A History of New York (26 page)

Such were the admirable improvements of William Kieft in criminal law—nor was his civil code less a matter of wonderment, and much does it grieve me that the limits of my work will not suffer me to expatiate on both, with the prolixity they deserve. Let it suffice then to say; that in a little while the blessings of innumerable laws became notoriously apparent. It was soon found necessary to have a certain class of men to expound and confound them—divers pettifoggers accordingly made their appearance, under whose protecting care the community was soon set together by the ears.

I would not here, for the whole world, be thought to insinuate any thing derogatory to the profession of the law, or to its dignified members. Well am I aware, that we have in this ancient city an innumerable host of worthy gentlemen, who have embraced that honourable order, not for the sordid love of filthy lucre, or the selfish cravings of renown, but through no other motives under heaven, but a fervent zeal for the correct administration of justice, and a generous and disinterested devotion to the interests of their fellow citizens!—Sooner would I throw this trusty pen into the flames, and cork up my ink bottle forever (which is the worst punishment a maggot brained author can inflict upon himself) than infringe even for a nail's breadth upon the dignity of this truly benevolent class of citizens—on the contrary I allude solely to that crew of caitiff scouts who in these latter days of evil have become so numerous—who infest the skirts of the profession, as did the recreant Cornish knights the honourable order of chivalry—who, under its auspices, commit their depredations on society—who thrive by quibbles, quirks and chicanery, and like vermin swarm most, where there is most corruption.

Nothing so soon awakens the malevolent passions as the facility of gratification. The courts of law would never be so constantly crowded with petty, vexatious and disgraceful suits, were it not for the herds of pettifogging lawyers that infest them. These tamper with the passions of the lower and more ignorant classes; who, as if poverty was not a sufficient misery in itself, are always ready to heighten it, by the bitterness of litigation. They are in law what quacks are in medicine—exciting the malady for the purpose of profiting by the cure, and retarding the cure, for the purpose of augmenting the fees. Where one destroys the constitution, the other impoverishes the purse; and it may likewise be observed, that a patient, who has once been under the hands of a quack, is ever after dabbling in drugs, and poisoning himself with infallible remedies; and an ignorant man who has once meddled with the law under the auspices of one of these empyrics, is forever after embroiling himself with his neighbours, and impoverishing himself with successful law suits.—My readers will excuse this digression into which I have been unwarily betrayed; but I could not avoid giving a cool, unprejudiced account of an abomination too prevalent in this excellent city, and with the effects of which I am unluckily acquainted to my cost; having been nearly ruined by a law suit, which was unjustly decided against me—and my ruin having been completed, by another which was decided in my favour.

It is an irreparable loss to posterity, that of the innumerable laws enacted by William the Testy, which doubtless formed a code that might have vied with those of Solon, Lycurgus or Sancho Panza, but few have been handed down to the present day, among which the most important is one framed in an unlucky moment, to prohibit the universal practice of smoking. This he proved by mathematical demonstration, to be not merely a heavy tax upon the public pocket, but an incredible consumer of time, a hideous encourager of idleness, and of course a deadly bane to the morals of the people. Ill fated Kieft!—had he lived in this most enlightened and libel loving age, and attempted to subvert the inestimable liberty of the press, he could not have struck more closely, upon the sensibilities of the million.

The populace were in as violent a turmoil as the constitutional gravity of their deportment would permit—a mob of factious citizens had even the hardihood to assemble around the little governor's house, where setting themselves resolutely down, like a besieging army before a fortress, they one and all fell to smoking with a determined perseverance, that plainly evinced it was their intention, to funk him into terms with villainous Cow-pen mundungus!—Already was the stately mansion of the governor enveloped in murky clouds, and the puissant little man, almost strangled in his hole, when bethinking himself, that there was no instance on record, of any great man of antiquity perishing in so ignoble a manner (the case of Pliny the elder being the only one that bore any resemblance)—he was fain to come to terms, and compromise with the mob, on condition that they should spare his life, by immediately extinguishing their tobacco pipes.

The result of the armistice was, that though he continued to permit the custom of smoking, yet did he abolish the fair long pipes which prevailed in the days of Wouter Van Twiller, denoting ease, tranquillity and sobriety of deportment, and in place thereof introduced little captious short pipes, two inches in length; which he observed could be stuck in one corner of the mouth, or twisted in the hatband, and would not be in the way of business. But mark, oh reader! the deplorable consequences. The smoke of these villainous little pipes—continually ascending in a cloud about the nose, penetrated into and befogged the cerebellum, dried up all the kindly moisture of the brain, and rendered the people as vapourish and testy as their renowned little governor—nay, what is more, from a goodly burley race of folk, they became, like our honest dutch farmers, who smoke short pipes, a lanthorn-jawed, smoak-dried, leathern-hided race of men.

Indeed it has been remarked by the observant writer of the Stuyvesant manuscript, that under the administration of Wilhelmus Kieft the disposition of the inhabitants of New Amsterdam experienced an essential change, so that they became very meddlesome and factious. The constant exacerbations of temper into which the little governor was thrown, by the maraudings on his frontiers, and his unfortunate propensity to experiment and innovation, occasioned him to keep his council in a continual worry—and the council being to the people at large, what yeast or leaven is to a batch, they threw the whole community into a ferment—and the people at large being to the city, what the mind is to the body, the unhappy commotions they underwent operated most disastrously, upon New Amsterdam-insomuch, that in certain of their paroxysms of consternation and perplexity, they begat several of the most crooked, distorted and abominable streets, lanes and alleys, with which this metropolis is disfigured.

But the worst of the matter was, that just about this time the mob, since called the sovereign people, like Balaam's ass, began to grow more enlightened than its rider, and exhibited a strange desire of governing itself. This was another effect of the “universal acquirements” of William the Testy. In some of his pestilent researches among the rubbish of antiquity, he was struck with admiration at the institution of public tables among the Lacedemonians, where they discussed topics of a general and interesting nature—at the schools of the philosophers, where they engaged in profound disputes upon politics and morals—where grey beards were taught the rudiments of wisdom, and youths learned to become little men, before they were boys. “There is nothing” said the ingenious Kieft, shutting up the book, “there is nothing more essential to the well management of a country, than education among the people; the basis of a good government, should be laid in the public mind.”—Now this was true enough, but it was ever the wayward fate of William the Testy, that when he thought right, he was sure to go to work wrong. In the present instance he could scarcely eat or sleep, until he had set on foot brawling debating societies, among the simple citizens of New Amsterdam. This was the one thing wanting to complete his confusion. The honest Dutch burghers, though in truth but little given to argument or wordy altercation, yet by dint of meeting often together, fuddling themselves with strong drink, beclouding their brains with tobacco smoke, and listening to the harangues of some half a dozen oracles, soon became exceedingly wise, and—as is always the case where the mob is politically enlightened—exceedingly discontented. They found out, with wonderful quickness of discernment, the fearful error in which they had indulged, in fancying themselves the happiest people in creation—and were fortunately convinced, that, all circumstances to the contrary notwithstanding, they were a very unhappy, deluded, and consequently, ruined people!

In a short time the quidnuncs of New Amsterdam formed themselves into sage juntos of political croakers, who daily met together to groan over public affairs, and make themselves miserable; thronging to these unhappy assemblages with the same eagerness, that your zealots have in all ages abandoned the milder and more peaceful paths of religion to crowd to the howling convocations of fanaticism. We are naturally prone to discontent, and avaricious after imaginary causes of lamentation—like lubberly monks we belabour our own shoulders, and seem to take a vast satisfaction in the music of our own groans. Nor is this said for the sake of paradox; daily experience shews the truth of these sage observations. It is next to a farce to offer consolation, or to think of elevating the spirits of a man, groaning under ideal calamities; but nothing is more easy than to render him wretched, though on the pinnacle of felicity; as it is an Herculean task to hoist a man to the top of a steeple, though the merest child can topple him off thence.

In the sage assemblages I have noticed, the philosophic reader will at once perceive the faint germs of those sapient convocations called popular meetings, prevalent at our day—Hither resorted all those idlers and “squires of low degree,” who like rags, hang loose upon the back of society, and are ready to be blown away by every wind of doctrine. Coblers abandoned their stalls and hastened hither to give lessons on political economy—blacksmiths left their handicraft and suffered their own fires to go out, while they blew the bellows and stirred up the fire of faction; and even taylors, though but the shreds and patches, the ninth parts of humanity, neglected their own measures, to attend to the measures of government—Nothing was wanting but half a dozen newspapers and patriotic editors, to have completed this public illumination and to have thrown the whole province in an uproar!

I should not forget to mention, that these popular meetings were always held at a noted tavern; for houses of that description, have always been found the most congenial nurseries of politicks; abounding with those genial streams which give strength and sustenance to faction—We are told that the ancient Germans, had an admirable mode of treating any question of importance; they first deliberated upon it when drunk, and afterwards reconsidered it, when sober. The shrewder mobs of America, who dislike having two minds upon a subject, both determine and act upon it drunk; by which means a world of cold and tedious speculation is dispensed with—and as it is universally allowed that when a man is drunk he sees
double,
it follows most conclusively that he sees twice as well as his sober neighbours.

 

 

 

For some time however, the worthy politicians of New Amsterdam, who had thus conceived the sublime project of saving the nation, were very much perplexed by dissentions, and strange contrariety of opinions among themselves, so that they were often thrown into the most chaotic uproar and confusion, and all for the simple want of party classification. Now it is a fact well known to your experienced politicians, that it is equally necessary to have a distinct classification and nomenclature in politics, as in the physical sciences. By this means the several orders of patriots, with their breedings and cross breedings, their affinities and varieties may be properly distinguished and known. Thus have arisen in different quarters of the world the generic titles of Guelfs and Ghibbelins—Round heads and Cavaliers—Big endians and Little endians—Whig and Tory-Aristocrat and Democrat—Republican and Jacobin—Federalist and Anti-federalist, together with a certain mongrel party called
Quid;
which seems to have been engendered between the two last mentioned parties, as a mule is produced between an horse and an ass—and like a mule it seems incapable of procreation, fit only for humble drudgery, doomed to bear successively the burthen of father and mother, and to be cudgelled soundly for its pains.

The important benefit of these distinctions is obvious. How many very strenuous and hard working patriots are there, whose knowledge is bounded by the political vocabulary, and who, were they not thus arranged in parties would never know their own minds, or which way to think on a subject; so that by following their own common sense the community might often fall into that unanimity, which has been clearly proved, by many excellent writers, to be fatal to the welfare of a republick. Often have I seen a very well meaning hero of seventy six, most horribly puzzled to make up his opinion about certain men and measures, and running a great risk of thinking right; until all at once he resolved his doubts by resorting to the old touch stone of
Whig
and
Tory;
which titles, though they bear about as near an affinity to the present parties in being, as do the robustious statues of Gog and Magog, to the worthy London Aldermen, who devour turtle under their auspices at Guild-Hall; yet are they used on all occasions by the sovereign people, as a pair of spectacles, through which they are miraculously enabled to see beyond their own noses, and to distinguish a hawk from a hand saw, or an owl from a turkey buzzard!

Well was it recorded in holy writ, “the horse knoweth his rider, and the ass his master's crib,” for when the sovereign people are thus harnessed out, and properly yoked together, it is delectable to behold with what system and harmony they jog onward, trudging through mud and mire, obeying the commands of their drivers, and dragging the scurvy dung carts of faction at their heels. How many a patriotic member of congress have I known, loyally disposed to adhere to his party through thick and thin, but who would often, from sheer ignorance, or the dictates of conscience and common sense, have stumbled into the ranks of his adversaries, and advocated the opposite side of the question, had not the parties been thus broadly designated by generic titles.