getting into a paffion with the giver. But I have ever observed that your paffionate little men, like fmall boats with large fails, are the easiest upset or blown out of their courfe; and this is demonftrated by governor Kieft, who, though in temperament as hot as an old radifh, and with a mind, the territory of which was fubjected to perpetual whirl-winds and tornadoes, yet never failed to be carried away by the last piece of advice that was blown into his ear. Lucky was it for him that his power was not dependant upon the greafy multitude, and that as yet the populace did not poffefs the important privilege of nominating their chief magiftrate. They, however, like a true mob, did their best to help along public affairs; peftering their governor inceffantly, by goading him on with harangues and petitions, and then thwarting his fiery fpirit with reproaches and memorials, like a knot of Sunday jockies, managing an unlucky devil of a hack horse-so that Wilhelmus Kieft may be faid to have been kept either on a worry or a hand gallop, throughout the whole of his administration.

CHAP. VII.

Containing divers fearful accounts of Border wars, and the flagrant outrages of the Moss troopers of Connecticut-with the rise of the great Amphyctionic Council of the east, and the decline of William the Testy.

It was afferted by the wife men of ancient times, who were intimately acquainted with thefe matters, that at the gate of Jupiter's palace lay two huge tuns, the one filled with bleflings, the other with misfortunes-and it verily feems as if the latter had been completely overturned, and left to deluge the unlucky province of Nieuw-Nederlandts. Among the many internal and external causes of irritation, the inceffant irruptions of the Yankees upon his frontiers were continually adding fuel to the inflammable temper of William the Testy. Numerous accounts of these molestations may ftill be found among the records of the times; for the commanders on the frontiers were especially careful to evince their vigilance and zeal, by ftriving who should send home the most frequent and voluminous budgets of complaints, as your faithful fervant is eternally running with complaints to the parlour, of all the petty fquabbles and mifdemeanours of the kitchen. All these valiant tale-bearings were liftened to with great wrath by the paffionate Kieft and his

fubjects, who were to the full as eager to hear, and credulous to believe thefe frontier fables, as are my fellow citizens to swallow those amusing stories with which our papers are daily filled, about British aggresfions at sea, French fequeftrations on fhore, Spanish infringements in the promised land of Louisiana, and, above all, internal plots and confpiracies.

We are told by the good Plutarch, in his life of Nicias, that the terrible defeat of the Athenians in Sicily was first mentioned in the fhop of a goffipping barber at the Piræus. Whereupon, with the customary officiousness of his tribe, he ran up into Athens to have the first telling of the ftory, and threw the whole forum into confternation. Not being able, however, to fubftantiate his tale, the unlucky fhaver was put upon the wheel and whirled about, as a reward for his trouble, until he was exculpated by the arrival of other evidence.

Such was the manner in which busy alarmists, and manufacturers of fearful news were treated in Athens; whereas in our more enlightened country we fupport whole herds of editors for no other purpose, than to gratify a public appetite for direful news, and any man who can foift up a full founding, hobgoblin ftory of a plot or conspiracy, may command his own price for it. I have known two or three of thefe tales of terror to be bought up by government, for the fovereign people to amuse themselves withal-which goes further

to prove, what I have before afferted, that your enlightened people love to be miferable.

Far be it from me to infinuate however, that our worthy ancestors indulged in groundless alarms; on the contrary they were daily suffering a repetition of cruel wrongs,* not one of which but was a fufficient reafon, according to the maxims of national dignity and honour, for throwing the whole univerfe into hoftility and confufion.

Oh ye powers! into what indignation did every one of these outrages throw the philofophic William ! letter after letter, proteft after proteft, proclamation after proclamation, bad Latin, worse English, and hideous low Dutch were exhaufted in vain upon the inexorable Yankees, and the four-and-twenty letters

From among a multitude of bitter grievances still on record, I select a few of the most atrocious, and leave my readers to judge, if our ancestors were not justifiable in getting into a very valiant passion on the occasion.

24 June, 1641. Some of Hartford have taken a hogg out of the vlact or common and shut it up out of meer hate or other prejudice, causing it to starve for hunger in the stye!

26 July. The foremencioned English did againe drive the Companies' hoggs out of the vlact of Sicojoke into Hartford; contending daily with reproaches, blows, beating the people with all disgrace that they could imagine.

May 20, 1642. The English of Hartford have violently cut loose a horse of the honored Companies', that stood bound upon the common or lact.

May 9, 1643. The Compenies' horses pastured upon the Companies' ground, were driven away by them of Connecticott or Hartford, and the herdsman 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. Haz. Col. State pap.

of the alphabet, which, excepting his champion the sturdy trumpeter Van Corlear, compofed the only ftanding army he had at his command, were never off duty throughout the whole of his administration.Nor did Antony the trumpeter, remain a whit be hind his patron the gallant Kieft, in his fiery zeal; but like a faithful champion and preserver of the public fafety, on the arrival of every fresh article of news he was fure to found his trumpet from the ramparts, with most difaftrous notes, throwing the people into violent alarms and disturbing their reft at all times and feafons-which caufed him to be held in very great regard, the public pampering and rewarding him, as we do brawling editors, for reasons that have just been mentioned.

I am well aware of the perils that environ me in this part of my history. While raking with curious hands but pious heart, among the mouldering remains of former days, anxious to draw therefrom the honey of wisdom, I may fare fomewhat like that valiant worthy Sampfon, who in meddling with the carcafs of a dead lion, drew a swarm of bees about his ears. Thus while narrating the many misdeeds of the Yanokie, or Yankee tribe, it is ten chances to one but I offend the morbid fenfibilities of certain of their unreafonable defcendants, who may fly out and raise fuch a buzzing about this unlucky head of mine, that I fhall need the tough hide of an Achilles, or an Orlando Furiofo, to protect me from their ftings.