to establish a permanent peace with the
savages; but Kieft, who still seemed to thirst for blood, made it an
occasion for treachery and death.

One dark, cold night, late in February, 1643, when the snow fell fast,
and the wind blew loud and shrill, and there was not a star to be seen
in the sky, eighty men were sent by Kieft to attack the fugitives at
Hoboken and those at "Colaer's Hook," who were slumbering in fancied
security. Forty of those at the Hook were massacred, while the
Hollanders, who had stealthily crossed the river through floating ice,
were making the snows at Hoboken crimson with blood of confiding Indians
and lighting up the heavens with the blaze of their wigwams. They
spared neither age nor sex. "Warrior and squaw, sachem and child, mother
and babe," says Brodhead, "were alike massacred. Daybreak scarcely ended
the furious slaughter. Mangled victims, seeking safety in the thickets,
were driven into the river, and parents, rushing to save their
children, whom the soldiery had thrown into the stream, were driven into
the waters and drowned before the eyes of their unrelenting murderers."

[Illustration: KIEFT, FROM THE RAMPARTS, WATCHED THE BURNING WIGWAMS.]

It has been estimated that fully one hundred perished in this ruthless
butchery. Historians state that Kieft, from the ramparts at Fort
Amsterdam, watched the burning wigwams. This treachery and wholesale
murder roused the fiery hatred of the savages and kindled a war so
fierce that Kieft was frightened by the fury of the tempest which his
wickedness and folly had raised, and he humbly asked the people to
choose a few men again to act as his counsellors. The colonists, who had
lost all confidence in the governor, chose eight citizens to relieve
them from the fearful net of difficulties in which they were involved.
Almost the first these eight advisers did was to ask the states-general
at home to recall Governor Kieft, which was promptly done, and while on
his way to Europe with his ill-gotten gains, his vessel went down, and
the governor perished.

Peter Stuyvesant, the brave soldier who had lost a leg in the West
Indies, was sent as governor to New Amsterdam, and he arrived in May,
1647. The stern, stubborn old soldier was received with great
demonstrations of joy by the Hollanders. Despite all his stubbornness,
Stuyvesant was a man of keen sagacity. He was despotic, yet honest and
wise. He set about some much needed reforms, refusing to sell