broad at bottom, and what was wanting in height of forehead was made up
by a double chin.

The negotiation turned as usual upon the good old corner-stone of original
discovery; according to the principle that he who first sees a new country
has an unquestionable right to it. This being admitted, the veteran
Oothout, at a concerted signal, stepped forth in the assembly with the
identical tarpaulin spy-glass in his hand with which he had discovered the
mouth of the Connecticut, while the worthy Dutch commissioners lolled back
in their chairs, secretly chuckling at the idea of having for once got the
weather-gauge of the Yankees, but what was their dismay when the latter
produced a Nantucket whaler with a spy-glass, twice as long, with which he
discovered the whole coast, quite down to the Manhattoes: and so crooked
that he had spied with it up the whole course of the Connecticut river.
This principle pushed home, therefore, the Yankees had a right to the
whole country bordering on the Sound; nay, the city of New Amsterdam was a
mere Dutch squatting-place on their territories.

I forbear to dwell upon the confusion of the worthy Dutch commissioners at
finding their main pillar of proof thus knocked from under them; neither
will I pretend to describe the consternation of the wise men at the
Manhattoes when they learnt how their commissioner, had been out-trumped
by the Yankees, and how the latter pretended to claim to the very gates of
New Amsterdam.

Long was the negotiation protracted, and long was the public mind kept in
a state of anxiety. There are two modes of settling boundary questions,
when the claims of the opposite parties are irreconcilable. One is by an
appeal to arms, in which case the weakest party is apt to lose its right,
and get a broken head into the bargain; the other mode is by compromise,
or mutual concession--that is to say, one party cedes half of its claims,
and the other party half of its rights; he who grasps most gets most, and
the whole is pronounced an equitable division, "perfectly honorable to
both parties."

The latter mode was adopted in the present instance. The Yankees gave up
claims to vast tracts of the Nieuw Nederlandts which they had never seen,
and all right to the island of Manna-hata and the city of New Amsterdam,
to which they had no right at all; while the Dutch, in return, agreed that
the Yankees should retain possession of the frontier places where they had
squatted, and o