Let the disastrous reign of William the Testy serve as a salutary warning against that fitful, feverish mode of legislation, which acts without system; depends on shifts and projects, and trusts to lucky contingencies. Which hesitates, and wavers, and at length decides with the rashness of ignorance and imbecility. Which stoops for popularity by courting the prejudices and flattering the arrogance, rather than commanding the respect of the rabble. Which seeks safety in a multitude of counsellors, and distracts itself by a variety of contradictory schemes and opinions. Which mistakes procrastination for wariness—hurry for decision—parsimony for economy—bustle for business—and vaporing for valor. Which is violent in council, sanguine in expectation, precipitate in action, and feeble in execution. Which undertakes enterprises without forethought, enters upon them without preparation, conducts them with energy, and ends them in confusion and defeat. Let the reign of the good Stuyvesant show the effects of vigor and decision even when destitute of cool judgment, and surrounded by perplexities. Let it show how frankness, probity, and high-souled courage will command respect, and secure honor, even where success is unattainable. But at the same time, let it caution against a too ready reliance on the good faith of others, and a too honest confidence in the loving professions of powerful neighbors, who are most friendly when they most mean to betray. Let it teach a judicious attention to the opinions and wishes of the many, who, in times of peril, must be soothed and led, or apprehension will overpower the deference to authority. Let the empty wordiness of his factious subjects; their intemperate harangues; their violent “resolutions”; their hectorings against an absent enemy, and their pusillanimity on his approach, teach us to distrust and despise those clamorous patriots whose courage dwells but in the tongue. Let them serve as a lesson to repress that insolence of speech, destitute of real force, which too often breaks forth in popular bodies, and bespeaks the vanity rather than the spirit of a nation. Let them caution us against vaunting too much of our own power and prowess, and reviling a noble enemy. True gallantry of soul would always lead us to treat a foe with courtesy and proud punctilio; a contrary conduct but takes from the merit of victory, and renders defeat doubly disgraceful. But I cease to dwell on the stores of excellent examples to be drawn from the ancient chronicles of the Manhattoes. He who reads attentively will discover the threads of gold which run throughout the web of history, and are invisible to the dull eye of ignorance. But, before I conclude, let me point out a solemn warning, furnished in the subtle chain of events by which the capture of Fort Casimir has produced the present convulsions of our globe.