I do not look back merely then from this evening; I see illustrated at Yorktown the lesson of that hour; that colonies maturing into great commonwealths, and peoples combining for common liberties are the best pledges of the world’s future, but I look forward as well and see France in Europe, a Republic, the United States on this continent, a Republic, standing again in the future as before, shoulder to shoulder, expecting with tranquil and exultant spirit the grander victory yet to come, the outcome of which shall be liberty to all the peoples of the world, and that benign and divine peace which is the sure and sovereign fruit of such a liberty. [Applause.]

WILLIAM SCUDDER STRYKER

DUTCH HEROES OF THE NEW WORLD

[Speech of William S. Stryker at the fifth annual dinner of the Holland Society of New York, January 10, 1890.  The vice-President, Robert B. Roosevelt, presided, and called upon General Stryker to respond to the toast, “The Dutch Soldier in America.”]

MR. PRESIDENT:—­As well-born Dutchmen, full, of course, to-night of the spirit which creates Dutch courage, it is pleasant for us to look across the seas, to recall the martial life of our progenitors and to speak of their great deeds for liberty.  It is conducive to our family pride to trace back the source of the blessings we enjoy to-day through all the brilliant pages of Netherland history to the time when the soldiers of freedom—­the “Beggars”—­chose rather to let in the merciless ocean waves than to surrender to the ruthless invader. [Applause.]

We love to say that we can see in the glory of free institutions in this century the steady outgrowth of that germ of human liberty which was planted by the sturdy labor, which was watered by the tears and blood, and fructified by the precious lives of those who fought by land and sea in the battles of the sixteenth century. [Applause.]

Although we make our boast of the indomitable courage, the many self-denials, the homely virtues of our forefathers, think you that we in America are degenerate sons of noble sires?  I trow not! [Renewed applause.]

That irascible old Governor who stamped his wooden leg on the streets of New Amsterdam, who ruled with his iron will and his cane the thrifty burghers of this young city, did he not, when called upon to show a soldier’s courage, wage a successful contest with savage foes, with the testy Puritans of Connecticut and with the obdurate Swedes on Christiana Creek?

Before the old Dutch church in Millstone on the Raritan River, in the summer of 1775, a hundred of the young men of the village were drilled every night.  They had on their long smock-frocks, broad-brimmed black hats, and leggings.  Their own firelocks were on their shoulders, twenty-three cartridges in their cartouches, the worm, the priming-wire, and twelve flints in their pockets.  These were the bold minute-men of New Jersey, and Frederick Frelinghuysen was their gallant Dutch captain, who stood ready to march, in case an alarm bonfire burned on Sourland Mountain, to fight any enemy. [Applause.]