ng the variety of readers who may peruse this book, there should
haply be found any of those souls of true nobility, which glow with
celestial fire at the history of the generous and the brave, they will
doubtless be anxious to know the fate of the gallant Peter Stuyvesant. To
gratify one such sterling heart of gold, I would go more lengths than to
instruct the cold-blooded curiosity of a whole fraternity of philosophers.

No sooner had that high-mettled cavalier signed the articles of
capitulation, than, determined not to witness the humiliation of his
favorite city, he turned his back on its walls, and made a growling
retreat to his bowery, or country seat, which was situated about two miles
off; where he passed the remainder of his days in patriarchal retirement.
There he enjoyed that tranquillity of mind which he had never known amid
the distracting cares of government, and tasted the sweets of absolute and
uncontrolled authority, which his factious subjects had so often dashed
with the bitterness of opposition.

No persuasion should ever induce him to revisit the city; on the contrary,
he would always have his great arm-chair placed with its back to the
windows which looked in that direction, until a thick grove of trees,
planted by his own hand, grew up and formed a screen that effectually
excluded it from the prospect. He railed continually at the degenerate
innovations and improvements introduced by the conquerors--forbade a word
of their detested language to be spoken in his family, a prohibition
readily obeyed, since none of the household could speak anything but
Dutch, and even ordered a fine avenue to be cut down in front of his house
because it consisted of English cherry trees.

The same incessant vigilance, which blazed forth when he had a vast
province under his care, now showed itself with equal vigor, though in
narrower limits. He patroled with unceasing watchfulness the boundaries of
his little territory, repelled every encroachment with intrepid
promptness: punished every vagrant depredation upon his orchard or his
farmyard with inflexible severity, and conducted every stray hog or cow in
triumph to the pound. But to the indigent neighbor, the friendless
stranger, or the weary wanderer, his spacious doors were ever open, and
his capacious fireplace, that emblem of his own warm and generous heart,
had always a corner to receive and cherish them. There was an exception to
this, I must confess, in case