meant, in modern days, by "putting a nation in armour," and "fixing it in an attitude "-in which armour and attitude it makes as martial a figure, and as likely to acquit itself with as much prowess as the renowned Sancho Panza, when suddenly equipped to defend his island of Barataria.

manner of the Dutch ovens, common in those days, with clam-shells.

These frowning bulwarks, in process of time, came to be pleasantly overrun by a verdant carpet of grass and clover, and their high embankments overshadowed by wide-spreading sycamores, among whose foliage the little birds sported about, rejoicing the ear with their melodious notes. The old burghers would repair of an afternoon to smoke their pipes under the shade of their branches, contemplating the golden sun as he gradually sunk into the west, an emblem of that tranquil end towards which themselves were hastening-while the young men and the damsels of the town would take many a moonlight stroll among these favourite haunts, watching the silver beams of chaste Cynthia tremble along the calm bosom of the bay, or light up the white sail of some gliding bark, and interchanging the honest vows of constant affection. Such was the origin of that renowned walk, THE BATTERY, which, though ostensibly devoted to the purpose of war, has ever been consecrated to the sweet delights of peace. The favourite walk of declining age-the healthful resort of the feeble invalid the scene of many a boyish gambol-the rendezvous of many a tender assignation-the comfort of the citizen-the ornament of New-York, and the pride of the lovely island of Manna-hata.

The sturdy Peter eyed this ragged regiment with some such rueful aspect as a man would eye the devil; but knowing, like a wise man, that all he had to do was to make the best out of a bad bargain, he determined to give his heroes a seasoning. Having, therefore, drilled them through the manual exercise over and over again, he ordered the fifes to strike up a quick march, and trudged his sturdy troops backwards and forwards about the streets of New-Amsterdam, and the fields adjacent, until their short legs ached, and their fat sides sweated again. But this was not all; the martial spirit of the old governor caught fire from the sprightly music of the fife, and he resolved to try the mettle of his troops, and give them a taste of the hardships of iron war. To this end he encamped them, as the shades of evening fell, upon a hill formerly called Bunker's Hill, at some distance from the town, with a full intention-the Sunday refreshment of the dusty tradesmanof initiating them into the discipline of camps, and of renewing, the next day, the toils and perils of the field. But so it came to pass, that in the night there fell a great and heavy rain, which descended in torrents upon the camp, and the mighty army strangely melted away before it; so that when Gaffer Phoebus came to shed his morning beams upon the place, saving Peter Stuyvesant and his trumpeter, Van Corlear, scarce one was to be found of all the multitude that had encamped there the night before.

This awful dissolution of his army would have appalled a commander of less nerve than Peter Stuycsant; but he considered it as a matter of but small importance, though he thenceforward regarded the militia system with ten times greater contempt than ever, and took care to provide himself with a good garrison of chosen men, whom he kept in pay, of whom he boasted that they at least possessed the quality, indispensable in soldiers, of being water-proof.

The next care of the vigilant Stuyvesant was to strengthen and fortify New-Amsterdam. For this purpose, he caused to be built a strong picket fence, that reached across the island, from river to river, being intended to protect the city not merely from the sudden invasions of foreign enemies, but likewise from the incursions of the neighbouring savages.*

CHAPTER VI.

HOW THE PEOPLE OF THE EAST COUNTRY WERE
SUDDENLY AFFLICTED WITH A DIABOLICAL
AND THEIR JUDICIOUS MEASURES FOR
THE EXTIRPATION THEREOF.

EVIL

HAVING thus provided for the temporary security of New-Amsterdam, and guarded it against any sudden surprise, the gallant Peter took a hearty pinch of snuff, and, snapping his fingers, set the great council of Amphyctions, and their champion, the doughty Alicxsander Partridg, at defiance. It is impossible to say, notwithstanding, what might have been the issue of this affair, had not the council been all at once involved in sad perplexity, and as much dissension sown among its members, as of yore was stirred up in the camp of the brawling warriors of Greece.

The council of the league, as I have shown in my Some traditions, it is true, have ascribed the build- last chapter, had already announced its hostile deter ing of this wall to a later period, but they are wholly minations, and already was the mighty colony of incorrect; for a memorandum in the Stuyvesant New-Haven, and the puissant town of Piquag, othmanuscript, dated towards the middle of the gov-erwise called Weathersfield-famous for its onions ernor's reign, mentions this wall particularly, as a very strong and curious piece of workmanship, and the admiration of all the savages in the neighbourhood. And it mentions, moreover, the alarming circumstance of a drove of stray cows breaking through the grand wall of a dark night; by which the whole community of New-Amsterdam was thrown into a terrible panic.

In addition to this great wall, he cast up several outworks to Fort Amsterdam, to protect the seaboard, at the point of the island. These consisted of formidable mud batteries, solidly faced, after the

In an antique view of New-Amsterdam, taken some years after the above period, is a representation of this wall, which stretched along the course of Wall-street, so called in commemoration of this great bulwark. One gate, called the LandPoort, opened upon Broadway, hard by where at present stands the Trinity Church; and another, called the Water- Poort, stood about where the Tontine Coffee-House is at presentopening upon Smits Vleye, or as it is commonly called, Smith Fly, then a marshy valley, with a creek or inlet extending up what we call Maiden-lane,

and its witches-and the great trading house of Hartford, and all the other redoubtable border towns, in a prodigious turmoil, furbishing up their rusty fowling-pieces, and shouting aloud for war; by which they anticipated easy conquests, and gorgeous spoils, from the little fat Dutch villages. But this joyous brawling was soon silenced by the conduct of the colony of Massachusetts. Struck with the gallant spirit of the brave old Peter, and convinced by the chivalric frankness and heroic warmth of his vindication, they refused to believe him guilty of the infamous plot most wrongfully laid at his door. With a generosity for which I would yield them immortal honour, they declared that no determination of the grand council of the league should bind the general court of Massachusetts to join in an offensive war which should appear to such general court to be unjust.*

Haz. Col. State Papers.

their only being able to weep three tears, and those out of the left eye.

This refusal immediately involved the colony of Massachusetts and the other combined colonies in very serious difficulties and disputes, and would no It is incredible the number of offences that were doubt have produced a dissolution of the confederacy, detected, "for every one of which," says the probut that the council of Amphyctions, finding that found and reverend Cotton Mather, in that excellent they could not stand alone, if mutilated by the loss work, the History of New-England-" we have such of so important a member as Massachusetts, were a sufficient evidence, that no reasonable man in this fain to abandon for the present their hostile machi- whole country ever did question them; and it will nations against the Manhattoes. Such is the marvel-be unreasonable to do it in any other."* lous energy and the puissance of those confederacies, Indeed, that authentic and judicious historian, composed of a number of sturdy, self-willed, discord- John Josselyn, Gent., furnishes us with unquestionant parts, loosely banded together by a puny general able facts on this subject. "There are none," obgovernment. As it was, however, the warlike towns serves he, "that beg in this country, but there be of Connecticut had no cause to deplore this disap-witches too many-bottle-bellied witches and others, pointment of their martial ardour; for by my faith that produce many strange apparitions, if you will though the combined powers of the league might believe report, of a shallop at sea manned with womhave been too potent, in the end, for the robustious en-and of a ship, and great red horse standing warriors of the Manhattoes-yet in the interim by the mainmast; the ship being in small cove to would the lion-hearted Peter and his myrmidons the eastward, vanished of a sudden," etc. have choked the stomachful heroes of Piquag with their own onions, and have given the other little border towns such a scouring, that I warrant they would have had no stomach to squat on the land, or invade the hen-roost of a New-Nederlander, for a century to come.

Indeed, there was more than one cause to divert the attention of the good people of the east, from their hostile purposes; for just about this time were they horribly beleaguered and harassed by the inroads of the prince of darkness, divers of whose liege subjects they detected, lurking within their camp, all of whom they incontinently roasted as so many spies and dangerous enemies. Not to speak in parables, we are informed, that at this juncture the New-England provinces were exceedingly troubled by multitudes of losel witches, who wrought strange devices to beguile and distress the multitude; and notwithstanding numerous judicious and bloody laws had been enacted against all "solemn conversing or compacting with the divil, by way of conjuracon or the like," yet did the dark crime of witchcraft continue to increase to an alarming degree, that would almost transcend belief, were not the fact too well authenticated to be even doubted for an instant.

What is particularly worthy of admiration is, that this terrible art, which so long has baffled the painful researches and abstruse studies of philosophers, astrologers, alchymists, theurgists, and other sages, was chiefly confined to the most ignorant, decrepit, and ugly old women in the community, who had scarcely more brains than the broomsticks they rode upon.

The number of delinquents, however, and their magical devices, were not more remarkable than their diabolical obstinacy. Though exhorted in the most solemn, persuasive, and affectionate manner, to confess themselves guilty, and be burnt for the good of religion, and the entertainment of the public; yet did they most pertinaciously persist in asserting their innocence. Such incredible obstinacy was in itself deserving of immediate punishment, and was sufficient proof, if proof were necessary, that they were in league with the devil, who is perverseness itself. But their judges were just and merciful, and were determined to punish none that were not convicted on the best of testimony; not that they needed any evidence to satisfy their own minds, for, like true and experienced judges, their minds were perfectly made up, and they were thoroughly satisfied of the guilt of the prisoners, before they proceeded to try them; but still something was necessary to convince the community at large-to quiet those prying quidnuncs who should come after them-in short, the world must be satisfied. Oh, the world--the world!—all the world knows the world of trouble the world is eternally occasioning!-The worthy judges, therefore, were driven to the necessity of sifting, detecting, and making evident as noon-day, matters which were at the commencement all clearly understood and firmly decided upon in their own pericraniumsso that it may truly be said that the witches were burnt to gratify the populace of the day-but were tried for the satisfaction of the whole world that should come after them.

Finding, therefore, that neither exhortation, sound reason, nor friendly entreaty had any avail on these hardened offenders, they resorted to the more urgent arguments of the torture, and having thus absolutely wrung the truth from their stubborn lips, they condemned them to undergo the roasting due unto the heinous crimes they had confessed. Some even carried their perverseness so far as to expire under the torture, protesting their innocence to the last; but these were looked upon as thoroughly and absolutely possessed by the devil, and the pious bystanders only lamented that they had not lived a lit

When once an alarm is sounded, the public, who love dearly to be in a panic, are not long in want of proofs to support it-raise but the cry of yellow fever, and immediately every headache, and indigestion, and overflowing of the bile, is pronounced the terrible epidemic. In like manner, in the present instance, whoever was troubled with colic or lumbago, was sure to be bewitched; and woe to any unlucky old woman that lived in his neighbourhood. Such a howling abomination could not be suffered to remain long unnoticed, and it accordingly soon at-tle longer, to have perished in the flames. tracted the fiery indignation of the sober and reflect- In the city of Ephesus, we are told that the ive part of the community-more especially of those, who, whilome, had evinced so much active benevolence in the conversion of Quakers and Anabaptists. The grand council of the Amphyctions publicly set their faces against so deadly and dangerous a sin; and a severe scrutiny took place after those nefarious witches, who were easily detected by devil's pinches, black cats, broomsticks, and the circumstance of

New-Plymouth Record.

plague was expelled by stoning a ragged old beggar to death, whom Appolonius pointed out as being the evil spirit that caused it, and who actually showed himself to be a demon, by changing into a shagged dog. In like manner, and by measures equally sagacious, a salutary check was given to this growing evil. The witches were all burnt, banished, or panic-struck, and in a little while there was not

Mather's Hist. New-Eng., b. 6. ch. 7.

an ugly old woman to be found throughout New-| Curlet, when he and his ragged regiment were inhuEngland-which is doubtless one reason why all the manly kicked out of Fort Good Hope by the Yanyoung women there are so handsome. Those honest folk who had suffered from their incantations gradually recovered, excepting such as had been afflicted with twitches and aches, which, however, assumed the less alarming aspect of rheumatism, sciatics, and lumbagos-and the good people of New-England, abandoning the study of the occult sciences, turned their attention to the more profitable hocus-pocus of trade, and soon became expert in the legerdemain art of turning a penny. Still, however, a tinge of the old leaven is discernible, even unto this day, in their characters-witches occasionally start up among them in different disguises, as physicians, civilians, and divines. The people at large show a keenness, a cleverness, and a profundity of wisdom that savours strongly of witchcraft-and it has been remarked, that whenever any stones fall from the moon, the greater part of them are sure to tumble into New-England!

kees. In consequence of having been in such a "memorable affair," and of having received more wounds on a certain honourable part that shall be nameless than any of his comrades, he was ever after considered as a hero, who had "seen some service." Certain it is, he enjoyed the unlimited confidence and friendship of William the Testy; who would sit for hours, and listen with wonder to his gunpowder narratives of surprising victories--he had never gained; and dreadful battles-from which he had run away, It was tropically observed by honest old Socrates, that heaven had infused into some men at their birth a portion of intellectual gold; into others of intellectual silver; while others were bounteously furnished out with abundance of brass and iron-now of this last class was undoubtedly the great General Van Poffenburgh; and from the display he continually made thereof, I am inclined to think that dame Nature, who will sometimes be partial, had blessed him with enough of those valuable materials to have fitted up a dozen ordinary braziers. But what is most to be admired is, that he contrived to pass off all his brass and copper upon Wilhelmus Kieft, who was no great judge of base coin, as pure and genuWHICH RECORDS THE RISE AND RENOWN OF A ine gold. The consequence was, that upon the resVALIANT COMMANDER, SHOWING THAT A ignation of Jacobus Van Curlet, who, after the loss MAN, LIKE A BLADDER, MAY BE PUFFED UP of Fort Good Hope, retired, like a veteran general,

CHAPTER VII.

TO GREATNESS AND IMPORTANCE BY MERE
WIND.

WHEN treating of these tempestuous times, the unknown writer of the Stuyvesant manuscript breaks out into a vehement apostrophe, in praise of the good St. Nicholas; to whose protecting care he entirely ascribes the strange dissensions that broke out in the council of the Amphyctions, and the direful witchcraft that prevailed in the east country-whereby the hostile machinations against the Nederlanders were for a time frustrated, and his favourite city of New-Amsterdam preserved from imminent peril and deadly warfare. Darkness and lowering superstition hung over the fair valleys of the east; the pleasant banks of the Connecticut no longer echoed with the sounds of rustic gayety; direful phantoms and portentous apparitions were seen in the air-gliding spectrums haunted every wild brook and dreary glen-strange voices, made by viewless forms, were heard in desert solitudesand the border towns were so occupied in detecting and punishing the knowing old women who had produced these alarming appearances, that for a while the province of Nieuw-Nederlandt and its inhabitants were totally forgotten.

to live under the shade of his laurels, the mighty copper captain" was promoted to his station. This he filled with great importance, always styling himself "commander-in-chief of the armies of New Netherlands;" though, to tell the truth, the armies, or rather army, consisted of a handful of hen-stealing, bottle-bruising ragamuffins.

Such was the character of the warrior appointed by Peter Stuyvesant to defend his southern frontier; nor may it be uninteresting to my reader to have a glimpse of his person. He was not very tall, but notwithstanding, a huge, full-bodied man, whose bulk did not so much arise from his being fat, as windy; being so completely inflated with his own importance, that he resembled one of those bags of wind which Eolus, in an incredible fit of generosity, gave to that wandering warrior Ulysses.

His dress comported with his character, for he had almost as much brass and copper without as nature had stored away within-his coat was crossed and slashed, and carbonadoed with stripes of copper lace, and swathed round the body with a crimson sash, of the size and texture of a fishing-net, doubtless to keep his valiant heart from bursting through his ribs. His head and whiskers were profusely powdered, from the midst of which his full-blooded The great Peter, therefore, finding that nothing face glowed like a fiery furnace; and his magnaniwas to be immediately apprehended from his eastern mous soul seemed ready to bounce out at a pair of neighbours, turned himself about, with a praise-large, glassy, blinking eyes, which projected like those worthy vigilance that ever distinguished him, to put a stop to the insults of the Swedes. These freebooters, my attentive reader will recollect, had begun to be very troublesome towards the latter part of the reign of William the Testy, having set the proclamations of that doughty little governor at nought, and put the intrepid Jan Jansen Alpendam to a perfect nonplus!

of a lobster.

I swear to thee, worthy reader, if report belie not this warrior, I would give all the money in my pocket to have seen him accoutred cap-a-pie, in martial array-booted to the middle-sashed to the chin-collared to the ears--whiskered to the teeth-crowned with an overshadowing cocked hat, and girded with a leathern belt ten inches broad, from which trailed Peter Stuyvesant, however, as has already been a falchion, of a length that I dare not mention. Thus shown, was a governor of different habits and turn equipped, he strutted about, as bitter-looking a man of mind-without more ado, he immediately issued of war as the far-famed More of More Hall, when orders for raising a corps of troops to be stationed he sallied forth, armed at all points. to slay the on the southern frontier, under the command of brig-Dragon of Wantley.*

adier-general Jacobus Van Poffenburgh. This illustrious warrior had risen to great importance during the reign of Wilhelmus Kieft, and if histories speak true, was second in command to the hapless Van | VOL. II.-5.

"Had you but seen him in his dress

How fierce he look'd and how big;
You would have thought him for to be
Some Egyptian Porcupig.

Notwithstanding all these great endowments and transcendent qualities of this renowned general, I must confess he was not exactly the kind of man that the gallant Peter would have chosen to command his troops-but the truth is, that in those days the province did not abound, as at present, in great military characters; who, like so many Cincinnatuses, people every little village-marshalling out cabbages instead of soldiers, and signalizing themselves in the corn-field, instead of the field of battle ;-who have surrendered the toils of war for the more useful but inglorious arts of peace; and so blended the laurel with the olive, that you may have a general for a landlord, a colonel for a stage-driver, and your horse shod by a valiant "captain of volunteers.' The redoubtable General Van Poffenburgh, therefore, was appointed to the command of the new-levied troops, chiefly because there were no competitors for the station, and partly because it would have been a breach of military etiquette to have appointed a younger officer over his head-an injustice which the great Peter would have rather died than have committed.

No sooner did this thrice-valiant copper captain receive marching orders, than he conducted his army undauntedly to the southern frontier; through wild lands and savage deserts; over insurmountable mountains, across impassable floods, and through impenetrable forests; subduing a vast tract of uninhabited country, and encountering more perils, according to his own account, than did ever the great Xenophon in his far-famed retreat with his ten thousand Grecians. All this accomplished, he established on the South (or Delaware) river, a redoubtable redoubt, named FORT CASIMIR, in honour of a favourite pair of brimstone-coloured trunk breeches of the governor. As this fort will be found to give rise to very important and interesting events, it may be worth while to notice that it was afterwards called NieuwAmstel, and was the original germ of the present flourishing town of NEW-CASTLE, an appellation erroneously substituted for No Castle, there neither being, nor ever having been, a castle, or any thing of the kind, upon the premises.

Alexander, did incontinently gallop into an adjoining forest, and belaboured the trees with such might and main, that the whole court was convinced that he was the most potent and courageous gentleman on the face of the earth. In like manner the great Van Poffenburgh would ease off that valorous spleen, which like wind is so apt to grow unruly in the stomachs of new-made soldiers, impelling them to box-lobby brawls and broken-headed quarrels. For at such times, when he found his martial spirit waxing hot within him, he would prudently sally forth into the fields, and lugging out his trusty sabre, would lay about him most lustily, decapitating cabbages by platoons; hewing down whole phalanxes of sunflowers, which he termed gigantic Swedes; and if, peradventure, he espied a colony of honest, big-bellied pumpkins quietly basking themselves in the sun, "Ah, caitiff Yankees," would he roar, “have I caught ye at last?"-so saying, with one sweep of his sword, he would cleave the unhappy vegetables from their chins to their waistbands; by which warlike havoc his choler being in some sort allayed, he would return to his garrison with a full conviction that he was a very miracle of military prowess.

The next ambition of General Van Poffenburgh was to be thought a strict disciplinarian. Well knowing that discipline is the soul of all military enterprise, he enforced it with the most rigorous precision; obliging every man to turn out his toes and hold up his head on parade, and prescribing the breadth of their ruffles to all such as had any shirts to their backs.

Having one day, in the course of his devout researches in the Bible, (for the pious Eneas himself could not exceed him in outward religion,) encountered the history of Absalom and his melancholy end, the general, in an evil hour, issued orders for cropping the hair of both officers and men throughout the garrison. Now it came to pass, that among his officers was one Kildermeester, a sturdy veteran, who had cherished, through the course of a long life, a rugged mop of hair, not a little resembling the shag of a Newfoundland dog, terminating with an immoderate queue like the handle of a frying-pan; and queued so tightly to his head, that his eyes and mouth generally stood ajar, and his eyebrows were drawn up to the top of his forehead. It may natural

crocodile.

The Swedes did not suffer tamely this menacing movement of the Nederlanders; on the contrary, Jan Printz, at that time governor of New-Sweden, issued a protest against what he termed an encroach-ly be supposed that the possessor of so goodly an apment upon his jurisdiction. But Van Poffenburgh pendage would resist with abhorrence an order conhad become too well versed in the nature of procla- demning it to the shears. On hearing the general mations and protests, while he served under William orders, he discharged a tempest of veteran, soldierthe Testy, to be in any wise daunted by such paper like oaths, and dunder and blixums-swore he would warfare. His fortress being finished, it would have break any man's head who attempted to meddle with done any man's heart good to behold into what a his tail-queued it stiffer than ever, and whisked magnitude he immediately swelled. He would stride it about the garrison as fiercely as the tail of a in and out a dozen times a day, surveying it in front | and in rear; on this side and on that. Then would The eel-skin queue of old Kildermeester became he dress himself in full regimentals, and strut back- instantly an affair of the utmost importance. The wards and forwards, for hours together, on the top commander-in-chief was too enlightened an officer of his little rampart-like a vain-glorious cock-pigeon not to perceive that the discipline of the garrison, the vapouring on the top of his coop. In a word, un- subordination and good order of the armies of the less my readers have noticed, with curious eye, the Nieuw-Nederlandts, the consequent safety of the petty commander of one of our little, snivelling mili- whole province, and ultimately the dignity and pros tary posts, swelling with all the vanity of new regi-perity of their High Mightinesses, the Lords States mentals, and the pomposity derived from commanding a handfull of tatterdemalions, I despair of giving them any adequate idea of the prodigious dignity of General Van Poffenburgh.

It is recorded, in the delectable romance of Pierce Forest, that a young knight being dubbed by king

"He frighted all, cats, dogs, and all,

Each cow, each horse, and each hog;
For fear they did flee, for they took him to be
Some strange outlandish hedge-hog."
Ballad of Drag. of Want.

General, but above all, the dignity of the great General Van Poffenburgh, all imperiously demanded the docking of that stubborn queue. He therefore determined that old Kildermeester should be publicly shorn of his glories in the presence of the whole gar rison-the old man as resolutely stood on the defensive-whereupon the general, as became a great man, was highly exasperated, and the offender was arrested and tried by a court-martial for mutiny, desertion, and all the other list of offences noticed in the articles of war, ending with a "videlicet, in wear