Good Hope was an awkward structure of mud and logs, such as the Dutch built in that day; strong enough, however, for the purpose for which it was built, if it had been in different hands. It faced upon the river, was armed with some of the clumsy ordnance common to the period, and was garrisoned by about forty men from the settlement at New York, who were somewhat overfed, and inclined to smoke all the time they were not eating or drinking. Their leader, Van Curter, was one of those fiery, self-willed men sometimes found in his nation, who mistake pig-headed obstinacy for firmness of heart. An old soldier, trained under the unhappy Prince of Orange, he thought no people like his own, and no soldier like himself. He had seen, with ill-disguised jealousy, that a people were growing up about him who were ahead of his own in acuteness, and who were daily outstripping them in matters of business. He had written a dispatch to Wouter Von Twiller, Governor of New Netherlands, acquainting him with the inroad of these Windsor people, and of the absolute incapacity of his men to compete with them. The governor thereupon issued a proclamation, commanding the English to withdraw from land which was the property of the Dutch East India Company. The Yankees’ answer was very much to the same effect as that of the worthy Master Nicholas, when he defied the trumpeter of William Kieft, applying his thumb to the tip of his nose, and spreading out the fingers like a fan. At least, they paid no attention to the proclamation, but continued to take up land, and increase the limits of their colony. The only reply they did vouchsafe to the demand of the governor was that they claimed the land in the right of possession, and would not give it up. The New Netherlanders had no desire to make a quarrel with their neighbors, who were, for the most part, strong men, who would not hesitate to use manual _persuasion_ in case it became necessary. Hence the Dutchmen resorted to all manner of threats, entreaties—any thing but violence. There was one person, in particular, who was a source of constant annoyance to the people of Good Hope. This was a hawker of small trinkets, known in the settlements as Boston Bainbridge. A sharp, business-like fellow, not a bad prototype of the Down-Easter of our day, he made his way into every house from Boston to the City of Brotherly Love. His pack was welcomed in the houses of his own countrymen, who, being as sharp in buying as he was in selling, seldom allowed him to get the better of them. But the Dutchmen were not so cunning, and were overreached in many a bargain. Boston did not confine himself entirely to dealing in small wares, but sold many articles of greater value; bought and sold horses, or, as he expressed himself, was a “mighty man on a dicker.”