rom
Communipaw, in which they so heroically braved the terrors of Hell-gate
and Buttermilk-channel, and discovered a site for New Amsterdam.

Others claimed to themselves the appellation of Conquerors, from their
gallant achievements in New Sweden and their victory over the Yankees at
Oyster Bay. Such was that list of warlike worthies heretofore enumerated,
beginning with the Van Wycks, the Van Dycks, and the Ten Eycks, and
extending to the Rutgers, the Bensons, the Brinkerhoffs, and the
Schermerhorns; a roll equal to the Doomsday Book of William the Conqueror,
and establishing the heroic origin of many an ancient aristocratical Dutch
family. These, after all, are the only legitimate nobility and lords of
the soil; these are the real "beavers of the Manhattoes;" and much does it
grieve me in modern days to see them elbowed aside by foreign invaders,
and more especially by those ingenious people, "the Sons of the Pilgrims;"
who out-bargain them in the market, out-speculate them on the exchange,
out-top them in fortune, and run up mushroom palaces so high, that the
tallest Dutch family mansion has not wind enough left for its weathercock.

In the proud days of Peter Stuyvesant, however, the good old Dutch
aristocracy loomed out in all its grandeur. The burly burgher, in
round-crowned flaunderish hat with brim of vast circumference, in portly
gaberdine and bulbous multiplicity of breeches, sat on his "stoep" and
smoked his pipe in lordly silence; nor did it ever enter his brain that
the active, restless Yankee, whom he saw through his half-shut eyes
worrying about in dog day heat, ever intent on the main chance, was one
day to usurp control over these goodly Dutch domains. Already, however,
the races regarded each other with disparaging eyes. The Yankees
sneeringly spoke of the round-crowned burghers of the Manhattoes as the
"Copper-heads;" while the latter, glorying in their own nether rotundity,
and observing the slack galligaskins of their rivals, flapping like an
empty sail against the mast, retorted upon them with the opprobrious
appellation of "Platter-breeches."

CHAPTER II.

From what I have recounted in the foregoing chapter, I would not have it
imagined that the great Peter was a tyrannical potentate, ruling with a
rod of iron. On the contrary, where the dignity of office permitted, he
abounded in generosity and condescension. If he refused the brawling
multitude the right of misrule, he at least endea