A History of New York

by Washington Irving

  Thus equipped, he strutted about, as bitter looking a man of war as the far-famed More of More Hall, when he sallied forth, armed at all points, to slay the Dragon of Wantley—

  “Had you but seen him in this dress

  How fierce he look’d and how big;

  You would have thought him for to be

  Some Egyptian Porcupig.

  He frighted all, cats, dogs and all,

  Each cow, each horse, and each hog;

  For fear they did flee, for they took him to be

  Some strange outlandish hedge hog.“50

  Notwithstanding all the great endowments and transcendent qualities of this renowned general, I must confess he was not exactly the kind of man that the gallant Peter the Headstrong would have chosen to command his troops—but the truth is, that in those days the province did not abound, as at present, in great military characters; who like so many Cincinnatuses people every little village—marshalling out cabbages, instead of soldiers, and signalizing themselves in the corn field, instead of the field of battle. Who have surrendered the toils of war, for the more useful but inglorious arts of peace, and so blended the laurel with the olive, that you may have a general for a landlord, a colonel for a stage driver, and your horse shod by a valiant “captain of volunteers”—Neither had the great Stuyvesant an opportunity of choosing, like modern rulers, from a loyal band of editors of newspapers—no mention being made in the histories of the times, of any such class of mercenaries, being retained in pay by government, either as trumpeters, champions, or body guards. The redoubtable general Von Poffenburgh, therefore, was appointed to the command of the new levied troops; chiefly because there were no competitors for the station, and partly because it would have been a breach of military etiquette, to have appointed a younger officer over his head—an injustice, which the great Peter would rather have died than have committed.

  No sooner did this thrice valiant copper captain receive marching orders, than he conducted his army undauntedly to the southern frontier; through wild lands and savage deserts; over insurmountable mountains, across impassable floods and through impenetrable forests; subduing a vast tract of uninhabited country, and overturning, discomfiting and making incredible slaughter of certain hostile hosts of grass-hoppers, toads and pismires, which had gathered together to oppose his progress—an achievement unequalled in the pages of history, save by the farfamed retreat of old Xenophon and his ten thousand Grecians. All this accomplished, he established on the South (or Delaware) river, a redoubtable redoubt, named FORT CASIMER, in honour of a favourite pair of brimstone coloured trunk breeches of the governor’s. As this fort will be found to give rise to very important and interesting events, it may be worth while to notice that it was afterwards called Nieuw Amstel, and was the original germ of the present flourishing town of NEW CASTLE, an appellation erroneously substituted for No Castle, there neither being, nor ever having been a castle, or any thing of the kind upon the premises.

  The Swedes did not suffer tamely this menacing movement of the Nederlanders; on the contrary Jan Printz, at that time governor of New Sweden, issued a sturdy protest against what he termed an encroachment upon his jurisdiction.—But the valiant Von Poffenburgh had become too well versed in the nature of proclamations and protests, while he served under William the Testy, to be in any wise daunted by such paper warfare. His fortress being finished, it would have done any man’s heart good to behold into what a magnitude he immediately swelled. He would stride in and out a dozen times a day, surveying it in front and in rear; on this side and on that.—Then would he dress himself in full regimentals, and strut backwards and forwards, for hours together, on the top of his little rampart—like a vain glorious cock pidgeon vapouring on the top of his coop. In a word, unless my readers have noticed, with curious eye, the petty commander of a little, snivelling, military post, swelling with all the vanity of new regimentals, and the pomposity derived from commanding a handful of tatterdemalions, I despair of giving them any adequate idea of the prodigious dignity of general Von Poffenburgh.

  It is recorded in the delectable romance of Pierce Forest, that a young knight being dubbed by king Alexander, did incontinently gallop into an adjoining forest, and belaboured the trees with such might and main, that the whole court were convinced that he was the most potent and courageous gentleman on the face of the earth. In like manner the great general Von Poffenburgh would ease off that valourous spleen, which like wind is so apt to grow unruly in the stomachs of new made soldiers, impelling them to box-lobby brawls, and broken headed quarrels.—For at such times, when he found his martial spirit waxing hot within him, he would prudently sally forth into the fields, and lugging out his trusty sabre, of full two flemish ells in length, would lay about him most lustily, decapitating cabbages by platoons—hewing down whole phalanxes of sunflowers, which he termed gigantic Swedes; and if peradventure, he espied a colony of honest big bellied pumpkins quietly basking themselves in the sun, “ah caitiff Yankees,” would he roar, “have I caught ye at last!”—so saying, with one sweep of his sword, he would cleave the unhappy vegetables from their chins to their waistbands: by which warlike havoc, his choler being in some sort allayed, he would return to his garrison with a full conviction, that he was a very miracle of military prowess.

  The next ambition of general Von Poffenburgh was to be thought a strict disciplinarian. Well knowing that discipline is the soul of all military enterprize, he enforced it with the most rigorous precision; obliging every man to turn out his toes, and hold up his head on parade, and prescribing the breadth of their ruffles to all such as had any shirts to their backs.

  Having one day, in the course of his devout researches in the bible, (for the pious Eneas himself, could not exceed him in outward religion) encountered the history of Absalom and his melancholy end; the general in an evil hour, issued orders for cropping the hair of both officers and men throughout the garrison. Now it came to pass, that among his officers was one Kildermeester; a sturdy old veteran, who had cherished through the course of a long life, a rugged mop of hair, not a little resembling the shag of a Newfoundland dog; terminating with an immoderate queue, like the handle of a frying pan; and queued so tightly to his head, that his eyes and mouth generally stood ajar, and his eye-brows were drawn up to the top of his forehead. It may naturally be supposed that the possessor of so goodly an appendage would resist with abhorrence, an order condemning it to the shears. Sampson himself could not have held his wig more sacred, and on hearing the general orders, he discharged a tempest of veteran, soldier-like oaths, and dunder and blixums—swore he would break any man’s head who attempted to meddle with his tail—queued it stiffer than ever, and whisked it about the garrison, as fiercely as the tail of a crocodile.

  The eel-skin queue of old Kildermeester, became instantly an affair of the utmost importance. The commander in chief was too enlightened an officer not to perceive, that the discipline of the garrison, the subordination and good order of the armies of the Nieuw Nederlandts, the consequent safety of the whole province, and ultimately the dignity and prosperity of their high mightinesses, the lords states general, but above all, the dignity of the great general Von Poffenburgh, all imperiously demanded the docking of that stubborn queue. He therefore patriotically determined that old Kildermeester should be publicly shorn of his glories in presence of the whole garrison—the old man as resolutely stood on the defensive—whereupon the general, as became a great man, was highly exasperated, and the offender was arrested and tried by a court martial for mutiny, desertion and all the other rigmarole of offences noticed in the articles of war, ending with a “videlicit, in wearing an eel-skin queue, three feet long, contrary to orders”—Then came on arraignments, and trials, and pleadings, and convictings, and the whole country was in a ferment about this unfortunate queue. As it is well known that the commander of a distant frontier post has the power of acting pretty much after his own will, there is little doubt but that the old veteran would have
been hanged or shot at least, had he not luckily fallen ill of a fever, through mere chagrin and mortification—and most flagitiously deserted from all earthly command, with his beloved locks unviolated. His obstinacy remained unshaken to the very last moment, when he directed that he should be carried to his grave with his eel-skin queue sticking out of a knot hole in his coffin.

  This magnanimous affair obtained the general great credit as an excellent disciplinarian, but it is hinted that he was ever after subject to bad dreams, and fearful visitations in the night—when the grizly spectrum of old Kildermeester would stand centinel by his bed side, erect as a pump, his enormous queue strutting out like the handle.

  END OF BOOK V

  BOOK VI

  Containing the second part of the reign of

  Peter the Headstrong—and his gallant

  atchievements on the Delaware.

  CHAPTER I

  In which is presented a warlike portrait of the Great Peter.—

  And how General Von Poffenburgh gave a stout carousal, for

  which he got more kicks than coppers.

  Hitherto most venerable and courteous reader, have I shewn thee the administration of the valourous Stuyvesant, under the mild moonshine of peace; or rather the grim tranquillity of awful preparation; but now the war drum rumbles, the brazen trumpet brays its thrilling note, and the rude clash of hostile arms, speaks fearful prophecies of coming troubles. The gallant warrior starts from soft repose, from golden visions and voluptuous ease; where in the dulcet, “piping time of peace,” he sought sweet solace after all his toils. No more in beauty’s syren lap reclined, he weaves fair garlands for his lady’s brows; no more entwines with flowers his shining sword, nor through the live-long lazy summers day, chaunts forth his lovesick soul in madrigals. To manhood roused, he spurns the amorous flute; doffs from his brawny back the robe of peace, and clothes his pampered limbs in panoply of steel. O’er his dark brow, where late the myrtle waved; where wanton roses breathed enervate love, he rears the beaming casque and nodding plume; grasps the bright shield and shakes the pondrous lance; or mounts with eager pride his fiery steed; and burns for deeds of glorious chivalry!

  But soft, worthy reader! I would not have you go about to imagine, that any preux chevalier thus hideously begirt with iron existed in the city of New Amsterdam.—This is but a lofty and gigantic mode in which we heroic writers always talk of war, thereby to give it a noble and imposing aspect; equipping our warriors with bucklers, helms and lances, and a host of other outlandish and obsolete weapons, the like of which perchance they had never seen or heard of; in the same manner that a cunning statuary arrays a modern general or an admiral in the accoutrements of a Caesar or an Alexander. The simple truth then of all this oratorical flourish is this.—That the valiant Peter Stuyvesant all of a sudden found it necessary to scour his trusty blade, which too long had rusted in its scabbard, and prepare himself to undergo those hardy toils of war, in which his mighty soul so much delighted.

  Methinks I at this moment behold him in my imagination—or rather I behold his goodly portrait, which still hangs up in the family mansion of the Stuyvesants—arrayed in all the terrors of a true dutch general. His regimental coat of German blue, gorgeously decorated with a goodly shew of large brass buttons, reaching from his waistband to his chin. The voluminous skirts turned up at the corners and separating gallantly behind, so as to display the seat of a sumptuous pair of brimstone coloured trunk breeches—a graceful style still prevalent among the warriors of our day, and which is in conformity to the custom of ancient heroes, who scorned to defend themselves in rear.—His face rendered exceeding terrible and warlike by a pair of black mustachios; his hair strutting out on each side in stiffly pomatumed ear locks and descending in a rat tail queue below his waist; a shining stock of black leather supporting his chin, and a little, but fierce cocked hat stuck with a gallant and fiery air, over his left eye. Such was the chivalric port of Peter the Headstrong; and when he made a sudden halt, planted himself firmly on his solid supporter, with his wooden leg, inlaid with silver, a little in advance, in order to strengthen his position; his right hand stuck a-kimbo, his left resting upon the pummel of his brass hilted sword; his head dressing spiritedly to the right, with a most appalling and hard favoured frown upon his brow—he presented altogether one of the most commanding, bitter looking, and soldierlike figures, that ever strutted upon canvass.—Proceed we now to enquire the cause of this warlike preparation.

  The encroaching disposition of the Swedes, on the south, or Delaware river, has been duly recorded in the Chronicles of the reign of William the Testy. These encroachments having been endured with that heroic magnanimity, which is the corner stone, or according to Aristotle, the left hand neighbour of true courage, had been repeated and wickedly aggravated.

  The Swedes, who, were of that class of cunning pretenders to Christianity, that read the Bible upside down, whenever it interferes with their interests, inverted the golden maxim, and when their neighbour suffered them to smite him on the one cheek, they generally smote him on the other also, whether it was turned to them or not. Their repeated aggressions had been among the numerous sources of vexation, that conspired to keep the irritable sensibilities of Wilhelmus Kieft, in a constant fever, and it was only owing to the unfortunate circumstance, that he had always a hundred things to do at once, that he did not take such unrelenting vengeance as their offences merited. But they had now a chieftan of a different character to deal with; and they were soon guilty of a piece of treachery, that threw his honest blood in a ferment, and precluded all further sufference.

  Printz, the governor of the province of New Sweden, being either deceased or removed, for of this fact some uncertainty exists; he was succeeded by Jan Risingh, a gigantic Swede, and who, had he not been rather in-kneed and splay-footed, might have served for the model of a Sampson, or a Hercules. He was no less rapacious than mighty, and withal as crafty as he was rapacious; so that in fact there is very little doubt, had he lived some four or five centuries before, he would have made one of those wicked giants, who took such a cruel pleasure in pocketing distressed damsels, when gadding about the world, and locking them up in enchanted castles, without a toilet, a change of linen, or any other convenience.—In consequence of which enormities they fell under the high displeasure of chivalry, and all true, loyal and gallant knights, were instructed to attack and slay outright any miscreant they might happen to find above six feet high; which is doubtless one reason that the race of large men is nearly extinct, and the generations of latter ages so exceeding small.

  No sooner did governor Risingh enter upon his office, than he immediately cast his eyes upon the important post of Fort Casimer, and formed the righteous resolution of taking it into his possession. The only thing that remained to consider, was the mode of carrying his resolution into effect; and here I must do him the justice to say, that he exhibited a humanity rarely to be met with among leaders; and which I have never seen equalled in modern times, excepting among the English, in their glorious affair at Copenhagen. Willing to spare the effusion of blood, and the miseries of open warfare, he benevolently shunned every thing like avowed hostility or regular siege, and resorted to the less glorious, but more merciful expedient of treachery.

  Under pretence therefore, of paying a sociable, neighbourly visit to general Von Poffenburgh, at his new post of Fort Casimer, he made requisite preparation, sailed in great state up the Delaware, displayed his flag with the most ceremonious punctilio, and honoured the fortress with a royal salute, previous to dropping anchor. The unusual noise awakened a veteran dutch centinel, who was napping faithfully on his post, and who after hammering his flint for good ten minutes, and rubbing its edge with the corner of his ragged cocked hat, but all to no purpose, contrived to return the compliment, by discharging his rusty firelock with the spark of a pipe, which he borrowed from one of his comrades. The salute indeed would have been answered by the guns of the fort, had they not unfortunately bee
n out of order, and the magazine deficient in ammunition—accidents to which forts have in all ages been liable, and which were the more excusable in the present instance, as Fort Casimer had only been erected about two years, and general Von Poffenburgh, its mighty commander, had been fully occupied with matters of much greater self importance.

  Risingh, highly satisfied with this courteous reply to his salute, treated the fort to a second, for he well knew its puissant and pompous leader, was marvellously delighted with these little ceremonials, which he considered as so many acts of homage paid unto his greatness. He then landed in great state, attended by a suite of thirty men—a prodigious and vain-glorious retinue, for a petty governor of a petty settlement, in those days of primitive simplicity; and to the full as great an army as generally swells the pomp and marches in the rear of our frontier commanders at the present day.

  The number in fact might have awakened suspicion, had not the mind of the great Von Poffenburgh been so completely engrossed with an all pervading idea of himself, that he had not room to admit a thought besides. In fact he considered the concourse of Risingh’s followers as a compliment to himself—so apt are great men to stand between themselves and the sun, and completely eclipse the truth by their own shadow.

  It may readily be imagined how much general Von Poffenburgh was flattered by a visit from so august a personage; his only embarrassment was, how he should receive him in such a manner as to appear to the greatest advantage, and make the most advantageous impression. The main guard was ordered immediately to turn out, and the arms and regimentals (of which the garrison possessed full half a dozen suits) were equally distributed among the soldiers. One tall lank fellow, appeared in a coat intended for a small man, the skirts of which reached a little below his waist, the buttons were between his shoulders and the sleeves half way to his wrists, so that his hands looked like a couple of huge spades—and the coat not being large enough to meet in front, was linked together by loops, made of a pair of red worsted garters. Another had an old cocked hat, stuck on the back of his head and decorated with a bunch of cocks tails—a third had a pair of rusty gaiters hanging about his heels—while a fourth, who was a short duck legged little trojan, was equipped in a huge pair of the general’s cast off breeches, which he held up with one hand, while he grasped his firelock with the other. The rest were accoutred in similar style, excepting three graceless raggamuffins, who had no shirts and but a pair and half of breeches between them, wherefore they were sent to the black hole, to keep them out of view. There is nothing in which the talents of a prudent commander are more completely testified, than in thus setting matters off to the greatest advantage; and it is for this reason that our frontier posts at the present day (that of Niagara in particular) display their best suit of regimentals on the back of the centinel who stands in sight of travellers.