far be it from me to counteract its sovereign will.
Besides, I cannot consent to venture my armies with
a commander whom they despise, nor to trust the welfare
of my people to a champion whom they distrust.
Retire therefore, my friend, from the irksome toils
and cares of public life, with this comforting reflection—that
if guilty, you are but enjoying your just reward—and
if innocent, you are not the first great and good
man who has most wrongfully been slandered and maltreated
in this wicked world—doubtless to be better
treated in a better world, where there shall be neither
error, calumny, nor persecution. In the meantime,
let me never see your face again, for I have a horrible
antipathy to the countenances of unfortunate great
men like yourself.”
[50] This was likewise a great seal
of the New Netherlands, as
may
still be seen in ancient records.
[51] Besides what is related in
the Stuyvesant MS., I have found
mention
made of this illustrious patroon in another manuscript,
which
says, “De Heer (or the squire) Michael Paw, a
Dutch
subject,
about 10th Aug., 1630, by deed purchased Staten Island.
N.B.—The
same Michael Paw had what the Dutch call a colonie
at
Pavonia,
on the Jersey shore, opposite New York: and his
overseer,
in 1636, was named Corns. Van Vorst, a person
of the
same
name, in 1769, owned Pawles Hook, and a large farm
at
Pavonia,
and is a lineal descendant from Van Vorst.”
[52] So called from the Navesink
tribe of Indians that inhabited
these
parts. At present they are erroneously denominated
the
Neversink,
or Neversunk, mountains.
[53] Since corrupted into the Wallabout,
the bay where the
navy-yard
is situated.
[54] Now spelt Brooklyn.
As my readers and myself are about entering on as
many perils as ever a confederacy of meddlesome knights-errant
wilfully ran their heads into it is meet that, like
those hardy adventurers, we should join hands, bury
all differences, and swear to stand by one another,
in weal or woe, to the end of the enterprise.
My readers must doubtless perceive how completely I
have altered my tone and deportment since we first
set out together. I warrant they then thought
me a crabbed, cynical, impertinent little son of a
Dutchman; for I scarcely ever gave them a civil word,
nor so much as touched my beaver, when I had occasion
to address them. But as we jogged along together
on the high road of my history, I gradually began to
relax, to grow more courteous, and occasionally to
enter into familiar discourse, until at length I came
to conceive a most social, companionable kind of regard
for them. This is just my way—I am
always a little cold and reserved at first, particularly
to people whom I neither know nor care for and am
only to be completely won by long intimacy.
