24.4

STOFFEL THE HEAD-BREAKER.

doned; even the massacre of a few citizens might have been passed over in silence; but an outrage that affected the larders of the great city of NewAmsterdam, and threatened the stomachs of its corpulent burgomasters, was too serious to pass unrevenged. The whole council was unanimous in opinion, that the intruders should be immediately driven by force of arms from Oyster Bay and its vicinity; and a detachment was accordingly despatched for the purpose, under the command of one Stoffel Brinkerhoff, or Brinkerhoofd, (i. e. Stoffel, the head-breaker), so called because he was a man of mighty deeds, famous throughout the whole extent of Nieuw-Nederlandts for his skill at quarter-staff; and for size, he would have been a match for Colbrand, the Danish champion, slain by Guy of Warwick.

Stoffel Brinkerhoff was a man of few words, but prompt actions—one of your straight-going officers, who march directly forward, and do their orders without making any parade. He used no extraordinary speed in his movements, but trudged steadily on, through Nineveh and Babylon, and Jericho and Patchog, and the mighty town of Quag, and various other renowned cities of yore, which, by some unaccountable witchcraft of the Yankees, have been strangely transplanted to Long-Island, until he arrived in the neighbourhood of Oyster Bay.

Here was he encountered by a tumultuous host of valiant warriors, headed by Preserved Fish, and Habbakuk Nutter, and Return Strong, and Zerub

HIS MIGHTY VICTORY.

245

babel Fisk, and Jonathan Doolittle, and Determined Cock!-at the sound of whose names the courageous Stoffel verily believed that the whole parliament of Praise God Barebones had been let loose to discomfit him. Finding, however, that this formidable body was composed merely of the "select men" of the settlement, armed with no other weapon but their tongues, and that they had issued forth with no other intent than to meet him on the field of argument-he succeeded in putting them to the rout with little difficulty, and completely broke up their settlement. Without waiting to write an account of his victory on the spot, and thus letting the enemy slip through his fingers, while he was securing his own laurels, as a more experienced general would have done, the brave Stoffel thought of nothing but completing his enterprise, and utterly driving the Yankees from the island. This hardy enterprise he performed in much the same manner as he had been accustomed to drive his oxen; for, as the Yankees fled before him, he pulled up his breeches, and trudged steadily after them, and would infallibly have driven them into the sea, had they not begged for quarter, and agreed to pay tribute.

The news of this achievement was a seasonable restorative to the spirits of the citizens of NewAmsterdam. To gratify them still more, the governor resolved to astonish them with one of those gorgeous spectacles known in the days of classic antiquity, a full account of which had been flogged into his memory when a school-boy at the Hague.

246

HIS TRIUMPHAL ENTRY.

A grand triumph, therefore, was decreed to Stoffel Brinkerhoff, who made his triumphant entrance into town riding on a Naraganset pacer; five pumpkins, which, like Roman eagles, had served the enemy for standards, were carried before him -fifty cart-loads of oysters, five hundred bushels of Weathersfield onions, a hundred quintals of cod-fish, two hogsheads of molasses, and various other treasures, were exhibited as the spoils and tribute of the Yankees; while three notorious counterfeiters of Manhattan notes* were led captive to grace the hero's triumph. The procession was enlivened by martial music, from the trumpet of Antony Van Corlear the champion, accompa nied by a select band of boys and negroes, performing on the national instruments of rattlebones and clam-shells. The citizens devoured the spoils in sheer gladness of heart-every man did honour to the conqueror, by getting devoutly drunk on New-England rum-and the learned Wilhelmus Kieft calling to mind, in a momentary fit of enthusiasm and generosity, that it was customary among the ancients to honour their victorious generals with public statues, passed a gracious decree, by which every tavern-keeper was permitted to paint the head of the intrepid Stoffel on his sign!

*This is one of those trivial anachronisms that now and then occur in the course of this otherwise authentic history. How could Manhattan notes be counterfeited, when as yet Banks were unknown in this country-and our simple progenitors had not even dreamt of those inexhaustible mines of paper opulence? Print. Dev.

PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTIONS.

247

CHAPTER IV.

Philosophical reflections on the folly of being happy in times of prosperity. Sundry troubles on the southern frontiers.—How William the Testy had well nigh ruined the province through a cabalistic word.-As also the secret expedition of Jan Jansen Alpendam, and his astonishing reward.

If we could but get a peep at the tally of dame Fortune, where, like a notable landlady, she regularly chalks up the debtor and creditor accounts of mankind, we should find that, upon the whole, good and evil are pretty nearly balanced in this world; and that though we may for a long while revel in the very lap of prosperity, the time will at length come when we must ruefully pay off the reckoning Fortune, in fact, is a pestilent shrew, and withal a most inexorable creditor; for though she may indulge her favourites in long credits, and overwhelm them with her favours, yet sooner or later she brings up her arrears, with the rigour of an experienced publican, and washes out her scores with their tears. "Since," says good old Boetius, "no man can retain her at his pleasure, and since her flight is so deeply lamented, what are her favours but sure prognostications of approaching trouble and calamity!"

There is nothing that more moves my contempt at the stupidity and want of reflection of my fel

248

THE ESSENCE OF WISDOM.

low men than to behold them rejoicing, and indulging in security and self-confidence, in times of prosperity. To a wise man, who is blessed with the light of reason, those are the very moments of anxiety and apprehension; well knowing that, according to the system of things, happiness is at best but transient-and that the higher he is elevated by the capricious breath of fortune, the lower must be his proportionate depression. Whereas he who is overwhelmed by calamity has the less chance of encountering fresh disasters, as a man at the bottom of a ladder runs very little risk of breaking his neck by tumbling to the top.

This is the very essence of true wisdom, which consists in knowing when we ought to be miserable, and was discovered much about the same time with that invaluable secret, that "every thing is vanity and vexation of spirit:" in consequence of which maxim, your wise men have ever been the unhappiest of the human race; esteeming it as an infallible mark of genius to be distressed without reason-since any man may be miserable in time of misfortune, but it is the philosopher alone who can discover cause for grief in the very hour of prosperity.

According to the principle I have just advanced, we find that the colony of New-Netherlands, which, under the reign of the renowned Van Twiller, had flourished in such alarming and fatal serenity, is now paying for its former welfare, and discharging the enormous debt of comfort which it contracted. Foes harass it from different quarters; the city of