into gun-boats. As the defenceless ships of Eneas, at the command of the protecting Venus, changed into seanymphs, and protected themselves by diving; so the mighty navy of America, by the cabalistic word of economy, dwindles into small craft, and shelters itself in a mill-pond!

This all-potent word, which served as his touchstone in politics, at once explains the whole system of proclamations, protests, empty threats, windmills, trumpeters, and paper war, carried on by Wilhelmus the Testy; and we may trace its operations in an armament which he fitted out in 1642, in a moment of great wrath, consisting of two sloops and thirty men, under the command of Mynheer Jan Jansen Alpendam, as admiral of the fleet, and commander-in-chief of the forces. This formidable expedition, which can only be paralleled by some of the daring cruises of our infant navy about the bay and up the sound, was intended to drive the Marylanders from the Schuylkill, of which they had recently taken possession, and which was claimed as part of the province of Nieuw Nederlandts; for it appears that at this time our infant colony was in that enviable state so much coveted by ambitious nations; that is to say, the government had a vast extent of territory, part of which it enjoyed, and the greater part of which it had continually to quarrel about.

Admiral Jan Jansen Alpendam was a man of great mettle and prowess, and no way dismayed at the character of the enemy, who were represented as a gigantic, gunpowder race of men, who lived on hoe-cakes and bacon, drank mint-juleps and apple-toddy; and were exceedingly expert at boxing, biting, gouging, tar and feathering, and a variety of other athletic accomplishments, which they had borrowed from their cousins-german and prototypes the Virginians, to whom they have ever borne considerable resemblance. Notwithstanding all these alarming representations, the admiral entered the Schuylkill most un

dauntedly with his fleet, and arrived without disaster or opposition at the place of destination.

Here he attacked the enemy in a vigorous speech in low Dutch, which the wary Kieft had previously put in his pocket; wherein he courteously commenced by calling them a pack of lazy, louting, dram-drinking, cock-fighting, horse-racing, slave-driving, tavern-haunting, sabbathbreaking, mulatto-breeding upstarts; and concluded by ordering them to evacuate the country immediately; to which they most laconically replied in plain English, "they'd see him dd first."

Now this was a reply for which neither Jan Jansen Alpendam, nor Wilhelmus Kieft, had made any calculation; and finding himself totally unprepared to answer so terrible a rebuff with suitable hostility, he concluded that his wisest course was to return home and report progress. He accordingly sailed back to New-Amsterdam, where he was received with great honours, and considered as a pattern for all commanders; having achieved a most hazardous enterprise, at a trifling expense of treasure, and without losing a single man to the state!-He was unanimously called the deliverer of his country (an appellation liberally bestowed on all great men); his two sloops, having done their duty, were laid up (or dry-docked) in a cove now called the Albany Basin, where they quietly rotted in the mud; and, to immortalize his name, they erected, by subscription, a magnificent shingle monument on the top of Flatten-barrack Hill, which lasted three whole years, when it fell to pieces, and was burned for firewood.

7 A corruption of Varleth's bergh, or Varleth's hill, so called from one Varleth, who lived upon that bill in the early days of the settlement.

CHAP. V.

How William the Testy enriched the Province by a Multitude of Laws, and came to be the Patron of Lawyers and Bumbailiffs. And how the People became exceedingly enlightened and unhappy under his Instructions.

AMONG the many wrecks and fragments of exalted wisdom which have floated down the stream of time from venerable antiquity, and have been carefully picked up by those humble but industrious wights, who ply along the shores of literature, we find the following sage ordinance of Charondas, the Locrian legislator:-Anxious to preserve the ancient laws of the state from the additions and improvements of profound" country members," or offcious candidates for popularity, he ordained, that whoever proposed a new law, should do it with a halter about his neck; so that, in case his proposition was rejected, they just hung him up, and there the matter ended.

This salutary institution had such an effect, that for more than two hundred years there was only one trifling alteration in the criminal code; and the whole race of lawyers starved to death for want of employment. The consequence of this was, that the Locrians being unprotected by an overwhelming load of excellent laws, and undefended by a standing army of pettifoggers and sheriff's officers, lived very lovingly together, and were such a happy people, that they scarce make any figure throughout the whole Grecian history; for it is well known that none but your unlucky, quarrelsome, rantipole nations. make any noise in the world.

Well would it have been for William the Testy, had he haply, in the course of his "universal acquirements,” stumbled upon this precaution of the good Charondas.

On the contrary, he conceived that the true policy of a legislator was to multiply laws, and thus secure the property, the persons, and the morals of the people, by surrounding them in a manner with men-traps and springguns, and besetting even the sweet sequestered walks of private life with quickset-hedges, so that a man could scarcely turn without the risk of encountering some of these pestiferous protectors. Thus was he continually coining petty laws for every petty offence that occurred, until in time they became too numerous to be remembered, and remained, like those of certain modern legislators, mere dead letters, revived occasionally for the purpose individual oppression, or to entrap ignorant offenders.

of

Petty courts consequently began to appear, where the law was administered with nearly as much wisdom and impartiality as in those august tribunals, the aldermen's and justices' courts of the present day. The plaintiff was generally favoured, as being a customer, and bringing business to the shop; the offences of the rich were discreetly winked at, for fear of hurting the feelings of their friends; but it could never be laid to the charge of the vigilant burgomasters, that they suffered vice to sculk unpunished, under the disgraceful rags of poverty.

About this time may we date the first introduction of capital punishments: a goodly gallows being erected on the waterside, about where Whitehall stairs are at present, a little to the east of the battery. Hard by also was erected another gibbet, of a very strange, uncouth, and unmatchable description, but on which the ingenious William Kieft valued himself not a little, being a punishment entirely of his own invention 8.

It was for loftiness of altitude not a whit inferior to that of Haman, so renowned in Bible history; but the marvel of the contrivance was, that the culprit, instead of being

* Both the gibbets may be seen in the sketch of Justus Danker, prefixed to the work.

suspended by the neck, according to venerable custom, was hoisted by the waistband, and was kept for an hour together, dangling and sprawling between heaven and earth, to the infinite entertainment, and doubtless great edification of the multitude of respectable citizens, who usually attend upon exhibitions of the kind.

It is incredible how the little governor chuckled at beholding caitiff vagrants and sturdy beggars thus swinging by the crupper, and cutting antic gambols in the air. He had a thousand pleasantries, and mirthful conceits to utter upon these occasions. He called them his dandle-lions -his wild-fowl-his high-fliers-his spread-cagles-his goshawks-his scarecrows—and finally, his gallows-birds; which ingenious appellation, though originally confined to worthies who had taken the air in this strange manner, has since grown to be a cant-name given to all candidates for legal elevation. This punishment, moreover, if we may credit the assertions of certain grave etymologists, gave the first hint for a kind of harnessing, or strapping, by which our forefathers braced up their multifarious breeches, and which has of late years been revived, and continues to be worn at the present day.

Such were the admirable improvements of William Kieft in criminal law; nor was his civil code less a matter of wonderment and much does it grieve me that the limits of my work will not suffer me to expatiate on both with the prolixity they deserve. Let it suffice then to say, that in a little while the blessings of innumerable laws became notoriously apparent. It was soon found necessary to have a certain class of men to expound and confound them; divers pettifoggers accordingly made their appearance, under whose protecting care the community was soon set together by the ears.

I would not here be thought to insinuate any thing derogatory to the profession of the law, or to its dignified members. Well am I aware that we have in this ancient