CHAPTER XII
stuyvesant and his rule

Military men are usually failures as civil rul¬
ers, and Peter Stuyvesant, the next Director-Gen¬
eral of New Netherland, was no exception to the
common experience. Nevertheless, his familiar fig¬
ure and personality have thrown all predecessors
into the shadowy background. Being, as the people
saw him, a creature of flesh, blood, clothes, wood,
and silver, he was a most picturesque personage,
on which fiction and caricature have delighted to
dwell. His long career, of seventeen years in the
public activities of the Dutch Manhattan village
and eighteen years as a private gentleman in the
social life of the English city, has left an enduring
impression on the metropolis. Minuit, van Twiller,
and Kieft are to-day but as profiles in silhouette,
while Stuyvesant's features are clear and his por¬
trait is familiar. Indeed, he seems to be a living
person among us.

One of the brave man's legs had been lost in West
Indian warfare, and had been replaced, through the
combined services of the carpenter and silversmith,
by a triumph of art and skill. Tradition, with
varied tongue, tells of silver nails, studs, bands,
or, and most probably, bullion lace as ornamenting