YANKEE GARRISON.

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Russians after the battle of Narva-only taking care to give two kicks to Van Curlet, as a signal mark of distinction.

A strong garrison was immediately established in the fort, consisting of twenty long-sided, hardfisted Yankees, with Weathersfield onions stuck in their hats, by way of cockades and featherslong rusty fowling-pieces for muskets-hasty pudding, dumb fish, pork, and molasses, for stores; and a huge pumpkin was hoisted on the end of a pole, as a standard-liberty caps not having as yet come into fashion,

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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, kakkenbedden, and a thousand other names of which, unfortunately for posterity, history does not make

DESPONDENCY PREVAILS.

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mention. Finally, he swore that he would have nothing more to do with such a squatting, bundling, guessing, questioning, swapping, pumpkineating, 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 midsummer. Governor Kieft faithfully kept his word, and his adversaries as faithfully kept their post; and thus the glorious river Connecticut, and all the gay vallies 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 NewAmsterdam, 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 bugbear, wherewith to frighten their unruly children into obedience.

The eyes of all the provinces were now turned

284

VAN CORLEAR, THE TRUMPETER.

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 community, especially the old women, that these terrible warriors of Connecticut, not content with the conquest of fort Goed Hoop, would incontinently 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 sojourned in 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

* David Pietrez De Vries in his "Reyze naer Nieuw-Nederlandt 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.

nose.

WINDMILL FORTIFICATIONS.

285

effect upon all within hearing, as though ten thousand bagpipes were singing right lustily i̇' the 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 fingers and fidgetting with delight, while his sturdy 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 powers—on 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 flagstaff 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

*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.