The enlightened inhabitants of the Manhattoes, therefore, being divided into parties, were enabled to hate each other with great accuracy. And now the great business of politics went bravely on, the long pipes and short pipes assembling in separate beer-houses, and smoking at each other with implacable vehemence, to the great support of the State and profit of the tavern-keepers. Some, indeed, went so far as to bespatter their adversaries with those odoriferous little words which smell so strong in the Dutch language, believing, like true politicians, that they served their party, and glorified themselves in proportion as they bewrayed their neighbors. But, however they might differ among themselves, all parties agreed in abusing the governor, seeing that he was not a governor of their choice, but appointed by others to rule over them. Unhappy William Kieft! exclaims the sage writer of the Stuyvesant manuscript, doomed to contend with enemies too knowing to be entrapped, and to reign over a people too wise to be governed. All his foreign expeditious were baffled and set at naught by the all-pervading Yankees; all his home measures were canvassed and condemned by “numerous and respectable meetings” of pot-house politicians. In the multitude of counsellors, we are told, there is safety; but the multitude of counsellors was a continual source of perplexity to William Kieft. With a temperament as hot as an old radish, and a mind subject to perpetual whirlwinds and tornadoes, he never failed to get into a passion with every one who undertook to advise him. I have observed, however, that your passionate little men, like small boats with large sails, are easily upset or blown out of their course; so was it with William the Testy, who was prone to be carried away by the last piece of advice blown into his ear. The consequence was, that, though a projector of the first class, yet by continually changing his projects he gave none a fair trial; and by endeavoring to do everything, he in sober truth did nothing. [Illustration: A POT-HOUSE POLITICIAN. ] In the meantime, the sovereign people got into the saddle, showed themselves, as usual, unmerciful riders; spurring on the little governor with harangues and petitions, and thwarting him with memorials and reproaches, in much the same way as holiday apprentices manage an unlucky devil of a hack-horse,—so that Wilhelmus Kieft was kept at a worry or a gallop throughout the whole of his administration. [Illustration: A vintage pen-and-ink drawing showing the back of a wooden cart loaded with sacks; a woman holding a child sits on top, while a man in a hat stands to the right.] =Chapter IX.= OF THE FOLLY OF BEING HAPPY IN TIME OF PROSPERITY—OF TROUBLES TO THE SOUTH BROUGHT ON BY ANNEXATION—OF THE SECRET EXPEDITION OF JAN JANSEN ALPENDAM, AND HIS MAGNIFICENT REWARD.