NEW YORK.                                  209
 

CHAPTER V.

Shewing hoiv the grand Council of the JVett;-
JYetherlands came to be miraculously gifted
with long tongues.— Together with a great
triumph of Economy.

It will need but very little penetration in
any one acquainted with the character and
habits of that most potent and blustering mo¬
narch, the sovereign people,—to discover, that,
notwithstanding a'U the bustle and talk of war
that stunned him in the last chapter, the re¬
nowned city of New-Amsterdam is, in sad reali¬
ty, not a whit better prepared for defence than
before. Now, though the people, having gotten
over the first alarm, and finding no enemy im¬
mediately at hand, had, with that valour of
tongue, for which your illustrious rabble is so
famous, run into the opposite extreme, and by
dint of gallant vapouring and rodomontado, had
actually talked themselves into the opinion, that
they were the bravest and most powerful people
under the sun yet were the privy counsellors
of Peter Stuyvesant somewhat dubious on that
point. They dreaded moreover lest that stern
S  2