Part 12 (2/2)
Fortunately, or so it seemed, we had a favoring wind, and within four and twenty hours from the time of making sail, were come to anchor off the fort. That those who had been sent across by land had arrived, we knew because of the numbers to be seen on duty in the bastions, and that the Indians had not made further attack upon New Amsterdam, we also understood because of the people who were gathered to give us welcome.
I went directly from the s.h.i.+p to the storehouse, where I found Kryn Gildersleeve and his fellow clerks working valiantly to pack our goods into cases, which had been brought from Holland, with the hope that these might be saved, even though the savages gained possession of the town.
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Although I held my peace, the thought was in my heart that he who could give his time to the saving of such useless trinkets as ours, when mayhap before morning not a single white man would be alive, was much the same as trifling with the Angel of Death.
However, I was soon engaged in the same task, and while thus busy, forgot everything save the fact that I was the clerk in charge of the storehouse, whose duty it was to look after whatsoever we had for barter, whether to my mind it was of value or not.
COAXING THE SAVAGES
And now I have to tell you that which bears witness to Master Petrus Stuyvesant's ability as a ruler. Although I never felt friendly disposed towards him, because of thinking myself neglected, there is enough of honesty in my heart to give praise where it is due.
When Master Kieft was governor of New Amsterdam, and through his folly had caused the Indians to seek revenge, he did no more than meet them with powder and ball, widening the breach between the brown and the white men day by day; but our Director, stern and unyielding as he had ever shown himself to be, had so much of wisdom that he knew when it was useless to beat his head against a wall of stone.
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With so many of the savages risen against us, all the white men whom we could muster would not have been sufficient to hold them in check; to wage war with them would have meant the utter wiping out of the Dutch in America.
Therefore it was that Master Stuyvesant, instead of seeking to punish those who had attacked our people, set about coaxing them into a friendly mood, and during the three or four weeks which followed our return from Trinity and Christina, there was a continual coming and going of messengers from the Director to the savage chiefs, who were to be brought, through Master Stuyvesant's plans, to a peaceable life by the means of gaudy toys.
And all this Master Stuyvesant succeeded in doing. Before the winter's snows were come, the savages were seemingly friendly with us once more, it being understood that past crimes, whether committed by white men or brown, were to be forgotten, and, so to speak, all of us who were dwelling in and around the land claimed by the West India Company, were to live on terms of friends.h.i.+p.
INTERFERENCE WITH RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
It must be remembered, that when the West India Company asked people to go out and live in the New World, every one was promised that he should wors.h.i.+p G.o.d as seemed to him best.
This was a portion of the bargain made when the people left Holland, and yet before another spring had come, Master Stuyvesant declared, by written notices and by the mouth of Stoffel Mighielsen, that no person would be allowed to praise G.o.d save he did it according to the belief and the rules of the Dutch Reformed Church.
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It was on a certain Easter Monday, when all over the city the young men and maidens were playing at egg cracking, that Master Stuyvesant's plan for punis.h.i.+ng those who did not choose to go to the same church as did he, was begun.
The Dutch had brought with them from Holland all the old games such as are played to-day; but the favorite among them was the cracking of eggs on Easter Monday, and I dare venture to say every young person in this land of America knows the game well by this time.
The shops were gay with boiled eggs of various colors, hung in the windows by many-colored ribbons, and it is not much straining at the truth to say that every person in New Amsterdam, save those who, like the soldiers, could not leave their posts of duty, was in the street, walking to and fro watching the young people as they strove to see how many eggs they could capture by cracking them, when a Quaker, and an Englishman at that, was taken into custody for preaching nearby New Amsterdam without permission of Master Stuyvesant.
Although this was directly opposite to what the West India Company had said might be done in such portion of the new land as they claimed, it would have pa.s.sed almost unheeded had the arrest been made quietly; but, so I have heard it said, and so I believe, Master Stuyvesant himself gave positive commands as to how the prisoner should be treated, and what should be done with him before he was lodged in jail.
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