This done, he garrisoned it with a number of his tenants from the Helderberg, a mountain region, famous for the hardest heads and hardest fists in the province. Nicholas Koorn, his faithful scjuire, accustomed to strut at his heels, wear his cast-off clothes, and imitate his lofty bearing, was estal)lished in this i^ost as wacht meester. His duty it was to keep an eve on the river, and oblige every vessel that passed, unless on the service of their High Mightinesses, the Lords States General of Holland, to strike its flag, lower its peak, and pay toll to the lord of Rensselaerstein.

William Kicft -- "William the Testy" -- succeeded Walter the Doubter, and still the affair of Beam Island was tmsettled, that is to say, unsettled to an}' liking but that of the ]:)atroon. The irritable soul of the Governor, we are informed, winced at the ver}' name of Rensselaerstein.

Now it came to pass, that on a fine sunny day the Company's yacht, the Halj-Moon, having been on one of its stated visits to Fort Aurania, was quietly tiding it down the Hudson; the commander. Go vert Lockerman, a veteran Dutch skipper of few words but great bottom, was seated on the high poop, rjuietly smoking his pipe, under the shadow of the proud flag of Orange, when, on arriving abreast of Beam Island, he was saluted by a stentorian voice from the shore, " Lower thy flag, and be d d to thee!" Go vert Lockerman, without taking his pipe out of his mouth, turned up his eye from under his broad-brimmed hat to see who hailed him thus discourteously. There, on the ramparts of the fort, stood Nicholas Koorn, armed to the teeth, flourishing a