True it is, that the good understanding between our ancestors and their favage neighbours, was liable to occafional interruptions, and I have heard my grandmother, who was a very wife old woman, and well verfed in the history of these parts, tell a long story, of 2 winter's evening, about a battle between the NewAmfterdammers and the Indians, which was known by the name of the Peach war, and which took place near a peach orchard, in a dark glen, which for a long while went by the name of Murderer's valley. The legend of this Sylvan. war was long current among the nurses, old wives and other ancient chroniclers of the place; but time and improvement have almoft obliterated both the tradition and the scene of battle; for what was once the blood stained valley is now in the centre of this populous eity and known by the name of Dey-street. The accumulating wealth and confequence of NewAmfterdam and its dependencies, at length awakened the tender folicitude of the mother country; who finding it a thriving and opulent colony, and that it promised to yield great profit, and no trouble, all'at once became wonderfully anxious about its fafety, and began to load it with tokens of regard, in the fame manner that your knowing people are fure to overwhelm rich relations with their affection and loving-kindness. The usual marks of protection shown by mother countries, to wealthy colonies, were forthwith mani fefted the first care always being to fend rulers to the new fettlement, with orders to squeeze as much revenue from it as it will yield. Accordingly in the year of our Lord, 1629, Mynher WOUTER VAN • TWILLER, was appointed governor of the province of Nieuw-Nederlandts, under the commiffion and controul of their High Mightineffes, the Lords States General of the United Netherlands, and the privi leged Weft-India Company. This renowned old gentleman arrived at New-Amfterdam in the merry month of June, the fweetest month in all the year; when Dan Apollo feems to dance up the tranfparent firmament-when the Robin, the thrush and a thousand other wanton fongsters make the woods to refound with amorous ditties, and the luxurious little boblincon revels among the clover bloffoms of the meadows-all which happy coincidence perfuaded the old dames of New-Amsterdam, who were fkilled in the art of foretelling events, that this was to be a happy and profperous administration. But as it would be derogatory to the confequence of the first Dutch governor of the great province of Nieuw-Nederlandts to be thus fcurvily introduced at the end of a chapter, I will put an end to this fecond book of my history, that I may usher him in with more dignity in the beginning of my next. END OF BOOK II, BOOK III. In which is recorded the golden reign of Wouter CHAP. I. Of the Renowned Wouter Van Twiller, his unparalleled virtues-as likewise his unutterable wisdom in the law case of Wandle Schoonhoven and Barent Bleecker and the great admiration of the public thereat. GRIEVOUS and very much to be commiferated is the task of the feeling historian, who writes the history of his native land. If it fall to his lot to be the fad recorder of calamity or crime, the mournful page is watered with his tears-nor can he recall the most profperous and blissful era, without a melancholy figh at the reflection, that it has paffed away for ever! I know not whether it be owing to an immoderate love for the fimplicity of former times, or to that certain tenderness of heart incident to all fentimental hiftorians; but I candidly confess that I cannot look back on the happier days of our city, which I now describe, without a fad dejection of the fpirits. With a faultering hand do I writhdraw the curtain of oblivion, that veils the modeft merit of our venerable ancestors, and as their figures rife to my mental vifion, humble myfelf before the mighty fhades. Such are my feelings when I revifit the family manfion of the Knickerbockers, and spend a lonely hour in the chamber where hang the portraits of my forefathers, fhrouded in duft, like the forms they reprefent. With pious reverence do I gaze on the countenances of those renowned burghers, who have preceded me in the fteady march of exiftence-whose fober and temperate blood now meanders through my veins, flowing flower and flower in its feeble conduits, until its current shall foon be stopped for ever! Thefe, fay I to myself, are but frail memorials of the mighty men who flourished in the days of the patriarchs; but who, alas, have long fince mouldered in that tomb, towards which my steps are infenfibly and irresistibly hastening! As I pace the darkened chamber and lose myself in melancholy mufings, the fhadowy images around me almoft feem to fteal once more into existence-their countenances to affume the animation of life-their eyes to pursue me in every movement! carried away by the delufions of fancy, I almost imagine myself surrounded by the shades of the departed, and holding sweet converse with the worthies of antiquity! Ah, hapless Diedrich! born in a degenerate age, abandoned to the buffettings of fortune-a stranger and a weary pilgrim in thy native land-bleft with no weeping wife, nor family of helpless children; but doomed to wander neglected through those crowded streets, and elbowed by foreign upftarts from those fair abodes where once thine ancestors held fovereign empire. Let me not, however, lose the hiftorian in the man, nor fuffer the doating recollections of age to overcome me, while dwelling with fond garrulity on the virtuous days of the patriarchs-on those sweet days of fimplicity and ease, which never more will dawn on the lovely ifland of Manna-hata! The renowned Wouter (or Walter) Van Twiller, was defcended from a long line of Dutch burgomafters, who had fucceffively dozed away their lives and grown fat upon the bench of magiftracy in Rotterdam; and who had comported themselves with fuch fingular wifdom and propriety, that they were never either heard or talked of-which, next to being univerfally applauded, fhould be the object of ambition of all fage magistrates and rulers. His furname of Twiller, is faid to be a corruption of the original Twijfler, which in English means doubter; a name admirably defcriptive of his deliberative habits. For though he was a man, fhut up within himself like an oyster, and of fuch a profoundly reflective turn, that he fcarcely ever spoke except in monofyllables, yet did he never make up his mind on any doubtful point. This was clearly accounted for by his adherents, who affirmed that he always con |