Society, don’t you?” I said, “Yes.”  “Well,” he said, “you Dutch did lick us on the Excise question, didn’t you?” [Great laughter and applause.] Now what are you going to do with a people like that?  We got the credit of that thing, anyhow. [Renewed laughter.] There is a Governor of Connecticut here to-night [P.  C. Lounsbury], and I was going to say something about Governors of Connecticut of years and years ago.  A man could not properly relate the history of New Amsterdam without remarking on the Governors of Connecticut, but out of respect to the distinguished gentleman, whom we all delight to honor, I shall draw it very mild.  I shall only tell one or two things that those Governors of Connecticut used to do.  There was one of them, I have forgotten his name and I am glad I have [laughter], who used to say in all his letters to his subordinates when they were pushing us to the wall and getting the English over to help them push:  “Don’t you say anything to those people, don’t you talk to those people, but always keep crowding the Dutch.” [Laughter.] That is what a Connecticut Governor gave as official advice years ago.  And they did crowd us.  But Governor Lounsbury told me that if they really had their rights Manhattan Island would belong to Connecticut.  So you see they are crowding the Dutch still. [Laughter.]

Now, every once in a while, one of these New Englanders that owns the earth, especially that little stone portion called Plymouth Rock, which we never begrudged them, gets up at a great dinner and reads a fine speech and talks about civil and religious liberty which the Puritan came over to cause to flourish.  Why, the poor Puritan did not know any more about religious liberty than an ordinary horse does about astronomy.  What the Puritan came over here for, was to get a place to do what he liked, in his own way, without interference from anybody else, with power to keep everybody out that wanted to do anything the least bit different from his way. [Great laughter and applause.  A voice—­“I’m glad I voted for you.”] I never can get elected from New England.

I want to tell you just a thing or two about this business.  The Dutch tried very hard to teach them civil and religious liberty before they came over, and then they put the Yankees in a ship and sent them over from Leyden and Delfshaven, saying:  “It is utterly useless; we cannot teach you.” [Great laughter.] But we came over to New Amsterdam and we had free schools in New York until the English took the city by treachery when there was only Peter Stuyvesant to fire one gun against the invaders, and then they abolished free schools and had their church ones, and they are fighting over that question in England now.  Free schools!  New York established them when we were free again, years and years afterwards, but they are an invention of the Dutch.

Civil and religious liberty! it was born in Holland, it was nourished by the valor of the Beggars of the Sea, and finally it began to grow into the minds of the peoples of the earth, that it was not only right to enjoy your own religion, but it was also right to let your neighbor enjoy his. [Applause.]