people of those parts to sound
their own trumpet.

As some way-worn pilgrim, when the tempest whistles through his locks, and
night is gathering round, beholds his faithful dog, the companion and
solace of his journeying, stretched lifeless at his feet, so did the
generous-hearted hero of the Manhattoes contemplate the untimely end of
Antony Van Corlear. He had been the faithful attendant of his footsteps;
he had charmed him in many a weary hour by his honest gayety and the
martial melody of his trumpet, and had followed him with unflinching
loyalty and affection through many a scene of direful peril and mishap. He
was gone for ever! and that, too, at a moment when every mongrel cur was
skulking from his side. This, Peter Stuyvesant, was the moment to try thy
fortitude; and this was the moment when thou didst indeed shine
forth--Peter the Headstrong!

The glare of day had long dispelled the horrors of the stormy night; still
all was dull and gloomy. The late jovial Apollo hid his face behind
lugubrious clouds, peeping out now and then for an instant, as if anxious,
yet fearful, to see what was going on in his favorite city. This was the
eventful morning when the Great Peter was to give his reply to the summons
of the invaders. Already was he closeted with his privy council, sitting
in grim state, brooding over the fate of his favorite trumpeter, and anon
boiling with indignation as the insolence of his recreant burgomasters
flashed upon his mind. While in this state of irritation, a courier
arrived in all haste from Winthrop, the subtle governor of Connecticut,
counseling him, in the most affectionate and disinterested manner, to
surrender the province, and magnifying the dangers and calamities to which
a refusal would subject him. What a moment was this to intrude officious
advice upon a man who never took advice in his whole life! The fiery old
governor strode up and down the chamber with a vehemence that made the
bosoms of his councillors to quake with awe; railing at his unlucky fate,
that thus made him the constant butt of factious subjects and jesuitical
advisers.

Just at this ill-chosen juncture the officious burgomasters, who had heard
of the arrival of mysterious despatches, came marching in a body into the
room, with a legion of schepens and toad-eaters at their heels, and
abruptly demanded a perusal of the letter. This was too much for the
spleen of Peter Stuyvesant. He tore the letter in a thousand piece