Methinks I at this moment behold him in my imagination, or rather, I behold his goodly portrait, which still hangs up in the family mansion of the Stuyvesants, arrayed in all the terrors of a true Dutch general. His regimental coat of German blue, gorgeously decorated with a goodly show of large brass buttons, reaching from his waistband to his chin; the voluminous skirts turned up at the corners and separating gallantly behind, so as to display the seat of a sumptuous pair of brimstone-colored trunk breeches; a graceful style still prevalent among the warriors of our day, and which is in conformity to the custom of ancient heroes, who scorned to defend themselves in rear. His face rendered exceeding terrible and warlike by a pair of black mustachios; his hair strutting out on each side in stiffly pomatumed ear-locks, and descending in a rat-tail queue below his waist; a shining stock of black leather supporting his chin, and a little but fierce cocked hat, stuck with a gallant and fiery air over his left eye. Such was the chivalric port of Peter the Headstrong; and when he made a sudden halt, planted himself firmly on his solid supporter, with his wooden leg, inlaid with silver, a little in advance, in order to strengthen his position, his right hand grasping a gold-headed cane, his left resting upon the pommel of his sword, his head dressing spiritedly to the right, with a most appalling and hard-favored frown upon his brow,—he presented altogether one of the most commanding, bitter-looking, and soldier-like figures that ever strutted upon canvas.—Proceed we now to inquire the cause of this warlike preparation. In the preceding chapter we have spoken of the founding of Fort Casimir, and of the merciless warfare waged by its commander upon cabbages, sunflowers, and pumpkins, for want of better occasion to flesh his sword. Now it came to pass, that, higher up the Delaware, at his stronghold of Tinnekonk, resided one Jan Printz, who styled himself Governor of New Sweden. If history belie not this redoubtable Swede, he was a rival worthy of the windy and inflated commander of Fort Casimir, for master David Pieterzen de Vrie, in his excellent book of voyages, describes him as “weighing upwards of four hundred pounds,” a huge feeder and bowser in proportion, taking three potations pottle-deep at every meal. He had a garrison after his own heart at Tinnekonk,—guzzling, deep-drinking swashbucklers, who made the wild woods ring with their carousals. No sooner did this robustious commander hear of the erection of Fort Casimir, than he sent a message to Van Poffenburgh, warning him off the land, as being within the bounds of his jurisdiction. To this General Van Poffenburgh replied that the land belonged to their High Mightinesses, having been regularly purchased of the natives, as discoverers from the Manhattoes, as witness the breeches of their land-measurer Ten Broeck.