New York - The Novel

impressed.
    “Never trust an Englishman,” she would say, “and never trust a papist.”

    The winter that ended the year 1684 was uncommonly cold. The big pond north of the town was frozen solid for three months. Like most Dutch people, the Boss liked to skate on the ice; and one morning we all went up there together with Jan and his two little daughters too.
    Jan worked with his father, but in those years the business of distillingrum from molasses had been greatly increasing. There had been a distillery across the harbor on Staten Island for quite a while, but Jan had set up another in the town with Mr. Master. He was trading in the spirits that came from Holland as well, like the gin they call Genever.
    And the Mistress came with Miss Clara and her husband. They hadn’t any children yet, but I had never seen her look more beautiful. The Boss showed all the children, including my son Hudson, how to skate, and the Mistress was all smiles and said to see all the people skating on that big pond was just like a Dutch painting. She didn’t even seem to mind when Mr. Master and his family showed up.
    Now Mr. Master had a son named Henry, who must have been about eighteen years old at this time. He looked just like his father. And when that young man saw Miss Clara looking so pretty and flushed with the exercise and the cold air, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. And they skated together. Even the Mistress was amused and said, “The boy’s in love with you.”
    That day would always stay in my mind as a very happy one.

    The blow fell in 1685. The news broke over New York like a thunderclap. King Charles II was dead and his brother the Duke of York was king in his place. King James II, the Catholic.
    New York had a Catholic king. In no time at all, he was giving Catholics the running of things. Then he tore up the charter that gave elections to the province here. “I told you so,” the Mistress said. “I told you never to trust a Catholic.”
    That wasn’t the worst of it. Over in France, King Louis XIV suddenly decided to throw all the Protestants out of his kingdom. There were a huge number of these folk, and they had to take what possessions they could and run. Some went to the Netherlands, and before long they were arriving in New York as well. Huguenots, people called them.
    One day Meinheer Leisler came to see the Mistress in the company of one of these Huguenots, a very stately man called Monsieur Jay. And Monsieur Jay said that King James had written and congratulated King Louis for throwing all those Protestants out of his kingdom. They said that there was much discontent in England about the Catholic king. The Boss was shocked; as for the Mistress, from that time she would talk of nothing else. She said the English should revolt and throw the king out.That’s what the Dutch had done when they were under the Catholic Spanish king. The Boss said that the English were prepared to wait. For King James had no son, and his two daughters were both Protestant. In time, he said, things would return to normal. That didn’t satisfy her, though.
    And for the next two years, everyone in New York was complaining about the king.
    It was a spring day in the year 1689 when the Mistress came hurrying to the house with a big smile on her face and told us that the English had kicked King James II out of his kingdom.
    “God’s will is done,” she cried.
    The cause was a child. After years of having no more children, King James suddenly had a son, that was to be a Catholic. “Even the English wouldn’t stand for that,” she said. It seemed that in no time they’d kicked him out, and sent for his elder daughter Mary. The Glorious Revolution, they called it.
    “Not only is Mary a Protestant,” said the Mistress, “but she is married to our own William, ruler of the Netherlands. And William and Mary are to rule England together.” She was almost dancing for joy, to think that we should be under Dutch rule again.
    Soon after the Glorious Revolution came news that the Dutch and English had declared war on Catholic King Louis of France. King William’s War, they called it. We were all afraid that the Catholic French up in the far north would join the Iroquois Indians and come all the way down to New York. And the French and the Indians did attack some of the Dutch settlers far upriver. But for merchants like the Boss and Mr. Master, a war can also be a big opportunity.
    I shall always remember the sunny day