XIII. Among other stretches of authority which made the peo- CHAPTER ple of New Netherland complain that "under a king they could not be worse treated," he had denied the 1646. right of appeal from his decisions to the authorities in Holland. Doughty, the Anabaptist minister of Mespath, on Long Island, having claimed an appeal in a case concerning his right to the lands of that village, was fined twenty-five gilders and imprisoned twenty-four hours for his presumption. Van Hardinburg, a merchant of New Amsterdam, presuming in the like way, was subjected to a similar penalty. This raised a great clamor; and even a new batch of prosecutions for libel could not protect the unpopular director from being called by very hard names, and threatened with still rougher usage whenever he should lose the protection of his office. He became involved in an unfortunate quarrel with Bogardus, the minister, whom he accused of drunkenness in the pulpit. Bogardus retorted from that very pulpit "in the most brutal manner," and followed up the controversy with the greater zeal when the recall of Kieft became presently known. In consequence of the numerous and loud complaints against Kieft, the directors of the West India Company had resolved to intrust the government of New Netherland to Petrus Stuyvesant, the governor of Curaçoa, whom a wound, received at the siege of St. Martin's, then occupied by the Portuguese, had obliged to return to Holland. He was appointed Director-general of New Netherland, still retaining a nominal authority over the distant islands of Curaçoa, Aruba, and Bon Air, which were to be governed by a vice director. It was resolved, also, to remove the remaining restrictions on the trade of New Netherland, by throwing open the right of imports and exports to free competi CHAPTER tion; but New Amsterdam still remained the sole port of entry. XIII. 1647. The tragical circumstances of Kieft's death were esteemed by Winthrop, who, doubtless, expressed the opinion of his fellow-colonists, as exhibiting "an observable hand of God" in favor of "his poor people of New England," and plain marks of "divine displeasure toward such as have opposed and injured them." Kieft sailed in a ship richly laden with furs, to the value, it was said, of near $100,000. But, in consequence of having two Jonahs on board-so, at least, Winthrop thought— fugitives from New England justice, who had sought refuge at New Amsterdam, and whom the Dutch authorities had refused to deliver up, the ship was cast ashore on the coast of Wales, and Kieft and some eighty others perished-an event "sadly to be lamented," as Winthrop admits, "on account of the calamity," but which he relates, nevertheless, with very evident zest, as a palpable judgment on New England's enemies. Virginia and Maryland, the two English colonies on the south, numbered, by this time, some twenty thousand inhabitants; New England, on the north, counted near as many more; while the whole of New Netherland had hardly two or three thousand colonists, even including the Swedes on the Delaware. Beverswyk was a hamlet of ten houses; New Amsterdam was a village of wooden huts, with roofs of straw, and chimneys of mud and sticks, abounding in grog-shops, and places for the sale of tobacco and beer. At the west end of Long Island were six plantations under the jurisdiction of the Dutch, but several of them were inhabited entirely by English. Under the charter of 1629, these villages enjoyed the privilege of a magistracy, acting chiefly as a local tribunal, annually selected by the director from a XIII. triple nomination made by the magistrates of the previous CHAPTER year. Officers corresponding to a constable and clerk. were named by the director. Even this limited enjoy- 1647. ment of a local magistracy did not extend to New Amsterdam, where the director and fiscal acted in that character. The director, who possessed very extensive and indefinite powers, was aided by a council varying from one to five in number. This council constituted, also, a court of appeals from all the other jurisdictions, including the patroonships, in which the patroons, as local lords, possessed the right of holding courts, and inflicting even capital punishments. The patroons had, besides, a great many feudal privileges, imitated from Holland; among others, the right of grinding all the corn of their tenants, and taking a certain toll upon it, with exclusive privileges of hunting and fishing. Staten Island, one of these patroonships, had a few settlers; there was also a little village at Bergen; but most of the plantations west of the Hudson had been broken up by the late Indian war. To Van Slyck, of Breukelen, on account of his eminent services in redeeming prisoners from the Indians, and bringing about a peace, the new colony of Katskill had been lately granted. Breukelen, about the same time, first received a village charter. Van der Donck, for his assistance in negotiating the treaty with the Mohawks, was invested with the colony of Nepperhaem, just above the Island of Manhattan, now Yonkers. Stuyvesant's arrival was greeted by a congratulatory Aug. letter from the United Colonies of New England, winding up, however, with a list of complaints. The settlement of this long-standing New England dispute had been especially charged upon the new director. But fresh subjects of controversy soon arose, and matters as CHAPTER sumed a dubious aspect. As a last effort, Stuyvesant XIII. proceeded to the House of Good Hope, to negotiate in per ་ 1650. son with the New England Commissioners. His first Sept. protocols were dated New Netherland, to which the commissioners objected, as assuming jurisdiction of the place of meeting. It was finally arranged that Stuyvesant should date from Connecticut, which might be understood of the river as well as of the colony; the commissioners, on their part, dating from Hartford, but leaving out New England. The matters in dispute related to boundaries, the entertainment of fugitives, and to several specific injuries mutually alleged, all of which it was finally agreed to refer to four arbitrators, all of them English, two named by Stuyvesant, and two by the commissioners. By their award, all the eastern part of Long Island, composing the present county of Suffolk, was assigned to New England. The boundary between New Haven and New Netherland was to begin at Greenwich Bay, to run northerly twenty miles into the country, and beyond "as it shall be agreed," but nowhere to approach the Hudson nearer than ten miles. The Dutch retained their fort of Good Hope, with the lands appurtenant to it; but all the rest of the territory on the river was assigned to Connecticut. Fugitives were to be mutual ly given up. The question as to the Delaware, left unsettled, led speedily to new troubles. The project of planting on 1651. that river was revived at New Haven. A company of adventurers bound thither touched at Manhattan, and, relying on the late award, and on letters from the gov ernors of New Haven and Massachusetts, freely avowed their purpose. Stuyvesant, however, seized the ship, detained the emigrants, and, to strengthen the Dutch interest on the river, on the very spot which the New XIII. Haven adventurers had intended to occupy, and within CHAPTER five miles of the Swedish fort of Christina, he built Fort Casimir, on the present site of Newcastle. This 1651. was denounced at New Haven as a violation of the late treaty; and the war which broke out between Cromwell and the Dutch suggested the idea of the conquest of New Netherland. A plot was even alleged between the Dutch and the Narragansets for the murder of all the English colonists. Of the proceedings in New England on that occasion, a full account has been given already. Of the depositions taken at New Amsterdam by the New England agents to sustain the charge against the Dutch, 1653. that of Underhill's was very strong against his late employers. Subsequently to the Indian war, Underhill had settled on Long Island. Not content with swearing against the Dutch, he joined, as we have seen, with some inhabitants of Rhode Island in a sort of privateering expedition against them. The firmness of Massachusetts in refusing to take part in the war prevented any hostile action by the United Colonies; while the speedy peace between Holland and England cut short an enterprise which Cromwell had authorized. The inhabitants of New Amsterdam, by petition to the authorities at home, had lately obtained municipal 1652. privileges similar to those enjoyed by the villages-a board of magistrates, or city court, composed of two burgomasters and five schepens, annually selected by the director from a double nomination made by the magistrates of the preceding year. Advantage was even taken of the embarrassments consequent upon the threatened war with New England to hold a convention of two dele- 1653. gates from each village, to demand for the people participation in the enactment of laws and the appointment of magistrates. The immigrants from New En |