this in
patible with his valorous temperament; but we find
that about this time the little man had his hands full,
kept continually on the bounce.
and, what with one annoyance and another, was

who, by shrewd management, contrive always to There is a certain description of active legislators, have a hundred irons on the anvil, every one of which must be immediately attended to; who conse quently are ever full of temporary shifts and expedients, patching up the public welfare, and cobbling the national affairs, so as to make nine holes where they mend one-stopping chinks and flaws with whatever comes first to hand, like the Yankees I have mentioned, stuffing old clothes in broken windows. Of this class of statesmen was William the Testy-and had he only been blessed with powers equal to his zeal, or his zeal been disciplined by a would have made the greatest governor of his size little discretion, there is very little doubt that he on record-the renowned governor of the island of Barataria alone excepted.

that though no man could be more ready to stand The great defect of Wilhelmus Kieft's policy was, forth in an hour of emergency, yet he was so intent upon guarding the national pocket, that he suffered the enemy to break its head-in other words, whatever precaution for public safety he adopted, he was so intent upon rendering it cheap, that he invariably rendered it ineffectual. sequence of his profound education at the Haguewhere, having acquired a smattering of knowledge, All this was a remote conhe was ever after a great conner of indexes, continually dipping into books, without ever studying to the bottom of any subject; so that he had the scum

of all kinds of authors fermenting in his pericranium. in-chief of the forces. This formidable expedition, In some of these title-page researches, he unluckily which can only be paralleled by some of the daring stumbled over a grand political cabalistic word, cruises of our infant navy about the bay and up the which, with his customary facility, he immediately Sound, was intended to drive the Marylanders from incorporated into his great scheme of government, the Schuylkill, of which they had recently taken posto the irretrievable injury and delusion of the honest session-and which was claimed as part of the provprovince of Nieuw-Nederlandts, and the eternal mis-ince of New-Nederlandts-for it appears that at this leading of all experimental rulers.

time our infant colony was in that enviable state, so much coveted by ambitious nations, that is to say, the government had a vast extent of territory, part of which it enjoyed, and the greater part of which it had continually to quarrel about.

In vain have I pored over the theurgia of the Chaldeans, the cabala of the Jews, the necromancy of the Arabians, the magic of the Persians, the hocuspocus of the English, the witchcraft of the Yankees, or the powwowing of the Indians, to discover where Admiral Jan Jansen Alpendam was a man of grea the little man first laid eyes on this terrible word. mettle and prowess, and no way dismayed at the Neither the Sephir Jetzirah, that famous cabalistic character of the enemy, who were represented as a volume, ascribed to the patriarch Abraham; nor the gigantic, gunpowder race of men, who lived on hoepages of Zohar, containing the mysteries of the cabala, cakes and bacon, drank mint-juleps and apple-toddy, recorded by the learned rabbi Simon Sochaides, yield and were exceedingly expert at boxing, biting, gougany light to my inquiries-nor am I in the least bene-ing, tar and feathering, and a variety of other athletic fited by my painful researches in the Shem-ham- accomplishments, which they had borrowed from phorah of Benjamin, the wandering Jew, though it their cousins-german and prototypes, the Virginians, enabled Davidus Elm to make a ten days' journey to whom they have ever borne considerable resemin twenty-four hours. Neither can I perceive the blance. Notwithstanding all these alarming represlightest affinity in the Tetragrammaton, or sacred sentations, the admiral entered the Schuylkill most name of four letters, the profoundest word of the He- undauntedly with his fleet, and arrived without disbrew cabala; a mystery sublime, ineffable, and in-aster or opposition at the place of destination. communicable-and the letters of which, Jod-He- Here he attacked the enemy in a vigorous speech Vau-He, having been stolen by the pagans, consti- in Low Dutch, which the wary Kieft had previously tuted their great name, Jao or Jove. In short, in put in his pocket; wherein he courteously comall my cabalistic, theurgic, necromantic, magical, menced by calling them a pack of lazy, louting, and astrological researches, from the Tetractys of dram drinking, cock-fighting, horse-racing, slavePythagoras to the recondite works of Breslaw and driving, tavern-haunting, Sabbath-breaking, mulattoMother Bunch, I have not discovered the least ves-breeding upstarts-and concluded by ordering them tige of an origin of this word, nor have I discovered any word of sufficient potency to counteract it.

Not to keep my reader in any suspense, the word which had so wonderfully arrested the attention of William the Testy, and which in German characters had a particularly black and ominous aspect, on being fairly translated into the English, is no other than ECONOMY-a talismanic term, which, by constant use and frequent mention, has ceased to be formidable in our eyes, but which has as terrible potency as any in the arcana of necromancy.

to evacuate the country immediately-to which they most laconically replied in plain English," they'd see him dd first.”

Now this was a reply for which neither Jan Jansen Alpendam nor Wilhelmus Kieft had made any calculation--and finding himself totally unprepared to answer so terrible a rebuff with suitable hostility, he concluded that his wisest course was to return home and report progress. He accordingly sailed back to New-Amsterdam, where he was received with great honours, and considered as a pattern for all comWhen pronounced in a national assembly, it has manders; having achieved a most hazardous enteran immediate effect in closing the hearts, beclouding prise, at a trifling expense of treasure, and without the intellects, drawing the purse-strings and button- losing a single man to the State!-He was unariing the breeches-pockets of all philosophic legislators. mously called the deliverer of his country, (an ap Nor are its effects on the eyes less wonderful. It pellation liberally bestowed on all great men ;) his produces a contraction of the retina, an obscurity of two sloops, having done their duty, were laid up (or the crystalline lens, a viscidity of the vitreous, and an | dry-docked) in a cove now called the Albany basin, inspissation of the aqueous humours, an induration where they quietly rotted in the mud; and to imof the tunica sclerotica and a convexity of the cor-mortalize his name, they erected, by subscription, a nea; insomuch that the organ of vision loses its magnificent shingle monument on the top of Flattenstrength and perspicuity, and the unfortunate patient barrack hill, which lasted three whole years; when becomes myopes, or, in plain English, purblind; per- it fell to pieces and was burnt for firewood. ceiving only the amount of immediate expense, without being able to look farther, and regard it in connexion with the ultimate object to be effected-" So that," to quote the words of the eloquent Burke, a briar at his nose is of greater magnitude than an oak at five hundred yards' distance.' Such are its instantaneous operations, and the results are still more astonishing. By its magic influence, seventyfours shrink into frigates-frigates into sloops, and sloops into gun-boats.

This all-potent word, which served as his touchstone in politics, at once explains the whole system of proclamations, protests, empty threats, windmills, trumpeters, and paper war, carried on by Wilhelmus the Testy and we may trace its operations in an armament which he fitted out in 1642, in a moment of great wrath, consisting of two sloops and thirty men, under the command of Mynheer Jan Jansen Alpendam, as admiral of the fleet, and commanderVOL. II.-4.

CHAPTER V.

HOW WILLIAM THE TESTY ENRICHED THE PROV-
INCE BY A MULTITUDE OF LAWS, AND CAME
TO BE THE PATRON OF LAWYERS AND BUM-
BAILIFFS AND HOW THE PEOPLE BECAME EX-
CEEDINGLY ENLIGHTENED AND UNHAPPY UN-
DER HIS INSTRUCTIONS.

AMONG the many wrecks and fragments of exalted wisdom which have floated down the stream of time, from venerable antiquity, and have been carefully picked up by those humble, but industrious wights, who ply along the shores of literature, we find the following sage ordinance of Charondas, the Locrian legislator. Anxious to preserve the ancient