LETTER VIII - To the Baron Von Kemperfelt

Summary

I feel that a description of this ancient city of the United Provinces is due to you. In dwelling on its admirable position, its growing prosperity, and its probable grandeur, I wish to excite neither your hopes, nor your regrets. I have seen enough of this country already, to know, that in losing the New Netherlands in their infancy, you only escaped the increased misfortune of having them wrested from your power by their own efforts at a more advanced period, when the struggle might have cost you, like that which England has borne, and Spain still suffers–an incalculable expenditure of men and money. You are thrice happy that your dominion in this quarter of America did not endure long enough to leave, in its train, any mortifying and exasperating recollections. The Dutch are still remembered here with a feeling strongly allied to affinity, by thousands of their descendants, who if, among their more restless and bustling compatriots of the east, they are not distinguished for the great enterprise which is peculiar to that energetic population, have ever maintained the highest character for thrift, undeniable courage, and inflexible probity. These are qualities which never fail to create respect, and which, by some unfortunate construction of the human mind, as rarely excite envy as emulation.

The name of the town, itself, is far from being happy. The place stands on a long narrow island, called Manhattan, a native appellation which should have been perpetuated through that of the city.