vesant, than did even the invasion of his beloved Amsterdam. It came ruthlessly home to those sweet affections that grow close around the heart, and are nourished by its warmest current. As some lorn pilgrim wandering in trackless wastes, while the rude tempest whistles through his hoary locks, and dreary night is gathering around, sees stretched cold and lifeless, his faithful dog-the sole companion of his lonely journeying, who had shared his solitary meal, who had so often licked his hand in humble gratitude, who had lain in his bosom, and been unto him as a child-So did the generous hearted hero of the Manhattoes contemplate the untimely end of his faithful Antony. He had been the humble attendant of his footsteps-he had cheered him in many a heavy hour, by his honest gaiety, and had followed him in loyalty and affection, through many a scene of direful peril and mishap he was gone forever--and that too, at a moment when every mongrel cur seemed skulking from his side--This--Peter Stuyvesant--this was the moment to try thy magnanimity; and this was the moment, when thou didst indeed shine forth-Peter the Headstrong!

The glare of day had long dispelled the horrors of the last stormy night; still all was dull and gloomy. The late jovial Apollo hid his face behind lugubrious clouds, peeping out now and then, for an instant, as if anxious, yet fearful, to see what was going

on, in his favourite city. This was the eventful morning, when the great Peter was to give his reply, to the audacious summons of the invaders. Already was he closetted with his privy council, sitting in grim state, brooding over the fate of his favourite trumpeter, and anon boiling with indignation as the insolence of his recreant Burgomasters flashed upon his mind. While in this state of irritation, a courier arrived in all haste from Winthrop, the subtle governor of Connecticut, councilling him in the most affectionate and disinterested manner to surrender the province, and magnifying the dangers and calamities to which a refusal would subject him.-What a moment was this to intrude officious advice upon a man, who never took advice in his whole life!The fiery old governor strode up and down the chamber, with a vehemence, that made the bosoms of his councillors to quake with awe-railing at his unlucky fate, that thus made him the constant butt of factious subjects, and jesuitical advisers.

Just at this ill chosen juncture, the officious Burgomasters, who were now completely on the watch, and had got wind of the arrival of mysterious dispatches, came marching in a resolute body, into the room, with a legion of Schepens and toad-eaters at their heels, and abruptly demanded a perusal of the letter. Thus to be broken in upon by what he esteemed a "rascal rabble," and that too at the very

moment he was grinding under an irritation from abroad, was too much for the spleen of the cholerie Peter. He tore the letter in a thousand pieces*threw it in the face of the nearest Burgomasterbroke his pipe over the head of the next-hurled his spitting box at an unlucky Schepen, who was just making a masterly retreat out at the door, and finally dissolved the whole meeting sine die, by kicking them down stairs with his wooden leg!

As soon as the Burgomasters could recover from the confusion into which their sudden exit had thrown them, and had taken a little time to breathe, they protested against the conduct of the governor, which they did not hesitate to pronounce tyrannical, unconstitutional, highly indecent, and somewhat disrespectful. They then called a public meeting, where they read the protest, and addressing the assembly in a set speech related at full length, and with appropriate colouring and exaggeration, the despotic and vindictive deportment of the governor; declaring that, for their own parts, they did not value a straw the being kicked, cuffed, and mauled by the timber toe of his excellency, but they felt for the dignity of the sovereign people, thus rudely insulted by the outrage committed on the seats of honour of their representatives. The latter part of the harangue had a violent effect upon

* Smith's History of N. Y.

the sensibility of the people, as it came home at once, to that delicacy of feeling and jealous pride of character, vested in all true mobs: and there is no knowing to what act of resentment they might have been provoked, against the redoubtable Hardkoppig Piet-had not the greasy rogues been somewhat more afraid of their sturdy old governor, than they were of St. Nicholas, the English--or the D-l himself.

CHAP. VIII.

Shewing how Peter Stuyvesant defended the city of New Amsterdam for several days, by dint of the strength of his head.

PAUSE, oh most considerate reader! and contemplate for a moment the sublime and melancholy scene, which the present crisis of our history presents! An illustrious and venerable little town--the metropolis of an immense extent of flourishing but unenlightened, because uninhabited country-Garrisoned by a doughty host of orators, chairmen, committee-men, Burgomasters, Schepens and old women--governed by a determined and strong headed warrior, and fortified by mud batteries, pallisadoes and resolutions. blockaded by sea, beleaguered by land, and threatened with direful desolation from without; while its very vitals are torn, and griped, and becholiced with internal faction and commotion ! Never did the historic pen record a page of more complicated distress, unless it be the strife that distracted the Israelites during the siege of Jerusalem-where discordant parties were cutting each others throats, at the moment when the victorious legions of Titus had toppled down their bulwarks, and were carrying fire and sword, into the very sanctum sanctorum of the temple.