Then there is another story, that the English conquered Manhattan Island, and that we are here by the grace of any people on earth except our own.  That is another mistake.  Just read Theodore Roosevelt’s “Rise of New York.” [Great laughter.] Now I am going to tell you this story because you must go up to Ulster County and up to Dutchess and Albany Counties, and you must tell every Yankee you meet the truth about this, and not let him talk any more about the English having subjugated the Dutch.

It is true the English captured Manhattan Island, but nine years afterwards Admiral Evertsen and another Admiral whose name escapes me, came up the harbor in two frigates with guns well shotted, got beyond Staten Island, and gave the military authorities of New York notice that they were going to take that town, and granted them thirty minutes to make up their minds whether they would give it up or not.  When the thirty minutes elapsed, six hundred Dutch troops were landed just back of where Trinity Church now is, and New York became New Amsterdam again.  Then how did we lose it?  Because the Dutch States-General, which did not know enough, in deciding between New York and Surinam, to choose New York, took Surinam, and they have been wishing ever since they never had been born.  Now talk about anybody conquering the Dutch!  We generally get there.  They sometimes say:  “That is all very well, they were very brave people and all that, but they don’t do anything now.”  Waterloo, Van Speyk, Majuba Hill, and the Boers of the Transvaal show what their courage has been in the later generations.  What are the Dutch?  Why, we are the salt of the earth!  We do not pretend to be the bread and butter and the cheese, but we are the salt [laughter], and I think the Boers in South Africa very lately salted some people I know of. [Great laughter and applause.]

If you want to see a city that is well salted, look at New York.  Go to the St. Nicholas Society dinner and see that grand assembly; if there is ever a society in New York that is well salted with Dutch, that is, and we are all proud of it.  And so it is with every other society, New York society, but not on the paternal side! [Great laughter and applause.]

But if you want to see a place where the Yankee is salt, pepper, bread, butter, and everything, go to Boston.  It is a great city.  That is all right.  But we prefer New York, and we prefer just what God has ordained us to be—­the people not always getting the credit of it, but always accomplishing all the good that is ever accomplished on the face of the earth! [Laughter and applause.] Now you may think that I have not whooped it up enough for the Dutch [great laughter], so I will go on, just for a minute.