The Holland Society of New York - Yearbook (New York, NY)

Page 185 text:

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Page 187 text:

139 . l1iS W00d6I1 leg and fierce countenance, the im- mortal Peter Stuyvesant, and our accomplished chairman who knows how to win with his Smile and delight with his banter. And the unlinkable distancebetween the past and the present is ac- centuated by the Speech of this goodly company. Not a word of Dutch have I heard, save in the anteroom, where a gentleman approached our honorable and honored guest and said to him, I am glad to see you, Mr. Van Bryan, and Mr. Bryan took it, with the smile that so becomes him, and appropriated it, feeling that, possibly, he had met, indeed, a long-lost friend. laughter cmd apjylcmsexj And how is it possible for me to deliver a eulogy in Dutch when you would not understand the tongue ?--and I would not under- stand it either. L QApj5lause.j r . It is one of America s most cherished memories that in her struggle for independence she enlisted the sympathy and often the personal support of the noblest spirits of the age. This was to some extent due to the hostility felt against' England. The expansion of Great Britain that was then taking place, leading to commercial as well as political antagonisms, and the usurpations of the kingly power, had stimulated enmity on the con- tinent of Europe. But this was not all. Friends of the American cause were not exclusively the produce of hate-the hatred of British tyranny- they were also the product of love-the love of freedom everywhere. The times were times. of restlessness, of aspirations, of theories concerning the rights of man and of the possible emancipation of humanity. France was seething with excite- ment. Rumbling and ominous noises could be