Knickerbocker's History of New York
Copyright© 2024 by Washington Irving
Chapter 3
Now it came to pass, that while Peter Stuyvesant was busy regulating the internal affairs of his domain, the great Yankee league, which had caused such tribulation to William the Testy, continued to increase in extent and power. The grand Amphictyonic council of the league was held at Boston, where it spun a web which threatened to link within it all the mighty principalities and powers of the east. The object proposed by this formidable combination was mutual protection and defence against their savage neighbors; but all the world knows the real aim was to form a grand crusade against the Nieuw Nederlandts and to get possession of the city of the Manhattoes—as devout an object of enterprise and ambition to the Yankees as was ever the capture of Jerusalem to ancient Crusaders.
In the very year following the inauguration of Governor Stuyvesant, a grand deputation departed from the city of Providence (famous for its dusty streets and beauteous women) in behalf of the plantation of Rhode Island, praying to be admitted into the league.
The following minute of this deputation appears in the ancient records of the council.
“Mr. Will. Cottington and Captain Partridg of Rhoode Island presented this insewing request to the commissioners in wrighting——
“Our request and motion is in behalfe of Rhoode Iland, that wee the ilanders of Rhoode Iland may be rescauied into combination with all the united colonyes of New England in a firme and perpetual league of friendship and amity of ofence and defence, mutuall advice and succor upon all just occasions for our mutuall safety and wellfaire, etc.
“WILL COTTINGTON.
“ALICXSANDER PARTRIDG.”
There was certainly something in the very physiognomy of this document that might well inspire apprehension. The name of Alexander, however mis-spelt, has been warlike in every age, and though its fierceness is in some measure softened by being coupled with the gentle cognomen of Partridge, still, like the color of scarlet, it bears an exceeding great resemblance to the sound of a trumpet. From the style of the letter, moreover, and the soldier-like ignorance of orthography displayed by the noble Captain Alicxsander Partridg in spelling his own name, we may picture to ourselves this mighty man of Rhodes, strong in arms, potent in the field, and as great a scholar as though he had been educated among that learned people of Thrace, who, Aristotle assures us, could not count beyond the number four.
The result of this great Yankee league was augmented audacity on the part of the moss-troopers of Connecticut, pushing their encroachments farther and farther into the territories of their High Mightinesses, so that even the inhabitants of New Amsterdam began to draw short breath, and to find themselves exceedingly cramped for elbow-room.
Peter Stuyvesant was not a man to submit quietly to such intrusions; his first impulse was to march at once to the frontier, and kick these squatting Yankees out of the country; but, bethinking himself in time that he was now a governor and legislator, the policy of the statesman for once cooled the fire of the old soldier, and he determined to try his hand at negotiation. A correspondence accordingly ensued between him and the great council of the league, and it was agreed that commissioners from either side should meet at Hartford, to settle boundaries, adjust grievances, and establish a “perpetual and happy peace.”
The commissioners on the part of the Manhattoes were chosen, according to immemorial usage of that venerable metropolis, from among the “wisest and weightiest” men of the community; that is to say, men with the oldest heads and heaviest pockets. Among these sages the veteran navigator, Hans Reinier Oothout, who had made such extensive discoveries during the time of Oloffe the Dreamer, was looked up to as an oracle in all matters of the kind; and he was ready to produce the very spy-glass with which he first spied the mouth of the Connecticut river from his masthead, and all the world knows that the discovery of the mouth of the river gives prior right to all the lands drained by its waters.
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