a kind of Newgate Calendar, a register of the crimes and miseries that man has inflicted on his fellow-man? It is a huge libel on human nature, to which we industriously add page after page, volume after volume, as if we were building up a monument to the honour rather than the infamy of our species. If we turn over the pages of these chronicles that man has written of himself, what are the characters dignified by the appellation of great, and held up to the admiration of posterity? -Tyrants, robbers, conquerors, renowned only for the magnitude of their misdeeds, and the stupendous wrongs and miseries they have inflicted on mankind-warriors, who have hired themselves to the trade of blood, not from motives of virtuous patriotism, or to protect the injured and defenceless, but merely to gain the vaunted glory of being adroit and successful in massacring their fellow beings! What are the great events that constitute a glorious era? The fall of empires -the desolation of happy countries-splendid cities smoking in their ruins the proudest works of art tumbled in the dust-the shrieks and groans of whole nations ascending unto heaven! It is thus the historians may be said to thrive on the miseries of mankind-they are like the birds of prey that hover over the field of battle, to fatten on the mighty dead. It was observed by a great projector of inland lock navigation, that rivers, lakes, and oceans, were only formed to feed canals. In like manner I am tempted to believe, that plots, conspiracies, wars, victories, and massacres, are ordained by Providence only as food for the historian.

It is a source of great delight to the philosopher, in studying the wonderful economy of nature, to trace the mutual dependences of things, how they are created reciprocally for each other, and how the most noxious and apparently unnecessary animal has its uses. Thus those swarms of flies, which are so often execrated as useless vermin, are created for the sustenance of spiders; and spiders, on the other hand, are evidently made to devour flies. So those heroes who have been such pests in the world were bounteously provided as themes for the poet and the historian, while the poet and historian were destined to record the achievements of heroes.

These, and many similar reflections, naturally arose in my mind as I took up my pen to commence the reign of William Kieft; for now the stream of our history, which hitherto has rolled in a tranquil current, is about to depart for ever from its peaceful haunts, and brawl through many a turbulent and rugged scene. Like some sleek ox, which, having fed and fattened in a rich clover field, lies sunk in luxurious repose, and will bear repeated taunts and blows before it heaves its unwieldy limbs, and clumsily arouses from its slumbers; so the province of the Nieuw Nederlandts, having long thriven and grown corpulent under the prosperous reign of the Doubter, was reluctantly awakened to a melancholy conviction that, by patient sufferance, its grievances had become so numerous and aggravating, that it was preferable to repel than endure them. The reader will now witness the manner in which a peaceful community advances towards a state of war; which it is too apt to approach, as a horse does a drum, with much prancing and parade, but with

little progress, and too often with the wrong end foremost.

WILHELMUS KIEFT, who in 1634, ascended the gubernatorial chair, (to borrow a favourite though clumsy appellation of modern phraseologists,) was in form, feature, and character, the very reverse of Wouter Van Twiller, his renowned predecessor. He was of very respectable descent, his father being Inspector of Windmills in the ancient town of Saardam; and our hero, we are told, made very curious investigations into the nature and operations of those machines when a boy, which is one reason why he afterwards came to be so ingenious a governor. His name, according to the most ingenious etymologists, was a corruption of Kyver, that is to say, a wrangler or scolder, and expressed the hereditary disposition of his family, which, for nearly two centuries, had kept the windy town of Saardam in hot water, and produced more tartars and brimstones than any ten families in the place; and so truly did Wilhelmus Kieft inherit this family endowment, that he had scarcely been a year in the discharge of his government, before he was universally known by the appellation of WILLIAM THE TESTY.

He was a brisk, waspish, little old gentleman, who had dried and withered away, partly through the natural process of years, and partly from being parched and burned up by his fiery soul, which blazed like a vehement rushlight in his bosom, constantly inciting him to most valorous broils, altercations, and misadventures. I have heard it observed by a profound and philosophical judge of human nature, that if a woman waxes fat as she grows old, the tenure of her life is very precarious; but if haply she withers, she lives for ever such likewise was the case with William the Testy, who grew tougher in proportion as he dried. He was some such a little Dutchman as we may now and then see, stumping briskly about the streets of our city, in a broad-skirted coat, with buttons nearly as large as the shield of Ajax, an old-fashioned cocked hat stuck on the back of his head, and a cane as high as his chin. His visage was broad, but his features sharp; his nose turned up with a most petulant curl; his cheeks, like the regions of Terra del Fuego, were scorched into a dusky red-doubtless, in consequence of the neighbourhood of two fierce little grey eyes, through which his torrid soul beamed as fervently as a tropical sun blazing through a pair of burning glasses. The corners of his mouth were curiously modelled into a kind of fret-work, not a little resembling the wrinkled proboscis of an irritable pug-dog; in a word, he was one of the most positive, restless, ugly little men that ever put himself in a passion about nothing.

Such were the personal endowments of William the Testy; but it was the sterling riches of his mind that raised him to dignity and power. In his youth he had passed with great credit through a celebrated academy at the Hague, noted for producing finished scholars with a despatch un equalled, except by certain of our American colleges, which seem to manufacture bachelors of arts by some patent machine. Here he skirmished very smartly on the frontiers of several of the sciences, and made so gallant an inroad in the dead languages, as to bring off captive a host of Greek nouns and Latin verbs, together with divers pithy

saws and apophthegms; all which he constantly paraded in conversation and writing, with as much vain-glory as would a triumphant general of yore display the spoils of the countries he had ravished. He had moreover puzzled himself considerably with logic, in which he had advanced so far as to attain a very familiar acquaintance, by name at least, with the whole family of syllogisms and dilemmas; but what he chiefly valued himself on was his knowledge of metaphysics, in which having once upon a time ventured too deeply, he came well nigh being smothered in a slough of unintelligible learning-a fearful peril, from the effects of which he never perfectly recovered. In plain words, like many other profound intermeddlers in this abstruse, bewildering science, he so confused his brain with abstract speculations which he could not comprehend, and artificial distinctions which he could not realise, that he could never think clearly on any subject, however simple, through the whole course of his life afterwards. This, I must confess, was in some measure a misfortune, for he never engaged in argument, of which he was exceedingly fond, but what, between logical deductions and metaphysical jargon, he soon involved himself and his subject in a fog of contradictions and perplexities, and then would get into a mighty passion with his adversary for not being convinced gratis.

It is in knowledge as in swimming, he who ostentatiously sports and flounders on the surface makes more noise and splashing, and attracts more attention, than the industrious pearl-diver, who plunges in search of treasures to the bottom. The "universal acquirements" of William Kieft were the subject of great marvel and admiration among his countrymen; he figured about at the Hague with as much vain-glory as does a profound bonze at Pekin, who has mastered half the letters of the Chinese alphabet; and, in a word, was unanimously pronounced a universal genius !-I have known many universal geniuses in my time, though, to speak my mind freely, I never knew one who, for the ordinary purposes of life, was worth his weight in straw; but for the purposes of government, a little sound judgment, and plain common sense, is worth all the sparkling genius that ever wrote poetry, or invented theories. Strange as it may sound, therefore, the universal acquirements of the illustrious Wilhelmus were very much in his way; and had he been a less learned man, it is possible he would have been a much greater governor. He was exceedingly fond of trying philosophical and political experiments: and having stuffed his head full of scraps and remnants of ancient republics, and oligarchies, and aristocracies, and monarchies, and the laws of Solon, and Lycurgus, and Charondas, and the imaginary Commonwealth of Plato, and the Pandects of Justinian, and a thousand other fragments of venerable antiquity, he was for ever bent upon introducing some one or other of them into use; so that, between one contradictory measure and another, he entangled the government of the little province of Nieuw Nederlandts in more knots, during his administration, than half a dozen successors could have untied. No sooner had this bustling little man been blown by a whiff of fortune in the seat of government, than he called together his council, and delivered a very animated speech on the affairs of

the province. As every body knows what a glorious opportunity a governor, a president, or even an emperor has of drubbing his enemies in his speeches, messages, and bulletins, where he has the talk all on his own side, they may be sure the high-mettled William Kieft did not suffer so favourable an occasion to escape him, of evincing that gallantry of tongue common to all able legislators. Before he commenced, it is recorded that he took out his pocket-handkerchief, and gave a very sonorous blast of the nose, according to the usual custom of great orators. This, in general, I believe, is intended as a signal trumpet, to call the attention of the auditors; but with William the Testy it boasted a more classic cause, for he had read of the singular expedient of that famous demagogue Caius Gracchus, who, when he harangued the Roman populace, modulated his tones by an oratorical flute or pitch-pipe.

This preparatory symphony being performed, he commenced by expressing an humble sense of his own want of talents, his utter unworthiness of the honour conferred upon him, and his humiliating incapacity to discharge the important duties of his new station: in short, he expressed so contemptible an opinion of himself, that many simple country members present, ignorant that these were mere words of course, always used on such occasions, were very uneasy, and even felt wrath that he should accept an office for which he was consciously so inadequate. He then proceeded in a manner highly classic, profoundly erudite, and nothing at all to the purpose; being nothing more than a pompous account of all the governments of ancient Greece, and the wars of Rome and Carthage, together with the rise and fall of sundry outlandish empires, about which the assembly knew no more than their great-grandchildren 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 less important part of his speech, the situation of the province; and here he soon worked himself into a fearful rage against the Yankees, whom he compared to the Gauls who desolated 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 insolence 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 assumed 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 authorised by direful necessity. In a word, he was resolved to conquer the Yankees by proclamation.

For this purpose he had prepared a tremendous instrument of the kind, ordering, commanding, and enjoining the intruders aforesaid forthwith to remove, depart, and withdraw from the districts, regions, and territories aforesaid, under pain of suffering all the penalties, forfeitures, and punishments in such case made and provided, &c. This

proclamation, he assured 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 some time silent after he had finished; whether struck dumb with admiration at the brilliancy of his project, or put to sleep by the length of his harangue, the history of the times doth not mention. Suffice it to say, they at length gave a general grunt of acquiescence; the proclamation was immediately despatched with due ceremony, having the great seal of the province, which was about the size of a buckwheat pancake, attached to it by a broad red riband. Governor Kieft, having thus vented his indignation, felt greatly relieved--adjourned the council sine die,-put on his cocked hat and corduroy small-clothes, and, mounting a tall raw-boned charger, trotted out to his countryseat, which was situated in a sweet, sequestered swamp, now called Dutch Street, but more commonly known by the name of Dog's Misery.

Here, like the good Numa, he reposed from the toils of legislation, taking lessons in government, not from the Nymph Egeria, but from the honoured wife of his bosom; who was one of that peculiar kind of females, sent upon earth a little before the flood, as a punishment for the sins of mankind, and commonly known by the appellation of knowing zoomen. In fact, my duty as an historian obliges me to make known a circumstance which was a great secret at the time, and consequently was not a subject of scandal at more than half the teatables of New Amsterdam, but which, like many other great secrets, has leaked out in the lapse of years; and this was, that the great Wilhelmus the Testy, though one of the most potent little men that ever breathed, yet submitted at home to a species of government, neither laid down in Aristotle nor Plato; in short, it partook of the nature of a pure, unmixed tyranny, and is familiarly denominated petticoat government. An absolute sway, which, though exceedingly common in these 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 case on record. The great Kieft, however, warded off all the sneers and sarcasms of his particular friends, who are ever ready to joke with a man on sore points of the kind, by alleging that it was a government of his own election, to which he submitted through choice; adding at the same time a profound maxim which he had found in an ancient author, that "he who would aspire to govern, should first learn to obey."

CHAPTER 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 still better, a more economical measure devised, than this, of defeating the Yankees by proclamation: an expedient, likewise, so humane, so gentle, and pacific, that there were ten chances to one in favour of its succeeding, but then there

was one chance to ten that it would not succeed: as the ill-natured fates would have it, that single chance carried the day! The proclamation was perfect in all its parts, well constructed, well written, well sealed, and well published-all that was wanting to insure its effect was, that the Yankees should stand in awe of it; but, provoking to relate! they treated it with the most absolute contempt, applied it to an unseemly purpose, and thus did the first warlike proclamation come to a shameful end-a fate which, I am credibly informed, has befallen but too many of its successors.

It was a long time before Wilhelmus Kieft could be persuaded, by the united efforts of all his courcillors, that his war measures had failed in producing any effect. On the contrary, he flew in a passion whenever any one dared to question its efficacy; and swore, that though it was slow in operating, yet when once it began to work, it would soon purge the land of these rapacious intruders. Time, however, that test of all experiments both in philosophy and politics, at length convinced the great Kieft, that his proclamation was abortive; and that, notwithstanding he had waited four years in a state of constant irritation, yet he was still further off than ever from the object of his wishes. His implacable adversaries in the east became more and more troublesome in their encroachments, and founded the thriving colony of Hartford, close upon the skirts of Fort Goed Hoop. They moreover commenced the fair settlement of Newhaven (alias the Red Hills) within the domains of their high mightinesses-while the onion patches of Pyquag were a continual eyesore to the garrison of Van Curlet. Upon beholding, therefore, the inefficacy of his measure, the sage Kieft, like many a worthy practitioner of physic, laid the blame, not to the medicine, but the quantity administered; and resolutely resolved to double the dose.

In the year 1638, therefore, that being the fourth year of his reign, he fulminated against them a second proclamation, of heavier metal than the former; written in thundering long sentences, not one word of which was under five syllables. This, in fact, was a kind of non-intercourse bill, forbidding and prohibiting all commerce and connexion, between any and every of the said Yankee intruders, and the said fortified post of Fort Goed Hoop; and ordering, commanding, and advising all his trusty, loyal, and well beloved subjects, to furnish them with no supplies of gin, gingerbread, or sour crout; to buy none of their pacing horses, meazly pork, apple brandy, Yankee rum, cider water, apple sweetmeats, Weathersfield onions, or wooden bowls; but to starve and exterminate them from the face of the land. Another pause of a twelvemonth ensued, during which the last proclamation received the same [attention, and experienced the same fate as the first; at the end of which term, the gallant Jacobus Van Curlet despatched his annual messenger, with his customary budget of complaints and entreaties. Whether the regular interval of a year, intervening between the arrival of Van Curlet's couriers, was occasioned by the systematic regularity of his movements, or by the immense distance at which he was stationed from the seat of government, is a matter of uncertainty. Some have ascribed it to the slowness of his messengers, who, as I have before noticed, were chosen

from the shortest and fattest of his garrison, as least likely to be worn out on the road; and who, being pursy, short-winded little men, generally travelled fifteen miles a day, and then laid by a whole week-to rest. All these, however, are matters of conjecture; and I rather think it may be ascribed to the immemorial maxim of this worthy country, and which has ever influenced all its public transactions-not to do things in a hurry.

The gallant Jacobus Van Curlet in his despatches respectfully represented, that several years had now elapsed since his first application to his late excellency, the renowned 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 enclosed and blockaded by the enemy, and totally at their mercy. But among the most atrocious of his grievances, I find the following still on record, which may serve to show the bloodyminded outrages of these savage intruders. "In the mean time, they of Hartford have not onely usurped and taken in the lands of Connecticott, although unrighteously and against the lawes of nations, but have hindered our nation in sowing theire owne purchased broken up lands, but have also sowed them with corne in the night, which the Netherlanders had broken up and intended to sowe; and have beaten the servants of the high and mighty the honored companie, which were labouring upon theire masters' lands, from theire lands, with sticks and plow staves, in hostile manner laming, and amongst the rest struck Ever Duckings a hole in his head, with a stick, soe 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 58. if the commissioners would have given 5s. for damage; which the commissioners denied, because noe man's owne hogg (as men use to say) can trespass upon his owne master's grounde".""

The receipt of this melancholy intelligence incensed the whole community-there was something in it that spoke to the dull comprehensions, and touched the obtuse feelings even of the puissant vulgar, who generally require a kick in the rear to awaken their slumbering dignity. I have known my profound fellow citizens bear without murmur a thousand essential infringements of their rights, merely because they were not immediately obvious to their senses; but the moment the unlucky Pearce was shot upon our coasts, the whole body politic was in a ferment: so the enlightened Nederlanders, though they had treated the encroachments of their eastern neighbours with but little regard, and left their quill-valiant governor to bear the

This name is no doubt mis-spelt. In some old Dutch MSS. of the time, we find the name of Evert Duyckingh, who is unquestionably the unfortunate hero above alluded to. 2 Haz. Col. Stat. Papers.

whole brunt of the war with his single pen; yet now every individual felt his head broken in the broken head of Duckings and the unhappy fate of their fellow citizen the hog, being impressed, carried, and sold into captivity, awakened a grunt of sympathy from every bosom.

The governor and council, goaded by the clamours of the multitude, now set themselves earnestly to deliberate upon what was to be done. Proclamations had at length fallen into temporary disrepute; some were for sending the Yankees a tribute, as we make peace offerings to the petty Barbary powers, or 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 seized. A variety of measures were, as usual in such cases, proposed, discussed, and abandoned; and the council had at last to adopt the means, 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 their pursuit after jacko'-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 reinforcement of the garrison. This measure was carried into such prompt operation, that in less than twelve months the whole expedition, consisting of a serjeant and twelve men, was ready to march; and was reviewed for that purpose in the public square, now known by the name of the Bowling Green. Just at this juncture the whole community was thrown into consternation by the sudden arrival of the gallant Jacobus Van Curlet; who came straggling into town at the head of his crew of tatterdemalions, and bringing the melancholy tidings of his own defeat, and the capture of the redoubtable post of Fort Goed Hoop by the ferocious Yankees.

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 bomb-shells. 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. It appears that the crafty Yankees, having heard of the regular habits of the garrison, watched a favourable opportunity, and silently introduced themselves into the fort, about the middle of a sultry day; when its vigilant defenders, having gorged themselves with a hearty dinner, and smoked out their pipes, were one and all snoring most obstreperously at their posts, little dreaming of so disastrous an The enemy most inhumanly seized Jacobus Van Curlet and his sturdy myrmidons by the nape of the neck, gauanted them to the gate

occurrence.

of the fort, and dismissed them severally, with a kick on the crupper, as Charles the Twelfth dismissed the heavy bottomed Russians, after the battle of Narva-only taking care to give two kicks to Van Curlet, as a signal mark of distinction.

A strong garrison was immediately established in the fort, consisting of twenty long-sided, hardfisted Yankees, with Weathersfield onions stuck in their hats, by way of cockades and featherslong rusty fowling-pieces for muskets-hasty pudding, dumb fish, pork, and molasses, for stores; and a huge pumpkin was hoisted on the end of a pole, as a standard-liberty caps not having as yet come into fashion.

CHAPTER III.

Containing the fearful wrath of William the Testy, and the great dolour of the New Amsterdammers, because of the affair of Fort Goed Hoop-And moreover how William the Testy did strongly fortify the city. Together with the exploits of Stoffel Brinkerhoff.

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 was nearly choked by some dozen huge mis-shapen, nine-cornered Dutch oaths, that crowded all at once into his gullet. Having blazed off the first broadside, he kept up a constant firing for three whole days-anathematizing the Yankees, man, woman, and child, body and soul, for a set of dieven, schobbejaken, deugenieten, twist-zoekeren, loozen-schalken, blaes-kaken, kakken-bedden, and a thousand other names, of which, unfortunately for posterity, history does not make particular mention. Finally, he swore that he would have nothing more to do with such a squatting, bundling, guessing, questioning, swapping, pumpkin-eating, molasses-daubing, shingle-splitting, cider-watering, horse-jockeying, notion-peddling crew-that they might stay at Fort Goed 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 midsummer. 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.

Great despondency seized upon the city of New Amsterdam in consequence of these melancholy events. The name of Yankee became as terrible among our good ancestors as was that of Gaul among the ancient Romans; and all the sage old women of the province used it as a bugbear, wherewith to frighten their unruly children into obedience. The eyes of all the province were now turned upon their governor, to know what he would do for the protection of the commonweal, in these days of darkness and peril. Great apprenensions prevailed among the reflecting part of the community, especially the old women, that these terrible warriors of Connecticut, not content with the conquest of Fort Goed Hoop, would in

continently march on to New Amsterdam and take it by storm-and as these old ladies, 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 burley 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 bagpipes were singing most lustily i' the nose. Him did the illustrious Kieft pick out as the man of all the world the 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.

Nor was he content with thus strongy garrisoning the fort, but he likewise added exceedingly to its strength by furnishing it with a formidable battery of quaker guns-rearing a stupendous flag-staff in the centre, which over-topped the whole city and moreover by building a great windmill on one of the bastions. This last, to be sure, was somewhat of a novelty in the art of fortification, but as I have already observed, William Kieft was notorious for innovations and experiments, and traditions do affirm that he was much given to mechanical inventions constructing patent smoke-jacks carts that went before the horses and especially erecting windmills, for which machines he had acquired a singular predilection in his native town of Saardam.

All these scientific vagaries of the little governor were cried up with ecstacy 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 is the illiberality and slander to which enlightened rulers are ever subject. Notwithstanding all the measures,

I David Pietrez De Vries, in his "Reyze naer NieuwNederlantd onder het year 1640," makes mention of one Corlear, a trumpeter in Fort Amsterdam, who gave name to Corlear's Hook, and who was, doubtless, this same champion, described by Mr. Knickerbocker.-EDITOR.

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

E 2