Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete

enough for a dozen ordinary braziers. All this he had contrived to pass off upon William the Testy for genuine gold; and the little governor would sit for hours and listen to his gunpowder stories of exploits, which left those of Tirante the White, Don Belianis of Greece, or St. George and the Dragon, quite in the background. Having been promoted by William Kieft to the command of his whole disposable forces, he gave importance to his station by the grandiloquence ofhis bulletins, always styling himself Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the New Netherlands; though in sober truth these Armies were nothing more than a handful of hen-stealing, bottle-bruising ragamuffins.
    In person he was not very tall, but exceedingly round: neither did his bulk proceed from his being fat, but windy; being blown up by a prodigious conviction of his own importance, until he resembled one of those bags of wind given by Æolus, in an incredible fit of generosity to that vagabond warrior, Ulysses. His windy endowments had long excited the admiration of Antony Van Corlear, who is said to have hinted more than once to William the Testy, that in making Van Poffenburgh a general, he had spoiled an admirable trumpeter.
    As it is the practice in ancient story to give the reader a description of the arms and equipments of every noted warrior, I will bestow a word upon the dress of this redoubtable commander. It comported with his character, being so crossed and slashed, and embroidered with lace and tinsel, that he seemed to have as much brass without as nature had stored away within. He was swathed too in a crimson sash, of the size and texture of a fishing-net; doubtless to keep his swelling heart from bursting through his ribs. His face glowed with furnace heat from between a huge pair of well-powdered whiskers; and his valorous soul seemed ready to bounce out of a pair of large, glassy, blinking eyes, projecting like those of a lobster.
    I swear to thee, worthy reader, if history and tradition belie not this warrior, I would give all the money in my pocket to have seen him accoutred cap-a-pie—booted to the middle—sashed to the chin—collared to the ears—whiskered to the teeth—crowned with an overshadowing cocked hat, and girded with a leathern belt ten inches broad, from which trailed a falchion, of a length that I dare not mention. Thus equipped, he strutted about,as bitter looking a man of war as the far-famed More, of More Hall, when he sallied forth to slay the Dragon of Wantley. For what says the ballad?

“Had you but seen him in this dress,

How fierce he looked and how big,

You would have thought him for to be

Some Egyptian porcupig.

He frighted all—cats, dogs, and all,

Each cow, each horse, and each hog;

For fear did flee, for they took him to be

Some strange outlandish hedgehog.” [46]

    I must confess this general, with all his outward valor and ventosity, was not exactly an officer to Peter Stuyvesant’s taste, but he stood foremost in the army list of William the Testy, and it is probable the good Peter, who was conscientious in his dealings with all men, and had his military notions of precedence, thought it but fair to give him a chance of proving his right to his dignities.
    To this copper captain, therefore, was confided the command of the troops destined to protect the southern frontier; and scarce had he departed from his station than bulletins began to arrive from him, describing his undaunted march through savage deserts over insurmountable mountains, across impassable rivers, and through impenetrable forests, conquering vast tracts of uninhabited country, and encountering more perils than did Xenophon in his far-famed retreat with his ten thousand Grecians.
    Peter Stuyvesant read all these grandiloquent dispatches with a dubious screwing of the mouth and shaking of the head; but Antony Van Corlear repeated these contents in the streets and marketplaces with an appropriate flourish upon his trumpet, and the windy victories of the general resounded through the streets of New Amsterdam.
    On arriving at the southern frontier, Van Poffenburgh proceeded to erect a fortress, or stronghold, on the South of Delaware river. At first he bethoughthim to call it Fort Stuyvesant, in honor of the governor, a lowly kind of homage prevalent in our country among speculators, military commanders, and office-seekers of all kinds, by which our maps come to be studded with the names of political patrons and temporary