Production Note Cornell University Library produced this volume to replace the irreparably deteriorated original. It was scanned using Xerox software and equipment at 600 dots per inch resolution and compressed prior to storage using CCITT Group 4 compression. The digital data were used to create Cornell's replacement volume on paper that meets the ANSI Standard Z39.48-1984. The production of this volume was supported in part by the New York State Program for the Conservation and Preservation of Library Research Materials and the Xerox Corporation. Digital file copyright by Cornell University Library 1993.REPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHERLAND, CONCERNING ITS ' LOCATION, PRODUCTIVENESS AND POOR CONDITION, YRANSLATEB FROM THE DUTCH FOR THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES, HENRY C. MURPHY, SECOND SERIES, VOL. II. 18INTRODUCTORY NOTE. Although the existence of New-Netherland as an American dependency of Netherland, had been made known by different publications, such as the Historische Verhael of Wassenaer, the Nieuwe Wereldt of De Laet, the Voyagiens of De Vries, the WelU beschreibung of the Blaeus, and others of a like character, no dis- tinct work on the country was printed until the year 1650. In that year appeared at the Hague a small quarto tract of forty-nine pages with the title of Vertoogh van Nieu Nederland weghens de Ghelegentheydt, Vruchtbaerhydt, en Soberen Sta-et desselfs. As this work was the first in point of time to record the early annals of New-Netherland and the acts of a dynasty which claimed for half a century, sovereignty and exclusive jurisdiction over the greater portion of what now constitutes six states of this Confed- eracy, so is it also the original printed source from which sub- sequent writers have drawn many of their facts in relation to that period of the history of those states. Yet strange to say, it would seem that of the multitude who have thus written only Van der Donck, Acrelius, O’Callaghan and perhaps one or two others ever’ saw the book upon which they thus relied. It may not be a matter of surprise that American authors should have been satisfied to take' at secondhand, from a work written in a different language from their own, and that language one not much in vogue; but in truth there is a good excuse for this seeming remissness on the part of both Dutch and American writers, in the fact that until recently, the original work has not for many years been known to exist to which they could refer. Resides the copy from which the following translation has been made only one other is to be found in this country, and that is in the library of New York Historical Society. Both of these bav©254 INTRODUCTION. only lately come to light. A manuscript copy taken from the original document which was presented to the States General, is- among the transcripts made by Mr. Brodhead for the State of New York, from the Holland archives.* Its rarity in Europe may be inferred from the fact that the industrious Ebeling mentions it as probably a printed document, and Lambrechtsen, the late Dutch historian of New-Netherland, says that notwithstanding repeated efforts he had been unable to obtain possession of it. No apology therefore is deemed necessary for this attempt to give it publicity in an English dress. The true value of this historical relic consists in its being a con- temporaneous relation of events in New Netherland, by eleven per- sons who resided there, and who represented the entire population aof New Amsterdam and the Dutch towns of Long Island, and were therefore cognizant of the matters stated in it either of their own knowledge or from others who were concerned in them. It was written to be presented to the States General, with a view of obtain- ing a redress of certain grievances of which the people complained, and is accordingly generally known as the Remonstrance of New Netherland, and is so referred to by most writers. But in- truth it is much more than a remonstrance. In order to give it effect as a petition for relief, it was necessary that the value and importance of the country should be set forth, and that the rights of the Father- land to dominion over it and the encroachments of other powers upon it, should be shown. In this way not only the sense of justice and sympathy of the government would be excited, but the pride of Netherlander and a regard for their interest would be aroused. The work was therefore so prepared ; and it accordingly may properly be divided into three parts, the first giving a description of the natives and of the physical features of the country, the second being a relation of the events connected with its settlement by Europeans, and the third forming a remonstrance against the policy and acts of the West India Company at home and its governors, or Directors General as they were called, in this country. In regard to its authenticity it may be observed, that the documents which have within the last forty years been made accessible to the public, •fully corroborate its statements of all those matters which are purely historical and liot connected with the points of complaint, • Secretary ©f State’s Office, Albany. Holland Documents Vol. IV. p. 71.INTRODUCTION. 255‘ and as to those points the facts for the the most part were not dis- puted, and only alleged to be perverted. It was probably written by Adrian vander Donek. He at least composed the original journal from which it was derived, as appears in the work itself. That it is not in the form in which it was when seized by Stuyvesant is manifest from the record, which is still preserved at Albany, of the proceedings of the Director and Coun- cil on that occasion. It was nevertheless the document of the Nine Men, a body, selected by the Director and Council from double that number of persons, nominated by the people, for the purpose of aiding the administration in raising money for public objects from the inhabitants, though the purpose was declared in general terms to be to confer with it upon the best means of promoting the prosperity of the country and of the inhabitants. The restric- tions upon trade which it was the policy of the West India Company to impose, had injuriously affected the interests of the freemen of New Netherland, by retarding population and restraining enter- prise ; and the elected Nine Men were not long in directing their attention to some mode of relief. A deputation to Holland was proposed by them and seconded by the Director General; but when they sought to present their grievances in their own way, without consulting Stuyvesant, he insisted that the petition should be made through him. It was impossible for them to set forth their grievances without arraigning the acts of the Director himself, however guiltless, regarded as the minister of the Company, he might be, and as they were probably instigated by two or three in- dividuals, who had private griefs of their own, to speak the more harshly of him, they were not disposed to make the communication in the manner he desired. The consequence was a quarrel, as detailed in the work, between them and the Director. As their ap- pointment was first made in September, 1647, and six of them went out of office annually, a new appointment was made before the matter was settled; and probably the reason of eleven signing the doc- ument was, that some of the old as well as the new members united in the proceeding. The deputation consisting of Van der Donck, Jacob van Couwenhoven and Jan Evertsen-bout, three of the Col- lege, sailed for Holland in August, 1649, with the Remonstrance ;■ whither Stuyvesant had already despatched his Secretary, Cornelis* van Tienhoven, who in due time presented to the States General,? an answer to the several specifications of complaint*-256 INTRODUCTION. In regard to the strictures contained in the Remonstrance, upon the conduct of the Directors General, it must in justice to them be remarked, that while they exerted their authority with rigor and not in consonance with the more liberal notions of popular right at the present day, they appear, from their correspondence, still preserved at Albany, with the West India Company, to have acted for the most part under positive orders, and in accordance, when they had no directions from the Company, with the spirit of their general instructions. The weakness of New Netherland in men, and in those internal resources which, in the absence of restrictions upon individual enterprise and in the existence of a government which affords security to life and property, naturally grow up, became more and more apparent as the encroachments of its neighbors in- creased. It was a sense of this weakness that originated the com- plaints which, when they came to be made to the government at home, bad to be formed into specific charges, which necessarily placed the Directors' in an unenviable light, being apparently the immediate authors of the grievances set forth. The real difficulty however, and the fault were in the management of the Company, which had taken possession of New Netherland for commercial purposes only, and which therefore had in view the planting of a colony for the Netherland nation merely as an ancillary to their profit. This was obvious when the condition of New Netherland was compared with that of the neighboring colonies ; but in making at this day a comparison of its condition at that time with that of the adjoining colonies of the English the distinction, in justice to the Dutch of New Netherland, should be ever borne in mind, that although both the English and Dutch colonies sprang alike from the enterprise of incorporated companies of private adventurers, yet the object of the English was not a purely commercial speculation as was that of the Dutch, and that while the Dutch Company con- tinued its control over its colony until its subjugation by the English, the Companies of the latter, at a very early period, and many years before that event, had been dissolved in pursuance of a wiser policy,—looking to the growth and importance of their American possessions,—on the part of the British government. The proceedings of the deputation on its reaching Holland may be well gathered from the letters of the West India Company to the Director. The Company felt that the causes of complaint were at their own door and not at that of Stuyvesant, and though theyINTRODUCTION. 257 thought that in some cases, exposed by the remonstrants, he had exceeded his instructions, they yet stood nobly by him. “ The Deputies,” they write to him on the 16th Feb., 1650, “provided with letters of credit and recommendation to the Department of Amsterdam, kept them back for nine or ten weeks and presented themselves first to the States General, expecting to succeed before the Managers would know of it. Failing there, they'addressed themselves to the States of Guelderland, where they belched out their calumnies. They would have caused us a great deal of trouble had we not bridled their mouths. The name of New Neth- erland was scarcely ever mentioned before, and now it would seem as if heaven and earth were interested in it.” Again, on the 15th of April, they say, “ we have before explained at large how the Deputies strove by many suspicious means to attain their object indirectly, and had succeeded so far in covering their calumnies under a thick veil of truth as to impose upon many of the better class, so that the matter seemed to assume a perilous aspect both for your Honor’s reputation and the interests of the West India Company, particularly of the chamber of Amsterdam. A great flare up was indeed apprehended but it was prevented by the pru- dent conduct of the committee of their High Mightinesses, who dis- covered a remedy 'which ought to give contentment to both parties, until further provision shall be made. We send you a copy of this resolution, from which you may learn what vexations we have suf- fered, and how full of danger it is to irritate a furious multitude.” The resolution of the States General thus sent to Stuyvesant, which was merely the projet of reforms recommended by the committee, condemned the Indian war brought on by Kieft, and required for the future that no similar war should be undertaken without the knowledge of the States General; it provided that the trade in guns and ammunition, with the Indians, should be gradually abolished, that the fortifications should be kept in repair, that no cattle should be exported from New Netherland, that the Council should be re- organized and Stuyvesant ordered home to give an account of his administration, that a Court of Justice should be erected for the province, and a city government established in New Amsterdam, and that two ships should be annually employed in transporting per- sons immigrating to New Netherland. In order to give effect to this resolution the concurrence of a majority of the managers of all the Chambers of the West India Company was necessary. The258 INTRODUCTION^ Chamber of Amsterdam, to which was entrusted the control of the affairs of New Netherland, resisted its adoption, and thus the whole subject slept for two years, during which time two of the deputies* returned home, leaving Van der Donck alone in Holland to press' upon the States General the complaints already made and others arising under new cases of grievance. The Chamber of Amsterdam finally, however, conceded a municipal government to New Am- sterdam, and also some changes in the duties and in the regulations’ of trade, the establishment of a school and other minor reforms; and thus terminated what threatened to be a serious business for their interests in New Netherland. Van der Donck remained in Holland until the summer of 1653 when he returned to New Netherland. He had employed himself in the meantime in writing his description of New Netherland, and in May of that year secured a copy-right for the work ; though it was not then published. He evidently contemplated an addition to it which was never made, embracing a history of the colony ; for on his return home the Company wrote to Stuyvesant that he had ap- plied for permission to examine the papers in the office of the Sec- retary of New Netherland, to complete the history which he had undertaken to write • which application they referred to the Direc- tor, advising him to give the permission but so that it should not be abused and that Ci the company’s own weapons should not be turn- ed against itself, and new troubles raised to its annoyance.” Stuy- vesant probably did not encourage the application. The work appeared in 1655, with the sanction of the Chamber of Amsterdam, in a small quarto of 100 pages, with the pictorial view of New Am- sterdam which Mr. Moulton has prefixed to the second part of his history., A second edition was published in the following year, with the map but without the view. Neither of them contains the history of New Netherland; though both refer those who wish to be informed in regard to, it to the Vertoogh,* of the descriptive por- * The* chapter of Van der Donck containing this reference is entirely1 omitted in the published translation of General Johnson. We therefore translate it here. “ The Netherlanders the first Possessors of New Nethereand. " Although the possession and title which the Netherlanders have to New Nethr erland is amply treated of, in their length and bread th, in the Representation of the Commonalty, and little more can be said in relation to them unless access be had to theRegistera of the Honorable West India Company, we will nevertheless touch upon them hrifidy,>en pasmni* When? thiay country was first discovered by theINTRODUCTION. %S9 tion of which the work of Van der Donck is in fact merely an amplification. In 1651 appeared at Amsterdam a work entitled “ Beschreibung van Virginia, Nieuw Nederland, Nieuw Engeland and in 1662 another with the title of “Kort Verhael van Nieu Nederlandl both of which are compilations, from the Vertoogh and other publi- cations. The Kort Verhael was published by the Burgomasters of Amsterdam, on the occasion of the transfer of the South river and its adjacent country to that city, by the West India Company, and was intended to invite the attention of emigrants to the new acquisition, which is described in very flattering terms, at the ex- pense of the North river, against which the constant aggressions of the English are urged as a strong objection. It was by means of these works that the Verloogh became more known. The description of New Netherland, printed in the first volume of the new series of the Collections of the New York Historical Society, from the Dtf Simitiere MSS. is derived from the Verloogh. In regard to the version of the Verloogh now made, it may be ob- served that the aim has been rather at correctness in interpretation than elegance in expression, and it has therefore been deemed propef Netherlander, in the year 1609, and it was told them by the natives that they were the first Christian explorers in that region, they took possession of it in the name and on behalf of their High Mightinesses, the Lords the States General o the United Netherlands, first in the South Bay at Cape Hinloopen, which they so* called at that time, and which still retains that name-, and so all along the coast and up the rivers, giving names to the different places, as far as the great North River, a great distance up which they sailed, and which some of the English will still call Hudson's river, but which was then named Mauritius river, after Prince Maurice, who at that time was Governor in Netherland ; from thence they sailed further along, till they went beyond Cape Cod,- of which they also took possession, and which they named New Holland ; and our Netherlanders have sailed there and traded at the same places thus taken into possession, from timer to time, since then until the charter was granted to the West Indian Company,- when they passed under its jurisdiction. And although before, we had there in' our favor the circumstances of forts, families and cattle, yet since the year 162$ several forts have been built, farms and plantations taken up, much of the land bought of the natives, and other tokens of possession shown, as is to be seen at length in the Representation of the Commonalty of New Netherland, to which We refer the curious reader. It is therefore unusual,- unhandsome and unreas- onable for any other nation to assert title or jurisdiction over these places or over' those situated between such as were first discovered by the Netherlanders.” SECOND SERIES, VOL. II. 19260 INTRODUCTION. to follow more closely than would otherwise have been done, the language of the original, and to adopt, in many cases, the forms of construction and turns of thought of the writer, contrary to the English idiom. The marginal summary in the printed copy is confined to that part which treats of the causes of the decline of the country ; but in the manuscript transcribed by Mr. Brodhead, and followed in this particular in the following translation, it is carried throughout the whole work.REPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHERLAND, CONCERNING ITS LOCATION, PRODUCTIVENESS, AND POOR CONDITION. Among all the people in the world, industrious in H^5etherI Seeking out foreign lands, navigable waters and trade, anenterpris- those who bear the name of Netherlanders, will very seeking*5 out easily hold their place with the first, as is sufficiently known to all those who have in any wise saluted the merce- threshold of history, and as will also be confirmed by the following relation. The country of which we pro- eriMd^™ pose to speak, was first discovered in the year of our ^ Lord 1609, by the ship Half-Moon, of which Henry year 1609, by Hudson was master and supercargo—at the expense of Halve-Maen the chartered East India Company, though in search of a different object.* It was subsequently called New New Neth- Netherland by our people, and very justly, as it was so called be- first discovered and possessed by Netherlanders, and at STWthei- their cost; so that even at the present day, those na- tives of the country who are so old as to recollect when the Dutch ships first came here, declare that when they when the saw them, they did not know what to make of them, ISwTsWp! and could not comprehend whether they came down J^Vwhat from Heaven, or were of the devil. Some among them it was. They when the first one arrived, even imagined it to be a fish, ^fainted ac or some monster of the sea, and accordingly a strange ^Suntryw report of it spread over the whole land. We have also people, heard the Indiansf frequently say, that they knew noth- ing of any other part of the world, or any other people than their own, before the arrival of the Netherlanders. * A northwest passage to China,—the attempts to accomplish which have caused the discovery and exploration, from the first, of North America, more than all other objects combined. t Wilden—wild men, was the word generally used by the Dutch and Swedes to designate the natives of the country. We adopt the received term for convenience.262 REPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHERLAND. For these reasons, therefore, and on account of the sim- ilarity of climate, situation and fertility, this place is The latitude rightly called New Netherland. It is situated on the NetherianT northerly coast of America, in the latitude of 38,,39, 40, 41 and 42 degrees, or thereabouts, coast-wise. It is its extent, bounded on the northeast by New England, and on the southwest by Virginia. The coast runs nearly southwest and northeast, and is washed by the ocean. On the north is the river of Canada, a large river running far into the interior. The northwest side is, for the most part, still unknown. The land is naturally fruitful, and capable of support- ing a large population, if it were judiciously allotted is temperate, according to location. lhe air is pleasant, and more west wind u temperate than in Netherland. The winds are change- tion ofalthe abfo> an ii. 254, and Mather’s Magnolia, 26. SECOND SERIES, VOL. II. 20268 REPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHERLANDS hard coal. It is supposed that tin and lead will also be found ; but who will seek after them or who will work them as long as there are not more people ? The differ- Fuller s earth is found in abundance, and Armenian claykin red, yellow, blue and black clay very earth. solid and greasy, and suitable for many purposes : earth for stone ware, mountain-chrystal, glass like that of ofthestone. jyfUScovy, green serpentine stone in great abundance, grey hearth stone, slate, red grind-stone, flint, paving stone, large quantities of all varieties of quarry stone suitable for building and all kinds of walls, asbestos and very many other kinds applicable to the use of man. orthe paints There are different paints, but the Christians are not skilled in them. They are seen daily on the Indians, who understand their nature and use them to paint them- selves in different colors. If it were not that explorers are wanting, our people would be able to find them and provide themselves with them. OF THE AMERICANS OR NATIVES, THEIR APPEARANCE, OCCUPATIONS, AND MANNER OF LIVING. The natives are generally well set in their limbs, slender round the waist, broad across the shoulders, and have black hair and dark eyes. They are very nimble and active, well adapted to travel on foot and to drag heavy burdens. They are foul and slovenly in their ac- tions, and make little of all kinds of hardships ; to which indeed they are from youth accustomed. They are like the Brazilians, in color, or as yellow as the people who sometimes come to Netherland and are called Heathens. The men generally have no beard, or very little, which The Indians they P11^ out* They use very few words, which they speaksiowiy first well consider. Naturally they are very modest, words?6 ew simple and inexperienced ; though in their actions high minded enough, vigorous and quick to comprehend or' learn, be it right or wrong, whenever they are so in- clined. They are not honorable as soldiers but perfid- ious, accomplishing all their enterprises by treachery, using many stratagems to deceive their enemies, and ordering all their plans, involving any danger, by night. The desire of revenge appears to b8 boTn in then.REPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHERLAND. 269 They are very obstinate in defending themselves when they cannot run, which however they do when they can ; and they make little of death when it is inevitable, and despise all tortures which can be inflicted upon them while dying, manifesting no sorrow, but usually singing on the occasion. They understand how to cure wounds and hurts, or inveterate sores and injuries, by means of herbs and roots, which grow in the country, and which are known to them. Their clothing, both for men and women, is a piece of duffels or leather, in front, with a deer skin or elk’s hide over the body. Some have bears’ hides of which they make doublets ; others have coats made of the skins of racoons, wild-cats, wolves, dogs, weasels, squirrels, beavers and the like, and also of tur- key's feathers. At present they use for the most part duffels cloth, which they obtain in barter from the Chris- tians. They make their stockings and shoes of deer skins or elk’s hide, and some have shoes made of corn- husks ; of which they also make sacks. Their money consists of white and black Zeewant, which they them- selves make. Their measure of value is by the hand or by the fathom ; but their corn is measured by denotas, which are bags they make themselves. Their ornaments consist in cutting their bodies, or painting them with various colors, sometimes very black, if they are in mourning, and generally in the face. They suspend Zeewant, both white and black, from their heads, which they otherwise are not wont to cover, but on whieh they are now beginning to wear hats and caps bought of the Christians, and from their ears. They also put it round their necks and bodies, wherewith after their manner they appear very fine. They have long deer’s hair which is dyed red, and of which they make rings for the head, and other hair of the same color, to hang from the neck like tresses, of which they are very proud. They frequently smear their skin and hair with different kinds of grease. They can most all swim. They them- selves make the boats they use, which are of two kinds, some of entire trees, which they hollow out with fire, hatchets and adzes, and which the Christians call canoes; the others are made of bark, which they put together very skilfully, and which are also called canoes. Traces of the institution of marriage can just be per- ceived among them, and nothing more. A man and woman join themselves together without any particular They sing while dying at the stake. They know how to cure all wounds and hurts. Of their clothing. Their mo- ney is white and black Zeewant. They paint and cut their bodies for the purpose of ornament. They make their boats themselves, out of trunks and bark of trees. They do not marry.270 REPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHERLAND. ceremony otherwise than that the man by previous agree- ment with the woman gives her some Zeewant or cloth, which on their separation, which soon happens, he takes again. Both men and women are utterly unchaste and r^unchaste shamelessly promiscuous in their intercourse, which is change tSiir cause t^ie men so °ften changing their wives and wives. the women their husbands. Ordinarily they have but one wife, sometimes two or three, but this is generally among the chiefs. They have also among them differ- ent conditions of persons, such as noble and ignoble. The men are generally lazy, and do nothing until they become old and unesteemed, when they make spoons, wooden bowls, bags, nets and other similar articles ; beyond this the men do nothing except fish, hunt and go to war. The women are compelled to do the rest of the ^>rk d° aSd work, such as planting corn, cutting and drawing how. wood, cooking, taking care of the children and whatever else there is to be done. Their dwellings consist of of their hickory saplings, placed upright in the ground and bent change of ad arch-wise; the tops are covered with barks of trees, bode. which they cut for this purpose in great quantities. Some even have within them little boxes and imagery cut out rough, with very little design, but these are generally in the houses of the chiefs. In the fishing and hunting sea- sons, they lie under the open sky or little better. They do not five long in one place, but move about several times in a year, at such times and to such places as it appears beforehand best and easiest for them to obtain subsis- tence. There is a They are divided into different tribes and languages, eachftrib°eVer ea°h tribe living generally by itself and having one of its number as a chief, though he has not much powder or distinction except in their dances or in time of war. They have Among some there is not the least knowledge of God, ledge ofGoT and amon& others very little, though they relate very but \re strange fables concerning Him. oflthe devil! They are in general much afraid of the Devil, who they 'Sake receives their adoration ; and some give themselves up offerings. to him and thus permit themselves to be wheedled.* But their devils, they say, will have nothing to do with * The Indian mode of reasoning on this subject is well stated by Biorck, in his dissertation De plantatione Ecclesia Suecana in America. Refer- ring to their belief in a celestial and terrestrial manitto, he says, “ They perversely argue that the former is not to be adored or feared because he is good, but the latter is to be feared and worshipped because he is bad.*'REPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHERLAND. 271 the Dutch. No haunting of spirits and the like are heard of among them. They make offerings to the Devil some- times, but with few solemnities. They believe in the immortality of the soul. They have some knowledge of the sun, moon and stars, which they understand well how to name, and they judge tolerably well about the weather. There is hardly any law or justice among There is no them, except sometimes in war matters, and then very tice among little. The nearest blood is the avenger. The youngest them- are the most courageous, and do for the most part what they please. Their weapons formerly wrere the bow Their weap- and arrow, which they employ with wonderful skill, but bSw and *£? they now generally use clap-hammers, and those who th°n0gw live near the Christians or have many dealings with obtain guns, them, have firelocks and hatchets, which they obtain in the chrism- trade. They are exceedingly fond of guns, sparing no tiaalSfc expense for them ; and are so skilful in the use of them that they surpass many Christians. Their food is coarse and simple, drinking water as their only beverage, and eating the flesh of all kinds of animals which the coun- try affords, cooked without being dressed. They eat even badgers,dogs, eagles andsuch like trash, upon which Christians place no value. They use all kinds of fish, which they commonly cook without removing the en- trails, and snakes, frogs and the like. They know how to preserve fish and meat during winter, and to cook them with corn-meal. They make their bread of maize, but it is very plain, and cook it either whole or broken in a pestle block. The women do this and make of it a pap or porridge, which some of them call Sapsis,# others Enimdare, and which is their daily food. They mix this also well with small beans of different colors, which they plant themselves, but this is held by them as a dainty dishmore than as daily food. BY WHOM NEW NETHERLAND WAS FIRST DISCOVERED, AND WHAT ARE ITS BOUNDARIES. That New Netherland was first found, claimed and was SSFS possessed by Netherlanders, has already been stated; but held by Ne- * Probably a misprint for Sapaan. theriandew272 REPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHERLAND. The English have seized •a large por- tion of it. Four Forts were built in token of pos- session. No dispute as to the North river. The Forts are now in a very poor condition & are useless. in as much as a dispute has arisen, not only with the Swedes (which is of little moment) but especially with the English, who have already entered upon and seized a great part thereof, it is necessary to speak of each claim somewhat at large. But because this matter has been treated upon by various ingenious minds in its length and breadth, and as those claims are so absurd as to require only a few reasons in answer to them, we will be as brief as is in any wise practicable. After their High Mightinesses, the Lords States General, were pleased, in the year of our Lord 1622, to include this province in their grant to the Honorable West India Company, their Honors deemed it necessary to take into possession so naturally beautiful and noble a province, which was immediately done, as opportunity offered, the same as in all similar beginnings. Since the year of our Lord 1623, four forts have been built there by order of the Lords Mayors, one on the south point of the Manhatans Island, where the East and North rivers unite, called New Amsterdam, where the staple-right* of New Netherland was designed to be; another upon the same river, six-and-thirty Dutch miles higher up, and three miles below the great Cohoes (Koc- hoos) fall of the Mohawk’s river, (Maquas-kil,) on the west side of the river, in the colony^ of Renselaerswyck, and is called Orange ; but upon this river there has been as yet no dispute with any foreigners. Upon the South river lies fort Nassau and upon the Fresh river,f the Good Hope. Of these four forts there has been always, from the beginning to the present time some possession, although they are all now in a very bad condition, not only in themselves but also as regards possession. These forts,both to the South and North, are so situated as to command and protect not only the said rivers, but also the plantations between them, as well as those round about them, and on the other side of the river as far as the ownership by occupation extends. These the Hon. Company declared they owned and would main- tain, against all foreign or domestic powers who should attempt to seize them against their consent. Yet on the North East side of New Netherland, this declaration * Staple-right is a privilege granted to the inhabitants of a place to compel the masters of vessels or merchants trading along their coasts, to discharge their cargoes there for sale, or else pay duties. t Connecticut River.REPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHERLAND. 273 was not at all regarded or observed by the English liv- ing to the Eastward; for notwithstanding possession was already fully taken by the building and occupation of fort Good Hope, and there was no neglect from time to time in warning them, in making known our rights, and in protesting against their usurpation and violence, they have disregarded all these things and have seized The English* and possessed, and still hold, the largest and best part of Foft New Netherland, that is, on the East side of the North Hoop' river, from Cape Cod, (by our people in 1609 called The armg New Holland, and taken possession of by the setting up their High of the Arms of their High Mightinesses.) to within six fslwer^Jt miles of the North river, where the English have now a village called Stamford, from whence it could be travelled Holland, now, in a summer’s day, to the North river and back again, if the Indian path were only known. The Eng- lish of New Haven also have a trading house, which lies East or South East of Magdalen Island, and not more The English- than six miles from the North river, in which this Island from1*“the lies, on the East side twenty three and a half miles above North river” Fort Amsterdam.* This trading post was established for no other purpose than to divert the trade of the North river or to destroy it entirely. They have also endeav- ored several times, during eight or nine years past, to buy of the Indians a large quantity of land, (which would have served more than any other thing to draw off the trade,) as we have understood from the Indians; for the post is situated not more than three or four miles from the East bounds of the Colony of Renselaerswyck. This and similar difficulties these people now wish to lay to our charge, all under the pretence of a very clear conscience, notwithstanding King James, of most glorious memory, chartered the Virginia Companies up- The Virginia on condition that they should remain an hundred miles wer post. NEW SERIES, VOL. II. 21276 REPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHERLAND. OF THE FRESH RIVER. After Fort Good Hope, begun in the year 1623,* on the Fresh river, was finished, sometime had elapsed when an English bark arrived there. Jacob Van Curler, Com- The English missary of the Company, by order of Director Wouter tomt Van Twilier, protested against it, but notwithstanding lies to the his protest they did, a year or two afterwards, come vier, not- there with some families. A protest was also made Sgthoirnpro- against them; but it was very manifest that these peo- test* pie had little respect for it, for notwithstanding our pro- tests they have finally seized and possessed the whole of little7 regard the Fresh river, and have proceeded so far in their shame- tests^ur an°d less course asj the year 1040, to seize the company’s theZwho?e°of farms at the Fort, paying no regard to the protests which the river?° we made. They have gone even still further, and have belabored the Company’s people with sticks and heavy o£ey clubs; and have forcibly thrown into the river their and destroy ploughs and other instruments, while they were on the ments!mple" land lor the purpose of working, and have let their horses loose. The same things have happened very fre- quently. They also obtained the hogs and cows belong- They sell ing to the Fort, and several times sold some of them for our cattle. ^he purpose, as they said, of repairing the damage. Against all these acts, and each one in particular, pro- tests were repeatedly made, but they were met with ridicule. There were several letters written in Latin to their governors; of which letters and protests, minutes or copies remain with the Company’s officers, from which a much fuller account of these transactions could They have made. But all opposition was in vain, for having hearts ihon a smack of the goodness and convenience of this the1 country river, and discovered the difference between the land be^easiiy^- there and that more easterly, they would not go back ; verted from nor would they put themselves under the protection of their High Mightinesses, although they were respectfully exhorted thereto, as was desirable from the first they should have done. • A misprint for 1633.REPRESENTATION OP NEW NETHERLAND. 377 OF THE RIGHT OF THE NETHERLANDERS TO THE FRESH RIVER. To speak from the beginning, our people had carefully explored and discovered the most northerly parts of New Netherland and some distance on the other side of Cape Cod, as it is called, before the English were known here, and had set up our Arms upon Cape Cod as an act of possession. In the year 1614 our traders had not only traded at the Fresh River, but had also ascended it be- fore any English had everdreamed of going there, which they did first in the year 1636, after our fort, the Good Hope, had been a long time in esse and most all the lands on both sides the river had been purchased by our people from the Indians, which purchase took place prin- cipally in the year 1632. Kievets-hoeck * was also pur- chased at the same time by one Hans den Sluys, an officer of the company. At this place the States’ arms had been affixed to a tree in token of possession ; but the English who now possess the Fresh River have torn them down and engraved a ridiculous face in their place. Whether this was done by authority or not, cannot be positively asserted ; it is however supposed that it was. It has been so charged upon them in several letters, but it has never been followed up. Besides they have, contra jus gentium, per fas et nefas, invaded the whole river, for the reason, as they say, that the land was lying idle and waste, which was not true at the time they came ; for there was already built upon the river a fort which continued to be possessed by a garrison. There was also a large brewery near the fort, belonging tb the Dutch or the Company. Most of the land was bought and appropriated and the arms of their High Migh- tinesses were set up at Kievets Hoeck, which is situated at the mouth of the river, so that every thing was done that could be done except that the country was not all actually occupied. The English therefore wished to regard it the same as if it were in their power to estab- lish laws for our nation in its own purchased lands and limits, and direct how and in what manner it should in- troduce people into the country. But it does not turn Our people were the first to take possession of the country and bought much of it. The English throw down the arms of Their High Mightiness- es and set up a ridicu- lous mask in their place. Every thing was done that could be done,, except peopling the country. * Now called Saybrook Point. Kievit, or Kiewit, is the bird pewit.REPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHERLAND. out exactly, according to their desire and pleasure, that they have the right to invade and appropriate these waters, lands and jurisdiction to themselves. OF THE RODEN-BERCH, BY THE ENGLISH CALLED NEW HAVEN, AND OTHER PLACES OF LESS IMPORTANCE. of the En The num^er °f villages in the possession of the Eng- lish villages lish, from New Holland or Cape Cod to Stamford, within many inhah- the limits of the Netherlander, is about thirty, and they containthey maY confain five thousand men capable of bearing arms. Their cattle, cows and horses are estimated at thirty thousand; their goats and hogs cannot be stated, as neither of them can be fully known because there are several places which cannot well pass tor villages, but which nevertheless are beginnings of villages. Among the villages, Roden-Berch,* or New Haven, is the first. is^ne^ofThe ^ has a G°vernor> contains about three hundred and New Eng- forty families, and is one of the members of the United nies, which Colonies of iNew England, of which there are four in all. are four in This place was begun eleven yeas ago, in the year 1638, since when the people have broken off and formed Milford, Stratford, Stamford and the trading house before spoken of, &c. Director Kieft has caused several protests to be drawn up, in Latin and in other languages, commanding them by virtue of his commissions irom the Lords States General, His Highness the Prince of Orange and the Most Noble Directors of the Chartered West India Company, to desist from their proceedings and usurpations, and warning them, in case they did not, that we would, as The English soon as a ^ opportunity should present, exact of them sieze"116 the sat;is^aclion therefor. But it was knocking at a dead land®, disre® marts door, as they did not regard these protests or even protests,and take any notice of them; on the contrary they have themSfles S0Uo*:lt many subterfuges, circumstances, false pretences by subterfu- and sophistical arguments to give color to their doings, ges‘ and to throw a cloud upon our lawful title and valid rights, in order to trick us out of them. General Stuy- vesant also has had many questions with them, growing * Red-Mpuntain.REPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHERLAND, 279 out of this matter, but it remains as it was. The utmost that they have ever been willing to come to, is to declare that the dispute could not be settled in this country, and that they desired and were satisfied that their High Mightinesses should arrange it with their sovereign. It is highly necessary that this should be done, inasmuch as the English have already seized, and are in possession They^ have of, almost half of New Netherland, which hereafter must of New Ne- be of very great importance. It is therefore heartily to therlftnd* be desired that their High Mightinesses will be pleased to take this subject into serious consideration before it shall go further, and the breach become irreparable. We must now pass to the South river, called by the English Delaware Bay, first speaking of the boundaries; but before doing so, we cannot omit to say that there has been here, both in the time of Director Kieft and in that of General Stuyvesant, a certain Englishman, who gir Edward, called himself Sir Edward Plowden, with the title of Pioeyden, Earl Palatine of New Albion, who claimed that the land ofrNeavvatAi^ on the West side of the North river to Virginia was his, claia^ by aift of King James of England, but he said he did not wish to have any strife with the Dutch, though he was * very much piqued at the Swedish Governor, John Printz, at the South river, on account of some affront given him, too long to relate. He said that when an opportunity should offer he would go there and take possession of the river. In short it amounts to this, according to the claims of the English, that there is nothing left for the subjects of Their High Mightinesses,—one must have this far, and another that far, but as between themselves they never fall short.* QF THE SOUTH RIVER AND THE BOUNDARIES THERE. As we have now come to speak of the South River and the most southerly portion of New Netherland, we wTill, since it is well distinguished from the other part, re- late every thing from the beginning, and as briefly as is practicable. The boundaries, as we find them, extend to Cape Henlopen, many miles south of Cape Cornelius, ♦ See Net®280 REPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHERLAND. at the latitude of thirty-eight degrees. The coast stretches, one course with another, west-southwest and west, and although this Cape Henlopen is not much esteemed, it is nevertheless proper that it should be brought to our attention, as being well situated, not only in regard to the position of the country, but also as The English relates to the trade with the Indians at the South river, are mlkfng which the English and Swedes are striving after very tS for The hard, as we will show. When the boundaries of this souih°frive country shall be settled, these people should without fur- er, which ther question be ousted, and both the enjoyment of the theUldboun- productions of the land and the trade be retained for the darr- subjects of Their High Mightinesses. OF THE SOUTH BAY AND SOUTH RIVER. The latitude The South Bay and South River, by many called the of the south second great river of New Netherland, is situated at the Mmfn?8*165 latitude of 38 degrees 53 minutes. It has two head- lands or capes,—the more northerly bearing the name of Cape May, the more southerly, that of Cape Cornelius. The bay was called Newport-May, but at the present time is known as Godyn’s bay. These names were given to the it was dis- places about the time of their first discovery, before any covered in others were given them. The discovery, moreover, took blf thersh?p place at the same time with that of the North River, and Halve Mam. by ^he same ship and persons, who entered the South Bay before they came to the North River, as is all to be read, at length, in the “ Nieuwe Werelt” of Johannes de Laet. At the same time that the forts were laid out on the North and Fresh rivers, after (zedert) the year 1623, Fort Nassau fort Nassau was erected upon this river, which, in com- *he four! °f mon parlance, is called the South river. It was the first of the four, and was built with the same object and de- sign as the others, as hereinbefore related. It lies on the east bank, but it would have done as well on the west bank, fifteen miles up the river. The bay runs for the most part north and south; is called Newport-May or Godyn’s bay; and is nine miles long before you come to the river, and six miles wide, so that you cannot see from one side to the other. On account of certain bars it is somewhat dangerous for inexperienced navigatorsREPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHERLANDS 281 but not so for those who are acquainted with the chan- nels. This bay and river is compared by its admirers with the river Amazon, that is, by such of them as have seen both ; each of which is considered one of the most erYare com- beautiful, and the best and pleasantest rivers in the world Ke who of itself and as regards others convenient to it. Four- k"ow» teen streams empty into this river, the least of them nav- Amazon, igable for two or three miles; and on both sides there are tolerably level lands of great extent. Two miles h®^ from Cape Cornelius, where you enter on the west side, lies a certain kil, which might be taken for an ordinary river cree s* or stream, being navigable far up, and affording a beau- tiful road-stead for ships of all burdens. There is no other like it in the whole bay for safety and convenience. The main channel for navigation runs close by the place we call the Hoere-kil. From whence this name is de- rived we do not know,* so long is it since this place was taken and colonized by Netherlander, years before any English or Swedes came there. The States* arms were set up at this place in copper, but as they were thrown The gtates, down by some mischievous Indians, the Commissary there arms were very firmly insisted upon, and demanded, the head of before the the offender. The Indians not knowing otherwise °* brought a head, saying it was his; and the affair was came, supposed to be all settled, but some time afterwards, when our people were working unsuspectingly in their fields, the Indians came in the guise of friendship, and distributing themselves among the Dutch in proportionate numbers, surprised and murdered them. By this means In conse- the Colony was again reduced to nothing; but it was ^“murder nevertheless sealed with blood and dearly enough bought. °[sttbeatc!reetori under pretext of the public business. They have also attend to conducted themselves just as if they were the sovereigns theirowili of the country. As they desired to have it, so always has it been ; and as they willed so was it done. The “ The Managers,” they say, “ are masters in Fatherland, tors play but we are masters in this land.” As they understand m!ster?olute it so it is, there is no appeal. And it has not been difficult for them hitherto to maintain this doctrine in practice ; for the people were few and for the most part very simple and uninformed, and besides, had transac- tions with the Directors every day. As there were some intelligent men among them, who could go upon their own feet, them it was sought to oblige. They could not un- derstand at first the arts of the Directors which were always subtle and dark, inasmuch as they were very frequently successful and for a long time quite ad van- CJtector tageous. Director Kieft said himself and let it be said Kieft let it also by others, that he was sovereign in this country, the gatedrthat*l~ same as the Prince in Netherland. This was told him ?eeignain”hi» several times here and he never made any particular objection to it. The refusing to allow appeals, and other prame power NEW SERIES, VOL. II. 23292 REPRESENTATION OF NEW N ETIU RLAND. here more similar acts, prove clearly that in regard to us it is just company- as they say an(t n°t otherwise. The present Director does the same, and in the denial of appeal, he is at home. stuyvesant He asserts the maxim, “ the Prince is above the law,” righteofhap- and applies it so boldly to his own person that he is P skin- ners. The fort is left like a mole-heap, and all the ordnance is out of order. by the Mayors, and also on account of the monies and means which were given in common, being privately appropriated and used. But it was all in vain, there was very little or no amendment; and the greater the endeavors to help, restore and raise up every thing, the worse has it been ; for pride has ruled when justice dic- tated otherwise, just as if it were disgraceful to follow advice, and as if' every thing should come from one head* The fruits of this conduct can speak and bear testimony of themselves. It has been so now so long, that every day serves the more to condemn it. Previously to the 23d of July 1649, nothing had been done concerning weights and measures or the like ; but at that time they notified the people that in August then next ensuing, an order would be made stating when the Fiscal would do some- thing about it, which was as much as to say, when he would give the pigeons drink. There is frequently much discontent and discord among the people on account of weights and measures, and if they be not regulated nothing can be right. It is also believed that some of large consciences have two sets of them, but we cannot affirm the fact. As to the corn measure, the Company itself has alwaj^s been suspected, but who dare lisp it? The payment in Zee want, which is the currency here, has never been placed upon a good footing, although the commonalty requested it, and showed how it should be regulated, assigning numerous reasons therefor. But it always produced strife and discontent, and if any thing were said before the Director of these matters more than pleased him, very wicked and spiteful words were re- turned. Those moreover who made it their business to speak to him of such things were, if he were in no good fit, very freely berated as clowns and bear-skinners. The fort under which we shelter ourselves, and from "which as it seems all authority proceeds, lies like a mole- heap or a tottering wall, on which there is not one gun carriage or one piece of cannon in a suitable frame or on a good platform. From the first it has been de- clared that it should be repaired, laid in five angles, and put in royal condition. The commonalty’s men have been addressed for money for the purpose, but they ex- cused themselves on the ground that the people were poor. Every one was discontented and feared that if the Director once had the fort to rely upon, he would be more cruel and severe. It is left sticking between them.REPRESENTATION OP NEW NETHERLAND. 299 He will doubtless know how to lay the blame upon the commonalty who are innocent, with much circumstance, although the Director wished to have the money from them, and for that purpose pretended to have an order from Their High Mightinesses. Had the Director laid out the fourth part of the money which was collected from the commonalty during his time, for that purpose, it certainly would not have fallen short, as the wine ex- cise was expressly laid for that object. But it was sought in a thousand ways to shear the sheep though the wool was not yet grovsn. In regard, then, to public works, there is little difference between Director Kieft and Director Stuyvesant, for, after the church was built, the former was negligent, and made it a personal matter against those who looked him in the eye. The latter has had much more opportunity to assist the commonalty than his predecessor had, for he has had no war on his hands. He is also unlike his predecessor in having been more diligent and bitter in looking up causes of prosecu- tion against his innocent opponents* THE ADMINISTRATION OF DIRECTOR KIEFT IN PAR* TICULAR. Sufficient has been said of what Director Kieft did in regard to the church and its affairs, and in regard to the State, such as buildings and taxes or revenue. It remains for us to proceed to the Council-house and produce thence some examples, as we promised. We will, in doing so, endeavor to be brief. The Council then consisted of Director Kieft and Monsieur la Montagne. The Director had two votes, and Monsieur la Montagne one; and it was a high crime to appeal from their judgments. Cornelis Yan- der Hoy kens sat with them as Fiscal,* and Cornelis van Tienhoven as Secretary, and whenever any thing extra- ordinary occurred, the Director allowed some, whom it pleased him,—officers of the company for the most part,— to be summoned in addition, but that seldom happened* Nevertheless it gave discontent. The Twelve men, and The money collected from the people w&t not expend- ed on the fort. The Direc- tors prose- cute person- ally, but Stuyvesant is worse than Kieft. * Prosecuting Attorney. His name is usually spelt Van der Huyghens. NEW SERIES, VOL. II. 24300 The twelve Men and Eight Men have little to say. The Direc- tors induce the vulgar to believe that they are sov- ereign. As every one lays the blame of the blood shed upon the Di- rector, he en- deavors to shove the war from his own shoul- ders. Tho secreta- ry makes a false report. The peti- tioners not entirely in- nocent. REPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHERLAND. afterwards the Eight, had in lawful matters neither vote nor advice ; but were chosen in view of the war and some other occurrences, to serve as cloaks and cats- paws. Otherwise they were of no consideration; and were little respected if they^ opposed at all the views of the Director, who himself imagined, and indeed wished to make others believe, that he was sovereign, and that it was absolutely in his power to do and permit any thing. He little regarded the safety of the people as the supreme law, as clearly appeared in the war, although when the spit was turned in the ashes, it was sought by cunning and numerous certificates and peti- tions to shift the blame upon others. But that happen- ed so because the war was carried too far. Every one laid the damage and the blood which was shed to his ac- count. La Montagne said that he had protested against it, and wTas concerned in it at first against his will and to his great regret, and that afterwards, when according to his judgment it was best to do so, he had pretended to assist. The Secretary, Cornelius Van Tienhoven, also said that he had no hand in the matter, and nothing had been done by him in regard to it except by the ex- press orders of he Director. But this was not believed, for there are those who have heard La Montagne say that if the Secretary had not brought a false report the affair would never have happened.* There are others also who know this, and every one believes it to be so; and indeed it has plausibility. Fiscal Van der Hoykens was not trusted on account of his drinking, wherein all his science consists. He had also no experience here, and in the beginning frequently denounced the war as being against his will. So that the blame rests, and must rest only upon the Director and Secretary Tienha- ven. The Director was entrusted with the highest au- thority, and if any body advised him to the land’s ruin, he was not bound to followr the advice. He afterwards endeavored to shift the burden from his own neck upon the people, who however excuse themselves al- though in our judgment they are not all entirely inno- cent. The cause of this war we conceive to have been the exacting of the contribution, (for which the Director said he had the order of the Mayors,) and his own un- * He had been sent to Pavonia (Hoboken) to reconnoitre the position of the Indians.REPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHEBLAND. mi governable passions, which showed themselves princi- pally in private. But there are friends whom this business intimately concerns, and as they have already undertaken it, we will leave the matter with them and proceed to adduce one or two proofs disclosing the aspiration after sovereignty. Passing by many cases for the sake of brevity, we have that of one Francis Dough- ty, an English Minister, and of Arnoldus Van Herden- berch, a free merchant. But as these cases appear in the matters to come before Their High Mightinesses in full conclave, we will merely give a summary of them. This minister, Francis Doughty, during the first troubles in England, in order to escape them, came to New England. But he found that he had got from the pan into the fire. Wherefore in order that he might, in con- formity with the Dutch reformation, have freedom of conscience, which, contrary to his expectation he missed in New England, he betook himself to the protection of the Dutch. An absolute ground-brief* with manorial privileges was granted to him by the Director. He had increased his settlement in the course of one year by the addition of several families, but the war coming on, they were driven from their lands with the loss of some men and many cattle, besides most all their houses and what other property they had. They afterwards returned and remained a while, but consuming more than they were able to raise, they came to Manathans where all the inhab- itants at that time had fled, and there Master Doughty officiated as a minister. After the flame of war was out and the peace was concluded,—but in such a manner that no one much relied upon it,—some of the people again returned to their lands. The Director would have been glad, in order that all things should be completely res- tored, if this man had done the same and had gone back upon his land ;—but inasmuch as the peace was doubt- * Conveyance. Mespat or Maspeth, which was thus conveyed, is in the town of Newtown in Queens county. Doughty was one of the first pur- chasers of Taunton, Mass., in 1637. (Baylies New Plymouth, i. 288). He was driven from New England because he held that " children who were of baptised parents,—and so Abraham’s children,—ought to be baptised” (Lechford’s “ Plaine Dealing” 40-41.) In Sept. 1666, his son brought a suit to recover his unpaid salary as minister at Flushing. An order of the town court was produced, dated Feb. 2, 1647, to assess the inhabitants of the'town for the salary. It was given in evidence that the town had been compelled by Stuyvesant to sign the articles for the minister, he taking them one after another in a room and threatening them if they did not. The court ordered a part of the money to be paid. Of the sove- reignty. Of Francis Doughty. He is driven from his lands. Is minister at the Man- athans.302 REPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHERLAND. ful, and he had not wherewith to begin, Master Doughty wTas in no haste. He went however, sometime after- wards and dwelt there half a year, but again left it. fiscaPtedC°?n As peace was made, and in hope that some others would Sf^s^belllg ma^e a there, a suit was brought against the peopled, * minister, and carried on so far, that his land was confis- Tve^hasZt cated. Master Doughty, feeling himself aggrieved, ap- happened. peaied from the sentence. The Director answered, his sentence could not be appealed from, but must avail ab- solutely ; and caused the minister for that remark to be imprisoned twenty-four hours and then to pay 25 guil- ders. We have always considered this an act of tyran- ny and regarded it as a token of sovereignty. The matter of Arnoldus van Herdenberch was very like it in its termination. After Zeger Theunisz was’^ murdered by the Indians in the BeregaL* and the yacht had re- turned to the Manathans, Arnoldus Van Hardenbergh was with two others appointed by the Director and Council, curators over the estate, and the yacht was searched. Some goods were found in it which were not inventoried, whereupon the Fiscal went to law with the curators, and claimed that the goods were confiscable to the Company. The curators resisted and gave Her- denberch charge of the matter. After some proceed- ings the goods were condemned. As he found himself now acting in behalf of the common owners, he appealed to such judges as they should choose for the purpose. The same game was then played over again. It was a high crime. The Fiscal made great pretensions and a sentence was passed, whereof the contents read thus: “Having seen the written complaint of the Fiscal Van- der Hoy kens against Arnoldus Van Hardenberch in re- lation to appealing from our sentence dated the 28th April last past, as appears by the signature of the before- named A. Van Hardenberch, from which sentence no appeal can be had, as is proven to him by the commis- sion of Their High Mightinesses the Lords States General and His Highness of Orange: Therefore the Director General and Council of New Netherland, regarding the Herden- dangerous consequences resulting to the supreme author- tergh apj ity of this land’s magistracy, condemn the before named pays fiae Arnold Van Herdenberch, to pay forthwith a fine of 25 Slrf, guil* guilders, or to be imprisoned until the penalty be paid. * Shrewsbury Inlet.REPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHERLAND. 303 An example to others.” Now, if one know the lion from his paw, he can see that these people do not regard the name of Their High Mightinesses, His Highness of Orange, the honor of the Magistrates, the words, ‘ dan- gerous consequences/ ‘ an example to others/ and the like,—having used them to play their own parts there- with. We have therefore placed this act by the side of that which was committed against the minister Doughty. Many more similar cases would be found in the minute book, if what was unjustly done were always inserted in it, which is very doubtful, the contrary sometimes being observed. It appears sufficiently, that pretty much every thing has been badly managed. And with this we will leave the subject and pass on to the government of Director Stuyvesant, with a single word first, how- ever, touching the proviso incorporated in the ground- briefs, as the consequences may thence be very well understood. Absolute grants were made to the people by the ground-briefs, who thought that every thing was right, and that they were masters of their own pos- sessions. The ground-briefs were then demanded from them again upon pretence that there was something for- gotten in them ; but it amounted to nothing except that they thought they had incommoded themselves in giving them, and therefore a proviso was added to the ground- brief below, and it was signed anew; which proviso directly conflicts with the ground-brief, as there is now in one and the same ground-brief a contradiction with- out semblance of agreement, for it reads thus in the old brief;—“and take in possession the land and the valleys appertaining thereto,” and the proviso says, “ no valley to be used before the company,” all which could well enough be used, and the company have a competency. In the ground-briefs is contained also another provision, which is usually inserted and sticks in the bosom of every one; to wit, that they must submit themselves to all taxes which the council has made or shall make.* These impositions can be continued in infinitum, and have * The following clause, taken from a ground-brief or patent issued in 1639, is the one here alluded to. After describing the land conveyed, it is declared to be “ upon the express condition and stipulation that the said A. B. and his assigns shall acknowledge the Noble Lords Managers aforesaid as their masters and patroons under the sovereignty of the High and Mighty Lord States’ General, and shall be obedient to the Director and Council here, as all good citizens are bound to be, submitting themselves to all such taxes and imposts as have been or may be, hereafter, imposed by the Noble Lords. This preced- ing is simi- lar to that agHinst Doughty* Of the provi- so in the ground-brief. A contradic- tion in the ground-brief.304 REPRESENTATION OP NEW NETHERLAND. Stuyvesant’s government injures the inhabitants. He plays the advocate and not the judge in court. He will al- low of no op- position, and will heed no ^advice. already been enforced against several inhabitants. Others also are discouraged from undertaking anything on such terms. THE ADMINISTRATION OF DIRECTOR STUYVESANT IN PARTICULAR. We wish much we were already through with this administration, for it has injured us, and we perceive our ability weak ;—nevertheless we will begin, and as we have already spoken of the public property, ecclesi- astical and civil, we will consider how it is in regard to the administration of justice, and speak impartially be- tween man and man. And first, to point as with a finger, at the manners of the Director and Council. As regards the Director, from his first arrival to this time, his manner in court has been to treat with violence, dis- pute with or advance one of the two parties, not as be- comes a judge, but as a bounden advocate, which has given great discontent to every one, and with some it has gone so far and has effected so much, that many of them dare bring no matter before the Court, if they do not stand well or tolerably so with the Director. For whoever has him opposed, has as much as the sun and moon against him. Having himself appointed many of the Councillors, and placed them under obligation to him, and some of them being for other reasons well disposed, he can with them overpower the rest by plurality of votes. He frequently puts his opinion in writing, and that so fully that it srikes on every side, and then he adds verbally, “ Monsieur, this is my advice, if any one has aught to say against it, let him speak.” If then any body makes opposition, which is not easily done, though he be well grounded, His Honor bursts out immediately in such a fury and makes such gestures, that it is frightful; yea, he rails out frequently at the Councillors for this thing and the other, with ill words which would better suit the fish-market than the Council chamberand if this be all endured, His Honor will not rest yet unless he have his will. To demonstrate this by examples and proofs though easily done, wouldREPRESENTATION OP NEW NETHERLANDS 3 0£ nevertheless detain ns too long; but we all say and af- firm that this has been his common practice from the first and still daily continues. And this is the condition of things in the Council on the part of the Director, who is its head and President. Let us now briefly speak of the Councillors individually. The Vice Director, Lub- bert van Dincklagen, has for a long time on various occa- sions shown great dissatisfaction about many different Seed. “*a ” matters, and has protested against the Director and his appointed Councillors, but only lately, and after some others of the chief officers had done so. He was, before this, so influenced by fear, that he durst venture to say nothing against the Director, but let many things pass by and submitted to them. He declared afterwards that he had great objections to them, because they were not just, but he kept silent for the sake of peace ; as the Director had said in the Council, that he would treat him worse than Wouter Van Twilier had ever done, if he were not willing to conform to his wishes. This man then is over-ruled. Let us proceed to the others. Mon- La Mon_ sieur la Montague had been in the Council in Kieft’s ^«neda*eR time, and was then very much suspected by many. He freeiyf* had no commission from the Fatherland, was driven by the war from his farm, is also very much indebted to the Company, and therefore is compelled to dissemble. But it is sufficiently known from himself that he is not pleased, and is opposed to the administration. Brian Bryan Ncw. Newton, lieutenant of the soldiers, is the next. This ^0nndd"eta"d0t man is afraid of the Director, and regards him as his our language benefactor; and besides, is very simple and inexperinced a”d mustsa* in law. As he does not understand our Dutch language, he is scarcely capable of replying to the long written opinions, except that he can and will say yes. Some- times the Commissary, Adrian Keyser is admitted into The Com_ the council, who came here as secretary. This man has not forgotten much law, but says that he lets God’s water run over God’s field. He cannot and dares not say any thing, for so much devolves upon him that it is best that he should be silent. The captains of the ships* when they are ashore, have a vote in the Council; as c^ptauilandi Jelmer Thomassen, and Paulus Lenaertson, who was their vote made Equipment master upon his first arrival, and Councll‘ who has always had a seat in the Council, and is a free man. What knowledge these people, who all their lives sail on the sea, and are brought up to ship-work, have of806 REPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHERLANDS Stuyvesant rails at them as thieves, y which they disregard* It causes suspicion, that the Di- rector favors Paulus Len- ertsz so much. The Fiscal excluded from the Council for 29 months. The Fiscal none the wisest. The Secre- tary has been long in the country and is truly a door-step. law matters, and of the disputes of landsmen, any one can easily imagine. Besides, the Director keeps them so in debt that they dare not speak in opposition to him, as will appear from this passage at Curagoa, before the Director ever saw New Netherland. As they were dis- coursing about the price of carracks, ( has not been effectually appeased since, although they do not we did not know what else to do, and followed his order directions! herein. Nevertheless it was contemplated that the Nine Men should not communicate with him or follow his directions in any thing pertaining to the matter. This excited in him a bitter and unconquerable hatred against them all, but principally against those whom he supposed to be the chief authors of it; and although these persons had been good and dear friends with him always, and he, shortly before, had regarded them as the most honorable, respectable, intelligent and patriotic men of the country, yet, as soon as they did not follow the General’s wishes, they were this and that, some of them rascals, liars, rebels, usurers and spendthrifts, in a word, hanging was almost too good for them. It had been previously strongly urged that the deputationREPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHERLAND. 317 should be expedited, but [he said] there was then still six months time, and all that was proper and necessary could be put upon a sheet of paper. Many reports also Various were spread among the people, and it was sought prin- means em- cipally by means of the English to prevent the college vert the col- of the Nine Men from doing any thing; but as these pUgrep 0f™!n ita intrigues were discovered, and it was therefore manifest that this could not be effected, so in order to make a diversion, many suits were brought against those who were considered the ringleaders. They were accused and then prosecuted by the Fiscal and other suborned officers, who made them out to be the greatest villains in the country, where shortly before they had been known as the best people and dearest children. At this time an opportunity presented itself, which the Director was as glad to have, as he himself said, as his own life. At the beginning of the year 1649, clearly perceiving that we would not only have much to do about the deputa- tion but would hardly be able to accomplish it, we deemed it necessary to make regular memoranda for 0fthenotcl‘- the purpose of furnishing a journal from them at the proper time. This duty was committed to one Adriaen vander Donck, who by a resolution adopted at the same time, was lodged in a chamber at the house of one Michael Jansz. The General on a certain occasion ^eJoteasnd when Vander Donck was out of the chamber, seized this Van der rough drait with his own hands, put Vander Donck ^ckptttl“ the day after in jail, called together the great Council, accused him of having committed crimen lessee majesta- tis, and took up the matter so warmly, that there was scarcely any determining whether the deputation was to proceed, (and it was yet to be arranged,) or whether the journal,—as Mine Heer styled the rough draft from which the journal was to be prepared,—was of itself action enough ; for Mine Heer said there were great calumnies in it against Their Higl\ Mightinesses, and when we wished to explain it, and sought to correct the errors, (as the writer did not wish to insist upon it and said he knew well that there were mistakes in it, aris- ing from haste, and other similar causes, in consequence of his having had much to do and not having read over again the most of it,) our request was called a libel However which was worthy of no answer, and the writer of which the it was intended to punish as an example to others. In D‘reclor* fine we could not make it right in any way. He forbid818 REPRESENTATION OP NEW NETHERLAND. Vander Donck the Council and also our meetings, and gave us formal notice to that effect, and yet would not release him from his oath. For the purpose of cutting off the convenient mode of proof, he issued a procla- prohibited. mation declaring that no testimony or other act should be valid unless it were written by the Secretary ; which was of service to nobody, but, on the contrary, every one complained that nothing could be done. Director Kieft had done the same thing when he was apprehensive that an Attestation would be executed against him. And so it is their practice generally to do every thing they can think of in order to uphold their conduct. Those whose offices required them to concern themselves with the affairs of the country, and did so, did well, if they Those who went according to the General’s will and pleasure ; if counktry.rthe they did not, they were prosecuted and thown into pris- treatedbadly on’ guarded by soldiers so they could not speak with any body, angrily abused before every one as monsters, threatened to be taught this and that, and every thing done against them that he could contrive or invent. We cannot enter into details, but refer to the record kept of these things, and the documents which the Director himself will furnish. From the foregoing relation Their High Mightinesses, and other friends who may see it, The truth in can well imagine what labor and burdens we have had New** Neth- upon our shoulders from which we would very willingly concealed!18 have escaped, but for love of the country and of truth, which, as far as we know, has long lain buried. The trouble and difficulty which do or will affect us, al- though wanting no addition, do not grieve us so much as the sorrowful condition of New Netherland.now lying at its last gasp ; but we hope and trust that our afflic- tions and the sufferings of the inhabitants and people of the country will awaken in Their High Mightinesses a /compassion which will be a cause of rejoicing to New Netherlands • See Note E.—PostREPRESENTATION OP NEW NETHERLANDS 319 IN WHAT MANNER NEW NETHERLAND SHOULD BE REDRESSED. Although we are well assured and know, in regard to the mode of redress of the country, we are only children, and Their High Mightinesses are entirely competent, we nevertheless pray that they overlook our presumption and pardon us if we make some suggestions according to our humble understanding thereof in addition to what we have considered necessary in our petition to Their High Mightinesses. In our opinion this country will never flourish under the government of the Honorable Company, but will pass away and come to an end of itself, unless the Hon- orable Company be reformed ; and therefore it would he more profitable for them, and better for the country, that they should be rid thereof, and their effects trans- ported hence. To speak specifically. Care ought to be taken of the public property, as well ecclesiastical as civil, which, in beginnings, can be illy dispensed with. It is doubtful whether Divine Worship will not have to cease altogeth- er in consequence of the departure of the minister, and the inability of the Company. There should be a public school, provided with at least two good masters, so that first of all in so wild a country, where there are many loose people, the youth be well taught and brought up, not only in reading and writing, but also in the knowl- edge and fear of the Lord. As it is now, the school is hept. very irregularly, one and another keeping it ac- cording to his pleasure and as long as he thinks proper. There ought also to be an alms house, and an orphan asylum, and other similar institutions. The minister who now goes home,* can give a much fuller explana- tion thereof. The country must also be provided with godly, honorable and intelligent rulers who are not very indigent, or, indeed, are not too covetous. A covetous Governor makes poor subjects. The manner the coun- try is now governed falls severely upon it, and is intol- * This was the Rev. Johannes Backerus, who had previously been a min- ister at Curacoa. He succeeded the Rev. Everadus Bogardus as minister at New Amsterdam in 1647, and left for Holland in 1649, just before the de- parture of this deputation.320 REPRESENTATION OP NEW NETHERLANDS erable, for nobody is unmolested or secure in his property longer than the Director pleases, who is generally strongly inclined to confiscating ; and if every thing be well done, and the proper^ given to the Heer, one must still study always to please him if he would have quiet. A good population would be the consequence of a good government, as we have shown according to our ability in our petition ; and although to give free passage and equip ships, if it be necessary, would be expensive at first,—yet if the result be considered, it would ultimate- ly be a wise measure, if by that means farmers and laborers together with other poor people were brought into the country, with the little property which they have; of whom the Fatherland has enough to spare* We believe it would then prosper, especially as good privileges and exemptions, which we regard as the moth- er of population, would encourage the inhabitants to carry on commerce and lawful trade. Every one would be allured hither by the pleasantness, situation, salubrity and fruitfulness ot the country, if protection were secured within the already established boundaries. It would alb with God’s assistance, then, according to human judg- ment, go well, and New Netherland would in a few years be a brave place and be able to do service to the i\eth- erland nation, to repay richly the cost, and to thank its benefactors. High Mighty Lords ! We have had the boldness to write this remonstrance, and to place matters before you as wre have done from love of the truth, and because we felt ourselves obliged to do so by our oath and con* science. It is well that wre have not seen, heard and considered them all at once, but separately, in their whole tenor and in every particular. Nevertheless there is nothing in it but what is well known by some of us to be true;—the most is known by all of us to be true. We hope Their High Mightinesses will pardon our pre- sumption and our plainness of style, composition and method. In conclusion we commit Their High Mighti- nesses, their persons, deliberations and measures at heme and abroad, together with all the friends of New Nethr erland, to the merciful guidance and protection of the Highest, wrhom we supplicate for Their High Mighti- nesses’ present and eternal welfare. Amen. Actum defen.—28th of July in New Netherland. And was subscribed,—"Adriaen vander Donck, AugmUfa fjfefrREPRESENTATION OP NEW NETHERLAND. 821 mansz, Arnoldus van Hardenbergk, Jacob van Couwen- haven, Stevensz” (by whose name was written, “ under protest,—obliged to sign about the government of the Heer Kieft”) Michiel Jansz, Thomas Hall, Elbert ElbertsZy Govert Lohermans, Hendrick Hendricksz Kip, and /an Everts-bout,” Below was written, According to the collation of the original remonstrance, dated and subscribed as above, wz£/z which these are found to corres- pond at the Hague, the 13th October, 1619, by me—and was subscribed, “D. V. SCHELLUYNEN, Notary Public”NOTES A .—Page 275. i THE f ErLE OP THE EA'EL OF STIRLING TO LONG ISLAND AND THE ADJACENT ISLANDS, • Andrew Forester, the agent of the dowager of Stirling, was a Scotchman from Dundee. He was arrested and examined before the Director and Council, onr the 28th September, 1647, when the facts appeared as set forth in the text. The other Scotchman arrested in 1640 by Kieft, was James Farrett, who held a power of attorney from the Earl of Stirling in his life time, dated the 20th of April, 1637, authorising him to dispose of Long Island and the adjacent islands between the degrees of forty and forty-one north latitude, or any part of them. A cer- tified copy of this instrument is on file in the office of the town clerk of South- ampton on Long Island. Savage, in Winthrop, (Vol. ii. p. 6.), misled by Wood, (who however corrects the error in the second edition of his “ Sketch of Long Island,”) confounds Forester with Farrett. The history of the grant of Long Island to the Earl of Stirling, has been much' obscured. It is not, as intimated by Hubbard,included in either of his patents for Nova Scotia, nor was it a grant direet from the crown, as stated by other writers. Those of Nova Scotia and the Canada grant, were issued by the crown, that of Long Island came from the Plymouth Company ; though in truth they may all be considered as emanating from that Company, through royal interference. The adventurers of the Northern Colony of Virginia obtained from James I. a separate patent in 1620, for all that portion of the country within their limits,- that is, between the degrees of 40 and 48, and formed a new company under the name of “ The Council established at Plymouth in the county of Devon for the planting, ruling and governing of New England in America.” The Earl of Stir- ling, then Sir William Alexander and Master of Requests to the King, for Scot- land, becoming acquainted with Capt. John Mason who had been in the country, was in consequence induced to apply to the King for a patent for Nova Scotia,- which was granted him in 1621 ; but as this territory was within the limits of the grant to the Council of New England, the prior assent of that cor- poration was necessary, and, upon the request of the King, was given, (Gorges* Brief Narration, ch p. 24.) Sir William Alexander was a favorite of James I. probably on account of his being a fellow countryman of courtly manners and poetical talents. The interposition of the King in his behalf, and the extraordi- nary privileges included in the grant, overeating titles of nobility lor New Scot- land, which were in fact conferred, show the extent of his influence with that monarch,—an influence which on the death of James, he retained with his" Successor. The patentees of New England surrendered their charter in 1635, first pass- ing grants to themselves in severalty, of such parts of the country “'along the sea •coast,” as they deemed proper. They had, however,previously conveyed to pri- vate persons different portions of the country, and in April of that’year made a1 deed to the Earl of Stirling of Long Island and the adjacent islands. This deed has never been produced in public, though it is said to be in the State Paper Office in London. It is however described both in the petition of Henry, the third Earl of Stirling, made in 1661, to Charles II., praying that in any treaty made with the Dutch, the subje ts of the latter government on Longlsland might be required to submit to the English, (London Documents at Albany, Vol. I() andREPRESENTATION OF NEW NETH ERL AND.— NOTES. 323 In the power of attorney of the first Earl of Stirling to Farrett, before referred to. In the latter document it is recited that the Earl of Stirling had, “ by and with the consent, direction, appointment and command of his most sacred Majesty, the King, obtained a patent or grant from the corporation of Neito England, under their common seal bearing date the two-and-twentieth day of April in the eleventh year of his said Majesty Charles of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, King, or Anno Domini 1636,* of a certain island called Long Island with all and every the islands thereunto adjacent, lying, and being situate, or bounded between the degrees of forty and forty-one of the northerly latitude or thereabouts.” It is added in the petition of Henry the grandson,—“ with power of judicature, saving to that Council the Oyer and Terminer of Appeals* to be held of that Council per gladiuni ■comitatus, and yielding the fifth part of all ore of gold and silver.” The existence of this grant is established beyond all question by the fact that it was, with its relinquishment to* the Duke of York, recognised in the patent of Governor Nicholl to Constant and Nathaniel Sylvester for Shelter Island, May 31,1666. (Wood’s Long Island, p. 6> note.) The release to the Duke of York is also mentioned, though upon what authority it is not stated, in Mass. Hist. Coll. vol. Ill, 2d Series, p. 85. Major General William Alexander of our revolution, gen- erally known as Lord Stirling, in a letter to one of his agents at the time of his claiming the Earldom and American estates of Stirling, says, that Henry the third Earl conveyed this title, about the year 1662 to the Duke of York, for an annuity of three hundred pounds, which was never paid. (See his life by Mr. Duer, p. 37.) As the Duke of York's patent included Long Island this release perfected the title of the crown of England to it in him, subject of course to the prior grants made by the Earl of Stirling, which are the foundation of many of the titles to real estate now held on the east end of Long Island, on Shelter Island and Nantucket; B.—Page 279. TIIE CLAIM OF EDMUND PLOWDEN TO LONG ISLAND AND NEW JERSEY. The claim of Edmund Plowden to Long Island and the country south of it, to Cape May, forms a curious chapter in our early history. Most writers have been disposed to treat it as a valid one ; while others have gone into the opposite ex- treme, and both ridiculed the claim and utterly denied its existence, giving it nd other consideration than as an Eutopian fabrication. The truth appears to be that one Edmund Plowden did obtain a grant, through the Deputy General of Ireland, purporting to be from the King, which was enrolled in Ireland* and with which he visited this country. On his return to England he Gaused a pamphlet to be published with the title of “ A description of the Province of New Albion,” &c.,+ Containing a letter alleged to have been written by one Robert Evelin whd had lived there many years. Were there no other evidence to prove the actual assertion of Plowden’s claim than this brochure, both might justly be denied, for it appears to have been written by some one who had little or no personal know- ledge of the country, with a free use of such materials as could be derived front Purchas, the semi-romantic histories of Captain John Smith, and the publica- tion of Lord Baltimore in relation to Maryland, whose grant most likely gave rise to the speculation on the part of Plowden. The publication of this tract was first made in 1648. That the description which it contains of the country was not more correct, arose from the fact that being in possession of the Dutch, it was almost terra incognita to the English, and Plowden’s own knowledge of it was limited to New Amsterdam, the sea-coast, and perhaps the river Delaware. But there is abundant proof both of his title such as a he repr esented it to be, and of his * This is obviously a clerical error. The eleventh year of Charles I. was 1635, and as it was in June of that year that the patent was surrendered by the Council of New England,' their deed to the Earl of Stirling must have been before that event, f Reprinted in Force’s Collection of American Tracts. SECOND SERIES VOL. XL 27324 REPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHERLAND.— NOTES. actual presence in this country, asserting his claim, before the appearance of the Description of the Province of New Albion.* His two visits to New Netherland prosecuting his title are distinctly asserted in the text, one in the time of Kieft and the other in that of Stuyvesant. It is stated by Winthrop, sub anno 1648, that he arrived in Boston in that year from Virginia where he had been almost seven years, which agrees with the period stated in the Description of New Albion for his residence in the country. It was during this term that his visits were made to New Netherland, the last of which was on his way to Boston from Virginia, on his return to England. The work appears to have been published immediately on his reaching England. But the most interesting piece of contemporaneous evidence in regard to this claim is to be found in the Journal of Augustine Heeremans, (one of the Nine Men,) who with Resolve Waldron was sent as a Commissioner by Stuyvesant to the gover- nor of Maryland in reference to the disputes about the boundaries between their two colonies, in the year 1659. Heeremans states that in their interview with Governor Fendall of Maryland, the latter claimed that the patent of Lord Balti- more extended north to the patent of New England, and then says: c* Upon which we asked where then would New Netherland be, if their limits were to join those of New England 1 To this he answered, he did not know. We then said we knew for both ; that it was a mistake and that New Netherland was in posses- sion of these limits several years before my Lord Baltimore obtained his patent, and that we actually settled these parts. We brought forward also among other facts, how Edm. Plowden informer days laid claim to Delaware Bay, and we declared that the one pretension had no better support than the other. To which he replied that Piowden had not obtained a commission, and was thrown in jail in England for his debts. He acknowledged however that Plowden solicited from the King a patent of Novum Albion, which ivas refused, where- upon he addressed himself to the Viceroy of Ireland from whom he obtained a patent, but it was of no value at all.” (Albany Records Vol. 18, p. 349.) With this contemporaneous testimony we may appreciate the evidence,—the charter itself, which has been produced by Charles Varlo who visited this country in 1784 for the purpose of establishing the claim, of one third of which he had become the owner. Varlo having procured a copy of the charter from the Chancery rolls in Dublin caused it to be traslated from the Latin, in which it was written,, and to be published and distributed with copies of a iease and release and also an address, among the inhabitants of this country. One of these publications we have now before us, with a proclamation in form of a handbill, addressed to the people of New Albion, in the name of the Earl of Albion. The charter, lease and release were republished by Mr. Hazard in the first volume of his Collections. The address to the public may be found in Mr. Pennington’s Ex- amination of the pamphlet before mentioned in the fourth volume of the Memoirs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. The proclamation has not been republished. The only copy which we know of, is the one for the use of which we are indebted to the kindness of Hon. Peter Force of Washington. This charter is from the Deputy General of Ireland, and is dated the 21st of June, in the tenth year of Charles I. (1634,) and grants to Edmund Plowden, Knight, and to John Lawrence, Knight and Baronet, Bowyer Worsley, Knight, Charles Barrett and John Trusler, Roger Packe, William Inwood, Thomas Ribread and George Noble, certain lands and premises to be erected into a pro- vince and called New Albion, consisting of Long Island or Isle of Plowden and of a part of the main land forming a square of one hundred and twenty miles on, each side, beginning at Cape May, thence along the river Delaware forty leagues, thence on a line at right angles north forty leagues, thence in a line at right angles east forty leagues including Sandheey [Sandy Hook,] and fiom * This work purports to have been written by Beauchamp Plantagenet, who was doubtless a fictitious personage. If not written by Plowden, it was prepared under his direction. In the second chapter there is a reference to the Indian war during Kieft’s administration, to the increase of the English population at Manhattan, and the furnishing ammunition to the indiaas by Stuyvesant,—facts within Plowden’s knowledge or some one who had been here.REPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHERLANDS----NOTES. 325 thence south on the line of the square to Cape May; and also grants to Plowden the title of Earl Palatine thereof. By the release, also dated in 1634, the four patentees last above named convey their interests to the children of Edmund Plowden, and declare that the interest of Worsley and Barrett, had, in con- sequence of their death, passed to the surviving patentees. This charter was void, as made without authority, for whatever patents of lands in this coun- try may have been lawfully issued by the royal colonial governors, no such grants were ever authorized to be made by any delegated power at home, much less were political charters with provincial grants permitted to be given by subordinate authorities, either here or there. It was accordingly treated as a nullity by the English as well as by the Dutch. The occasion of the publication by Varlo was the purchase by him before the revolutionary war, from some person in England, of one third of this alleged proprietary ri£ht. He came to this country in 1784 for the purpose of prosecuting the claim, and after his return to England published an account of his travels in America, with some facts connected with this claim, in a book which he called ‘‘ Floating Ideas of Nature” (2 vols. 12mo. Lond. 1796). Was there any settlement attempted by Plowden, and if so, where ? In the work of Varlo just alluded to, he states that Edward, the second* son of Sir Edmund Plowden, came to the palatinate, with his lady and two sons, for the purpose of enjoying the property ; but that they had not been long here, when they were attacked by the Indians, and Edward and his lady murdered, the two children escaping. Whence he obtained this information does not appear precisely, though probably from Edmund Plowden, Esq., of Maryland, whom he visited during his tour in this country, or from the Plowden family in Ireland. We have ascertained some facts, which may well be taken into view in con- nection with the point we are now considering. It appears from the records at Annapolis, that one Edward Plowden took up a tract of land in St. Mary’s county, Maryland, called “ Plowden’s discovery,” on the 29th of March, 1742, and on the eighth of August, following, two other tracts, making in all 666 acres, which have ever since remained in the possession of his descendants, and are now called Bushwood. Edmund Plowden, one of these descendants, was, in 1777 appointed a captain of militia in the upper battalion of St. Mary’s county, and in the years 1783 and 1784, represented that county in the Legislature of Maryland. He is the member of the family visited by Varlo, who erroneously gives his name Edward. The correct name, Edmund, which was the name of the patentee of New Albion, is a circumstance not to be disregarded in the present inquiry. Edmund J. Plowden, Esqr., of Bushwood, the grandson of this Edmund, informs us, (in 1849,) that by tradition he is descended from one of the sons of the Edward, murdered by the Indians, whose names were Thomas and George, but at what time or at what particular place the murder happened is unknown. He states that Varlo called upon his grandfather with a view of obtaining his aid in prosecuting the claim, which his grandfather declined, in consequence of his advanced age and the difficulties which obviously presented themselves; and that there was a correspondence on the subject between his grandfather and Francis Plowden, the author of the well known history of Ire- land. He further says, “ my father dying when I was but a boy, many papers were either mislaid or destroyed, among them this very grant to Sir Edward,t which when a boy I have otten seen, as also a book tracing the descent of our family at least from Sir Edward, down to my grandfather.” The Sir Edward here referred to is the one called by Varlo the second son of Sir Edmund Plowden the original claimant, and the title prefixed to the names, which appears to have had no other foundation than the charter of New Albion, has been trans- * The names of Edmund Plowden’s children are given in the Description of New Albion as follows: Francis, (the eldest,) Thomas, Winefrid, Barbara and Katharine. The name of Edward does not appear. f This may have been either a conveyance from the family, or the release from the pa- tentees before mentioned..826 REPRESENTATION OP NEW NETHERLAND.---NOTES. mitted in the family to later members of it. He has also shown ns a conveyance on parchment, with internal evidence of its antiquity, of Resurrection Manor in Maryland, made by Richard Perry to Thomas and George Flowden, dated 10th May, 1684, which proves them to have been in this country at a time con- sistently with the tradition. If any settlement were attempted it must have been by one of the Plowdens, probably a grandson if not a son of the original claimant. There is no mention in the Dutch records of any such attempt during the time the country was under the control of the West India Company. From the great minuteness with which every aggression of the English, and every other event connected with the possessions of the company, are stated in those records it could not well have happened without some mention of it in them. There were three projects by the English to obtain a foothold on the Delaware, during the Dutch dynasty, which are stated ;—one by George Holmes in 1635, with a party of a dozen men, and is referred to in the brief statement of Van Tienhoven, in connection with the name of Thomas Hall, who was one of the party ; the second in 1641, by Mr. Lambertson of New Haven: and the third in 1659, by Lord Balti- more, which was the occasion of the embassy ofHeermans and Waldron before referred to. It appears to admit of little doubt that one of the Plowdens came over here after the return of Edmund, the original grantee, to enjoy the property, but for the reasons given in regard to any settlement by the latter it could not have been before the year 1664, when the Dutch power ceased in New Netherland. It is quite likely that the conquest by the English, revived the fallacious hopes of the Plowden family, and that they despatched one of their number, in after years, to this country. But where he attempted his settlement is unknown, as are also the circumstances of his tragic fate. If attempted any where within the limits of New Albion, it must have been in New Jersey. The annals of Long Island have been so fully preserved as to render the absence of all allusion in them to the matter conclusive against the supposition of its having been tried there. We cannot dismiss the subject of New Albion, without adverting to a state- ment contained in the work of Plantagenet, as the original source from which the historians of New York, with hardly an exception, have derived and trans- mitted an error connected with the conflicting claims of the Dutch and English to New Netherland. It is the alleged landing of Sir Samuel Argali on Manhat- tan island in 1613, on his return voyage to Virginia from his expedition against the French at Acadia. This is a pure fiction, unsustained by any good authority,—? though some writers have heaped up citations on the subject,—and as fully sus- ceptible of disproof as any statement of that character at that early period can be, C.—Page 282. The Swedes on the Delaware. The historians of New Sweden have been in doubt as to the precise time of the arrival of the Swedes. Mr. Clay says, that Minuit brought over the first colonies about the year 1636. Mr. Ferris considers the time of his arrival uncertain, though he supposes from circumstances that it was early in the spring of 1638. Acrelius, who had the information before him, is not explicit: and Thomas Cam- panius is both ambiguous and wrong, as are all those who have relbd upon him. The year is distinctly given in the text. It is said to be 1638, and “ eleven years ago,” that is, before 1649, when the Vertoogh was written. But wre have it in our power not only to corroborate this statement, but to fix the month, by evidence of a different character. Among the London Documents procured by the historical agent of New York, is a letter from the Treasurer of Virginia, Jerome Hawley, to Mr. Secretary Windebanke, dated “ Jamestown in Virginia, 8th May, 1638,” in w’hich the following passage occurs: “ Since which tyme (20th March last,) heare arrived a Dutch shipp with commission from the yong Queene of Sweaden, and signed by eight of the chiefe Lordes of Sweaden, theREPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHF.RLAND.---NOTES, 327 coppe whereof I would have taken to send to yo’r Hon’r, but the Captayne would not permit me to take any coppe thereof, except he might have free trade for tobacco to carry to Sweden, which being contrary to his Maj’ts instructions the Govern’r excused himself thereof. The shipp remained heare about 10 days to refresh with wood and water, during which tyme, the M’r of said shipp made knowne that both himselfe and another shipp of his company, were bound for Delaware Baye, which is the confines of Virginia and New England, and they p’tend to make a plantation and to plant tobacco, which the Dutch do allso already in Hudson’s river, which is the very next river Northard from Delaware Baye. All which being his Mat’s terretorys, &c.” (London Doc. Vol. 1.) The two ships, which were the Key of Colmar and the Griffin, must have been in Virginia at or after the first of April, supposing them to have arrived the very day after the 20th of March, referred to in this letter, as they staid there ten days to wood and water, which would have consumed all the month of March at least. At all events it is certain they could not have arrived in the Delaware, to sail to which would have taken another day, before the first of April. The probabilities are that they did not arrive in Virginia on the day after the 20th of March, be- cause if they had done so, it would probably have been so stated in the letter, and consequently they did not reach the Delaware until some days after the first of April. The point then remains, how late a day could this have been l Hawley’s letter was written on the tenth of May, before which time they had left Virginia, and allowing that they left on the previous day, which is the latest one consistently with his letter, and that it took even two or three days to get to the Delaware, we have the latest period, the eleventh or twelfth of May as the time of their arrival. That it was not, however, so late as this, may be gathered from another record in connection with the text; the protest of Director Kieft at New Amsterdam on the occasion, complaining of the Swedes for having begun “ to build a fort between our forts” that is between the Hoerekil and fort Nassau. The date of the protest is variously given by different writers, Acrelius, and Smith, the historian of New York, stating it to be the 6th of May, and others the 17th of that month. The record at Albany, from whence it has been taken by all of them, has no date ; but it occurs in a book in which the date of the record before it is the 6th, and of that which follows is the 17th of May. Hence the discrepancy. Supposing it however to have been issued on the 17th, how much time had elapsed at that day after the Swedes reached the Delaware ? Now it is stated in the Vertoogh that the Swedes did not begin their fort at their first arrival, and that it was not until the third visit of the Dutch to them that any attempt of that kind was dis- covered. They busied themselves at first in obtaining wood and water for their ships, which returned home in June, leaving some colonists behind, and then in planting a kitchen garden. This must have taken some time ; and it was not until after this that the fort was commenced, and information of that fact sent to Kieft at New Amsterdam, a long, and at that time tedious journey from Fort Nassau, (Gloucester Point in New Jersey—some miles below Philadelphia;) for, as before observed, he distinctly protests against the building of the fort. Hence the conclusion is irresistible, that the first entry in the Delaware by the Key of Calmar and the Griffin, must have been before the first of May. We will not attempt to fix the precise day, for that is impossible ; but that the month was April, seems to admit of no question. The statement of Campanius which makes the first coming of the Swedes un- der different auspices and in an earlier year, 1631 in pursuance of an edict of Gustavus, confirmed by the Diet in 1627 upon the representation of Usselinx, is not founded upon any evidence which has ever been produced in this country or in Sweden, nor is it corroborated by a single other writer. Mr. Arfwedson errs when he quotes Biorck, (in Dissert, de plant. Eccl. Sve. in America,) as an au- thority that the first emigration to the colony was made in 1627, and that the building of Fort Christina took place in 1631. (Arfwed. de colonia Nova Svecia deducta historiola, p. 10.) The language of Biorck is this: “ As to what .concerns the first arrival of the Swedes in America we may observe, according to328 REPRESENTATION OP NEW NETHERLAND.----NOTES, Th. Camnanius Holm, p. 57, that the first expedition thither was made in the year 1627, during the reign of Gustavus Adolphus, which was followed by others in the time of Queen Christina. The originator of the first expedition was Wil- liam Usselinx, a Batavian, &c.” (Dissert. de plant, p. 5.) All this statement it will be seen is declared to be made on the authority of Campanius, and not on that of Biorck himself. We are therefore thrown back upon Campanius, who had never been in this country. His description of New Sweden was derived from the notes of his grandfather, the Rev. John Campanius, who came over with Gov- ernor Printz, and was in the country six years. So far as the grandson confines himself to the matters known by his ancestor, he may be depended upon; but when he goes beyond them, he is constantly floundering in error. Biorck quotes in the same paragraph in which the above passage occurs, from a much more re- liable source in relation to this very point, and in contradiction of Companius, from Rev. Andrew Sandel who was minister of the church at Wicaco, (now a part of Philadelphia,) from 1702 to 1719. Biorck speaking of the expedition of John Printz to the Delaware in 1642, says: “ But as we learn from the obser- vations of Mr. Sandel, colonists probably not less numerous, we re previously [that is, before Printz* arrival,] sent over to these parts of America, under a very pru- dent man, Meneve, [Minuit,] a Belgian. It is said that he was the first governor of the Hollanders who inhabit the territory of New Jersey ; but as a quarrel took place between him and them, he was compelled to return home, where he was arraigned and deprived of his office. For this reason he left his country and went to Sweden, where upon a representation to the chief men of the great fer- tility and excellence of the country, he at length obtained permission to conduct thither a new colony. Upon his death, Peter Hollender succeeded to his place, who is considered to have been the first governor there.” No allusion is made by Sandel to the alleged colony during the reign of Gustavus, which he would cer- tainly have done if it had ever existed. He uses the term “ new colony,” evident- ly in contradistinction to the Dutch colony of which Minuit had been the gov- ernor, for he speaks of no other. % D.—Page 293. The Inscription on the First Dutch Church. The site of the first church built in New Netherland was in front of what is now called the Bowling Green, being the same spot on which Fort Amsterdam, which received successively the names of the reigning monarchs of Great Bri- tain after its conquest from the Dutch, until the revolution, was erected as stated in this work. The fort called Fort George, was, by authority of law, razed to the ground in 1790, for the purpose of locating the Government House, which subse- quently stood there. On removing the rubbish of the fort the inscription on the old church was found. The following paragraph, recording the fact, may be found in the New York Magazine for 1790. tf June 23. On Monday last, in digging away the foundation of the fort in this city, a square stone was found among the ruins of a chapel, (which formerly Stood in the fort, with the following Dutch inscription on it: Ao. Do. MDCXLII. W. Kieft Dr. Gr. Heeft de Gemeenten Dese Tem pel doen Bop wen.REPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHERLAND.----NOTES. 329 (Translation.) “ In the year of our Lord, 1642, William Kieft, Director General, caused the congregation to build this church.” The stone was removed to the belfry of the Garden Street Church, which was destroyed by the great Fire of 1835, and with which was lost this interesting me- morial of the first church in New Netherland. E.—Page 318. Van Tienhoven’s Answer to the Vertoogh. Justice demands that we should give the answer of Stuyvesant, by his secre- tary, to the charges of the complainants. Van Tienhoven, with all his faults, was a man of ability, and he presented his points with force and succinctness. He entered upon no defence of himself—whether from prudence, in order to avoid a personal issue in an affair of such great interest to his employers, or from a consciousness of their truth, is uncertain. Probably both considerations ope- rated upon him. He was shrewd enough to display no feeling ; while it appears to be well established that his habits were loose and profligate, though he con- tinued, notwithstanding, to retain the confidence of Stuyvesant for a long time, and even after he had lost that of the company, as he was dismissed by him from the service of the company only upon its repeated peremptory order, (Alby. Re- cords, Vol. IV., 14, 207 and 217,) which took place in 1656. In his reply Van Tienhoven retaliated upon the signers of the remonstrance by a description of them, individually, intended to be not very flattering to them, with which he closes his cort bericht, or brief statement. This reply, with the remonstrance, afford us a good insight into the earlier management of the West India Com- pany in New Netherland. The answer was never printed, and was found among the royal archives at the Hague, by Mr. Brodhead, whence it was tran- scribed into the Holland documents of our State, and from them it is now trans- lated as follows: “ A brief statement or answer to same points embraced in the written deduction of Adrian Van der Bonk and his associates, presented to the High and Mighty Lords States General. Prepared by Cornelis Van Tienhoven,. Secretary of the Director and Council of New Netherlands “ In order to present the aforesaid answer succinctly, he, Van Tienhoven, will allege not only that it illy becomes the aforesaid Van der Donk and other private persons to assail and abuse the administration of the Managers in this country,, and that of their Governors there,* in such harsh and general terms, but that they would much better discharge their duty if they were first to bring to the notice of their lords and patrons what they had to complain of. But passing by this point,, and leaving the consideration thereof to the discretion of your High Mightinesses,- he observes preliminarily and generally, that these persons say much and prove little, so that it could as easily, and with more truth, be denied, than by them it is affirmed. “ Coming then to the matter, I will only touch upon those points as to which' either the Bewinthebbers or the Directors are arraigned. In regard to point No. I, it is denied, and it never will appear that the company have refused to permit people to make settlements in the country, and allowed foreigners to take up the land. " The policy of the company was to act on the defensive. As they had not5 the power to resist their pretended friends, and could only protect their rights by protest, this was better and more prudent than to come to hostilities. “ Trade has long been free to every one, and'as profitable as ever. Nobody’s goods were confiscated, except those who had violated their contract, or the order * In New Netherland. Van Tienhoven prepared this answer in Holland.330 REPRESENTATION OF NEW NETH ERL AND.—-NOTES. by which they were forbidden ; and if any body thinks that injustice has beerl done him by confiscation, he can speak for himself. At all events it does not concern these people. “ They complain that the Christians are treated like the Indians in the sale of goods, which is admitted ; but that has not been by the company, nor by the directors, because, (God help them,) they have not had anything there to sell for many years. Most, of the remonstrants are merchants or factors, and are them- selves the persons who, for those articles which cost here one hundred guilders, charge there, over and above the first cost, including insurance, duties, laborer’s wages, freight, &c., one and two hundred per cent, or more profit. Here can be seen at once how these people lay to the charge of the Managers and their officers the very fault which they themselves commit. They can never show, even at the time the company had their shop and magazines there, that the goods were sold at more than fifty per cent, profit, in conformity with the exemptions. The forestalling of the goods by one and another, and the demanding this profit, was not prevented by the Director, as the trade was thrown open to both those of small and those of large means. It is a pure calumny, that the Company had ordered half a fault to be reck- oned forwhole one. “ And, as it does not concern the inhabitants what instructions or orders the patroons give to the Director, the charge is made for the purpose of bringing about, that these people may live without being subject to the censure or disci- pline of any one, which, however, they stand doubly in need of. “ Again it is said in general terms, but wherein, should be specified and proven, that the Director exercises, and has usurped, sovereign power. “ That the inhabitants have had need of the Directors, appears by the books of accounts, in which it can be seen that the Company has assisted all the free- men, (some few excepted,) with clothing, provisions, and other things, and in the erection of houses, and at a rate from fifty to one hundred per cent, advance above the first cost in the Fatherland, and these amounts are not yet paid by the complainants. It would be very agreeable, no doubt, to deprive the Company of the country, and thus get rid of paying them. “ It is ridiculous to suppose Director Kieft should have said that he was sove- reign, like the Prince in the Fatherland; but as relates to the denial of appeal to the Fatherland, it arose from this, that, in the exemptions, the Island of the Manhatans was reserved as the capital of New Netherlands, and all the adja- cent colonies were to have their appeal to it as the Supreme Court of that, region. “ Besides, it is to be remarked, that the patroon of the colony of Renselaers- wyck notified all the inhabitants not to appeal to the Manhatans, which was contrary to the exemptions, by which the colonies are bound to make a yearly report of the state of the colony, and of the administration of justice, to the Direc- tor and Council on the Manhatans. “ The Directors have never had any management of, or meddled with, church property. And it is not known, nor can it be proven, that any one of the inhab- itants of New Netherlands has contributed or given, either voluntarily or upon solicitation, any thing for the erection of an orphan asylum, or an alms house. It is true the church was built in the fort in the time of William Kieft, and 1,80$ guilders were subscribed for the purpose, for which most of the subscribers have' been charged in their accounts, which have not yet been paid. The Company, in the meantime, has disbursed the money, so that the commonalty has not, but the Company has, paid the workmen. If the commonalty desire the aforesaid works, they must contribute towards them as is done in this country, and, if there be an orphan asylum and alms house, the rents should be able not only to keep- up the house, but also to maintain the orphans and old people. “ If any one could show that by will, or by donation of a living person, any money, or moveable or immoveable property, has been bestowed for such or any other public work, the remonstrants would have done it; but there is in New Netherland no instance of the kind, and the charge is spoken or written in anger. When the church, which is in the fort, was to be built, the church wardens wereREPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHERLAND.----NOTES. 331 content it should be put there. These persons complain because they considered the Company’s fort not worthy of a church. When the church was built, could the grist mill not grind with a southeast wind if the (other) wind was shut off by the walls of the fort 1 " Although the new school, towards which the commonalty has contributed something, is not yet built, and the Director has no management of the money, but the church wardens have, yet the Director is busy in providing materials. In the mean time a place has been selected for a school, where the school is kept by Jan Cornelissen. The other schoolmasters keep school in hired houses* so that the youth, considering the circumstances of the country, are not in want of schools. It is true there is no Latin school or academy* but if any of the com- monalty desire it, they can furnish the means and attempt it. " As to what concerns the deacon’s or poor fund, the deacons are accountable, and are the persons to be inquired of, as to where the money is invested, which they have from time to time put out at interest; and as the Director has never had the management of it, (as against common usage,) the deacons are respon- sible for it, and not the director. It is true director Kieft being distressed for money, had a box hung in his house, of which the deacons had the key, and in which ail the small fines and penalties which were incurred on court days were dropped. With the consent of the deacons he opened it, and took on interest the money, which amounted to a pretty sum. “ It is admitted, that the beer excise of William Kieft, and the wine excise of Peter Stuyvesant, were imposed and continued to be collected up to the time of my leaving there ; but it is to be observed here, that the memorialists have no reason to complain about it, for the merchant, burgher, farmer, and all others, (tapsters only excepted,) can lay in as much beer and wine as they please, with- out paying any excise* being only bound to give an account of it in order that the quantity may be ascertained. The tapsters pay three guilders for each tuii of beer, and one styver for each can of wine, which they get back again from their daily visitors, and the travellers from New England, Virginia, and else- where. " The commonalty up to that time* were burdened with no other internal taxes* than the before mentioned excise, unless the voluntary gifts which were two years since made for the erection of the church, be considered a tax, of which Jacob Couwenhoven,* who is one of the churchwardens, will be able to give an account. “ In New England there are no taxes or duties imposed upon goods exported or imported ; but every person is there assessed by the government, according to his means, and so is compelled by the magistrates to pay for the building and re- pairing of churches, and the support of the ministers ; for the building of school- houses, and the support of schoolmasters ; for all city and village improvements* and the making and keeping in repair all public roads and paths* which are there made many miles into the country, so that they can be used by horses and car- riages, and journeys made from one place to another ; for constructing and keep- ing up all bridges over rivers for the accommodation of passengers; for the building of hotels for travellers, and for the maintenance of governors, magis- trates, marshals, and officers of justice* and of majors, captains, and other officers of the militia. “ In every province of New England there is quarterly a general assembly of all the magistrates of such province ; and there is yearly a general convention of all the provinces, each of which sends one deputy with his suite, which convention lasts a long time. All their travelling expenses* board, and compensation, are there raised from the people. "The accounts will show what was the amount of recognitions collected annually in Kieft’s time ; but it will not appear that it was as large by far as they say the people were compelled to pay. This is not the Company’s fault, nor the Directors’* but of those who charge one, two and three hundred per cent, profit, Which the people are compelled to pay because there are few tradesmen; * One of the three delegates from the commonalty, then in Holland. SECOND SERIES, VOL. II. 28332 REPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHERLAND,----NOTES, “ It will never appear that 30,000 guilders are collected from the commonalty in Stuyvesant’s time ; for nothing is received besides the beer and wine excise, which amounts to about 4,000 guilders on the Manhatans. From the other vil- lages situated around it there is little or nothing collected, because there are no tapsters, except one at the Ferry,* and one at Flushing. “ There is nothing confiscated belonging to the commonalty, and only contra- band goods of foreigners; and of these nobody’s goods are confiscated with- out good cause. “ The question is whether the Honorable Company or the Directors are bound to construct any works for the commonalty out of the recognitions which the trader pays in New Netherland for goods exported, especially as those duties were allowed to the Company by their High Mightinesses for the establishment of garrisons, and the expenses which they would thereby incur, and not for the construction of hospitals, orphan asylums, or churches and school-houses. “ The charge that the property of the Company is neglected in order to make friends, cannot be sustained by proof. “ The provisions in exchange for the negroes who came from Tamandare were sent to Curagoa, except a portion consumed on the Manhatans, as the ac- counts will show ; but all these are matters which do not concern these persons, especially as they are not accountable for them. “ As to what relates to the contract of the free persons, the Director has gra- ciously granted the negroes who were the Company’s slaves, to give them their freedom in consequence of their long service, on condition that their children should remain slaves, who are not treated otherwise than as Christians. At pre- sent there are only three of these children who do any service, one of them is at the House of Hope,+ one at the Company’s bouwery, and one with Martin Cri- gier, who has brought the girl up well, as everybody knows. “ That the Heer Stuyvesant should build up, alter and repair the Company’s property was his duty. For the consequent loss or profit he will answer to the Company. “ The burghers upon the island of Manhatans, and thereabouts, must know that nobody comes or is admitted to New Netherland, (being a conquest,) except upon this condition, that he shall have nothing to say, and shall acknowledge himself under the sovereignty of their High Mightinesses, the States General, and the Lords Bewinthebbers, as their Lords and patrons, and should be obedient to the Director and Council for the time being, as good subjects are bound to be. Those who have complained about the haughtiness of Stuyvesant, I think, are such as seek to live without law or rule. " Their complaint that no regulation was made in relation to sewan is untrue. During the time of Director Kieft, good sewan passed at four for a stiver, and the loose bits were fixed at six pieces for a stiver. The reason why the loose sewan was not prohibited, was because there was no coin in circulation, and the laborers, boors, and other common people having no other money, would be great losers ; and had it been done, the remonstrants would, without doubt, have included it among their grievances.} “ Nobody can prove that Director Stuyvesant had used foul language to, or • railed at as clowns,any persons of respectability who had treated him decently. It may be that some profligate has given the Director, if he has used any bad words to him, cause to do so. * This was in Brooklyn. The village of Breukelen was a mile distant from the river;: and the hamlet at the river was called The Ferry. t On the Connecticut River. t Sewan long continued to be a part of the currency among the whites as well as the In- dians, and was even paid in the Sunday collections in the churches, it was made for the most part of the shell of the hard clam ; that made out of the blue part or heart of the shell having the highest value. It was in shape and size like common beads, and was perforated longitudinally so as to be strung. Kieft’s regulation, referred to by Van Tienhoven, which was adopted on 16th April, 1641, declared that the rough or loose sewan, worth six for a stiver, came from other places, and it was the Manhatan sewan which he fixed at four for a stiver, and which was consequently the best.REPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHERLAND.----NOTES. 333 w That the fort is not properly repaired does not concern the inhabitants. It Is not their domain, but the Company’s. They are willing to be protected by good forts and garrisons belonging to the Company without furnishing any aid or assistance by labor or money for the purpose ; but it appears they are not willing to see a fort well fortified and properly garrisoned, from the apprehension that malevolent and seditious persons will be better punished, which they call cruelty. “ Had the Director not been compelled to provide the garrisons of New Neth- crland and Cura^oa with provisions, clothing and pay, the fort would, doubtless, have been completed. “ Against whom has Director Stuyvesant personally made a question without reason or cause 1 “ A present of maize or Indian Corn they call a contribution; but a present is never received from the Indians without its being doubly paid for, as these people, being very covetous, throw out a herring for a codfish, as every body who knows the Indians can bear witness. “ Francis Doughty, father-in-law of Adrian van der Donk, and an English minister, was allowed a colony at Mestpacht, not for himself alone as patroon, but for him and his associates, dwelling in Rhode Island, at Cohanock and other places, from whom he had a power of attorney, and of whom a Mr. Smith was one of the principal; for the said minister had scarcely any means of himself to build even a hovel, let alone to people a colony at his own expense ; but was to be employed as minister by his associates, who were to establish him on a farm in the said colony, for which he would discharge ministerial duties among them, and live upon the profits of the farm. “ Coming to the Manhatans to live during the war he was permitted by the English dwelling about there to officiate for them as minister; and they were bound to maintain him without either the Director or the Company being liable to any charge therefor. The English not giving him wherewith to live on, two collect tions were made among the Dutch and English by means of which he lived at the Manhatans. “ The said colony of Mespacht was never confiscated, as is shown by the owners, still living there, who were interested in the colony with Doughty ; but as Doughty wished to hinder population, and to permit no one to build in the colon unless he were willing to pay a certain amount of money down for every morgen of land, and a certain yearly sum in addition in the nature of ground-rent, and also sought to have a property therein distinct from the others interested in the colony, the Director and Council, (Mr. Smith especially having complained,) determined that the associates might enter upon their property,—the farm and lands which Doughty possessed being reserved to him ; so that he has suffered no loss or damage thereby. This 1 could prove, were it not that the documents are in New Netherland and not here. “ There are no clauses inserted in the ground-briefs, contrary to the exemp- tions, but the words nog te beramen (hereafter to be imposed) can be left out of the ground-briefs, if they be deemed offensive. “ Stuyvesant has never disputed in court, but as president put proper interroga- tories to the parties and delivered the judgment of the court about which the malevolent complain ; but it must be proven that any one has been wronged by Stuyvesant in court. “ As to what relates to the second, (Vice Director) Dinclagen, let him settle his own matters. “ It can be shown that Brian Newton not only understands the Dutch tongue, but also speaks it, so that their charge, that Newton does not understand the Di- rector’s language, is untrue. All the other slanders and calumnies uttered against the remaining officers should be required to be proven. “ It is true that in New Netherland, a certain discourse was had to the effect that there was no appeal from a judgment in New Netherland pronounced on the island of Manhatans, founded on the exemptions by which the island of Manhatans was established as the capital of all the surrounding colonies, and also that there had334 REPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHERLAND.-------NOTES. never been a case in which an appeal from New Netherland had been entertained by Their High Mightinesses. It had been petitioned for when Hendrick Jan- sen Snyder, Laurens Cornelissen, and others, many years ago, were banished from New Netherland. It would be a very strange thing if the officers of the company could banish nobody from the country, while the officers of the colony of Renselaerswyck, who are subordinate to the company, can banish absolutely from the colony whomever they may deem advisable for the good of the colony, and permit no one to dwell there unless with their approbation and upon certain conditions, some of which are as follows: nobody in the first place can possess a foot of land of his own, but is obliged to take upon rent all the land which he cultivates. When a house is erected he is obliged to pay an annual ground- rent in beavers, and so also must the boors, for which they allow them free trade, as they call it. Where is there an inhabitant under the jurisdiction of the Com- pany who expends or lays out any thing for trade or land 2 All the farms are con- veyed in fee, subject to the clause beraamt ofte nog te beramen, (taxes imposed or to be imposed.) “ The English minister Francis Doughty has never been in the service of the company, wherefore it was not indebted to him ; but his English congregation are bound to pay him, as may be proven in New Netherland. “ The Company has advanced the said minister,from time to time, goods and necessaries of life amounting to about 1100 guilders, as the books of the colony can show, which he has not yet paid, and which he claims he should not pay. Whether or not the Director has desired a compromise with Doughty, I do not know. “ Director Stuyvesant, when he came to New Netherland, endeavored accord- ing to his orders to stop in a proper manner the contraband trade in guns, powder and lead. The people of the colony of Renselaerwyck understanding this, sent a letter to the Director, requesting moderation, especially, as they said, if that trade were entirely abolished all the Christians in the colony would run great danger of being murdered, as may more at large be seen by the contents of their petition. “ The Director and Council taking the request into consideration, and looking further into the consequences, resolved that guns and powder, to a limited extent, be sparingly furnished by the Commissary at Fort Orange, on account of the Company, taking good care that no supply should be carried by the boats navigating the river, unless in pursuance of a further order. It is here to be observed that the Director, in order to keep the colony out of danger, has permitted some arms to be furnished at the fort. Nobody can prove that the Director has sold or per- mitted to be sold, any thing contraband, for his own private benefit. That the Director has permitted some guns to be seized, has happened because they brought with them no license pursuant to the order of the company, and they would under such pretences have been able to bring many guns. The Director has paid for every one that was seized, sixteen guilders, although it did not cost in this country more than eight or nine guilders. “ It is true that a case of guns was brought over by Vastrick, by order of Direc- tor Stuyvesant, in which there were thirty guns, which the Director, with the knowledge of the Second (Vice Director, Dincklagen,) and Fiscal, permitted to be landed in the full light of day, which guns wrere delivered to Commissary Keyser with orders to sell them to the Netherlanders who had no arms, in order that in time of need they might defend themselves, which Keyser has done; and it will appear by his accounts where these guns are. If there were any more guns in the ship it was unknown to the Director. The Fiscal, whose business it was, should have seen to it and inspected the ship; and these accusers should have shown that the Fiscal had neglected to make the search as it ought to have been done. “ Jacob Reinsen and Jacob Schennerhorn were a firm of merchants from Waterland, one of whom, Jacob Schermerhorn, was at Fort Orange, the other, Jacob Reintjes, was at Fort Amsterdam, who there bought powder, lead and guns, and sent them up to Schermerhorn, who supplied the Indians. It so hap-REPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHERLAND.----NOTES. 335 pened that the Company’s corporal, Govert Barent, having in charge such of the arms of the Company as required to be repaired or cleaned, sold to the before named Jacob Reintjes, guns, locks, gun barrels, &c., as by Jacob Reintjes’ own acknowledged letters, written to his partner long before this came to light, and by the information of the corporal, can be proven. The corporal, seduced by the solicitation of Jacob Reintjes, sold him the arms as often as desired, though the latter knew that the guns and gun barrels belonged to the Company, and not to the corporal. Therefore a parcel of peltries, (as may be seen in the accounts,) bought, as appeared from the letters, with contraband goods, was confiscated. As the said Jacob Reintjes has been in this country since the confiscation, he would have made complaint if he had not been guilty, especially as he was sufficiently urged to do so by the enemies of the Company and of tne Director, but his own letters were witnesses against him. “Joost de Backer being accused by the above named corporal of having bought gun locks and gun barrels from him, and the first information having proved correct, he was therefore taken into custody, and his house searched according to law, in which was found a gun of the Company ; wherefore he gave security (to answer,) for the claim of the Fiscal. “ As the English of New England protected among them all fugitives who came to them from the Manhatans without the passport required by the usage of the country, whether persons in the service of the Company or freemen, and took them into their service, it was therefore sought by commissioners to induce the English to restore the fugitives according to an agreement previously made with Governors Eaton and Hopkins, but as Governor Eaton persisted in refusing to send back the runaways, although earnestly solicited to do so, the Director and Council, according to a previous resolution, issued a proclamation that all per- sons who should come from the province of New Haven (all the others excepted) to New Netherland should be protected; which was a retaliatory measure. As the Governor permitted some of the fugitives to come back to us, the Director and Council annulled the order, and since then matters have gone on peaceably, the same as before the dispute about the boundaries. “ Nobody’s goods are confiscated in New Netherland without great reason ; and if any one feels aggrieved about it, the Director will be prepared to furnish an answer. That ships or shipmasters are afraid of confiscation and therefore do not come to New Netherland is probable, for nobody can come to New Nether- land without a license or permit. Whoever has this, and does not violate his agreement, and has properly entered his goods, need not be afraid of confisca- tion ; but all smugglers and persons who sail with two commissions may well be. “ All those who were indebted to the Company were warned by the Director and Council to pay the debts left uncollected by the late William Kieft, and as some could, and others couid not well pay, no one was compelled to pay ; but these debts, amounting to 30,000 guilders, made many who did not wish to pay, angry and insolent, (especially as the Company now had nothing in that coun- try to sell them on credit,) and it seemed that some sought to pay after the Bra- zil fashion.* “ The memorialists have requested that the people should not be oppressed, which, however, has never been the case, but they would be right glad to see that the Company dunned nobody, nor demanded their own, yet paid their creditors. It will appear by the account books of the Company that the debts were not con- tracted during the war, but before it. The Company has assisted the inhabi- tants, who were poor and burdened with wives and children, with clothing, houses, cattle, land, &c., and from time to time charged them in account, in hopes of their being able at some time to pay for them. " If the taxes of New England, before spoken of, be compared with those of New Netherland, it will be found that those of New England are a greater bur- den upon that country than the taxes of New Netherland are upon our people. * This is an allusion to the recent lost by the Company of Brazil, which had been taken from them by the Portuguese, whereby their debtors there got rid of their debts.336 REPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHERLAND.-------NQTES. “ The wine excise of one stiver per can, was first laid in the year 1647. “ The beer excise of three guilders per tun, was imposed by Keift in 1644, and is paid by the tapster, and not by the burgher. “ The recognition of eight in a hundred upon imported beaver skins, does not come out of the inhabitants, but out of the trader, who is bound to pay it ac- cording to contract. “ The Director has always shown that he was desirous and pleased to see a deputation from the commonalty, who should seek, in the Fatherland, from the Company as patrons, and the Lords States as sovereigns, the following: popula- tion, settlement of boundaries, reduction of charges upon New Netherland tobacco and other productions, means of transporting people, permanent and solid pri- vileges, &c. “ For which purpose he has always lent a helping hand ; but the remonstrants have secretly gone round exciting some of the commonalty, and by that means obtained a clandestine and secret subscription, as is to be seen by their remon- strance, designed for no other object than to render the Company—their pa- trons—and the officers in New Netherland odious before Their High Mighti- nesses, so that the Company might be deprived of the jus patronatus and be still farther injured. “ The remonstrants say that we had relied upon the English, and by means of them sought to divert the college, (as they call it,) which is untrue, as appears by the propositions made to them. But it is here to be observed that the English, living under the protection of the Netherlanders, having taken the oath of alle- giance and being domiciliated and settled in New Netherland, are to be consi- dered citizens of the country. These persons have always been opposed to them, since the English as well as they had a right to say something in relation to the deputation, and would not consent to all their calumnies apd slanders, but looked to the good of the commonalty and of the inhabitants. “ It was never written in a letter upon their solicitation that they might secret- ly go and speak to the commonalty. The intention of the Director was to cause them to be called together at his own time, as opportunity should offer, at which time they might speak to the commonalty publicly about the deputation. The Director was not obliged, as they say, to call the commonalty immediately to- gether. It was to be considered by him at what time each one could convenient- ly come from home without loss, especially as some lived at a distance in the country, &c. “ That they have not been willing to communicate, was because all whom they had slandered would have been able to have provided themselves with the means pf defence, and made the contrary appear, and in that case could have produced something from some of them. And since the Director and those connected with the administration in New Netherland are very much wronged and defamed, I desire time in order to wait for opposing documents from New Netherland, if it be necessary. “ Vander Donk and his associates say that the Director instituted suits against some persons. The Director going to the house of Michael Jansen, (one of the signers of the remonstrance,) was warned by the said Michael and Thomas Hall, saying, there was within it a scandalous journal of Adrian van der Donck ; which journal the Director took with him, and on account of the slanders which were contained in it against Their High Mightinesses and private individuals, Van der Donck was arrested at his lodgings and proof of what he had written demanded, but it was dispensed with on the application and solicitation of others. u During the administration both of Kieft and of Stuyvesant,it was by a placard published and posted, that no attestation or other public writing should be valid before a court in Netherland, unless it were written by the secretary. This was pot done in order that there should be no testimony, (against the Director,) but upon this consideration, that most of the people living in Netherland are country or seafaring men, and summon each other frequently for small matters before the court, while many of them can neither read nor write, and neither testify intel- ligibly nor produce written evidence, and if some do produce it, sometimes it isREPRESENTATION of new NETHERLAND.----------------NOTES. 33? written by a sailor or a boor, and is often wholly indistinct and repugnant to the meaning of those who had it written or who made the statement; consequently the Director and Council could not know the truth of matters as was proper and as justice demanded, &c. No body has been arrested except Van der Donk for writing the journal, and Augustus Heermans, the agent of Gabri, because he refused to exhibit the writings drawn up by the Nine Men, which were reported to the Director, who had been for them many times like a boy, “ Upon the first point of redress, as they call it, the remonstrants advise, that the Company should abandon the country. What frivolous advice this is! The Company have at their own expense conveyed cattle and many persons thither,* built forts, protected many people who were poor and needy emigrating from Holland, and provided them with provisions and clothing; and now when some of them have a little more than they can eat up in a day, they wish to be released from the authority of their benefactors, and without paying if they could ; a sign of gross ingratitude. “ Hitherto the country has been nothing but expense to the Company, and now when it can provide for itself and yield for the future some profit to the Company, these people are not willing to pay the tenth which they are bound honestly to pay when called upon after the expiration of the ten years, pursuant to the ex- emptions. “ Upon the second point they say that provision should be made for ecclesiasti- cal and municipal property, church services, an orphan asylum and an almshouse. If they are such philanthropists as they appear, let them lead the way in generous contributions for such laudable objects, and not complain when the Directors have endeavored to make collections for the church and school. What complaints would have been made if the Director had undertaken to make collections for an almshouse and an orphan asylum. The service of the church will not be suspended, although Dominie Johannes Backerus has returned, who has been there more than twenty-seven months. His place is supplied by a learned and godly minister who has no interpreter when he defends the Reformed Religion against any minister of our neighbors, the English Brownists.* “ The foregoing are the points which require any answer. We will only add some description of the persons who have signed the remonstrance and who are the following ; “ Adrian van der Bonk has been about eight years in New Netherland. He went there in the service of the proprietors of the colony of Renselaerswyck as an officer, but did not long continue such, though he lived in that colony till 1646. “ Arnoldus Van Hardenburgh accompanied Hay Jansen to New Netherland,. in the year 1644, with a cargo for his brother. He has never to our knowledge suffered any loss or damage in New Netherland, but has known how to charge- the commonalty well for his goods. “ Augustyn Heermans went by the authority of Enkhuizen,t being then as he- still is, the agent of Gabrie, in trading business. “ Jacob van Couwenhoven went to the country with his father in boyhood, was taken by Wouter Van Twiller into the service of the Company as an assistant, , and afterwards became a tobacco planter. The Company has aided him with; necessaries, as it is to be seen by the books, but they have been paid for. “ Olof Stevensen, brother-in-law of Govert Loockmans, went out in the year 1637 in the ship Herring as a soldier, in the service of the Company. He was- promoted by Director Kieft and finally made Commissary of the shop. He has - profited in the service of the Company, and has endeavored to give his benefactor the world’s pay, that is, to recompense good with evil. He signed under protest, saying that he was compelled to sign, which can be understood two ways, one that he had been compelled to subscribe to the truth, the other that he had been* constrained by force to do it. If he means the latter, it must be proven. * The Rev. Johannes Megapolensis is here referred to. t A city in the North Quarter, which was one of the Chambers or departments of the West. India Company.338 REPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHERLAND.-----------------NOTES. “ Michael Jansen went to New Netherland as a farmer’s man in the employ of the proprietors of Renselaerswyck. He made his fortune in the colony in a few years, but not being able to agree with the officers, finally came to live upon the island Manhatans. He would have come here himself, but the accounts between him and the colony not being settled, in which the proprietors did not consider themselves indebted as he claimed, Jan Evertsen came over in his stead. “ Thomas Hall went to the South River in 1636, in the employ of Mr. Holmes, an Englishman, who intended to take Fort Nassau and rob us of the South River. This Thomas Hall ran away from his master, came to the Manhatans and hired himself as#a farmer’s man to Jacob Van Curlur. Being a freeman he has made a tobacco plantation upon the land of that noted individual, Wouter Van Twy- ler. Thomas Hall dwells at present upon a small bowery belonging to the Hon- orable Company. “ Elbert Elbertsen went to the country as a farmer’s boy at about ten or eleven years of age, in the service of Wouter Van Twyler, and has never had any land of his own. About three years ago he married the widow of Gerret Wolphertsen, (brother of the before mentioned Jacob Van Couwenhoven,) and from that time to this has been indebted to the Company, and would be very glad to get rid of paying. “ Govert Loockmans, brother in law of Jacob Van Couwenhoven, went to New Netherland in the yacht St. Martin, in the year 1633, as a cook’s mate, and was taken by Wouter Van Twyler into the service of the Company, in which service he profited somewhat. He became a freeman, and finally took charge of the trading business for Gilles Verbruggen and his Company. This Loockmans owes gratitude to the Company, next to God, for his elevation, and ought not advise its removal from the country. “ Hendrick Kip is a tailor, and has never suffered any loss in New Nether- land to our knowledge. “ Jan Evertsen-bout, formerly an officer of the Company, came the Iasi time in the year 1634, with the ship Eendracht, (Union,) in the service of the Honor- able Michiel Paauw, and lived in Pavonia until the year 1643, and prospered moderately. As the Honorable Company purchased the property of the Heer Paauw, the said Jan Evertsen having the property, succeeded well in the service of the Company, but as his house and barn at Pavonia were burnt down in the war, he appeared to take that as a cause for complaint. It is here to be remarked, that the Honorable Company paid 26,000 guilders for the colony of the Heer Paauw. The said Jan Evertsen built his house upon the land and had given nothing for his farm, which yielded good wheat. Long afterwards his house was burnt. The land and a poor unfinished house, with a few cattle, he has sold to Michiel Jansen for eight thousand guilders. “ In fine, these people, to give their doings a gloss, say that they are bound by conscience and compelled by reason ; but if that were the case they would not assail their benefactors, the Company and others, and endeavor to deprive them of this noble country, by advising their removal, now that it begins to be like something, and may hereafter be of some advantage to the Company, and now that many of the inhabitants are themselves in a better condition than ever, endeavors caused apparently by the ambition of many, &c. u At the Hague, 29^ November, 1650.5