the most commanding bitter-looking, and soldier-like figures that ever strutted upon canvas. Proceed we now to inquire the cause of this warlike preparation.

The encroaching disposition of the Swedes, on the south, or Delaware river, has been duly recorded in the chronicles of the reign of William the Testy. These encroachments having been endured with that heroic magnanimity, which is the corner-stone, or, according to Aristotle, the left hand neighbour of true courage, had been repeated and wickedly aggravated. The Swedes, who were of that class of cunning pretenders to Christianity, who read the Bible upside down, whenever it interferes with their interests, inverted the golden maxim; and when their neighbour suffered them to smite him on the one cheek, they generally smote him on the other also, whether turned to them or not. Their repeated aggressions had been among the numerous sources of vexation, that conspired to keep the irritable sensibilities of Wilhelmus Kieft in a constant fever; and it was only owing to the unfortunate circumstance, that he had always a hundred things to do at once, that he did not take such unrelenting vengeance as their offences merited. But they had now a chieftain of a different character to deal with; and they were soon guilty of a piece of treachery, that threw his honest blood in a ferment, and precluded all further sufferance.

Printz, the governor of the province of New-Sweden, being either deceased or removed, for of this fact some uncertainty exists, was succeeded by Jan Risingh, a gigantic Swede, and who, had he not been rather knock-kneed and splay-footed, might have served for the model of a Samson, or a Hercules. He was no less rapacious than mighty, and withal as crafty as he was rapacious; so that, in fact, there is very little doubt, had he lived some four or five centuries before, he would have been one of those wicked giants, who took such a cruel pleasure in pocketing distressed damsels, when gadding about the world; and locking them up in enchanted castles, without a toilet, a change of linen, or any other convenience-in consequence of which enormities, they fell under the high displeasure of chivalry, and all true, loyal, and gallant knights, were instructed to attack and slay outright, any miscreant they might happen to find, above six feet high; which is doubtless one reason that the race of large men is nearly extinct, and the generations of latter ages so exceeding small. No sooner did Governor Risingh enter

upon his office, than he immediately cast his eyes upon the important post of Fort Casimir, and formed the righteous resolution of taking it into his possession. The only thing that remained to consider, was the mode of carrying his resolution into effect; and here I must do him the justice to say, that he exhibited a humanity rarely to be met with among leaders, and which I have never seen equalled in modern times, excepting among the English, in their glorious affair at Copenhagen. Willing to spare the effusion of blood, and the miseries of open warfare, he benevolently shunned every thing like avowed hostility or regular siege, and resorted to the less glorious, but more merciful expedient of treachery. Under pretence, therefore, of paying a neighbourly visit to General Von Poffenburgh, at his new post of Fort Casimir, he made requisite preparation, sailed in great state up the Delaware, displayed his flag with the most ceremonious punctilio, and honoured the fortress with a royal salute, previous to dropping anchor. The unusual noise awakened a veteran Dutch sentinel, who was napping faithfully at his post, and who having suffered his match to go out, contrived to return the compliment, by discharging his rusty musket with the spark of a pipe, which he borrowed from one of his comrades. The salute indeed would have been answered by the guns of the fort, had they not unfortunately been out of order, and the magazine deficient in ammunition—accidents to which forts have in all ages been liable, and which were the more excusable in the present instance, as Fort Casimir had only been erected about two years, and General Von Poffenburgh, its mighty commander, had been fully occupied with matters of much greater importance. Risingh, highly satisfied with this courteous reply to his salute, treated the fort to a second, for he well knew its commander was marvellously delighted with these little ceremonials, which he considered as so many acts of homage paid unto his greatHe then landed in great state, attended by a suite of thirty men-a prodigious and vainglorious retinue, for a petty governor of a petty settlement, in those days of primitive simplicity; and to the full as great an army as generally swells the pomp and marches in the rear of our frontier commanders at the present day. The number in fact might have awakened suspicion, had not the mind of the great Von Poffenburgh been so completely engrossed with an all-pervading idea of himself, that he had not room to admit a thought besides. In fact he considered the concourse of Risingh's

ness.

followers as a compliment to himself-so apt are great men to stand between themselves and the sun, and completely eclipse the truth by their own shadow.

It may readily be imagined how much General Von Poffenburgh was flattered by a visit from so august a personage; his only embarrassment was, how he should receive him in such a manner as to appear to the greatest advantage, and make the most advantageous impression. The main guard was ordered immediately to turn out, and the arms and regimentals (of which the garrison possessed full half-a-dozen suits) were equally distributed among the soldiers. One tall lank fellow appeared in a coat intended for a small man, the skirts of which reached a little below his waist, the buttons were between his shoulders, and the sleeves half-way to his wrists, so that his hands looked like a couple of huge spades; and the coat not being large enough to meet in front, was linked together by loops, made of a pair of red worsted garters. Another had an old cocked-hat, stuck on the back of his head, and decorated with a bunch of cock's tails a third had a pair of rusty gaiters hanging about his heels while a fourth, who was a short duck-legged little Trojan, was equipped in a huge pair of the general's cast-off breeches, which he held up with one hand, while he grasped his firelock with the other. The rest were accoutred in similar style, excepting three graceless ragamuffins, who had no shirts, and but a pair and half of breeches between them, wherefore they were sent to the black-hole, to keep them out of view. There is nothing in which the talents of a prudent commander are more completely testified, than in thus setting matters off to the greatest advantage; and it is for this reason that our frontier posts at the present day (that of Niagara for example) display their best suit of regimentals on the back of the sentinel who stands in sight of travellers. His men being thus gallantly arrayed-those who lacked muskets, shouldering spades, and pickaxes, and every man being ordered to tuck in his shirt-tail and pull up his brogues-General Von Poffenburgh first took a sturdy draught of foaming ale, which, like the magnanimous More of Morehall, was his invariable practice on all great occasions; which done, he put himself at their head, ordered the pine planks, which served as a drawbridge, to be laid down, and issued forth from his castle, like a mighty giant, just refreshed with wine. But when the two heroes met, then began a scene of warlike parade and chivalric courtesy, that beggars all de

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scription. Risingh, who, as I before hinted, was a shrewd, cunning politician, and had grown grey much before b time, in consequence of his craftiness, saw at one glan ruling passion of the great Von Poffenburgh, and hum him in all his valorous fantasies. Their detachments wer cordingly drawn up in front of each other; they c arms, and they presented arms; they gave the standi lute and the passing salute:-they rolled their drums, flourished their fifes, and they waved their coloursfaced to the left, and they faced to the right, and they to the right about:-they wheeled forward, and they v. ed backward, and they wheeled into echelon :-they ma and they counter-marched, by grand divisions, by single d sions, and by subdivisions-by platoons, by sections, a files-in quick time, in slow time, and in no time at all having gone through all the evolutions of two great armi cluding the eighteen manoeuvres of Dundas; having ex ed all that they could recollect or imagine of military t including sundry strange and irregular evolutions, the which were never seen before or since, excepting among c of our newly raised militia-the two great commander their respective troops came at length to a dead halt, or pletely exhausted by the toils of war. Never did two train band captains, or two buskined theatric heroes, in renowned tragedies of Pizarro, Tom Thumb, or any heroical and fighting tragedy, marshal their gallows-looks duck-legged, heavy-heeled myrmidons, with more glor self-admiration.

These military compliments being finished, Genera Poffenburgh escorted his illustrious visitor, with great mony, into the fort; attended him throughout the for tions; showed him the horn-works, crown-works, moons, and various other out-works; or rather the where they ought to be erected; and where they mig erected if he pleased; plainly demonstrating that it place of great capability,' and though at present but a redoubt, yet that it evidently was a formidable fortress, in embryo. This survey over, he next had the whole garrison put under arms, exercised and reviewed, and concluded by ordering the three bridewell birds to be hauled out of the black hole, brought up to the halberts, and soundly flogged, for the amusement of his visitor, and to convince him that he was a great disciplinarian.

There is no error more dangerous than for a commander

toke known the strength, or, as in the present case, the ness of his garrison; this will be exemplified before I he arrived to an end of my present story, which thus car its moral, like a roasted goose his pudding, in the very ddle. The cunning Risingh, while he pretended to be uck dumb outright, with the puissance of the great Von ffenburgh, took silent note of the incompetency of his garon, of which he gave a hint to his trusty followers, who ped each other the wink, and laughed most obstreperously in their sleeves.

The inspection, review, and flogging being concluded, the rty adjourned to the table; for among his other great quaes, the general was remarkably addicted to huge enternments, or rather carousals; and in one afternoon's mpaign would leave more dead men on the field, than he er did in the whole course of his military career. Many lletins of these bloodless victories do still remain on rerd; and the whole province was once thrown in amaze, the return of one of his campaigns; wherein it was ted, that though, like Captain Bobadil, he had only twenmen to back him-yet, in the short space of six months, had conquered and utterly annihilated sixty oxen, bety hogs, one hundred sheep, ten thousand cabbages, thousand bushels of potatoes, one hundred and fifty erkins of small beer, two thousand seven hundred and y-five pipes, seventy-eight pounds of sugar-plums, and bars of iron, besides sundry small meats, game, poultry, garden-stuff; an achievement unparalleled since the of Pantagruel, and his all-devouring army; and which ed that it was only necessary to let bellipotent Von nburgh and his garrison loose in an enemy's country, In a little while they would breed a famine, and starve inhabitants. No sooner, therefore, had the general d the first intimation of the visit of Governor Risingh, ordered a great dinner to be prepared; and privately a detachment of his most experienced veterans, to the hen-roosts in the neighbourhood, and lay the

under contribution-a service to which they had heong inured, and which they discharged with such incredible zeal and promptitude, that the garrison table groaned under the weight of their spoils.

wish, with all my heart, my readers could see the valanton Poffenburgh, as he presided at the head of the baret. it was a sight worth beholding :-there he sat, in