.

CHAPTER VII.

The grand council of the east held a solemn meeting on the return of their
envoys. As no advocate appeared in behalf of Peter Stuyvesant, everything
went against him. His haughty refusal to submit to the questioning of the
commissioners was construed into a consciousness of guilt. The contents of
the satchels and saddle-bags were poured forth before the council, and
appeared a mountain of evidence. A pale bilious orator took the floor, and
declaimed for hours and in belligerent terms. He was one of those furious
zealots who blow the bellows of faction until the whole furnace of
politics is red-hot with sparks and cinders. What was it to him if he
should set the house on fire, so that he might boil his pot by the blaze?
He was from the borders of Connecticut; his constituents lived by
marauding their Dutch neighbors, and were the greatest poachers in
Christendom, excepting the Scotch border nobles. His eloquence had its
effect, and it was determined to set on foot an expedition against the
Nieuw Nederlandts.

It was necessary, however, to prepare the public mind for this measure.
Accordingly the arguments of the orator were echoed from the pulpit for
several succeeding Sundays, and a crusade was preached up against Peter
Stuyvesant and his devoted city.

This is the first we hear of the "drum ecclesiastic" beating up for
recruits in worldly warfare in our country. It has since been called into
frequent use. A cunning politician often lurks under the clerical robe;
things spiritual and things temporal are strangely jumbled together, like
drugs on an apothecary's shelf; and instead of a peaceful sermon, the
simple seeker after righteousness has often a political pamphlet thrust
down his throat, labeled with a pious text from Scripture.

And now nothing was talked of but an expedition against the Manhattoes. It
pleased the populace, who had a vehement prejudice against the Dutch,
considering them a vastly inferior race, who had sought the new world for
the lucre of gain, not the liberty of conscience: who were mere heretics
and infidels, inasmuch as the refused to believe in witches and
sea-serpents, and had, faith in the virtues of horse-shoes nailed to the
door; ate pork without molasses; held pumpkins in contempt, and were in
perpetual breach of the eleventh commandment of all true Yankees, "Thou
shalt have codfish dinners on Saturdays."

No sooner did Peter Stuyvesant get wind of the storm