Page:Augustine Herrman, beginner of the Virginia tobacco trade, merchant of New Amsterdam and first lord of Bohemia manor in Maryland (1941).djvu/122

 First of all, Herrman was an adventurer, as that term was applied to men of rank during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries who undertook to form new colonies in the New World. In the eighteenth century the term “cavalier” was used and during the nineteenth century the word “pioneer” denoted much of what the adventurer was like two or three hundred years earlier. To Herrman, life was one long series of adventures, noble and honorable. By birth and education Herrman was an aristocrat in the best meaning of the word and ever remained one both as a merchant and trader of New Amsterdam and later as lord of Bohemia Manor. He seemed to be above the small and petty things of life, and one can think of no incident that better illustrates his nature than his willingness to overlook the triviality of Peter Stuyvesant in the matter of the absurd letter given him on his mission to Governor Coddington of Rhode Island. There appears never to have been an active resentment or even an attempt of retaliation against Stuyvesant on Herrman’s part. This was not because Herrman was without temper and passion. Far from it; for on occasions he could become quite angry, but he punished his enemies openly and fairly. Herrman, if we are to judge by his many