ng again with affairs of government, by St. Nicholas, but I'll have
every mother's bastard of ye flayed alive, and your hides stretched for
drumheads, that ye may thenceforth make a noise to some purpose!"

This threat and the tremendous voice in which it was uttered, caused the
whole multitude to quake with fear. The hair of the orator rose on his
head like his own swine's bristles; and not a knight of the thimble
present but his heart died within him, and he felt as though he could have
verily escaped through the eye of a needle. The assembly dispersed in
silent consternation: the pseudo-statesmen who had hitherto undertaken to
regulate public affairs were now fain to stay at home, hold their tongues,
and take care of their families; and party feuds died away to such a
degree, that many thriving keepers of taverns and dram-shops were utterly
ruined for want of business. But though this measure produced the desired
effect in putting an extinguisher on the new lights just brightening up,
yet did it tend to injure the popularity of the great Peter with the
thinking part of the community; that is to say, that part which think for
others instead of for themselves; or, in other words, who attend to
everybody's business but their own. These accused the old governor of
being highly aristocratical, and in truth there seems to have been some
ground for such an accusation, for he carried himself with a lofty,
soldier-like air, and was somewhat particular in his dress, appearing,
when not in uniform, in rich apparel of the antique flaundish cut, and was
especially noted for having his sound leg, which was a very comely one,
always arrayed in a red stocking and high-heeled shoe.

Justice he often dispensed in the primitive patriarchal way, seated on the
"stoep" before the door, under the shade of a great button-wood tree, but
all visits of form and state were received with something of court
ceremony in the best parlor, where Antony the Trumpeter officiated as high
chamberlain. On public occasions he appeared with great pomp of equipage,
and always rode to church in a yellow wagon with flaming red wheels.

These symptoms of state and ceremony, as we have hinted, were much caviled
at by the thinking, and talking, part of the community. They had been
accustomed to find easy access to their former governors, and in
particular had lived on terms of extreme intimacy with William the Testy,
and they accused Peter Stuyvesant of assuming