It is not always clean nor abounding in good taste, nor even clever, except with a variety of wit that suggests the barrack room and the stables, but it contained one remarkable verse, that had a touch of prophecy in it. The verses were

86 The Hudson River

published in Rivingtojfs Gazette, the last one being as follows:

And now I 've closed my epic strain I tremble as I show it, Lest this same warrior-drover, Wayne, Should ever catch the poet.

On the day that that appeared in print Major Andre was arrested as a spy, and the commander of the guard that accompanied him to the scaffold was General Wavne.

Chapter VII Early Settlers of the Hudson Valley

THE original patentees of the lands along the Hudson lived at first in a way that seems to have been a curious compromise between primitive frontier conditions and feudal dignity. Patroons and Manor Lords ruled over uncounted acres of wilderness, upon which a sparse and widely scattered tenantry cleared land, raised corn and large families, and took daily chances of Indian massacre. To the reply made by Secretary Van Tienhoven to a remonstrance of the colonists, in 1650, we are indebted for light upon the relations between the patentees and their tenants.

'T is moreover, to be borne in mind that the Patroon of the Colonie Rensselaerwyk causes all his tenants to sign, that thev will not appeal to the IManhattans. in direct contravention of the exceptions, by which the colonists are bound to render to the director and council at the Manhattans an annual report both of the colony and the administration of Justice. . . . 'T would be a very strange thing if the 87 officers of the country could not banish anybody from it, whilst the authorities of the Colonie Rensselaerwyk, who are subordinate to the company, absolutely banish whomsoever they please, for the welfare of the Colonie: