Dutch and English on the Hudson Part 3

In this emergency Kieft called a meeting at which the prominent burghers chose a committee of twelve to advise the Director. This took place in 1641. The Council was headed by Captain David de Vries, whose portrait with its pointed chin, high forehead, and keen eyes, justifies his reputation as the ablest man in New Netherland. He insisted that it was inadvisable to attack the Indians--not to say hazardous.

Besides, the Company had warned them to keep peace. It is interesting to speculate on what would have been the effect on the colony if the Company's choice had fallen upon De Vries instead of on Kieft as Director.

Although restrained for the time, Kieft never relinquished his purpose.

On February 24, 1643, he again announced his intention of making a raid upon the Indians, and in spite of further {65} remonstrance from De Vries he sent out his soldiers, who returned after a ma.s.sacre which disgraced the Director, enraged the natives, and endangered the colony.

Kieft was at first proud of his treachery; but as soon as it was known every Algonquin tribe around New Amsterdam started on the warpath.

From New Jersey to the Connecticut every farm was in peril. The famous and much-persecuted Anne Hutchinson perished with her family; towns were burned; and men, women, and children fled in panic.

On the approach of spring, when the Indians had to plant their corn or face famine, sachems of the Long Island Indians sought a parley with the Dutch. De Vries and Olfertsen volunteered to meet the savages. In the woods near Rockaway they found nearly three hundred Indians a.s.sembled. The chiefs placed the envoys in the center of the circle, and one among them, who had a bundle of sticks, laid down one stick at a time as he recounted the wrongs of his tribe. This orator told how the red men had given food to the settlers and were rewarded by the murder of their people, how they had protected and cherished the traders, and how they had been abused in return. At length De Vries, like the practical man that he was, {66} suggested that they all adjourn to the Fort, promising them presents from the Director.

The chiefs consented to meet the Director and eventually were persuaded to make a treaty of peace; but Kieft's gifts were so n.i.g.g.ardly that the savages went away with rancor still in their hearts, and the war of the races continued its b.l.o.o.d.y course. It is no wonder that when De Vries left the Governor on this occasion, he told Kieft in plain terms of his guilt and predicted that the shedding of so much innocent blood would yet be avenged upon his own head. This prophecy proved a strangely true one. When recalled by the States-General in 1647, Kieft set out for Holland on the s.h.i.+p _Princess_, carrying with him the sum of four hundred thousand guilders. The s.h.i.+p was wrecked in the Bristol channel and Kieft was drowned.

The evil that Kieft did lived after him and the good, if interred with his bones, would not have occupied much s.p.a.ce in the tomb. The only positive advance during his rule--and that was carried through against his will--was the appointment of an advisory committee of the twelve men, representing the householders of the colony, who were called together in the emergency following {67} the murder of Claes Smits, and in 1643 of a similar board of eight men, who protested against his arbitrary measures and later procured his recall.

After the departure of Kieft the most picturesque figure of the period of Dutch rule in America appeared at New Amsterdam, Petrus or Pieter Stuyvesant. We have an authentic portrait in which the whole personality of the man is writ large. The dominant nose, the small, obstinate eyes, the close-set, autocratic mouth, tell the character of the man who was come to be the new and the last Director-General of New Netherland. As Director of the West India Company's colony at Curacao, Stuyvesant had undertaken the task of reducing the Portuguese island of St. Martin and had lost a leg in the fight. This loss he repaired with a wooden leg, of which he professed himself prouder than of all his other limbs together and which he had decorated with silver bands and nails, thus earning for him the sobriquet of "Old Silver Nails."

Still, so the legend runs, Peter Stuyvesant's ghost at night "stumps to and fro with a shadowy wooden leg through the aisles of St. Mark's Church near the spot where his bones lie buried." But many events were to happen {68} before those bones were laid in the family vault of the chapel on his _bouwerie_.

When Stuyvesant reached the country over which he was to rule, it was noted by the colonists that his bearing was that of a prince. "I shall be as a father over his children," he told the burghers of New Amsterdam, and in this patriarchal capacity he kept the people standing with their heads uncovered for more than an hour, while he wore his hat. How he bore out this first impression we may gather from _The Representation of New Netherland_, an arraignment of the Director, drawn up and solemnly attested in 1650 by eleven responsible burghers headed by Adrian Van der Donck, and supplemented by much detailed evidence. The witnesses express the earnest wish that Stuyvesant's administration were at an end, for they have suffered from it and know themselves powerless. Whoever opposes the Director "hath as much as the sun and moon against him." In the council he writes an opinion covering several pages and then adds orally: "This is my opinion. If any one have aught to object to it, let him express it!" If any one ventures to make any objection, his Honor flies into a pa.s.sion and rails in language better fitted to the fish-market than to the council-hall.

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When two burghers, Kuyter and Melyn, who had been leaders of the opposition to Kieft, pet.i.tioned Stuyvesant to investigate his conduct, Stuyvesant supported his predecessor on the ground that one Director should uphold another. At Kieft's instigation he even prosecuted and convicted Kuyter and Melyn for seditious attack on the government.

When Melyn asked for grace till his case could be presented in the Fatherland, he was threatened, according to his own testimony, in language like this: "If I knew, Melyn, that you would divulge our sentence [that of fine and banishment] or bring it before Their High Mightinesses, I would cause you to be hanged at once on the highest tree in New Netherland." In another case the Director said: "It may during my administration be contemplated to appeal; but if anyone should do it, I will make him a foot shorter, and send the pieces to Holland and let him appeal in that way."

An answer to this arraignment by the burghers of New Netherland was written by Van Tienhoven, who was sent over to the Netherlands to defend Stuyvesant; but its value is impaired by the fact that he was _schout fiscaal_ and interested in the acquittal of Stuyvesant, whose tool he was, {70} and also by the fact that he was the subject of bitter attack in the _Representation_ by Adrian Van der Donck, who accused Van Tienhoven of continually s.h.i.+fting from one side to another and a.s.serted that he was notoriously profligate and untrustworthy. One pa.s.sage in his reply amounted to a confession. Who, he asks, are they who have complained about the haughtiness of the Director, and he answers that they are "such as seek to live without law or rule." "No one," he goes on to say, "can prove that Director Stuyvesant has used foul language to or railed at as clowns any respectable persons who have treated him decently. It may be that some profligate person has given the Director, _if he has used any bad words to him_, cause to do so."

It has been the fas.h.i.+on in popular histories to allude to Stuyvesant as a doughty knight of somewhat choleric temper, "a valiant, weather beaten, leathern-sided, lion-hearted, generous-spirited, old governor"; but I do not so read his history. I find him a brutal tyrant, as we have seen in the affair of Kieft _versus_ Melyn; a narrow-minded bigot, as we shall see later in his dealing with the Quakers at Flus.h.i.+ng; a bully when his victims were completely in his power; and a loser {71} in any quarrel when he was met with bl.u.s.tering comparable to his own.

In support of the last indictment let us take his conduct in a conflict with the authorities at Rensselaerswyck. In 1646 Stuyvesant had ordered that no building should be erected within cannon-shot of Fort Orange. The superintendent of the settlement denied Stuyvesant's right to give such an order and pointed to the fact that his trading-house had been for a long time on the border of the fort. To the claim that a clear s.p.a.ce was necessary to the fort's efficiency, Van Slichtenhorst, Van Rensselaer's agent, replied that he had spent more than six months in the colony and had never seen a single person carrying a sword, musket, or pike, nor had he heard a drum-beat except on the occasion of a visit from the Director and his soldiers in the summer. Stuyvesant rejoined by sending soldiers and sailors to tear down the house which Van Slichtenhorst was building near Fort Orange, and the commissary was ordered to arrest the builder if he resisted; but the commissary wrote that it would be impossible to carry out the order, as the settlers at Rensselaerswyck, reenforced by the Indians, outnumbered his troops. Stuyvesant then recalled his soldiers and ordered Van {72} Slichtenhorst to appear before him, which the agent refused to do.

In 1652 Stuyvesant ordered Dyckman, then in command at Fort Orange, not to allow any one to build a house near the fort or to remain in any house already built. In spite of proclamations and other bl.u.s.ter this order proved fruitless and on April 1, 1653, Stuyvesant came in person to Fort Orange and sent a sergeant to lower the patroon's flag. The agent refusing to strike the patroon's colors, the soldiers entered, lowered the flag, and discharged their guns. Stuyvesant declared that the region staked out by posts should be known as Beverwyck and inst.i.tuted a court there. Van Slichtenhorst tore down the proclamation, whereupon Stuyvesant ordered him to be imprisoned in the fort. Later the Director transported the agent under guard to New Amsterdam.

Stuyvesant's arbitrary character also appears in his overriding of the measure of local self-government decreed by the States-General in 1653.

Van der Donck and his fellows had asked three things of their High Mightinesses, the States-General: first, that they take over the government of New Netherland; second, that they establish a better city government in New Amsterdam; and third, {73} that they clearly define the boundaries of New Netherland. The first of these requests, owing to the deeply intrenched interest of the West India Company, could not be granted, the last still less. But the States-General urged that munic.i.p.al rights should be given to New Amsterdam, and in 1652 the Company yielded. The charter limited the number of _schepens_ or aldermen to five and the number of burgomasters to two, and also ordained that they as well as the _schout_ should be elected by the citizens; but Stuyvesant ignored this provision and proceeded to appoint men of his own choosing. The Stone Tavern built by Kieft at the head of Coenties Slip was set apart as a _Stadt-Huys_, or City Hall, and here Stuyvesant's appointees, supposed to represent the popular will, held their meetings. It was something that they did hold meetings and nominally at least in the interest of the people. Another concession followed. In 1658 Stuyvesant yielded so far to the principles of popular government as to concede to the _schepens_ and burgomasters of New Amsterdam the right to nominate double the number of candidates for office, from whom the Director was to make a choice.

In 1655, during the absence of Stuyvesant on the South River, the Indians around Manhattan {74} appeared with a fleet of sixty-four war canoes, attacked and looted New Amsterdam, then crossed to Hoboken and continued their b.l.o.o.d.y work in Pavonia and on Staten Island. In three days a hundred men, women, and children were slain, and a hundred and fifty-two were taken captive, and the damage to property was estimated at two hundred thousand guilders--approximately eighty thousand dollars. As usual the Dutch had been the aggressors, for Van Dyck, formerly _schout fiscaal_, had shot and killed an old Indian woman who was picking peaches in his orchard.

It must be set down to Stuyvesant's credit that on his return he acted toward the Indians in a manner that was kind and conciliating, and at the same time provided against a repet.i.tion of the recent disaster by erecting blockhouses at various points and by concentrating the settlers for mutual defense. By this policy of mingled diplomacy and preparation against attack Stuyvesant preserved peace for a period of three years. But trouble with the Indians continued to disturb the colonies on the river and centered at Esopus, where slaughters of both white and red men occurred. Eight white men were burned at the stake in revenge for shots fired by Dutch soldiers, and an Indian chief was {75} killed with his own tomahawk. In 1660 a treaty of peace was framed; but three years later we find the two races again embroiled.

Thus Indian wars continued down to the close of Dutch rule.

In spite of these troubles in the more outlying districts, New Amsterdam continued to grow and thrive. In Stuyvesant's time the thoroughfares of New Amsterdam were laid out as streets and were named.

The line of houses facing the fort on the eastern side was called the Marckveldt, or Marketfield, taking its name from the green opposite, which had been the site of the city market. De Heere Straat, the princ.i.p.al street, ran north from the fort through the gate at the city wall. De Hoogh Straat ran parallel with the East River from the city bridge to the water gate and on its line stood the _Stadt-Huys_. 'T Water ran in a semi-circular line from the point of the island and was bordered by the East River. De Brouwer Straat took its name from the breweries situated on it and was probably the first street in the town to be regulated and paved. De Brugh Straat, as the name implies, led to the bridge crossing. De Heere Graft, the princ.i.p.al ca.n.a.l, was a creek running deep into the island from the East River and protected {76} by a siding of boards. An official was appointed for the care of this ca.n.a.l with orders to see "that the newly made _graft_ was kept in order, that no filth was cast into it, and that the boats, canoes, and other vessels were laid in order."

The new city was by this time thoroughly cosmopolitan. One traveler speaks of the use of eighteen different languages, and the forms of faith were as varied as the tongues spoken. Seven or eight large s.h.i.+ps came every year from Amsterdam. The Director occupied a fine house on the point of the island. On the east side of the town stood the _Stadt-Huys_ protected by a half-moon of stone mounted with three small bra.s.s cannon. In the fort stood the Governor's house, the church, the barracks, the house for munitions, and the long-armed windmills.

Everything was prospering except the foundation on which all depended.

There was no adequate defense for all this property. Here we must acquit Stuyvesant from responsibility, since again and again he had warned the Company against the weakness of the colony; but they would not heed the warnings, and the consequences which might have been averted suddenly overtook the Dutch possessions.

The war which broke out in 1652 between {77} England and the Netherlands, once leagued against Catholic Spain but now parted by commercial rivalries, found an immediate echo on the sh.o.r.es of the Hudson. With feverish haste the inhabitants of New Amsterdam began to fortify. Across the island at the northern limit of the town, on the line of what is now Wall Street, they built a wall with stout palisades backed by earthworks. They hastily repaired the fort, organized the citizens as far as possible to resist attack, and also strengthened Fort Orange. The New England Colonies likewise began warlike preparations; but, perhaps owing to the prudence of Stuyvesant in accepting the Treaty of Hartford, peace between the Dutch and English in the New World continued for the present, though on precarious terms; and, the immediate threat of danger being removed by the treaty between England and Holland in 1654, the New Netherlander relaxed their vigilance and curtailed the expense of fortifications.

Meanwhile Stuyvesant had alienated popular sympathy and lessened united support by his treatment of a convention of delegates from New Amsterdam, Flus.h.i.+ng, Breuckelen, Hempstead, Amersfort, Middleburgh, Flatbush, and Gravesend who had gathered to consider the defense and {78} welfare of the colonies. The English of the Long Island towns were the prime movers in this significant gathering. There is an unmistakable English flavor in the contention of _The Humble Remonstrance_ adopted by the Convention, that "'tis contrary to the first intentions and genuine principles of every well regulated government, that one or more men should arrogate to themselves the exclusive power to dispose, at will, of the life and property of any individual." As a people "not conquered or subjugated, but settled here on a mutual covenant and contract entered into with the Lord Patroons, with the consent of the Natives," they protested against the enactment of laws and the appointment of magistrates without their consent or that of their representatives.

Stuyvesant replied with his usual bigotry and in a rage at being contradicted. He a.s.serted that there was little wisdom to be expected from popular election when naturally "each would vote for one of his own stamp, the thief for a thief, the rogue, the tippler and the smuggler for his brother in iniquity, so that he may enjoy more lat.i.tude in vice and fraud." Finally Stuyvesant ordered the delegates to disperse, declaring: "We derive our authority from G.o.d and the Company, not from a {79} few ignorant subjects, and we alone can call the inhabitants together."

With popular support thus alienated and with appeals for financial and military aid from the States-General and the West India Company denied or ignored, the end of New Netherland was clearly in sight. In 1663 Stuyvesant wrote to the Company begging them to send him reenforcements. "Otherwise," he said, "it is wholly out of our power to keep the sinking s.h.i.+p afloat any longer."

This year was full of omens. The valley of the Hudson was shaken by an earthquake followed by an overflow of the river, which ruined the crops. Smallpox visited the colony, and on top of all these calamities came the appalling Indian ma.s.sacre at Esopus. The following year, 1664, brought the arrival of the English fleet, the declaration of war, and the surrender of the Dutch Province. For many years the English had protested against the Dutch claims to the territory on the North and South rivers. Their navigators had tried to contest the trade in furs, and their Government at home had interfered with vessels sailing to and from New Amsterdam. Now at length Charles II was ready to appropriate the Dutch possessions. He did not {80} trouble himself with questions of international law, still less with international ethics; but, armed with the flimsy pretense that Cabot's visit established England's claim to the territory, he stealthily made preparations to seize the defenseless colony on the river which had begun to be known as the Hudson. Five hundred veteran troops were embarked on four s.h.i.+ps, under command of Colonel Richard Nicolls, and sailed on their expedition of conquest. Stuyvesant's suspicions, aroused by rumors of invasion, were so far lulled by dispatches from Holland that he allowed several s.h.i.+ps at New Amsterdam to sail for Curacao ladened with provisions, while he himself journeyed to Rensselaerswyck to quell an Indian outbreak. While he was occupied in this task, a messenger arrived to inform him that the English fleet was hourly expected in the harbor of New Amsterdam. Stuyvesant made haste down the river; but on the day after he arrived at Manhattan Island, he saw s.h.i.+ps flying the flag of England in the lower harbor, where they anch.o.r.ed below the Narrows. Colonel Nicolls demanded the surrender of the "towns situate on the island commonly known by the name of Manhattoes, with all the forts thereunto belonging."

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Although the case of New Amsterdam was now hopeless, Stuyvesant yet strove for delay. He sent a deputation to Nicolls to carry on a parley; but Nicolls was firm. "When may we visit you again?" the deputation asked. Nicolls replied with grim humor that he would speak with them at Manhattan. "Friends are welcome there," answered Stuyvesant's representative diplomatically; but Nicolls told them bluntly that he was coming with s.h.i.+ps and soldiers. "Hoist a white flag at the fort," he said, "and I may consider your proposals."

Colonel Nicolls was as good as his word and, to the consternation of the dwellers in New Amsterdam, the fleet of English frigates, under full sail and with all guns loaded, appeared before the walls of the useless old Fort Amsterdam. Stuyvesant stood on one of the angles of the fort and the gunners with lighted matches awaited his command to fire. The people entreated him to yield. "Resistance is not soldiers.h.i.+p," said one of them. "It is sheer madness." Stuyvesant, who with all his faults was a brave soldier, felt to the quick the humiliation; but he saw also that resistance meant only useless bloodshed. At last he submitted, and the English vessels sailed on their way unmolested, {82} while Stuyvesant groaned, "I would much rather be carried to my grave."

Without firing a shot the English thus took possession of the rich country which the States-General had not thought worth defending, and New Netherland became New York.

[1] Van Twiller's advocate, W. E. Griffis, quotes the Nijkerk records in proof that Van Twiller was born on May 22, 1606, which would fix his age at twenty-seven when he was sent out to the colony. The editor of the Van Rensselaer-Bowier ma.n.u.script states that Kiliaen Van Rensselaer was born in 1580, that his sister, Maria, married Richard, or Ryckaert, Van Twiller and that the Wouter of our chronicles was their son and therefore Van Rensselaer's nephew. We are the more inclined to accept the year 1606 as the true date of Van Twiller's birth because the year 1580, previously accepted by historians, would have been the same as that of the birth of Kiliaen Van Rensselaer himself, and because, according to the author of the _Story of New Netherland_, Maria Van Rensselaer was betrothed in 1605. Otherwise we should find it almost beyond credence that a youth of twenty-seven should have been so suddenly promoted from the counting-house at Amsterdam to the responsible post of Director of New Netherland.

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CHAPTER V

DOMINES AND SCHOOL-TEACHERS

Because the Netherlander were not, like the New Englanders, fugitives from persecution at the hands of their fellow-countrymen, the Dutch colonization in America is often spoken of as a purely commercial venture; but in reality the founding of New Netherland marked a momentous epoch in the struggle for the freedom of conscience.

Established between the long contest with the Inquisition in Spain and the Thirty Years' War for religious liberty in Germany, this plantation along the Hudson offered protection in America to those rights of free conscience for which so much blood had been shed and so much treasure spent in Europe.

The Dutch colonists were deeply religious, with no more bigotry than was inseparable from the ideas of the seventeenth century. They were determined to uphold the right to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d in {84} their own way; and to say that their own way of wors.h.i.+p was as dear to them as their beliefs is not strikingly to differentiate them from the rest of mankind. They brought with them from the home country a tenacious reverence for their fathers' method of wors.h.i.+p and for the Calvinistic polity of the Dutch Reformed Church. They looked with awe upon the _synod_, the final tribunal in Holland for ecclesiastical disputes.

They regarded with respect the _cla.s.sis_, composed of ministers and elders in a certain district; but their hearts went out in a special affection to the _consistory_, which was made up of the ministers and elders of the single local _kerk_. This at least they could reproduce in the crude conditions under which they labored, and it seemed a link with the home which they had left so far behind them.

They had no intention, however, of forcing this church discipline on those who could not conscientiously accept it. The devout wish of William the Silent that all his countrymen might dwell together in amity regardless of religious differences was fulfilled among the early settlers in New Netherland. Their reputation for tolerance was spread abroad early in the history of the colony, and Huguenots, Lutherans, Presbyterians, {85} Moravians, and Anabaptists lived unmolested in New Netherland till the coming of Director Peter Stuyvesant in 1647.

The religious tyranny which marked Stuyvesant's rule must be set down to his personal discredit, for almost every instance of persecution was met by protest from the settlers themselves, including his coreligionists. He deported to Holland a Lutheran preacher; he revived and enforced a dormant rule of the West India Company which forbade the establishment of any church other than the Dutch Reformed; and he imprisoned parents who refused to have their children baptized in that faith. But it was in his dealings with the Quakers that his bigotry showed itself in its most despotic form. Robert Hodgson, a young Quaker, was arrested in Hempstead, Long Island, and was brought to New Amsterdam. After he had been kept in prison for several days, the magistrate condemned him either to pay a fine of a hundred guilders or to work with a wheelbarrow for two years in company with negroes. He declined to do either. After two or three days he was whipped on his bare back and warned that the punishment would be repeated if he persisted in his obstinacy. This treatment is recorded by the {86} Domines Megapolensis and Drisius in a letter to the _cla.s.sis_ of Amsterdam, not only without protest but with every sign of approbation.

Yet in the end public opinion made itself felt and Mrs. Bayard, Stuyvesant's sister (or sister-in-law, as some authorities say) procured the release of his victim.

In another case, a resident of Flus.h.i.+ng ventured to hold Quaker meetings at his home. He was sentenced to pay a fine or submit to be flogged and banished; but the town officers refused to carry out the decree. A letter, signed by a number of prominent townsfolk of Flus.h.i.+ng, declared that the law of love, peace, and liberty was the true glory of Holland, that they desired not to offend one of Christ's little ones under whatever name he appeared, whether Presbyterian, Independent, Baptist, or Quaker. "Should any of these people come in love among us therefore," said they, "we cannot in conscience lay violent hands upon them." This letter immediately brought down upon the writers the despotic rage of Stuyvesant. The sheriff of Flus.h.i.+ng was cas.h.i.+ered and fined; the town clerk was imprisoned; and penalties of varying degree were imposed on all the signers.

When accounts of Stuyvesant's proceedings {87} reached Amsterdam, however, he received from the Chamber a letter of stinging rebuke, informing him that "the consciences of men ought to be free and unshackled, so long as they continue moderate, inoffensive, and not hostile to government." The Chamber, after reminding the Director that toleration in old Amsterdam had brought the oppressed and persecuted of all countries to that city as to an asylum, recommended Stuyvesant to follow in the same course. Herewith ended the brief period of religious persecution in New Netherland.

The amiable Domine Megapolensis who acquiesced in these persecutions came over to the colony of Rensselaerswyck in 1642 in the service of Kiliaen Van Rensselaer. He was to have a salary of forty guilders per month and a fit dwelling that was to be provided for him. So the "Reverend, Pious, and learned Dr. Johannes Megapolensis, junior," set sail for America "to proclaim Christ to Christians and heathens in such distant lands." His name, by the way, like that of Erasmus, Melanchthon, aecolampadius, Dryander, and other worthies of the Reformation, was a cla.s.sical form of the homely Dutch patronymic to which he had been born.

Apparently the Reverend Johannes was more {88} successful in his mission to the heathen than in that to the Christians, for he learned the Mohawk language, wrote a valuable account of the tribe, and understood them better than he understood the Lutherans and Quakers of New Amsterdam and Long Island. In 1664 when Stuyvesant was in the mood to fire on the British fleet and take the consequences, Megapolensis, so tradition runs, dissuaded him with the argument: "Of what avail are our poor guns against that broadside of more than sixty? It is wrong to shed innocent blood." One wonders if the _domine_ had any room in his mind for thoughts of the useless sufferings which had been inflicted on Hodgson and Townsend and the Lutheran preachers while he stood by consenting.

When Megapolensis arrived at New Netherland he found the Reverend Everardus Bogardus already installed as minister of the Gospel at Fort Amsterdam, his predecessor Michaelius having returned to Holland. From the beginning Bogardus proved a thorn in the side of the Government.

He came to blows with Van Twiller and wrote a letter to the Director in which he called him a child of the Devil, a villain whose bucks were better than he, to whom he should give such a {89} shake from the pulpit the following Sabbath as would make him shudder.