If my readers have ever witnessed the sufferings of such a family, so situated, they may form some idea how our worthy ancestors were distressed by their mercurial neighbours of Connecticut. Gangs of these marauders, we are told, penetrated into the New Netherland settlements, and threw whole villages into consternation by their unparalleled volubility, and their intolerable inquisitiveness-two evil habits hitherto unknown in those parts, or only known to be abhorred; for our ancestors were noted, as being men of truly Spartan taciturnity, and who neither knew nor cared aught about any body's concerns but their own. Many enormities where committed on the highways, where several unoffending burghers were brought to a stand, and tortured with questions and guesses; which outrages occasioned as much vexation and heart burning as does the modern right of search on the high seas. Great jealousy did they likewise stir up, by their intermeddling and successes among the divine sex; for being a race of brisk, lively, pleasant tongued varlets, they soon seduced the light affections of the simple damsels from their ponderous Dutch gallants. Among other hideous customs, they attempted to introduce among them that of bundling, which the Dutch lasses of the Nederlandts, with that eager passion for novelty and foreign fashions natural to their sex, seemed very well inclined to follow; but that their mothers, being more experienced in the world, and better acquainted with men and things, strenuously discountenanced all such outlandish innovations. But what chiefly operated to embroil our ancestors with these strange folk, was an unwarrantable liberty which they occasionally took, of entering in hordes into the territories of the New Netherlands, and settling themselves down, without leave or license, to improve the land, in the manner I have before noticed. This unceremonious mode of taking possession of new land was technically termed squatting, and hence is derived the appellation of squatters; a name odious in the ears of all great landholders, and which is given to those enterprising worthies, who seize upon land first, and take their chance to make good their title to it afterwards. All these grievances, and many others which were constantly accumulating, tended to form that dark and portentous cloud which, as I observed in a former chapter, was slowly gathering over the tranquil province of New Netherlands. The pacific cabinet of Van Twiller, however, as will be perceived in the sequel, bore them all with a magnanimity that redounds to their immortal creditbecoming by passive endurance inured to this increasing mass of wrongs; like the sage old woman of Ephesus, who by dint of carrying about a calf from the time it was born, continued to carry it without difficulty when it had grown to be an ox. CHAP. VIII. How the Fort Goed Hoop was fearfully beleagured— how the renowned Wouter fell into a profound Doubt, and how he finally evaporated. By this time my readers must fully perceive what an arduous task I have undertaken-collecting and collating with painful minuteness the chronicles of past times, whose events almost defy the powers of research-exploring a little kind of Herculaneum of history, which had lain nearly for ages, buried under the rubbish of years, and almost totally forgotten-raking up the limbs and fragments of disjointed facts; and endeavouring to put them scrupulously together, so as to restore them to their original form and connexion-now lugging forth the character of an al most forgotten hero, like a mutilated statue-now deciphering a half defaced inscription; and now lighting upon a mouldering manuscript, which, after painful study, scarce repays the trouble of perusal. In such case how much has the reader to depend upon the honour and probity of his author, lest, like a cunning antiquarian, he either impose upon him some spurious fabrication of his own, for a precious relique from antiquity, or else dress up the dismembered fragment, with such false trappings, that it is scarcely possible to distinguish the truth from the fiction with which it is enveloped. This is a grievance which I have more than once had to lament, in the course of my wearisome researches among the works of my fellow historians; who have strangely disguised and distorted the facts respecting this country; and particularly respecting the great province of New Netherlands; as will be perceived by any who will take the trouble to compare their romantic effusions, tricked out in the meretricious gauds of fable, with this authentic history. I have had more vexations of the kind to encounter, in those parts of my history which treat of the transactions on the eastern border, than in any other, in consequence of the troops of historians who have infested those quarters, and have shown the honest people of Nieuw Nederlandts no mercy in their works. Among the rest, Mr. Benjamin Trumbull arrogantly declares, that "the Dutch were always mere intruders."-Now to this I shall make no other reply than to proceed in the steady narration of my history, which will contain not only proofs that the Dutch had clear title and possession in the fair valleys of the Connecticut, and that they were wrongfully dispossessed thereof; but likewise that they have been scandalously maltreated ever since, by the misrepresentations of the crafty historians of New England. And in this I shall be guided by a spirit of truth and impartiality, and a regard to immortal fame; for I would not wittingly disho nour my work by a single falsehood, misrepresentation, or prejudice, though it should gain our forefathers the whole country of New England. It was at an early period of the province, and previous to the arrival of the renowned Wouter, that the cabinet of Nieuw Nederlandts purchased the lands about the Connecticut, and established, for their superintendence and protection, a fortified post on the banks of the river, which was called Fort Goed Hoop, and was situated hard by the present fair city of Hartford. The command of this important post, together with the rank, title, and appointments of commissary, were given in charge to the gallant Jacobus Van Curlet, or, as some historians will have it, Van Curlis; a most doughty soldier, of that stomachful class, of which we have such numbers on parade days; who are famous for eating all they kill. He was of a very soldierlike appearance, and would have been an exceeding tall man, had his legs been in proportion to his body; but the latter being long, and the former uncommonly short, it gave him the uncouth appearance of a tall man's body, mounted upon a little man's legs. He made up for this turnspit construction of body by throwing his legs to such an extent when he marched, that you would have sworn he had on the identical seven-league boots of the farfamed Jack the giant killer; and so astonishingly high did he tread on any great military occasion, that his soldiers were ofttimes alarmed, lest he should trample himself under foot. But notwithstanding the erection of this fort, and the appointment of this ugly little man of war as a commander, the intrepid Yankees continued those daring interlopings which I have hinted at in my last chapter; and, taking advantage of the character which the cabinet of Wouter Van Twiller soon acquired for profound and phlegmatic tranquillity-did audaciously invade the territories of the Nieuw Nederlandts, and squat themselves down within the very jurisdiction of Fort Goed Hoop. On beholding this outrage, the long bodied Van Curlet proceeded as became a prompt and valiant officer. He immediately protested against these unwarrantable encroachments, in low Dutch, by way of inspiring more terror, and forthwith despatched a copy of the protest to the governor at New-Amsterdam, together with a long and bitter account of the aggressions of the enemy. This done, he ordered his men, one and all, to be of good cheer-shut the gate of the fort, smoked three pipes, went to bed, and awaited the result with a resolute and intrepid tranquillity, that greatly animated his adherents, and no doubt struck sore dismay and affright into the hearts of the enemy. Now it came to pass, that about this time, the renowned Wouter Van Twiller, full of years and honours, and council dinners, had reached that period of life and faculty which, according to the great Gulliver, entitles a man to admission into the ancient order of Struldbruggs. He employed his time in smoking his Turkish pipe, amid an assemblage of sages, equally enlightened, and nearly as venerable as himself, and who, for their silence, their gravity, their wisdom, and their cautious averseness to coming to any conclusion in business, are only to be equalled by certain profound corporations which I have known in my time. Upon reading the protest of the gallant Jacobus Van Curlet, therefore, his excellency fell straightway into one of the deepest doubts that ever he was known to encounter; his capacious head gradually drooped on his chest, he closed his eyes, and inclined his ear to one side, as if listening with great attention to the discussion that was going on in his belly; which all who knew him declared to be the huge court-house, or council-chamber of his thoughts; forming to his head what the house of re Perplexed with vast affairs of state and town, |