Knickerbocker’s History of New York by Washington Irving Book Review
There are numerous reasons to turn down a book entitled, “History of New York”, not the least of which is the Damn Yankees and their insufferable New Englander ways. (Washington Irving calls them Amphictyons)
Add to this major demerit the author, Washington Irving, who is the man we have to thank for our “modern” Christmas ritual. Saint Nick in a wagon loaded with toys flying through the treetops with stockings hung from fireplace mantels.
Indeed, Washington Irving is the namesake of our Number One Mason, George Wa3hin3ton. He even holds the boastable pleasure of meeting our well honored Masonic Magician.
Washington Irving Meets George Washington
Irving spent his last years completing a five volume HISTORY on our most respected Numero Uno.
All this being said, the book is one of the funniest I have ever read.
Historical satire is the game. Washington Irving, like all good wizards, leaves many unmasticated morsels of magnificence throughout the manuscript; each worth a hardy laugh, chortle, and harrumph.
The book provides a laugh out loud romp through our incoherent HISTORY.
Join Dutch Burghers in New Amsterdam, councils filled with smoke from their well used pipes.
Discovery, battles, trading, settlements.
Fun, funny, and fungible.
Thank you, Wa3hin3ton Irving.
Thanks also to Charles 33ickens for recommending this book in American Notes . Dickens and his wife read this book to each other before their journey to America in 1842.
Get this– Washington Irving allegedly published this on Dec 6, 1809. The most recent image I can find of “the text” is a 1915 copy. Lost in the cabbage patch for over a century.
Knickerbocker’s History of New York by Washington Irving Book Review
My annotations and highlights:
Knickerbocker’s History of New York by A Knickerbocker’s History of New York-Pelican Publishing (2002)
Book last read: 2024-07-09 14:49:53 Percentage read: 100%
Chapter 8: To the Public Annotation Chapter progress: 5.74% Highlight: like my revered prototype, Herodotus, where no written records could be found, I have endeavored to continue the chain of history by well-authenticated traditions. Notes: The history is fake.
Chapter 8: To the Public Highlight Chapter progress: 6.48% Highlight: For, after all, gentle reader, cities of themselves, and, in fact, empires of themselves, are nothing without an historian.
Chapter 8: To the Public Annotation Chapter progress: 6.48% Highlight: The torch of science has more than once been extinguished and rekindledâa few individuals, who have escaped by accident, reunite the thread of generations. Notes: Escape from vaccine death mandate. Science.
Chapter 11: Chapter II Annotation Chapter progress: 8.73% Highlight: Having thus briefly introduced my reader to the world, and given him some idea of its form and situation, he will naturally be curious to know from whence it came, and how it was created. And, indeed, the clearing up of these points is absolutely essential to my history, inasmuch as if this world had not been formed, it is more than probable that this renowned island, on which is situated the city of New York, would never have had an existence. The regular course of my history, therefore, requires that I should proceed to notice the cosmogony or formation of this our globe. Notes: Lol
Chapter 11: Chapter II Annotation Chapter progress: 8.98% Highlight: But while briefly noticing long celebrated systems of ancient sages, let me not pass over, with neglect, those of other philosophers, which, though less universal than renowned, have equal claims to attention, and equal chance for correctness. Notes: Hehe
Chapter 11: Chapter II Highlight Chapter progress: 8.98% Highlight: But I decline inquiring, whether the atoms, of which the earth is said to be composed, are eternal or recent; whether they are animate or inanimate; whether, agreeably, to the opinion of Atheists, they were fortuitously aggregated, or, as the Theists maintain, were arranged by a supreme intelligence.
Chapter 11: Chapter II Highlight Chapter progress: 8.98% Highlight: Plato, that temperate sage, who threw the cold water of philosophy on the form of sexual intercourse, and inculcated the doctrine of Platonic loveâan exquisitely refined intercourse, but much better adapted to the ideal inhabitants of his imaginary island of Atlantis than to the sturdy race, composed of rebellious flesh and blood, which populates the little matter-of-fact island we inhabit.
Chapter 11: Chapter II Highlight Chapter progress: 9.98% Highlight: Thus it would seem that knowledge and genius, of which we make such great parade, consist but in detecting the errors and absurdities of those who have gone before, and devising new errors and absurdities, to be detected by those who are to come after us.
Chapter 11: Chapter II Highlight Chapter progress: 10.22% Highlight: the colony should be governed by the laws of Godâuntil they had time to make better.
Chapter 12: Chapter III Annotation Chapter progress: 11.22% Highlight: I shall not occupy my time by discussing the huge mass of additional suppositions, conjectures, and probabilities respecting the first discovery of this country, with which unhappy historians overload themselves in their endeavors to satisfy the doubts of an incredulous world. Notes: Hehe
Chapter 12: Chapter III Annotation Chapter progress: 11.72% Highlight: poetry has been found by certain shrewd critics to echo the senseâthis being an improvement in history which I claim the merit of having invented. Notes: History invented like poetry.
Chapter 13: Chapter IV Annotation Chapter progress: 11.97% Highlight: The claimants next in celebrity are the descendants of Abraham. Thus Christoval Colon (vulgarly called Columbus), when he first discovered the gold mines of Hispaniola, immediately concluded, with a shrewdness that would have done honor to a philosopher, that he had found the ancient Ophir, from whence Solomon procured the gold for embellishing the temple at Jerusalem; nay, Colon even imagined that he saw the remains of furnaces of veritable Hebraic construction, employed in refining the precious ore. Notes: Secrets out. Lost tribes located.
Chapter 13: Chapter IV Annotation Chapter progress: 11.97% Highlight: The next inquiry at which we arrive in the regular course of our history is to ascertain, if possible, how this country was originally peopledâa point fruitful of incredible embarrassments; for unless we prove that the aborigines did absolutely come from somewhere, it will be immediately asserted in this age of scepticism, that they did not come at all; and if they did not come at all, then was this country never populatedâa conclusion perfectly agreeable to the rules of logic, but wholly irreconcilable to every feeling of humanity, inasmuch as it must syllogistically prove fatal to the innumerable aborigines of this populous region. Notes: Lol
Chapter 13: Chapter IV Highlight Chapter progress: 12.22% Highlight: Arius Montanus, without the least hesitation, asserts that Mexico was the true Ophir, and the Jews the early settlers of the country. While Possevin, Becan, and several other sagacious writers lug in a supposed prophecy of the fourth book of Esdras, which being inserted in the mighty hypothesis, like the keystone of an arch, gives it, in their opinion, perpetual durability.
Chapter 13: Chapter IV Annotation Chapter progress: 12.22% Highlight: traces of Christianity and Judaism, which have been said to be found in divers provinces of the new world, to the Devil, who has always effected to counterfeit the worship of the true Deity. Notes: Snake effigies. Hebrew hyrogliphics.
Chapter 13: Chapter IV Annotation Chapter progress: 12.47% Highlight: I more than barely mention that Father Kircher ascribes the settlement of America to the Egyptians, Budbeck to the Scandinavians, Charron to the Gauls, Juffredus Petri to a skating party from Friesland, Milius to the CeltĂŚ, Marinocus the Sicilian to the Romans, Le Comte to the Phoenicians, Postel to the Moors, Martin d’Angleria to the Abyssinians, together with the sage surmise of De Laet, that England, Ireland, and the Orcades may contend for that honor. Notes: Lol
Chapter 13: Chapter IV Annotation Chapter progress: 12.72% Highlight: I determined from that moment not to burn my fingers with any more of their theories, but content myself with detailing the different methods by which they transported the descendants of these ancient and respectable monkeys to this great field of theoretical warfare. Notes: Darwin ape descendants.
Chapter 13: Chapter IV Annotation Chapter progress: 12.72% Highlight: Pinkerton, that industrious old gentleman, who compiles books and manufactures geographies, has constructed a natural bridge of ice, from continent to continent, at the distance of four or five miles from Behring’s Straits-for which he is entitled to the grateful thanks of all the wandering aborigines who ever did or ever will pass over it. Notes: Bridge to nowhere.
Chapter 13: Chapter IV Annotation Chapter progress: 12.97% Highlight: My chief surprise is, that among the many writers I have noticed, no one has attempted to prove that this country was peopled from the moonâor that the first inhabitants floated hither on islands of ice, as white bears cruise about the northern oceansâor that they were conveyed hither by balloons, as modern aeronauts pass from Dover to Calaisâor by witchcraft, as Simon Magus posted among the starsâor after the manner of the renowned Scythian Abaris, who, like the New England witches on full-blooded broomsticks, made most unheard-of journeys on the back of a golden arrow, given him by the Hyperborean Apollo. Notes: Lol. On the inhabitans of ancient America.
Chapter 14: Chapter V Annotation Chapter progress: 14.21% Highlight: Heaven intended the earth should be ploughed, and sown, and manured, and laid out into cities, and towns, and farms, and country seats, and pleasure grounds, and public gardens, all which the Indians knew nothing aboutâtherefore, they did not improve the talents Providence had bestowed on themâtherefore they were careless stewardsâtherefore, they had no right to the soilâtherefore, they deserved to be exterminated. Notes: Lol
Chapter 14: Chapter V Annotation Chapter progress: 14.46% Highlight: In entering upon a newly discovered, uncultivated country, therefore, the new comers were but taking possession of what, according to the aforesaid doctrine, was their own propertyâtherefore in opposing them, the savages were invading their just rights, infringing the immutable laws of nature, and counteracting the will of Heavenâtherefore, they were guilty of impiety, burglary, and trespass on the caseâtherefore, they were hardened offenders against God and manâtherefore, they ought to be exterminated. Notes: Hehe.
Chapter 14: Chapter V Annotation Chapter progress: 15.21% Highlight: Thus were the European worthies who first discovered America clearly entitled to the soil, and not only entitled to the soil, but likewise to the eternal thanks of these infidel savages, for having come so far, endured so many perils by sea and land, and taken such unwearied pains, for no other purpose but to improve their forlorn, uncivilized, and heathenish condition; for having made them acquainted with the comforts of life; for having introduced among them the light of religion; and, finally, for having hurried them out of the world to enjoy its reward! Notes: Lol
Chapter 16: Chapter I Annotation Chapter progress: 16.71% Highlight: having smoked five hundred and ninety-nine pipes and three hundredweight of the best Virginia tobaccoâmy great-grandfather gathered together all that knowing and industrious class of citizens who prefer attending to anybody’s business sooner than their own, and having pulled off his coat and five pair of breeches, he advanced sturdily up, and laid the corner-stone of the church, in the presence of the whole multitudeâjust at the commencement of the thirteenth month. Notes: Hehe.
Chapter 17: Chapter II Highlight Chapter progress: 19.45% Highlight: Dutch negroes at Communipaw,
Chapter 17: Chapter II Annotation Chapter progress: 19.95% Highlight: so critically correct is the village schoolmaster in his dialect that his reading of a Low Dutch psalm has much the same effect on the nerves as the filing of a hand-saw. Notes: Hehe
Chapter 18: Chapter III Annotation Chapter progress: 20.2% Highlight: avoirdupois Notes: A system of weights and measure from English
Chapter 18: Chapter III Annotation Chapter progress: 21.2% Highlight: bantling, Notes: Young child.
Chapter 19: Chapter IV Highlight Chapter progress: 21.7% Highlight: And now the rosy blush of morn began to mantle in the east, and soon the rising sun, emerging from amidst golden and purple clouds, shed his blithesome rays on the tin weathercocks of Communipaw.
Chapter 21: Chapter VI Highlight Chapter progress: 24.94% Highlight: excellent little book, full of precious matter, of that authentic historian, John Josselyn,
Chapter 22: Chapter VII Annotation Chapter progress: 26.18% Highlight: The true version is, that Oloffe Van Kortlandt bargained for just so much land as a man could cover with his nether garments. Notes: Trade underclothes for Manhatten.
Chapter 23: Chapter VIII Annotation Chapter progress: 26.68% Highlight: but those are a kind of folk whose tastes and notions should go for nothing in matters of this kind. Notes: Hehe
Chapter 26: Chapter I Annotation Chapter progress: 29.43% Highlight: garrulity Notes: Exsessive talk on meaningless topics.
Chapter 26: Chapter I Annotation Chapter progress: 29.93% Highlight: There are two opposite ways by which some men make a figure in the world; one by talking faster than they think, and the other by holding their tongues and not thinking at all. Notes: Face mask and injections for essential workers only.
Chapter 26: Chapter I Highlight Chapter progress: 30.17% Highlight: his full-fed cheeks, which seemed to have taken toll of everything that went into his mouth, were curiously mottled and streaked with dusky red, like a Spitzenberg apple.
Chapter 27: Chapter II Annotation Chapter progress: 31.42% Highlight: My readers will excuse this sudden warmth, which I confess is unbecoming of a grave historian; but I have a mortal antipathy to catchpolls, bumbailiffs, and little great men. Notes: Hurumph hurumph
Chapter 27: Chapter II Annotation Chapter progress: 31.42% Highlight: The burgomasters, like our aldermen, were generally chosen by weightâand not only the weight of the body, but likewise the weight of the head. Notes: Hehe
Chapter 27: Chapter II Annotation Chapter progress: 31.67% Highlight: Who ever hears of fat men heading a riot, or herding together in turbulent mobs! Noânoâit is your lean, hungry men who are continually worrying society, and setting the whole community by the ears. Notes: Fat burghers.
Chapter 27: Chapter II Highlight Chapter progress: 31.92% Highlight: no judge should hold a court of justice except in the morning on an empty stomach.
Chapter 27: Chapter II Annotation Chapter progress: 32.17% Highlight: The burgomasters then, as I have already mentioned, were wisely chosen by weight, and the schepens, or assistant aldermen, were appointed to attend upon them, and help them eat; but the latter, in the course of time, when they had been fed and fattened into sufficient bulk of body and drowsiness of brain, became very eligible candidates for the burgomasters’ chairs, having fairly eaten themselves into office, as a mouse eats his way into a comfortable lodgment in a goodly, blue-nosed, skimmed milk, New England cheese. Notes: Lol
Chapter 27: Chapter II Highlight Chapter progress: 32.42% Highlight: Thus it happens that your true dull minds are generally preferred for public employ, and especially promoted to city honors; your keen intellects, like razors, being considered too sharp for common service.
Chapter 27: Chapter II Highlight Chapter progress: 32.67% Highlight: No man in fact seemed to know more than his neighbor, nor any man to know more than an honest man ought to know, who has nobody’s business to mind but his own; the parson and the council clerk were the only men that could read in the community, and the sage Van Twiller always signed his name with a
Chapter 27: Chapter II Annotation Chapter progress: 32.67% Highlight: Whereas, in these degenerate days of iron and brass he never shows us the light of his countenance, nor ever visits us, save one night in the year; when he rattles down the chimneys of the descendants of the patriarchs, confining his presents merely to the children, in token of the degeneracy of the parents. Notes: Saint Nick
Chapter 27: Chapter II Highlight Chapter progress: 32.92% Highlight: favorite Dutch maxim, that “more than enough constitutes a feast.
Chapter 28: Chapter III Annotation Chapter progress: 33.17% Highlight: Sabine rapes, Notes: Roman rape.
Chapter 28: Chapter III Highlight Chapter progress: 34.41% Highlight: balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog’s fat, and called doughnuts,
Chapter 29: Chapter IV Highlight Chapter progress: 34.91% Highlight: Thus we find that the gentle sex in all ages have shown the same disposition to infringe a little upon the laws of decorum, in order to betray a lurking beauty, or gratify an innocent love of finery.
Chapter 30: Chapter V Highlight Chapter progress: 36.66% Highlight: By wapen recht!” that is to say, by the right of arms, or in common parlance, by club-law.
Chapter 32: Chapter VII Annotation Chapter progress: 38.4% Highlight: they one and all embarked for the wilderness of America, to enjoy, unmolested, the inestimable right of talking. Notes: Medical information embargo by Google.
Chapter 32: Chapter VII Annotation Chapter progress: 38.65% Highlight: liberty of speech. Notes: Murdered by Google
Chapter 32: Chapter VII Annotation Chapter progress: 39.15% Highlight: the practice of bundling prevailed, Notes: weird sex practice of yore.
Chapter 34: Chapter IX Annotation Chapter progress: 40.65% Highlight: now deciphering a half-defaced inscription, and now lighting upon a mouldering manuscript, which, after painful study, scarce repays the trouble of perusal. Notes: History.
Chapter 34: Chapter IX Annotation Chapter progress: 40.65% Highlight: as will be perceived by any who will take the trouble to compare their romantic effusions, tricked out in the meretricious gauds of fable, with this authentic history. Notes: Hehe.
Chapter 34: Chapter IX Annotation Chapter progress: 40.9% Highlight: , as though a tall man’s body had been mounted on a little man’s legs. Notes: Lol
Chapter 34: Chapter IX Annotation Chapter progress: 41.65% Highlight: distance was full two hundred pipes, or about one hundred and twenty miles. Notes: Distance traveled in pipes smoked.
Chapter 36: Chapter I Annotation Chapter progress: 42.39% Highlight: What are the great events that constitute a glorious era? The fall of empires, the desolation of happy countries, splendid cities smoking in their ruins, the proudest works of art tumbled in the dust, the shrieks and groans of whole nations ascending unto heaven! Notes: Covid extortion scam.
Chapter 37: Chapter II Highlight Chapter progress: 44.14% Highlight: petticoat government.
Chapter 38: Chapter III Annotation Chapter progress: 44.64% Highlight: So that, though a powerful nation may wrong its neighbors with temporary impunity, yet sooner or later an historian springs up, who wreaks ample chastisement on it in return. Notes: Covid was extortion scam.
Chapter 39: Chapter IV Annotation Chapter progress: 45.39% Highlight: At length his words found vent, and for three days he kept up a constant discharge, anathematising the Yankees, man, woman, and child, for a set of dieven, schobbejacken, deugenieten, twist-zoekeren, blaes-kaken, loosen-schalken, kakken-bedden, and a thousand other names, of which, unfortunately for posterity, history does not make mention. Notes: Dutch curse words for yankees.
Chapter 39: Chapter IV Annotation Chapter progress: 45.39% Highlight: The name of Yankee became as terrible among the Nieuw Nederlanders as was that of Gaul among the ancient Romans, insomuch that the good wives of the Manhattoes used it as a bugbear wherewith to frighten their unruly children. Notes: Damn Yankees.
Chapter 40: Chapter V Annotation Chapter progress: 46.63% Highlight: These, like quacks in medicine, excite the malady to profit by the cure, and retard the cure to augment the fees. Notes: Covid extortion scam.
Chapter 40: Chapter V Annotation Chapter progress: 46.63% Highlight: pettifoggers Notes: Inferior legal practitioner.
Chapter 44: Chapter VI Annotation Chapter progress: 48.38% Highlight: it had no more intrinsic value than those rags which form the paper currency of modern days. Notes: Value of fake money equals zero.
Chapter 46: Chapter VIII Highlight Chapter progress: 50.12% Highlight: A vast multitude, armed with pipes and tobacco-boxes, and an immense supply of ammunition, sat themselves down before the governor’s house, and fell to smoking with tremendous violence.
Chapter 47: Chapter IX Highlight Chapter progress: 51.12% Highlight: Fortune, in fact, is a pestilent shrew, and, withal, an inexorable creditor; and though for a time she may be all smiles and courtesies, and indulge us in long credits, yet sooner or later she brings up her arrears with a vengeance, and washes out her scores with our tears.
Chapter 47: Chapter IX Annotation Chapter progress: 51.87% Highlight: he denounced them as a pack of lazy, canting, julep-tippling, cock-fighting, horse-racing, slave-driving, tavern-haunting, Sabbath-breaking, mulatto-breeding upstarts: and concluded by ordering them to evacuate the country immediately; to which they laconically replied in plain English, “They’d see him dâd Notes: Confeds
Chapter 49: Chapter XI Highlight Chapter progress: 52.87% Highlight: He was a perfect brush-heap in a blaze, snapping and crackling for a time, and then ending in smoke.
Chapter 50: Chapter XII Annotation Chapter progress: 53.87% Highlight: The consequence was a great confederacy of the tribes of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Plymouth, and New Haven, under the title of the “United Colonies of New England;” the pretended object of which was mutual defense against the savages, but the real object the subjugation of the Nieuw Nederlandts. Notes: Yankees united.
Chapter 50: Chapter XII Highlight Chapter progress: 53.87% Highlight: The Pilgrims,” that is to say, a people who are always seeking a better country than their
Chapter 55: Chapter IV Annotation Chapter progress: 59.85% Highlight: In a word, negotiation is like courtship, a time of sweet words, gallant speeches, soft looks, and endearing caressesâbut the marriage ceremony is the signal for hostilities. Notes: On negotiations and treaties.
Chapter 56: Chapter V Annotation Chapter progress: 60.6% Highlight: but this wanton attack upon one of the most gallant and irreproachable heroes of modern times is too much even for me to digest, and has overset, with a single puff, the patience of the historian and the forbearance of the Dutchman. Notes: Hehe
Chapter 56: Chapter V Annotation Chapter progress: 61.1% Highlight: stopping occasionally in the villages to eat pumpkin-pies, dance at country frolics, and bundle with the Yankee lasses, whom he rejoiced exceedingly with his soul-stirring instrument. Notes: Lol
Chapter 59: Chapter VIII Highlight Chapter progress: 63.09% Highlight: about this time broke out in the New England provinces the awful plague of witchcraft, which spread like pestilence through the land.
Chapter 59: Chapter VIII Annotation Chapter progress: 63.34% Highlight: When once an alarm is sounded, the public, who dearly love to be in a panic, are always ready to keep it up.
Notes: Fake pandemic on idiot box.
Chapter 59: Chapter VIII Annotation Chapter progress: 63.34% Highlight: Strict search, too, was made after witches, who were easily detected by devil’s pinches; by being able to weep but three tears, and those out of the left eye; and by having a most suspicious predilection for black cats and broomsticks! Notes: Hehe
Chapter 59: Chapter VIII Annotation Chapter progress: 63.84% Highlight: quidnuncs Notes: Inquisitive and gossipy person.
Chapter 59: Chapter VIII Highlight Chapter progress: 63.84% Highlight: In the city of Ephesus, we are told that the plague was expelled by stoning a ragged old beggar to death, whom Apollonius pointed out as being the evil spirit that caused it, and who actually showed himself to be a demon by changing into a shagged dog.
Chapter 59: Chapter VIII Highlight Chapter progress: 64.09% Highlight: New England, abandoning the study of the occult sciences, turned their attention to the more profitable hocus pocus of trade, and soon became expert in the legerdemain art of turning a penny.
Chapter 60: Chapter IX Highlight Chapter progress: 64.34% Highlight: I must not conceal the fact, that at one time there was some danger of this plague of witchcraft extending into the New Netherlands; and certain witches, mounted on broomsticks, are said to have been seen whisking in the air over some of the Dutch villages near the borders; but the worthy Nederlanders took the precaution to nail horse-shoes to their doors, which it is well known are effectual barriers against all diabolical vermin of the kind.
Chapter 60: Chapter IX Annotation Chapter progress: 64.84% Highlight: His face glowed with furnace heat from between a huge pair of well-powdered whiskers; and his valorous soul seemed ready to bounce out of a pair of large, glassy, blinking eyes, projecting like those of a lobster. Notes: Lol
Chapter 64: Chapter III Highlight Chapter progress: 70.32% Highlight: the scrubs, the runagates, and tatterdemalions
Chapter 65: Chapter IV Highlight Chapter progress: 71.32% Highlight: The vast bosom of the Hudson was like an unruffled mirror, reflecting the golden splendor of the heavens; excepting that now and then a bark canoe would steal across its surface, filled with painted savages, whose gay feathers glared brightly, as perchance a lingering ray of the setting sun gleamed upon them from the western mountains.
Chapter 66: Chapter V Annotation Chapter progress: 73.32% Highlight: they were the first that ever winked with both eyes at once. Notes: History.
Chapter 69: Chapter VIII Highlight Chapter progress: 77.56% Highlight: All was silent awe or bustling preparation, war reared his horrid front, gnashed loud his iron fangs, and shook his direful crest of bristling
Chapter 69: Chapter VIII Annotation Chapter progress: 78.05% Highlight: St. Nicholas and the Manhattoes! Notes: Santa Clause and Manhatten.
Chapter 69: Chapter VIII Highlight Chapter progress: 79.3% Highlight: shedding a thousand sparks, like beams of glory, round his grizzly visage.
Chapter 70: Chapter IX Annotation Chapter progress: 80.3% Highlight: How vain, how fleeting, how uncertain are all those gaudy bubbles after which we are panting and toiling in this world of fair delusions! Notes: History
Chapter 70: Chapter IX Highlight Chapter progress: 80.3% Highlight: The more I reflect, the more I am astonished at the important character of the historian. He is the sovereign censor, to decide upon the renown or infamy of his fellow-men.
Chapter 72: Chapter I Highlight Chapter progress: 82.79% Highlight: It is certainly of the first importance, say they, that a country should be governed by wise men; but then it is almost equally important that the people should think them wise; for this belief alone can produce willing subordination.
Chapter 73: Chapter II Annotation Chapter progress: 83.54% Highlight: Another great measure of Peter Stuyvesant for public improvement was the distribution of fiddles throughout the land. These were placed in the hands of veteran negroes, who were despatched as missionaries to every part of the province. Notes: To dance and not politick.
Chapter 73: Chapter II Highlight Chapter progress: 84.04% Highlight: Here would he smoke his pipe, crack his joke, and forget the rugged toils of war, in the sweet oblivious festivities of peace, giving a nod of approbation to those of the young men who shuffled and kicked most vigorously; and now and then a hearty smack, in all honesty of soul, to the buxom lass who held out longest, and tired down every competitorâinfallible proof of her being the best dancer.
Chapter 74: Chapter III Annotation Chapter progress: 84.79% Highlight: The Susquesahanocks are a giantly people, strange in proportion, behavior, and attireâtheir voice sounding from them as out of a cave. Their tobacco-pipes were three-quarters of a yard long; carved at the great end with a bird, beare, or other device, sufficient to beat out the brains of a horse. The calfe of one of their legges measured three-quarters of a yard about; the rest of the limbs proportionable. Notes: Giants
Chapter 75: Chapter IV Highlight Chapter progress: 85.54% Highlight: As to that better part of valor called discretion, it was too cold-blooded a virtue for his tropical temperament.
Chapter 75: Chapter IV Annotation Chapter progress: 86.53% Highlight: Amphictyons. Notes: New Englanders
Chapter 79: Chapter VIII Highlight Chapter progress: 90.02% Highlight: We are told that disciples on entering the school of Pythagoras were for two years enjoined silence, and forbidden either to ask questions or make remarks.
Chapter 84: Chapter XIII Highlight Chapter progress: 97.01% Highlight: And thus did it fare with the empire of their High Mightinesses, at the Manhattoes, under the peaceful reign of Walter the Doubter, the fretful reign of William the Testy, and the chivalric reign of Peter the
Chapter 84: Chapter XIII Highlight Chapter progress: 97.51% Highlight: 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.
Chapter 85: Endnotes Highlight Chapter progress: 98.75% Highlight: Ogilvie’s History of America, 1671
Chapter 85: Endnotes Annotation Chapter progress: 99.0% Highlight: In a manuscript record of the province, dated 1659, Library of the New York Historical Society, is the following mention of Indian money:â”Seawant, alias wampum. Notes: Money wampum.
Chapter 85: Endnotes Highlight Chapter progress: 99.75% Highlight: The golden mines have never since been explored, but remain among the mysteries of the Kaatskill mountains, and under the protection of the goblins which haunt them.
Chapter 85: Endnotes Highlight Chapter progress: 99.75% Highlight: Hobbes, Leviathan,