A History of New York

by Washington Irving

  Being thus completely settled, and to use his own words, “to rights,” one would imagine that he would begin to enjoy the comforts of his situation, to read newspapers, talk politics, neglect his own business, and attend to the affairs of the nation, like a useful and patriotic citizen; but now it is that his wayward disposition begins again to operate. He soon grows tired of a spot, where there is no longer any room for improvement—sells his farm, air castle, petticoat windows and all, reloads his cart, shoulders his axe, puts himself at the head of his family, and wanders away in search of new lands—again to fell trees—again to clear cornfields—again to build a shingle palace, and again to sell off, and wander.

  Such were the people of Connecticut, who bordered upon the eastern frontier of Nieuw Nederlandts, and my readers may easily imagine what obnoxious neighbors this light hearted but restless tribe must have been to our tranquil progenitors. If they cannot, I would ask them, if they have ever known one of our regular, well organized, antediluvian dutch families, whom it hath pleased heaven to afflict with the neighbourhood of a French boarding house. The honest old burgher cannot take his afternoon’s pipe, on the bench before his door, but he is persecuted with the scraping of fiddles, the chattering of women, and the squalling of children—he cannot sleep at night for the horrible melodies of some amateur, who chooses to serenade the moon, and display his terrible proficiency in execution, by playing demisemiquavers in alt on the clarionet, the hautboy, or some other soft toned instrument—nor can he leave the street door open, but his house is defiled by the unsavoury visits of a troop of pug dogs, who even sometimes carry their loathsome ravages into the sanctum sanctorum, the parlour!

  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 were committed on the high ways, where several unoffending burghers were brought to a stand, and so tortured with questions and guesses, that it was a miracle they escaped with their five senses.

  Great jealousy did they likewise stir up, by their intermeddling and successes among the divine sex; for being a race of brisk, likely, pleasant tongued varlets, they soon seduced the light affections of the simple damsels, from their honest but 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 licence, 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 enterprizing 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 credit—becoming 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.

  CHAPTER VIII

  How the Fort Goed Hoop was fearfully beleaguered—

  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—raking in 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 connection—now lugging forth the character of an almost forgotten hero, like a mutilated statue—now decyphering 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 excellent little history—universally to be renowned for its severe simplicity and unerring truth.

  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 these quarters, and have shewn the honest people of New Nederlandt 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 my immortal fame—for I would not wittingly dishonour 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 superintendance 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 turn-spit 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 oft times alarmed, lest the little man 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 dispatched 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, entitle 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,32 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 representatives does to the senate. An inarticulatesound, very much resembling a snore, occasionally escaped him—but the nature of this internal cogitation, was never known, as he never opened his lips on the subject to man, woman or child. In the mean time, the protest of Van Curlet laid quietly on the table, where it served to light the pipes of the venerable sages assembled in council; and in the great smoke which they raised, the gallant Jacobus, his protest, and his mighty Fort Goed Hoop, were soon as completely beclouded and forgotten, as is a question of emergency swallowed up in the speeches and resolutions of a modern session of congress.

  There are certain emergencies when your profound legislators and sage deliberative councils, are mightily in the way of a nation; and when an ounce of hair-brained decision, is worth a pound of sage doubt, and cautious discussion. Such at least was the case at present; for while the renowned Wouter Van Twiller was daily battling with his doubts, and his resolution growing weaker and weaker in the contest, the enemy pushed further and further into his territories, and assumed a most formidable appearance in the neighbourhood of Fort Goed Hoop. Here they founded the mighty town of Pyquag, or as it has since been called Weathersfield, a place which, if we may credit the assertions of that worthy historian John Josselyn, Gent. “hath been infamous by reason of the witches therein.”—And so daring did these men of Pyquag become, that they extended those plantations of onions, for which their town is illustrious, under the very noses of the garrison of Fort Goed Hoop—insomuch that the honest dutchmen could not look toward that quarter, without tears in their eyes.

  This crying injustice was regarded with proper indignation by the gallant Jacobus Van Curlet. He absolutely trembled with the amazing violence of his choler and the exacerbations of his valour; which seemed to be the more turbulent in their workings, from the length of the body, in which they were agitated. He forthwith proceeded to strengthen his redoubts, heighten his breastworks, deepen his fosse, and fortify his position with a double row of abbatis; after which valiant precautions, he with unexampled intrepidity, dispatched a fresh courier with tremendous accounts of his perilous situation. Never did the modern hero, who immortalized himself at the second Sabine war, shew greater valour in the art of letter writing, or distinguish himself more gloriously upon paper, than the heroic Van Curlet.

  The courier chosen to bear these alarming dispatches, was a fat, oily little man, as being least liable to be worn out, or to lose leather on the journey; and to insure his speed, he was mounted on the fleetest waggon horse in the garrison; remarkable for his length of limb, largeness of bone, and hardness of trot; and so tall, that the little messenger was obliged to climb on his back by means of his tail and crupper. Such extraordinary speed did he make, that he arrived at Fort Amsterdam in little less than a month, though the distance was full two hundred pipes, or about 120 miles.

  The extraordinary appearance of this portentous stranger would have thrown the whole town of New Amsterdam into a quandary, had the good people troubled themselves about any thing more than their domestic affairs. With an appearance of great hurry and business, and smoking a short travelling pipe, he proceeded on a long swing trot through the muddy lanes of the metropolis, demolishing whole batches of dirt pies, which the little dutch children were making in the road; and for which kind of pastry the children of this city have ever been famous—On arriving at the governor’s house he climbed down from his steed in great trepidation; roused the grey headed door keeper, old Skaats who like his lineal decendant, and faithful representative, the venerable crier of our court, was nodding at his post—rattled at the door of the council chamber, and startled the members as they were dozing over a plan for establishing a public market.

  At that very moment a gentle grunt, or rather a deep drawn snore was heard from the chair of the governor; a whiff of smoke was at the same instant observed to escape from his lips, and a slight cloud to ascend from the bowl of his pipe. The council of course supposed him engaged in deep sleep for the good of the community, and according to custom in all such cases established, every man bawled out silence, in order to maintain tranquillity; when of a sudden, the door flew open and the little courier straddled into the apartment, cased to the middle in a pair of Hessian boots, which he had got into for the sake of expedition. In his right hand he held forth the ominous dispatches, and with his left he grasped firmly the waist-band of his galligaskins; which had unfortunately given way, in the exertion of descending from his horse. He stumped resolutely up to the governor, and with more hurry than perspicuity delivered his message. But fortunately his ill tidings came too late, to ruffle the tranquillity of this most tranquil of rulers. His venerable excellency had just breathed and smoked his last—his lungs and his pipe having been exhausted together, and his peaceful soul, as Dan Homer would have said, having escaped in the last whiff that curled from his tobacco pipe.—In a word the renowned Wouter Van Twiller, alias Walter the Doubter, who had so often slumbered with his cotemporaries, now slept with his fathers, and Wilhelmus Kieft governed in his stead.

  END OF BOOK III

  BOOK IV

  Containing the Chronicles of the reign of

  William the Testy.

  CHAPTER I

  Exposing the craftiness and artful devices of those arch Free

  Booters, the Book Makers, and their trusty Squires, the Book

  Sellers. Containing furthermore, the universal acquirements

  of William the Testy, and how a man may learn so much as

  to render himself good for nothing.

  If ever I had my readers completely by the button, it is at this moment. Here is a redoubtable fortress reduced to the greatest extremity; a
valiant commander in a state of the most imminent jeopardy—and a legion of implacable foes thronging upon every side. The sentimental reader is preparing to indulge his sympathies, and bewail the sufferings of the brave. The philosophic reader, to come with his first principles, and coolly take the dimensions and ascertain the proportions of great actions, like an antiquary, measuring a pyramid with a two-foot rule—while the mere reader, for amusement, promises to regale himself after the monotonous pages through which he has dozed, with murders, rapes, ravages, conflagrations, and all the other glorious incidents, that give eclat to victory, and grace the triumph of the conqueror.

  Thus every reader must press forward—he cannot refrain, if he has the least spark of curiosity in his disposition, from turning over the ensuing page. Having therefore gotten him fairly in my clutches—what hinders me from indulging in a little recreation, and varying the dull task of narrative by stultifying my readers with a drove of sober reflections about this, that and the other thing—by pushing forward a few of my own darling opinions; or talking a little about myself—all which the reader will have to peruse, or else give up the book altogether, and remain in utter ignorance of the mighty deeds, and great events, that are contained in the sequel.

  To let my readers into a great literary secret, your experienced writers, who wish to instil peculiar tenets, either in religion, politics or morals, do often resort to this expedient—illustrating their favourite doctrines by pleasing fictions on established facts—and so mingling historic truth, and subtle speculation together, that the unwary million never perceive the medley; but, running with open mouth, after an interesting story, are often made to swallow the most heterodox opinions, ridiculous theories, and abominable heresies. This is particularly the case with the industrious advocates of the modern philosophy, and many an honest unsuspicious reader, who devours their works under an idea of acquiring solid knowledge, must not be surprised if, to use a pious quotation, he finds “his belly filled with the east wind.”