m as a statesman than to
think always right, for no one can say but that he always acted as he
thought. He was never a man to flinch when he found himself in a scrape,
but to dash forward through thick and thin, trusting by hook or by crook
to make all things straight in the end. In a word, he possessed in an
eminent degree that great quality in a statesman called perseverance by
the polite, but nicknamed obstinacy by the vulgar. A wonderful salve for
official blunders, since he who perseveres in error without flinching
gets the credit of boldness and consistency, while he who wavers in
seeking to do what is right gets stigmatized as a trimmer. This much is
certain--and it is a maxim well worthy the attention of all legislators
great and small who stand shaking in the wind, irresolute which way to
steer--that a ruler who follows his own will pleases himself, while he
who seeks to satisfy the wishes and whims of others runs great risk of
pleasing nobody. There is nothing, too, like putting down one's foot
resolutely when in doubt, and letting things take their course. The
clock that stands still points right twice in the four and twenty hours,
while others may keep going continually and be continually going wrong.

Nor did this magnanimous quality escape the discernment of the good
people of Nieuw Nederlandts; on the contrary, so much were they struck
with the independent will and vigorous resolution displayed on all
occasions by their new governor that they universally called him
Hard-Koppig Piet, or Peter the Headstrong--a great compliment to the
strength of his understanding.

THE BATTLE WITH THE SWEDES

"Now had the Dutchmen snatched a huge repast," and, finding themselves
wonderfully encouraged and animated thereby, prepared to take the field.
Expectation, says the writer of the Stuyvesant manuscript--expectation
now stood on stilts. The world forgot to turn round, or rather stood
still, that it might witness the affray, like a round-bellied alderman
watching the combat of two chivalrous flies upon his jerkin. The eyes
of all mankind, as usual in such cases, were turned upon Fort Christina.
The sun, like a little man in a crowd at a puppet-show, scampered about
the heavens, popping his head here and there, and endeavoring to get a
peep between the unmannerly clouds that obtruded themselves in his way.
The historians filled their inkhorns; the poets went without their
dinners, either that they might buy paper and