e the self-same warrior, he possest a
sovereign contempt for the sovereign people, and an iron aspect, which
was enough of itself to make the very bowels of his adversaries quake
with terror and dismay. All this martial excellency of appearance was
inexpressibly heightened by an accidental advantage, with which I am
surprized that neither Homer nor Virgil have graced any of their
heroes. This was nothing less than a wooden leg,[50] which was the
only prize he had gained in bravely fighting the battles of his
country, but of which he was so proud that he was often heard to
declare he valued it more than all his other limbs put together;
indeed, so highly did he esteem it that he had it gallantly enchased
and relieved with silver devices, which caused it to be related in
divers histories and legends that he wore a silver leg.

[Footnote 50: Stuyvesant lost his leg in the West Indies, where he was
serving in a Dutch command. In 1634 he became director of the colony
of Curacao. In 1636 he was made director-general of the Dutch colony
in North America. He retained this office, in which he was notably
efficient, until the surrender of New Amsterdam to the English in
1664. Stuyvesant spent the remainder of his life in New York on a farm
called the Bowery, where he died in 1672. He was buried in grounds
where now stands St. Mark's Church.]

Like that choleric warrior Achilles, he was somewhat subject to
extempore bursts of passion, which were rather unpleasant to his
favorites and attendants, whose perceptions he was apt to quicken,
after the manner of his illustrious imitator, Peter the Great, by
anointing their shoulders with his walking-staff.

Tho I can not find that he had read Plato, or Aristotle, or Hobbes, or
Bacon, or Algernon Sydney, or Tom Paine, yet did he sometimes manifest
a shrewdness and sagacity in his measures that one would hardly expect
from a man who did not know Greek, and had never studied the ancients.
True it is, and I confess it with sorrow, that he had an unreasonable
aversion to experiments, and was fond of governing his province after
the simplest manner; but then he contrived to keep it in better order
than did the erudite Kieft,[51] tho he had all the philosophers,
ancient and modern, to assist and perplex him. I must likewise own
that he made but very few laws; but then again he took care that those
few were rigidly and impartially enforced: and I do not know but
justice on the whole was as we