Van Zandts, the Van Hornes, the Rutgers, the Bensons, the Brinkerhoffs, the Schermerhorns, and all the true descendants of the ancient Pavonians, the only legitimate nobility and real lords of the soil.

I have been led to mention thus particularly, the well authenticated claims of our genuine Dutch families, because I have noticed with great sorrow and vexation, that they have been somewhat elbowed aside in latter days, by foreign intruders. It is really astonishing to behold how many great families have sprung up of late years, who pride themselves excessively on the score of ancestry. Thus he who can look up to his father without humiliation assumes not a little importance-he who can safely talk of his grandfather, is still more vainglorious-but he who can look back to his great grandfather, without blushing, is absolutely intolerable in his pretensions to family. --Bless us! what a piece of work is here, between these mushrooms of an hour, and these mushrooms of a day!

But from what I have recounted in the former part of this chapter, I would not have my reader imagine that the great Peter was a tyrannical governor, ruling his subjects with a rod of iron-on the contrary, where the dignity of authority was not implicated, he abounded with generosity and courteous condescension. In fact he really believed, though I fear my more enlightened republican readers will consider it a proof of his ignorance and illiberality, that in preventing the cup of social life from being dashed with the intoxicating ingredient of politics, he promoted the tranquillity and happiness of the peopleand by detaching their minds from subjects which they could not understand, and which only tended to inflame their passions, he enabled them to attend more faithfully and industriously to their proper callings; becoming more useful citizens and more attentive to their families and fortunes.

So far from having any unreasonable austerity, he de

lighted to see the poor and the labouring man rejoice, and for this purpose was a great promoter of holidays and public amusements. Under his reign was first introduced the custom of cracking eggs at Paas or Easter. New year's day was also observed with extravagant festivityand ushered in by the ringing of bells and firing of guns. Every house was a temple to the jolly god. Oceans of cherry brandy, true Hollands, and mulled cyder, were set afloat on the occasion; and not a poor man in town, but made it a point to get drunk, out of a principle of pure economy-taking in liquor enough to serve him for half a year afterwards.

It would have done one's heart good also to have seen the valiant Peter, seated among the old burghers and their wives of a Saturday afternoon, under the great trees that spread their shade over the Battery, watching the young men and women as they danced on the green. Here he would smoke his pipe, crack his joke, and forget the rugged toils of war, in the sweet oblivious festivities of peace. He would occasionally give a nod of approbation to those of the young men who shuffled and kicked most vigorously, and now and then give a hearty smack, in all honesty of soul, to the buxom lass that held out longest, and tired down all her competitors, which he considered as infallible proofs of her being the best dancer. Once it is true the harmony of the meeting was rather interrupted. A young vrouw, of great figure in the gay world, and who, having lately come from Holland, of course led the fashions in the city, made her appearance in not more than half a dozen petticoats, and these too of most alarming shortness.-An universal whisper ran through the assembly, the old ladies all felt shocked in the extreme, the young ladies blushed, and felt excessively for the "poor thing,' and even the governor himself was observed to be a little troubled in mind. To complete the astonishment of the good folks, she undertook in the course of a jig, to de-

scribe some astonishing figures in algebra, which she had learned from a dancing master in Rotterdam.-Whether she was too animated in flourishing her feet, or whether some vagabond Zephyr took the liberty of obtruding his services, certain it is, that in the course of a grand evolution, which would not have disgraced a modern ball-room, she made a most unexpected display-whereat the whole assembly was thrown into great admiration, several grave country members were not a little moved, and the good Peter himself, who was a man of unparalleled modesty, felt himself grievously scandalized.

The shortness of the female dresses, which had continued in fashion ever since the days of William Kieft, had long offended his eye; and though extremely averse to meddling with the petticoats of the ladies, yet he immediately recommended, that every one should be furnished with a flounce to the bottom. He likewise ordered that the ladies, and indeed the gentlemen, should use no other step in dancing, than shuffle and turn, and double trouble; and forbade, tinder pain of his high displeasure, any young lady thenceforth to attempt what was termed," exhibiting the graces."

These were the only restrictions he ever imposed upon the sex, and these were considered by them as tyrannical oppressions, and resisted with that becoming spirit always manifested by the gentle sex, whenever their privileges are invaded. In fact, Peter Stuyvesant plainly perceived, that if he attempted to push the matter any further, there was danger of their leaving-off petticoats altogether; so like a wise man, experienced in the ways of women, he held his peace, and suffered them ever after to wear their petticoats and cut their capers, as high as they pleased.

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CHAPTER II.

How Peter Stuyvesant was much molested by the Moss-troopers of the East, and the Giants of Merryland; and how a dark and horrid conspiracy was carried on in the British Cabinet against the prosperity of the Manhattoes.

WE are now approaching towards the crisis of our work, and if I be not mistaken in my forebodings, we shall have a world of business to despatch in the ensuing chapters.

It is with some communities as it is with certain meddlesome individuals, they have a wonderful facility at getting into scrapes; and I have always remarked, that those are most liable to get in who have the least talent at getting out again. This is, doubtless, owing to the excessive valour of those states; for I have likewise noticed, that this rampant and ungovernable quality is always most unruly where most confined, which accounts for its vapouring so amazingly in little states, little men, and ugly little women more especially.

Thus, when one reflects that the province of the Manhattoes, though of prodigious importance in the eyes of its inhabitants and its historian, was really of no very great consequence in the eyes of the rest of the world; that it had but little wealth or other spoils to reward the trouble of assailing it, and that it had nothing to expect from running wantonly into war, save an exceeding good beating; on pondering these things, I say, one would utterly despair of finding in its history either battle or bloodshed, or any other of those calamities which give importance to a nation, and entertainment to the reader. But, on the contrary, we find, so valiant is this province, that it has already drawn upon itself a host of enemies; has had as

many buffetings as would gratify the ambition of the most warlike nation; and is, in sober sadness, a very forlorn, distressed, and wo-begone little province !—all which was, no doubt, kindly ordered by providence, to give interest and sublimity to this pathetic history.

But I forbear to enter into a detail of the pitiful maraudings and harassments that for a long while after the victory on the Delaware, continued to insult the dignity, and disturb the repose of the Nederlanders. Suffice it in brevity to say, that the implacable hostility of the people of the east, which had so miraculously been prevented from breaking out, as my readers must remember, by the sudden prevalence of witchcraft, and the dissensions in the council of Amphyctions, now again displayed itself in a thousand grievous and bitter scourings upon the borders.

Scarcely a month passed but what the Dutch settlements on the frontiers were alarmed by the sudden appearance of an invading army from Connecticut, This would advance resolutely through the country, like a puissant caravan of the deserts, the women and children mounted in carts loaded with pots and kettles, as though they meant to boil the honest Dutchmen alive, and devour them like so many lobsters. At the tail of these carts would stalk a crew of long-limbed, lank-sided varlets, with axes on their shoulders, and packs on their backs, resolutely bent upon improving the country in despite of its proprietors. These settling themselves down, would in a short time completely dislodge the unfortunate Nederlanders, elbowing them out of those rich bottoms and fertile valleys, in which our Dutch yeomanry are so famous for nestling themselves; for it is notorious, that wherever these shrewd men of the east get a footing, the honest Dutchmen do gradually disappear, retiring slowly, like the Indians before the Whites, being totally discomfited by the talking, chaffering, swapping, bargaining disposition of their new neighbours.

All these audacious infringements on the territories of