On being appointed in 1647 director general of New Amsterdam, later renamed New York, what did iron-willed, short-tempered, puritanical Peter Stuyvesant, who had lost a leg in battle, say to the inhabitants of the unruly and essentially lawless town, as regards his methods of administration?

Answer: ‘I shall govern you as a father his children.’

Source: A History of American Democracy by Hicks, Mowray, Burke; General Historical Text

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