250

WRATH OF GOVERNOR KIEFT.

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, twistzoekeren, loozen-schalken, blaes-kaken, kakken-bedden, and a thousand other names of which, unfortunately for posterity, history does not make mention. Finally, he swore that he would have nothing more to do with such a squatting, bundling, guessing, questioning, swapping, pumpkin

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eating, molasses-daubing, shingle-splitting, ciderwatering, 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 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.

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 bug-bear, 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 common weal, in these days of darkness and peril. Great apprehensions prevailed among the reflecting part of the commu nity, especially the old women, that these terrible warriors of Connecticut, not content with the conquest of fort Goed Hoop, would incontinent

252 VAN CORLEAR, THE TRUMPETER.

ly 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 sojournedin 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 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 fing ers and fidgetting with delight, while his sturdy

* David Pietrez De Vries, in his " Reyze naer NieuwNederlandt 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.

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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 powerson the other side of the Atlantic.

Nor was he content with thus strongly 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 overtopped 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 proof of his universal genius-but there were not wanting ill-natured grumblers, who railed at him as employing his mind in frivolous pursuits,

* 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.

254 ILLIBERAL SLANDER ON THE GOvernor.

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, therefore, of William the Testy, to place the city in a posture of defence, the inhabitants continued in great alarm and despondency. But fortune, who seems always careful, in the very nick of time, to throw a bone for hope to gnaw upon, that the starveling elf may be kept alive, did about this time crown the arms of the province with success in another quarter, and thus cheered the drooping hearts of the forlorn Nederlanders; otherwise there is no knowing to what lengths they might have gone. in the excess of their sorrowing-" for grief," says the profound historian of the seven champions of Christendom, "is companion with despair, and despair a procurer of infamous death!"

Among the numerous inroads of the Mosstroopers of Connecticut, which, for some time past, had occasioned 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