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CRUSADE DENOUNCED AGAINST

but, I warrant me, had they attempted to play off the same trick upon William the Testy, he would have treated them both to an aereal gambol on his patent gallows.

The grand council of the east held a very solemn meeting on the return of their envoys, and after they had pondered a long time on the situation of affairs, were upon the point of adjourning without being able to agree upon any thing. At this critical moment one of those meddlesome, indefatigable spirits, who endeavour to establish a character for patriotism by blowing the bellows of party, until the whole furnace of politics is redhot with sparks and cinders-and who have just cunning enough to know that there is no time so favourable for getting on the people's backs as when they are in a state of turmoil, and attending to every body's business but their own-this aspiring imp of faction, who was called a great politician, because he had secured a seat in council by calumniating all his opponents-he, I say, conceived this a fit opportunity to strike a blow that should secure his popularity among his constituents, who lived on the borders of Nieuw-Nederlandt, and were the greatest poachers in Christendom, excepting the Scotch border nobles. Like a second Peter the hermit, therefore, he stood forth and preached up a crusade against Peter Stuyvesant, and his devoted city.

He made a speech which lasted six hours, according to the ancient custom in these parts, in which he represented the Dutch as a race of im

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pious heretics, who neither believed in witchcraft nor the sovereign virtues of horse-shoes-who left their country for the lucre of gain, not like themselves, for the enjoyment of liberty of conscience— who, in short, were a race of mere cannibals and anthropophagi, inasmuch as they never ate codfish on Saturdays, devoured swine's flesh without molasses, and held pumpkins in utter contempt.

This speech had the desired effect, for the council, being awakened by the serjeant at arms, rubbed their eyes, and declared that it was just and politic to declare instant war against these unchristian antipumpkinites. But it was necessary that the people at large should first be prepared for this measure, and for this purpose the arguments of the orator were preached from the pulpit for several Sundays subsequent, and earnestly recommended to the consideration of every good Christian, who professed, as well as practised, the doctrine of meekness, charity, and the forgiveness of injuries. This is the first time we hear of the "Drum Ecclesiastic" beating up for political recruits in our country; and it proved of such signal efficacy, that it has since been called into frequent service throughout our union. A cunning politician is often found sculking under the clerical robe, with an outside all religion, and an inside all political rancour. Things spiritual and things temporal are strangely jumbled together, like poisons and antidotes on an apothecary's shelf; and instead of a devout sermon, the simple church-going folk have often a political pamphlet thrust down their throats, labelled with a pious text from Scripture.

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PETER'S WISE PRECAUTIONS.

CHAPTER V.

How the New-Amsterdammers became great in arms, and of the direful catastrophe of a mighty army-together with Peter Stuyvesant's measures to fortify the city—and how he was the original founder of the Battery.

BUT notwithstanding that the grand council, as I have already shown, were amazingly discreet in their proceedings respecting the NewNetherlands, and conducted the whole with almost as much silence and mystery as does the sage British cabinet one of its ill-starred secret expeditions-yet did the ever-watchful Peter receive as full and accurate information of every movement as does the court of France of all the notable enterprises I have mentioned.-He accordingly set himself to work, to render the machinations of his bitter adversaries abortive.

I know that many will censure the precipitation of this stout-hearted old governor, in that he hurried into the expenses of fortification, without ascertaining whether they were necessary, by prudently waiting until the enemy was at the door. But they should recollect that Peter Stuyvesant had not the benefit of an insight into the modern arcana of politics, and was strangely bigoted to certain obsolete maxims of the old school;

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among which he firmly believed, that, to render a country respected abroad, it was necessary to make it formidable at home-and that a nation should place its reliance for peace and security more upon its own strength than on the justice or good will of its neighbours.-He proceeded, therefore, with all diligence, to put the province and metropolis in a strong posture of defence.

Among the few remnants of ingenious inventions which remained from the days of William the Testy were those impregnable bulwarks of public safety, militia laws; by which the inhabitants were obliged to turn out twice a year, with such military equipments—as it pleased God; and were put under the command of very valiant tailors and man-milliners, who though on ordinary occasions the meekest, pippin-hearted little men in the world, were very devils at parades and court-martials, when they had cocked hats on their heads and swords by their sides. Under the instructions of these periodical warriors, the gallant train-bands made marvellous proficiency in the mystery of gunpowder. They were taught to face to the right, to wheel to the left, to snap off empty fire-locks without winking, to turn a corner without any great uproar or irregularity, and to march through sun and rain from one end of the town to the other without flinching-until in the end they became so valorous that they fired off blank cartridges, without so much as turning away their heads could hear the largest field-piece dis

Y

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A SMALL MISTAKE RECTIFIED.

charged without stopping their ears, or falling into much confusion-and would even go through all the fatigues and perils of a summer day's parade, without having their ranks much thinned by desertion!

True it is, the genius of this truly pacific people was so little given to war, that during the intervals which occurred between field-days, they generally contrived to forget all the military tuition they had received; so that when they re-appeared on parade, they scarcely knew the but-end of the musket from the muzzle, and invariably mistook the right shoulder for the left—a mistake which, however, was soon obviated by chalking their left arms. But whatever might be their blunders and awkwardness, the sagacious Kieft declared them to be of but little importancesince, as he judiciously observed, one campaign would be of more instruction to them than a hundred parades; for though two-thirds of them might be food for powder, yet such of the other third as did not run away would become most experienced

veterans.

The great Stuyvesant had no particular veneration for the ingenious experiments and institutions of his shrewd predecessor, and among other things, held the militia system in very considerable contempt, which he was often heard to call in joke -for he was sometimes fond of a joke-governor Kieft's broken reed. As, however, the present emergency was pressing, he was obliged to