SMALL | MEDIUM
It was asserted by the wise men of ancient
times, intimately acquainted with these matters,
that at the gate of Jupiter's palace lay two huge
tuns, the one filled with blessings, the other with
misfortunes -- and it verily seems as if the latter
had been set a tap, and left to deluge the unlucky
province of Nieuw Nederlandts. Among other
causes of irritation, the incessant irruptions and
spoliations of his eastern neighbours upon his fron-
tiers, were continually adding fuel to the naturally
inflammable temperament of William the Testy.
Numerous accounts of them may still be found
among the records of former days; for the com-
manders on the frontiers were especially careful to
evince their vigilance and soldierlike zeal, by stri-
ving who should send home the most frequent and
voluminous budgets of complaints, as your faithful
servant is continually running with complaints to
the parlour, of all the petty squabbles and misde-
meanours of the kitchen.
All these valiant tale-bearings were listened to
with great wrath by the passionate little governor,
and his subjects, who were to the full as eager to
hear, and credulous to believe these frontier fables,
as are my fellow citizens to swallow those amusing
stories with which our papers are daily filled, about
British aggressions at sea, French sequestrations
on shore, and Spanish infringements in the promi-
sed land of Louisiana -- all which proves what I
have before asserted, that your enlightened people
love to be miserable.
Far be it from me to insinuate however, that our
worthy ancestors indulged in groundless alarms;
on the contrary they were daily suffering a repe-
tition of cruel wrongs, not one of which, but was a
sufficient reason, according to the maxims of na-
tional dignity and honour, for throwing the whole
universe into hostility and confusion.
From among a host of these bitter grievances
still on record, I select a few of the most atrocious,
and leave my readers to judge, if our progenitors
were not justifiable in getting into a very valiant
passion on the occasion.
"24 June 1641. Some of Hartford haue taken
a hogg out of the vlact or common and shut it vp
out of meer hate or other prejudice, causing it to
starve for hunger in the stye!
26 July. The foremencioned English did againe
driue the companies hoggs out of the vlact of Sico
May 20, 1642. The English of Hartford haue
violently cut loose a horse of the honored compa-
nies, that stood bound vpon the common or vlact.
May 9, 1643. The companies horses pastured
vpon the companies ground, were driven away by
them of Connecticott or Hartford, and the heards-
man was lustily beaten with hatchets and sticks.
16. Again they sold a young Hogg belonging
to the Companie which piggs had pastured on the
Companies land."32
Oh ye powers! into what indignation did
every one of these outrages throw the philoso-
phic Kieft! Letter after letter; protest after pro-
test; proclamation after proclamation; bad Latin,
worse English, and hideous low dutch were ex-
hausted in vain upon the inexorable Yankees; and
the four-and-twenty letters of the alphabet, which
except his champion, the sturdy trumpeter Van
Corlear, composed the only standing army he had
at his command, were never off duty, throughout
the whole of his administration. -- Nor did Antony
the trumpeter, remain a whit behind his patron,
Appearances to the eastward began now to as-
sume a more formidable aspect than ever -- for I
would have you note that bitherto the province had
been chiefly molested by its immediate neighbours,
the people of Connecticut, particularly of Hartford,
which, if we may judge from ancient chronicles,
was the strong hold of these sturdy moss troopers;
from whence they sallied forth, on their daring in-
cursions, carrying terror and devastation into the
barns, the hen-roosts and pig-styes of our revered
ancestors.
Albeit about the year 1643, the people of the
east country, inhabiting the colonies of Massachu-
setts, Connecticut, New Plymouth and New Ha-
ven, gathered together into a mighty conclave, and
after buzzing and turmoiling for many days, like a
political hive of bees in swarming time, at length
settled themselves into a formidable confederation,
under the title of the United Colonies of New Eng-
On receiving accounts of this puissant combi-
nation, the fiery Wilhelmus was struck with vast
consternation, and for the first time in his whole
life, forgot to bounce, at hearing an unwelcome
piece of intelligence -- which a venerable historian
of the times observes, was especially noticed among
the sage politicians of New Amsterdam. The
truth was, on turning over in his mind all that he
had read at the Hague, about leagues and combi-
nations, he found that this was an exact imitation
of the famous Amphyctionic council, by which the
states of Greece were enabled to attain to such
power and supremacy, and the very idea made his
heart to quake for the safety of his empire at the
Manhattoes.
He strenuously insisted, that the whole object
of this confederation, was to drive the Nederlan-
ders out of their fair domains; and always flew into
a great rage if any one presumed to doubt the
probability of his conjecture. Nor, to speak my
The rise of this potent confederacy was a death
blow to the glory of William the Testy, for from
that day forward, it was remarked by many,
he never held up his head, but appeared quite crest
fallen. His subsequent reign therefore, affords but
scanty food for the historic pen -- we find the grand
council continually augmenting in power, and threat-
ening to overwhelm the mighty but defenceless
province of Nieuw Nederlandts; while Wilhelmus
Kieft kept constantly firing off his proclamations
and protests, like a sturdy little sea captain, firing
off so many carronades and swivels, in order to
break and disperse a water spout -- but alas! they
had no more effect than if they had been so many
blank cartridges.
The last document on record of this learned,
philosophic, but unfortunate little man is a long
letter to the council of the Amphyctions, wherein
in the bitterness of his heart he rails at the people
of New Haven, or red hills, for their uncourteous
contempt of his protest levelled at them for squatting
within the province of their high mightinesses.
From this letter, which is a model of epistolary
writing, abounding with pithy apophthegms and
classic figures, my limits will barely allow me to
extract the following recondite passage:-"Certainly
when we heare the Inhabitants of New Hartford
complayninge of us, we seem to heare Esop's wolfe
complayninge of the lamb, or the admonition of the
younge man, who cryed out to his mother, chideing
with her neighboures, `Oh Mother revile her, lest
she first take up that practice against you.' But be-
ing taught by precedent passages we received such
an answer to our protest from the inhabitants of
New Haven as we expected: the Eagle always
despiseth the Beetle fly; yet notwithstanding we
doe undauntedly continue on our purpose of pur-
suing our own right, by just arms and righteous
means, and doe hope without scruple to execute
the express commands of our superiours." To
shew that this last sentence was not a mere empty
menace he concluded his letter, by intrepidly pro-
testing against the whole council, as a horde of
squatters and interlopers, inasmuch as they held
Thus end the authenticated chronicles of the
reign of William the Tety -- for henceforth, in the
trouble, the perplexities and the confusion of the
times he seems to have been totally overlooked, and
to ahve slipped forever through the fingers of scru-
pulous history. Indeed from some cause or ano-
ther, which I cannot divine, there appears to have
been a combination among historians to sink his
very name into oblivion, in consequence of which
they have one and all forborne even to speak of his
exploits; and though I have disappointed the cai-
tiffs in this their nefarious conspiracy, yet I much
question whether some one or other of their adhe-
rents may not even yet have the hardihood to rise
up, and question the authenticity of certain of the
well established and incontrovertible facts, I have
herein recorded -- but let them do it at their peril;
for may I perish, if ever I catch any slanderous in-
cendiaries contradicting a word of this immaculate
history, or robbing my heroes of any particle of that
renown they have gloriously acquired, if I do not
empty my whole ink-horn upon them -- even though
it should equal in magnitude that of the sage Gar-
gantua; which according to the faithful chronicle of
his miraculous atchievements, weighted seven thou-
sand quintals.
It has been a matter of deep concern to me, that
such darkness and obscurity should hang over the
latter days of the illustrious Kieft -- for he was a
mighty and great little man worthy of being utterly
renowned, seeing that he was the first potentate
that introduced into this land, the art of fighting by
proclamation; and defending a country by trumpe-
ters, and windmills -- an economic and humane
mode of warfare, since revived with great applause,
and which promises, if it can ever be carried into
full effect, to save great trouble and treasure, and
spare infinitely more bloodshed than either the
discovery of gunpowder, or the invention of torpe-
does.
It is true that certain of the early provincial poets,
of whom there were great numbers in the Nieuw
Nederlandts, taking advantage of the mysterious
exit of William the Testy, have fabled, that like
Romulus he was translated to the skies, and forms
a very fiery little star, some where on the left claw
of the crab; while others equally fanciful, declare
that he had experienced a fate similar to that of the
good king Arthur; who, we are assured by ancient
bards, was carried away to the delicious abodes of
fairy land, where he still exists, in pristine worth
and vigour, and will one day or another return to
rescue poor old England from the hands of paltry,
flippant, pettifogging cabinets, and restore the gal-
lantry, the honour and the immaculate probity,
All these however are but pleasing fantasies, the
cobweb visions of those dreaming varlets the poets,
to which I would not have my judicious reader attach
any credibility. Neither am I disposed to yield
any credit to the assertion of an ancient and rather
apocryphal historian, who alledges that the ingenious
Wilhelmus was annihilated by the blowing down of
one of his windmills -- nor to that of a writer of la-
ter times, who affirms that he fell a victim to a phi-
losophical experiment, which he had for many
years been vainly striving to accomplish; having
the misfortune to break his neck from the garret
window of the Stadt house, in an ineffectual at-
tempt to catch swallows, by sprinkling fresh salt
upon their tails.
The most probable account, and to which I am
inclined to give my implicit faith, is contained in a
very obscure tradition, which declares, that what
END OF BOOK IV.
Certain of Wilhelmus Kieft's Latin letters are still extant