IeW YORK.                             165
 

CHAPTER II.
 

n
 

Containing some account of the grand council of
JVew-Amsterdam, as also divers especial good
philosophical reasons why an alderman should
befat'—with other particulars touching the state
of the province.

In treating of the early governors of the pro¬
vince, I must caution my readers against confound¬
ing them, in point of dignity and power, with those
worthy gentlemen, who are whimsically denomi¬
nated governors in this enlightened republic—a
set of unhappy victims of popularity, who are in
fact the most dependant, hen-pecked beings in the
community: doomed to bear the secret goadings
and corrections of their own party, and the sneers
and revilings of the whole world beside.—Set up,
like geese at Christmas holydays, to be pelted and
shot at by every whipster and vagabond in the
land. On the contrary, the Dutch governors en¬
joyed that uncontrolled authority, vested in all
commanders of distant colonies or territories.
They were in a manner, absolute despots in their
little domains, lording it, if so disposed, over both
law and gospel, and accountable to none but the
mother country; which it is well known is aston-