ce
to the customs and manners that prevailed in the "good old times," have
proved themselves worthy of their illustrious ancestor. Many a time and
oft has the farm been haunted at night by enterprising money-diggers, in
quest of pots of gold, said to have been buried by the old governor,
though I cannot learn that any of them have ever been enriched by their
researches; and who is there, among my native-born fellow-citizens, that
does not remember when, in the mischievous days of his boyhood, he
conceived it a great exploit to rob "Stuyvesant's orchard" on a holiday
afternoon?

At this stronghold of the family may still be seen certain memorials of
the immortal Peter. His full-length portrait frowns in martial terrors
from the parlor wall, his cocked hat and sword still hang up in the best
bed-room; his brimstone-colored breeches were for a long while suspended
in the hall, until some years since they occasioned a dispute between a
new-married couple; and his silver-mounted wooden leg is still treasured
up in the store-room as an invaluable relique.

CHAPTER XIII.

Among the numerous events, which are each in their turn the most direful
and melancholy of all possible occurrences, in your interesting and
authentic history, there is none that occasions such deep and
heart-rending grief as the decline and fall of your renowned and mighty
empires. Where is the reader who can contemplate without emotion the
disastrous events by which the great dynasties of the world have been
extinguished? While wandering, in imagination, among the gigantic ruins of
states and empires, and marking the tremendous convulsions that wrought
their overthrow, the bosom of the melancholy inquirer swells with sympathy
commensurate to the surrounding desolation. Kingdoms, principalities, and
powers, have each had their rise, their progress, and their downfall; each
in its turn has swayed a potent sceptre; each has returned to its primeval
nothingness. And thus did it fare with the empire of their High
Mightinesses, at the Manhattoes, under the peaceful reign of Walter the
Doubter, the fretful reign of William the Testy, and the chivalric reign
of Peter the Headstrong.

Its history is fruitful of instruction, and worthy of being pondered over
attentively; for it is by thus raking among the ashes of departed
greatness that the sparks of true knowledge are to be found and the lamp
of wisdom illuminated. Let then the reign of Walter the Doubt