etiquette, to have appointed a younger officer over his head-an injustice, which the great Peter would have ráther 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; 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 CASIMER, 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 Nieuw-Amstel, 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. 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 encroachment upon his jurisdiction. But the valiant Von Poffenburgh had become too well versed in the nature of proclamations and protests, while he served under William the Testy, to be in any wise daunted by such paper warfare. His fortress being finished, it would have done any man's heart good to behold into what a magnitude he immediately swelled. He would stride in and out a dozen times a-day, surveying it in front and in rear; on this side and on that.— Then would he dress himself in full regimentals, and strut backwards and forwards, for hours together, on the top of his little rampart-like a vainglorious cock-pigeon va pouring on the top of his coop. In a word, unless my readers have noticed, with curious eye, the petty com mander of one of our little, snivelling, military posts, swelling with all the vanity of new regimentals, and the pomposity derived from commanding a handful of tatterdemalions, I despair of giving them any adequate idea of the prodigious dignity of General Von Poffenburgh. It is recorded in the delectable romance of Pierce Forest, that a young knight being dubbed by king 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 Von 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 Von 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 naturally be supposed that the possessor of so goodly an appendage would resist with abhorrence an order condemning it to the shears-Sampson himself could not have held his locks more sacredand on hearing the general orders, he discharged a tempest of veteran, soldier-like oaths, and dunder and blixums swore he would break any man's head who attempted to meddle with his tail-queued it stiffer than ever, and whisked it about the garrison, as fiercely as the tail of a crocodile. The eel-skin queue of old Kildermeester became instantly an affair of the utmost importance. The commander-in-chief was too enlightened an officer not to perceive that the discipline of the garrison, the subordination and good order of the armies of the Nieuw Nederlandts, the consequent safety of the whole province, and ultimately the dignity and prosperity of their high mightinesses, the lords states general, but, above all, the dignity of the great General Von Poffenburgh-all imperiously demanded the docking of that stubborn queue. He therefore determined that old Kildermeester should be publicly shorn of his glories in presence of the whole garrisonthe 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 wearing an eel-skin queue, three feet long, contrary to orders."-Then came on arraignments, and trials, and pleadings, and the whole country was in a ferment about this unfortunate queue. As it is well known that the commander of a distant frontier post has the power of acting pretty much after his own will, there is little doubt but that the veteran would have been hanged or shot at least, had he not luckily fallen ill of a fever, through mere chagrin and mortification-and most flagitiously deserted from earthly command, with his beloved locks unviolated. His obstinacy remained unshaken to the very last moment, when he directed that he should be carried to his grave with his eel-skin queue sticking out of a hole in his coffin. This magnanimous affair obtained the general great credit as an excellent disciplinarian, but it is hinted that he was ever after subject to bad dreams, and fearful visitations in the night-when the grisly spectrum of old Kildermeester would stand centinel by the bedside, erect as a pump, his enormous queue strutting out like the handle. END OF BOOK FIFTH. : Book Sixth. CONTAINING THE SECOND PART OF THE REIGN OF PETER THE HEADSTRONG, AND HIS GALLANT ACHIEVEMENTS ON THE DELAWARE. CHAPTER I. In which is exhibited a warlike portrait of the great Peter-and how General Von Poffenburgh distinguished himself at Fort Casimir. HITHERTO, most venerable and courteous reader, have I shown thee the administration of the valorous Stuyvesant, under the mild moonshine of peace, or rather the grim tranquillity of awful expectation; but now the wardrum rumbles from afar, the brazen trumpet brays its thrilling note, and the rude clash of hostile arms speaks fearful prophecies of coming troubles. The gallant warrior starts from soft repose, from golden visions, and voluptuous ease; where, in the dulcet, "piping time of peace," he sought sweet solace after all his toils. No. more in beauty's syren lap reclined, he weaves fair garlands for his lady's brows; no more entwines with flowers his shining sword; nor through the live-long lazy summer's day chaunts forth his lovesick soul in madrigals. To manhood roused, he spurns the amorous flute; doffs from his brawny back the robe of peace, and clothes his pampered limbs in panoply of steel. O'er his dark brow, where late the myrtle waved-where wanton roses breathed enervate love-he rears the beaming casque and nodding |