sts of the north, or the impenetrable wilderness of South America.

Thus, I hope, I have clearly proved, and strikingly illustrated, the right
of the early colonists to the possession of this country; and thus is this
gigantic question completely vanquished: so having manfully surmounted all
obstacles, and subdued all opposition, what remains but that I should
forthwith conduct my readers into the city which we have been so long in a
manner besieging? But hold: before I proceed another step I must pause to
take breath, and recover from the excessive fatigue I have undergone, in
preparing to begin this most accurate of histories. And in this I do but
imitate the example of a renowned Dutch tumbler of antiquity, who took a
start of three miles for the purpose of jumping over a hill, but having
run himself out of breath by the time he reached the foot, sat himself
quietly down for a few moments to blow, and then walked over it at his
leisure.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] Grotius: Puffendorf, b. v. c. 4, Vattel, b. i. c. 18, etc.

[20] Vattel, b. i. ch. 17.

[21] Bl. Com. b. ii. c. 1.

_BOOK II._

TREATING OF THE FIRST SETTLEMENT OF THE PROVINCE OF NIEUW NEDERLANDTS.

CHAPTER I.

My great-grandfather by the mother's side, Hermanus Van Clattercop, when
employed to build the large stone church at Rotterdam, which stands about
three hundred yards to your left after you turn off from the Boomkeys, and
which is so conveniently constructed that all the zealous Christians of
Rotterdam prefer sleeping through a sermon there to any other church in
the city--my great-grandfather, I say, when employed to build that famous
church, did in the first place send to Delft for a box of long pipes; then
having purchased a new spitting-box and a hundredweight of the best
Virginia, he sat himself down, and did nothing for the space of three
months but smoke most laboriously. Then did he spend full three months
more in trudging on foot, and voyaging in the trekschuit, from Rotterdam
to Amsterdam--to Delft--to Haerlem--to Leyden--to the Hague, knocking his
head and breaking his pipe against every church in his road. Then did he
advance gradually nearer and nearer to Rotterdam, until he came in full
sight of the identical spot whereon the church was to be built. Then did
he spend three months longer in walking round it and round it;
contemplating it, first from one point of view and then from another--now
he would be paddled by it