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Updated: May 3, 2025
"`Come, let's be moving, said Jack, at last. `I've heard say that there are Dutch and Spanish settlements out in these parts, and maybe we shall fall in with one of them, and both the mynheers and dons are good sort of people, and will treat us kindly. "So we took to our paddles and made our way to the westward.
As he was about to step ashore a band of Englishmen confronted him, with swords and muskets. "Whom art thou?" cried their leader, a stalwart man, with long mustaches. "Only Nanking Cloos, mynheers, who used to be the big idiot of New Amstel. But," he added, with confidence, "I am now a great man on a very responsible mission to the Indians. I am to talk much and wisely.
"`Too good a chance to be thrown away, thought the captain. `We shall never be able to take this place in common ship-shape fashion; but as the Mynheers won't be expecting us on such a bad night as this, and what's more, won't hear us coming, I'll just see if we can't get on shore in the boats and give them a surprise.
It was, in fact, a breaking forth of the grudge and heart-burning that had existed between those two eminent burghers, Mynheers Ten Broeck and Harden Broeck, ever since their unhappy dispute on the coast of Bellevue.
"Ah! sir," said the gatekeeper, "do you bring me the key?" "Yes, my man, here it is." "It is most unfortunate that you did not bring me that key only one quarter of an hour sooner," said the gatekeeper, with a sigh. "And why that?" asked the other. "Because I might have opened the gate to Mynheers de Witt; whereas, finding the gate locked, they were obliged to retrace their steps."
However, the Minden, having on board a number of Dutch prisoners, Lieutenant Lyons was directed to land them in the launch and cutter at Batavia. I was in the launch. After we had put the Mynheers on shore, we stood along the coast to the eastward, for the lieutenant was in no hurry to get back to the ship. He had got something in his head, do you see?
Perhaps one should know him in his overalled, stubble-bearded days, with the rich black loam of the Mississippi bottomlands clinging to his boots. At twenty-five, given a tasseled cap, doublet and hose, and a long, slim pipe, Ben Westerveld would have been the prototype of one of those rollicking, lusty young mynheers that laugh out at you from a Frans Hals canvas.
The first of these letters was from Godfrey, as follows: "Dear father, mother, brothers, and sisters all! I hope you are not under any anxiety about me, for here I am, safe and sound, and in excellent quarters, at the house of Mynheers Grinderweld, Groensveld, and Slidderschild, Amsterdam, the Dutch merchants who were shipwrecked on our coast years ago!
You recollect how we boarded the Dutchman, and how we relieved the Mynheers of their cash and cargo, and provisions and water; and you haven't forgotten the English West Indiaman we captured and sent to the bottom with all her crew when they threatened to send one of their cruisers after us. These and other little similar incidents have not escaped your memory, most noble marquis."
Crews of these desperadoes, the runagates of every country and clime, might be seen swaggering, in open day, about the streets of the little burgh; elbowing its quiet Mynheers; trafficking away their rich outlandish plunder, at half price, to the wary merchant, and then squandering their gains in taverns; drinking, gambling, singing, swearing, shouting, and astounding the neighborhood with sudden brawl and ruffian revelry.
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