There were no wheel carriages in those days, and he had been used to
home to travel in canal boats, and smoke at his ease; but he had to
make the journey, and he did it, and he arrived just as the puritans
were coming out of meeting, and going home, slowly, stately, and
solemnly, to their cold dinner cooked the day before (for they didn't
think it no harm to make servants work double tides on Saturday),
their rule being to do anything of a week day, but nothing on the
Sabbath.
"Well, it was an awful scandal this, and a dreadful violation of the
blue laws of the young nation. Connecticut and New Amsterdam (New
York) were nothing then but colonies; but the puritans owed no
obedience to princes, and set up for themselves. The elders and
ministry and learned men met on Monday to consider of this dreadful
profanity of the Dutch governor. On the one hand it was argued, if he
entered their state (for so they called it then) he was amenable to
their laws, and ought to be cited, condemned, and put into the stocks,
as an example to evil-doers. On the other hand, they got hold of a
Dutch book on the Law of Nations, to cite agin him; but it was written
in Latin, and although it contained all about it, they couldn't find
the place, for their minister said there was no index to it. Well, it
was said, if we are independent, so is he, and whoever heard of a king
or a prince being put in the stocks? It bothered them, so they sent
their Yankee governor to him to bully and threaten him, and see how he
would take it, as we now do, at the present day, to Spain about Cuba,
and England about your fisheries.
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