engage.

And you, O most excellent readers, whom, for your faithful adherence, I
could cherish in the warmest corner of my heart, be not uneasy--trust the
fate of our favorite Stuyvesant with me; for by the rood, come what may,
I'll stick by Hardkoppig Piet to the last. I'll make him drive about these
losels vile, as did the renowned Launcelot of the Lake a herd of recreant
Cornish knights; and if he does fall, let me never draw my pen to fight
another battle in behalf of a brave man, if I don't make these lubberly
Swedes pay for it.

No sooner had Peter Stuyvesant arrived before Forth Christina, than he
proceeded without delay to entrench himself, and immediately on running
his first parallel, dispatched Antony Van Corlear to summon the fortress
to surrender. Van Corlear was received with all due formality, hoodwinked
at the portal, and conducted through a pestiferous smell of salt fish and
onions to the citadel, a substantial hut built of pine logs. His eyes were
here uncovered, and he found himself in the august presence of Governor
Risingh. This chieftain, as I have before noted, was a very giantly man,
and was clad in a coarse blue coat, strapped round the waist with a
leathern belt, which caused the enormous skirts and pockets to set off
with a very warlike sweep. His ponderous legs were cased in a pair of
foxy-colored jack-boots, and he was straddling in the attitude of the
Colossus of Rhodes, before a bit of broken looking-glass, shaving himself
with a villainously dull razor. This afflicting operation caused him to
make a series of horrible grimaces, which heightened exceedingly the
grisly terrors of his visage. On Antony Van Corlear's being announced, the
grim commander paused for a moment, in the midst of one of his most
hard-favored contortions, and after eyeing him askance over the shoulder,
with a kind of snarling grin on his countenance, resumed his labors at the
glass.

This iron harvest being reaped, he turned once more to the trumpeter, and
demanded the purport of his errand. Antony Van Corlear delivered in a few
words, being a kind of short-hand speaker, a long message from his
excellency, recounting the whole history of the province, with a
recapitulation of grievances, and enumeration of claims, and concluding
with a peremptory demand of instant surrender; which done, he turned
aside, took his nose between his thumb and finger, and blew a tremendous
blast, not unlike the flourish of a trumpet of d