the Ryckmans, the Dyckmans, the
Hogebooms, the Rosebooms, the Oothouts, the Quackenbosses, the Roerbacks,
the Garrebrantzes, the Bensons, the Brouwers, the Waldrons, the
Onderdonks, the Varra Vangers, the Schermerhorns, the Stoutenburghs, the
Brinkerhoffs, the Bontecous, the Knickerbockers, the Hockstrassers, the Ten
Breecheses, and the Tough Breecheses, with a host more of worthies, whose
names are too crabbed to be written, or if they could be written, it would
be impossible for man to utter--all fortified with a mighty dinner, and,
to use the words of a great Dutch poet,

"Brimful of wrath and cabbage."

For an instant the mighty Peter paused in the midst of his career, and
mounting on a stump, addressed his troops in eloquent Low Dutch, exhorting
them to fight like _duyvels_, and assuring them that if they conquered,
they should get plenty of booty; if they fell, they should be allowed the
satisfaction, while dying, of reflecting that it was in the service of
their country; and after they were dead, of seeing their names inscribed
in the temple of renown, and handed down, in company with all the other
great men of the year, for the admiration of posterity. Finally, he swore
to them, on the word of a governor (and they knew him too well to doubt it
for a moment), that if he caught any mother's son of them looking pale, or
playing craven, he would curry his hide till he made him run out of it
like a snake in spring time. Then lugging out his trusty sabre, he
brandished it three times over his head, ordered Van Corlear to sound a
charge, and shouting the words, "St. Nicholas and the Manhattoes!"
courageously dashed forwards. His warlike followers, who had employed the
interval in lighting their pipes, instantly stuck them into their mouths,
gave a furious puff, and charged gallantly under cover of the smoke.

The Swedish garrison, ordered by the cunning Risingh not to fire until
they could distinguish the whites of their assailants' eyes, stood in
horrid silence on the covert-way, until the eager Dutchmen had ascended
the glacis. Then did they pour into them such a tremendous volley that the
very hills quaked around, and were terrified even into an incontinence of
water, insomuch that certain springs burst forth from their sides, which
continue to run unto the present day. Not a Dutchman but would have
bitten the dust beneath that dreadful fire had not the protecting Minerva
kindly taken care that the Swedes shoul