Peter Stuyvesant was the last, and, like the renowned Wouter Van Twiller, the best of our ancient Dutch governors. Wouter having surpassed all who preceded him, and Peter, or Piet, as he was sociably called by the old Dutch burghers, who were ever prone to familiarize names, having never been equaled by any successor. He was, in fact, the very man fitted by nature to retrieve the desperate fortunes of her beloved province, had not the Fates, those most potent and unrelenting of all ancient spinsters, destined them to inextricable confusion. [Footnote 49: From Book V, Chapter I, of "Knickerbocker's History of New York."] To say merely that he was a hero would be doing him great injustice--he was in truth a combination of heroes--for he was of a sturdy, raw-boned make like Ajax Telamon, with a pair of round shoulders that Hercules would have given his hide for (meaning his lion's hide) when he undertook to ease old Atlas of his load. He was, moreover, as Plutarch describes Coriolanus, not only terrible for the force of his arm, but likewise of his voice, which sounded as tho it came out of a barrel; and, like the self-same warrior, he possest a sovereign contempt for the sovereign people, and an iron aspect, which was enough of itself to make the very bowels of his adversaries quake with terror and dismay. All this martial excellency of appearance was inexpressibly heightened by an accidental advantage, with which I am surprized that neither Homer nor Virgil have graced any of their heroes. This was nothing less than a wooden leg,[50] which was the only prize he had gained in bravely fighting the battles of his country, but of which he was so proud that he was often heard to declare he valued it more than all his other limbs put together; indeed, so highly did he esteem it that he had it gallantly enchased and relieved with silver devices, which caused it to be related in divers histories and legends that he wore a silver leg. [Footnote 50: Stuyvesant lost his leg in the West Indies, where he was serving in a Dutch command. In 1634 he became director of the colony of Curacao. In 1636 he was made director-general of the Dutch colony in North America. He retained this office, in which he was notably efficient, until the surrender of New Amsterdam to the English in 1664. Stuyvesant spent the remainder of his life in New York on a farm called the Bowery, where he died in 1672. He was buried in grounds where now stands St. Mark's Church.] Like that choleric warrior Achilles, he was somewhat subject to extempore bursts of passion, which were rather unpleasant to his favorites and attendants, whose perceptions he was apt to quicken, after the manner of his illustrious imitator, Peter the Great, by anointing their shoulders with his walking-staff.