ted in the
act of sacking a hen-roost.

He moreover issued a proclamation, inviting the inhabitants to submit to
the authority of their High Mightinesses, but declaring, with unexampled
clemency, that whoever refused should be lodged, at the public expense, in
a goodly castle provided for the purpose, and have an armed retinue to
wait on them in the bargain. In consequence of these beneficent terms,
about thirty Swedes stepped manfully forward and took the oath of
allegiance; in reward for which they were graciously permitted to remain
on the banks of the Delaware, where their descendants reside at this very
day. I am told, however, by divers observant travelers, that they have
never been able to get over the chap-fallen looks of their ancestors; but
that they still do strangely transmit, from father to son, manifest marks
of the sound drubbing given them by the sturdy Amsterdammers.

The whole country of New Sweden having thus yielded to the arms of the
triumphant Peter, was reduced to a colony called South River, and placed
under the superintendence of a lieutenant-governor, subject to the control
of the supreme government of New Amsterdam. This great dignitary was
called Mynheer William Beekman, or rather Beck-man, who derived his
surname, as did Ovidius Naso of yore, from the lordly dimensions of his
nose, which projected from the center of his countenance like the beak of
a parrot. He was the great progenitor of the tribe of the Beekmans, one of
the most ancient and honorable families of the province; the members of
which do gratefully commemorate the origin of their dignity, nor as your
noble families in England would do by having a glowing proboscis
emblazoned in their escutcheon, but by one and all wearing a right goodly
nose stuck in the very middle of their faces.

Thus was this perilous enterprise gloriously terminated, with the loss of
only two men--Wolfet Van Horne, a tall spare man, who was knocked
overboard by the boom of a sloop in a flaw of wind, and fat Brom Van
Bummel, who was suddenly carried off by an indigestion; both, however,
were immortalized as having bravely fallen in the service of their
country. True it is, Peter Stuyvesant had one of his limbs terribly
fractured in the act of storming the fortress; but as it was fortunately
his wooden leg, the wound was promptly and effectually healed.

And now nothing remains to this branch of my history but to mention that
this immaculate hero and his