that
it is scarcely possible to distinguish the truth from the fiction with
which it is enveloped. This is a grievance which I have more than once had
to lament, in the course of my wearisome researches among the works of my
fellow-historians, who have strangely disguised and distorted the facts
respecting this country, and particularly respecting the great province of
New Netherlands, as will be perceived by any who will take the trouble to
compare their romantic effusions, tricked out in the meretricious gauds of
fable, with this authentic history.

I have had more vexations of the kind to encounter, in those parts of my
history which treat of the transactions on the eastern border than in any
other, in consequence of the troops of historians who have infested those
quarters, and have shown the honest people of Nieuw Nederlands no mercy in
their works. Among the rest, Mr. Benjamin Trumbull arrogantly declares
that "the Dutch were always mere intruders." Now, to this I shall make no
other reply than to proceed in the steady narration of my history, which
will contain not only proofs that the Dutch had clear title and possession
in the fair valleys of the Connecticut, and that they were wrongfully
dispossessed thereof, but, likewise, that they have been scandalously
maltreated ever since by the misrepresentations of the crafty historians
of New England. And in this I shall be guided by a spirit of truth and
impartiality, and a regard to immortal fame; for I would not wittingly
dishonor my work by a single falsehood, misrepresentation, or prejudice,
though it should gain our forefathers the whole country of New England.

I have already noticed, in a former chapter of my history that the
territories of the Nieuw Nederlandts extended on the east quite to the
Varsche, or Fresh, or Connecticut River. Here, at an early period, had
been established a frontier post on the bank of the river, and called Fort
Goed Hoop, not far from the site of the present fair city of Hartford. It
was placed under the command of Jacobus Van Curlet, or Curlis, as some
historians will have it, a doughty soldier, of that stomachful class
famous for eating all they kill. He was long in the body and short in the
limb, as though a tall man's body had been mounted on a little man's legs.
He made up for this turnspit construction by striding to such an extent,
that you would have sworn he had on the seven-leagued boots of Jack the
Giant Killer; and so hi