warriors with bucklers, helms, and lances, and such like out.
landish and obsolete weapons, the like of which perchance they
had never seen or heard of; in the same manner that a cunning
statuary arrays a modern general or an admiral in the ac-
coutrements of a Cæsar or an Alexander. The simple truth,
then, of all this oratorical flourish is this -- that the valiant
Peter Stuyvesant all of a sudden found it necessary to scour
his trusty blade, which too long had rusted in its scabbard,
and prepare himself to undergo those hardy toils of war in
which his mighty soul so much delighted.

Methinks I at this moment behold him in my imagination-
or rather, I behold his goodly portrait, which still hangs up in
the family mansion of the Stuyvesants -- arrayed in all the ter-
rors of a true Dutch general. His regimental coat of German
blue, gorgeously decorated with a goodly show of large brass
buttons reaching from his waistband to his chin. The volum-
inous skirts turned up at the corners, and separating gallantly
behind, so as to display the seat of a sumptuous pair of brim-
stone-coloured trunk breeches -- a graceful style still prevalent
among the warriors of our day, and which is in conformity to
the custom of ancient heroes, who scorned to defend themselves
in the rear. His face rendered exceedingly terrible and war-
like by a pair of black mustachios; his hair strutting out on
each side in stiffly pomatumed ear-locks, and descending in a
rat-tail queue below his waist; a shining stock of black leather
supporting his chin, and a little but fierce cocked hat stuck
with a gallant and fiery air over his left eye. Such was the
chivalric port of Peter the Headstrong; and when he made a
sudden halt, planted himself firmly on his solid supporter, with
his wooden leg inlaid with silver, a little in advance, in order
to strengthen his position, his right hand grasping a gold-
headed cane, his left resting upon the pummel of his sword;
his head dressing spiritedly to the right, with a most appalling
and hard-favoured frown upon his brow -- he presented al-
together one of the most commanding, bitter-looking, and
soldier-like figures that ever strutted upon canvas. Proceed
we now to inquire the cause of this warlike preparation.

The encroaching disposition of the Swedes, on the South, or
Delaware river, has been duly recorded in the chronicles of
the reign of William the Testy. These encroachments having
been endured with that heroic magnanimity which is the
corner-stone of true courage, had been repeatedly and wickedly
aggravated.

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