NEW YORK.                                  31
 

CHAPTER IV.

How Peter Stuyvesant was greatly belied by his
adversaries the Moss Troopers—and his con¬
duct thereupon.

If my pains-taking reader be not somewhat
perplexed, in the course of the ratiocination of
my last chapter, he will doubtless at one glance
perceive, that the great Peter, in concluding a
treaty with his eastern neighbours, was guilty
of a lamentable error and heterodoxy in politics.
To this unlucky agreement may justly be ascrib¬
ed a world of little infringements, altercations,
negotiations and bickerings, which afterwards
took place between the irreproachable Stuyve¬
sant, and the evil disposed council of Amphyc¬
tions. All these did not a little disturb the
constitutional serenity of the good burghers of
Mannahata; but in sooth they were so very
pitiful in their nature and effects, that a grave
historian, who grudges the time spent in any
thing less than recording the fall of empires, and
the revolution of worlds, would think them un¬
worthy to be inscribed on his sacred page.