by flagstaffs, trumpeters, and wind-mills, seemed, like some fair lady of easy virtue, to lie open to attack, and ready to yield to the first invader. [Illustration: A vintage pen-and-ink drawing of a traditional tower windmill with four large sails, standing on a small grassy mound.] =Chapter II.= SHOWING HOW PETER THE HEADSTRONG BESTIRRED HIMSELF AMONG THE RATS AND COBWEBS ON ENTERING INTO OFFICE—HIS INTERVIEW WITH ANTONY THE TRUMPETER, AND HIS PERILOUS MEDDLING WITH THE CURRENCY. The very first movements of the great Peter, on taking the reins of government, displayed his magnanimity, though they occasioned not a little marvel and uneasiness among the people of the Manhattoes. Finding himself constantly interrupted by the opposition, and annoyed by the advice of his privy council, the members of which had acquired the unreasonable habit of thinking and speaking for themselves during the preceding reign, he determined at once to put a stop to such grievous abominations. Scarcely, therefore, had he entered upon his authority, than he turned out of office all the meddlesome spirits of the factious cabinet of William the Testy; in place of whom he chose unto himself counsellors from those fat, somniferous, respectable burghers who had flourished and slumbered under the easy reign of Walter the Doubter. All these he caused to be furnished with abundance of fair long pipes, and to be regaled with frequent corporation dinners, admonishing them to smoke, and eat, and sleep for the good of the nation, while he took the burden of government upon his own shoulders—an arrangement to which they all gave hearty acquiescence. Nor did he stop here, but made a hideous rout among the inventions and expedients of his learned predecessor,—rooting up his patent gallows, where caitiff vagabonds were suspended by the waistband,—demolishing his flagstaffs and wind-mills, which, like mighty giants, guarded the ramparts of New Amsterdam,—pitching to the duyvel whole batteries of quaker guns,—and, in a word, turning topsy-turvy the whole philosophic, economic, and wind-mill system of the immortal sage of Saardam.