military authorities of New York notice that
they were going to take that town, and granted them thirty minutes to
make up their minds whether they would give it up or not. When the
thirty minutes elapsed, six hundred Dutch troops were landed just back
of where Trinity Church now is, and New York became New Amsterdam again.
Then how did we lose it? Because the Dutch States-General, which did not
know enough, in deciding between New York and Surinam, to choose New
York, took Surinam, and they have been wishing ever since they never had
been born. Now talk about anybody conquering the Dutch! We generally get
there. They sometimes say: "That is all very well, they were very brave
people and all that, but they don't do anything now." Waterloo, Van
Speyk, Majuba Hill, and the Boers of the Transvaal show what their
courage has been in the later generations. What are the Dutch? Why, we
are the salt of the earth! We do not pretend to be the bread and butter
and the cheese, but we are the salt [laughter], and I think the Boers in
South Africa very lately salted some people I know of. [Great laughter
and applause.]

If you want to see a city that is well salted, look at New York. Go to
the St. Nicholas Society dinner and see that grand assembly; if there is
ever a society in New York that is well salted with Dutch, that is, and
we are all proud of it. And so it is with every other society, New York
society, but not on the paternal side! [Great laughter and applause.]

But if you want to see a place where the Yankee is salt, pepper, bread,
butter, and everything, go to Boston. It is a great city. That is all
right. But we prefer New York, and we prefer just what God has ordained
us to be--the people not always getting the credit of it, but always
accomplishing all the good that is ever accomplished on the face of the
earth! [Laughter and applause.] Now you may think that I have not
whooped it up enough for the Dutch [great laughter], so I will go on,
just for a minute.

The State of North Carolina is always talking about having had a
Declaration of Independence in Mecklenburg County, about six months
before they had one in Philadelphia. Why, the Dutch farmers up in the
Mamacotting Valley of Ulster County signed a Declaration of Independence
in April, 1775, and they would have signed it six months before if the
New York Council of Safety had given it to them! [Laughter.] This same
New England gentleman to whom I have alluded--I