So insolent and mutinous a request would have been enough to have roused the gorge of the tranquil Van Twiller himself,—what then must have been its effect upon the great Stuyvesant, who was not only a Dutchman, a governor, and a valiant wooden-legged soldier to boot, but withal a man of the most stomachful and gun-powder disposition? He burst forth into a blaze of indignation,—swore not a mother’s son of them should see a syllable of it,—that as to their advice or concurrence, he did not care a whiff of tobacco for either,—that they might go home, and go to bed like old women; for he was determined to defend the colony himself, without the assistance of them or their adherents! So saying he tucked his sword under his arm, cocked his hat upon his head, and girding up his loins, stumped indignantly out of the council-chamber, everybody making room for him as he passed. No sooner was he gone than the busy burgomasters called a public meeting in front of the Stadthouse, where they appointed as chairman one Dofue Roerback, formerly a meddlesome member of the cabinet during the reign of William the Testy, but kicked out of office by Peter Stuyvesant on taking the reins of government. He was, withal, a mighty gingerbread baker in the land, and reverenced by the populace as a man of dark knowledge, seeing that he was the first to imprint New-Year cakes with the mysterious hieroglyphics of the Cock and Breeches, and such like magical devices. This burgomaster, who still chewed the cud of ill-will against Peter Stuyvesant, addressed the multitude in what is called a patriotic speech, informing them of the courteous summons which the governor had received, to surrender, of his refusal to comply therewith, and of his denying the public even a sight of the summons, which doubtless contained conditions highly to the honor and advantage of the province. [Illustration: “A PUBLIC MEETING IN FRONT OF THE STADTHOUSE.” ] He then proceeded to speak of his Excellency in high-sounding terms of vituperation, suited to the dignity of his station; comparing him to Nero, Caligula, and other flagrant great men of yore; assuring the people that the history of the world did not contain a despotic outrage equal to the present. That it would be recorded in letters of fire, on the blood-stained tablet of history! That ages would roll back with sudden horror when they came to view it! That the womb of time (by the way, your orators and writers take strange liberties with the womb of time, though some would fain have us believe that time is an old gentleman)—that the womb of time, pregnant as it was with direful horrors, would never produce a parallel enormity!—with a variety of other heart-rending, soul-stirring tropes and figures, which I cannot enumerate; neither, indeed, need I, for they were of the kind which even to the present day form the style of popular harangues and patriotic orations, and may be classed in rhetoric under the general title of RIGMAROLE.