Page:Augustine Herrman, beginner of the Virginia tobacco trade, merchant of New Amsterdam and first lord of Bohemia manor in Maryland (1941).djvu/81

 blance of resistance. Without the firing of one fatal shot a piece of fertile territory reaching from the Connecticut River to Delaware passed overnight from one nation to another, a land watered by one of the most majestic of American rivers, bearing the name of a great Dutchman. Furthermore, this amazing transfer was made amidst the rejoicing of the vanquished. It all seems a little absurd. Probably there is no other instance in England’s history, perhaps not in the annals of any nation, where such a large and fertile territory was conquered by so peaceful a method. And what is better: there is hardly a parallel in history where the occupation by the conqueror was made in so peaceful and orderly a manner. No change whatever was made in Dutch life and customs; everything continued in the usual quiet and easy-going style. There may have been the usual grumbling and quarreling, of course; but that was of a personal rather than a political nature. The Dutch of New Amsterdam simply got up under one administration and went to bed under another; there was very little else to the episode.

In the rest of the life of Herrman we shall not have occasion to refer much to New Amsterdam, or New York, as it was now to be called henceforth with the exception of a brief period of time when it was again under Dutch rule (1673–1674). But there are one or two episodes in Herrman’s life which will be related in due course; and then we shall have occasion to show his connection with the growing Dutch town.