mb, or any other
heroical and fighting tragedy, marshal their gallows-looking, duck-legged,
heavy-heeled myrmidons with more glory and self-admiration.

These military compliments being finished, General Van Poffenburgh
escorted his illustrious visitor, with great ceremony, into the fort,
attended him throughout the fortifications, showed him the horn-works,
crown-works, half-moons, and various other outworks, or rather the places
where they ought to be erected, and where they might be erected if he
pleased; plainly demonstrating that it was a place of "great capability,"
and though at present but a little redoubt, yet that it was evidently a
formidable fortress in embryo. This survey over, he next had the whole
garrison put under arms, exercised, and reviewed, and concluded by
ordering the three Bridewell birds to be hauled out of the black hole,
brought up to the halberds, and soundly flogged for the amusement of his
visitors, and to convince him that he was a great disciplinarian.

The cunning Risingh, while he pretended to be struck dumb outright with
the puissance of the great Van Poffenburgh, took silent note of the
incompetency of his garrison, of which he gave a wink to his trusty
followers, who tipped each other the wink, and laughed most obstreperously
in their sleeves.

The inspection, review, and flogging being concluded, the party adjourned
to the table; for, among his other great qualities, the general was
remarkably addicted to huge carousals, and in one afternoon's campaign
would leave more dead men on the field than he ever did in the whole
course of his military career. Many bulletins of these bloodless
victories do still remain on record, and the whole province was once
thrown in amaze by the return of one of his campaigns, wherein it was
stated, that though, like Captain Bobadil, he had only twenty men to back
him, yet in the short space of six months he had conquered and utterly
annihilated sixty oxen, ninety hogs, one hundred sheep, ten thousand
cabbages, one thousand bushels of potatoes, one hundred and fifty
kilderkins of small beer, two thousand seven hundred and thirty-five
pipes, seventy-eight pounds of sugar-plums, and forty bars of iron,
besides sundry small meats, game, poultry, and garden stuff: an
achievement unparalleled since the days of Pantagruel and his
all-devouring army, and which showed that it was only necessary to let Van
Poffenburgh and his garrison loose in an enemy's countr